Usually, I get to leave my job on Friday if my work is caught up and I have no incidents by about 1:00 pm. So that’s my goal. It didn’t work yesterday. It ended up being almost 4:00 before I left Williston! At this time of year, that means it was dark for quite some time before I reached the hills. (For those of you who may not be familiar, “the hills” to me, are the Turtle Mountains of North Dakota) As I drove my CRV Honda across the great flat, there didn’t seem to be much snow, so I was fairly confident I could drive right up to my cabin in the woods, as I had done through December. As I got to the trail to the cabin, I opened the gate and discovered a drift that was only 8 to 10 inches deep, but the snow had hardened. Soft snow, no problem. This stuff was hard enough the vehicle would high center and be stranded, I don’t particularly like to shovel snow much anyway, but digging compacted snow from under a vehicle is my least favorite, not that I have any personal experience in this area. . . So I dressed up for the walk in, about a quarter mile in a temperature of about -10 degrees. Not a big deal, done it all my life, this one I have experience with. Granted, I am not as young as I was for most of those experiences, but I know how to pace myself, and the air was wonderful! No wind, and you can’t get air much fresher than that in the hills, not much light, but I walked by starlight. Crunch, crunch, a sense of wonder and amazement. . . . I had decided to not take my key that was buried in my CRV, and just use the one I had stashed in the woods. I prefer no one is around my cabin or cabin site, but just in case I do lock it up when I leave. In a way that is strange, as when I was growing up in the old farm house towards the other end of the farm, I don’t ever remember locking a door until I left for college. So arriving at the cabin, I was feeling pretty good . . . the fresh air, and I had this feeling the exercise was better for me than what I could get in a gym. But when I went for my stashed key, disaster, it wasn’t there! I couldn’t believe it! I have a finishing nail driven in a tree not too far from the cabin, and it’s high enough the cattle can’t rub against it and knock it off. Plus the hole in the key is small, and I have a small wire key ring already in that hole so it has to “snap” into place! Great! Now I had all the way back to the road to get the key! I hadn’t walked very many steps before I realized I had some options. First of all, I hadn’t been up here for 4 weeks, so I could start the generator and freshen up the cabin’s batteries. It’s passive solar, but my batteries are getting old, there’s not much daylight in the summer, and the temperature has been wind chills of 30 below all week long! It was stubborn, but I got the generator to run (pretty stubborn this morning too). Plus, I bought a tractor with a decent loader and front wheel assist so I had the ability to open up the trail to the cabin. I bought a new battery this fall, and I brought up a new can of ether last time so I thought I had a shot . . . didn’t fire. So, I plugged it in, but before I walked out I decided to look for the key. So now I’m down on my hands and knees, looking through the snow below a tree for a key! I carefully brushed away the snow over an area a couple of square feet, nothing. Then as I picked up the flashlight I thought I caught a glimmer, and sure enough, I had the key! Once in the cabin I could start the fire and have a chance of sleeping comfortably tonight. When it has been this cold, it takes a long time to take the cold out of everything. Although I think it was about -10, the thermometer in the cabin said -30! So this was going to take a while! Also, getting in the cabin go me to the key for my 4 wheeler! I have a lot of faith in Honda, as they have proven very reliable over the years, and that’s big with me. Sure enough my mid 90’s 400 Rancher, turned over pretty slowly but started on the third turn. I love that old thing! So now I thought I didn’t have to walk to the road! I was almost correct. There were two areas where the 4 wheeler, even with the new tires almost was stuck (I discovered if I shift my weight to the very back of the machine, the front wheels kind of float on the snow and the rear wheels will get enough traction to move forward. The drift by the gate I didn’t take on with the 4 wheeler. I think it might have walked right over with the wide tires, but why part it right by the road when I was only 20 yards away? While the stove was warming the cabin, and the tractor was plugged in, I went to Kelvin (our area country bar/restaurant) for their double cheeseburger (best around). After eating and visiting with some friends, I was back to the cabin trail, but looking through the woods towards the cabin I could see a light that wasn’t there before, and I thought oh great, I burned something up. I didn’t go far before my perspective changed and I could see it was the moon coming up behind the trees! The tractor still didn’t start, so I have it plugged in with the generator running as I type this. I think I will have time to finish the story. . . So, with the tractor not starting, I still needed groceries, so I dug out the “calf sled” and tied it to the 4 wheeler. Actually, I lied, I forgot to dig it out, so had to do that when I came back from town with the groceries, but that turned out to be my favorite part of the adventure . . . well one of them. (if you are interested, go to my webpage and read today’s blog for the rest of the story. Yes, it’s a cheap trick. But only those of you who are interested have read this far anyway, and I’m still ticked off at Facebook for kicking me off for being ficticous! I see names regularly that to me look fake, but me they take off! So, I’m starting to use Facebook some, but my best content (in my opinion) is going to my website artrude where Facebook has no say! So the entire story will be in my blog for today)
Posted on: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 16:57:34 +0000
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