Wood Working and a Night Moose

Tom began his new life here at home with a Herculean task: splitting the big rounds I'd cut up from the giant dead tree in the yard.  He switched back and forth between reviewing scientific papers for journals, working with a colleague in Texas on research and development, and wielding his splitting maul and metal wedges to make a stack of firewood out of the giant rounds. 
Meanwhile I cut more (much smaller) rounds for him from blown down trees around the forest.






We have ended up with quite a stack, and we are very proud.  As always, we view cut, split and stacked wood as wealth.  We are hoping to get enough wood to have a hefty "savings account" built up beyond what we'll need for this year.

Besides the cordwood for the woodstove that heats the house, we also filled the tipi-woodshed with a giant mound of cut-up limbs for the wood cookstove.  This is probably enough stovewood to last us for three or four years.  We're filthy rich, I tell you.

So we're ready for the snow, but it only seems to tease us.  We finally had a skiff of snow one morning last week, and we've had furious flurries whipping around in the air several times, but they don't actually add up to snow on the ground.  The nights are always below freezing, so the heater is on in the bathhouse to keep the pump and plumbing warm (which means lovely warm towels after a shower), but the daytime temperatures are back to the 40's and 50's.

The road is still hard and dry, although right during some of the bigger rainstorms it was slippery on the surface. But it hasn't really gotten soft or hard to drive on yet.  That is good, because I am still spending much too much time going to town or over to Bozeman for meetings and rallies.  Here I am at Occupy Bozeman:

As for the neighborhood, we were held up on our way home from town late one night by a bull moose standing in the road.
(Those of you who remember Bob Seger's 1976 hit can now start singing "Working on some Night Moose..." ).  He ran up the road while we waited until he was around a bend and far enough ahead that he would have time to look for a place to leave the road.  Then we moved up, but there he was again and started running up the road away from us.  We repeated this several times, until finally I made an attempt to zoom past him so we could get home and he could recover.  But we were in the Little Car (1983 Toyota Tercel wagon with a very old, underpowered engine), and when we tried to get past him, he broke into a full-out sprint, running faster than the Little Car could go.  There we were, racing a moose up Orea Creek Road in the dark.  We came up to about his knees in the little car.  I've never seen a bull moose run that fast.  Finally he turned and ran down the bank and we putt-putted on up the road.   We are hoping he will stay in our area for awhile, but he probably couldn't wait to leave after that experience.  We'll have to start workin' on our night moose moves.
 

There has also been a great grey owl flying like a ghost around the valley and its Hooo-hoo-hoo-hoo call has been a treat to hear.  And just a few days ago I spotted a boreal owl - the cutest little tiny owl I've ever seen - preening itself on the limb of a tree just downhill from the house. Here's a picture from the web of a boreal owl:

The mule deer are in their winter grey coats now and the does and this year's fawns are starting to bunch up into herds as they do in the winter.  We've spotted a lovely big buck a few times, stepping away with a stately stride.  Hunting season has just begun so we hope they don't get too casual about humans - it could prove a deadly attitude. 

The only newcomer in the neighborhood that we have not been pleased to see is a surveyor and engineer who was operating some machinery one morning, clearing and staking out a homesite for someone to build a house on the property right in front of us.  Fortunately, they seem to have chosen a home site that is hidden (at least we hope it will be - if they build it high enough, we might be able to see their roof) from our house, but it is smack dab across the street from Jeff's house.  We  went over and stood in the staked out area, and we could see right in the windows of Jeff's house.  He hasn't been home since all this happened, but I'm sure he will be heartbroken.  I'm anxious to meet the people, and ask them about their plans for the road and for electricity, whether they plan to live year round or what.  We dread changes to our peaceful domain.  It is so hard not to want the door to slam after you when you have worked so hard to make it possible to live in a wild and lonely spot.  But someone else dreams of living here, too, and now we can only hope they are good people willing to consider the needs and values of their neighbors.  Perhaps we will  be friends and cherish their presence.  But it is hard to convince myself to like the idea.

So I hope winter comes soon and stops them from accomplishing anything more this year. No, that's not very nice. How about: I hope winter comes soon so I can glory in the snow and the cold and everything I love about winter.  Meanwhile, we continue to work on our before-winter-comes lists and to enjoy the light and the crunchy underbrush and the cold sunshine of this long, warm autumn.  No matter what happens with the new people, this is our sweet home, and we will always love living here.