Time in the Mountains

We headed up to the cottage after having left it in October. This was our first trip in since the winter snows started. The road was plowed so we could get to the bottom of the driveway, but that is still a long walk to the front door.

The snow was about two feet deep with some drifts to three feet. Our snow shoes don't do so well with powder and we sank pretty deep in breaking a trail. Getting to the front door was was better than a gym workout.

Beautiful snow covering the drive.

The dog made it about 1/4th of the way and gave up jumping between our foot prints and wanted to be carried.

Slogging along

View from the deck

The snowmobile trailer with lots of snow - 22 inches was putting a big strain on the roof structure.

Snow sliding off the porch roof lands on the deck

This electric 18" snow blower does a great job of clearing the deck. It has  rubber impellers which protect the deck wood.

Roof snow melts and refreezes into grand icicles

The cold temps allow us to expand our freezer space onto the deck

View of the West Elk Mountains

Driveway opened up

Wood pile for the wood stove

We dug out the trailer to get to the snowmobiles

Julie waiting for me to get ready to ride

Ready to ride

Trails in the mountain

If you have a weak stomach you might not wish to scroll down further. A mountain lion killed a deer next to the road and feasted on the carcass. Then all of the other critters did the same and within just a few days have eaten almost all of the animal.

Interesting being this close to the food chain at work

Fire Fighting Pump

Our retirement home is situated in a beautiful grove of trees in the mountains. This is a beautiful setting, but one that requires understanding the interface between forests and homes and how to protect the latter from fire danger. Our neighborhood has become active in the "Firewise" program with the forest service.

This program is to make homeowners aware of the relationship between the forest and dwellings and ways to reduce fire danger. This is a very educational program and is intended to teach ways to reduce the fire danger on your home due to forest fires, burning embers and fast moving flames.

One of the items that help fire mitigation is the home owner having a source of water to be used for fire fighting. Water totes, ponds, swimming pools and other means of water storage are helpful.

I occasionally follow the online auctions for sales of government property and ran across this slide in fire fighting pumper unit. These slide in units are intended to be installed in the back of 3/4 or 1 ton pickup trucks and used as first response units for fighting brush fires. The fire department ended up buying a larger unit and sold this one at auction.

We won the auction and ended up bringing it home on our cargo trailer. Later in the season I'll move it to the mountain and install in on appropriate equipment for use.

150 gallon tank, electric hose reel and hose storage

18 HP Briggs engine, pump and various valves

The City was most helpful in loading the unit

Mick from the fire department was very helpful in loading and explaining all the features and how to work to unit.

All loaded

Beautiful evening for a drive home

Christmas 2015

We were able to spend Christmas day with my youngest daughter and her family. This was a relaxing day of opening presents, taking naps and enjoying great food.

Greta ready to open presents

Wesley also ready to open presents

Inline skates were a hit

I really like this picture

Received family pictures

Granny Randi came up with wonderful handmade giftts - gloves in this case

Scarf in this case

Happy couple

Wesley was ready for a more capable bicycle so Santa found him this Raleigh Rowdy with aluminum frame and multiple gears and hand brakes. He is ready for the bike trails.

This is Sean's gift to Mandy. They raise chickens and harvest the eggs. This involves a trip to the chicken coop in the early morning and again in the evening to open and close the door to the chicken coop in all kinds of weather.

Sean created an automated process with a motorized door tied to a website that follows the changing times of sunrise and sunset and opens and closes the door at the appropriate time. There is a web cam to monitor the entire process and a light that is timed for the chicken coop.

This is shown indoors in his shop just before it was taken outside to be installed on the chicken coop. Many of the parts were 'grown' on Sean's SLA machine that he built. Truly amazing...

Eisenhower Museum and Library

President Eisenhower's Library and Museum are located in Abilene, KS. It is also the location of his boyhood home.

The museum covers his military accomplishments and rather extensively documents the entire D Day invasion history. It later covers his presidency and the cold war, fallout shelters, interstate highway system, elections and his retirement. His wife Mamie was well represented in the museum.

Typical 1960's living room 

Example of a fallout shelter - 'Preppers' of their day

Merchant ships and U Boats

There were no harbors available to the Allies for the D Day invasion, so we had to bring our own provisions to build our own to offload supplies to support the invading troops. Well done exhibits documented how it was all done.

An actual three rotor German Enigma machine is on display. This was the supposedly secure method used by the German military to send coded messages to the troops. 

Military history is well explained throughout

The Library also houses exhibits which change over time

President Eisenhower's thoughts on the election of Kennedy

His observations as to how he'd be remembered