Saturday January 7th, 2012

Good morning!

The pain continues for snowmobilers of the area. Yesterday Athelstane Weather marked 49.8 for a high temperature, and the sun was out in the afternoon. It cooled down to just below freezing after sunset, and they marked a low of 24 around midnight. By 3am it was back up to 35, and now (7:30am) it is right at 32 here. The NWS says that it will be a little cooler today with a high around 30, but we are not off to a good start on that.

When I drove up Hwy 32 yesterday at sunset Townsend or Carter was about as far south as you would want to ride with minimal conditions. Without much of a break overnight I would put the line there or most likely farther northwest. Fifty degrees and sunny will marshmallow or take out a lot of snow, and it did. About the only refuge for a snowmobiler around here would be a little lake riding.

I am up early today because of the pain. I spent most of the daylight hours out in the wood yard yesterday and may have overdone it a little. I probably made and stacked 3-4 weeks worth of wood. I’d really rather feel like this because I went out and rode my old sled ’till I was a rag doll, but it wasn’t to be.

This morning I am getting revenge on the big maple branch that fell on my truck in a windstorm last fall, feeding it into the wood burner 16″ at a time.You know what they say about payback.

While I was working yesterday I had one of those moronic profound thoughts that sometimes come with manual labor. I decided that firewood was misnamed and it should be called liftwood. Liftwood?

I cut the tree down and cut it up into sections. I lifted those into the truck, out of the truck and into the split wood pile, up onto the splitter, into the stacking pile, into the cart, onto the stack in the woodshed, back into the cart, into the house, up onto the wood rack, off of the wood rack and into the wood burner, and finally back outside in the ash bin.

I lifted that piece of firewood 10 times before lighting it on fire, 11 if you include cleaning out the ashes. I only burned it once, and yet it is called firewood and not liftwood.. I told you that it was profound (moronic).

Back a little more on topic, the warm spell looks like it will continue for about another week. Next week looks above normal for temps, and no precip to speak of. The week behind that looks very different, with much colder weather and a parade of clippers hitting us almost daily.  Where is the Fast Forward button on this thing?

Have a good Saturday and thank you for visiting!

RJB