Ottertail Country

Ottertail Country
Ottertail South

January 11, 2009

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I went flying Saturday. No wind, sunny and it was supposed to get to 24°. Well, it never got that warm, but it was good anyway. Here is Dardis Lake, looking at it from the West.




And behind, farther east, is Musser Flowage. Both of these lakes were used as landing strips by me a couple of winters ago. There is too much snow/frozen slush bumps/tire ruts and stuff like that to be landing just on wheels this year. Skis are the required item on the plane for these conditions.




I had programmed into my GPS the latitude and longitude for Riley lake. Some of the guys were going to be fishing there today, so I thought I would do a fly-by to see if they were there. You can see the single track going out on the lake from the near shore.



I arrived at the lake at 5200' up. About three circles of the lake at reduced throttle and a descent airspeed of 70-75mph brought me within about 500 hundred feet of the ground. Another trip around the lake brought me within 20' of the ice and I could see the guys holding up a fish, so I new they were catching some.



I flew up around Wintergreen lake and did a practice landing approach to the snowmobile trail on the lake. Next I flew to Park Falls airport for two touch and go landings and then I flew upstream on the Flambeau River for a couple miles. It's always fun flying 5-6" off the ice on the rivers....
When I was refueling back at Phillips, that huge moon was just rising. I still had my camera inside my coat and got a couple of pictures.







I'm heading back to my hangar here, with the yellow curving line going to the left indicating my turn-off to the hangar. This taxi way is aimed right at the moon.



This is the view from my hangar looking back toward the east-west runway. It's always a nice view in the evening. All these photos need to be double clicked to give a larger view.



One and a half rows of wood gone, hoping that pile lasts through the winter... Those are some old flat belts off one of our old machines we build at Marquip. We sometimes get the machines on trade for rebuild and resale. The old flatbelts are discarded and people like to take them home for various uses. They work well for pile covers.



Under the flatbelt...



Those belts were over hanging the pile only by a foot or so when the pile was new. After the second row is gone they will be touching the ground. That will be cause for repositioning the belting for ease of filling the wheelbarrow with wood.

That's all from the Ottertail, leave me a comment about what's cooking in your world.

Carlo


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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the pictures again. Scary!! Did the fellows catch some fish??? Some fresh fish surely would taste good. Do hope your woodpile does last thru the winter. Nothing new down here. I was at Liz's all day and just got home. Keep up the good work and be careful in that plane.

Lucy

Anonymous said...

Thanks so much for my own private flight on Sunday!! I had a GREAT time - it was so neat to see the area from up above!! Tomorrow I will try to send you the few pictures I took!

Kristi

yram said...

Wonderful moon pics. And I loved the fly over the fishing men. I wish I had some of those fish they caught.
If I came over would you take me fishing????