The misty days of Leetonia

Trailer leaves the woods

For those of you interested in the trailer it has found a good home. We bid it farewell and remember the fun days of having friends stay there and enjoy the woods. We still have the deck for sale and some leftover steel roofing. Also anyone wanting a full RV hook-up where the trailer used to sit it is for rent by the day, month or season. Contact me at campeaglebear@yahoo.com for more info.

On to other subjects I wish my camera could have caught the picture the other night when I was driving home in the dark. It was a misty,foggy night. The water droplets hung on the trees in a way the light from my headlights made them glow. The fog kept my travel slow and shadows danced through the trees. On a night such as this alone in the woods, dark and foggy, your mind plays tricks on you. You think you see a bear or something moving ahead and when you reach it there is nothing. It makes you feel that something supernatural is out there. Your brain goes to wild-men or Bigfoot.  During the day it is easy to laugh at such folly of the mind. But I assure you the next time you are alone on such a night in the woods it isn't hard to go to a very dark and scary place. 

Usually, this kind of post would be a good Halloween post but it came early in August this year. Mountain girl, Paula, logging out.

Trailer for Sale

I am selling the trailer in front of our house for anyone interested. It is 22', needs water heater and awning. I am also selling the composite deck in front of it.  The deck is 10' x 16'. I would like $1500 for Trailer and $500 for deck. 

It is hard to believe it is getting near the end of July. Why does summer go so fast and winter so slow. The hummingbirds are picking up interest in the feeders. We don't have near the ones we usually do as we didn't put feeders out at the beginning of the season, since we were going to be gone. Lee only has 3-4 feeders up instead of the usual 17. I think in some ways she is glad to only have to feed a few of them.

Enclosed a deck for a guy in Germania and I have a ton of small jobs to finish up before the end of the summer. It always seems like the small jobs use up the most time. The weather promises rain much of the weekend so it will be hard to get much done outside in the way of painting. 

The marathon through the canyon is this weekend. I will be up bright and early Sunday to help with one of the water stations about a few miles down Painter-Leetonia Rd. It is always interesting to see the different kind of people that choose to run. It poured last year and I am hoping the rain holds off some this year. Any of you interested in the trailer email me or stop in. Mountain girl, Paula, logging out.

Mountain Solar tank

Well, necessity is the mother of invention or so they say. The other morning, Diane, Lee's sister, informed me the rug in the trailer bedroom was wet. I knew we water was leaking somewhere. Sure enough, the water heater tank had corroded and broken leaking water across the floor. Water heaters for trailers are very small only 6 gallons, but the price not so small $250. I had been planning to build a passive solar collector in front of the cabin using an old water heater tank. The water from our well is very cold around 45-50 degrees all year. It takes a lot of energy to heat the water up with a hot water heater. Using a tempering tank has been common up here for years, but adding the sun to heat the tank is not as common. The instructions had been to make an insulated box and cover it with insulated glass. Well, for the moment I didn't have any glass and I decided to see how much heat the tank would produce without all the extras. It is only going be working during the summer month on the trailer. So I built a sleigh like looking holder to tip it towards the angle of the sun the same as the latitude 41 degrees. I ran the cold pressurized water in and with the tank painted black the sun should do the heating. I will take some temperature measurements at the end of the day today to see how hot I can get it. There is 50 gallons of water so it will take a while to heat up. I do plan on putting some insulation behind the tank and maybe some reflective surface toward it. But no glass for now.
Lee complains my solar system looks like a Red Neck still. She doesn't think it looks too good. My offer to put some decorations on it did not soften the critical view of its beauty. I will rate its beauty on BTUs. If it heats the water to shower ability..it will be the most beautiful thing in the woods. Mountain girl, Paula, logging out.

The good, the bad, and the ugly.

Well, one thing for sure things are never boring in Leetonia. Lee's sister, Diane, has moved in with us and we set up the trailer for her to have some personal space in. Diane has had a campfire almost every night since she came. She is enjoying the benefits of living in the woods. Diane will be helping us with painting, cleaning and odd jobs during the summer until she finds other employment. I think she is starting to like being up here and leaving may be harder then she thinks. That just about covers the good.

Now for the bad. I was asked to cut down four trees that were dying and dead. The first two went flawless in the direction I intended. The next one was leaning towards the power lines and I thought I could get it to go the other way. As you can see I was wrong. I believe trying to cut a 30" tree with a 16" chainsaw was my first mistake. I couldn't come in evenly in on the back cut and the tree spun and fell neatly on the lines causing some sparking and the end to power for about three hours. Also causing me personal embarrassment. The guys coming to fix it weren't too pleased with me, but so far I haven't gotten a bill. That was the bad for the day.

Now for the ugly. The injured bear was spotted again by Pettits last night in downtown Leetonia. She said the bear appears to be healing well enough to eat. The bear is the ugliest bear in Leetonia, but it is alive and apparently doing okay. Well we cleaned most of the tree mishap up and it is time for a little R&R in front of the fire. Mountain girl, Paula, logging out.

Changes in Leetonia

For those of you who haven't been up in the last month, I have taken a couple pictures of the latest change to Leetonia. A trailer has been moved into the site of the old store, which was torn down about two years ago. It is unfortunate to loose such a landmark and have it replaced by a trailer, but with lack of any ordinances against trailers and one across the street it is difficult to stop.

Although, I have nothing against people wanting to come to Leetonia it is a shame to put something like this in such a prominent spot in town.

The Petite camp is the most affected with a large mound of dirt not more than a hundred feet from the front of their cabin. Their only saving grace is the row of pines which somewhat block the view.

As you can see it snowed again and is snowing today. The wind has been very high in the last couple days and we lost power yesterday morning, however it was restored fairly promptly.

Today promises more wind and snow it won't be a fun day to work outside, which I must do. You all have a great Leetonia day. Mountain girl, Paula, layering up and logging off.