Firewood is ready

One of the biggest tasks of Fall is getting all the firewood split and stacked. We get a Tri-axle load of wood every other year so it can start drying out for the following year's wood burn. It will be stacked in the sun and dried for up to 2 years before it is burnt. This allows us to get green timber. We add anything we "find" usually in the middle of the road to help complete the two year time span. We move the wood we are burning for the winter under our two porches, which is just enough to last the winter. When burning season is over it is gone, this keeps the bugs away from the house since in the winter they are not active in the firewood.

Lee got stuck with doing the firewood this year as I have been working away from the house during the daylight hours. Now that it is all spilt she will stack it in the sun on skids a distance from the house. Seems like quite a few hunters have been up for archery season. The bucks are definately running the doe as I have seen quite a few in the evening coming home. Last night I saw a bear getting ready to cross 144 just before Button Hollow road and a porcupine at the top of Cedar Mt. The leaves are mostly off the trees preparing them for the snow that is sure to come. It has been cold enough to remind us that winter is shortly around the corner. It is too bad we can't schedule snow for when and how much we want and leave out all ice. There is nothing prettier than a fresh snow in the mountains and nothing scarier than freezing rain or ice on the roads. Phil has just about finished salvaging out the trailer and is down to the final floor. It will be nice when it is all cleaned up and done. Mountain girl, Paula, logging out and heading up the mountain.

Tough Times for Mountain Girls

Well, this year is going out poorly for us. Last Tuesday Lee Anne complained of severe nausea  upper back pain and shortness of breath late night on the 11th of December. It is a long way to the hospital when you are in pain and on bumpy roads. We got there close to midnight, I feared she might be having a heart attack, since they tell you those are the symptoms for women. Turns out she had a badly infected gall bladder. They took it out on the next day, but could not do it laproscopically, since she had previous surgery adhesions. So she ended up with about a 7 inch long incision under her right rib. Recovery is more difficult when the surgery  is done this way and she was in a lot of pain. 

Two days after the surgery I came home after visiting her during the day, I received a call she had gone into intensive care for A-fib(heart problems). I spent all night watching the monitor along side her bed and things even out enough she could come home on Sunday. Lee is very drug sensitive and we felt it had been a reaction to one of the drugs they gave her. However, to be on safe side we are going back today for echo-cardiogram. 

You would think that would have been enough drama from the entire year, but the day after I brought her home Scooter and Leo got into a bad fight over a grouse on my woodpile left my some hunters for me. Try as I might I was helpless alone to get them apart in the wide open space. They fought until one of them didn't move (Leo). I put Scooter away and went back to retrieve Leo. I had fears he might be dead, but he was standing and limping toward me. I had to take him to the Vet to be fixed up, Scooter came out good enough he just needed some antibiotics.

So now I must find a new home for Scooter preferably without other dogs. I can't risk anymore fights it is dangerous for the dogs and anyone trying to separate them. Needless to say I have shed more than a few tears over this decision, but it is the right thing for both of them and us. Scooter has gone everywhere with me the last five years as many of you know from watching the blog. He will be 6 in May is neutered, has good basic obedience commands and loves to retrieve tennis balls. He weighs 95 lbs so he is not a little dog and he loves attention sometimes a little overbearing in that regard. If you know of someone who can give him a good home email me directly at campeaglebear@yahoo.com. Don't post a comment if you want me to contact you because I can't respond directly to you.

So along with a low amount of work and high expenses. I have decided to sell five acres of land I own on the other side of the road. It is all wooded on the North slope and has Buck Run Creek going through it. If you are interest see sidebar and contact me direct. It is also listed under Zillow.

2013 can only be up. Mountain girl, Paula, logging out.

Where I have been.

So much to catch up on since my Easter Blog. As many of you know Lee's nephew was going through treatments for Luekemia for the last year and a half. Much of our time has been devoted to trying to help as much as we could. Neal unfortunately at 18 years of age succumbed to his disease while I have been in San Diego visiting my son who I haven't seen for a couple years. Lee is on her way to the funeral in Illinois and I will be meeting her there next week. Neal was courageous in his battle and attitude for life and it is never easy to say good bye to one so young.

On the other side of the country I have been enjoying some time off from work with my son, Hal. He introduced me to a series of videos about our National Parks that National Geographic did. It is called, "Ken Burn's National Parks America's best idea." It is a six part series each one being 2 hours long so no small feat to complete. But it is well worth the time spent understanding how the parks started and the battles between commercial and public issues that still exist today with our gas well exploration in our area.

The movies make you think about how you view the use of land, animals and plants that are irreplaceable once they are gone. I have strong feelings about how our State forest is managed, which were definitely reawakened by this program. So while I am out for a while you can fill in your wild hunger with this and not be disappointed. Mountain girl, (temporarily displaced in a desert) logging out.

Primary 2011

Lee Anne, Jackie O Neal, Sue Bonniger and I spent from 6:30 am to 8:30pm helping the township voters cast their ballots for the primary.
We had 24 of the 28 eligible voters show up. Pretty good for a primary and the fact it was a rainy gloomy day. After the voting ended Lee and Jackie drove the ballots to Wellsboro and Lee didn't get home until after 11pm so a long day.
The day started with the phone line being ripped out by one of the dump trucks. So Sue improvised by using a walkie talkie to reach her place and having Eldon make any phone calls we needed.
This was the first event to be held in the newly remodeled schoolhouse and most were pleased with the changes.
It takes just about everyone we have in this
township helping to make things work with so few residents. We are the least sparsely populated township in the state of Pennsylvania. Four township positions are open: one supervisor and three auditor positions all of which were write-ins making for a long process to cast your vote.
It takes 10 people writing you in to put you on the ballot for fall. As you can tell that can be a challenge with only 28 people voting and not everyone wishing to take the time to type in names one letter at a time.
All in all it was a fun day of seeing everyone and catching up on the latest. Ron Andrus said he found the Big Bull elk dead on April 17th and the DCNR is doing an autopsy to see how it died(no traumatic injuries were apparent). I guess a smaller male had died last year so that only leaves one in the area he knows about. For any of you needing to get rid of trash, spring cleanup is June 11th 8-noon at the township building. Lee is holding down the fort for a week while I am off to my dad's memorial this weekend in Wisconsin. I am hoping this rain will be done when I get back. Mountain girl, Paula, logging out.

Lifting a mountain girl

Lee and her sister Diane finished staining a large cabin in Leetonia last week. They did everything except this back from ladders. At first Lee was a bit nervous about riding in the bucket, but once she got the hang of it she loved it. It reached the hard to reach spots near windows over 30 feet high without the need to move a ladder or worry about it falling.
I am afraid the one downside to this rental was that now Lee never wants to use a ladder again. Something I think the people at the Wellsboro Rental place secretly know before they rent these addicting machines out. Although, this unit was nice on this camp it is limited to places you have enough room to set it up. They have another unit which is larger and is self-propelled eliminating the space needed for the truck to move the unit. Lee painted the whole back side in one long day(about 11 hours).
The summer has been bad for doing outside painting jobs until just recently when the weather changed and has been much drier. Now all we have to worry about is frost. Mountain girl, Paula, logging out.

Winter's wood lines up

Lee finished splitting and stacking the firewood for next winter this week. There is something that gives you a sense of comfort just seeing it line up to dry in the summer sun. This batch of wood is all from a Tri-axle load of tops we had delivered about a year and a half ago. They were lumbering just up the road from us which made it convenient to get. I don't know how many 40' logs there were but I know Lee is glad to see them all converted into small burnable pieces.
We have an old hand made splitter, which makes the work a little
easier, but it is still rough work. They say you get warm twice when you burn wood to heat: once gathering and splitting the wood and the second time burning it. I do know it is a constant task to make sure we get the wood cut far enough ahead to season well. Green wood will burn, but not very hot and it takes more of it to stay warm.
The chipmunks love the stacks of firewood to hide under and keep the dogs busy chasing them around and around the piles. Last night the dogs chased something a little bigger as we sat on the porch. A mother bear and cub appeared and I had to do some quick dog calling to keep them from getting into too much trouble. Thor, the three-legger is not at all afraid to give chase.

I told him when he came back, "You don't have many legs left you can loose, so don't be chasin that bear." He just panted at me not at all absorbing the consequences of his actions.

There is a mother bear with three cubs not far from here. It seems the bears have survived and thrived through the winter. Mountain girl, Paula, logging out.

Fall Ritual

I have always said there are really only two seasons up here in Leetonia: wood gathering season and wood burning season.

The logs you see in the picture are tops cut above our place by loggers last fall. After spending time, gas, money on permits, and stress on my vehicle. I have decided spending the money to have logs delivered is more cost efficient for me.

As you can tell there is still plenty of work to do after the logs are
here. They have to be cut into fireplace size pieces, split, stacked and dried for a year. Lee is splitting the firewood for the 2009-10 winter. The firewood for this year still needs to be moved close to the house before snow. We usually stack both porches full and find that makes it through the winter.

I don't like to keep wood on the porch year round because of some of the insects in it like to eat wood houses just as much as they do firewood.

The last picture shows you the progress Lee has made through the stack. The first picture are the logs yet to be cut and split. I am afraid I am not much help this year with my lifting limit still at 30 pounds so Lee is stuck with the entire job. I did notice Scooter "helping" by dragging fairly large pieces away to chew on. If we could just teach him to stack them he could pay for some of that dog food he eats. Looks like beautiful weather for the weekend and we are enjoying the pleasant temperatures. I am sure there will be a hum of chainsaws and splitters running this weekend as camps and homes try to off set the cost of heating this winter. Mountain girl, Paula, logging off.