Greetings and welcome!
I had planned on getting back here a little earlier than 12:30am Saturday morning, but a few things came up. The big one was my main hard drive got scrambled last night and I had to spend some time recovering it and thankfully it worked. It still put me back a few key hours.
Anyway, we do have some events to talk about. There is an Iron Snowshoe Associate Membership meeting at Thunder Mountain Valley Inn today at 10am. Tonight Fisher’s Camp is having a Tina’s Birthday Party and Halloween Bash. I caught that one last year and it was definitely fun.
Meteor shower-
If you are up early, go outside and take a gander about mid-sky to the southeast. This morning is the peak of the Orionid Meteor Shower. It is the result of the earth going through a trail of debris from Haley’s Comet. Depending on the article that I saw, they said that they were sand grain sized particles entering the earth’s atmosphere and getting speeds up to 90,ooo or 148,000 mph. As they burn up we get the shooting stars of the meteor shower.
Bring an umbrella-
We have more space junk that will be falling back to earth this weekend. The old Roentgen satellite that was a joint US & German venture will be coming down. Most likely if it hits on our side of the planet it will be in the south Pacific. In theory there is a 1:2000 chance that it will hit someone. It was a space observatory, and they expect about 1.7 tons of ceramic and glass mirror related parts to make it to earth.
One article that I saw said that it could hit anywhere from 53ºN to 53ºS. At 45º25′ N we are on the outer edges of the strike zone. A piece that big will make a fireball visible for a long way, probably hundreds of miles or more, and we could get a glimpse if it happens into our hemisphere.
Here is a page with live tracking from Google. At last check it was at 148miles high and falling a 1/100th of a mile a second. Hopefully the little red dot on the map is my location and not the expected crash zone.
Someone asked yesterday how cold it has been and if they should be worried about freezing pipes. So far no worries. Tonight is one of our colder nights and it is 32 right now. Low areas might see a little shell ice on puddles. Pipes become a concern more in the 20s and teens, and when the daytime high stays below about 40 and the place doesn’t warm up. Many people don’t close down plumbing until deer hunting, and usually that is about right. So far we are on track with that this year too.
I have been a very busy boy this Fall, and haven’t had time to hit the woods for firewood in a couple of weeks. This year I cheated and bought some slab wood, waste wood from the sawmill. I cut it up into perfect lengths my little wood stanchions and slide the cut pieces into the cart next to it. It goes pretty fast. The odd sized little chunks get saved for the grill next summer.
It burns good once it dries, but it leaves more ash.
I will still hit the woods and split some that I have gathered up, but this is a start. The two bundles that I cut made a little under a cord stacked.
That is about it from here. Have a good weekend and thank you for visiting!
RJB
Morning Update-
I knew that I was missing something when I did my update but I couldn’t figure out what it was. The fog of morning brought it back.
Curt asked a few weeks ago where they could get breakfast via ATV trail when they launched in Athelstane. That one stumped me. Now I have an answer. Jungle Jims. They serve breakfast on Sundays.
You could also get to breakfast from the west if you are riding the Oconto Co trails or the Lakewood road trails through the Nicolet National Forest. The new road openings in the Town of Stephenson would allow you to get to Twin Bridge Resort and their breakfast buffet. In the same neighborhood Pine Acres serves breakfast, but I am not sure if the trail gets all of the way there or if it dead ends at Parkway Inn.
He also asked about cool places to visit via trail, and my top pick is 12 Foot Falls. They have a trail that goes right there.
RJB