The O-Zone

Aspens are turning color, and soon the wind will strip the leaves from the trees.

Still waiting for precipation and we were hoping for it in the form of rain. Looks like we might see snow first, instead.  It was 22F this morning.  That comes under the heading of Brrrrrrrrrrr.

The grass in the front yard is super dry.  Hard to believe, but it will be green again next spring when the snow melts away.

We love this view of the fall aspen grove – white trees, green and gold leaves, and bright blue sky.

Did some baking today with the last of the apples we picked from our tree.  We still have some eating apples left.  They won’t last much longer and we will have eaten the entire harvest.  Next year should be better.

Got to love apples and cinnamon still bubbling hot, and just out of the oven.

Doing more knitting.  Finished an acorn and now I’m working on a bluebird.

This is about 1-1/4 inches tall and less than an inch in diameter. I think this is just one of the cutest things and I want to knit a whole bunch of them, but can’t imagine any use in doing so. Other than entertainment 🙂

I have probably 20 more ornaments to make, and roughly 2 months in which to make them.  I need to stop goofing off and get busy.

Tootsie pulled herself together.

She looks like she is saying the immortal line, “Are you my mummy?”

And I finished the filing this morning.  Which mostly consisted of looking through the rest of the pile of papers and deciding it was all junk, except for a few things.  Wow who knew it was going to be that easy.

So today we’ll pull the cover off the greenhouse, pick up the hoses, turn the cages over on the beds in the garden, and pull the dead plants out of the greenhouse.

It might snow next week.  Looks like we might be ready for such nonsense.

Doesn’t that have a nice ring to it?  I wonder what it would be like, being organized.  Chances are I’ll never know 🙂  Oh well.

This is Tootsie.

My latest knitting project.  She needs to pull herself together, and I’d manage that if I could figure out for sure how all the parts fit.  The pattern instructions are clear and concise – sew it together.   Hmmmmm.  Still working on it.  If I was organized….  and had a camera battery I could take a picture of Tootsie when she’s finished.  That’s supposed to arrive tomorrow.

New desks. Yay!!

This is definitely a step in the right direction towards being organized.  I’ve been using a laptop desk to hold my laptop computer, and thinking about having a built-in desk area where Dan had his desk and the audio-visual equipment, aka TV and accounterments, plus laps, and other miscellaneous things resided.  Finally we decided to just buy a few simple desks and set them up next to each other.  And we bought two lamps for the end tables in the livingroom which are cordless.  They use a rechargeable lithium ion battery.  Just plug those in and the lamps work for 20 hours.  No more extension cord across the floor to get in the way.  That is such an improvement!!

My new desk works really well and I’ve stopped tipping the laptop over!   And the risk of spilling tea all over the keyboard is way down.

So, check that desk organization wish-list item off the list, and on to the next.  We have ordered some honeycomb shades for the sunroom which should be here next week at some point, and we’ll put them up.  That will make sure when it is winter outside and really cold that we can give the birds some thermal shelter from cold temperatures near the windows.

We did some other things to get organized.  We moved the solar panel angle to the winter more vertical slant, which catches more sunlight now that the sun is lower in the sky.

We had a killing frost finally, and we have harvested the tomatoes and peppers from the greenhouse.  Beets, carrots and swiss chard don’t care, so they are still in place.

We need to put the garden to bed and pull the shade off the greenhouse.  I guess we’ll do that this weekend.

I might even do some filing of paperwork that has been cluttering up the living room for way longer than I want to admit to.

Organization remains elusive but a noble goal 🙂

Yesterday was the Autumnal Equinox, and the sun sets in line with the middle window in our sunroom instead of way off to the north.  In three months it will set way off to the south.  Pretty neat watching the sun’s path arc across the western horizon.

A chore we’ve been pretty much dreading having to do was completed yesterday. Batteries we ordered for the house power system arrived by truck in the afternoon.  We met the semi truck down by the bridge across the river, about 5 miles from our house, where there is a wide spot in the road.

Something extremely cool happened while we were waiting for the trucking company to arrive.  We walked over to the bridge to look into the water for fish swimming around, and there was an adult River Otter munching on one of the said fish, out of the water and taking his ease on a log which was partially submerged in the river.  Munch crunch.  The Otter was obviously enjoying his meal enormously.  After he finished eating, he slid back into the water and poked around both under the water and in holes in the bank, back and forth under the bridge, before finally gliding off in the deepest part of the water, heading upstream where he disappeared from view.  Wonderful!!  Don’t see Otter much so that was a real treat.

Back to the trucking saga. Getting the batteries loaded into our trailer was an adventure as they could not stay on their shipping pallet, all neatly wrapped.  They had to be hand carried onto the trailer. Fortunately on the side of road, propping up a street sign, there was a nice long driftwood stick which we appropriated.  We used to keep the batteries from sliding to the back of the trailer when we had to drive up the narrow washboarded and steep switchback gravel road into our house.

This trailer is actually a bit too light duty for this heavy a load when it is all concentrated in one location. The wire held but it was sure sagging under the almost 1500 pound load.

We put the stick immediately in front of the tire against the wheel covers, to keep the weight of all the batteries over the axel as much as possible and to prevent them from sliding down to the gate or tipping over.  And we used the totally useless wooden pallet to keep the batteries from tipping over towards the front of the trailer.

The batteries arrived safe and sound and they hadn’t moved at all.  It was a very slow trip up the hill, and we felt each and every washboard, being paranoid the load would shift, but it didn’t move an inch.   Dan removed the stick easily as the batteries were putting no weight on it at all.  Turns out we could have done without any props, but who knew.

Now the work began.  The second part of the project was to get the batteries into the house.  Each one weighs about 125 pounds, being full of lead and acid.  Dan had positioned the trailer so we would offload the batteries directly onto the sidewalk.  We used a hand cart, and had to get each one up two steps leading into the sunroom.

At first the parrots were off the opinion that the hand cart was going to eat me, judging by the screams from Terry when she saw me bringing it to the trailer, out of the garage.  They soon realized it wasn’t deadly afterall, and they just enjoyed the show.  Mishkin thought the whole process was something he’d rather not be involved with, and he stayed well out the way.  Good kitty.

These seven steps seemed really long and steep!!

Once a battery was in the house, we had to take it down seven stairs and into the basement.  This was the hard part, and the process we had been dreading since last winter when we realized we were going to have to replace the batteries.  But we perservered and after a couple of hours of very hard work, all the batteries were down the stairs.

All stacked up and sitting in a group, waiting for the next step.

Next part of the process was to turn off the power coming into the house from the solar panels and disconnect the batteries from the inverter, and then disconnect them from each other.  That was actually fairly hard work, bending over, and messy since all the connections were covered with a thick coating of Vaseline.  That prevents the connections from corrosion caused by oxidation and proximity to acid in the batteries.  Did make the bolts really slippery, and lot of bending over was required, plus trying to keep from touching a positive and negative terminal at the same time made it a little stressful.  This was what electricians call “working hot.”

Old batteries still connected to the power system.

I took an extra picture of the wiring in case we got lost in the middlle of reconnecting the new batteries into a string. No worries. Dan understands all this stuff!

Then we had to pull the individual batteries out of the wooden box Dan built when they were installed, and move them across the floor.  And then we had to move the new batteries back to where the old batteries lived.  Removing the wooden box made that relatively easy.

New batteries where they belong.

And then we had to replace the connections and turn the individual 2-volt batteries into one large 24-volt battery.  We started at one end of the string and by the time we got done with the last  one, we were actually getting pretty good at it.

First row of batteries strung together.

Connecting the second row to the first row.

Yay! Dan connecting the last battery terminal back to the breaker box that leads to the inverter. Finished!

The final test was to flip the breakers and when we had lights, we knew we had connected everything correctly.  We’ll put the wooden box back at some point today.

This whole process took about five hours of very hard work, from the time we had loaded the batteries onto the trailer, to lights back on in the house.  Yay!!  We won’t have to do this again for another six to seven years.  Both of us are tired today, Dan more than me because he did the majority of the heavy lifting.

Last, but not least, we still have to remove the old batteries from the basement, which entails hauling them up the seven stairs (gag), and the taking them to the transfer station for recycling.  But there’s no time constraints and we don’t have to move all them at once.  We’ll do a few at a time.

And today it is completely cloudy and our new batteries are being starved to death and we’ll end up running the generator just like we were having to do daily with the old batteries. Figures. 🙂

Haven’t seen the bears lately.   The plum tree is done dropping fruit, to all intents and purposes.  The pear apple tree still has fruit but nobody seems to be super interested.  Can’t say that I miss having bears in the front yard, overly much.

There are benefits to having a bear problem. Just ask this guy.

When you’re really little, and the tree is really big, helps if you just have to pick up the plums.

We have a good sized black bear who simply won’t take no for an answer when it comes to the plum and pear trees next to the house.

Middle of last week, Dan pissed this particular bear off by shooting him in the butt with the bb-gun.  The bear swapped ends and wuffed at Dan.  Dan should have wuffed back!!  Instead, he took another shot at the bear with the bb-gun and that time it worked, and the bear left the vicinity.  Just not for long.

Terry is on high bear alert.  She sees a black ear peep up over the grass and she screams bloody murder.  Hard on the hearing if you happen to be in the sunroom when she does that.  Poor Mishkin ducks and runs for cover a lot.

A couple of days ago, Dan got fed up with it all and when the bear was in the top of the plum tree, Dan shot over his head with a .41 mag pistol, and then again right behind him after he was out of the tree (that only took a few seconds as the bear can evidently climb down as fast as up), and was racing through the aspens.  Mish did NOT appreciate the entire episode.  The neighbors are also having bear issues, so I’m sure they knew what those two shots meant!!  They probably wish we’d shot him instead of simply relocating him to their yards instead of ours.

Terry’s comment about the whole thing was “ooooooooooooo.”  Oro didn’t say a peep, just got skinny and stood up tall.

Since then, the bear is back to being skittish, which is a GOOD thing, and simply yelling at him gets him to leave the yard, but he does come back a couple of hours later, usually.

The chipmunks rejoice.

Next year we’re going to remove both trees.  Having them so close to the house was actually moronic on the part of the guy who built this place.  They just hadn’t been producing that much fruit so we’ve been putting up with the bears and deer since the harvesting only lasted a night or two.  This has been going on for weeks now due to bountiful rain in the spring when the trees were setting fruit.    I guess we’ve had enough.  Too bad.  They are so pretty in the spring.

Back in business!  Frying some shredded baked potatoes in the big pan, and reheating a bit of a tofu scramble.  The parrots were anxiously awaiting this to be finished.  Now they are both kind of sleepy, being all full of breakfast.

The weather has changed, and there’s even a chance of rain in the forecast for several days this week.  Supposed to be temperatures in the low 60’s or even the 50’s for most of this week.

Since we are still without any firewood deliveries, yesterday we drove the Ranger up the hill where we did thinning a couple of years ago, and we collected some of the small trees which were piled up to dry out.  It takes an amazingly long time for green trees to dry enough to be good for firewood.  The electric chainsaw works great!  We really should collect all the rest of that firewood and put it under cover.  Maybe we will start doing that this next weekend.

We collected enough to fill the firewood rack on the porch (so about 1/5 of a cord), in just a few minutes, and this morning Dan started a cookstove fire, and I fixed breakfast on it.

Also yesterday we took care of some other outside chores, including harvesting the rest of the potatoes and onions which are now laying out on a tarp in the garage to dry off.  We’ll move them into the pantry in a day or two.

Getting ready for company – Cassandra arrives this evening for a few days visit.  Yay!

Walked into our bedroom to put something on the couch and surprised a black bear who was innocently standing next to the house, happily snacking on plums.  He didn’t like me mentioning that he was a bear.  This was the largest of the three black bears we have hanging around at the moment.  He had obviously already been eating plums, a LOT of plums.  Very rolly polly, and a good 300 pounds.

He left his calling card before running as fast as his feet could carry him, across the front yard.  He didn’t keep running after he got across the driveway.  He has worked hard for all that extra fat, and he didn’t want to use it up before winter.

Gotta remember to look outside before going out the door, this time of year.

Or…  “What do deer and cats have in common?”

Yesterday we harvested our cauliflower/broccoli Veronicas; one of which had gotten over-ripe and had gone to flowers.

No worries, said I.  I’ll give it to the deer to munch on because I’m sure they would love it, being a vegetable and all.

So I tossed said Veronica on the ground under the plum tree, knowing that for sure it would be noticed.

Very small yellow plum litter the ground and sidewalk all around the plum tree, and the deer and bears adore these so they never last for long once they hit the ground.  These have been on the ground now for over a day.  Unheard of!

Oh boy, was Veronica ever noticed!

We were watching tv last night and heard a deer in obvious distress, yelling at something that was deadly.  Perhaps a bear, we thought, given all the noise she was making, so we went to the window to look.

And there was a doe, with her fawn behind her, having a staring contest with Veronica, and stomping her feet.  We couldn’t figure out what she was so upset about as there was nothing out there but one measely cabbage.  Then we realized it was the cabbage that she was all in a huff about.

Who knew that Veronica ate deer????  Mishkin grew alarmed as well, and added his deep warning growl to the noise.  He had no idea what the deer was talking about, but it had to be really bad if it ate deer.  Since deer eat cats, he was understandably most concerned.

This went on all evening long until the Veronica won the field of battle and the doe and her fawn went elsewhere, sans plums.  Well not entirely sans plums.  She would stay a minimum of 15 feet away from Veronica, and was able to pick up the plums outside that radius.

We figure this is the same doe and fawn who were almost killed by the grouse.

This morning the Veronica is in two pieces and had obviously been stomped on and kicked around a bit last night, but not eaten.  There is nary a bite mark to be seen.

And the head went another.

So, what do deer and cats have in common?  They don’t like any changes to their environment.  This doe and fawn are very familiar with our yard and they expect us to keep it in the same condition.

Killer vegetables are not acceptable. 🙂  Oh, and the Veronica that had not gone to seed was delicious with ranch dressing.

No pictues but thought I’d describe some interspecies communication from yesterday.

A male Ruffed Grouse was standing at the end of the sidewalk closest to the garage and greenhouse, all fluffed up. Other than the display of toughness, he was standing perfectly still.

We thought perhaps he was displaying to a hen, but sort of the wrong time of year for such behavior, and being frozen was also a bit unusual.

A fawn appeared, coming up from the far side of the greenhouse. And the fawn froze. Staring at the ruffed grouse, obviously concerned as to what this strange new creature could be.

With deer you can never tell if they’ve seen something before, or not. They are sort of like fairies, or cats, in this regard.  They tend to forget things.

So now we had a staring contest which lasted for a few minutes. One fawn standing stock still, staring at a frozen Ruffed Grouse.

The world waited for the outcome.

Finally the fawn decided perhaps it was nothing to be concerned about, and his body language changed entirely. Now casual and unconcerned, the fawn ambled slowly towards the grouse, nonchalant. Obviously the fawn intended to investigate the grouse up close and personally, a good sniff all over, but was not telegraphing that intention, comfortable in his assumption the grouse hadn’t noticed a thing.

The frozen grouse maintained the same frozen aspect but you could feel the tension mounting.

Finally the fawn was level with the end of the sidewalk, and within five feet of the grouse.

The grouse exploded.  Their wings are fairly loud. The fawn came unglued!! Dust and gravel flying in all directions, the fawn went west and the grouse went east; tail straight up the fawn dug in with all four feet and straight down the hill towards momma.

We can sympathize with the fawn, having been startled on numerous occasions by a frozen grouse we didn’t know was near us. It is adrenaline producing. 🙂

And now the poor momma wanted to know what the hell had scared junior so thoroughly. A doe will stomp her front feet and snort when alarmed about something, and this doe was no exception. She was stomping her feet and trying to figure it all out for some time. The grouse was long gone, and eventually she gave it up as something else she couldn’t understand.

We were laughing so hard and wishing for a video camera.

Been busy lately, reorganizing the house, buying a new bed and moving the one we had been using into the room which was formerly the birds’ room, and moving the birds into the sunroom. All of which sounds simple but entailed a lot of work and a lot of re-arranging furniture, and finding a new home for a futon and chairs which no longer had a space.

Terry seems to like being able to see out and she has lots to say about the change in her location.

Oro is also pretty happy, though he doesn’t really like seeing big birds fly past. And he is sitting right next to a pear apple tree which is going to be attracting bears soon. Pretty sure he’ll come unglued.

We’re probably going to get thermal blinds for this room, to help keep it a bit warmer overnight in the winter.

The large plum tree by the house is starting to drop ripe fruit on the ground, which makes it extremely popular according to the local deer and bear populations. One day we had three individual black bears pay a call. One was a baby who climbed the tree twice!

I took this picture through a window as I knew opening the door would scare the bear away. He wasn’t quite as scared as I thought he would be, when I did open the door. It took a stern “You need to leave!” message before he hightailed it up the hill.

Plus there is a large forest fire due west of us (long way from here since it’s in the Cascades), so it is not presenting a danger to us, except for breathing. It went from around 60,000 acres to 85,000 acres the last two days and it is almost twilight dark today. Cough cough cough.

Visibility is limited to about a mile. Normally we can see over 40 miles looking to the west. And the further west you go, the worse the smoke is. Bleah.

No rain in the forecast.

The good part of this time of year is the fruit harvest from the garden.

This is all the chipmunks and ground squirrels left us this year. We need to do something more drastic with protecting the fruit plants next year. Dang nab it.  Grumble grumble.

I’ve frozen all of this to deal with later this winter.  Gooseberries, pie cherries, josta berries, red and black raspberries.  There are apples left on both trees at the moment.  Pretty sure the chipmunks won’t bother them, but they were like a ravening horde this year, so not counting on it.

The bad news is fires.

Try as I might, I couldn’t get the camera to take a picture of the blood red sun as it set a couple of days ago.

The sun produces so much light that even filtered through the thick layer of smoke which blankets the mountains, it still showed as yellow in the camera lens.  This picture was a couple of nights ago.  Last night the smoke was so thick we never even saw the sun go down!!

So unless things change and improve a lot, we’re going to miss the solar eclipse.  We’ll know it’s happening because it will get dark but we won’t see a thing.

We might get thunderstorms tonight; sure hope not but we can’t see if there are actual clouds on the horizon, and we certainly won’t know if there is lightning unless it’s on top of our heads.  The fire danger is way on the wrong end of the scale for thunderstorms.

Dan mentioned today that in a month we’re going to be worrying about overnight frosts.  Wow.  That’s kind of hard to fathom.