Monthly Archives: June 2016

Dogs, Family, Garden, Health

Kep’s Last Visit to Award Winning Pet Grooming

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Beltane                                                               Running Creeks Moon

ellipticalNo lumberjacking today. This old body needed time to recoup. Back at it tomorrow.

The elliptical we bought has spared my knee the throbbing and swelling of high intensity workouts on the treadmill. I can now do the same workout, but in a fluid, joint friendly motion. The old P90X workouts help round out the return to serious muscle and cardio-vascular exercise.

KepTook Kep over to Award Winning Pet Grooming in Bailey. Bailey is to the west on Highway 285. It’s the big city in Park County at 8, 859 souls. Amanda Gordon has defurred Kep several times as the alternating hotter and colder weather of this year’s El Nino winter has caused dogs all over the front range to blow their coats. This was probably Kep’s last visit to Award Winning since he will head to Georgia, early July. Kate and I both will go.

Kate’s been gardening today. She’s wanted to do some, finally decided to just do it. Her friend Hannah and her husband Seth ate lunch with Kate. They cleared out most of the logs in the front. There are about twice as many in the back, maybe 3 times as many.

Jefferson County, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, The West, Weather +Climate

Seasonal Changes

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Beltane                                                                        Running Creeks Moon

Maxwell Creek, May 2015
Maxwell Creek, May 2015

As the Running Creeks Moon fades from the sky Deer Creek, Shadow Mountain Brook, Maxwell Creek, Cub Creek, the mountain streams I see frequently, have all subsided. Running full, yes, but not tumbling and roaring and foaming as they did a couple of weeks ago.

The aspen leaves are still coming, now a bright chartreuse against the gray/white bark. They soften the always green needlescape of the lodgepole pines. Solar production is up, the blue ribbon trees are down and tourists have begun to clog up Upper and Lower Maxwell Falls trail heads. We’re shifting from the more inward days of cold and snow to the more outward time of warm, clear days and cool nights.

A seasonal change. Not really the spring to summer transition of Minnesota, more like a late winter to summer shift.

A Native Plant Master class focused on the montane ecosystem (6,000 to 9,500 feet) starts in July at Reynolds Park here in Conifer. This time prostate cancer will not interfere. I want to bump up my knowledge of the ecosystem.

After several weeks of image expunging and fire mitigation, a less harried time is near. More creative work, much less destructive work. Looking forward to it.

 

Jefferson County, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, The West, Weather +Climate

Close

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Beltane                                                                     Running Creek Moon

Strong trees remain
Strong trees remain

Tyler has moved 4/5ths of the slash, maybe more. He’ll be back Sunday to finish up. I’ve cut up all but two trunks. One tree remains standing with a blue ribbon. There is a way to take it down. Before Tyler returns on Sunday I’ll finish that work plus limbing logs with newly exposed branches. Then, the only work that will remain is stacking the firewood and limbing the standing trees up to 10 feet off the ground.  Since May 20th this round of mitigation has occupied some of every day, two to three hours, sometimes more. That’s almost two weeks.

Cheaper than having someone else do it. And satisfying, too.

Soon I’ll be back to writing on Reimagining, Jennie’s Dead and Superior Wolf. Translating Latin. Hiking in the woods.

 

Jefferson County, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

Slash

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Beltane                                                                                      Running Creeks Moon

Tyler, who lives down Black Mountain Drive toward Evergreen, came over yesterday morning. He’s a junior at Conifer High School this fall. A three sport athlete football, basketball and baseball, he’s still growing, but on the thin side right now, and tall. He worked hard. Here’s the material he moved from the back.

Slash June 1 limbs
Slash June 1 limbs
Slash June 1 treetops and limbs
Slash June 1 treetops and limbs

While he did this, I cut up the downed and limbed trunks. Most of them I cut into Seth and Hannah size logs though I have made some fireplace size logs for us. More of those today. I’m hopeful Tyler will finish moving all the slash by the end of the morning. Our regular afternoon rains make working then difficult. The water adds a lot of weight to the slash. Better to let it dry out overnight.

The end of this work is in sight.

Jefferson County, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, The West, Weather +Climate

Mitigation Nears Completion

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Beltane                                                                      Running Creeks Moon

misty morning May 31
misty morning May 31

All the blue ribbon trees are down, save one. The remaining tree presents a difficulty in terms of felling and I haven’t sorted out what to do with it. I spent yesterday finishing the felling, topping most of the downed trees, those already limbed, and completing the limbing of a few others. Kate moved slash.

Today Tyler comes over and will help move the slash into the front where it will get chipped. I’ll finish limbing while he does that, then begin cutting the trunks into logs. This project is nearing completion.

After Seth moves the logs that he wants and the fireplace size logs get stacked away from the house, there will remain two tasks. We need to prune the branches of the trees near the house. They need to be clear up to ten feet above the ground. This prevents laddering of a fire burning on the ground. The second task involves cutting down a few more trees further back in the yard. There are dead trees back there and a few situations where felling smaller trees will help the larger ones grow.

Feels good to have reached this point. This is the first major work I’ve done here. Glad there was a task that needed a skill set I possess. As the trees grow over the years, the virtue of this kind of forest management will become apparent. Mitigation will improve the overall health of our trees, another bulwark against fire. Healthy trees can withstand more fire.