My Sky Color

A forty something Dad, Husband, Engineer guy living in Western Oregon. Reflections on all things in life. A few technical things and whatever else comes along.

Sunday, August 29, 2010

Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom Trip to the Beach


We took a weekend trip to Pacific City for some fun time. Dad has gotton his CJ2A so it is pretty reliable. We took a Jeep ride down the beach to where the Nestucca River runs into the sea. This area is always changing and is off the normal visitor path. On the beach there was a group of fur seals. We started taking pictures and gradually walking closer. We got to within about 15 feet of them. A few awkwardly flopped into the water as we worked our way close but it was pretty neat checking them out so close.

We took another Jeep ride up a road that runs along a ridge that is adjacent to the beach and Cape Kiwanda. As we were motoring slowly along this black creature bounded across the road. It didn't compute at first what it was..."that's a bear!" It was a cub about the side of a lab.



I immediately started looking for momma bear. She was on the slope above us to our left and she had another cub with her! I told Dad he'd better back up and give here a little space. Once we did she ran across the road with junior on her heels.




You can see momma bear was bigger than a great dane. As we proceeded up the road/trail the first cub (maybe a yearling) was up a tree as the first bear picture shows. We had passed houses getting to the trail and there were houses in sight across a small gully when we saw the bear up the tree.

Seeing a bear in the wild is a once in a life time experience for most people. This summer we saw a black bear up a tree in Yellow Stone and now we see one close to home at the beach. It gave us something to talk about.

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Thursday, August 05, 2010

Summer's Project Complete - Yahoo!

In the spring the goats get all goofy and they get out on all sides. There is no reason to, it's just spring. You know how every person has "the thing" that bugs them. For my dad it was the outside dog barking at night. For me it is lots of things. Things like children fighting on either side of a door because eventually someone's fingers are going to get smashed. I could tell that for Ralph it was our goofy goats getting on his side of the fence. Generally they just eat the brush but once in a while they get close to his flower beds.

This spring the neighbors asked if they could go halves on putting in new fence. I started figuring and shooting lines trying to figure out how to straighten out the line and make the fence better. After taking out 4 trees that fell right where the fence should go we were ready to replace the fence. Any good fence requires sturdy corners and ends posts. I just happen to have some substantial I beam pieces around the place so we put in three of these with 180 pounds of concrete. They turned out fairly substantial...




I welded lock washers on to have something to tie the wire to. We put about 24 inches in the ground with the concrete and have about five and a half feet above ground.

Taking out the old fence is a job and pulling out the old posts is the hardest part. I started looking around for ideas and materials and made a post puller.


The post puller works great! We even pulled some round wooden posts out with it.

Three quarters of one Saturday and half of another were required to remove the old and put in the new fence. We bought taller "hog" wire which we hope will deter the goats come next spring.

I don't have a good picture of the new fence. (maybe I'll add that later)

It is nice to have this summer's major project done and I don't have to worry about Ralph stressing out over the dumb goats.... No we just have to fill the woodshed.



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