A Tilling We Will Go...

This is the view I have of the north end of our valley on my way home from work. It takes about 30 minutes to make the commute, which is easy to take because of the beauty and (no) traffic. The only time I wish I lived closer to town is when I'm sleepy! The town on the left is Inkom, ID, which probably has a population of around 500. Big town, huh? The freeway dips down here to the Portneuf River, then climbs back up onto a lava rock mesa, about 500 feet above the river. It is this stretch that sees the worst snow and drifting in the winter. It is only a stretch of about ten miles, and it is really not a big deal.

Yep, that's me posing like the farmer that I am. We have finished preparing the garden plot for this summer. We are planting corn, swiss chard, butterbeans, green beans, tomatoes, squash, peppers and onions. We have raspberries that have wintered over from the previous year, along with our latest discovery: rhubarb! That's right, we have five large rhubarb plants that were discovered by Ken Light, our church friend. Ken came to our place and brought his outstanding (old) Troy-Built tiller to help us prep the soil for the garden and he stumbled into the rhubarb while walking about the property! Of course this just sent Karren over the edge. She is already planning to freeze it, make pies, etc. We will have rhubarb for the entire Marsh Valley!

Ken is a wonderful friend to do us such a great favor by tilling the soil for us. Sure does take the work out of getting the plot ready! He wouldn't even let me pay him for gas. He and his wife Wanda are fabulous. That's the western face of the barn, by the way.

This is a-tilla the hun at work : ) Those old Troy Built's are pretty stout machines. His just chewed its way through the grass and rocks to yield a perfect texture of soil ready for planting. Look at how dark this dirt is! All the soil in these parts is from broken down lava flows and it is almost black. If you keep it wet anything will grow here. That's why potatoes do so well in southeast Idaho. We are not planting any potatoes, but there were a few left from the previous owners that will probably pop up.

Finally, a shot of the tulips that are by the garage. Flowers are appearing literally everywhere on the property. We have just begun to find them. Kind of like a scavenger hunt!

We did buy a new riding mower. It was painful and it set us back a good ways, but we had to have something to keep this growth under control. I had no idea Idaho had such a wet spring. The grass is growing well and the color is deep green. The yard is beginning to look like someone actually cares about this house we live in. If it were only as easy to fix up the inside as well.

Tomorrow I am going to work with a new company after I leave Home Depot at 9am. I received a call from the owner on Tuesday and he was interested in meeting me and talking about the possibility of working part-time with his company, 21st Century Renovations. They do only custom renovations, not clean up of fire damage or that kind of stuff. I met them for lunch on Wed. and we hit it off pretty good. They are interested in someone that is well rounded and flexible, i.e. knows a lot about all phases of construction. They were particularly interested in my sheetrock skills. What I also found out is that they are interested in having me full-time as well! Wish me luck as I try out out my first day tomorrow!

I will of course continue at Home Depot until I decide to throw in with this new outfit. I will of course give Home Depot the customary two weeks notice if it comes to that. I don't like to burn bridges.

Be sure to check in soon for more updates. Things are growing out of control here!

Long Time No Blog!

It is just one of those times. You know, things get wrapped up in knots and you are swept into the currents of everyday life. Time slips by. Next thing you know it's been months and you've ignored the blog. Until today.

PROGRESS REPORT:

We have survived the idaho winter, the glaciers have receded and spring has sprung. The last snowfall was day before yesterday. It was 22 degrees this morning, but we were out this afternoon working in the yard in t-shirts. Glorious balmy breezes were blowing. It was time to continue the clean-up.

Since the snow has melted and the ground is dry we have gotten most of the shingle debris from the fall taken care of, but the rear of the house still has a pile left. We loaded the truck again with shingles (I think this is probably around ten loads at least, not to mention the load that our neighbors helped us take to the dump. If you ever choose to strip shingle off of your roof, for goodness' sake, GET A DUMPSTER TO SHOVE THEM INTO! Lessen learned.

Notice in this last shot the pile of cinder blocks? That is actually stabilizing our internet dish antenna. The hurricane force winds we get on a consistent basis were enough to loosen the pipe in the ground causing us to lose our connection, so I piled blocks around it and it has performed fine ever since. I chose the location for the dish so that it was out of the wind, but apparently mother nature had other plans.

The place is beginning to look like we actually care about our appearance. The front is fairly debris-free and flowers are springing out of the ground everywhere. Karren has begun a rock drip strip around the house to prevent mud from splattering the siding. We removed the gutters last fall before we put the new roof on. I think we'll leave them off. Do you really need gutters in Idaho? We'll find out.

What we need now is a mower. Badly. I had no idea we would have this much grass growth in the spring. Looks like we'll have to go into hock for a riding mower. A tractor is still way too far out of reach until I can pick up a better job. More on that later.

Here's a shot of the rear of the place with Old Tom mountain in the background. Notice the burn scar on the pasture. Morgan (our neighbor) and I did some burning to improve the pasture out back sothat he can graze it this year. It is foolish to own prime pasture but let it go fallow, so I offered to let him graze it with his horses and we will get the benefit of his expertise and labor to help us keep it in good shape.

The white box is the telescope trailer. The main building on the left is the barn. It needs a lot of work too, but it will have to wait its turn. As you can see we've got a few piles of brush to dispose of, but I will wait until I can get a machine to move them far enough down the pasture and away from the house. It would be good to wait for a wet day too. Fires can get out of control quickly here.

This weekend we should be able to finish the shingle clean-up and we may have a solution for the mowing figured out. Our wood pile is beginning to grow for next winter and we have lots of work to do before we will have enough wood. I've got to drop a couple of large fir trees at the end of the house that are too close, and they will provide quite a bit towards our goal.

See you next time!

Gonna Get Me a Job or Bust!

Unfortunately, one cannot live by cross country skiing alone. It must be financed by some type of employment. So far, my Home Depot job has been fun, but I need a full time endeavor to make the bank happy. Full time positions at THD are just not falling into my lap and the application process through corporate is pretty bizarre, so I have been exploring other options... but first! Pics of cross country skiing!

Naturally, I was also trussed-up in my ski trappings, although I look like Jabba the Hut on toothpicks.

We were out in the wilds of Garden Creek Gap, just five miles from our house. This area seems to be an unpopulated back door to the mountain range just to the west of our home. Old Tom is the dominant mountain, topping out at just under 9000 ft. In these pics Karren and I are at about 6000 feet on a gravel fire road known as "Upper Rattlesnake Road," which runs a ridge line due west away from the paved access. We only got about a mile and a half up the ridge before we turned around. It is best to stop before you get too tired to careen out-of-control down the mountain, for that is what we beginners end up engaging in. Sheer madness, but fun!

At about the half-way point we encountered a large covey of grouse and were fascinated by their antics. I managed to get a picture of their tracks in the snow for posterity.

The birds were a riot and they were noisy. They are about the size of a chicken, but much more plump with stubby head and tail. I attempted to get a picture of them but it turned out to look like fly specks on white paper.

We have since been back to the Mink Creek area for a run up the Corral Canyon Trail. As we went up at 3PM the snow was a bit soft and the melting had ruined some parts of the trail. As we neared our limit and turned around the evening cooled, freezing the snow into a crusty ice track, similar to a bobsled run. This made our beginning skiing efforts all the more comical. Neither of us was hurt, but it wasn't for lack of vertical challenges. I fell a total of four times before I removed the damn skis and walked sown the final 1/8 mile. Karren just looks like she was born on the sticks and only fell once. It is difficult to learn how to ski when the trail limits your ability to do anything but fly down a narrow gully two feet wide that is solid ice. Next time we'll wait for new snow or we'll finish earlier before it refreezes.

So, back to the job search. I haven't heard anything from ISU about the position I applied for there, but the HR dept. says it will take some time as the entire population of Latvia applied for the job as well. I also have put my apps into the federal govt. for various park service related jobs and have had a nibble. Hopefully I'll have an at least an interview soon. The local highway dept. office is hiring a position too, so I have a grossly underqualified app filed with them.

I have been contacted by my first private lesson (trombone) student, but I'm afraid I may have scared his parents off with an exhorbitant fee structure. I may have to adjust for regional economic conditions in order to gain any traction with teaching privately. But I CONTINUE TO PERSEVERE!  I will not give up and become a groveling, whiny little pig. There is a job situation out there somewhere, and I will find it and make it my own. Something's gotta give - this 3:30 AM wake up schedule is ridiculous.

So, next time I will report on the snow storm that appears to be developing tonight. Hopefully it will lay down enough snow to furnish our skiing addiction enough powder and we'll be too busy to blog for a while. Or it could be that we'll finally run out of firewood and have to resort to burning money in the basement for heat. That would make for one cold house, let me tell you!

Next installment: Death by Downhill, or Tim gets hired as a mattress tester! Hard work, but somebody's gotta do it...

(P.S. What we are doing is really backcountry skiing, but not many people know what that is, ergo the cross country label)

Tim and Karren Fall Down - A LOT!

We have settled into the rhythms of frontier life here in Idaho and are really enjoying the snow country. Karren and I tried some cross country skiing and liked it, but I wanted more backcountry flavor, so we bought some sliding snowshoes/ski-shoes for our first try at it. It has been fun learning how to stay upright on them and we are beginning to get the hang of it.

These skis are really fun and are perfect for beginners like us. They use a 75mm three pin binding and have built in skins (not fish scales - skins) and they climb easily with great grip. They are also a lot more fun going downhill than snowshoes. I just couldn't see the point of slogging downhill in something clumsy when we could ski. They are not fast going down but that is a good thing for us beginners!

That's my high school chum Kevin Hopkins with us on the West Fork Mink Creek Trail. He and his wife Sarah were visiting and had to herringbone up the trail because they did not bring their skins with them. We made about 1/2 mile up about 500 feet in elevation that day but needed to stop because old, fat, middle-aged folks like Karren and I needed to have enough energy on the way down to try to ski without shaking too much and Kevin was just getting over the flu. He was amazing to be able to do that much cardio workout in that kind of shape. Of course Sarah was zooming all over the place like Picabo Street (famous ski star) and taking great pictures. She looks like she was born with skis on her feet. She made it look easy and gave our group some credibility with the other skiers on the trail. Thanks Sarah!

I can't wait until we can get into the elevated backcountry and learn how to ski those areas. It will be a while, but Karren is such a natural at this I think we'll learn quickly. There is a hut system that I can literally see from my house - that will be a blast! I've heard two avalanches at home already (scary!) so I need to get training with that stuff before we get too far out. I'm also still battling altitude sickness, so that is taking some time to get used to. I have increased from 6000 ft. to 8000 ft. as far as my comfort zone goes, but there are lots of 9000 ft. plus peaks around here that I want to climb. It's really tough to ski when you're dizzy!

We took the back way around the mountain range and traveled in the high country all the way home that evening and Sarah took a stunning shot of the valley where our house is located. It is a different perspective from the other posts previously, and she captured the light at its best.

What a beautiful place we live in. We are truly blessed... with snow.. and zero degrees this morning. Got to take the bitter with the sweet I guess. At least there aren't any mosquitos. Sarah has a picture of a cattle drive down our road that I am begging her to send me. I hope to be able to post it soon. They were following it as they arrived in McCammon. There was a good looking cowgirl on on horse and the old grizzled cowboy that owns the herd in front of our place. I think it was cool that Kevin and Sarah happened to be driving up just as the cattle drive arrived.

More later!

Still Snowing Here and It Doesn't Stop!

Dumped a foot on us last night. The '06 Miata made it about a hundred yards down the road before the snow started to plow up over the hood. Back to the barn she went and out came the F350. I hate to drive it to work (mileage stinks) but I never would have gotten out of our area without the four wheel drive.

Burning some fir in the stove. It's wet and pops like jiffy pop, but it burns and lasts better than the aspen. Home depot has compressed wood fiber stove logs, 6 for $3.85, so I'm putting one of those in the middle to get it stabilized and burning good. I'll buy the whole pallet if the price drops to $2 a bundle (30 lbs per). There is a premium price on cured firewood out here - Bidding starts at $150 per cord for pine! No oak, but if you're lucky you can find a city tree that has to come down. Those are all old elms and burn great. Each piece of elm takes two wedges to split however : (

Just finished shoveling the driveway. Skis n gear come this week. Excited! Never thought I'd be frequenting the ski shops! Hopefully we'll get them and start using them before the snow is gone (smirk). Our dude behind the counter at the ski store had lived in Mechanicsville for a while - go figure. Says he's really relieved to be back in Idaho.

I'll get busy with more pictures soon, so be sure to check at least once a week. Getting up before 4AM doesn't let me get much time for artistic efforts.

I Now Know What Cold Is

Yes Virginia, it is cold in Idaho in January. Right now I sit in the living room of our house at 4PM and the thermometer is reading 6 degrees above zero. When I left for work this morning it was 15 below zero. All this above and below zero stuff makes my head hurt. This is also dangerous cold weather. You can get frostbite in temps like this. Last week I was out shoveling and lost the feeling in one of my fingers. That is a strange sensation; very similar to coming home from the dentist, except you haven't gotten a shot of anesthetic. I happened to be wearing gloves that had the fingers cut out, you know for more dexterity? Won't be using them anymore this winter!

Yesterday Karren and I met a couple of friends and watched them set off on cross country skis. It looks very interesting and we may try it soon. Trying to hobble through the foot deep snow behind them was not fun though. We will need to find an outdoor winter activity for middle-aged fat people, one that won't put us both in the hospital or require emergency calls to a helicopter for evacuation. We can rent equipment from the university cheap, so we can try out different stuff and see what we like. I can see this being a great way to get out and get some real Cardio exercise. We could start out just making a trail around our property. Seems like every hobby we get is expensive though.

Today there was a cattle drive down the road in front of the house. It is fun to see the cowboys on horseback with their herding dogs, driving the cattle forward. The herd had a large cloud of steam overhead, due to the single digit temperatures. It was a romantic sight straight out of the old west and it made me feel like a part of the culture. I got so distracted I forgot to take a picture until they were down the road a ways. If you look closely you'll see the fog over the clump of cows and horses.

Snow is a daily occurrence during January in Southeast Idaho. Even if there isn't actual snow falling, there will be "freezing fog" that drops ice crystals out of thin air. When the light is angled just right there is an amazing interplay of tiny diamonds and colors when this happens.

When the wind is not blowing it is actually fun to be out in the cold, as long as you are moving/doing something. Today I shoveled our entire driveway and sidewalk with no ill effects. I still haven't gotten used to my breath freezing and forming ice in my mustache. The snow itself is quite different from what I've ever experienced in Virginia. When it gets dirty it still acts like snow. The snow on the roadways does not turn into slush, even in the middle of the day. Because of the cold temps it remains frozen as snow and stays there until the plows push it out of the way or the wind blows it off. Often, the cars and trucks themselves blow the highways clean.

"Hear the snow crunch, see the kids bunch" etc. Yes, the snow really does crunch, no matter where you step. Shoveling this white stuff is a breeze compared to fighting with the snow back east. A shovel full of snow only weighs a pound or two, not twenty to forty. It is so dry that it is impossible to form a snowball. Karren is very upset at not being able to make a snowman. However there is a home in McCammon that has one in their front yard, although it is a bit deformed. She wants to go and ask them how they did it.

We are expecting temps in the 20's by the end of the week. It will feel like summer! I'll be able to get in the car when I go to work and not have to worry whether my drink will freeze before the car warms up. I usually have to finish whatever I start drinking on the way to work, because if I leave it in the car while working it is frozen solid when I get off. It sucks to have to go buy another drink because the one you have is frozen!

Well, life goes on here in the frozen wastes. Everyone says the rest of the year is worth the price paid during the winter. I think the jury is still out on that one! I only hope that by the next time I write I still have all my fingers and toes. Have you ever watched those shows about the climbers on Mt. Everest? You know, the ones where they are always stressing the real life drama of people trying to avoid frostbite in 20 below temps? Reality check: I live that now! So keep me in your prayers and think warm thoughts. Maybe the global warming fairy will show up around here sometime soon and give us some relief.

And I thought the guy that was helping us move in was joking when he mentioned thirty below here in Marsh Creek Valley...

P.S. It's snowing again...

Deep Winter Has Arrived in Idaho

Yes, Virginia there is snow in Idaho during the winter. The snow started last week and didn't really stop until today. There were no real snowstorms, just continuous light flurries that would sometimes last for hours or more. The temps have settled into a pattern of 20's during the day and single digits at night, so there is no real melting happening. This keeps the snow light and fluffy, and it crunches beneath your feet as you walk. We now have about 8 - 12 inches of the stuff, yet it is hard to tell exactly because of the influence of the wind blowing it into small drifts.

The surrounding countryside is a winter wonderland and provides a stark beauty. When it is this cold, things are not wasting any energy. You can see a small knot of black angus cattle on the far hillside, huddled for warmth. These cows have to eat and keep their internal furnaces going nonstop in order to survive. The creek is not frozen over yet and the ducks have been playing in the water. Bald eagles are frequent visitors to our pasture and are competing with the hawks for rodents. Pheasant are still all around us and visit each evening across the street from our place.

Yesterday Karren and I put new handles on the kitchen cabinets, replacing the old wooden knobs that the previous owners had installed. They were a lime green, sort of vomit color and they were bugging me badly. GONE! With the exception of five large drawers we replaced them all. We prefer these types of handles to knobs because they won't snag clothing. I got them on closeout from Home Despot. Cabinet hardware can end up costing hundreds of dollars and we were fortunate to find a great deal on these basic but serviceable handles ($8 for 10 handles).

We had Jabba the Hut install them... no, wait! That's me! Too many cookies and disease have plainly taken its toll.

After we had the new handles on we felt more compelled to clean the place. A solid week of flu had left us devoid of energy and the dishes had piled up to record heights. I think this house is beginning to look a bit better on the inside too. Can't wait until I can score a better paying gig in order to pay for some future planned work. We still have to renovate the upstairs and downstairs baths, replace the living room floor, redo the kitchen walls, cabinet doors and the lighting, and much, much more. All we need is the capital to do it.

Next time read about our continuing struggle to survive the harsh winter in, "Shooting the Yeti off the Porch" or "The Miata's in the Ditch Again!" Until then, keep your powder dry. The Zombie apocalypse is near. Thank goodness we're in Idaho, a place not very friendly to zombies (they freeze quickly since they have no internal heat source).