What's bugging me?

Found it! Tough little thing. Tried the flyswatter, hard, to no avail except to make it mad. So, I took pictures and spent hours yesterday trying to find out what it is. Not a hornet it seems. It is a paper wasp: Polistes aurifer. After spending hours looking for what it was, I felt like they were everywhere by evening. Creepy. When it flies, the sound is low and slow. It's legs dangle down like it is ready to grab me and carry me away. Now my job is to find it again . . . .
The day is sunny and warm (36 F). Wild horses have not shown up yet today. The batteries are happily cooking at 30.5 volts (24 volt system).
On semi-sunny days the batteries do fine. In the summer the batteries do fine. On heavy cloudy days in the winter, the batteries need help.
We have a gas generator hooked up and have had to run it as much as 4 times a day for 30-45 minutes. Those days I was not online or even on my computer. Just the minimum load: fridge, dog fence and answering machine.
We hope to pick up a couple more solar panels to get more juice to the batteries in the winter. The sun is at about an 18 degree angle from the horizon on the solstice. That's pretty low and weak. In summer it's up about 19 hours a day and travels right over us. (We must be the center of the universe with that language.) In fact dusk to dawn is one long stretch for summer solstice. It gets dark, but you can watch the glow from the sun moving across the north.
Wish I could take a picture of the stars at night. WOW! It is beautiful here. Such a low population density making little light, the starts are very bright and so numerous. the Milky Way almost glows from one horizon to the other.

Speaking of low population density, the official definition of rural is 6 or less people per sq. mile. Okanogan county is 7.75 (41,194 in 5315 sq. mi.). If you get creative and remove the big metro center of Omak/Okanogan cities ( 7368 in 4.8 sq. mi.). the math comes to 6.4 people per square mile. Since you cannot have .4 people. round off and you have 6 per square mile. :) I would suspect that this valley is under 6 per square mile as there are other towns where population is denser, like Tonasket, Winthrop, Twisp, Methow, Conconully, Oroville, Brewster and Pateros to name a few.  So, take off another 4000 people over 15 square miles and from the equation and you get 5.6.
The picture with Okanogan county circled is from http://frontierus.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/2010_Frontier_Counties_Map_fin062612.pdf. So we are officially designated as frontier.
Well, I have to make some dinner. Going simple tonight. Grilled swiss cheese on garlic sourdough bread if frontier hubby remembers to bring home the cheese. Mmmm, tasty.

 Welcome to my world,

Frontier Woman @ frontierlivingtoday.blogspot.com

What is so "Frontier" about my life?

Where I live is hours from a medium size city and almost an hour to the closest town. The closest Costco is 3 hours away! We have low density population and still have range cattle to deal with all around us. We live with wild animals and predators walking on our property. We do not have grid-tie electricity, we do not have a finished house, we do not have indoor plumbing and we do not have our propane tanks piped into the house. We do not have paved roads for the last 3.5 miles to our place.

The weather is extreme, down to 40 F below in winter, snow on the ground for 3-4 months, pipes and stored liquids freeze, our home is heated by wood only with some solar gain. Summer is hot but relatively short. Temps can be around 100 F for days or weeks. Growing tomatoes, peppers, corn and melons is a crap shoot because there is always a threat of freeze, and a lot of work for a probable poor harvest.
The land is rough. Eastern Washington is considered high desert. Here, in Okanogan county, are lots of hills carved out by glaciers, huge rock cliffs, and mountains. Thick forests rise on the north side of the terrain. Sparse ponderosa and sage on the south facing terrain. Fire danger is a huge threat. The Carlton Complex fire, in SW Okanogan county, last summer burned over 250,000 acres (over 400 sq. miles) was started by lightning, a regular visitor to this area. The nearest fire hydrant is miles away. Did I mention no indoor plumbing?
There is no cable TV, only satellite. Internet is via satellite, broadband if you have line of site (small % of people can do this) or dial-up. Electricity is not pervasive and is expensive to bring in. Phone lines managed to touch most property lines, but the phone service (appropriately called Frontier BTW) does not have a voicemail service! Oh, and there is no cell service or texting service here. You have to go to town to see if anyone has called or to call out and don't break down on the way as you cannot call for a tow.

There is only one paved road and that is the main road up most of the valley floor before becoming a gravel road. If you live where you travel on dirt roads, you can expect regular vehicle repair bills for suspension, wear and tear, vibration damage, dirt contamination, slamming into a small boulder in the road because the car slid or it was hidden, tire repair for flats and wearing out tires faster. Everyone's car is the same color, dirt brown.
Jobs are scarce with no city around. Most jobs have to do with construction, animals or health. Shipping rates are high and delivery times long as we are so far out.
Did I mention no indoor plumbing? We have hauled our water for years. Lots of fun driving a couple miles at 5 miles an hour to fill up 55 gallon drums, in a truck missing a back window and very stiff suspension, and trying to empty them before the hoses freeze because the temp is under 10 degrees F and the wind is blowing and your face is tingling from the cold. We are now able to use an outdoor faucet for ourselves and the animals. Still darn cold in the winter!
Everyone waves at each other. Whether you know the person or not, it is cultural here to wave as you drive by or others drive by. Love it.  Unlike the city where people do not want to deal with others, people here interact with strangers more often and more comfortably. People stop to see if someone needs help when parked along the road . . . no reason to be there unless something is not normal.
Where else can you watch a herd of wild horses run by, or stop and eat a while? It is just my kind of place.

Welcome to my world,
Frontier Woman @ frontierlivingtoday.blogspot.com

<< Taken last summer. This is the same wild horse herd that we fed on Monday night.

 

Intro to Frontier Hubby

I took this of my frontier hubby after he tossed some more hay over the fence for the wild horses yesterday. He laughed and told me I could post it to introduce him. So, now you have the backside pics of both of us. All who know me know I hate my pictures. Hubby seems ok with his pictures, but this way you get to see us with something in common. Guess what that is.
Here he is my animal loving, Christ following, hunk of a guy, Frontier Hubby.

I also wanted to post a pic I took a couple of days ago. I looked outside and there was a fog wave in front of the mountain. It was not flowing over a hill or anything as there is nothing there. It was like a wave in the ocean, but without previous and following waves. An anomaly.

 

Welcome to my world,

Frontier Woman @ Frontierlivingtoday.BlogSpot.com 

Look what we came home to today! Those are wild horses. Well technically, they are feral, but they run wild around here. This is our 3rd herd in the area. We are not sure what happened to the first 2 herds. It is possible they were captured and taken to auction. So sad. The emotion of seeing a wild herd running across a field is astounding. There are a number of wild horse herds in the valley and many more in Okanogan county.

The weather, although mild, has left the ground covered with snow. This herd does not usually come near the house, but today they were close by. We decided to throw out some hay to them. The hay was a big hit. All 11 horses came to eat.

The gray is the stallion, but he is not the boss. The mares and young ones got to eat first and he watched over them. When he felt it was safe, he came in to join the others. It took more than 1 try as the mares would chase him away.

I love the marking on the forehead of one of this younger horse. It looks like an apostrophe. Here is a picture of it.

Welcome to my world.

Frontier Woman @ frontierlivingtoday.blogspot.com

Winter Morning

 

Early day today. I saw the sunrise. It was at 8:20 so not real early, but I miss it about half the time in the short days of winter. I rarely catch it in summer, which is about 4 am.
So, I got dressed and went out to get some pics. I love this place with its trees, hills, mountains and the lighting is incredible! I thank God to be here. This place reminds me daily of Him. Instead,
when I am in the city with so much concrete, asphalt, glass and structures mostly with no wow value, I find it depressing. I'm wow'd daily here.
The first pic, on the left, is taken outside. The sun is sun rising over a hill. The other two were taken out our windows.

The second, to the right, is a water dog. For those unfamiliar with that term, it is a small cloud that wanders often near the side of a hill or mountain. It was lit up by the sun more so than any thing around it. There is a layer of fog just under it. It was actually from a couple weeks ago, but I really like it.

The last one, below, captures the rising sun hitting some trees and the fog that is often found below us coving the valley floor. We are about 700 feet above the valley floor.

I am thinking about adding a new blog about relationships. It would be mostly about marriage and making it better, but with a strong emphasis on understanding how men and woman think, react, communicate and expect the other to behave. It has REALLY help us become a much happier couple and we can joke about the differences when they show up... a lot!

Welcome to my world.

Frontier Woman @ frontierlivingtoday.blogspot.com

Sleeping Dogs

Let sleeping dogs lie. They are so sweet when they are asleep. The dogs are inside avoiding the cold. Their bed is between ours and the woodstove and they love to sleep there. They stay pretty warm and definitely like to snuggle (at least touch if not in a pile). Getting on our bed is a treat and they practically lay on us. They definitely like the dog pile concept.

See the blue pillow? They love it. It was an old body pillow ready to get thrown out. One day I thought to see if they would "use" it. They sure do and the white one moves it around with his nose to get it just right.

Boxers are really awesome dogs. This is our 2nd and 3rd ones. The first is our son's and he is such a cool dog, we wanted boxers, too.

The snow on the roof is melting slowly, drip by drip. Occasionally, a large mass of snow/ice falls from one roof to another and it sounds like a loud explosion. Makes me jump! Dogs don't even notice.

We have an outside guard dog, too. She is a Pyrenees and prefers the cold weather. She does a great job of alerting when coyotes or other predators are around. What other predators you ask? Bears, wolves, puma. They roam freely out here. They have not come into the area fenced in around our home and buildings--that we know of. Neighbors have lost animals to them. So sad.

The fire is going out. It's 66^o and cooling. Time to start another with the coals from the last. Good thing we have good insulation. Some people we know, with poor insulation, use a lot more wood every year and that can get expensive or exhaustive! Gosh, could you imagine homesteading in this climate in the 1800's? That must have been miserably cold with no insulation and leaky walls and windows. The land around here was homesteaded back then. There are remnants of small old buildings still around. Wonder if any of the buildings we have will have any trace left in a hundred years. One thing for sure, nature always wins out. Eventually, what we have will return to the earth. It will decompose and make soil for new growth.

 

/hugs

Frontier Woman @ frontierlivingtoday.blogspot.com

 

Wink Wink

The day started late, 10 AM. Often, I am awake for hours in the middle of the night. It's fine if I don't have much scheduled for the day. When awake like that, I usually read. Currently, it is Sheila Wray Gregoire series on family, marriage and "bingo". These books are written from a Christian perspective, but it is a good read even for non-Christians. Much of what I have learned about these subjects are validated and I am still learning a lot! Lucky husband (wink wink) and me. I have her link under my blog list "Love, Honor and Vacuum". If you are a die hard libber, don't go there. But for the rest of us who feel caught between the old and new image, give it a go.
Next up on the reading list is probably a Michael Connelly novel. Hubby has the Tom Clancy book for now, so I have to wait on that.
It's a cloudy day and rather warmish for this time of year. January often sees well below 0^oFahrenheit (like 20^o below) and we are enjoying around 30-40^o  during the days and 15-30^o at night. This is awesome with one exception. The snow level is low which is bad for freezing pipes and less snow melt in the spring to fill reservoirs.
We just brought up, today, a new website for our church, avefc.org. I had the previous one up for about a year and we decided to use Cloversites.com as their interface is easy to use so others who want to make changes can, instead of just me. I will be adding the church website to my links on the side.
Speaking of websites, for those in the Okanogan County area, here is a great new site for local school sports. It is a really well done site: okvalleysports.com
Dogs are barking. Need to check out who or what is around.

/hugs

Frontier Woman @ frontierlivingtoday.blogspot.com

Green Eggs

It is a beautiful sunny day. Animals are fed and there are 3 eggs from our young hens. They are just over 6 months old with 3 layers and 6 slackers. They lay multiple shades of green eggs. After having a rainbow assortment of egg color layers, we decided on green as they stand up in the pan better than either brown or white eggs. White eggs were the flattest eggs and runnier. One hen just started laying yesterday as the egg was darker than the other 2. Sad thing is that it froze overnight. I gave it to one of the dogs. She was thrilled and ate it away from the other 2 dogs.

We got the hens (as we have all our chickens) online at Murray McMurray Hatchery. The chicks arrive at the post office healthy and noisy! We get a call first thing to pick up the chicks before they drive the workers crazy. Baby chicks are born containing enough food and moisture to make it a day without and are sent overnight to the local post office. Setting up a place warm enough without grid electricity is not easy and has required us to raise them in our home for the first few weeks. That gets old fast. This year we got extra chicks and a neighbor raised the brood and we gave him half the chicks.

That is one of the things I love about this area:  people love to help others and payment is optional, negotiable or bartered. Yes, we paid him in chicks. Not worth much in $$ but worth a lot to the soul.

Sunny days bring out the hornets/wasps, whatever it is in the house. Seems they find someplace out of sight until the sun shines warmly through our windows. Grrrrr. I really do hate that. I can hear the low buzz of one flying around the house now. It lands occasionally on a window. If I wasn't so afraid of flying bugs with stingers I would catch and release as I do with harmless bugs. Wonder where the shotgun is . . .

/hugs

Frontier Woman @ frontierlivingtoday.blogspot.com

Beginnings

I have been looking for a venue to express my thoughts, knowledge (limited as it is), experiences and just things I find helpful or interesting. Blogging seems a natural way to do so, with the opportunity to make new friends as I take this journey.

Here is some background about me that will probably show up here: Am a mother of 2 boys; grandmother of 1 girl; 2nd marriage; moved around a lot mostly in the western states; youngest of 4; military brat; Christian; animal lover especially horses;  Okanogan county resident in Washington state (eastern Washington, in the highlands) with no cell phone service for about a 20 mile radius; author of a book about 9 years ago called "Torden, Hear the Thunder" about a horse and a girl during WWI and available on amazon.com; do not watch TV anymore; and we have an off-grid life.

This blog is for writing about: My learning experiences; my Christian walk; resources I have found helpful for living away from everything and most everyone; marriage; kids; life around me; other interesting places, ideas, and links; and whatever else comes up. Although I live in an area 25 miles from the nearest town (of 750), I have made a lot of friends here and love this life.
Well, the sun is setting and my batteries need a rest to make it through the dark winter night. I will write more soon.
/hugs
Frontier Woman @ frontierlivingtoday.blogspot.com