I Love Our Micro-climate

The day before yesterday the weather report on the radio said the over night low temperature in our nearest “Big City” was 6 below zero. I spoke to a friend in the saloon last night and he said it was an even zero degrees in “our” town that same night. Out at our place it was 27 above. When I first bought The Gulch one of the old time ranchers told me he use to run cattle up there when he was a kid. He said we would always be 10-15 degrees warmer during a cold snap. It has always been warmer than town during the winter and 10-15 would be a good guess at the average difference, but this 27 degree difference is by far the greatest I’ve seen.

Fall chores done

Firstly, here is a piece of vintage goodness with thanks to Wolfie for finding it.

Women – Know Your Limits

We finished cutting next years firewood last week, and I killed this big cow elk yesterday.

This is my first Montana elk. After all those years of killing one nearly every year where we use to live, these up here have been more elusive. The really funny thing is this was by far the easiest animal out of the 20+ I’ve ever killed. I stepped out of the truck to shoot it, and it died in the center of the road one switch-back above us. It was also the farthest shot (200+ yards) I’ve ever made at an animal. Much thanks to T for knowing exactly where they were this year.

Huntin’ season

Season opened a couple of days ago but what with vehicle maintenance and hurting my back, today was the first day we went out. I was laying awake in bed at dark thirty when my buddy D texts me that he’s sitting in his truck waiting for first light about a mile from my place. I look out the window and there has been a skiff of snow overnight….alright I’m talked into it at this point and go down and wake up The Boy. I send him up to the prime standing location, and I start out on the 3 mile loop to drive ‘em to him. After three hours I’ve looped back to when he was supposed to be but he’s gone. This isn’t a big surprise I had only told him to stay there at least an hour. I didn’t manage to jump anything except a handful of squirrels and a couple of red-headed woodpeckers. When I got back to the house The Boy told me he spotted 3 deer just 15 from the house and another 3 about five minutes after that, but there weren’t any bucks that he could see. It’s been snowing ever since I got back, there should be some really good hunting when this breaks. Hopefully this will also drive the elk down.

Things I’ve Missed Sharing Lately

We got our first snow this year.

I’ve been keeping the pressure caner busy. (pickled beets/onions/turnips, apples, and chicken noodle soup less the noodles)

I’ve been baking once a week and I’m probably going to need to make it twice. Four loaves just aren’t lasting.

We’ve been putting up next years wood.

I got 15 laying hens, a waterer, a feeder and 75# of feed for free yesterday. The gal offered me a big roll of chicken wire on the phone and I forgot to get it, I guess I’m going back.

The boy and I harvested the carrots today, and turned the peas and carrots bed. The god damned gopher (GDG) managed to get about 7/8 of what had left. Today I also decided all gophers within 1 mile of the gardens will die come spring.

One Step Closer

Back in ‘99 when the lil’ lady and I bought our first house I bought an old military dodge and mounted a large Meyer’s plow on it to keep our short (compared to now) driveway open in the winter. I moved the whole rig up here and used it the first couple of winters when we were renting the place in town. A couple of years ago a guy was selling a 50’s model John Deere tractor with a loader and I traded him the ol’ dodge (without the plow) for the tractor and an International 4×4 with a huge PTO winch……That winch at idle ripped the front bumper right off The Dodge when it got stuck one winter………. I reasoned I’d use the tractor and the winch rig more. It didn’t really work out that way, but it’s looking like The Boy will be getting “Elmer” (the International) and I will get the Deere into service next year.

Last year my father-in-law gave me “The Kaiser” a ‘71 CJ5 with a Western plow already mounted. I was so pressed for time last year I couldn’t get the Meyer mounted on anything and with my fingers crossed resigned myself to keeping my road open with The Kaiser. He did really well even though that road really needs a rig that weighs more than 3000#. Mind you last winter was pretty mild, we never had more than three feet of snow on the roof at anytime, as compared to six feet on the ground the year before. But anyways today I mounted the big plow on the one ton Dodge. I spent yesterday doing my Annual Fall Plow Truck Maintenance Repairs on it, which included replacing the other axle lift block among the usual fluid changes and checks.

I don’t think I ever shared the corporate stupidity I ran across this summer with the Dodge, so here it is. Think about a super heavy duty truck with the most powerful (at the time) diesel engine available, the strongest (at the time) one ton axle available, same with springs and add air bags that have allowed me to pull loads that will make a “Super-Duty” squat like a 1/2 ton. Trust me I saw this this summer after I blew out the rear drive shaft. Anywho, those idiots replaced the almost solid cast iron axle spacer blocks with hollow aluminum blocks. Mind you people who don’t abuse……I mean haul as much as me up roads that are represented by two dashed lines on maps would probably never know. As for myself, I had one crumble and fall out this spring, and the one I replaced yesterday had chunks missing from the sides.

Enough for today.

No More Leaks….for real this time

We finished putting up the Frost Guard (self-adhesive, fiber reinforced, self sealing, tar paper) on the whole roof today. I can barely move my right arm, but I can check one more thing off the Must Do Before Snow Flies List.

Monster Power / New Neighbor

We got a new Gulch neighbor (one of ‘em pesky anarchists), and installed enough solar panels (with help from the new neighbor) to run the whole house. The first four from the left are mine, the other eight are his, which I was able to find a secure place to store them for him.

Speaking of solar we are picking up huge amounts of passive solar heat now that it is fall. This is what was planned except we are still getting daily highs near 90 degrees. Thanks god we have so much mass that the lows in the forties equal it out.

New Toy for the Backyard

I’m not sure if I have shared any pictures of our backyard yet. I know a lot of the land in front of the house has been shown in the home pics, but here are some of the other direction.

A friend of mine was hurting for money the other day and made me a deal on a new (for us) 4-wheeler that was too good to not grab. So we now have three, next year hopefully we can find another good deal so we will have one for everyone. The new one is pictured on the far right in the following pic.

I wrote about our early harvest of potatoes in the last post, here is what they look like closer up, and the fixings for that nights dinner. I need to thank bff for the seed for these wonderful spuds too.

The only thing we bought for that dinner was the beef, and come hunting season we won’t even need to buy that. Every year we provide more and more for ourselves. What a great feeling. Oh, the sherry was donated to us after J. left it at a friends house where it wasn’t loved.

Harvest time.

We had an early VERY light frost about four days ago. Everything made it through except for the potatoes, so we harvested them today. Next year we will be planting our spuds on May 1 instead of June 1 we ended up with only 6X our seed because most hadn’t gotten bigger than 1.5″.

We have been trying to run a full load through the pressure canner every week. Last week we did 31 pints of BBQ pork, pork broth, and hot dogs.

We have a raincheck for 60# of chicken that was on sale for .80/# this week that we are picking up tomorrow. This I will be canning as chicken and noodle and chicken and rice soup. I expect to get 74 pints of soup.

The Boy and I have been working on our root-cellar for over a month now. We have hand dug at least 30 YD3, but it’s almost done and right in time to start taking in our root crops.

This is what it looked like before we drained it.

Here are some pics from our summer party we had a few weeks ago.

This is why it is so unwise to fall asleep before 9PM at a party:

One last thing. We have lots of wonderful Morel mushrooms up here, but the Giant Puffballs that were fairly common where we use to live are much more rare. Lucky we have friends who know we like them and share.

On the Brighter Side

My last post here was a little gloomy and I will be trying to get away from that, but thought I’d share what I discovered upon further reflection of that post. My town is small enough I know these people who want to violate my Rights . I know where they work, play, sleep, what kind of pets they have, who they are having affairs with, what they drink, etc…. When you can no longer use the shroud of anonymity to believe these individuals are faceless animals a whole new reality opens up.

But on the brighter side, there is a local couple here who are interested in buying property adjacent to The Gulch. This is a piece that I would like to have owned by like-minded individuals, and they seem to at least mostly fit that description. They are self described libertarians, who have a flock of chickens and I know he likes to shoot. Along this same thread of thought, a friend from the NW (who I know fits) is showing up this week to make an offer on another piece adjacent to The Gulch. Oh, and a couple of pieces not in the “greater gulch” area, but just over the hill sold this month. I’ve worked with the guy who bought one of them, I don’t think he’s any more libertarian than most here (which is still better than damn near everywhere else) but he’s already asking about buying goats and chickens and wants to homestead. I haven’t had neighbors in a long time, I just hope they all turn out more like my best friend P who I met as a next door neighbor, and not at all like that prick neighbor from Chicago we once had.

Just ran across this excellent quote about Nock’s priceless essay Our Enemy the State, and felt it really relates to my recent posts.

This very great book reminds us that the State is at once a myth and a terrible reality. It is a myth in the sense that it has no validity outside the twisted, crooked mentalities of totalitarians. It is also a reality in the sense that, whenever it is allowed to usurp the throne of Government, it not only commandeers the power that corrupts but, in order to give finality to its ascendancy, it must acquire for itself, and for itself alone, the absolute power that corrupts absolutely.