Benjamin Scribner's Blog, page 7

The weeks news, a day of remembrance, gardening and rainwater storage.

 

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

It’s Memorial Day weekend, a time to remember those lost to war. There will be ceremonies this weekend at many veterans’ cemeteries, even at a few small-town cemeteries where veterans are buried.

It’s been rainy and cold this past week, putting a damper on many outdoor projects. However, that hasn’t stopped the lovely wife from buying plants and finding someplace to plant them. So far, she has the old water trough I was planning to use as a tub at one time filled with dirt and tomato plants planted there, as well as some other plants. I can’t keep track. She has every pot, large and small, planted and needs more pots and soil to replant what she brought home this week. If all goes well, we should be up to our eyes in vegetables later this summer. I can’t wait.

The shop in town is so backed up with lawnmowers that they weren’t able to get to the carburetor for my 4-wheeler this week. I hope to have it back this coming week and have the machine up and running again. It’s become a spare for us, therefore, it’s not a rush to have it running, but it would be nice to be able to move it out of the way of other things I need to do outside. It’s currently sitting in front of the temporary shed I built to house the antique snowmobiles I have.  The shed didn’t survive the winter, so I need to get the machines out before any damage occurs. It’s hard enough finding parts, so I really want them moved soon. I could move the dead 4-wheeler, but it would be in the way of other things, and towing it down to my son’s lot means I would just have to tow it back again later. So, it can stay put for now.

Shikoba and Amaroq have been to the vet.  They came back missing parts and with their first set of shots. They are getting better, learning not to pester us too much when we have food, though Amaroq still has a problem at times.  They are fitting in much better around here, and are becoming fun to have around, though Amaroq still needs to learn not to wake the lovely wife up at weird hours of the night needing out. I hope that will happen in time.

I found 250 gallon totes a few days ago, three of them, plus a pressure tank and water pump. Pretty much over a thousand dollars’ worth of stuff, all for a very low price. I got in touch with the guy selling it, and made arrangements to go get it the next day, Friday. It was a few hours’ drive north of us, but it was well worth it. I managed to load everything up, strap it down, and haul it all home. We now have most of what we need for rainwater storage. I don’t know if I will get around to it this summer, because I have many other things that require my attention first, but it will get done.

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

 

 

 

The weeks news. A broken pickup, gardening, and thoughts on baking

 

It’s been a busy week up here on the mountain. My little slice of heaven in the great northwest.

The last of the snow is gone, melted off from the warmer temperatures as well as the rain we’ve been having lately. Leaves are starting to sprout from branches, growing fast as though they need to catch up with their in-town cousins which are already fully grown.

The lovely wife has started planting her garden this spring: tomatoes, bell peppers, peas, cantaloupe and a few other things (I’ve lost track). She is planting them in planters above ground, since the soil up here is mostly clay and so rocky you cannot dig in it very deep with a shovel. We will soon enjoy the bounty of her work. I do enjoy it when she plays in the dirt.

Earlier in the week, our truck was having steering issues when we went into town. I took it to the local shop, and they, when they checked it, said it was a bracket that held the idler arm (part of the steering). They ordered one, and I called my son to come get us. It turned out to be nothing more than a broken bolt holding the bracket. Two new bolts, and $95 dollars later, I was bringing the truck home again. Cheapest repair I have had at any shop in quite a while.

Last fall, before I found myself with necrotizing pneumonia and in the hospital for a week, the lovely wife and I had found some ceramic tile while wandering around Habitat for Humanity. My intention was to tile the kitchen counter during the winter, when it’s slow up here. That never happened, as I have been in recovery ever since. Well, this week, I tiled the counter. We are now one step closer to having a finished cabin. I still need to tackle the drainage from the sinks and the tub, then move on to installing gas lines so I can move the propane tanks outside where they belong. That will happen very soon.

I was making breakfast the other day, from-scratch biscuits and sausage gravy. Now, I say homemade, from scratch, but I only add water to the biscuit mix, all of the ingredients are pre-measured out for me. I add water, and knead for a bit, roll out the dough, and use a cookie cutter to cut out the biscuits. Then, they are placed on a cookie sheet and baked for a bit. I wondered as I did this, how much the housewife of a few decades ago had to measure out each ingredient before they could start. She would have had to rise early, then mix everything before she could even feed her family. How she would love the modern convenience of just cutting open a package, dumping the contents in a bowl, adding water, and before you can say baked, she would have hot biscuits for her family. What other modern things do we take for granted that our ancestors would love to have had back then?  Me, I will continue to enjoy the modern world, looking forward to what comes next.  I should mention that the gravy mix is easy as well, though I cook a pound of ground sausage before adding the gravy mix and water, but it’s so easy to make homemade food these days.

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

 

 

The weeks news. A little gardening, some repairs, and what do we do for fun?

 

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

It’s Mother’s Day today, so I made the lovely wife breakfast this morning. Now, she is getting ready to do some planting since we picked up some soil, tomato plants, and strawberry plants, in town yesterday when we went after water.  The lovely wife then spent the afternoon pulling out, and cleaning, all the pots of varying sizes.

Our water trailer broke down this past week, metal fatigue caused the tongue to crack, making the trailer unsafe to tow any longer. So, I removed the axle and tongue, making what was left light enough, and small enough, to set in the bed of the pickup.   My son pulled the 12-volt pump out of the old camper sitting on the lower lot and I rigged it up to hook to the truck battery and attach to the water trailer.  Now, we just fill the water barrel in the back of the truck, back the truck up close to the cabin, and pump the water into the barrel in the bathroom. Later, I think I will run a permanent pipe from the outside to the barrel, so all we have to do is attach the hose outside and turn on the pump. But for now, the hose will work, besides, I have way too many things to get done before next winter.

We have a couple thinking of returning to the mountain. Anyone who has read my first book will know who I am talking about. Ernest T and Sherylee are back. It turns out they didn’t stay in Chile after all. (They only stayed for a month, because they couldn’t find any place that would rent them a home that allowed a dog.) They have been moving around the country since they returned from the southern hemisphere. Even though they sold their cabin up here to a relative, they are planning to move back in once again. Not sure how long that will last before Sherylee is sick of it. She hates winters up here and was more than ready to leave a few years ago, vowing never to return. I guess the cabin is pretty much trashed inside. The last relatives who stayed there left things quite the mess, and years of critters moving in has left everything else in a sad state of disrepair. Ernest T will have to replace all of the insulation and plumbing, as the pipes weren’t drained and are now all busted from winter freezing. I am sure the well pump is shot as well, but that’s not my problem.

Our old 4-wheeler, which broke down during the winter, was towed home shortly after we got the pickup in. Friday, I got it running again, only to find the fuel pump had started leaking bad enough that the machine couldn’t stay running, and would stall when put in gear. I have a new pump ordered and should have it fixed by next weekend.

Someone asked me what we do for fun up here, because I never write about fun things, only projects and such.  While projects can bring their own satisfaction, and fun, we do have fun doing other things.  I write, the lovely wife crochets or sews, and we both read pretty much anything we can get our hands on.  We have quite a large collection of books here, and it grows all the time, especially if we happen to wander into a used book store. Soon, I will have to build another cabin to hold all of our books if we continue.  We have gone to the nearby lake a time or two, but we really just enjoy relaxing at home, away from the rat race. In these times, with COVID 19 haunting the country, we are content to stay home more often.

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

 

 

 

The weeks news.It’s May

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

It’s the first weekend of May and we have the pickup all the way home, two weeks earlier than normal. It has been a fast melt off and didn’t take long to bust through the remaining snow down below us to get the pickup home. To celebrate, we decided to drain the water barrel we have in the bathroom for showers, dishes and laundry (the bottom was full of sediment from dirt and other impurities in the snow), haul it into town, scrub it out, bring it home, and refill it. We were also able to dig out our water trailer yesterday, so we brought it with us to town as well and filled it. It’s nice not having to use the 4-wheeler or the snowmobile to get up and down, especially when it’s raining out, as it was this morning. Now, the lovely wife doesn’t have to hike down to the pickup.

Our state is opening back up in a series of four stages. The lovely wife and I will still wear masks whenever we have to be in town, though, as I don’t believe this is over and will not risk my life unnecessarily.  The only reason we go to town is for supplies, or as was the case today, water, and of course, for the lovely wife to go to work. We also washed some of our winter gear we no longer need so we can pack it away until next fall.

The puppies aren’t sure what to make of all this bare ground, their whole life up here has been in snow, and they are having trouble adjusting to this new reality. It’s funny watching them run to the few remaining patches of snow to do their business. Not sure what they will do when it’s all gone; should be interesting.

Now that we can get all the way in, I can start a few projects I want to finish before next winter rolls around. I’m already planning what comes first.

We also towed the Honda 4-wheeler home from where it died.  Now, I can start taking it apart and repairing it without having to haul half my tools down to it. I hope to start working on it this coming week, and have it running again by next weekend. Between myself and my son, we have three 4-wheelers and my ATC, giving us enough machines for all of us. We don’t use them often during the summer; we’re not the kind of people who just go trail riding.  As with our snowmobiles, our machines are for transportation, not playing.

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

 

 

 

The weeks news. Chipmunks, Hummingbirds and melting snow, oh my.

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

We are still sheltered in place here, though you wouldn’t know it in town.  The first week, town was pretty quiet; a ghost town almost.  However, after that first week and with the advent of nicer weather, people could not resist being out and about.  Now, though all restaurants are take-out only, life seems to go on with most other businesses, and people are going around town as if nothing is going on in the rest of the world. So far, as of this writing, there are no cases in our county. I hope it stays that way, though yesterday, one of the other counties which had previously managed to stay free of cases finally had one.  It may only be a matter of time before Covid-19 makes an appearance here.

Four days a week, the lovely wife has to go in to town for work.  Schools are out for the rest of the school year, but she still has to go in to assist with food distribution.  This district sends its buses out to designated locations where they hand out lunches for that day and breakfasts for the next day to any kids or parents who want them.  They want to make sure that those kids who rely on school for at least two decent meals a day don’t go hungry while schools are closed.

The lovely wife and I did go up to the city this past week.  I really didn’t want to go, but we needed a new generator and I had found a good used one online. I only got out of the pickup once, and sanitized everything once back inside it. On the trip up, we passed fields farmers were making ready for planting, tractors raising a cloud of dust behind them as they plowed, and saw winter wheat poking up from the ground in others, covering those fields with new green shoots.

We still have snow up here yet, though it is melting off fast now. However, we are at that stage of spring where there are patches of dirt too big to cross with a snowmobile, and other places the snow is too deep to drive the pickup, or 4-wheeler, through.  This means getting supplies in, as well as trash out, has come to a halt until such time as we are able to get around easily again.  It also means some walking when the lovely wife has to go into work.  We are early this year with the melt off, normally it would be the second week of May before we could drive all the way in. I suspect that we will be all the way in before the end of this month.

Chipmunks are out now, and we just saw the first hummingbird today.  We have been putting out food for the chipmunks already, and will now need to put out the hummingbird feeder, possibly even later today. So far, we have had three chipmunks chasing each other away from the bowl of food, much to the delight of our cats, Mouse and Little Shit, as well as the puppies, who, being only 6 months old and having not seen chipmunks prior to this, become quite excited by their antics on the deck. Amaroq will sit, looking out the window and whine when they are out. We keep telling him they don’t want to play with him, but I don’t think he believes us. Shikoba seems to have a “take it or leave It” attitude about them, preferring to sleep on the couch instead.

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

 

 

The weeks news. Writers Lament

It’s been a quiet week up here on the mountain. My little slice of heaven in the great northwest. We are still in shelter in place around here, and I hope those of you out there reading this are safe as well. Nothing much going on here, since there’s still a few feet of snow at this elevation, so here’s a tale for you to enjoy.

Writers Lament

I’m sitting here, in my cozy writer’s garret, staring at the blank page on my screen. Nothing springs to mind, yet it is my curse to be a writer, to bleed out my soul onto the page for others to consume, as the faithful consume the body and blood of their savior.  What is this curse that drives us? I do not know, but driven we are to produce words upon the page; to bare our soul, expose our deepest thoughts and deepest fears. Laborers may only be required to use their brawn, not necessarily their intellect, while those in other fields may be called on to use their intellect for those occupations that ask them to sit behind a desk.  Writers must not only use both, but add in their imagination as well; taking themselves, and their readers, to other worlds, other lands, or even space itself. We must craft and fight epic battles, travel troubled paths, pursue savage beasts pulled from the inner recesses of our minds, or fall in love so true it is excruciatingly painful, only to leave said love unrequited or lose it to a fiery death.

We are always alone in our own mind, only letting others in enough to see a few selective cracks. To go any further would invite madness, as a writer’s mind isn’t a safe place to be at any point in time, let alone when they are in the midst of carefully placing words upon the page.  Breaking a writer’s flow can be deadly to the tale being told.  Who expects a tale where the dragon, about to smite the knight, stops instead for tea? Or the hero, having fought his way to the damsel, braving hazards of both body and soul, would suddenly cease his forward momentum to pet a kitten?  For the needs of a small child, a battle in space was put on hold, the participants waiting patiently to resume the slaughter, if the writer remembers just what was supposed to happen after the tragedy of the child is averted.

There is no better way to torture a writer than to simply ask them to produce a world never before seen. They will sweat and bleed for weeks, months even, to build this world, filling it with unique creatures, characters, and interactions, swear they will never do “that” again, only to have the spark ignite within them again later. A writer will spend months and years drawing maps, plotting every move, every nuance of their world, only to complain when the characters run madly off script. We, as writers, do tend to live in an alternate universe; to us, our world just as real as this one, or… is this one merely a figment of our fevered imagination as well? Who is to say that what we call reality isn’t being written by someone as we read this? Could it be that we are just a figment of another’s world, playing out our roles as they see fit? Or are we running amuck ourselves, driving the writer to madness? Who is to say what is real and what is imagination?

Either way, a writer’s world can be a tragic one. We often doubt our own words. Are we good enough?  Does our work stack up to the greats? I suppose it is not for us to judge, but for the reader to decide what is good, or to their taste, and we, the writer lose sleep over that as well. A writer’s world can also be a fantastic place as well, one where we create magic, a world where the reader not only loses themselves, but is saddened by the tales end, heartbroken to finish because it means it is truly the end.

In conclusion, let the writer be, they are (mostly) harmless and will take you on the journey of your life if you would just them finish the last chapter, edit it, edit it again, and bleed on it a while longer before it sees print.

That’s all the news for the week. Bye for now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The weeks news. I have decided to share a short story with you folks.

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

Since there’s nothing really new happening here, and we are all pretty much sheltering in place, I decided to share a resent creation of mine. This story will also be included in my upcoming book, Meanderings of a Muddled Mind. I hope you enjoy.

Betsy

She was the last one built, the last to roll out of the American Locomotive Works in Schenectady, New York, and from the moment her boiler was lit, she was aware. She didn’t know this wasn’t normal. How could she? She thought it was just as it was supposed to be, and was often baffled when other locomotives didn’t answer her hails.

They called her a Big Boy, one of twenty-five, and she hated it; she wasn’t a boy.  However, with no way to communicate this, she had to tolerate it.  Her job was to haul freight cars from the valley along the Wasatch front to the plains of Wyoming, and beyond. As she traveled, she marveled at the wonders around her, and often daydreamed about what lay beyond the rails she ran on. Was it all like this, or were there more wonders out there in the “beyond?”

It wasn’t long before she began to take an interest in her crew: the fireman that kept her fed with coal, keeping her steam pressure up enough to pull those heavy loads; and the engineer, a wisp of a man, almost too young to be an engineer, but who had proven himself at an early age, quickly making the grade to be one of the few to handle the largest locomotive in the world.  His name was Reginald, though he preferred Reg, and he would, with some affection, call her “Betsy,” after an old sweetheart.  He would talk to her as he made his rounds around her, carefully checking her for defects, greasing and applying oil where needed. She enjoyed his talk, even if she couldn’t answer him directly, though she might blow off a little steam when he was near, or maybe let some steam out the whistle. He chalked it up to the fireman playing tricks on him, never realizing it was her. But she knew; that’s all that mattered. He told her of his old sweetheart, about the feelings he still held for her, and spoke of the sadness and loneliness of her leaving. He told her of how “Betsy” had been unable to handle the many times spent apart, with him gone so often, and how she had finally departed.  Reg described his deepest regrets at not being able to make “Betsy” happy, and how grateful he was to have his work to look forward to every day.  As he poured out the details of his heart to her, the steam engine realized something wonderfully profound – he was her engineer, and she loved him.

She was always there for him, and missed his touch when there was a different crew aboard her. She would long for him while she pulled the grade, or sat at idle in the yard awaiting new orders. She would become excited when she caught sight of him heading to the roundhouse where she slept, her fires banked, and her tender full of lifegiving coal and water. She adored his caress when he walked around her, his strong hands checking every inch of her steel body. She quivered when he greased her fittings and oiled where it was needed, careful to wipe any spills before they could mar her coal black finish. He never seemed to notice, and she couldn’t respond with anything other than a short letting off of steam when he was near a relief valve. Her dreams at night as she slept, fire banked until morning, were of them together on every run. She couldn’t understand why he needed to rest and would act out when anyone else was at her controls. She did this so often when he wasn’t there, that she was sent to the shop for a going over, which caused her to miss him even more. When they were again reunited, Reg spoke to her coaxingly, imploring her to behave herself.  He told her that if she kept acting out, he might be transferred to another locomotive, separating them forever.  She vowed to never to misbehave again.

She longed to be able to speak to him, to tell him how she felt, but try as she might, no words would come forth. The best she could do was an extra whistle, or a clang of her bell, nothing more, to show her undying love for this man.  When he was in the cab, his strong hands on the throttle, she would quiver with the excitement of his touch and respond instantly under his control. She was devastated when he took sick and was in the hospital for nearly a month. The fireman, a man named Hank, upon Reg’s return joked that she seemed to come alive when Reg was at the levers; there seemed to be some extra energy in her that wasn’t present with his replacement. Reg laughed, patted her on the boiler, and agreed that, yes, she was, as only a locomotive could be. If he only knew how right he was, she thought as she waited in anticipation for him to climb aboard her and start the morning run.

Two years into her working life, in the late fall, a freak blizzard came blowing out of the west, delaying the east bound freight hauling cars they needed to fill out their train. By the time it arrived and the cars were shifted, the weather had taken a turn for the worse.  Reg was worried about the lost time as they climbed out of the valley and onto the high plains, so he laid on some extra speed in the hopes of making it up.  In fair weather, the extra speed might not have mattered so much.  Visibility would have been good for some distance, ensuring adequate time to slow down if needed.  This day, however, the heavy, blowing snow reduced, by more than half, the distance Reg could see on a clear day.

Suddenly, Reg spied the light of an oncoming train through the snow, just at the edge of his visibility.  Years of experience told him it was already too late to stop the big locomotive, but he grabbed the brake lever anyway, hauling it back hard.  Betsy knew that she was not going to be able to stop, or even slow down enough, to prevent a catastrophic collision.  She knew, also, that the crash would cost not only her life but the life of her crew.  Worried that her beloved engineer would wait too long to jump clear, or even more horrifying, would ride until the bitter end, she realized she could give her crew no choice.  With that thought, she released hot steam into her cab, making both Reg and Hank bail out of opposite sides into the blowing snow to avoid burns. Reg rolled as he hit the ground, though the impact still broke his right arm when he landed. There was no sign of Hank, but as he had jumped out of the right side of the cab, and the train was still barreling past, it was too early to know how he had faired.

The impact was horrendous; metal screamed as it was torn apart, flames from both fireboxes shot upwards, and the sound was deafening. Boxcars tumbled off the tracks, others shot into the air as they impacted with the cars in front. It seemed to take hours for it to end, though only seconds passed. Reg ran towards the mangled engines, hoping to find survivors from the other locomotive. As he neared what was left of his once proud engine, the last of her steam exhausted itself, and as he would recount later, he was sure he heard the words “I love you” as the steam faded away.  Betsy had found her voice at last.

Reg left the railroad after that, going into construction; the memories were just too painful for him to continue riding the rails.  With the change in careers, his life settled down into a steady routine.  He was home every night, and almost every weekend. He could make recurring plans with friends and even date regularly.  He eventually settled down, married a nice local gal, and fathered a son, followed soon after by a daughter. He found himself taking up model railroading in his spare time.   Though he had quit the rails, he just couldn’t seem to get the rails out of his blood. His young daughter also displayed an interest in model railroading, with a particular interest in the scale model of a big boy locomotive he had on his layout.  One night, when he went into check on her, he found that she had taken it to bed with her.  As he gently removed it from her tiny, sleeping hands, he could swear he heard his daughter say, “I will always love you, Reg,” in the same voice that he swore heard in the steam that one fateful day many years before.

 

 

 

The weeks news. Shelter in place

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

Schools are closed at least through April 20, so the lovely wife isn’t working.  She did have to go to Spokane on Wednesday to bring back a bus that had been there for warranty work.  After this next week (spring break), she may have to go in once a week to help distribute learning packets to students, but otherwise, she will be home.  We have our doubts as to whether school will actually resume after the 20th, given that the virus is still spreading rapidly around the country. People from other states are saying their schools are likely out the rest of the year.  We shall see.

From what I am hearing from my son, who has had to go into town for food, nobody is taking this virus seriously. We have been under a “shelter in place” order for five days now, leaving home only for food and essentials, yet traffic in town is the same.  People are out and about like nothing is wrong. I fear things will get worse long before they get better.  I have only left the mountain once this past week because I really needed a change, though I only got out of the pickup twice, and washed my hands so many times I took layers of skin off.

It’s a strange new world we are living in these days, and so far, there’s no relief in sight. I hear people talking about “when things get back to normal.”  I don’t think these people realize that what we think of as normal is now a thing of the past. My grandmother lived through the influenza scare back in 1918, losing a few friends during it. It changed the world then, as this virus will change the world now.  We will have to deal with a new normal as we move forward, one that takes this virus into consideration. Things will be forced to change; nothing will stay the same.

I am taking this enforced isolation to do some more writing, adding a few more stories to the next book, Meanderings of a Muddled Mind.  I am putting off the release until summer, after things hopefully settle down a bit.

The puppies are enjoying us both being home full time, their individual personalities are starting to come out. Shikoba is the cuddlier, always wanting attention when she’s near one of us on the couch, while Amaroq still thinks he is starving. He will only want attention when he wants it, and not when you want to pet him. Jade is still Jade, content to lay around and wants all the love. She does at times want to play with the puppies, mostly when one of us has them on leashes outside, and then, they tangle us up. We will continue to keep the puppies on a leash until they stop running off down the mountain while they play. We are trying to think of ways to allow them some freedom, while keeping them safe from harm. It isn’t easy.

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

 

The weeks news, or, If it weren’t for bad luck we’d have no luck at all.

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

It’s the first week of March, spring starts soon, and winter’s last hurrah has come and gone in the form of a storm that dumped a couple of inches on us yesterday. Things are warming up, and snow is melting off. I am a little concerned about the lack of snow this year. The last time this happened we had a really bad fire season. Hoping for a rainy spring and summer.

The puppies are growing and learning every day. They are starting to find their place in our home here, though there are times I swear that Kiyo’s spirit is egging them on to more and more mischief. He is still missed here.

My son has had a run of bad luck this past week. First, the 4-wheeler he bought broke down on him near the spring. It was a “new” one he got with his tax return, a bigger machine that he needed for his family since his boys are getting bigger. It appears to be a fuel issue, and he has been talking to the local shop trying to figure out what is wrong and how to fix it. The next thing that went wrong was with the bigger snowmobile he bought the same day. It is a more powerful machine for towing his boys and hauling in supplies. I rode it up past the areas of dirt to the spring, where the snow is still deep, parked it, and set the “parking brake” because that area has a bit of an incline.  When he caught up to me, he didn’t realize there was a parking brake and took off (they will move if given enough gas, which he did). Almost home, the brake overheated and burst into flames. Fortunately, the machine isn’t a total loss. Some wiring, the oil line, and the recoil starter rope, were all burned but nothing else looks badly damaged.  However, I don’t have the time to repair it, and since it is almost the end of the season, it will wait until summer for repairs. He will have it up and running by next winter.

I have talked in the past about a few of the people who have tried, and failed, to live up here. Some have even had nick names that aren’t very flattering. There is one group that comes up some weekends during the summer, and a few times during the winter, that I call the Weekenders. They bought land up here a couple of years ago, built a rather nice cabin, and enjoy weekends there when they’re not busy elsewhere.  We have met a few times, them stopping by here as they did today, or me running into them on the road. Nice bunch of folks; they aren’t up here to hide from the law, nor are they here to cause trouble. They just want to hang out, and have fun. I can understand that. They have some heavy equipment and have told us that they are planning on bringing some up this summer to fix this terrible road. I hope they do, and will toss them a few bucks to help out with fuel. They are the kind of neighbors anyone would love having. If only there were more like them up here, things would be peaceful.

I was in town this past week and wanted a latte, and started missing my favorite barista, Sam. Things just haven’t been the same without her around. Oh, there are a few coffee shops here, including one the lovely wife and I have started going to, but it’s just not the same as going in, having a seat, and being able to listen to music, drink latte’s, and work on your laptop. No other shop has that here. We still keep in touch with Sam, and try to see her when we go north to the city, but we miss her here.

Haven’t seen much of the old loggers lately, the diner where they hang out now opens at 7, so they go in later, and since the lovely wife’s schedule is all over the place, getting into town when they are there is difficult at best. I did manage to make it in for breakfast last week while the lovely wife was out of town. Unfortunately, I was there after everyone had left. However, Lynn, the waitress, welcomed me, poured the coffee, and we chatted, updating each other on anything new in our lives.

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

The weeks news. Crazy weather, and busted equipment.

 

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

Two winters ago, the weather was mild for most of the winter, and then, the last weekend in February we got hit with a major snowstorm. The very next weekend we got hit with another. Last winter, we got hit with a major storm in the last week of this month. This year, we have had warm, spring-like temperatures all winter, only snowing a few times, twice, big storms. Now, it’s the last week of the month again, and we have had temperatures in the 50’s with sun or rain. Next month, the forecast is calling for it to warm up even more.  I’m not really sure what is going on, but I am inclined to believe that climate change is real, despite those who want to deny it. There is a high percentage of scientists showing we are a major contributor to the rapid change that is occurring, and I can see evidence of it up here monthly.

Equipment failures happen, especially when you’re using a piece of equipment daily that was meant for occasional use a few weekends a season, and it’s an older machine to boot. Such is the case with our 4-wheeler, which we have been using from the spring, a mile below us, to the pickup, since there isn’t enough snow to ride a snowmobile on but still too much ice and deep snow in places where you can’t get the pickup across. I started it the other day, and it died right after.  It hasn’t started since. I discovered that it wasn’t getting power to the ignition coil, so I got a wiring diagram from the local shop and started tracking the wiring down to see if I could find the issue. So far, I haven’t found it, though I have narrowed it down to a small electrical unit called a CDI, which pretty much runs the whole machine. I had to find where on this machine the CDI was hiding, and again, the local shop helped out with a shop manual for that machine. This morning, I found what I was looking for, but, and I don’t know why the manufacture does this, it is placed in a spot, and in such a way, that I cannot get to the wires going to and from it without taking off the entire front half of the machine, a job that will take at least two hours, and an extra set of hands. When you are paying a shop to do this work, much of what you are paying for is the mechanic’s time taking your machine apart to get to a small part that the engineers designed to be put in a difficult spot, I believe on purpose. Things like this make it harder working on your own equipment, especially when it’s a mile from you, it’s winter, and you have to haul most of your tools down with you trying to avoid making multiple trips to do so. I hope to have this machine up and running before I no longer need it for winter. Then, at least, it will be ready for summer when we use it to run around the mountain, instead of driving the pickup. I am also hoping to get newer machines this coming summer, so there will be less break downs and more time for other things.

In other news, the puppies are growing, and at times, are a real pain. Friday, while outside and off a leash, they ran off down the road, causing me and my son to have to chase them down on snowmobiles, only to have them come up from his yard and try to chase us. The lovely wife caught them and tried to call us, but we couldn’t hear anything over the roar of our machines.  The puppies don’t get let out without a leash on now until they learn to come when called, and not to run off.

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