Time Fly's By

Last time I wrote we  had just returned from a trip to the desert with our new rig. It worked fine but the lack of solar capabilities meant we ran our generator much more than we liked. We'll work on that.

I spent a lot of March working around the yard at DPS, getting the irrigation system set up for the summer and hauling granite to fill holes and patch up the tree wells. That and spraying the weeds. The weather has been pretty hot so I like to get all that done early in the morning and then head off to the pool for my swim. I have been making it over there 5, sometimes 6 days a week. That takes me through to lunch and then I pretty much just hang out in the shade for the afternoon.

A few days I have taken Blue II for some spins in the desert, trying to connect a few trails I have seen out there and do a little photography along the way.

Always like the desert wildflowers

And some Arizona Wildies

Brenda and her CRPS don't get along very well in the heat so she has been pretty much housebound for the last while and then March 16th she headed back to Canada. She needed to get some dental work done and if you are going to be forced to stay in the house you might as well sit by a furnace as an air conditioner.

Once she had headed home I started slowly putting things away, clearing the deck off and storing all the outside stuff inside for the summer. There was no rush but I figured I would work my way north in time to be home for our daughter Rebecca's birthday with a stop for a day or two out on Yellow Bird Drive.

 Max, Maya, and I got loaded up and after one last swim we left DPS for Bouse on the 23rd. We spent two nights there enjoying the warm night temps and the peace and quiet before heading out early Saturday morning for the road north.

One last desert campfire and star shot before heading North

The first night we stopped at the Cabella's just south of Salt Lake City, in Lehi, Utah. A little bird on Facebook told me that my Sister-in-Law, Tricia, and her kids Chris and Remi were heading south so after a little negotiating we planned a breakfast meeting in Pocatello, Idaho. Always great to see those folks and especially in a different place. After a quick breakfast we both got back on the road, me for Canada, then for points south. I stopped at Costco in Helena to pick up some butter and then made a run for the Medicine Line. That night I stayed at a rest area between Lethbridge and Milk River, as I had a plan to have breakfast with an old friend the next morning in Nanton.

For a travel day, I slept in as I couldn't get Van out for breakfast much before 7AM and I was only an hour and a half away. We had a great visit, solved most of the worlds issues, reviewed all the problems that had surfaced in the energy business since we both retired and then it was back on the road for me. A couple of hours later I was back at Dogpound North.

It took a day or so to get the rig unpacked and everything hauled into the house, and then another couple of days for Brenda to put it all away.

But before that was all done we headed into the city to meet Bec, Ved, and the kids for lunch at our favourite Chinese spot. Great food and even better company.

For the last couple of years I have been bugged by a leg problem that I thought might be sciatica so I have tried exercises, chiropractors, and my own family doc with no relief. I had an appointment with a Neurologist set up so I went in and he poked prodded, electrified me and decided that it might not be sciatica but he didn't know what it might be. He told me take a little magnesium and hopefully that would resolve the issue. Who knows worth a try.

With the rig parked for spring, my doctors appointment behind me, it was time to tackle a couple of clean-up jobs that had been waiting awhile. First I need to muck out the barn and haul a bunch of junk to the garbage. Then the big job, the Quonset hut. It had been collecting stuff for ten or twelve years and I decided if I was the only one who had any idea what something was or where it came from if I didn't want it, it was gone. That made for three dumpsters full of stuff, and a full truck full of metal junk to the dump. And a lot of reorganising to boot.

Those jobs took the best part of a week, but luckily the week was pretty nice weather so it was an OK job.

I had a chance to run in to the University and see my grandson Lucas's team compete in the Western Regional Finals for Robotics. Kind of a cool sport/tech game where the teams build robots and have to complete pretty difficult tasks while competing against another team whose robots need to do the same thing and are at the same time trying to mess up your plan.

Luc's team on the far side almost out of site.

Remember back at the beginning of this journal entry I said we needed some solar capability, well, it was time and I took the rig to Red Deer and dropped it off to get that installed. I won't bore you with all the issues that started but we ended up with 464AH of Battery capacity,  and 400 Watts of Solar capacity on the roof all supplying power to a 2000 Watt Pure Sine Wave Inverter. That hopefully will allow us to do what we want to do without using the generator to much.

While the rig was getting it's solar equipment installed I took my F450 to the shop to get a manifold bolt replaced, all under warranty, and they even supplied me with a brand spanking new pickup to drive while it was in there. So I did a bunch of driving and took a bunch of photos while I was wearing out someone else's wheels.

Oil Train heading through Cochrane

A train full of oil heading to the West Coast

And yet another oil train heading out of Central Alberta likely for the West Coast

Oh, we do export some things other than oil, although the train was mostly oil tankers there were a few grain cars in the middle.

That meant a trip out to Morants Curve to catch an oil train or two heading for BC, a visit with Kim Johnson in Canmore, and then a trip out through the old Burnt Timber field and a drive up the Foresty Trunk Road to check on the wild horses.

Wildies

Wildie Foal

Mom and Babe

The last week has been a little snowy and cool but there have been some great opportunities for catching some northern lights action. Here are a couple of images and a video from two different nights of chasing the Aurora.

Night #1 at Twisty Slough

Night #2 at Dogpound North

I am not sure this video will work but here's hoping. Make sure you hit the box in the right bottom corner and make it full screen.

Today is also a big day, both Alle and her mother Lacey share today as their birthday. Alle had a birthday party over the weekend at a local swimming pool so I ran up to Rocky for that event.

Two little girls mother and daughter, same birthday.

Spring is over here and I must have slept through summer cause it appears we have headed right back into winter with no warning.

A little snow this morning.

Not a Picture to be Seen

We seem to be having a pretty nice summer up here north of the Medicine Line. After a pretty wet June, which is kind of normal for us, the weather heated up a lot and the Calgary Stampede had spectacular weather with almost everyday in the 80's and nary a cloud in sight. So maybe there is something to this global warming thing after all, in the past we probably only got about a half dozen days over 80 every year and I am thinking we are already at that point with our hottest month, August, still to come.

In my last journal entry I mentioned that we finally got some seed in the ground on the last acres of the place. Pretty quick after that Bob, the fellow who farms our place, started cutting a small part of the hay that we seeded last year. It had a pretty good volunteer crop of rye mixed in with it so it will probably end up being cattle feed.

About all the excitement we have had around here the last few days is the preparation for Lacey's wedding in Jamaica, a ways off in February. Lace and her mom, along with her sister Bec, and a couple of other bridesmaid girls were off yesterday on the hunt for the perfect wedding dress. Although no pictures were taken the only report is that she is going to make a beautiful bride, which is no surprise to me anyway. Brenda was pretty excited to go along on the search and even though she is restricted to crutches all reports said that Lacey's bridesmaids took wonderful care of her all day.

Well she was off on the dress hunt I decided I should head out into the West Country and see what I could see. It had been years since I had really driven many of the roads out West and it is always interesting to see what changes had been wrought on the landscape. Remembering that a lot of my working life was spent searching for gas and oil out there is was great to see the final product of my labours. Most of the seismic lines are now being used by ATV's and offroading folks, and of course some of what were just rudimentary trails in the distant past are now pretty nice roads. Of course I had my camera's with me so although there were no pictures of our beautiful bride to be I did manage to catch a few shots of some of our local denizens of the woods.

The whole band of wild horses, four mares, one colt and the stud off to the left

Here is a close up picture of the herd sire.

Watcher in the Woods

The wildflowers were spectacular along the way also.

So there a few pictures of my activities and a second blog in a month. who knows maybe we'll get three next month.

May Long (with an added map of our rides)

Wow, looks like another month has gone by without me getting busy updating the one follower I have left on the blog here. We have been doing all our regular stuff but I have written about that so many times that I think I should just refer you back to previous entries.

Brenda's knee is coming along well, she thinks a little slowly, but the doc says all in good time. Her last appointment she was given the go-ahead to drive and in another week or so she will be good to get on Wink for a short ride.

The girls made it out here for Mother's Day

and as usual Brenda was busy in the kitchen preparing for that. She just needs to feed people, as anyone who knows me can see, so I was in charge of most the playing with the grandkids. They sure love it here at the farm where they can run till their hearts content and there are a whole pack of dogs to play with.

 After riding the Jeep Car and running around we got them all to stand still for a family photo, from the left Lacey, Clayton, Brenda, Bec, Alle, and me. Down in front Ella and Kash and on the camera, Clayton's Mom Becky. Oh yah and can't forget Everly, hiding under Bec's shirt.

It has a been a little different spring here, we get nice days spaced out between replays of winter but the May Long weekend is usually when we get out on the trails for the first time here in Canada. Our horses have had a pretty lazy spring. We pulled the shoes off back around the first of March and I headed off last week to get Blue shod so we could head out to the West Country this weekend. But first I needed to run out and see how the roads had fared over the winter. Along the way I ran into a couple of bands of wild horses. It seems that depending on where they range they have had different winters.

This stud and his band of mares appeared to come through winter with flying colors but the mare with the foal in the picture below obviously was in a little poorer range.

But the green grass is coming and she will pick up quickly I hope, it is not an easy life being a wildie on these northern ranges

The road scouting trip went well so we pried the rig out of the shed here at home and headed west on Thursday. We were headed to the Eagle Creek camp just on the boundary of the Yaha Tinda Ranch. There is a spot there that will take a number of rigs without any crowding and the Pohls, Lewis's, Vic Almond, and Daniella, Trevor, Mel and Serena were going to join us so that looked like a good spot to set up camp.

Not to shabby a view over those trailers

The ice was a little thick for swimming but we were thinking of our Arizona friends who were riding the beaches of San Diego this weekend.

"Hello" Meadows

Just a little scenery viewing stop.

Arriving at our lunch spot

I never get tired of that view, unlike my readers

Mike Lewis, riding Harley and ponying Missy

Glad to share that view with Razz down in the centre there.

 Friday we saddled up and headed out onto the Poplar Ridge trail, that Brenda and I just call the high trail, and as you can see from the photos above it has some pretty spectacular vista's along the way. We took a small detour up towards Eagle Lake to see how it was coming along. Might be awhile before there is much swimming there but there were reports a large grizzly was seen up there in the last few days and one of our group did spot a large black bear track along the trail. We weren't so lucky but the fact that the bears are out and about is a pretty good indicator that warmer weather is on the way. After the ride we enjoyed a great time visiting around the campfire and watching the sunset over the Rockies.

 Day two we headed out a different way and crossed through the Bighorn campsite on the way. Lo and behold, in that site we ran into our old friend, Dave Schmidt and his daughter Heidi and her husband Darcy. Dave's wife Sherri has apparently had a mishap back at home and had to miss out on this trip. Damn the luck. After leaving the Schmidt crew behind we headed up towards the cut blocks on the west side of Bighorn Creek. Once we got across the meadows we took a trail to the right that lead us down to a great little lunch spot overlooking the Bighorn creek valley.

Julie

The "Red Serge Gang"

Ken and Verna enjoying the scenery

We saw a bunch of elk this weekend

These Rocky Mountain Bighorn sheep were laying along the trail up to the Hat. This shot is from about a mile or two away though.

Verna does like her comforts and brings along her pillow to enjoy her lunch time nap.

Vic pondering the crossing of the Bighorn Creek

Ladies Choir practice

We had a great time and although Day two we had a little rain and we got to try out our slickers on the ride back to camp it was not a real soaker. That was to come later. Once we were settled back in camp the rain settled in and came down pretty steady throughout the night.

A little monsoon is not enough to stop this group from setting around a Yukon Candle.

Sunday morning we got up and the rain was still coming so we figured we would run for the flatlands. It took us a while to get everyone ready to roll and as the road was pretty muddy by this time it was better to travel in a group just in case someone had some trouble. Once we got out of the camp it was clear sailing though and other than a big rock slide along the Coal Camp road there was really no problems getting out.

There are a few folks who like to see where we have been in a more traditional form so here is a map of some of our rides in this area.

The Red trails with the white spots are trails we rode this weekend and the others are trails we rode last year in this area.

It's Spring............

It is spring here at Dogpound North, we are down to just some 3 or 4 foot drifts around the yard and most of them should be gone by late June or early July. Just kidding although we are having some nice warm days we are still getting some wintry days also. Oh well, that IS spring in Alberta. We usually get most of our snow in March and April so I am hoping this year is a little different than usual cause we have enough snow already.

We are into week 4 of the rehab of Brenda's knee and although she is not convinced it is going as well as it should, all the professionals we see think she is doing great. Might be a while before she starts running marathons or riding Wink, but she is doing a lot of her usual stuff. Tough to keep her down.

Last weekend we snuck into town and picked up a stationary bicycle from Claire's Mom Melissa, thanks Melissa, and while we were there we kidnapped Claire and took her out for lunch. She is a delightful young woman and managed to put up with her old grandparents and keep us entertained and caught up on the goings on in her life.

And then once we got home Clayton, Lacey and their girls popped by to have a visit. Major score three granddaughters in one weekend.

As the snow melts around the country the wildlife is starting to move around a bit more. These moose are hanging out just a couple of hundred feet from the house here.

Today was another snowy day so I thought I would head out into the West Country and see what was moving about. Along Alberta's Eastern Slopes there are some wild horses that have been out there for a long time and seem to be pretty well adapted to the country. Likely some of them are descended from horses that were either let loose out here or escaped from local ranches, but some of them probably escaped from the local First Nation folks over the last couple of hundred years. I managed to find a small band and get a few photos.

Hiding in the trees

Took over an hour to get these guys to let me see them without trees between us.

Lookout

Although the rest of the small band keep grazing while I was watching them the guy in the photo above never really took his eyes off of me the whole time I was there.

Along the way I crossed paths with this fellow and it looks like he is complaining about the spring weather also.