New Years Eve...

 While 2020 has been a pretty bad deal for most folks, we've been lucky enough to avoid most of the problems. Since we're retired, we seldom go to town, maybe once a week, for groceries, gas, or whatever project supplies we need and always mask up. We spent thanksgiving, christmas, and new years by ourselves. Not our first choice, but better than getting the covid, I guess. But we still get out and do stuff.

Here's the old sled, silhouetted with the Dec. sunset, ready for another dog run. It was built years ago from some Tim White sled parts and rough cut birch wood. The runners, driving bow, and most of the birch stanchions were replaced over the years, but the original sled parts remain. Hopefully, it'll last for many more years.

Here's a shot of the team at the road crossing. A couple of weeks ago we were almost hit by the postal truck. Apparently, for the first time up here, they deliver packages to your house if it doesn't fit in the road side mail box. Talk about a special delivery that almost went postal! Anyway, he was able to stop and didn't take me or the dogs out. So now Andy goes up to the road crossing a while after we leave and watches for our return. She took this pic when we were crossing the road on the way back. It's a nice sunset sky!

Solstice stuff...

Here's some of the doings during solstice.With less than four hours of daylight now, the solstice is a major event up here as the days finally stop getting shorter. Because of the low angle of the sun, the days on either side are within a few seconds of the solstice, so we actually get to enjoy three shortest days.

Mac, the super sled dog pup, is doing great. He's now the largest dog in yard, so we sure hope he stops growing.

Put a plow on the new wheeler. It came from the old one. I'd given it to a neighbor years ago, who passed it on to a friend of his. He never used it, so I got it back for a six pack of beer.

While the rear mount fit, the front one didn't, so got a pulley guide on ebay and hooked it to the winch. Should be able to clean up snow in the places where it's too tight for the tractor.

Some of the old sled dog gear needed repairs, so this is a good time to fix it. The sled bag and a couple of the harnesses were chewed on by squirrels, so it just took some extra webbing and material, with lots of cursing at the sewing machine, to get'em fixed. Thanks to Andy, who gave me a time out when things got out of hand.

Bigfoot...

No, not Sasquatch or the Yeti, this was a large canid's footprint. The other day I went over over the hill to work on the dog trail. Since it was pretty cold, near ten below, figured it was easier to walk than try to start the old Ski Doo.  I walked up to the ridge, saw where my neighbor had walked his dog, and continued past his tracks down the other side. The light was getting poor, sunset comes early in Dec, so quickly started to shovel snow at the first bad spot. While shoveling I happened to notice something odd on the trail, so bent down and looked at this:

At first I didn't think too much of it and continued to shovel snow. But after finishing that spot, figured maybe it was a good idea to call it a day and head back home. While it's not uncommon for wolves to pass through the area and move on fairly quickly, well, yah just never know if one's sticking around. The next day I went back with a camera, a ruler, and the old .45. So I took a few pics, then went on to finish shoveling the rest of hillside trail. Never did see any other wolf sign, just a couple hundred yards of tracks on the trail before they went off in another direction. So was it a wolf or some neighbors overgrown malamonster? Who knows, but it's kind of cool to think some lone wolf passed through the neighborhood, especially if they're long gone!

Fall's finished...

Well not exactly, it's been winter-like weather up here for nearly a month now, but just finished the last of the fall projects, insulating and sealing the ceiling.

Started off by sealing the length of the ridge pole with expanding foam spray. There's always been a problem there with frost forming on the outside. Standing on some old boards the were recycled for scaffolding.

Caulking the gable ends with an adhesive caulk before installing the trim boards.

Putting up the final piece of quarter-round trim; it only took forty years to get'er done!

Doggos...

The other day I received an email from the woman who we got Mac the puppy from. In it she referred to one of his litter mates as a lucky doggo. Well that was a new one for me, so googled it up and found out that doggo and puppo (or pupper) are internet memes for cute dogs. So not wanting to be left out of this new age stuff, figured there better be a doggo post. 

Back in June, when we got the puppo (Here and Gone 6/28/20), he was pretty small. But we were told his mother was part MacKenzie River husky and they can be pretty big doggos.

So here's the puppo when he was about three months old, he weighed maybe 25 lbs, and was getting a lot bigger, especially his ears.

So now he's a big doggo at 65 lbs (that's about 30 kg to the French) and he takes up half the couch.

But he still likes his belly rubs!  OK, that's it for the doggo/puppo meme, from now on, they'll just be dogs.

Snowed in...

 After enduring a week of 20-30° F below, it warmed up and snowed almost two feet. We had half a dozen intermittant power outages and I spent most of last week plowing snow. Since the snow was too deep to run dogs with the 4-wheeler, figured I'd put the sled trail in. So headed over hill  to break it out. Only made it to the valley bottom where I got stuck with the old Ski Doo. Had to walk a mile home on the soft, freshly broken trail. Andy and I went back the next day with a come-along and snow shoes and did an “intervention” to get it out. While she snow shoed out about a hundred yards and made a turn around, I hooked the come along to the only nearby tree, and pulled the Ski Doo out from between the tall tussocks where it had gotten wedged. The real excitement came when it started raining as we headed back, making the trail soft and slippery, so we got stuck a few more times before getting home. Now there’s only a two mile loop to run the dogs on, but eventually we’ll get’er extended out to meet the main Smallwood trail.

Here's the team coming back into the dog yard,. The trail's hard and fast now that it's cooled off again, so it felt like we were almost flying coming down the hill. The two new dogs, Mac and Gus add a lot of power and Missy and Tamarack are doing a decent job up front. The team's coming around and we can hope for mo' better runs to come!

Stoved out...

Back when we were planning to build the cabin addition, we decided to put in a basement first. So we dug a big hole, built the basement in it, then jacked up the cabin and moved it onto the basement. Kind of backwards, I know, but that's what happens when your hindsight is 20-20. At first we tried to heat the whole house with a wood stove in the basement, but that was a pain, constantly running up and down the stairs to check on and stoke the stove, so we put a Monitor oil stove in the basement and moved the wood stove back upstairs. That was over thirty years ago. Now, the company that produced the Monitor has stopped production. The local dealer switched to Toyo and no longer services the Monitor. So that was the conundrum, a stove that's worked great all these years, and still might have years left, is largely unserviceable. So after angsting over it for a year, decided to get a Toyo. But I checked out the other dealers in town, didn't want to go back to one who dropped the service, and bought it from a different one this time. I guess we'll see how that works out.

Jack Black likes the new stove just fine; it's a little bigger, so there's more room for him to hang out on it. It was kind of a pain to install, since everything was slightly different than the Monitor. But still, I got it working in a day. One real problem was the fuel line, the old one didn't fit and finally got it right after getting some help from a neighbor, the third time was the charm!

Dog Drivin' Again...

Finally got out with the dogs this week. Not enough snow for the sled so have been using the 4-wheeler and running the neighborhood roads. The first run was not so good cause Mac the pup got loose, chased us down the road, and forced me to turn around when I couldn't catch him. But he did run home with us so that that's something, I guess. Today I took him with, figured if he wanted to go, well maybe it was time to learn to be a sled dog. Except for a brief panic at the start, he did fine running with the team. Gus, the dog I got to replace Jabba our departed leader (Here and Gone 6/28/20), well not so much. He took us on a tour of the neighbor’s driveways, so I finally just turned them around and went back home. Maybe next time I’ll get around the loop! 

The team back home after a not so hard run. Mac, in the middle. did great for his first run. Gus, looking studly up front but not doing what he's supposed to, will likely be replaced in lead, but by who, well that's the question...

First Snow....

The NWS had predicted snow for the last few days, so we've been trying to get stuff ready. Before putting the bikes to bed for the winter, I suggested to Andy that she take hers for a ride. So she took it for a spin around "the island", the circular part of the driveway.

A little too cool for a serious ride, maybe 38°F, she got the "stink blown off her" as my grandma used to say.

And the snow finally did get here today. It was snowing lightly in the morning, but picked up a bit in the afternoon.

The roof on the workshop slowly turned white as the snow fell harder. It's cold enough, 23°F now, that it'll be sticking around for a while.

With the colder weather, Jack Black has been staying inside more. He keeps a close watch on his food bowl, letting us know whenever it needs refilling.

Chinook...

Had a chinook come through last week,  the warm, dry winds pushed the temps into the upper sixties and finally dried out the ground after the recent rains. Was able to get in a few rides on the Guzzi and also finished up some projects. One of them was fixing the mailbox posts.

About twenty years ago, the state resurfaced the Hot Springs Rd. One of the add-ons to the project was replacing all the mailboxes with DOT approved ones. There's apparently a whole bunch of regs for any mailbox that's placed in a state right of way. so the they figured it was easier to replace all the old boxes with new ones that were approved. So now, the boards that hold the boxes to the post are all failing. Not sure why they're so bad, maybe they didn't use treated wood for that part, since the verticals are mostly fine, but they look like the buildings you see up here in old, abandoned mining camps.

The top boards are all cracked and encrusted with lichens, they could be hundred year old relics!

Replaced the old boards with 2x4 AWW. The bolts holding everything together were 1/2" shank, 3/4" heads that were a real challenge to remove. The whole thing seems incredibly over engineered, so it's ironic that they apparently used untreated lumber that failed in maybe twenty years. 

One of the neighbors came by when I was finishing up, so told him I'd help him fix his mailbox. "Just get a 12' AWW 2x4, I'll cut'er in half and drill the holes so you can replace yours. Won't take you an hour."

"Oh I don't know" he said, "maybe I can just fix it with duct tape." 

The next day I saw him walking down the road with a rebar and a hammer. He apparently drove the rebar into the ground under the mailbox and used it to prop up the box. I guess replacing the broken boards was just too much trouble for him to bother with it. 

The neighbors solution; well like I always sez, to eaches his onus.

More Fall...

Mostly been doing the fall chores while getting ready for winter. Got the stairs fixed on the shed; had to remove the stairs, then dig out the old footings, backfill with gravel, and then set some concrete footings I picked up at Lowes. The stairs fit just fine and the door now opens and closes without sticking. And it only took me about five years to finally get'er done. Then, while digging out a stump behind the shed, I managed to hook a root that went all the way underneath. When I picked up the stump with the backhoe, the root lifted it up enough to knock over the shelves under the overhang. So I've spent the last two days resetting them and sorting through all the crap that spilled off them. Lots of stuff going to the dump!

The leaves are pretty much down now, I'd meant to get some more photos when I went for some bike rides last week, but managed to forget the camera every time. At least I'm consistent. So here's a photo of the Mogu parked by the garage surrounded by the recently down leaves. It's called fall, after all!

Fall's Here...

It's been creeping up for awhile, cooler nights, leaves starting to turn, but Sun. turned out to be the real deal.We had our first frost, think it got down to 31° F, then we had brilliant sunshine in the afternoon to highlight the fall colors.

Spent most of the day running the backhoe. Did a small job for the neighbor, then redug some of the drainage ditches next to the road, finally dug out the approach to the old garage, buried some large rock to improve drainage, then covered it with geo-fabric and crushed rock. Today's project is to  dig out the old stair posts that have been jacking out and replace'em with concrete block. Gotta get'em all done before the snow flies!
Here's the August weather summary from the NWS...
The average temperature for Fairbanks this August was 59.7° which was 3.6° above normal, making it the first month this summer with above normal temps. The highest was 79° on the first, the lowest, 44° on the 14th and 30th. Precipitation was 2.12" for the month, which was 0.24" above normal.

Had a nice run of sunny, warm days in mid-month and rain was not so much of an issue like last month. Hoping for the same in Sept!

Northern Hydraulics...

No not the famous tool store, this is about changing the hydraulic fluid on the tractor. It was actually due last fall, but better late than never. The reason it's late is that it's a chore, and I can always find a way to postpone stuff that's a chore. The reservoir holds 5 1/2 gallons, the drain is underneath the differential, since that's the lowest part of the hydraulics, so how do you fit a large enough pan there to hold that much fluid? In the past I built up some blocking and drove the tractor on it so a 5 gal bucket will fit. But that's kind of a funky deal, since you gotta crawl underneath the tractor. A while back, years ago I'd guess, I found some built up panels in the dumpster. Part of a shipping container, IDN, but thought they might work out as a pair of risers to get the tractor up enough to fit the bucket. Well time passes, they gathered dust, in fact they had some moss growing on 'em, before I decided to make 'em work. First, had to pull out a few dozen nails that were sticking out, then put some spacers on to get the height to match on both, then ripped some angle boards to act as ramps. Surprisingly, they worked!

The tractor's rear wheels sitting on the riser panels. The hydraulic filter is cleverly hidden behind the step, so I usually mange to bang my head, smash a hand, or both when changing out the filter.

The bucket sitting underneath the differential. It fills up almost to the top with fluid, so it's a lot of fun to try to get it out without spilling it. But it's all done now, so it's good to go for another 500 hrs, or so.

End of summer chores...

This is the time of year when you realize summer's almost over and yah better get to it if you're gonna get your projects finished. One thing that's in abundance is wood to split. While I put a good dent in the spruce piles, there's still a lot of aspen left. Now aspen's different than spruce (Splitting Piss Pine 9/23/16), you need to debark it if you want the wood to dry out, so using the axe to clean off the outer bark adds a lot of time to the process.

There were several dead aspen near the house that had to go, so now the wood needs to be split.

It's a lot easier to strip off the bark if it hasn't dried onto the wood yet.

The other project is to finish painting the house. Last fall we got most of it done, but put off doing the eaves, since the gutters had to be removed. Always put off the jobs you like the least!

After painting the eaves, the gutters are reinstalled. Lost count of how times the ladders had to be moved to remove and replace them. The sanding and painting was a breeze in comparison.

A selfie of a happy homeowner who's almost finished another summer project. I'm really smiling on the inside, knowing I'll soon be drinking a vodka tonic and watching a hockey game!

Cool and Wet...

The Climate Center finally got around to posting their monthly summaries for June and July.

Not much to add, both months were cooler and wetter than normal.

While Aug. started wet, it's warmed up a bit and the forecast for the rest of the week is sunny with highs in the 70's. Can't beat that now cause this is usually our rainiest month. Starting to take down the gutters to paint the eaves. Then the cabin and garage paint job, that was started last fall, will be finished. And the buyer for the Triumph stuff sent a check, so will be loading up and shipping most the old Triumph parts and tools to Texas. Kind of sad, but most of it has been here untouched for over thirty years, as I'd moved on to working on Moto Guzzis. Did save some parts, books, and tools, so maybe will get back to it some day.

Guzzied out...

With all the rain we've gotten lately, the summer started warm but has cooled off considerably, figured it was time to get out more with the Guzzi. I've had the 850 for thirty years now and except for the initial work when I first got it, rechroming and repainting the rusty places, rebuilding the front brake and replacing oil seals, the bike has been almost faultless. I've never even had to set the points or tune the carbs, it just keeps running like the Eveready bunny!

The only thing replaced over the winter were the fuel taps. The old ones, likely the originals and 45 years old, were leaking. There was a pair of NOS taps in a box of Guzzi parts that I got with the bike, so it was an easy and cheap fix.


Since I had to remove the valve covers to adjust the valves, figured I'd add a pair of small engine head guards. I've only dropped the bike once, when pushing it into the garage when I first got it. It's a load to move around when you're not riding it, so figured the guards were cheap insurance. A lot of people install larger crash bars, but I figure that's just asking for trouble!
The day after I wrote this, the ignition switch broke, so had to order a new upgrade, the original is no longer available. This requires changing part of the wiring harness. Be careful what you write, sometimes it can come back to bite you!

All Knotted Up...

One of the problems with splitting the big spruce rounds are the knots. The larger spruce branches are 3-4"  thick where they come out of the tree and extend into the tree at least half a foot. Sometimes when the splitter hits one, it just stops. At first I tried repeating, just backing it up and splitting again, but that just got it stuck worse on the blade end. The problem, I think, is that the tractor 's hydraulic pump only makes about 14 gpm and most splitters like at least 20. The other thing is the design, the blade starts fairly narrow, then widens abruptly where they welded on an angular metal piece to expand the crack. This is where it always gets stuck.

After beating on it with a sledge to no effect, tried splitting it with an axe. After breaking two handles (note the shiny new handle on maul), started using a metal wedge. Once positioned just above the blade, it only took a few whacks to open up the crack enough to allow the splitter to pop the log apart. And do they pop, some have shot apart, flying several feet, once hitting me. It didn't hurt much, but surprised the heck out of me. Now I stand well back, it's ballistic splitting!

Midsummer...

Summer up here starts in mid-May and pretty much is over by mid-Sept, so I figure this is midsummer, more or less.  The big thing that's happened,  I think I've sold the rest of the Triumph  stuff, parts, bikes, and tools, are all headed for Texas!

The garage'll have some more room when all the stuff in the far corner is gone.

The other thing has been raising the pup. He's grown quite a bit, well at least his ears and feet are a lot bigger, and we've nick-named him Sharknado after the B-movie. He races around the house, like a whirlwind,  then attacks us with his razor sharp puppy teeth and claws.

Andy has to put a chew toy in his mouth to keep his jaws busy.

He likes to explore the furniture.

And enjoys chasing his new best friend Jack Black.

Here and Gone...

Well there's good news and bad. We got a puppy, Mackenzie River/husky cross, so of course had to name him Mac. We haven't had a puppy, or litter of puppies, for maybe twenty years. Most of our dogs are adult rescues, so this one is a treat.

The bad news is my old leader, Jabba apparently developed acute pancreatitis and died. The vet did his best, but he never fully woke up after the surgery. At least we were able to bring him home before he passed, so that's something I guess.

Jabba in his prime, He was a natural leader, one of the best I've been lucky enough to have. But not just a lead dog, he was a good dog in so many ways, he was almost like a friend to me.

Jabba leading the team home. I had hoped he'd be able to train the new pup this winter when the pup was old enough to run with the team, but I guess some things aren't meant to be.

Grandpa was a carpenter...

Well not exactly, he was a cabinet maker, but still, like the John Prine song goes, he was "level on the level and shaved even every door." When I was a young kid, my family moved in with the grandparents so my mom could take care of them. While Grandma was fine with it, my Grandpa, well not so much. Having two wild indians like my brother and I running around probably wasn't high on his retirement plans. But we coexisted as a blended family for almost ten years before he died. He had a wood shop in the basement and would spend most of his time down there working on his projects. I don't know if he made stuff to sell or it was just to get away from us but he did a lot of wood working in his time. After he passed, his son (my uncle) came over and cleaned the shop out, taking whatever he wanted. Most of the power tools and a lot of the hand tools disappeared but he did leave some stuff that eventually wound up here with me.

These are the tools I remember getting from him. Probably the most used has been  the brace and bit. When we first built the cabin, there was no power to the site, so I hand drilled a couple of hundred holes in the logs to drive the spikes into. It still works great. The scissors are kind of interesting, not sure what he used them for, cutting patterns maybe, they're real heavy duty.

These were some of his projects. Apparently one his things was to glue different types of wood together and turn them into shape on his wood lathe. My brother sent these up to me when he moved from the midwest to Florida.

This was the one thing gramps made that I always liked. I remember playing with the ship in a bottle when I was a little kid and my mom telling me to be careful and not break it (Google: impossible bottle). It's a good thing she kept an eye on me or it probably wouldn't be here today.

Hail, All Hail...

Had a heck of a thunderstorm last evening, it dropped almost an inch of hail, some of the bigger ones were three quarter of an inch around, maybe not big by midwest standards, but probably the biggest I've seen up here.

The hail storm lasted for almost an hour, one of the longest we've had.

Here's the May weather summary from the Alaska Climate Center.

Mean monthly temperature was 53.3°F, which was 3.9°F above normal. The observed maximum temperature was 82°F on the 10th of the month, the minimum temperature was 27°F on the 1st. The total monthly precipitation was 0.5", which was 0.1" below normal.

This was the first monthly above normal temperature we've had since last fall. While it wasn't a record cold winter, could've used some global warming in Jan/Feb.

More Firewood...

After the crews cut down the dead trees along the power line (All spruced up 5/22/20), I was telling my friend Bill about it and how there were more dead trees to drop, some pretty close to the house. He mentioned that his neighbors nephew worked on one of the crews and dropped trees as a side  job. Bill had hired him and seemed pleased with his work, so I called and asked him to come over when he had time and check it out. He came over the other day and took down four trees near the house and garage. I helped him out and learned a little about how the professionals do it. Every tree went just where it was supposed to, so now all I have to do buck them up, split and stack it. Too much fun!

While I've dropped lots of trees, they didn't always go where I wanted them to, so it was worth it to get help on the ones close in. This spruce measured 95 ft. from stump to top, so could easily have hit the house.

Still splitting the trees that were dropped earlier, so I know what I'll be doing most of the summer!