7AM and they are at it again - heavy-duty helicopters dropping wood chips/slivers on the worst or most probable spots on the mountainsides for flash flooding and mudslides. The hope is that the chips will become tangled together during the fall to make a mulch bed for seeds and seedlings and help stabilize the ground/soil. Sounds good, I hope it works.
They started west of us over the hill from the mudslide area, big semi's loaded with the wood chips and 2 helicopters doing the flying, then they moved to just east of us, set-up their chip piles and started flying in the Mineral Springs Gorge area.
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| A helicopter with his load flying over the river |
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| Flying across the Poudre River |
It's a bit unnerving hearing them flying almost directly overhead. They will be at it all day.
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| Here you can see the wood chip piles (2), they use a backhoe to load the mesh "bags" then hook them to the release cable so one end of the "bag" drops and the chips are released. |
I got busy and defrosted our freezer/fridge, a chore that isn't too bad and only takes about an hour. I turn the fridge off about 30 minutes ahead of time, and I use a hair dryer to speed up the melting. I use baskets in the freezer to help me stay organized. I like being able to pull them out quickly, then rummage through them at my leisure (a hold-over from our sailing days I guess).
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| I try to defrost just prior to a shop-up. You can see the fins up at the top that get iced-up. We added a fan to help more uniformly cool the entire fridge. The fan is alligator-clipped to the fins and works great. |
Another thing I worked on was making chicken and black beans burritos, 4 in all, one to eat and 3 to freeze. I'm starting to think about how we're going to get all this food eaten up prior to leaving - it looks like so-o-o much, (it's a good thing we eat everyday, lol).
As usual, we always eat a hearty breakfast, and here's another sample using freeze-dried hash browns as the side.
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| Very handy to have around. I nuke water in a coffee mug for a minute and 30, then add the hash browns. 15 min's later, after a cup of coffee and a perusal of Facebook they are ready to be fried up. |
After this delish breakfast settled, we packed up sandwiches and headed over to Dadd Gulch, one of my favorite trails. Not very challenging but great for a meander and picnic.
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| Looking west down the canyon, so peaceful & pretty. |
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| It was a breezy day so a walking stick to hold the flowers still was called for in this instance. |
After our hike and picnic, we decided to drive east through the canyon and see what caught our eye as far as the "pretty factor" views. Here's a couple of nice shots.
I guess this is where I'll leave it for now, thanks for taking the time to visit!
That is a great idea to drop the wood chips to prevent mud slides etc. I've never heard of that before, but then we live in a flat area. Nice area for walks that I would enjoy too.
ReplyDeleteSounds good to me too, and at the very least it will hold moisture in it and hopefully promote growth.
DeleteI have never heard of that woodchip dropping thing. Great idea, I hope it works!
ReplyDeleteWe do too! Luckily the burn scar is west of us and not directly across the river. Fingers crossed we'll get through this season intact around here. Quite the impact on the businesses here in the canyon, sad, very sad.
DeleteYours is the second blog I read today about helicopters flying overhead. Interesting about the wood chip drop.
ReplyDeleteI will be doing an inventory in our freezer before November too and cleaning the fridge. Always surprises in there. :)
True about the surprises, some of which go straight into the trash can. Since this freezer is a lot smaller than our home freezer it should be doable to finish it out on time.
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