I received many nice gifts for Christmas and Birthday. For each one I am truly thankful. But a birthday gift from my sweet Jenny was one I’d waited over 15 years to receive. Below is the first draft of the manuscript of her novel. I have reading to do. Bye.
In the below image you’ll see the one tall tree that wasn’t forested with the rest. Kind of a loggers joke… or is it?
This shot is of a mountain top that you’d see when driving into Idaho. You can see it easily from 10 miles away on Interstate 90. When we first drove to Idaho, I saw this and thought, “Wow, that’s cool. They logged the mountain top but left one tree standing there to show how tall the trees used to be.” Oh how naive I was.
Wouldn’t it have been a shame to drive into the beauty of Idaho only to see a big ol’ cell-tower welcoming you. I guess that’s what the state thought when they camouflaged this cell-tower to look like the tallest tree in the forest. Fooled me. Probably fooled thousands.
OK, now it’s a tradition. Head down to Lake Coeur d’Alene at watch eagles, which are migrating south, eat salmon, which are spawning on the shoreline.This first shot is actually the images combined of an eagle swooping in for lunch.
Hopefully by next year I’ll have enough saved to get some better quality images.
(Click images to enlarge)
With only about 6 inches on the ground I hike up into the hills behind our house to see what I can see. Thought I’d share some shots.
OK, here’s an extra credit question. How do you know a moose has been here in the image below?
Answer: Branches don’t grow at 90 degree angles unless a moose has been munching on them.
Getting local information about a power outage is virtually impossible unless you think outside the box. You call the electric company and they provide a recording telling you what you already know, “Your power’s out!” But how wide spread is the outage and are other towns coming on line before or after yours? Here’s what I learned during a three hour outage last night that I tested during a two hour outage this morning.
If you’re in Cocolalla, and the power goes out, you can test the extent of the outage with and AM/FM radio. Nothing magic here, just tune in to 1400 AM to see if Sandpoint is out and tune into 89.9 FM to see if Rathdrum is out. Hint – if the station works, they have power. These towns and radio stations are north and south of us and follow the power grid up from Coeur d’Alene. If you’re on Air-Pipe’s wireless internet system on Little Blacktail Mountain, you’ll know when Rathdrum comes back on line when you can connect back to the internet world.
Air-Pipe uses a battery back-up that can keep things working for 3 hours max. After that, your internet goes dark. I was under the impression that they have a generator up on Little Black Tail. If that’s the case, one can only guess when and how it’s turned on. If you have info on this topic, please let me know.
If you have other suggestions and tips, please contact me and I’ll share them here.
The owner of this liquor store must have sat around for hours, conducted surveys and test groups to figure out what they lacked and the major new innovation that would propel their success.
We had our first substantial snow on Nov. 19th. It was melted a day or two later.(click below to enlarge image)
Today is December 6th and there’s hardly any snow on the ground. The temps are dropping into the teens. Today was about the coldest day this season, hitting the low teens. At church a friend of ours told Jenny that she doesn’t like the cold temps because the power tends to go out when the temp gets this low. I have no idea about the science behind that statement but true to form the electricity went out for 30-seconds. Well, for most people it was 3 hours, but the generator kicked in and the house quickly came back to life. The generator isn’t powerful enough for the electric furnace but the pellet stove worked like a champ.
Last week the pellet stove was down for repairs. We have much to be thankful for.
We ran away with friends to Leavenworth Washington. Leavenworth is a Bavarian style town where you go to:
I didn’t get many pictures but did manage to get an amazing cast of sunlight on the mountains in the morning.
And on the way home, we caught this picture of a goose drawn carriage. Umm, I don’t know.
