What’s going on around here.

The days are quickly getting shorter. We’ve been having weird Summertime warmth after our two killing frosts, which helps with the wood harvesting. I’m almost done. (I’m always almost done, no matter what it is I’m doing.)

When things go wrong, it slows things down.

Now that is what happens to a chain when the tree decides to fall the wrong way and traps the saw. I have noticed that my diminished eyesight has made ‘reading’ trees rather difficult, which increases the fun of felling. And the danger. It’s bad enough that I’m having to go ‘into the forest’ to get trees, which requires cutting a path through to get at the trees and get them out. Then clearing the path again as each and every log (section of tree) decides to hang up on something, despite the last length having been dragged through. I’m struggling more with getting the bits out than with the actual slicing and loading.

And I have plenty of other problems as it is.

The truck is performing the same as before. The engine works well, the seats are nice, I can haul more wood per trip – and it’s a right pain otherwise. The trailer is holding up too. I’ve got about two more loads to go. I hope. I’m rushing back out Thursday to try and get one more (I’ve got some logs on the ground there already) before the holiday Monday, when it’s supposed to rain. Or snow. Yes, snow. We have been threatened with the first fall of flakes. It won’t amount to anything or stay, but … signs of things to come.

Foggy every morning. At the start of the day you can’t even see the lake from the shore.

Soon it will be time to shut down the whole place. I haven’t done much photography of late because there’s not much to take pictures of. The wildlife has wandered away save a few birds and squirrels and three (now dead) packrats. This is the last interesting animal I’ve seen:

This may change, but until then here’s another picture of the moon:

I like the moon. (Nikon P610 @ 1440mm handheld.)

And as the sun sets rapidly in the West …

Signs of life

And more.

The work continues here. Sometimes it even yields results:

Much neater than everything crammed in any which way with stuff left outside.

Of course despite the re-purposed cabinetry and improvised shelving there’s still more stuff than space. More things need to be tossed, and since it’s all been badly stored it’s not heart-breaking to do so. No want wants to keep mouldy, rotting, and broken items. Consider also that it was used before it came here to be used again.

All has not been good, of course, as yesterday Connor had a Close Encounter of the Bear Kind while trail riding. For some reason the beast ignored Jesse who had just gone past and chose to make enquiries of his cousin instead. Probably because Maverick the dog was with the latter. It was the big bear that wouldn’t back down from the neighbour and seems to think he owns the place. Oh yeah, bear? You can pay the damn property taxes then! See how you like that. Actually sending him in to the CRD office you hand over some nuts and berries for fair change might be interesting. I know I would be amused.

I was not amused by how ill I felt after doing just a little work in yesterday’s heat. It would be nice if there was some sort of obvious cause and effect relationship that would lead to a definitive diagnosis of the underlying source of trouble, but no. I just find myself feeling really unwell at times. Not quite go-to-the-ER this time, but close. Happened on a Monday too, same as last time. Hmm. Maybe I’m allergic to Mondays. I bet that’s it. A pretty common ailment.

This morning we had some visitors early on:

Better than bears! The fawns played around the yard for a while, investigating things with cat-like curiosity while Mama kept a watchful eye on them – and me:

I’d like to say there’s not much left to do here, but that would be a lie. Oh right; this is the Internet so … there’s not much left to do here. Actually not much left for the lads to do so they’ll probably head back to the land of air conditioning just as the temperatures here are going to get interesting. (There is currently a significant fire burning near Lytton, the town that was wiped out by fire last year. If you think you’ve got problems …)

Not sure what, if anything, we’ll tackle today. Not good to work hard every day. Not for me anyway.

Too day

Back home for a bit. How long? Well …

Let’s start with the trip back on Monday and having to be in 4WD for about 1/3 of it because the rain combined with the ‘grading’ of the road made for many kilometers of muck to power through. Thanks, road crew. One day you may even learn how to do it right. It went right into solid raining that evening so I don’t expect it’s getting better out there.

Shopping. Why do I even bother to make lists? Whatever I want, they haven’t got it and don’t know when they can get it. The only certainty is that if the stocks are replenished the prices will be higher. This project has already gone in to the “outrageously expensive” category, and it would be worse if I could get the missing bits. Hmm, maybe they’re helping me out there? No, it’s just dragging out the pain.

Now tomorrow it’s supposed to maybe not rain as much. That’s the update from “sunny”, made necessary because I planned to fix the trailer that day. Can’t have any co-operation on anything, can we?

The ‘work crew’ chickened out and want to wait until there’s fewer mosquitoes. So that would be what? January? Maybe February. It has been an awful year for mozzies and with the weather continuing to alter between rainy and hot the little buggers will continue to breed like crazy.

Another odd thing is that when I first tried to fire up the new computer at home it ran in to problems. I had to boot it in ‘recovery mode’ and reset some files because the CPU was timing out. Nothing like seeing hardware failure errors being reported on the brand new laptop you got to replace the one full of hardware failures, eh? Eventually I got it talked ’round to working, but I wonder if another jostling trip down the road will shake it loose again. It shouldn’t be a physical problem, and yet there’s nothing else that happened which could cause the change. On the upside it does work with the wireless printer and with the card reader. 90% success so far.

We’ll see how the rest of the week goes. Lawn needs mowing here again but it may not stay rain-free long enough to do it.

Mother & child. Taken with Canon G11, through the window early on a cloudy morning. Significant cropping.

A buck

You never know what will wander into the yard.

Meanwhile it’s time to get back to work, despite the recent resurgence of problems.

This may not be such a good idea, even with a bottle of nitro brought along.

Stop.

Driving on a glacier. Not a good idea so …

Video of the attempt (partial)

How hot was it?

We are currently experiencing a historically unprecedented heatwave here in BC. Records are being set daily, including Lytton giving Canada a new all-time high of 49.5C/121F. Here at the cabin we’ve hit 41, which is the hottest it’s ever been here. The heat is supposed to break tomorrow, with thunderstorms. This brings up another problem: lightning. We already have two large, out-of-control wildfires burning not too far away. The smoke cast a haze in the air here this morning. Welcome to Hell.

In fact I’ve only been able to work a couple of hours in the morning before it gets too hot to do anything. I’ve not been going out unless absolutely necessary, and we don’t even let the dogs stay out for long. It’s a case of “just get through this”.

Some bad news: two of our cats have gone missing and the outlook for them is not good. There is water and prey out there if they can find it, but …

Few photos being taken, due to the heat. But here are a few.

New flower. I don’t know what it is; never seen one before.

Robin’s egg blue. I quite like this pic.

Beyond the immediate area many things are happening. BC’s state of emergency will finally be lifted July 1, and many rules relaxed including mandatory mask requirements. I will wait until my 2nd shot (on Friday) has had time to take effect before I doff the N95. Unless I have to keep wearing it against wildfire smoke. *sigh* I’m used to that.

Of late

We are finally at the cabin together. It wasn’t easy. Along the way the road bumps took a few casualties among the packed goods, such as reducing a dozen eggs to half a dozen. The jostling alone did the damage, and it took me a couple of hours to clean up the mess once we got here.

The place is far from done. It’s just usable. But my poor wife hasn’t been able to stay out here since 2018 due to one thing or another or even more. The cats are very unhappy about being here, growling and hissing at each other and the world in general. Two of them have “left home”. They should return once they’re hungry. The dogs are fine. They love adventure. I’m not so keen on it myself.

This was the big ‘sticking point’ for being able to fully occupy the place. Fortunately a couple of friends dropped by and help me lift the top piece on to the base. Three old guys that took. Many thanks to Wally and Danny ’cause otherwise I’d have had to build a crane or something. I swear the top alone is 200 lbs.

Of course with the dogs around the wildlife has taken off so no more deer. Probably no more bear or woodchuck or other sizable beasts. Fortunately they are smarter than the dogs, who’d try to play with a wolverine if they found one.

Timmy the Idiot; a yearling buck who kept coming ’round and poking in the ash pit.

The mosquitoes are still here. They seemed to disappear Saturday when the temperature got up to 97 (sorry Celisus; you’re no good for daily living). It’s expected to be 108 tomorrow and Tuesday. This is highly unusual for the area. Inside the cabin it was only 75. Now this morning it’s 60 outside so the windows are open to let the temperature drop. Once it starts climbing again I’ll close up and keep the heat out. It works and it’s cheaper than air conditioning.

We’ll be out here now while I continue working. Not sure what I’ll get done, but there sure is a lot left to do. Going to go slow during this heat wave of course, and not planning on going back to town for anything until next Friday.

Just an update post

Work, work, work. Rain, rain, rain. Mosquitoes, mosquitoes, mosquitoes.

That about covers it.

Note the lack of “photographs, photographs, photographs”. It hasn’t been suitable in any way for that.

I am making progress on the cabin, but every step just reveals more that needs doing. It’s like painting a huge bridge – that just keeps getting longer the further you go. A Mobius project?

The livingroom is starting to look like a room instead of a warehouse.

Once again there is further evidence I’m too old to be doing this, as I seem to be breaking out in spontaneous bruising. Unexplained subdermal haemotomas. It seems effort alone is enough to burst the blood vessels. That’s not good. Especially not when moving large amounts of heavy furniture around.

By the way, the last trip out here I managed the road at the breakneck speed of 34 KPH (21.5 MPH). Yeah, it just keeps getting better. Not. The additional rain we’ve had since then probably hasn’t done it any good either.

Dashcam view of the road crew on the one day this year they were there. They scraped 1/2 a KM that didn’t need any work, then went home.

It seems I have a deadline of this weekend to make the place habitable as the Mrs. wants to come out and stay – for the first time since 2018. I can’t say I don’t blame her. Unfortunately she’ll bring our zoo with her, and that means certain projects have to be done ahead of then as the animals will get in the way. It also means the wildlife will vanish for the most part.

Unfortunately mosquitoes are not one of the creatures that will leave when the pets arrive. Oh well. Back to work.

Over Winter

I was surprised to find the game camera at the cabin stayed working over the Winter. It took some pictures of interesting visitors. The first one was the very next picture after I had left with my last load of wood (albeit in the next month).

Some of the visitors were more “ordinary”.

Some were totally unwelcome!

Some came by night!

I’ve been trying to get a good moose picture for years! Lots of them about, but they are elusive.

Baby bears aren’t uncommon either. Other shots showed he was traveling with a sibling – and mama!

I’m not exactly certain, but I think this is a wolverine! Never seen one here before. Possibly a fisher.

This morning I was visited by three otters, which also are not usual here.

In fact even the birds have been unusual this year, with first the Barrow’s Goldeneye …

And then a pair of surf scoters:

Meanwhile work progresses. I won’t bother with any of those photos until I get to the point where it looks like something.