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Saturday, April 28, 2018

Cat Uh Tonic...

We've had a few cats over the years. The last one, Ruty, who was named after the rutabaga, had to be put down last summer after developing feline oral stomatitis, an auto immune disease with no known cure. Andy wanted to wait awhile to get another cat, but after missing the sound of little cat feet all winter, decided maybe it was time to look for another one.  So I checked the local animal shelter, Pet Pride, and finally Craig's List, where we saw an ad for an "aloof, yearling male, friendly but doesn't like to cuddle." Well that sounded like Ruty when we first got him, so answered the ad. When they responded that they still had him, Andy went and brought him home.
Kind of shy at first, he spent most of the first week under the couch, but now has pretty much made himself at home.

He's apparently fascinated with the toilet, we have to keep the lid down to stop him from crawling into the bowl.

It's like he thinks it's his personal water bowl. "What's your problem? I'm busy here!"

Sunday, April 22, 2018

Last load and then some...

Yesterday was a great day to haul wood over the hill. It snowed a bit over night and the temps dropped down into the low twenties, so the trail set up and the snow crust hardened enough to work without snowshoes.  Finished up the spruce tree from the other day, then dropped and bucked up a dead birch that fell right next to trail. So had it loaded and back home before noon.
Today not so much. It was near thirty when we got up this morning and mid forties a few hour later. So since the trail'd be too soft to haul loads, decided to drop some of the dead trees near the house. There's a birch right behind the tool shed that lost it's top a while back, so figured it was time to go. Put a rope and come-along on it and Andy cranked away while I got the chain saw going and cut'er down. Unlike the last time (Aspen Errors, Part Duce...10/6/17), there was no near miss. The wood's a little punky, should have dropped it a few years ago, but like most of the trees here, it'll burn.
The birch dropped right where it was supposed to; no "near death experience" this time!

Sunday, April 15, 2018

Gettin' Wood Enough...

Like most every year,  it's time for collecting some firewood (Haulin' in the Wood...5/1/13). There's usually a few trees that fall on the dog trail that need to be bucked up, then there's the standing dead trees that are leaning and need to go, so there always seems to be plenty to haul back up the hill.
What makes it different this year is that there's still over two feet of snow on the ground, so it's a real challenge to get to some of the dead trees and buck them up. For the first time since I can't remember, I'm cutting wood on snowshoes. While it's awkward at first, the main problem, once you get used to having four foot long webbed feet, is not cutting into the snowshoes, since they always seem to be in the way when you're sawing up the trees. But so far it's gone well and hope to get in a few more loads before the snow's gone, the ski doo breaks down, or my back gives out; it's always a toss up which goes first.
Update:  Went out today to get another load of wood. Unfortunately forgot to check the chainsaw gas and ran out before finishing bucking up the spruce tree. Well I guess it'll still be there tomorrow. the next day. or...

Saturday, April 7, 2018

Last Dog Run?...

With the temperatures climbing into the upper thirties, it looks like this might have been the last week of running dogs.
Heading out in the morning, it's still cool enough, down in the teens, for the dogs to run well.

But by the time we're heading home in early afternoon, it's getting into the thirties and that's pretty warm for these fuzzy guys. Maybe it's time to start working on motorcycles?

Thursday, April 5, 2018

March Weather...

Here's the weather summary for March for Fairbanks, AK...
Mean monthly temperature was 15.6°F, which was 4.2°F above normal. The observed maximum temperature was 40.0°F on the 13rd of the month, the minimum temperature was -29.0°F on the 1st of the month. The total monthly precipitation was 0.5", which was 0.3" above normal. Snowfall measured 9 in for the month and the end of month snowpack was still near 30 in.

From:  http://climate.gi.alaska.edu

In other weather news, we'd been noticing an odd pattern on the weather radar here in Fairbanks, almost the same looking screen would appear on clear days this winter.


Andy and I joked about how it looked like the old TV test pattern that stations used to broadcast back in the day. So maybe the weather bureau was saving money by not turning on the radar some days? But the NWS folks at Alaska Weather told us that it was due to the radar waves bouncing off the low temperature inversion layer that often forms in the atmosphere during the winter. So there you go, you still can learn something new most every day.