January 24-25, 2014

Being windy and cold Friday, Sally decided to stay back with Tender. To put this in context (and the Ice portion of this post), it was after a couple of other sub-freezing days. The high Friday was in the low 30s, the overnight low was the upper 20s, and then a beautiful mostly clear Saturday with calm wind and a high near 60.

Road

I was anxious to see what I could do for the soft part of the road just past the creek confluence and by the twin sycamores. With three trips down to the pond the weekend before, I had really cut it up. (I am still confused as to why it has been staying so soft -- a bit unusual.)

Friday I picked up rocks from behind the house and along the uphill side of the drive. I also harvested some small chirt and dirt from the uphill side of the road leading to the spring (which will make it easier to mow). I filled 11 buckets, hauled them down, and dumped them in the ruts. The ground was frozen solid, so I was not able to mush them in at all.

I did drive back and forth over them, but with the ground frozen it did not seem to have any affect.

Saturday I repeated the process – 11 more buckets. I also took the remainder of a bag of sawdust (used with the Lovable Loo). I dumped the rocks in first, then filled in with the sawdust, and then topped it all off with the chirt/dirt mixture. The ground was still frozen solid, so there was no way to tell how well it will help. I suspect the next trip down will just make new ruts

Ice

Coming off a very cold week, there was lots of ice to gawk at. I was somewhat surprised there was still so much hanging off the bluff over the spring since it faces south. I was not at all surprised to see it hanging all along the north facing bluffs across the valley. I took a picture from the house using my phone camera zoom, but it just didn't do it justice.

After dumping my first load of rocks, I drove on to the pond to turn around. It was frozen over except for right around the culverts and over on the south side where the spring/seep comes in. The north culvert was running, but the ice hanging off the south culvert was impressive.

After my road work on Saturday, I decided to drive up into the back pasture and then hike up and check out the north facing bluff ice. It was almost continuous all along the bluff. This picture is of the most impressive frozen fall.

I was able to get up under the bluff and get pictures looking past the ice columns back at the barn and house – a different perspective on our place.

Lovable Loo

I finally filled up my third or fourth bucket. I made a hole for it in the humanure compost bin, dumped it in, and then somewhat covered it. I rinsed the bucket, let it dry, inserted a new compostable trash bag, added some sawdust to the bottom, and put it back into the loo – ready to accept another deposit.

Leaves

The oak leaves keep falling through the winter and pile up on the north side of the house and fences. So I raked them up, stuffed them into buckets, and dumped them over the bluff on to a walnut tree in the back.

Firewood

I have more wood than I thought still cut, split and stacked. Its all shorter and smaller stuff I prepared for my kids, but they haven't been using it (plus it is a little difficult getting it delivered to Chicago and Denver). So I brought another load home for us to burn. I really prefer longer and larger pieces, but it all burns.

Lopping

To fill out my day Saturday I took my loppers and drove down the hill. Working the opposite facing slope I lopped 1,000+ cedars in about 75 minutes. It is amazing how they just keep showing up.