This weeks news. A close encounter of the moose kind.
It’s been a quiet week up here on the mountain, my little slice of heaven.
April showers bring May flowers, or so the saying goes. Our spring rains have arrived, at times in the form of snow that has melted off or washed away quickly. We are expecting a major storm today with thunderstorms, high winds, and heavy rain. I hope it washes most of the snow and ice from the road below so I can get the pickup a little further up and closer to the cabin. I was again able to park near the spring yesterday, so the pickup is almost a mile closer.
I had a close encounter of the moose kind this week, and by close, I mean within five feet. I had taken the Alpine down to the spring, as far as I can go on any snowmobile, and decided to hike down to meet my lovely wife and check the road conditions. The mud is just as slick as ice, and we have quite a bit of it right now. I was close to the downhill side of the road, walking along, not paying much attention (which up here can be a bad thing at times), enjoying the spring-like weather. There was a moose napping just over the bank, not five feet from where I was. It blended in with the surrounding burnt logs left over from the logging company, and I didn’t notice it until it stood up, rather quickly, and took off down the bank. It must have been sleeping pretty hard not to have heard my approach. Now, moose don’t have the best eyesight, but there is nothing wrong with their hearing, so why it didn’t hear me is a puzzle. Anyway, I don’t scare easily, so I just started talking to it when it turned to look at me from a few hundred feet further down the bank. I doubt I would have had time to react anyway if it had decided to turn on me instead of running the other direction. By the time my lovely wife came into view, the moose was down on a lower logging road and still turning to watch me every so often. I don’t think it will be napping beside the road again anytime soon.
What snow that is left is starting to become dirty, or the dogs have been going in it. It is getting harder to find clean enough snow to keep the rain barrel full. This morning, I took snow off the porch roof, it was the cleanest I could find with no worries the dogs have been into it. It won’t be much longer before we have to haul water from town for all of our needs since I won’t be able to use the water trailer yet. It’s a difficult time of year, water wise.
We are starting to put away the heavy winter coats and are breaking out the lighter ones, and I am exchanging my heavy winter boots for my old military ones I wore during the war. We are letting the fire go out during the day now, mostly since the woodpile is getting rather sparse, but also because it can get pretty warm in the cabin during the day. Doesn’t make a lot of sense to have a fire going but need to have all the windows open as well. I still have almost a cord buried under the snow I wasn’t able to cut or split before the snow hit, so should we need it, we can dig it out. Though the rain may uncover it first.
Still working on my writing. I have a book of short stories almost finished and hope to have in print this summer. My lovely wife has been trying her best to get the editing done, but there are times she hasn’t been able to take her laptop to work with her, since it’s heavy in her backpack, and she doesn’t want the extra weight should she have to hike up the road any distance. I don’t blame her, parts of the road are steep and hiking without a pack is a struggle at times. Neither of us are young anymore, things tend to hurt after such a hike. So, she takes it with her when she can, and does her best to get things edited. I don’t know what I would do without her around.
Allen stopped by the other day just to let us know he was still kicking. We haven’t seen much of him lately, since travel on his side this time of year is hard. He lives on the south side and the snow tends to melt off faster over there, leaving him with lots of bare patches he can’t cross with his snowmobile. I don’t know who decided that plastic skis on snowmobiles was a good idea, but they should never have gone that way. At least with metal skis, I can cross over dirt without fear of wrecking the skis, as long as I don’t do it all the time. Plastic wears out fast if run across dirt too often. A bad choice all around, if you ask me. The weight savings isn’t all that much, and you have a tougher machine.
I stopped by Larry and Moe’s yesterday on my way into town. Tina stayed home sick, so I went in to grab a few things we needed for the weekend. Larry and Moe are doing fine, they have their first granddaughter, and Moe has been spending a lot of time up in the city helping get things settled for the new parents. She is home for now and keeping Larry busy building baby furniture.
I haven’t seen much of the old loggers lately, when I am in town. I have been too busy to stop by for coffee and conversation at My Kitchen. Instead, I stop by Always Grounded for a latte-to-go and say hi to Sam. I hope to slow down a bit and catch up on the goings on in town with the old loggers soon. I need a few more stories from our sheriff, and he has had a few good ones. I have probably missed out on a few by not stopping by there lately.
Well, that’s all the news for the week. Bye for now.
