Today's Unusually Effective Tracking
The weather has finally been turning cooler over the past few weeks.
For the last week or so we have been starting a fire in the wood stove in the mornings to chase the chill out of the house, and yesterday (Sunday) it rained much of the day and got even colder, so we lit up the stove early in the afternoon and kept it going almost until bedtime.
This morning we awoke to frost and ice on the windshields, even though we're not sure what the actual low temperature was last night.
We've been burning firewood left over from last season, but with all this cold settling in for several days and winter staring us in the face I decided it was time to get serious and dedicate some effort toward cutting firewood for THIS winter.
Of course it is a bit late for this "grasshopper" to start laying in stores for the winter, but I have many dead junipers I cut down last year and are cured and dry enough to burn efficiently.... all I have to do is cut 'em up into stove lengths and pile them conveniently close to the house.
My easiest way to do this is to fire up the Ford tractor and use the front bucket for throwing freshly cut wood into. Most places in my trees I can just drive the tractor right up close to the desired already-felled tree and cut it up with the chainsaw and throw it right in the maw of the tractor's front bucket.
The trees I cut last year were all junipers, but the rampant bark beetle infestation that is raging throughout the SouthWest has killed many of our pinons and pines as well. Three of them were right in front of the tractor's parking spot and I just had to start it up and move it maybe 20 feet to be as close as possible to minimize the distance I have to throw the cut wood.
I got all 3 trees cut down and cut to stove lengths, with the tractor bucket a little over half full. Suddenly my chainsaw's safety chain-brake lever stuck and would not pull into running position.
I was pretty winded and the old back was talking to me by now anyway, so I hauled the chainsaw and wood over to the house and offloaded the wood onto our deck and began the tedious process of disassembling the saw. Ours is an old and very reliable Stihl that has run and run, eating several chains over the years and a couple of bars.
I got it apart and found the broken piece blocking the action of the safety handle-bar. Upon reassembly I was carefully replacing the snap-ring that holds the chain-gear in place and the universally dreaded KA-PINGGGG occurred and the blasted critical piece ricocheted around the deck and out of sight, making several smaller "pings" as it disappeared totally from access or view. I searched the deck for it - knowing the odds were microscopic I would ever find it - and finally asked the little fuzz-ball Jazzy if she wanted to "Go For a Ride?" and upon getting the affirmative answer of jumping joyfully all over creation, I loaded her up in the Ford Exploder and drove to the nearby Davis True Value Hardware Store, where I found a good selection of snap-rings.
Got the saw reassembled completely but the afternoon sun was fading fast (Don't we all love the fall time change where we suddenly lose that hour of evening daylight?). I decided if I was going to get in a bike ride I'd better do it whilst there was ANY daylight left.
It had warmed up today while the sun was highest so I wasn't much worried about wearing any extra layers when I rode off. It only took a quarter mile or so before I pulled my windbreaker out of the pannier and zipped it up. The breeze was a bit nippier than I'd thought, and I expected to peel off the windbreaker when I got a few more miles down the road and heated up a bit more.
Didn't happen. I unzipped the jacket front climbing my longest hill but had to zip it back up within another quarter mile or so. By the time I got to the halfway mark the sun was actually setting; another misjudgment on my part. Thank goodness I have headlights, tail lights, helmet and side lights.
The ride back home was definitely cold, with me wishing I had more cold weather gear to put on, like my polar fleece skull cap, mittens for the hands, etc. Even when I huffed and puffed up the final steep mile of our goat-path dirt road to the house, I was still cold. Of course a large coyote crossed the road about 50 yards in front of me and I grumbled for the lack of my 12-guage shotgun. You can only carry so much on the bike - and I normally don't spot coyotes while riding - if I ride this close to dark-thirty in the future maybe I'll carry some firepower with me.
As soon as I got home I dug out the bag of winter gear and stuffed it in my pannier. If THAT doesn't make the weather warm up for another week or more, I'll be surprised.
Ride Started: 4:08 PM Ride Ended: 5:33 PM
Beginning Battery Voltage: 13.8 Ending Voltage: 13.0
Lowest Temp 39 F Highest Temp: 57 F
Stats from the GPS: Total Miles: 10.52
Overall average speed Moving Avg Max Speed
7.5 MPH 8.6 MPH 29.3 MPH
Total Trip time Moving Time Stopped Time
1 hour 24 mins 1 hour 13 mins 10 mins
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