The weeks news. Spring rains have arrived, early.
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. The spring rains have arrived, early. Yesterday and today, it has rained, washing more snow off the road below us and making the snow up here soft. As is normal this time of year, there is no snow in town and things are starting to turn green with flowers beginning to poke their petals up from under the earth. Up here, we still have three feet of snow in places. Walking in the yard is becoming a challenge; you can walk on top of the packed snow, but the next step might find you sinking to your waist. My son’s snowmobile has been having trouble getting around in this soft snow. His machines track has only got three quarter inch thick paddles on it, which can’t get a lot of traction in this snow. Our new machine has two-inch paddles, making it much easier to move as it digs into the snow. Of course, this means that it throws snow up behind the machine from underneath and that snow then winds up all over the dogsled being pulled behind it. My son wanted to use it and the dogsled to bring the grandkids and his wife home, making only one trip, but after he saw how much snow was piled up on the dogsled, he decided that making two trips wasn’t such a bad idea.
The family we have nicknamed ‘the Weekenders’ have been wanting to come up, calling me to ask about the road conditions. I tell them if they don’t mind hiking from the bottom, they can come up, but they want to drive in with UTV’s or their vehicles. UTV’s, without tracks, aren’t getting past the spring located a mile down from us, and vehicles aren’t getting past the second gate for at least another week. Most years, it’s the second week of May before anyone can drive up, but this year, as last, I think we will be driving in before the end of this month.
Keeping the rain barrel full has become a challenge as well. We normally take it from the deck where we don’t let the dogs go. But now the deck is cleared off, and we are having to get snow from anywhere we can find it that isn’t dirty, or someplace the dogs have roamed. Having to wash one dog (and his bedding) daily has depleted the amount of snow in the barrel, and right now, hauling water jugs in is still not easy. It would mean a trip to town every day to fill them. So, we stretch our drinking water and hunt for the cleanest snow in the yard to keep the rain barrel full, until I can once again bring our water trailer into town and fill it. We have been talking about keeping the rain barrel full this summer as well, leaving it in the bathroom instead of emptying it and putting it out in the shed for the summer. This will keep us from having to drag the water trailer into town once a week as we can pump the water from the trailer into the rain barrel and keep it in reserve if we need it. Another option is that I might set the barrel up outside near the porch and rig a tarp to funnel rain into it until the rains stop for the summer. I will have to wait until all the snow is gone before I can even think about putting it outside.
The four-wheeler we bought is working as I had hoped, hauling up our supplies from the truck to where we park the snowmobiles. I have started moving our pickup up the road as the snow melts off, breaking through some of it to help it along. There are three gates off the road below us leading to logging company property. In the spring, we count our progress by which gate we can get to with our truck. Right now, it is between the first and second gate, and by tomorrow, I should have it parked at the second gate, if not further up. We don’t have to worry about blocking the road, as we are the only ones living up here, besides Allen, year-round, and Allen doesn’t leave the mountain very often. We do try and stay to the side of the road, however, in case someone wants to come up with a four-wheeler or snowmobile, which is rare this time of year.
My faithful traveling companion, Kiyo had to go back to the vets this week. He was developing sores on his underside that were turning black and the skin was dying. Surgery to remove the dead skin and two nights stay at the vets, and he is back home, confined to a small box so he can’t move too far. He can’t be in his wheelchair, or move around much for the next two weeks, and we have to keep that area dry. Keeping the area dry is hard to do since he has no bladder control. We also discovered that he cannot take the pain/sleep aid medicine the vet prescribed. It makes him restless and causes him to pant so hard we were worried he was going to stop breathing. We don’t know yet if there is anything else we can give him, but since we need to make a follow-up appointment with the vet, we can ask them on Monday. Needless to say, Kiyo isn’t a very happy pup right now.
Well, that’s all the news for the week. Bye for now.
