Redneck car repair

What does a Redneck do when the Alternator quits working on his truck, 50 miles from home on a Sunday, when the car parts stores aren't open?

Well, he uses a gas-powered generator tied into the bed of the truck with an extension cord running into the cab, which is plugged into a battery charger. The charger cables run out the door and under the hood and are hooked to the battery.

Tristan made it as far as Whitefish this morning before the battery died, so Steven and I went down and took him the generator and other stuff. It was the easiest way we could think of to get him and his truck home. Would have worked pretty slick, too, except the generator seized up. We ended up running jumper cables from our car to his truck and giving him a charge, before which Steven and Tristan had put new cable ends on the battery cables so there would be a good connection.

When we got home they pulled the alternator off and the brushes were pretty much worn off. Tomorrow they'll see about getting new ones from NAPA.

Emily's birthday

My baby is 16 now! Still young enough to blow all the candles out at once, and yet so grown up! I'm proud of Emily, she has so much on the ball and so much excitement for her plans for her future! Yay, Emily, keep heading toward your dreams!

We got 5" of snow overnight and continued light snow today. The alternator went out on Tristan's truck... Poor guy has poured so much of his money into car parts over the last couple years. But somehow he keeps things patched up and gets on with the adventure of "life"!

Doughnuts

I made doughnuts this afternoon. It's something I only do about once a year. How about that, it's only January and I've got that out of the way for this year! ha ha!

The sun shone brightly pretty much all day. Around midday it looked hazy like it was clouding up, but "poof", it cleared out and stayed sunny and got up near 40 degrees. We're sure had a mild January.

Steven worked on the snowmobile trailer today, welding on brackets for the taillights that it doesn't have on it yet, and welding on "fins" so we can put both snowmobiles on facing forward instead of one each way. He's also going to weld on more tie-downs so it's easier to strap down the snowmobiles.

I got a lot of work done today, all while trying to ignore an annoying toothache. I'm hoping if I ignore it hard enough, it'll go away.

What else did we see in the woods today?

These wild turkeys were in the woods south of our place this afternoon.

Eagle/vulture/hawk

I'm not sure if this is an Eagle or just a vulture. It was feeding on a deer carcass. In the first picture you can see it flying away, just below the green brances of a pine tree in the middle of the picture.

Pictures from Steven

Here's a picture of me and one of Bryan that Steven took on his camera.

Plus one from my camera of Steven taking pictures with his camera! :)

On the way back

This is where you should scroll down and start with the first post of today. Otherwise you'll be looking at the day backward, because these are taken riding back out, and then when we were almost home.

I took the first two pictures while I was driving the snowmobile (snowCAT they call it here. My Wisconsin upbringing ingrained "snowMOBILE" in my head!). When you're following Bryan, you'd better keep moving or you'll never keep up! The scenery up there was beautiful.

Then there's Bryan, poor young 27-year old Bryan, exhausted from the ride! Okay, he probably rode half again as far as we did, with all his side trips up the roadsides and through meadows off the trail! He still stayed ahead of us old people!

We rode 41.8 miles on the snowcats today.

On our way up our road we stopped to feed the buffalo. Now I'm sitting here near th ewoodstove with hot chocolate while I write this.