more Choppin

After breakfast at the Dutch Flat Hotel, we took a walk around Dutch Flat, then headed back to the cabin, where Kenji was again directing all of us clueless workers.

I'm not sure what we'd do without him.

That's supposed to be a portrait of me on the left door by the way.
Chloe and I took a walk and finally met the neighbors, who told me that there's a fish farm upstream on the Bear Creek (which runs through our property), and sometimes fish escape. I haven't seen fish in there for years, but the guy we met told us that he's seen up to 18 inch trout down there!

After walking past scary pitbulls and along the canal, we ended up next to the PG&E Alta hydro-power office. They have a mini snowcat with a cab heater and plush seating which I covet:

A little googling reveals that it is a Pisten Bully -- "It’s like a sportscar, for snow". This particular model looks like a 100 flexmobil. Heres a video. I'm no linguistics expert, but judging from the title "Schneepistenpräparierfahrzeuge Kässbohrer Geländefahrzeug AG BeachTech Strandreinigungsgeräte", I'm guessing they are made in Germany or Austria. I don't want to know how much they cost.

I also did some more wood choppin' which really isn't that exciting. We have enough wood for the winter now.


I did discover one useful thing though: When chopping wood, even if you get very hot, leave the damn shirt on. Otherwise irate spiders will swarm you, bite your back and stomach and leave large tomato colored itchy welts that make mosquito bites seem like the gentle nuzzling of kittens.

Heres are some shots of the painted doors and windows



We ran into traffic on the way home but got crazy good mileage

The Sierra

We drove up to Alta this morning in the new used Prius, and upon arriving I immediately got to work finishing the damn roof. It's been hanging over my head for a while and I just wanted to be done with it. With Kenji cutting the cap shingles and complaining vigorously about it, I was able to finish up in an hour or so.


Next came some wood choppin with my new Gransfors axe (I know, EXCITING!!)



I was a little disappointed to find that the old school low budget super heavy axe that we've had for 20 years actually seems to do a better job with the bigger rounds, just by virtue of its weight. I'm not sure what I would have done without Kenji's running commentary:


Later on that evening I grilled some steaks that Gail had brought up. This had two unintended consequences. The first was that the "meat bees" (not bees at all, but yellow jackets) came out in legions, which enraged Kenji, who began attacking them with the fly swatter, hats, napkins, forks (no I'm not kidding) and whatever else he could get his hands on. Here's a picture of him in between deadly swings, corn cob in one hand, broken fly swatter in the other

and some of his unlucky victims


The other unintended consequence was an abundance of smoke: these were fatty and well marbled steaks on a small, hot grill. The smoke easily cleared the trees. In the middle of our meal we heard the whine of turboprops and looked up to see the red and white markings of the CDF on an OV-10 Bronco, probably out of Grass Valley. We didn't really pay much attention, other than to collectivley notice that it was in a high speed banked turn. Shortly thereafter, a CDF Bell Ranger flew overhead. Hmmm. A few minutes later, the Bronco circled back around with the helicopter following. By the third circle, I was starting to get worried, despite knowing that there was no way they were spotting the small smoke trail from our Hibachi. Still, I half expected smoke jumpers to start parachuting in!

A birthday card for my dad

woot

We bought a used (2005, 42k miles) Prius!

Saving gas?

Chloe and I are probably going to buy a used Prius (an 05), and before you yell at me about it not being significantly more eco friendly (because of the eco-cost of manufacturing) or ultimately more economically sound (they are expensive) let me just say that I've heard most of the arguments for and against. There is one important variable which is a good tie-breaker though, and thats the HOV sticker. In any case, here are some back of the envelope calculations:

subie: 57.3 mile trip (cant take bay bridge in AM) / 22.8 mpg * 5 days = 12.56 gallons / week * 3.30 (prem.) = 41.40
prius: 50.3 mile trip / 50 mpg * 5 days = 5.03 gallons / week * 3.10 (reg.) = 15.59

for a savings of ~25 a work week.

Alta, roofing, Smart's Crossing

We headed up to Alta for some roof shingling, wood splitting with my new Gransfors Large Splitting Axe and hanging out with some of Chloe's friends from UCSD (Becky and Fred)




I decided to use the subie as a shingle carrying device since I was getting sick of the heavy 20 packs tipping the wheelbarrow over. You see, there is a magical moment in which gravity takes over, the shingle packs are expelled from the barrow and the barrow itself is dumped sideways. It's a remarkable phenomenon for which I have coined a term: "the Falling over point", and I expect to be writing more about this soon. Anyway, I got the car to within 30 feet of the cabin and even managed to drive it back up the hill without getting mired.



After a long day of laying down shingle and chopping a few rounds of oak (The arborist did a fantastic job, by the way) we all took Rotenburo baths. Unfortunately, a mouse had fallen into the bath right before Becky and Fred used it

But was saved from a nasty death by Fred.



We walked down the road to Smart's Crossing for a brief swim. The water was FREEZING, and made for a quick exit. Someone has made a nice rope ladder to get up onto the log with.





After heading back and eating lunch at the cabin, a very unwary deer and her two fawns came within seventy or so feet of the cabin.

=
I spent the rest of the day trying in vain to finish the roof. I got pretty far though.


It doesn't look like it in the first shot, but there are actually four more rows needed just to get to the top. The shingles around the chimney were also a big pain in the butt to get right.