GILBERT GRADE RETRIBUTION

This is a sequel to the HITTING THE WALL blog posted July 3rd when it was 92 degrees up here. I had decided I would try that ride again under better conditions to see if old Father Time really is grabbing me by the tail and slowing me down.

Although I didn’t get started this morning till 9:30 it was much cooler. I drank half of a Dr. Pepper with an oat bran muffin and hit the road. From just where the downhill begins to highway 12 is 8 miles. It took 20 minutes to coast down. After a brief stop in the park watching some kids practice baseball I ate half a Big Hunk and started back up. I kept my cadence up concentrating on lift rather than push and I knew I was making good time. My goal has always been to make the 8 miles in an hour. I made it this morning in a little over 56 minutes which may be a PR – certainly my fastest time in recent years. Who needs Powerbars when you have Big Hunks?

IF YOU THOUGHT THE HOUSE ROOF WAS STEEP . . .

Mike seemed satisfied with placement of the wind gauge on the roof peak. “It’s too bad,” I observed, “that you will have to climb back up there again.”

“Oh no,” he said. “Why would I have to get back up there?”

“Oh – something will happen. It will blow off or need maintenance or something,” I said aloud. To myself I said, “But more than likely you’ll decide you don’t like it there.”

So I truly wasn't surprised when a few days later he said, “The trees in the grove shelter the house too much and I just don’t think the wind measurement is accurate. I’m going to put the gauge on the barn.” (Do I know this man – or what?)

So today he made the switch. I hardly watched. He managed to get the gauge off the house in much the same manner as he placed it. Using the same method – rope over barn and tied to 4-wheeler – he pulled himself up to the peak of the barn roof and sitting astride he affixed the gauge. But alas! The piece of lathing he stuck through the woodpecker hole near the apex fell back through the hole and onto the barn floor. From inside the barn, I had to climb to the second story, pick up the lathing, then climb high enough against the inside wall to poke the lathing back through the hole so that he could catch it and tie the cable onto it. Then I carefully pulled the cable, attached to the lathing, back through the hole. I forgot the camera, remember, so there are no pictures of this momentous event. You’ll just have to use your imagination.

Speaking of the camera, we’re thinking of returning the little Fugi we bought. I think it’s rather feminine in appearance and action, and I just don’t think it works as the family camera. And neither one of us can see the viewer -- or whatever they call that screen -- when outdoors. If you have any words of wisdom on digital cameras, now is the time to share.

P.S. Hallie has placed a link to our “sister blog,” Mile High Warnocks, on the right side of this page. I feel confident in inviting anyone who visits this blog to check theirs also. They post occasional pictures and updates on Emerson and a recent post by Jack tells of his trip to Idaho. KW

CLEANING THE HOUSE

Today as Mike and I cleaned the farmhouse, I couldn’t help but think of Mother and Daddy. They followed me around all day as I dusted, washed windows, did some baking.

Always about this time in July, Mother, Daddy, and I would come to the farm and spend the day cleaning in preparation for a reunion / picnic in honor of Papa Portfors’ birthday, which was July 31. Regardless of the temperature outside, Daddy would start a fire in the old wood cook stove and draw water from the cistern to be heated. Since there was no electricity here, cleaning was a matter of dusting, sweeping, mopping, cleaning windows, perhaps washing some knick-knacks. We would make the beds look comfortable and hang clean curtains. I followed Mother around doing what she told me to do. Daddy mopped the kitchen floor, handled changes of water, and cleaned the porches. We carried drinking water and lunch from home and sat at the old table in the kitchen to eat it.

I say we “always” did that. It seemed like a regular thing every year – and it was -- but it just couldn’t have gone on for as many years as it seems like it did. I suppose it started in the late ‘50s and continued through the ‘60s, even though the excuse – Papa’s birthday – went away with his declining health.

If only we could vacuum,” Mother would say, and finally she insisted on having a gas generator. That proved to be handy, though the noise was a bit overbearing.

Sometimes it still thrills me to walk over to the sink and turn on the water – or to turn on a light as twilight approaches. We take so much for granted.

We arrived here at the farm about 8:30 this morning. The day is cool for July – about 72. A great day to make zucchini bread with the zucchini I picked at the town house. A sad thing – in the process of pack, unpack, re-pack, I left the camera in town. But – I have the cell phone.

[Since I forgot the camera, I illustrated this blog with some country photos not yet shown. The top photo is of a toad resting under a strawberry plant. As you can see, I finished painting the gnome. And the last photo is of a robin's nest just outside the sunroom door, basically above the clothesline. The photo was taken in June, but the family was still there last week.] KW

CRAIG MOUNTAIN GEOCACHING

Geocaches are everywhere but to me the ones that are most rewarding are those that present a challenge, preferably with a high terrain rating. These are usually back country or wilderness caches that require considerable planning in advance. It is essential to have a good mapping program. I have Mapsource which is specifically for Garmin units and I also have National Geographic’s TOPO with a detailed version for Idaho. The Mapsource is actually two packages, one for streets and roads and one for topography. The TOPO is basically a topo map but it also has back country roads. All this software has the capability to allow you to place waypoints anywhere on the map and then download them into your GPS unit. My Garmin GPS Map 60 CSx unit also accepts memory cards with these maps. You can download the actual Mapsource maps into the GPS. There is no way that Jackson and I could have found the 10 geocaches on our recent trip without this aid.

I have been working on about a dozen similar caches on Craig mountain in the Waha area south of Lewiston. With only 3 remaining to find I made a trip up Monday with the 4 wheeler on the trailer and my mountain bike strapped on the 4 wheeler. My first search was for Mule Deer Barn which is fairly new and had never been found. The main reason it hadn’t is because it requires 6 miles of non-motorized travel on a road that is closed except for snowmobiles in the winter. There are many little roads in this area, some private and some not. On the third attempt I found the right one and biked in on a hilly and rough road. I found the cache and scored a FTF (first to find, which is a coup in geocaching). About half way back out I discovered I had left my sunglasses so back I went. By the time I had finished that cache I had logged 10 miles on the bicycle.

I had a route mapped out for What a Great Splash which is the site of Elk Creek Falls. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to me, these roads were closed to motorized traffic as well. I had already expended too much effort to quit at this point. By the time I reached the cache I had traveled 7 miles on rough steep roads, crossed 8 fences and 5 streams. Then I had to hike down a steep brushy mountain in shorts to find the cache. By the time I got back to the 4 wheeler my bike odometer indicated 24 miles. The falls were spectacular and I thought I had taken lots of pictures but, unfortunately I didn’t (I won't relate that fiasco).

I still didn’t get the third and remaining one due to more closed roads. Now that I know that those roads are closed I will have to do some more map work before going after the last one. Can you believe Hallie thinks I’m crazy having all this fun? M/W

YOO-HOO! I'M HO-OME!

I have missed you all so much! I’m so glad to be back.

Arriving at the town house on Friday, the first thing we did was start up the computers, noting immediately that we had no internet service. We were advised by CableOne, our town internet provider, that someone had hacked into our email account and had set up two accounts from which they were sending junk mail. We were further advised that this could be the result of a virus or a security issue with our new router and that until we took our machines to a “dealer” for a complete check – both the PC and the laptop -- our internet service would remain disabled. It felt like the end of the world – and CableOne didn’t care.

Mike ascertained that the router was secure, but since it was the weekend, we waited until Monday to take the computers to a “dealer.” After discussing computer viruses at a family gathering Sunday night, I just about decided to opt out on computers – just about. But – making a long story short – the computers were both cleaned and the tech said not only were they clean, they were some of the cleanest he had ever seen. So, we picked them up this afternoon – but that’s not the end of the story. We still could not access email or our CableOne account, so Mike and I spent an hour on the phone with CableOne techs getting our account and our computers up and running. The whole thing felt like a nightmare. CableOne did agree to reimburse the $25.00 service fee on the computers, but that hardly seems to compensate for what we’ve been through.

We expected to go back to the farm this afternoon, but we decided to postpone until tomorrow.

Reader Notice: Blog Delay

There may be a short delay in blog updates due to some technical difficulties at the Clarkston home. Kathy and Mike have not disappeared and will resurface soon with many stories, I'm sure.

Enjoy the weekend!

PICKING UP ROADSIDE TRASH

"There’s plenty more trash on the road,” said Mike after his bike ride one day. “I think we should do another pick-up. We’ll hook the trailer to the 4-wheeler and use it as a base of operation.”

Today was the day. After breakfast, the two of us set out to pick up trash along Curfman and Miller Roads. You may recall that the last time we picked up 65 cans. This time we were prepared with plenty of sacks and two 5-gallon paint buckets. We decided it would be okay for the dogs to run along with us. It’s five miles from our place to the end of Miller Road, but there are at least two ponds where they could -- and did -- refresh themselves.

After some initial confusion on my part, our pick-up system began in earnest. We played leapfrog with the 4-wheeler, emptying the aluminum cans and other trash we picked up into sacks in the trailer. The dogs stayed with Mike.

While we were working on Miller Road, one of Kyle Meacham’s farm helpers passed us in his big John Deere tractor. Later, Mike met him again as he [the farmer] was working a field. The farmer stopped his tractor, got down, and came over to shake Mike’s hand and thank him for what we were doing. He said he thought the roadside trash was terrible -- that he he didn’t throw trash on the road himself but allowed that not everyone will pick it up. He said we were awesome.

I guess that was the affirmation we needed. We finished Miller Road, then accommodated our speed to the dogs and brought them back to our place. After a brief respite, we chained Duke, told Nellie to stay, and set out again. If you know the area, we took Curfman Road past Beldings to Cemetery Road and Cemetery Road to the highway, the highway back to Curfman Road at the grain bins. We did that mile stretch of Curfman Road on foot, playing leapfrog with the 4-wheeler again. By the time we finished it was 1:00 and we were hot, thirsty, hungry, and tired. [Two deer stopped briefly to gaze at us, making it possible for me to catch this shot.]

We gathered one big garbage sack of aluminum cans and two big garbage sacks of trash. I found three bottle caps (all Coors) but only kept two. There were many more bottles than caps. All in all, we put 16 miles on the 4-wheeler. And I am filthy!!!!