May Weather...

Better late than never, the Alaska Climate Center finally posted their May weather summary...

Mean monthly temperature was 49.7°F, which was 0.3°F above normal. The observed maximum temperature was 72.0°F on the 10th of the month, the minimum temperature was 28.0°F on the 6th of the month. The total monthly precipitation was 1.1", which was 0.5" above normal. One inch of snow fell during the month, on the first.

May started off cold, then warmed up into the 70's, melted the last of the snow, then turned cool and rainey. June was also cool until yesterday when it got up to 79 and then into the 80's today.

This is the first 80 degree day since last August. Summer truly did arrive on the solstice.

Looking out into the dog yard, it looks like a bunch of dead dogs, trying to find a little bit of shade, lying on the cool ground.

Odd jobs...

Lately it seems like I'm doing a lot of odd jobs. This week it was shocks, proposals, and dog houses. The Ford pickup has well over a 100K miles on it, so it always needs maintenance. This time it was shock absorbers. Driving around on our frost heaved roads, it wallowed around like a boat in a storm. Would that make me a drunken sailor? The truck also seemed to settle a lot with the dog boxes on it last winter. Thought it'd be a good idea to beef up the springs with load leveler shocks. Of course nobody up here carries them in stock so had to order online. They were shipped and arrived promptly, so that's something. The only problem was that the spring on the load levelers extends the shock's mount down, well beyond the bracket where the old shock mounted. So had to jack the axle down (away) from the frame to get enough separation to fasten the lower shock mount. On the rear ones, the brake drum was almost touching the ground before the bracket and shock aligned close enough to thread the bolt. Once the shock was hooked up and the truck jacked back down, the shock springs compressed quite a bit and the truck height was only about an inch more. And while the ride is OK, it's noticeably stiffer on bumps.

Didn't think to get a shot of the floor jack balanced on the axle to force the bracket down enough to align with the new shocks. Probably looked pretty weird.

Then I got a call from a former colleague at work, who was concerned about a project he thought was  being mismanaged, so wanted my input. After talking to him for awhile, did some research online, then wrote and sent off a proposal outlining suggested work. We'll see where that goes. I expect nowhere.
Also been working on dog houses. It seems like the last few dogs we've taken in are quite long bodied, so started making longer dog houses. That's left several old ones not being used. So rather than keep building new, longer houses, decided to try and lengthen the older ones. Since it would take a major disassembly with lots of newer parts to do it right, got the idea of just taking the front and back off and adding spacers that'd make the house several inches longer without so much extra work and materials. We'll see how that works out.

The spacers (scrap 1x2's) extended the length about an inch at each end. It'll be interesting to see if the dogs like this house any better than the older one

Back to the Black...

It was time for the semi-annual trip down to Black Rapids to help my friend Mike do his surveys on the Delta River.

The lower reach of the river was quite high this year, so we just did that survey from the shore. The doppler meter doesn't work so well in turbulent, silty water, so Mike needs a better system here.

The upper Delta site was also high, but not too high to do the river survey.

Mike got the doppler meter working pretty well this year, so there were no problems getting the river surveyed here or at Paxson Lake.

Had a moose come by, but he kept his distance. which was fine with me after last year's close encounter (Back to the Black 9/30/17).

The last stop was Paxson Lake where we launched the boat, then headed out to survey the outlet at the far end of the lake.

The lake was so calm, it was a mirror image of the clouds. Kind of disorienting at first. On the way back, the wind picked up and blew the shore ice out into the middle of the lake. Had to play dodge the ice flows all the way back to the boat ramp.

Free wheeling...

Late May is the time when traditionally the garden goes in. This year it seemed like it'd be June before any gardening, since there was still a foot of snow in places in early May. But then we had a week of near seventy degree weather and the snow was gone before the end of the month. After finishing the roto-tilling, we were getting stuff moved to the garden when the wheel barrow broke down. Hard to believe that something that's been used for forty years, stored outside, and never had any maintenance would break, but there you go, they just don't make'm like they used to.
So instead of buying a new one, that'd be too easy, figured it could be fixed. Thought that just the broken part could be replaced, it was a short piece of wood that had dry rotted, but between the rusted nuts and stripped out carriage bolts, wound up having to use the saws-all to cut out most of the bolts to get it apart.

Didn't get a photo of the broken part, but here's the disassembled pieces ready to be worked on.

So after replacing the broken parts with some scrap pieces of all weather wood, sand blasted and painted the metal body. Used the left over paint from the walking tractor rebuild (All carted up...7/24/17) and some old deck stain on the wood pieces.

So here's the pieces fitted back to the body of the barrow. Will head into town tomorrow, pick up some new bolts and get'er all back together.

Heads Up...

Got the Triumph head back together, then cleaned up the rocker boxes and checked the fit,

Everything looked good until it was time to mount the head on the cylinders and noticed there was only one push-rod tube. Went thru half a dozen boxes of parts, but no luck. So had to order one on eBay.

So while waiting, started to fit other stuff, such as the tail light. The one that was on there before is now on the 650 Moto Guzzi  (Retired and Refendered...6/20/17), so dug out an original tail light from a box of 71/72 parts. Now I'm trying to straighten it out, it'd been banged up at some point, so it'll fit again. Too much fun.

Finishin' one thing, startin' another...

Almost finished splitting the wood that was hauled in last month. Should be at least a couple of cords, so that'll help keep us warm next winter.

The next project'll be putting one of the old basket case Triumphs back together. It's been more than a little while since there's been any work done on them, but hopefully can at least get one back together this summer. They've been ignored ever since the Moto Guzzi's got here, so they're way over do for some work.

The first step has been to disassemble the head, clean it, and then lap the valves. After another good cleaning, should be ready to put back together soon. It' s a real challenge, since the Triumph's have sat for over twenty years; really have to search the brain cells remembering what's to be done.

April Weather Summary...

Here's the NWS summary for April...
Mean monthly temperature was 31.3°F, which was 1.2°F below normal. The observed maximum temperature was 54.0°F on the 23rd of the month, the minimum temperature was -4.0°F on the 3rd of the month. The total monthly precipitation was 0.1", which was 0.2" below normal. Snowfall totaled about 2 inches.

Chart from Alaska Climate Research Center (http://climate.gi.alaska.edu)

The month started off cold, so was able to run dogs and haul in firewood. But then it warmed up into the fifties and softened up the trails. Eventually it cooled off enough to haul half a dozen loads of wood over the hill. Now it's still kind of cool with patches of snow and ice hanging on, so it's a good time to put the splitter on the tractor and get the logs split into firewood.

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!"

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!

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...

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?

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.