I'm my own Hero

 Ahhh, the skid steer saga once more. I am mechanically dis-inclined. If things don't work, I toss up my hands and walk away. An engine is a mystery to me that I'm not even curious enough to investigate.

Since we had the episode last week of the skid steer not starting again, hubby said that he wanted me to go out and put the battery charger on it and to hook up the engine heater thingy.

I did find the battery and I did hook it up though it was a scary place inside the battery compartment. It is hard to see in there and basically I'm rather afraid of batteries.
My father always told us they'd blow up. Guess that stuck with me.

I recall the tech guy saying that I should charge it on the slower setting rather than the fast one.  I should put it on a maintenance trickle charger or just make sure to use it every so many days. All this I explained to hubby who said I was full of bunk.

So I went out and did it the way the tech told me to. It took two days [I didn't leave it charging overnight ~ it is parked near our huge bales of hay]. 

I got it started! I let it run long enough to warm everything up and then shut it off. I plan on using it this week to fill the bucket with manure from the two nights Little Richard spent in his stall and to fill it with the goat's old bedding. Once the driveway is no long mud-mush, I'll dump it in the huge compost pile.

I've run this thing before but it has been a while. I'd rather hubby feel good enough to use it. I really think it is too much machine for the piddly jobs I have around here. 

However, getting it running was a huge relief and I crossed off one big worry for the moment.

To celebrate, I put on my YakTraks and decided to see what the rain, snow and freeze did to the creek area.

The water did flow from the neighbor's pasture and run into the creek. In some places small dams were created by dead leaves.

I decided to sit and listen to the forest. What could I hear? I heard a chickadee, a bluejay, a hawk, and something walking on the land above the creek. It wasn't a human, perhaps it was a squirrel, coyote, or deer.

I just waited.

Now I should have had a long lens, but I didn't. But there was a deer! 
[Click on the picture to enlarge it]

Can you see the doe? She is almost so well camouflaged that I put an arrow on the photo pointing to her face.

It was a doe and a yearling! They must have smelled me or seen me move and off they went.

So happy little dance for me. I got the scary machine started and I saw some wildlife.

I think I need to make myself a superhero cape.
 

Monday

I'm out of words for the moment as the horrors of an unjust war rages on. I see the news and what is happening in Ukraine. We put up pretty photos of Sunflowers on our Social Media sights an do little prayer emoji's. To what end?

It brings into clear view the pettiness of some of our protests in our country. Protest a mask, a vaccination, drive a truck across the country to show dissatisfaction. And I remind myself that this is a freedom we do have. A right we have as citizens of a somewhat mixed up country. But we are free and do not have tanks driving down our streets or missiles hitting our homes. We are not picking up dead bodies of our neighbors or fleeing and hiding in bomb shelters.

I take a moment to be thankful that I have a roof over my head and I have food and running water. 

My complaints in my ordinary life seem rather trivial today. 

I'm going to spend some time turning off my devices again and going for a walk in the fresh snowfall. 

And I'm going to remind myself just how lucky I am.

Decaf and Weather

 

I do love mornings. The view above is looking out the kitchen window at a pretty sunrise.

Mornings are when I get time to myself in the house. 
Since I love coffee in the morning, but coffee doesn't always love me. I switched over to decaf and it made a huge difference. I thought I'd go through caffeine withdrawal and have terrible headaches.

I didn't. But Folgers Decaf is some of the nastiest tasting stuff around. My son's girlfriend works for a coffee company and while talking with him last week I asked if she knew of any kind of decaf coffee that actually tasted good.

This week, I received a package in the mail.

Yum.

This is one of the flavors. Color me tickled to have a smooth and good tasting coffee in the morning. It helps me start the day out with a brighter mood.

Saturday was all about weather. Warming temperatures, ice, sleet, and then rain. As the temperatures warmed up to nearly 50 degrees, the melting snow and warmer air created instant ground fog.

Even though it was raining lightly, I decided to head out the door and explore the intense weather.

I knew that it would be just a short walk through muck, mud, and ice to get to the runoff area just west of our fenceline.

Aurora was absolutely correct in saying, don't follow the trails. Stay off the beaten path.  This deer trail was treacherous. 

The meltwater and ice follow this dip towards the bigger ditch. 

Certain spots have a little drop into a pool and that creates a mini waterfall.

The foam is due to organic matter in the stream like fall's dead leaves. Chunks of ice were slowly spinning around too.

This drops into another lower spot that is wider. I don't know how many years ago this vehicle was dropped in here, but it was probably used at the time to slow down erosion. Of course the water just goes around it.

Just past this car is another one that is nearly submerged in mud.

I kept walking down the hill to follow the water. I got almost to where the creek that flows into our land starts when I heard thunder and decided to hurry back to the house.

Here is a shot from about the same spot in 2018, after a huge rainfall February 21st.

Another storm came in and now the Kickapoo is flooding. I'm all up for going to the creek bottom and exploring today, even if it is dreary looking.

Who knows what I'll discover now that the temperatures have dropped to just below freezing again?

Just this

Someone suggested that I wear bubble wrap...hmmmm...

Good idea? Maybe!

Moe to Joe: We aren't catching anything!

Joe: From what I understand it doesn't matter. It's just relaxing to sit and do nothing. Relax and enjoy the fresh air.

Moe: And you are still wearing that silly hat.

Joe: It suits me. Let's fish.

Have a great weekend everyone.

For fun, the lighter side of things

My hubby is the man who loved auctions and one who could never turn down a 'good' deal for 'good' stuff. Eventually I realized he was a 'collector'.

So often I'd come home from work and find him unloading his latest prizes.

Him: Hey Sweetie! Look what I got for you today at an auction!

Me [subdued voice]: Um, gee, just what I want. Used pots and pans? I don't even like to cook!

Another time.

He comes home and starts to pull boxes out of the truck bed chatting excitedly about the deals he got. I watch as he starts to pile them up in the garage next to our saddles and bridles. I realize there is not going to be room to park in the garage ever again.

Him: I got you another gift! 

Me: Oh how wonderful a box of 30 white coffee cups! For $2!

One time he came home with a trailer full of metal pipes and another trailer. He was always going to scrap things out. He never has. But he still contends that those pipes and piles of other things are valuable. No amount of begging to have it removed or sold has ever worked.

Then something would break at the farm and he'd go scrounge in his piles of 'stuff' and come up with a way to fix that broken thing. 

Him: See, that is why I have all this good stuff!

Me [cringing]: Of course dear.

Need a 5/16th wrench? There's a bucket of 10 in the shed!
Need hoses for watering? I have 100's of feet of them hanging in two sheds.
Need nails? I have buckets and smushed cardboard boxes of them.
Need barbed wire? Metal fence posts?
Tires for hay wagons?
Scrap metal to weld?
How about a lawn mower or toilet? 
Parts to a hay wagon rack?

Darnit! Why do we only have one single hammer? How could that even be possible?

Him: Sweetie! Look what I got you at auction! Dish Towels!

Me[smacks forehead]: Oh thank you honey, what a prize that is!

I will have to admit though, I've never had to really buy dishtowels. They are ugly colored and mismatched but who cares? Though I have bought a few nice ones to put out when company comes.

Those coffee cups? I did take two into the house. They are the same type that are used in restaurants. They are a nice size and weight. 

My husband was a very talented welder and manufacturer of things needed for a farm. He could make a hay loader for nearly any piece of equipment. He could fit an Olive loader on an Allis Tractor. At one time he could tear down a tractor engine and put it back together.

He once took apart 3 old manure spreaders and put them back together to make a working one.

I smile as I look out at all of his unfinished projects. Sometimes the 'stuff' really bothers me and then I realize I am looking at the history of my husband. All the projects he had in his head and ideas for things. His ideas were good. He just rarely completed them.

Many nights I think about how many auctions I'll need to have at the farm to clean it all up. Surely there is another fella just like my hubby who would marvel and drool over all the Good Stuff we have.

KVR Trail Challenge Old 131 & Robin

Bill had a schedule to maintain, he greets two of his grandsons at the bus stop by the intersection near his house. I had a late start to my day so we decided to take a short easy route.

We thought we'd hike point to point from Gate 12 and the canoe landing south to County P. Any of the trails in the woods would be slushy with ice under the snow, so we opted for the old road.

We've always biked this part of the trail in the summer and thought it would be fun to see in the winter.

Here is the sign at gate 12:

So many people just use a photo of the map to Navigate the Reserve, but that is ill advised. Often, you will lose cell service. I'm an advocate of carrying a map. Some intersections can get tricky and the landscape is such that getting turned around is easy unless you are familiar with it.

We thought the blacktop would be melted off. Well, we were wrong. It was slushy and in some places the snow topped ice and under the ice water was moving. 

This part of the trail is called section 11 on the Challenge paperwork. On one side there are rock formations and little bluffs, on the other side the Kickapoo River flows.

During hard rains or spring floods this section usually gets partially or fully covered by the river.

We found several places were the snow had melted from above and created tiny little waterfalls. If I'd had time I would probably explored some of these rocks. There were little caves that we could see without all the summer foliage hiding it.

So enticing! But we had a schedule to maintain.

The hike was only just short of two miles but the March sun was bright and cheery with a promise of spring soon to come.

We took a break at Bridge 13. This is one of the few remaining Truss Bridges in the State of Wisconsin. At one time every crossing over the Kickapoo between LaFarge and Ontario was constructed this way.
The original highway was built in 1926.

Old 131 trail is the original road between LaFarge, was moved and rebuilt to make way for the Dam Project that never happened in the early 1970's.

Bridge 13 looking north towards Rockton.

Looking west from the bridge. The ice is melting and the river was flowing above and below the ice. 

Here Bill is on the bridge giving Charlie a dog cookie. So far this tiny dog has done all the trails with us. I told Bill I would try and make sure that Charlie made the whole 59+ miles with us even if he needed to be carried part of the time.
Charlie must be our mascot!

After the break we headed south to County P. Here is a shot of Black Hawk Rock from old 131, section 11.

This is zoomed in of course so the outcrop looks closer. In the summer it is harder to pick out this formation due to all the greenery.

And the best surprise of all was the chirping we heard of a Robin!

Lucky us that he/she landed in a oak tree just above the trail. The orange surrounding him Bittersweet.

And that was our really enjoyable hike.

To date we have covered 15 sections and 12 miles. I don't know if that is impressive or not, but coordinating two schedules and working around the weather is pretty impressive.

Just be quiet

Listen to silence

it has much

to say...

~Rumi

I'm in a philosophical mood today. Yesterday was quite the flop. Hubby needed to get out and run his skid steer and I got out his muck boots and walked out with him. I helped him climb into the skid steer and held his 02 backpack.

He hit the button and it wouldn't start. The maintenance guy had told me to start and use it every two to three weeks. I know I should have gone out and done it myself last week, but I met with fierce resistance from the other half.  He has forgotten that I used the skid steer for a year while he was recovering from his stroke and pulmonary emboli. 

I helped him get out of the skid steer and we headed back towards the house. He barely made it even with his little oxygen pack. I opened the door and with muddy boots and all, he collapsed on the couch while I hooked up the concentrator. I stuck the oximeter on his finger and watched as his 02 came up from 77 and his heart rate evened out.

He then instructed me to put the skid steer on a charger and get it fired up.  I am not comfortable about doing things like that and he is not up to it.

I then wondered why on earth are we even keeping that piece of machinery? Why not sell it and or trade it in for a UTV? 

I know how the discussion would go anyway. He is not ready to let it go. And who am I to discourage it? He feels he can still do stuff. 

I did suggest that he do more walking in the house than sitting and watching hours of TV so that he could get the ability to walk out to the shed to use his riding mower.

That was met with a look of distain and crossed arms.

So I decided to be quiet and not say anymore. If I can get that sucker running again, I'll just start it up and deal with it.

Eventually, I'll get things sorted. But for peace in the house, I decided to remain quiet.

His brain says he can, his body says no and he is fighting that idea. After all, wouldn't we all?

I put on my muddin' boots and headed out to take a short walk. 

The chickadees were singing. The crow called out, and a red tail hawk swooped over the meadow.

Listen to silence...
well there really wasn't any sounds of silence...

but I listened to the forest and it helped...

Welcome to March