Our updates for all of you

So far, this fall of 2018 has been dry and cold in our northern town! This morning it was a cold 19 degrees (-7 C) and we've had the temperatures staying around that 20-degree range (-6 C) and getting in the 38 (+3 C) to 41 (+5 C) for the "high". This time last year we had already had about a foot of snow and quite a few days of rain but the temps were in the 30s at night and 40s for the highs. A couple of weeks ago we did have the first snow of the winter of 2018/2019. Only an inch and it has since melted but there will be more snow coming! Maybe tomorrow night as a storm system is pushing through for Thanksgiving day and the weekend. Stacy has been inspired to try to make hard candies for possibly some holiday gifts. On YouTube, she came across the videos from the Hercules Candy Company, a family run company in the New York area where one of the family members began recording and posting videos of how it is done the old fashion ways of pr...

So, to continue with last weeks story. In August, Stacy finally got the trailer she's been wanting all along. Yes, while I like the larger, around 28 to 30 foot or so, RVs, Stacy has kept the idea that smaller is better. Smaller can go pretty much anyplace you'd want to camp and our 5th wheel, at 34-feet long, while it can go most places, it can't go 'anyplace' due to the length. When we got the 5th wheel in July 2017, I was surprised Stacy was willing and even suggested, we go for it trading in our 33-foot travel trailer to get the Jayco. Again, the "Wildcat Maxx" was a nice travel trailer. It had made several short and two long trips in the almost two years we'd owned it. We lucked out as in an era of the rapid assembly to make the crazy sales numbers the RV industry has been having, the Wildcat was "completed on a Wednesday by happy Amish at the factory" as we didn't have any of the build issues I still read about from the appar...

I knew it has been a while, a long while. Not this long though! So, readers in the either, if there are any still around, what's been going on with our life adventure? The high points since February 2018: 1. We almost bought a new truck. 2. While we didn't finally buy a truck in late March, we traded in two-vehicles and bought a 2018 Toyota, Rav4 Hybrid, CUV ( C ompact 'sports'  U tility V ehicle). 3. We had a fantastic summer trip with the granddaughters spending 9 days in Yellowstone last July. The bunkhouse 5th wheel trailer we bought July 2017 right after our June trip in 2017, proved to be the BEST way to comfortably sleep and house the 5 of us, me, Stacy, Sandy, and the granddaughters, for a trip. 4. In August we got Stacy the one RV trailer she's been wanting for several years now, a Winnebago Micro-Minnie, a 20-foot long travel trailer that sleeps two. Stacy used it for a week-long business trip to Boise for state-level meetings just a couple of wee...

After last weeks post of me talking about the somewhat short winter so far, it got cold! I mean really cold over the weekend, like two mornings with the lows of +8 (-13C) and +9 (-12C) and 'highs' around 25 (-3C). No one I had talked with thought it would be that THAT cold again this season! Then last night, 02/13/18, there had been a "Winter Storm Watch" issued for the time period of 10 PM Tuesday to 12 noon Wednesday for "up to" 11 inches of snow. Luckily, we didn't get anything near that with about 4 inches overnight and the snow stopped around 10 am and warmed into the mid-30s during the day so what had fallen had begun to melt, clearing off the roads and walkways but staying on the grass. However, for its last blast, we still could get a few more inches of accumulation between now and next Sunday the 18th. Then, the long-term forecast has the daytime temps going back into the mid to upper 30s again in about a week. We'll see! On Monday t...

Yes, a bit over a year ago, as I write this post, there had been the dump of right at four feet of snow from February third to the fifth. An area record that was then compared to the winter of 1996 which had been the most snow in the recent history with memories of up to thirteen foot deep drifts. From last year, February 6th, 2017 Above and Below: When we woke up to go to work that Monday morning we were, as everybody in the region was, very surprised to find so much snow had fallen overnight from Sunday to Monday. As we took stock of what we would need to do I measured several spots to be over three feet deep on our property. We weren't going anywhere fast that day. That one pathway was made by a cat getting from the parking area to the back porch to be fed.   Below: Our travel trailer at the time, a Forest River Wildcat Maxx at the time that February morning was well buried.  During last summers vacation, we were parked for a couple of nights...