Clearing out trees

View from Whittington's front deck

After sleeping well, we had a full day ahead. The cool nights and warm days are perfect for sleeping. We had a quick snack of banana bread or mini bagels before taking the dogs out for a long walk in the desert. As we walked, we continued to look for interesting rocks that might polish well in the rock tumbler. We also found an old mortice lock that had been in a door of a house or possibly hotel. Mark thought he could clean up the lock.

After the walk, we had a good breakfast of waffles and planned the day. Mark and Steve took down a section of fence around the chicken coop. Cindy and Carren Morgan wrangled the chickens into the chicken house and locked them in.

Mary talked to Doreen, Carron’s mother, while the chickens were dusted for insects and parasites. Mark and Steve were able to take the six-foot tall fence loose at a seam to create an opening in the fence about ten feet wide. This was the window through which the trees inside the chicken lot would have to be felled to avoid damage to the fence, house, barn or other structures.

Back of Whittington's house from the pong

Mark notched and cut the large cottonwood trees, while Steve connected ropes to assure that the trees fell in the correct spots. Steve helped Cindy position the tractor attached to the trees with the ropes, and Cindy drove the tractor pulling the trees. Steve cut the downed trees into manageable lengths, then everyone loaded tractor bucket with the tops and logs. Cindy drove the tractor to the burn piles along the edge of the alfalfa field where they would be burned during a wet period of weather.

During a lunch break we enjoyed cold cut sandwiches, watermelon and Ruffles chips while we rested.

Mark's trout pond

After lunch, Mark and Steve finished taking down trees inside the chicken yard. Mary and Cindy put the fence back together after Mark and Steve stretched the fence back in place with the tractor. They cut down the final large cottonwood tree outside fence, but left most of that tree for Sunday clean up. Since the tree fell into the dried-up irrigation ditch, it could easily be cut into sections and loaded into the tractor bucket. The chickens were happy to be back out in the fenced chicken yard and pecked among the piles of sawdust scattered about.

Cindy made broccoli elk stir fry with rice. Mark’s homemade dark chocolate chip ice cream was dessert. As always, everything was very good.

We watched two episodes of Kingdom on Acorn although Cindy and Steve slept through a good bit of the shows. We were all tired.

May, Idaho

We slept well last night but heard the coyotes singing in the distance. Sound travels well in this flat land, so it is difficult for us to tell how far away something is. We had banana bread for breakfast before taking a long walk in the desert through BLM land. The dogs were happy to go out for a walk with us. As we walked we looked for interesting rocks in the desert that might be good for polishing.

Front of Whittington's Idaho home

Steve and Mark worked on Mark’s Kioti tractor, changing the oil and filters. It didn’t take long since Mark had all of the materials and supplies that we needed. Cindy and Mary did laundry, cleaned the house and worked on updating Cindy’s computer.

Mary and Cindy drove to the Ellis post office to mail estimated taxes and postcards. They saw pronghorn antelope further down Hooper Lane near Custer County.

After lunch, Mark and Steve cut down some dead cottonwood trees in a canal that had been previously used for irrigation. Since the canal is long dry, the trees have died. Before we could start cutting, we had to move the tractor implements out of the path of falling trees. Mark keeps the implements along the fence to the chicken yard, so we moved them over near the driveway.

Tractor implements beside chick pen

Mark was able to notch the trees perfectly to get them to fall along the ditch and avoid hitting the chicken house, fence or the irrigation pivot across the ditch. Just to be sure that the trees fell in the right place, we hitched the tractor to the trees to pull them in the right direction.

Mary and Cindy weeded, deadheaded and started a cacti garden near the house. By dinnertime we were all tired and ready to shower and call it a day. We still had a lot of trees to take down, but they were inside the chicken yard, and we would need to take the fence down before we started sawing. We wanted to be fresh another day and be able to get the job finished in one day so the hens wouldn’t have to be confined to the chickenhouse any longer than necessary.

Mark fixed halibut tacos for dinner with some of the fish that his friend, Rich, brought back from Sitka. Afterwards we finished watching the last episodes of Dark Winds, season 2. Season 1 of the series was based on Tony Hillerman’s book, Listening Woman, and season 2 was his People of Darkness book. We enjoyed both seasons and look forward to additional seasons.

Cindy and Mary sat outside stargazing under blankets. They saw 6 satellites and 1 asteroid as well as clear views of the Milky Way and many stars that we never see in the East. Mark went to the hot tub to relax and stargaze.

Cleaning up storm damage

We were up at our usual 4:30 am, so we went back out on the deck to do some early morning stargazing. It is nice that there is a deck that goes the entire circumference of their house and has a sliding door from the guest bedroom out to the deck. There was still a good deal of smoke in the atmosphere, but the stars were great.

High winds on Friday afternoon put down or damaged about a dozen cottonwood trees to the point of endangering structures. Four trees were down in the chicken yard but fortunately did not do much damage to the chicken coop. One side of the fence received some damage but appears to be repairable. In addition to removing the four trees that were down in or on the chicken yard, we took three trees in the area down that were leaning toward the chicken coop, smokehouse or fuel tanks. Other trees fell near but not on the barn and did no damage. It could have been a lot worse.

I was very impressed with Mark’s Milwaukee cordless chainsaws. They did a great job of cutting the downed cottonwood into 18-inch lengths to fit into their fireplace. When the batteries for the saw were exhausted, I switched to the Stihl two cycle chainsaw to cut up the cottonwood. Our workflow had me falling and cutting up the trees and Mark hauling the logs off and stacking them near the fuel tanks. Mary and Cindy gathered tops and branches too small to be used as firewood and hauled them to the surround desert BLM land. They also piled the bed of Mark’s pickup with branches, small limbs and bark to be dumped in the sagebrush.

We were fortunate that the cottonwood was much easier to cut than the oak, ash and locust that we are used to cutting around home. The battery and gas powered saws had no difficulty cutting through cottonwood trees that were 20 inches in diameter. Once cut, the logs were also much lighter and easier to carry. We were laughing at the sight of Mary carrying a cottonwood branch that was 10 feet long and 8 inches in diameter.

We used a rope to direct the fall of a few of the trees to keep them from hitting any of the structures. Mark also used his Milwaukee cordless pole saw to take some dead limbs down that could fall on the fence. We finished the cutting and stacking before 3 pm then came in for showers and cold drinks after putting all of the tools away. It felt good to relax after a good day of cleanup.

Mark made an excellent stir fry for dinner. It had chicken with a lot of vegetables and Japanese noodles. We all enjoyed it very much. We finished up with some of Mark’s homemade ice cream then relaxed before bed. Mary and Cindy planned our three days at Yellowstone next week and we were all looking forward to tomorrow and leaving for Wyoming.