Benjamin Scribner's Blog, page 4

The weeks news. All Hallows Eve, moose, moose and more moose. and possible surgery.

It’s been a quiet week up here on the mountain, my little slice of heaven in the great northwest.

It’s Halloween today, and children all over the country will be out in costume, looking for candy. Their parents will be eating most of it later. This day started as the pagan celebration of Samhain. People would light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off spirits. It was believed that this night, the veil between the world of the living and the dead was thin, and ghosts could cross over to harass the living. In the eighth century, Pope Gregory III designated November 1st as All Saints Day, in an attempt to consolidate the Christian calendar’s plethora of saint remembrance days, and in the ninth century, the Church designated November 2nd as All Soul’s Day. All Souls Day had many of the activities we now associate with Halloween. Over time, the day before All Saints Day became known as All Hallows Eve, which in turn, became what we call Halloween today.

The Jack-O-Lantern we know today as a pumpkin, started out as a turnip and a guy named Jack. Jack tried to cheat the devil, so because of this, he was denied entry into heaven, and was condemned to walk the earth forever. He asked the devil for some light, and was given a burning coal which he set into a turnip he had carved out. Pumpkins are already hard enough to carve, as anyone who has can attest to. I wouldn’t want to try a turnip.

It’s been raining almost every day this past week, which we need. Now, it’s sunny with temperatures near 40 degrees Fahrenheit during the day, then the temperatures dip down around freezing at night. Our winter snows aren’t far behind.

I have talked about tearing my rotator cuff earlier in the year, and after talking to the surgeon , I decided to let it heal on it’s own because the tear wasn’t that bad. Well, the other night I was going after some broccoli in the crisper drawer of the fridge. Some asparagus jammed the drawer, preventing me from getting it open. I reached in with my left arm, the one that’s already torn, and felt it tear again. I called the VA the next morning, and was told by them to go to the ER for an MRI. After a day spent there, we found out that I now had two tears. I have another appointment with the VA surgeon, and this time, I will most likely have to have surgery. This is going to put me out of action for most of our winter, leaving the lovely wife to pick up the slack; as if she doesn’t have enough to do now. I will be confined to the couch after surgery for six weeks at least, unless I can figure out how to handle a snowmobile without the use of my left arm. This isn’t going to be a fun winter at all.

Mamma moose came by the other morning, and her calf is getting big, though not as big as I think it should be by now. She ambled down to the mineral lick at the lower lot, and after that I don’t know where she went. I haven’t seen her twin sister lately, and I’m hoping she’s OK. This week, we’re buying a 25 lb bag of carrots, and dumping them down by the lick. A little more nourishment before winter snows set in, and they’re only able to find tree bark and small branches from the brush for food.

As the lovely wife was cooking supper this evening, I happened to glance out at the yard and saw a young moose with no mamma in sight. I went out on the porch and talked to it a bit until it ambled off toward the lower lot. During a break in cooking, the lovely wife went outside and found that mamma and baby were just the other side of the road on the lower lot. I went out and talked to them for a short time before letting them get on with their dinner. Then, after supper, I looked out the front of the cabin and saw what appeared to be mamma, baby, and twin sister eating from the bushes down just below us. I realized, after I really had a good look, that it was in fact a mamma moose with twins! All the more reason to get that extra food down there.

Well, that’s all the news for the week. Bye for now.

The weeks news. An unexpected visitor, and school starts… Again.

It’s been a quiet week up here on the mountain, my little slice of heaven in the great northwest.

It’s gotten colder this past week; the stove has been lit, and I haven’t let it go out yet. We had a visitor this week, a young cow moose. I believe she’s the other half of the twins that we have often seen nearby and in our yard, the other twin being the one who had given birth near my son’s cabin, and has also been hanging around. This cow wandered down an old unused road next to the west side of the cabin, setting off the dogs. I stepped out and talked to her for a few min, snapping some pictures before she wandered off towards the mineral lick near my son’s cabin. I thought no more about it, figuring she would go up the road, or wander off into the woods. I was sitting on the couch, when I caught movement out of the corner of my eye, at the same time the dogs saw her. She had her front feet on the top step of the deck, and was about to step all the way up when the dogs started barking, which spooked her. She jumped over the corner of the deck, and down the bank. I stepped out again, and talked to her, snapping a few more pictures before she went back up the same road she had come down earlier.

Last night, I went out on the porch. I had a flashlight with me, and all of a sudden I heard a large animal stomping around on the bank above the cabin, and it started snorting. It was that same moose, I’m sure of it. She had bedded down up there, and the light woke and spooked her. I talked to her until she settled down before I went back inside. She must have moved on, because she wasn’t around the next time I had to go out. Either that, or she just ignored me.

School starts again Monday, and the district has implemented a mask mandate. Hopefully, this will stop the spread, and school will not close again.

I’m as ready as I can be for the coming winter, I still have to put tire chains on the four-wheeler, and a little work on our dogsled, and I will be done. My son left their dogsled behind as well, so I have both to use. I plan on dragging them all up (the two big ones and the little one), this coming week, and make them ready. Our Polaris 2-up is in line at the local shop, they should have it ready this coming week, as well as the carburetors for my machine. I will be picking them all up when the lovely wife gets paid later this month.

Well, that’s all the news for the week. Bye for now.

The weeks news. Some changes up here, and fall has arrived.

It’s been a quiet week up here on the mountain, my little slice of heaven in the great northwest.

It’s October, the days are getting shorter and cooler, and we have had to start the pellet stove every night this past week. Leaves on trees and bushes are turning red, rust, yellow and gold. The maples in town were quite lovely with their crowns of amber leaves, today, when we had to run to town for a few things.

My son and his family have left the mountain; his wife now has a job as a traveling CNA, and her first job is in Terra Haute, Indiana. They will be there for at least six months, but where she’s working has already offered to pay for her training to get her LPN license if she stays another six months. The money is better than what she was making here in town, and better benefits as well. So, they left Friday, and after driving straight through, they arrived late last night. I don’t think I will hear anything more until they get settled in.

Their cabin was never finished, but if they come back, which they hope to do, they will buy a house in town. She never liked living up here, especially in the winter. I have now started moving tools and other things into their cabin. I’m going to turn it into my shop, with lumber storage and woodworking upstairs, and open up the east outside wall big enough to drive the UTV into so I can work on it, and our other machines, in a dry place. I won’t do much until next summer, since there is not enough time left before winter sets in this year.

We’re also hoping to add more room onto our cabin; the lovely wife and I need more room here with three dogs and two cats. I want room for a model railroad layout, and the lovely wife would like more room for her crafts. We also want a bigger kitchen, with our current kitchen having gotten a lot smaller since we added the 21 cubic foot fridge, and full size cooking range. We were kicking around making larger rooms, with a bigger bedroom, a much larger kitchen, and also moving the bathroom. However, we settled on redoing the current bathroom, and the new craft/train room would be the same size as the current bedroom, but without the bookshelves, so it will be bigger. We want the kitchen at the front, so we plan on taking down the workshop/ pellet storage shed that will block the view from the new kitchen, putting a big window overlooking the view.

Everything is as ready as we can make it for the coming onslaught of winter, though I have heard it’s probably going to be milder then last; only time will tell. For once, we’re so early in our preparations, I’m at a loss as to what to do. I have been writing a bit more, but will do most of my writing once the snow closes us in. I’m also hoping to finish a few indoor projects. One is the bedroom walls as they have never been finished. Plastic and insulation only on two of the walls. I hope to change that soon.

Well, that’s all the news for the week. Bye for now.

The weeks news. It’s fall, the UTV is fixed, and assholes chase moose

It’s been a quiet week up here on the mountain, my little slice of heaven in the great northwest.

Our rainy season has started; sort of. A big storm was headed our way, but just as it got to the border, it turned north, missing us altogether. There’s more headed our way; only time will tell if it hits us.

I have talked about troubles I have been having with our UTV lately. Back when we bought it, the shop said that to handle tracks, we needed heavier axles, 8-ball instead of the lightweight 6-ball universal joints it came with. The shop told us that they were all the same for front and rear, so I ordered all four. When I got them, I discovered that they wouldn’t work for the front, the shaft going into the differential was a half inch too long on the left side. The right side fit just fine. I looked online, found what was supposed to be the correct axles, ordered them, but when they arrived, they also weren’t the right ones.

I went to the shop we normally use and found out, after a few phone calls to two different companies that sell heavy axles, that for some reason, heavy duty front axles for that machine don’t exist. This seems odd, but it’s true. What to do? Well, one fit the left front just fine, but the other was too long. I took it to a machine shop and had a half inch cut off the shaft that goes into the differential. Everything is back together now, I still have a few adjustments to make on track tension, and making sure everything is right. Then I will see how my heavy axles will work. I did order a new one that’s a 6-ball just in case. (One shattered during the last winter, and it was the first one replaced with the heavy duty one.)

We have all five tons of pellets in and stacked now. We’re early this year, which is fine by me, more time for other things, and we have had to light the stove a couple of times already due to frosty temperatures. I’m still waiting for carburetors to be cleaned by the shop on both my snowmobile and the lovely wife’s, her whole machine is at the shop, when I looked at the three carbs and how hard they were to access, I decided that the shop could do it. They are also removing the seat so I can replace the seat cover, something that I will be ordering this coming week. It’s a shock being ready so soon for winter, normally it’s a rush to finish before the first snow. I’m kind of at a loss as to what to do with my free time.

Our nights are cooler, and the bats have been out, swooping and diving after bugs that are still around. We start to see them at dusk, and so far I have spotted three. They come really close to our front window, almost hitting it, before turning and climbing away after another insect. They are fun to watch, and if one of us happens to be outside when they start their evening flight, they get really close to us in their hunt.

The other day, late afternoon, I had to head to town to pick up the lovely wife from work. As I rounded a corner in the road, not far from the cabin, I spooked three moose, my mamma moose and her calf, and a young bull that was around three or four years old, judging by his size and size of his antlers. Mamma and calf left the road quickly, and I stopped to give them time. The bull, on the other hand, ran a bit down the road and stopped. I gave him plenty of space, not wanting him to feel threatened, but I had to get down. He ambled down ahead of me, until around the spring, before I saw him leave the road. One thing I want to mention is that it’s almost mating season here, what is commonly called the rut. Bull moose get aggressive and have been known to charge trucks and cars, so it’s a good idea to give a bull lots of room, which we do.

I picked up the lovely wife, we went to grab a pizza for dinner, then headed home. I was telling her about my encounter with the moose as we headed up the old logging road, when the bull and one of the other ones (couldn’t tell if it was mamma or calf) came barreling around the corner, chased by a couple of idiots on four-wheelers. The moose missed running into our truck by inches, and the four-wheelers stopped a little ways away. I started chewing ass. I have no tolerance for people who think it’s fun abusing animals. They are lucky that the bull was young, as an older bull would have turned and made short work of them. They are also lucky the rut isn’t in full swing right now, bulls are stupid, and will charge anything that gets in their way of mating.

Well, that’s all the news for the week. Bye for now.

The weeks news. Of hares and men, of man and machines, and stone walls make me sore.

It’s been a quiet week up here on the mountain, my little slice of heaven in the great northwest.

It’s the end of August, and the temperatures have dropped into the fall range now. It’s been cold enough a few nights that we have thought about lighting the stove. We took the stove apart to clean, and found the burn chamber was almost burned through. Online, the price of a new one was in the $200 range. A welding shop in town repaired ours for under $50, using better steal that’s better at withstanding high temperatures. A few other minor things done to the stove, and we are ready for winter’s worst.

The smoke in the area seems to be clearing up; most of the fires nearby are now under better control and that makes breathing a little easier. We had a little rain last week but not enough to make a dent in what is needed. I’m looking forward to the fall rains, if they even show up. I am not very optimistic since we did not have near the snow pack last winter that we should have had and not much in rain this past spring. That leaves this fall’s rainy season in serious doubt, as well as the snow this coming winter.

I’m still waiting on parts for our machines, and while I was waiting, decided to put on the heavier axles for our UTV, and install the tracks so at least that would be done. No go. The axles I was originally told were correct, are not for the front, but instead, are for the rear of the machine. The new, correct, axles are now on order. I am also waiting on a gasket for the UTV so that I can finish putting it back together after taking it apart to install the heavier clutch weights that go with the tracks. I then wound up taking the belt off of our four-wheeler, because, when I took the belt cover off to reset the check-belt switch, I found the belt was in far worse shape than I had thought. It is only supposed to have less than an inch of play in it, but had close to three inches instead. I don’t think the belt has ever been changed on this machine. Ordered a new belt, and am now waiting for it to arrive any day now. I am also waiting for carburetors for my Arctic Cat snowmobile. They are sitting in the shop in town, waiting their turn to be rebuilt, as are the carburetors for the lovely wife’s Polaris. While I have been waiting for all these parts, I did get a new seat cover for my snowmobile. It wasn’t one I had made in town, because they wanted almost the same amount as one direct from the manufacturer. I found an after market one way less, and it arrived when the shipper said it would. We may also be ordering a new cover for the lovely wife’s Polaris soon.

Another thing I have been doing around here is stone work around the posts and the lovely wife’s flower garden. My original plan was to hang gates next spring, but after extending the stone wall out and around the one post, found out that wasn’t going to happen, the gate wouldn’t be able to open far enough to get our truck in. So I built around the other post, and we are going to hang metal baskets from both posts with flowers in them. I might find a couple of lanterns to put on top of the posts as well, but all that will happen next spring. I have been bordering the flower garden that is on either side of the stone wall with stones, placing large ones down near the road and smaller ones near the driveway. This has had us driving around the mountain looking for the right stones, sometimes prying them out with a crowbar. We have hauled home a few pickup loads, most of which have been used, and whatever is leftover may be used elsewhere at a later time.

We have been having snowshoe hares in the yard, and they don’t move when we go out, or take the dogs out, causing Amaroq and Shikoba no end of barking and trying to chase them. It’s gotten so bad, one of us has to do a “bunny patrol” before the other one takes them out first thing in the morning or in the evening; those are the times the hares seem to like eating the pineapple grass near the sheds. We have been able to get within a few feet of them before they decide it’s time to leave, and then they sometimes stop before getting out of sight, causing us to chase them further until they get into the woods. Amaroq has gotten out a couple of times and chased them, then I have to chase him down; sometimes he comes back on his own, others we have to drag him home. They both are getting better at staying near. Most of the time, we still take them out on a leash, just in case.

Well, that’s all the news for the week. Bye for now.

The weeks news. A new floor, a moose, and a wreck.

It’s been an interesting week up here on the mountain, my little slice of heaven in the great northwest.

We got some rain in the form of a thunderstorm that started 15 new fires. Nothing near us, for which we are thankful. So far, nine are contained, two were put out quickly, leaving four I have no information about; either they are in an area that doesn’t pose a threat to homes, or they aren’t close to being contained yet. We got more rain this morning, and thankfully, no lightning. It still isn’t nearly enough to help the drought conditions here. Temperatures have been cooler this past week; mornings have even been a bit chilly, a prelude to the coming autumn, a season I fully enjoy.

Our moose mamma was back in the early morning hours of Thursday with her calf in tow. She was in our yard, happily munching away on the fire weed near the porch. She was unconcerned when I stepped out to say hello, and only left when the dogs wouldn’t quit barking. She looked much better then when I saw her last, meaning she’s finding enough to eat. The calf looked healthy as well, almost twice the size it was when we first saw it. By October, the calf will be as big as mamma, they grow so fast.

The lovely wife finished putting 10 coats of polyurethane on 17 of the red fir boards, and once they were dry, we spent the next couple of days emptying the bedroom, then laying them down over the sub-floor. It really turned out beautiful. I was a bit skeptical that the boards needed 10 coats, but I love the end result, so it was worth the wait. Next spring, I want to get the rest finished and do the living room floor. The lovely wife wants to do it now, but that means tearing up two layers of flooring before we can even start. It also took her over a month to put ten coats of polyurethane on the boards for the bedroom. I don’t think we have that kind of time before the lovely wife goes back to work and winter hits.

Someone up here had ordered a water delivery this past week, and we saw the water truck heading up one of the side roads as the lovely wife and I were heading down to town, When we returned, people living at the bottom were tending to an injured man, he appeared to have a head wound, and was soaked with blood. We found out it was the driver of the water truck and he had walked nearly a mile down to the county road. It looked like he was coming down the mountain, and not understanding the steepness of the grade, had his air brakes fail, causing him to hit a bank rather than go off the wrong side and down over the embankment. The water tank, bolted to the frame by only three small bolts (I know this because I checked out the wreck later) came loose in the wreck, and was laying across the road, having dumped all of the water left in it. It blocked most of the road, preventing us from getting home. We had to wait for a wrecker, which had to back up almost a mile in order to be able to hook up to the tank. The truck was towed off the next morning; since it wasn’t blocking anything, there wasn’t a big rush to get it.

Well, that’s all the news for the week. Bye for now.

The weeks news. Of planting, dogs, injuries, and snowmobiles.

It’s been a quiet week up here on the mountain, my little slice of heaven in the great northwest.

It’s been hot, and the smoke has been thick at times. So thick, in fact, that I ended up having to go to the VA hospital and get a nebuliser to help me breath when it’s really bad up here. So far, there have been no fires close enough to cause concern, but we did have a thunderstorm roll through, with very little rain and lots of lightning, that caused me to lose a bit of sleep. The news is saying fire season could last through September when our fall rains are supposed to start. I don’t know if they remember, but we really didn’t have that much rain last fall around here. Long range forecasts are saying winter will be warmer than normal, and possibly dryer as well. Only time will tell.

The lovely wife has finished her planting this year. She didn’t want to plant vegetables this year, instead waiting until we can build a greenhouse. But, that hasn’t stopped her from planting ground covering and flowering perennials down around the stone wall I built a few years ago. That whole area has gone from nothing but weeds growing there, to a stone wall, a lattice work stand for her berry bushes to grow on, with the sign that has the name of the place (Chez Walden), the house number, and now, flowering plants as well. There are also now two cedar posts I debarked using a drawing knife, then treated the bases of, and put in the two holes dug when I had the rented backhoe up here. Next summer we will hang gates on them, and maybe put a few wooden buckets for flowers on top of and hanging off them, maybe even solar lights if I feel ambitious.

All three dogs went in for a checkup, all three are in good health and they all got caught up on their shots. Jade, our rescue St. Bernard, went back in a few days later for teeth cleaning. She had to have two removed while she was there, but her teeth are in pretty good shape overall. I had an appointment with the orthopedic surgeon at the VA hospital. Though both the rotator cup and one bicep muscle are torn, neither is bad enough to warrant surgery at this time, much to my relief. The doctor recommended keeping an eye on them, and if anything changed, she would go in and repair them then. I have been going slow so as not to cause any further damage, but things must get done around here.

I have started working on one of our “new” snowmobiles, It’s a 1995 Arctic Cat 580 EXT, a year newer then the 580 I already owned. The difference between the two machines is that the older one has electronic fuel ignition and fuel injectors that require a computer to operate. This becomes a real problem when the computer gets old, as it is, and starts forgetting to work, leaving the machine stranded on the trail until it decides to work again. This is very inconvenient up here, when we depend on our machines. The “new” one has carburetors instead , much less likely to fail and easier for me to rebuild. It also has reverse, a feature I am needing these days. Lifting and walking a heavy snowmobile around because there isn’t enough room to turn it any other way, is getting much more difficult for me now. But, I’m hoping that both the Arctic Cat, as well as the Polaris we bought last winter, will only be backup machines this coming winter, as I will have our UTV up and running next month, tracks and all.

The lovely wife has been brushing polyurethane on the red fur boards we got back in early June, she’s hoping to have at least ten coats on soon so we can start putting them down in the bedroom before winter hits. The rest of the boards will have to wait until next spring, because she will be heading back to work very soon, and won’t have the time to deal with them. Those boards will be the new living room floor. Neither of us are happy with the floor we have,and we decided that we wanted the same floors throughout the cabin.

Well, that’s all the news for the week. Bye for now.

The weeks news. Independence day, our new fridge, a new deck, and a small kitchen.

It’s been a quiet week up here on the mountain, my little slice of heaven in the great northwest.

The farmers have been bailing hay this past week, and we have seen many pickups loaded down with fresh hay, some pulling trailers as well as their beds overflowing.

It’s Independence Day, the day our founding fathers signed the Declaration of Independence from Great Britain, even though the war wasn’t close to being over. Major hostilities ended with the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown, Va, and a peace treaty was signed in 1783. If it hadn’t been for France, and Spain, France supplying troops and their navy, while Spain sent her navy to battle British navy, things might very well have turned out quite differently. Yet, every one of the signers of the Declaration knew the risks and signed anyway.

We celebrate with fireworks, reminiscent of the “rockets red glare” from the Star Spangled Banner, written by Francis Scott Key during the battle of Fort McHenry in the war of 1812. In many towns, there will be parades. Here, there was nothing. Because of the tinder dry conditions here, fireworks have been canceled, and I can’t remember any parade occurring in years past. I do remember, one year, traveling to Boston with my mother. I had managed to find a load heading that way, and was there around the end of June. We went to the celebration in a park, I don’t recall the name, and watched the Boston Pops preform. Near the end of their program, they played the 1812 overture, and at its finish, church bells rang and cannons were fired to precisely coincide with the ending of the piece. I would like to note here that the overture isn’t about our war of 1812, but the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte at the gates of Moscow Russia. The piece was composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 1880.

We had ordered a 21 cubic foot refrigerator a few weeks ago, and it came in this past Thursday. Now, taking a tape measure and saying, “yes, it will fit,” and having it sitting in your living room wondering how it’s actually going to fit, are completely different things. The kitchen is 6 feet wide, by 14 feet long, we just put in a full size gas range, have a Hoosier cabinet, an “L” shaped counter, and a rather large sink. Some rearranging was in order as well as a bit of elbow grease, and we have a working, though even more cramped, kitchen once again. I should point out that when I took everything out of the refrigerator we had, and put it into the new one, the difference was staggering. We ended up not putting the door handles on the new fridge, because, first off, they forgot to send the screws to install them, and secondly, they stuck out too far and we were worried they would get broken. Now, I have to build a new addition next year, if only to have enough room for this huge fridge.

I have also built a deck for our propane tanks on the west side of the cabin. It connects to the main deck so we can use a dolly to move our 100 lb propane tanks around with some ease. Now, all the tanks are outside. The lovely wife has been trying, without much luck, to polyurethane the red fir flooring we got for the bedroom and living room. I built her some large saw horses to put the boards on, and that helps, but that isn’t the issue. We have so much going on before my surgery, that it gets pushed to the background. She’s hoping this coming week she can get at least the boards for the bedroom finished; the rest might have to wait until next summer.

Our heat wave has subsided, dropping temps back into the 90’s during the day and mid 50’s at night, thus. making sleeping much easier and working outside less stressful. Now, if only we’d get some good, steady rain.

Well, that’s all the news for the week. Bye for now.

The weeks news. Injury, future surgery, and new appliances.

It’s been a quiet week up here on the mountain, my little slice of heaven in the great northwest.

Temperatures are very high this week, topping out in the triple digits, and it won’t be until later this coming week that we will see some relief. We still haven’t had any rain, and the forest is now tinder dry. I dare not run a chainsaw for fear of causing a spark, though I still need to thin out the trees near the cabin. It will have to wait.

An MRI confirmed that I tore two muscles in my left shoulder, the rotator cuff and a bicep muscle. I have an appointment with the VA on the 16th of July, and from there, it will be surgery. Because of this, I am pushing to get things finished. Once I have surgery, it will be at least six weeks, if not eight, of healing, and then comes the physical therapy, how ever many weeks that will be.

We had ordered a band saw mill, but I found a guy online who had, not only designed, but built a chainsaw mill every bit as good as that more expensive band saw mill, and at about a third of the cost to build. We canceled our order, and got our money back. I will be building the chainsaw mill once the plans are available. We had also ordered a brand new oven from a big box builders’ supply store. It was supposed to arrive last Tuesday. It didn’t, and they didn’t know where it was. I called again Thursday, and was told it had shipped on the 15th but they still couldn’t tell me where it was. Now, I was a truck driver, and I know that in ten days I could run from coast to coast, and halfway back again, within that time frame. Yet, for some reason, our new stove was apparently sitting on a truck for ten days, not delivered. We drove up and got a refund for it, and went to Habitat for Humanity to see what they might have. We found a very nice, gently used, gas range, for way less than what we had paid for the missing stove. We loaded it up and hauled it home. It was set up for natural gas, but had the parts to convert it to propane, and one of the guys at the store made a quick change there of one part that I wouldn’t have known about. I made the rest of the changes, and we set it up in the kitchen. The lovely wife cooked dinner on it last night. We also bought a 21 cubic foot propane refrigerator. It shipped this past week, and we should have it early next week (as long as it’s not the same truck that has our stove).

So, the last couple of days, I have been working on an addition to our deck which will wrap around the west side of the cabin, for our new, larger, propane bottles that we purchased when we ordered the new stove. I should also probably say here that since I last wrote, I tore up the old wood off the deck and put down composite decking. I am reusing the old, still solid, wood from the deck as framing for the propane bottle storage. I hope to have everything finished soon, but with the heat wave, and my injured shoulder, it’s slow going. My son, who I normally would have helping me, has been helping the lovely wife’s supervisor move these past few days, He’s getting paid good for it, so I don’t want to drag him away from a paying job. I can still use my arm, though it’s painful, and I’m not going to let it stop me.

Well, that’s all the news for the week. Bye for now.

The weeks news. Thoughts

It’s been a quiet week up here on the mountain, my little slice of heaven in the great northwest.

It’s June now, and the moose are giving birth to a new generation. Friday, one new mom brought her two-week old calf around for us to see. The calf looked healthy and wanted to play. Mamma was having none of it, and herded her youngster off the road and into the relative safety of the trees, after I had shot a couple of pictures. Also, for the past two summers, a pair of birds had built their nest in the rafters of our porch. I hadn’t seen any sign of them this year, until Friday, when I heard the familiar chirps of one of them. Sure enough, there was evidence of a nest starting to take shape in the rafters. Another generation will be hatched on our porch again this year. Life goes on up here on the mountain.

Over my life, I have worked in two of the most dangerous professions. The military, in both peacetime and war, and trucking. I have taken many risks, and walked away from a couple of bad wreaks without a scratch. Most times I didn’t care, living life as it came. It comes from almost dying at the age of three from a kidney malfunction, the name of which I can’t remember. I wasn’t supposed to have lived, and have challenged death ever since in so many ways. I could take up a whole book on the subject, but I will refrain for now.

I tell you that story, to tell you this one. I was never expecting to be a grandfather, it was something other men were meant to be, not me. But, here I am spending time with my oldest grandson lately, teaching him the in’s and out’s of model railroading, and in particular, building the buildings that will grace the layout once we begin assembling it. He has been learning how to paint, weather, and generally make them look real. He is a fast study, and has caught on quick, has learned what paint goes with another to make something look rusty and old, or gray and weathered. I have been enjoying the time I spend with him and his ten year old outlook on life. (Oh to be that young again!) He will often run home long enough for lunch, then run back to start again. I am often very tired by the time I manage to send him home.

It was during one of our marathon painting sessions that he turned to me and said “I love you grandpa.” Well, my friends, I teared up a bit, the innocent love of a child to one who has seen much and somehow lived, the spring of life to the winter. I have challenged death in many ways, always thinking that it would catch me sooner rather than later. But, right here and now, the love of a grandson is worth living for. Those words have mellowed me in more ways than anyone can imagine. Life is worth living when you have grandchildren.

Well, that’s all the news for the week. Bye for now.