Chores...

Here's Mike dropping off empties at the donation bin...


And here's Mike dropping off garbage at the Lone Butte transfer station.

Autumn

Autumn has draped her golden gown over our area in spectacular fashion - the aspens and willows are breathtaking this week. The leaves are just beginning to fall...unfortunately the show will be over in a couple of weeks.

This aspen is at the end of the driveway.

Looking down the railroad tracks at the corner of Hwy 24 and Lone Butte-Horse Lake Rd.

Beautiful downtown Lone Butte, as seen from the south side of Hwy 24. The aspen on the left does a great job of hiding the antennae that sit on top of the Butte.

Today has been gloriously sunny. After a weekend of revelry with our friends who came up to visit, we've settled back into getting things accomplished before winter.

Yesterday I burned two big piles of dead willows in the pasture, and Mike worked on Rupert's new house. Rupert has been declared seriously obese, and has been moved into the dog run to prevent him from not only eating his own hay, but from sharing Buck's hay as well. His house is sided with pine shiplap, and looks great. It needs a coat of stain.

Greg came to shoe Buck today, and to trim Ruperts feet. Rupert has recovered completely from his abscess! Then Mike and I spent the day cutting logs from the end of the pasture that were left behind by the logger last year. We filled the tractor bucket many times with logs, and transported them all up to the woodshed, where they were split and stacked.

Tomorrow morning we're working on the lower deck. No shortage of things to do.

Molly

 

Rupert

Rupert had an abscess in his hoof, poor little guy. The vet spent ages yesterday afternoon trying to figure out what was wrong with him...and after much investigation began to pare away at his hoof, and eventually pus began to drain from a small hole. We have to do hot soaks with epsom salts twice a day, and if that doesn't fix things, Rupert will need antibiotics.

The Tuesday Report.

Rupert is still lame. The vet is coming to see him on Thursday. We're hoping he'll be okay. I, on the other hand am doing fine, with no real lingering effects from my dive, other than a sore back. We spent the day burning and working on the front porch.

It's getting dark very early these days.

The Fall...

Drama today. We went to get hay at 70 Mile. It's in a huge hay shed, and stacked about 8 bales high. I climbed to the top, and while moving a damp bale from the top to get to dry stuff below, the whole stack gave way and dumped me firmly on the ground. It seemed like a long way down, and I remember thinking, "I wonder if I'll have to call in sick to work this afternoon?" Got the breath knocked out of me, and other than an achy back and shoulders, I seem to be fine. Probably be stiff and sore tomorrow though.

A Few Words about the Past Week

It seems I haven't been here in over a week. Time flies. And I still haven't been out and about with the camera.

On Wednesday, Mike and I were just getting into the pickup to go into town when we heard some strange bird noises. We scanned the trees and saw nothing, and soon Mike saw the source of the calls. Nearly overhead, and many hundreds of feet up, were a group of about fifty sandhill cranes, calling out and spiralling up and up and up on the air currents. As they called, more birds joined the group. We watched them until they were just tiny specks and we could no longer hear them...it was a wonderous thing!

Jackie came up for a couple of days, we got rained out Thursday, and on Friday it snowed. Last snow of the season was June 1. First snow of the season was September 15. Welcome to Lone Butte! Snow was all gone by noon.

Today was clear and glorious...a perfect fall day. The burning restrictions have been lifted, and I promptly reduced one burn pile to ashes. We had to go to 70 Mile for hay today, and will go back for more tomorrow morning.

Rupert has somehow injured his left front leg. He was lying down when we arrived home from 70 Mile, and not willing to get up. Eventually he did, and is favoring his leg quite a bit. He doesn't seem to be in distress, and his appetite is as good as ever, but if he's not improving by Monday, we'll call the vet for a farm visit.

We've been in chaos for the last few days. On Monday we started taking off baseboards and pulling up carpeting in the living room, hallway and spare room. The nailing strips around the perimeter had to be pried off, and some complete ignoramus had stapled them at a rate of approximately one staple every half inch. Mike and I spent all day Monday sitting on the floor with pry bars and hammers removing the nail strips. Mike finished up Tuesday, and yesterday and today we had nice laminate flooring installed. It's far more dog friendly than carpets. I think it looks pretty nice, and I survived for three days without computer access.

In rural developments...on the weekend Interior Roads sprayed some dust supressant on our street, which has dampened down the dust a bit.

And we now own a log splitter. It has a nifty 5 hp honda engine, and 22 tons of splitting force, in case you like details like that. We'll try it out tomorrow or Saturday.

High on the agenda for next summer is air conditioning. We'll start researching that soon. We cook during the afternoons with our southern exposure. I'm hoping we're nearing the end of the hot days.

The course I was teaching is finished, as of today. I'll attend the little completion cermony tomorrow, and then I'm done! I'm not going to accept any casual work at my other job for a few weeks, so Mike and I can go full steam ahead on our remaining projects. And then, alas, it's time for poor Mike to go to work again.

And in a day or two, I'll take a wander around and post some new pics. (I will, Stu!)

Various things to report...

The sun rose red this morning - not the sky, the sun. That means there's distant smoke in the air. There's no hint of the smell of smoke, and we can't find any information that there's a fire in the South Cariboo, so perhaps it's just drifting in from far away. I hope so.

Jen left for the coast this morning. The house seems empty without her.

Autumn is definitely in the air these days. There's a cool crispness to the morning air, and a few of the aspens and willows are turning yellow. The Canada geese are flocking, and we've had several light overnight frosts already. The days remain warm and sunny. It's a glorious time of year; my favourite, I think.

Mike is getting an early start with hand-digging under the power cables in the post holes for the second porch this morning. With southern exposure, it gets quite warm by 9 a.m.

My teaching contract is over next Friday, which means I'll have more time at home, and more time to get chores done around the property. And that's a very good thing.