Snow!? No wait, we're not ready for winter yet!!

It's hard to believe, but we woke up to 2" of snow yesterday (Saturday). Wasn't it just a few weeks ago that we were in the middle of some beautiful summer weather? I guess that's life up here in the high country.
On the way back from Lea's last night, there was a big fir tree blown down across Campbell Range Road, about 1/2 km from our driveway. We decided that we would get up early the next morning and go buck it up with the chainsaw and bring it back home to split for firewood. After getting over the shock of the ground being covered with the white stuff, we headed out at 8:30am to do just that. Of course, by that time some good samaritan had already chopped up the top of the tree that was laying across the road leaving most of it for us. We took both the truck and the Bobcat ATV as we expected to get quite a haul of firewood. We were right. We left the site with the pickup almost filled level in the back. We thought that rather than waste the empty ATV, we would stop on the way through the crown land on our driveway and find another downed tree to cut up. We didn't have to look for long so only 40 minutes later, we had both the truck and the Bobcat full to the max.
Last year we used the deck to mount the splitter on when doing the firewood. Seeing as the deck is now finished with railings and a vinyl covering, we have built a small splitting station next to our wood shed. It is very convenient in that location and Carol has been keeping busy splitting all the logs that I bring back with the ATV. We have the woodshed full and then some, because we know from last year that we will need to have the equivalent of 3 to 4 "wood sheds" of firewood to get us through the cold winter months. That work is still ongoing.
One job that is complete is the fence posts. John, from Frolek Fencing brought his amazing skidsteer vibratory post pounder up to our place on Wednesday evening and by noon on Friday, he was done! Over 300 fence posts were installed, giving us 4 large paddocks, a round pen, and a smaller "diet" pen. This would enable us to have cattle on our property as we have the last couple of summers, and keep the house safe and give us lots of room for the two horses.

Some of our 300 fence posts!

We will be using a solar powered energizer to power the 3 strands of HotCote wire that will be installed on those posts. Each post will receive 3 plastic insulators to keep the wire from shorting to ground once energized. It will give any animal that touches it, a healthy jolt (like a static shock you get when running around on the carpet with your nylon socks on!). They quickly learn to give the fences some respect which results in less wear and tear on both the fences and the horses!
We should have all the wire and hardware tomorrow. It is being shipped to us directly from the States by our supplier. We've already managed to install some of the insulators but with more than 900 required, we still have many left to go.

Speaking of horses, Carol and Whisky are still getting together with Ray at Dreamscape Ranch every Wednesday afternoon. He is doing great! Apparently, he is a quick learner as Carol is now able to steer him around and back him up with the reins. For now, of course, Ray is still there with a lead rope on him in case Whisky gets annoyed with Carol on his back, but so far, all is going well.