Sally was bringing Lou out on Saturday, but I chose to come Friday afternoon and have three days at the farm -- woo-hoo! The weather was clear Friday with a high of 60, clear Saturday with a high of 50, and cloudy Sunday when it never reached 40.
Poachers
I was a little anxious to get out because I had received a call Thursday afternoon from our neighbor, Jeff. He asked if I had given anyone permission to hunt on our property because there was a guy down by the pond cleaning a deer at the time. He said he had already run another hunter off our property, several off his property, and that it was getting to be a real problem.
He said the guy's truck was parked at the cattle guard and had New Mexico tags.
Jeff called back later after having a conversation with the hunter, whose story was that Ernie from
Kings River Outfitters had given him permission. The only thing is our place isn't any where close to any land Ernie may own. Jeff was going to report him to the sheriff. He and Kathy had also purchased
No Hunting signs and put them up on the county road, a tree in front of Kathy's, and on our gate beside the cattle guard (right next to our
No Trespassing sign).
Saturday morning I walked down looking for the carcass. Its hard to believe that within two days this is all that would be left (just skin and bones), but this was all I found.
While I was done there I hiked over to look at Jeff's new pond. We'd heard his dozer running over several weeks. He moved a lot of dirt. This is the second one he has put in
down the hill. This one is bigger than his first, but smaller than ours although it looks like it will be deeper. Both of his were partially filled, while ours was running out the culvert – the first time I had seen that since spring.
Free Wood
I
came out via
the short cut and found these two logs along the road. Someone has been cutting some of the downed trees, and I guess they didn't want these 2 for some reason (they had been sitting there awhile, so I didn't feel guilty about taking them). I did suffer a minor muscle pull in my back lifting that big one into the bed – perhaps why they had left it. The other was so knotty I could understand it being left.
I had to use a wedge to split them, but they were good hard wood. The outer inch or two of the light colored one was all rotten, but everything else was great. They seem to be two different types of oak (guessing here). The dark one had a big branch and required two wedges to get it into small enough pieces to burn.
(You can see one wedge stuck in this picture, I couldn't free it until I got it to the barn where my other wedge was.) The logs were short, about 18 inches, so the smaller pieces will go into the Denver/Chicago pile. I loaded them into the truck to carry to the barn and they filled the width of the bed -- two logs were 1/4 of a truck load. I liked not having to cut 'em – pieces that big are a chore.
Siding Treatment
Since it was warm Friday afternoon, I got the south side of the house
painted with the
clear wood finish I apply to the cedar siding. This fall I have now gotten the east, west, and south sides of the house and some of the porch done.
Insulation
I brought two more bags of R19 out, 18 8' bats. Friday evening I finished up the east end of the house, and spread the rest in the west end of the attic Saturday morning. I still need a little over 1 bag to finish. I had two bags of the 16" wide R13 I purchased in the spring, but decided to bring it home and use in town since the R19 (24 inches wide) is so much easier to work between the roof supports (requires little cutting).
Fertilize Trees
I picked up some fertilizer at the Farmer's CO-OP on the way out of town. Saturday morning I spread special fruit tree fertilizer under 9 trees (peach, nectarine, apple and pear), and lightly spread some 13-13-13 under the other trees we are nurturing around the house.
Meals
Lou and Sally arrived about lunch while I was walking back up from visiting
the ponds and deer carcass. We had turkey sandwiches and pickled beets for lunch. For dinner we had pizza made with ONF dough, pesto I had made (and frozen) back in the summer, spinach, onions, garlic, mushrooms, pepperoni, and mozzarella. Lou provided a bottle of
Beaujolais Nouveau French wine to go with it -- yum. Breakfast was a spinach, onion, and feta omelet with a fruit strudel they had picked up at the Botanical Gardens market -- yum, yum. Lou got pictures of all the food, and everything else (available on her
Walgreens site).
Walk
Sally was under the weather with a cold, so Lou gave her a Reike session Saturday afternoon. Afterward, while Sally was resting, Lou, Tender and I walked to the pond.
I talked her into a side trip up Plume Creek, which I had started clearing last spring. It was pretty. Although the creek was running down in the field, it was dry (running underground) where we walked. We got as far as the big brush pile which I need to tackle this winter.
After the creek, I convinced her to walk the field over to the pond. She didn't want a close up of the deer remains, so she and Tender stayed back while I got my photo. We returned to the house via the road.
Walnuts
Lou was interested in my walnuts, so after showing her my
stash I offered to crack some for her. I was anxious to try them myself.
I cracked about a fourth of a bag for her late Saturday, and she spent the evening picking them out. Unfortunately I couldn't find a
nut pick and she had to do the best she could with a wine opener. She continued the process Sunday morning and got all of them picked – I was impressed.
After she and Sally left Sunday, I cracked another quarter of a bag. I thought a high number of them had been bad the day before, so I counted the first 100. Over 30% were bad. I hope the ratio doesn't run that high in all bags. The Sunday cracking is probably destined for Atlanta where my folks will pick them. My right upper arm was sore Monday due to the force required to break those hard shells, even using my long armed hard nut cracker (pictured last spring).
Frost Flowers
When walking Tender Sunday morning I found lots of frost flowers down by the spring. I picked this one to show Lou. She had never seen or heard of them (
and her dad was a naturalist) and was fascinated by them. There turned out to be many more on the hill going down to the barn and also behind the barn. Lou stuck this one on the back fence and it was still intact when I left after 3pm (with the temperature holding at 38).
Annual Rye
I had also picked up 50 pounds of annual rye grass seed at the CO-OP. So right after Sally and Lou left I spread it on the road – the steep part going up the hill. It helps to minimize erosion if we get enough rain to sprout it. So far this fall its been too dry, so I have my fingers crossed. I filled a 5 gallon bucket and walked up the road scattering seed as I went. The bucket was empty about a third of the way up the hill, so I returned to the house and carried the rest of the bag to that point where I refilled the bucket. I then did the left side to the top, returned to fill the bucket, and then did the right side. Hum, I wonder if this is also a reason my arm was sore the next day?
Stihl/Cedars
I took the chain off and used the bench grinder to knock the depth gauges down. I thought I was taking a lot off, so I immediately put the chain back on before checking with my gauge. Darn if they didn't need more off. I went ahead and tested it by cutting a cedar above the well house. It did better but not great, so I took the chain off again and repeated the process. This chain doesn't owe me anything – there is very little left on some of the cutters – and the depth gauges are essentially gone now. I took it back up above the well house and cut another cedar and some lower limbs from two others. As soon as I would start cutting it would start smoking.
I'd have to cut a little at a time, giving the oil time to
catch up. I wasn't terribly pleased, so I sharpened each tooth with a couple of licks of the file and tried it on some walnut and oak I had by the wood pile. I liked the way it cut that wood.
Now that I had a bunch of cedar limbs, I had to drag them down the hill where I hope to burn them in our fire pit. The process reminded of how I hate dragging these things since they
grab at everything and get tangled amongst themselves. We need to have one big hot fire now.
Blow Log
I
found this hollow log up where I was cutting the cedars. (I had cut it and left it there, just forgotten about it.) Buddy had an article talking about how to stand a hallow log on some rocks and then build a fire under it/in it. It sets up an air current where the fire and smoke are shooting out the top. I need someone else like me that would be entertained by such an activity.
This picture, which is not very good, is of one I cut maybe 4 or 5 years ago but didn't get below the lowest limb (as Ben had directed me to always do). The result is it grows back from the root and the tiniest limbs left growing. Its harder to cut the second time. 
I started in on the two loads I had cut several weeks back. I thought it was all shorter stuff that could go to Denver or Chicago, but three of the largest logs were nearly 24 inches and had to go into my pile on the other side of barn. The white oak and even the hickory splits nicely. I got about half of the stack done, as you can see here. The vertical stack are the two logs I picked up along the short cut the weekend before.
