June 8, 2018 Dropping Trees & Sighting A Bear

One of our butterflies.

Two trees down, about seven to go.

Wednesday 6/6. This morning JB cut down two trees across the driveway from the house.  One pine and one fir.  I limbed the pine, then we cut it into 45 16" rounds, which means it was about 60' tall.  I measure and JB cuts.  The fir tree looks to be about 50' tall.  Then I loaded the tractor bucket and JB drove the loads to the splitter.

A very good day's work in perfect weather, with a high of 68.

We watched August: Osage County this evening.  Very good!

Thursday 6/7. It was 60 and partly cloudy this morning.  I called Sandy to wish her happy birthday, and while we were talking Dinga started barking and looking toward the south ridge, but she wasn't running up there.  I looked and saw something rather large that turned out to be a brown bear.  (All the bears Up Here are black bears, but they come in many different colors.)  We haven't actually seen one near the house for a few years, so it was quite an event.

After dishes and hanging out the laundry, we planned to slice up the fir tree but the chain saw would not start, regardless of what JB did.  So I limbed the tree as much as I could with my large clippers, then cut four bag loads of kindling and stacked it.

After lunch I split some of the rounds we cut yesterday and JB took the wood to the shed in 3-1/2 loads, where I stacked it.  Another good day's work, even though we didn't get done what we wanted to.

Today was a bit warmer, with a high of 74 and much less of a breeze.  By mid afternoon the sky had a light overcast.

Tomorrow I plan to make a short trip Down There for a few items and a hostess gift for Saturday's barbecue at the Gridders.  They have invited several people from the canyon and her folks are coming over from Moses Lake.  Definitely looking forward to it.

Our son is on orders for the month of June in Hawaii, and his wife and children are flying out also for three weeks.  He emailed a photo taken from his hotel near Waikiki Beach with the caption "24 more days in this hell hole!"  Poor baby!

Friday 6/8. It is 52 this morning with a partial light overcast.  I should be back from Down There in plenty of time to bake cookies to take to the barbecue tomorrow.

Thought for the day: I wish retail therapy was covered by my insurance!