THANKSGIVING

We had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner with only us, Inklings Mom and Dad and Native Minnow. We didn't even try to eat the entire 25 pound turkey---but I still ate way too much. Native Minnow left Friday for home and our oldest son, his wife, and five children came over for a visit. They spent the night and it was fun to have them here.

They are all growing up way too fast but guess that is what happens to kids. We missed all the rest of you. Looking forward to Christmas.

1040 TONS OF STRAW

I am getting a real lesson in the Logistics of moving straw---these guys are good and know what they are doing. It's fun to work with folks like that.
Storage area where bales are off loaded from the trucks and transported to the helispots.

Tractor pulled bale wagons move the straw six miles uphill 12 bales at a time---that's about 7 tons.

It is put into one of several stacks at the helispot. This is 1/4 to 1/6 of the straw we need to fly depending on how the coverage goes when the bales are released from the helicopter.

PREPARATIONS FOR FLYING MULCH

The dates on the photos should be 11/17/2010 and I don't know how the camera date got off but it is.
BACK ON THE FARM????

It was never this easy to move bales of anything when I was working on the farm.


The trucks are all off loaded into a storage site close to a paved road and the straw is stacked in a huge stack. It is moved to the helispots by farm tractor pulled bale wagons at either 8 or 12 bales to the load depending on the size of the bales.

The bales are put into a stack just like you see on the farm.

Tried to start the stack here but there is just too much slope and the bales won't stand.


Two fuel tenders on the helispot. They are parked in spill containment kits to prevent a hazmat spill. We are ready to fly as soon as the weather cooperates. It is too windy again today.

MAKIN' PROGRESS

On the little project I am working on we are making good progress. We have flown about 96 thousand pounds of seed onto the burned area. We are about 1/3 complete with that part of the project. If the weather would settle down and let us go to work we would finish this in about four days of good flying.

We had to shut down today because of strong winds aloft that blew the planes and helicopters all over the place. We will likely be shut down tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday because of weather too. Time will tell.

The mulching side of the project is coming along too. There is a lot of straw on hand and a lot more being delivered daily. It will be fun to see the three helicopters that arrived yesterday actually fly with the mulch---I am really looking forward to watching them bomb the hill sides.

RAIN, RAIN,. GO AWAY

We have been weathered out with high winds and rain/snow for the last 2 days. The rain/snow is also making muddy conditions across the project area. The frost has come out of the roads and they are terribly muddy. Hate to be a spoil sport but I could use a couple of nights at near zero---just to solidify the roads into the project area.

Hate to wish the warm weather away but I could for sure do without the storm for the next five or six weeks.

RANT OVER?.....maybe.

WEATHERED OUT

The two seed planes flew 35,000 pounds of seed onto the fire Saturday before they got blown out of the skies by the winds aloft. They had 9,000 pounds left on the deck when they quit. To date that makes 60,000 pounds on the fire area.

Today (Sunday) they took a test flight at 0705---at 0718 they called me and left a message on my phone that it was unsafe to fly the ridges and they were shutting down for a while and maybe for all day. With the weather the way it looks I'll bet they can't fly until Monday afternoon sometime.

We should have the remainder of the seed in Monday and start mixing Tuesday---they can go back to flying seed in seriousness Wednesday if everything goes well.

The lab tests on the straw should be back Monday--so straw could start arriving Tuesday as well---that'll make things a little hectic if it happens. Two seed planes flying seed and three helicopters straw bombing the areas all flying by Wednesday. That's a lot of aircraft doin' a lot of work.

CAN'T WAIT TO GET STARTED---LIFE'S GOOD!!!!

A BANNER DAY

Had a great day today spreading seed for fire rehab. Here are a few pictures of what it looks like. We had two planes each of which flew about 2,000 pounds of seed a trip. Flew over 25,000 pounds of seed today. This is turning out to be an awesome project. Now we just gotta beat the snow.

Flying seed---look at the seed trail behind the plane.

These dudes are awesome pilots.

Seems pretty close to the ground to me.


How seed is loaded into each plane---the bag on the lift contains 2,000 pounds of seed.