April 26, 2008  Perhaps I Spoke Too Soon
 
I woke up fairly early this morning, my waking habits tend to coincide with first light, and if the day begins heavily overcast I tend to sleep in a bit longer. So it surprised me to awake to a fairly dark morning... dark compared to other recent mornings at 5:30 am It was quite overcast, and from what I could see, there had been some precipitation overnight. The 2nd floor bedroom was a bit cool; I'd turned off the furnace the night before. I have one of those digital programmable thermostats that I've already programmed... I've just not gotten around to installing it, so the old inaccurate analog thermostat is set for daytime temps, but I hesitate adjusting it for cooler nights, so I just turn it off at night.
 
I heard what sounded like wind gusts on my way downstairs. Looking out the front window I noticed that my flags were flying straight out and the flagpole was bending under that force!
 
After a quick breakfast I went into my office. On my desk there's a digital indoor/outdoor thermometer. The outdoor temperature was 32° F. Outside it began to snow.
 
Here in Wisconsin's far Northwoods, at least the weather has been consistent today. Snow, wind and cold. The ground is too warm for the snow to accumulate and the wind changes direction so frequently the snow comes down, goes up, races left then right as I watch through the office window. The wind was also responsible for toppling trees and limbs on the power lines. Our power was out from 8:30 am until 1:00 pm
 
Yet, this kind of pm weather is to be expected and accepted around here. Several years back, opening day of fishing season was held on May 5th. After 6 weeks of warm weather we had 5 inches of heavy, wet snow the morning of May 5th (aka Cinco de Mayo).
 
Until later.....DKHT

April 25, 2008  Weather and Ducks
 
It seems like we've gone from sub-Arctic to sub-tropical conditions in the past week. Temperatures went from below freezing to the mid-70's in short order and the bulk of the snow is now gone. The lake ice is breaking up. I live on the north side of the lake, so the sun warms the bank and ice here before it gets to the protected southern shore. But now, the ice has become rotten and breaks up easily. A weather front moved in yesterday, dropping temperatures and bringing strong winds from the south. Large pans of ice have broken off the south shore and crunches into our shore with force. Early this morning our bay was littered with ice pans blown in from the now open water of the main part of the lake.
 
We had a mating pair of mallards come in early last week when there was only a narrow strip of open water. It's difficult to tell if they're still around although I believe they are...I've seen two pair of ducks flying over on the south side of the lake, but, at that distance it's difficult to determine if it's the same ones.
 
Two days ago we had five new visitors to the open water. I had a tough time identifying what they were, but, after careful scrutiny of my bird books and stored prints, I was able to determine that they were common mergansers...three males and two females. They only stayed briefly to rest and to try to find food. They'll be heading north to Canada. These Mergansers are fresh water divers and range from the Pacific, across Hudson Bay to the North Atlantic.
 
I knew this visit would be brief, and, since it was such a special event I decided to try to get a few pictures with my Canon Powershot S2 IS digital zoom camera. After frantically digging through the mounds of paperwork and 'stuff' on my desk(s) I finally located the camera case and pulled out the camera. The mergansers were still swimming and diving directly off my beach. I turned on the power switch...and nothing! I had a set of rapid rechargeable AA batteries in the camera. I usually use several freshly charged sets of batteries when I know that I'll be taking pictures that day. But the rapid recharge batteries do not hold their charge for extended periods of time, so I store the camera with standard alkaline AA's so I can grab it to shoot those spur-of-the-moment photo opportunities.
 
Evidently I'd forgotten to change over the batteries. The mergansers were beginning to move along the shoreline, away from the photo op area. I could't find any regular AA's in the camera case... I recalled I'd put a few sets in the handheld GPS case for a cold weather geocaching outing (that I never attended because the furnace went out that day). I wildly raced around the house looking for the GPS bag. It was in the dining room on the table, next to flower seeds from last year, and buried under some old Texas newspapers near the sterilized hummingbird feeders. I don't recall just when I last actually ate at the dining room table. Batteries in hand I quickly put them in the camera, crept to the front door and quietly and slowly opened the door, making as little noise as possible. I crept out on the deck and scanned the shore for the mergansers. I looked at the open water, a bit further out. No mergansers in sight. Not along the far shore, not soaring overhead. I waited for some time, but the mergansers were gone. Eventually, I did get one picture...
 

 
I've travelled extensively on jobs and the occasional vacation. But I am humbled by the migrating birds who travel tens ofthousands of miles every year, without Motel 6's and McDonalds to provide lodging and food. In a few weeks my pals the hummingbirds will arrive from South America. Although they're highly territorial and mighty feisty, you can't help but admire and marvel at the stamina it takes for these high-performance fliers to make their annual trips.
 

 
Until later.....DKHT

April 17, 2008  The First Sign of Spring....
 
I've been waiting for enough snow to melt to get the back blade hooked up to the big tractor for some time. Winter snow plowing has created piles of surface gravel and dirt removed from the driveway. The back blade is the only way to put these materials back in the drive where they belong. I thought I could plow my way in to where the back blade is stored. but I almost got the rig stuck... it's a tough time for the big tractor since it has huge rear tires with chains but is only two-wheel drive. This time of year the chains will spin down through the top soil melt and then spin unmercifully on the frozen ground below. It's a great way to destroy your yard. The alternative is to remove the chains, but the weight of the front loader would just let the back tires spin....I really need a counterweight.
 
Now that much of the snow and ice has melted, although the snow/ice cover in the forests is still significant. The lake is still totally frozen over.... except for a strip of about 6 feet of open water on this, the north shoreline. But that slim strip of open water was enough to attract some early newcomers to the north. A mallard drake and hen appeared about mid afternoon! They'll probably stay for a brief while since there's little open water to the north. I'll put out some corn for them in the shallows. That will keep the deer from gulping it down. Unless you live up here, you don't know how wonderful it feels when the summer animal friends return...That doesn't mean the summer tourists who frequently become animals in their own right.
 
On other fronts:
 
Since G Dubyah has messed up our supply of oil (our domestic reserves are huge...just go to Oklahoma and Texas and see all the idle and capped wells) in order to provide his oil pals with astronomical profits, I've been looking into alternative energy sources. Although the winds get gusty up here, they aren't sufficiently consistent for wind power. But North Texas is perfect for wind turbine generation of electricity. Add to that the solar panels and you have a super alternative energy resource that seems perfect for the North Texas winds. But North Texas is oil country, and it's legislature isn't enthusiastic about alternative energy.
 
Now biodiesel is promising, providing it doesn't rely on corn, although soy and a few other plants hold promise. I'm really excited about the alternative biodiesel obtained from cooking oils...down in Texas they deep fry half of their food, so there's lotsa oil left to process. Trouble is that it's great for a person to set up his own processing system.... but it's a limited process and certainly doesn't lend itself to portability. And, even with thousands of Texicans frying up their catfish, fries, onion rings, chicken, tortillas, etc., there's just not enough used frying oil to power the nation's needs. Therefore, I've come up with my own plan, based on George Dubyah's logic:
 
One. Convince Americans that it's healthy and patriotic to eat deep fried cholesterol laden foods. This will increase the availability of used cooking oil while decreasing the number of Americans that will survive to receive Medicare. (Based upon G Dubyah's policy of sending troops into the phony war.)
 
Two. Start importing used cooking oil from China, France and England and make them pay for the service of removing this weapon of mass destruction. (Based on G Dubyuh's WMA white paper)
 
Three. Mandate this FF (french fry) diesel be used in all municipal diesel busses, garbage trucks, maintenance vehicles and any other such vehicles used in the cities. The lingering exhaust, mildly tainted with the aromas of favorite fried foods will subliminally cause disposable big city people to head for the nearest McDonald's, thus beginning the cycle once again. (Based on G Dubyah's philosophy that those who control domestic oil shall profit from domestic oil and paid for by our brave troops).
 

 
Until later.....DKHT

April 13, 2008  We Are Experiencing Technical Difficulties....
 
My last post was on Easter, now in the March Archive. I began writing about a fellow dubbed "The Philosophical Hermit" by James W. Kimball in his book "Spirit of the Wilderness". The Hermit was a real person who chose to live far from civilization with his only close friend, his dog Sally. His cabin was hand made of logs, and while small and simple of construction, was elegant in the carvings and craftsmanship the Hermit skillfully used to decorate his wilderness home. He and Sally were inseparable, and reminded me of the closeness I shared with a furry young Sheltie named Fritz. And the Hermit's cabin caused me to recall my first cabin here along the lakeside in a then remote area of Northern Wisconsin. My cabin was very small, but I had turned a simple frame storage building into a comfortable four-season living space for many years.
 
It seemed proper to add some pictures to my story. I had some old photos of my simple little cottage and I could scan pictures from the book. Or so I thought....
 
Although I returned from Texas almost 2 months ago, I've been busy with things other than unpacking and hooking up my Visioneer OneTouch 9120 USB scanner. I connected all cables and the power supply transformer and lastly, unlocked the scanner transport. I booted up the laptop and waited for the 'finding scanner' procedure to initiate. Nothing. The scanner and laptop which had worked perfectly together in Texas appeared to ignore each other in Wisconsin. After 4 hours of troubleshooting, I could only figure out that the computer and scanner recognized and were communicating with each other, but the scanner software decided to become snooty, claiming that the problem was with the scanner.
 
This was Deja vu all over again. The same thing happened a year ago with the scanner connected to the desktop. I had gone to the Visioneer website back then and downloaded a patch per their instructions. The patch screwed everything up! If you uninstall the Visioneer software/drivers the system will usually yield a fatal error. You can't reinstall the software because it leaves nasty trash behind. Still, the initial problem is not self-repairing, so I went for the uninstall, hoping against all hope. Still locked up! I went to the support site once again. This time the patch program was not there. In it's place are 18 pages of instructions and 7 executables to be run at odd places while following the instructions, editing the registry and wailing voo-doo exorcism chants.
 
The problem is with the Visioneer Paperport software, and Visioneer is well aware of it's quirkiness. They blame Microsoft, of course, but I had an earlier version of Paperport for my old HP SCSI scanner back in the late 90's, and it was problematic as well. Seems that the Visioneer programmers do just enough work to get it to operate one or two times before releasing it. Funny, but other companies can write fairly bullet-proof software for TWAIN interfaced devices. The moral of my story is AVOID VISIONEER PAPERPORT SOFTWARE! It's bundled with Visioneer scanners (which seem to be reliable... they may be designed or manufactured by Kodak) and it's cheap, so several other scanner mfr's bundle it as well.
 
On other fronts:
 
For the past several weeks we've had snowstorms about twice each week. Not the little flurry kind, but the non-stop wet snowfalls occasionally seen in the late season. Over the past several days we obtained over 6 inches of wet snow. If the temps were colder it would've been more like 12 inches. My old tractor worked hard to plow the heavy snow out of my drive. The snowdrifts from plowing had melted down to about 3 ft high before these snows...now some are back as high as 6 feet. We need the moisture to help us out of a multi-year drought where rainfall and moisture amounts have been well below normal. But I still long for Spring.
 

 
Until later.....DKHT