Working in the rain

Sunday AM

 It's been rainy lately, which will raise few eyebrows in Cottage Grove. I have decided denial is the best strategy, once I don a non-absorbent outer layer topped with a rain parka. Unless the rain is interfering with my vision, I treat it like some irrelevant weather phenomenon like stratus clouds and contrails.

I have been surprised lately when I get off the garden tractor to hitch up a log for towing or fill the dump cart and find that the seat has gotten wet in the 10 minute interval. What? How? I guess I must be adapting. This lasts until the rain penetrates to my skin, then I call it a day.

Our morning's work

We have been gathering some firewood, gradually, and yesterday was the day.  We were cutting and dragging out an alder, that had fallen near our lower road. We managed to drag two six-foot lengths to the road, that yielded eight rounds for splitting into firewood, with many branches left to gather up for smaller stove wood and for huge mounds.  

About halfway through our morning we got a call from Jon our neighbor offering us some precut rounds from a fir cut on his property last year; so I drove up there in the pickup truck.  Some of these rounds were so big in diameter that they could not be loaded by hand, so I will have to go back with a ramp and a come-along to get the things in.  

Wood from Jon's property

Wanting to get the truck unloaded right away, I drove down the internal road over the area I recently covered ruts with bark, only to make more ruts.  Until this rain lets up for a week, the ground will continue to be saturated and I will not be able to travel that intersection very much.

The ruts on top of more ruts covered with bark

Today, Sunday, projects are on hiatus.  MM and I will go to Eugene for a movie and dinner. 

The hoop house- with two dump carts of bark.

Monday is looking like a market day for groceries and hardware. Maybe I can rig up a ramp and a crossbar on the truck for winching on those big rounds and loading heavy wheeled equipment like the generator and the wood chipper, start on the gate for the stable/ tractor garage.

Tuesday the logging tongs I ordered should arrive, which they typically do around 10AM.  More log harvesting then, loading rounds and branches, and hauling the remaining chips to the hoop house.