I had heard of them but wasn't really listening, I guess, so the first time I saw the northern lights I was like WTF is happening here?!?! It's eerie and majestic.
I had heard of them but wasn't really listening, I guess, so the first time I saw the northern lights I was like WTF is happening here?!?! It's eerie and majestic.
It's always a bit of a surprise to me when people haven't seen the northern lights. In your case, though, I get to use my favorite flat lander saying. "I really didn't like living in the mountains. They got it the way of the view."
And I'm serious.
Prairie sky makes a lot of things beautiful.
Part of my childhood was way up in Northern BC, on the border of Alaska. The North has its own beauty for sure.
In reply to ShawnG :
That's awesome and great you were able to get good picture of them. I've heard that isn't always an easy task.
I do hope to see them some day. I'm pretty sure I need to go both farther north and father from city light pollution.
In reply to Ian F (Forum Supporter) :
Jenn took those pictures with her phone. Mine turned out like crap.
I love that we're away from light pollution. I've never seen so many stars. You can see the milky way in the summer.
saw them for the first time a week ago over Greenland. Sometimes I'm lucky to have a job, however inconvenient, that gives me these gifts.
Your saga is awesome and I'm following closely. I don't know if I could do the cold, but I admire your spirit!
ShawnG said:I love that we're away from light pollution.
One of (the many) bitternesses of when I lived in Vancouver - skies are supposed to be blue, clouds are supposed to be white, there ISN'T supposed to be this brown stripe of yuck floating over everything.
Folks who only know Vancouver see the beauty, and don't get me wrong, as cities go it's a very pretty one (from a distance), but my heart is for the rural communities, less pollution, less traffic, less noise, less crime....
....the people are weirder though (grin).
Awesome! I had heard there was a good chance they'd be good and when I saw your post last night I checked the forecast and headed out. It's pretty rare you can see anything from Southern Ontario (Kitchener-Waterloo area for me) but sure enough getting out of town to a dark spot looking north there was a faint green in the sky. I've seen them visiting family in the Yukon but still haven't lucked into the full-on show.
Modern phones make them look better than they actually are when they are very faint like this, nonetheless thanks for posting or I would have missed them.
Brought home a 2200 gallon water tank for our irrigation system today.
Got some work done on the kayak as well.
All frames are cut, stringers are cut. I needed 16' long, clear 1x2 lumber. Such a thing does not exist these days so I ripped a 16' 2x10 joist into strips. I got enough clear pieces to build the boat!
Boating today.
Stem and stern are fastened to the keelson with brass screws and Titebond 3 glue.
Starting to notch the frames to accept the stringers.
Cleared some snow from a future garden plot today, then finished assembling my backhoe.
Forgot to update
Had a market on Saturday, did ok, almost $300. We need to buy a bigger space next time since we have way too much stuff for a single table.
I contacted the call before you dig people to come and locate the power lines here because the subsoiler digs two feet down and I don't like surprises.
Should have baby chicks hatching in a few days too.
Sat down with the manager of the coop and ordered my fencing supplies. They had everything in stock except the fence energizer which will be in next week and my posts which are still buried in snow.
More boat building.
Baby chicks hatched this morning!
Just had to get the tractor out and retrieve a tourist from the ditch in front of my house.
Spent some time on my kayak today. Cockpit stringers and frames installed, stem and stern assembled.
Tillage happened today.
Used the subsoiler on the Kubota in a criss cross pattern to cut 24" deep channels and break up the sod and heavy clay.
Then tilled in the same pattern with the Case to loosen up everything else.
I tested my soil in various places and it comes up slightly alkaline, low in nitrogen and phosphorus but adequate in potassium.
Tomorrow I'll spread the manure pile on the field and till it in. This should help with the nitrogen and phosphorus as well as bring the ph more neutral over time.
I'm going to get very busy soon.
Moved the manure pile today. Enough to cover a 50' x 100' plot at least an inch deep and tilled it in.
That works out to roughly 10 tons of poop.
I'm thankful for a tractor with a loader.
Congratulations! I really wish I was in a position to do something similar. Parts of me want to get out of it all, and find some property in the mountains somewhere and just be a human.
Since I have my water tank and things are melting very quickly around here, I headed to town this morning and picked up the last of the hookup parts to connect the irrigation system to the water tank.
When I got home, I started building a portable pump shed for the irrigation pump.
More to come on that later.
I also took a walk and checked on the dugout. It's filling quickly, this was nothing but snow two days ago.
ShawnG said:I've spent a lot of time camping, backpacking and hiking all over British Columbia. I've never seen anything like this.
The northern lights lit up the whole sky over my house tonight.
I feel like I'm in a Robert Service poem.
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee
About 20 years ago my uncle and I memorized this poem. My family is from Tennessee and my uncle had been doing dental work in the Northwest Territories. Anyway, We went on an annual backpacking trip over thanksgiving together with my grandfather. That year on the first night as we got in our sleeping bags and all was quiet- we broke out in unison and did the whole thing. One of my favorite memories, and I still have most of it memorized- only the stanza after he takes a walk makes me stumble.
I just want to say that I look at this thread fondly every time I see it bumped up into my subscribed list, so please keep posting!
Gotta love the (never) simple life. You are inspiring!
In reply to golfduke :
Thanks very much!
Updates.
The little CASE tractor has been acting up every time I need to use it. I think it's simply age and wear. I'll get it sorted eventually but right now it seems to let me down right when I need it.
I had to fix it again before and during tilling, then it died just as I finished. The job took the better part of a day.
We thought about a new, small tractor to take on the garden tasks but they're simply too expensive. $15k for a used 20hp subcompact tractor without any implements.
We've also been thinking about a Gator with a dump box to handle garden and horse chores but the ones that aren't beat to hell are $10k.
The wife unit has a hard time with the on / off nature of the drive system on the CASE and to be honest, it's gotten away from me a few times too. The best thing about it is the near indestructible hydraulic tiller.
The barn is about 500 feet downhill from the garden, the manure pile is just outside the barn where it's easy to unload the dumping manure cart.
Moving the manure to the garden with the big tractor took half a day, burned $60 worth of diesel, tore up the grass in front of the barn and was hard on the driveway between the garden and the barn.
A new plan was needed.
The wife unit originally didn't want the manure pile by the garden because it would mean three trips uphill with a heavy manure cart every day, even worse in winter and I didn't want her doing that either.
Today, we dragged home Betsy:
Betsy is my wife's garden tractor. A 1970s Ford LGT145. A 14hp Kohler engine with hydrostatic drive so it's easy for her to use.
We started a new manure pile by the garden so she can hook the manure cart to the tractor and drive it up hill to the garden.
Easier for her, easier on the yard and driveway and less trips with the big tractor.
Betsy only set us back $1000, including a snowblower and two mower decks.
We're going to buy a 48" 3 point tiller to go behind the Kubota which will do the job in much less time and be more reliable. The tiller is about $5k.
I think this will be a good solution in the long run.
Today was one of those days.
Had a lousy day at a market, only made enough to cover our gas.
Then had a tire let go on the way home.
Been a long time since I changed a tire at the side of a gravel road, using only factory supplied tools. Still got it done in record time.
No plugging or patching this one, it's a tear in the root of the tread.
-sigh-
Weather is great so I got some yard work done.
We cleared a bunch of junk from beside the barn and converted it to trailer parking.
Since we moved the trailers, now there is space for tractor attachments on the other side.
Dragged an old seed drill out of the grass by the garden so I can convert that space to potatoes and onions.
Got the hookup fittings installed on the water tank.
Finished building the portable pump shed for the irrigation system.
Finished the plant benches in the poly greenhouse, stripped the booms off of an old sprayer that was left in our field and converted it to a towable 250 gallon water tank so we can water the trees when we start planting them in a few months.
I'm tired.
I'll be glad when I'm done building the infrastructure stuff and all I have to do is maintain it.
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