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!