Buck's Babble

So here we go. Off on a new adventure; new place, new job, new everything. As you may or may not know, I was working part-time as a dispatcher for my police department. Part-time sucks; good check one week, small pay check the next. With no sign of a full-time position opening up anytime soon, I had begun looking for full-time work. Out of the blue, a position was listed on the Forest Service site for a full-time Fire Dispatcher (the exact thing my wife does) in Fortuna, CA. I decided to apply and felt that I was highly qualified with my past fire-fighting experience. One day while working I got a call to see whether I was still interested in the job. I stated 'yes' and a few hours later a call came in stating I had been accepted for the position. The wife and I had talked extensively prior to this about all of the ramifications: how would our kids do if I took this job, how would we do, etc. Well the job is a big pay raise from my police dispatching job, with full bene...

Snow gently powdering the mountaintops; leaves falling to their new home; cold winds approaching from the north. All signs of winter fast approaching in the mountains. While winter can be cold it is also one of my favorite times of the year. Outdoor activities are brought inside, family gathered in the living room while cold winds and snow howl outside. We have a woodstove which heats our house and there is nothing like a woodstove heat. It keeps the house so nice and toasty. I still have to split one more cord of wood to complete our stash for the winter. We get our wood from the surrounding forest, taking already down trees or trees dead from past fires. We usually have a nice mix of douglas fir and lodgepole, both which burn nicely. Our house is so well insulated the stove can easily make the house a sauna so the baffles are usually only cracked so the fire is more smoldering than actually burning flames. This also makes the wood let off a even and long-lasting heat. Did I...