Up, Up and Away

Saturday morning we awoke at o'dark thirty. We got ready and headed into Bend. We decided to skip the Sisters rodeo. Instead, we went to check out Balloons over Bend.

Many years ago, Connie traveled to Albuquerque to photograph a hot air balloon festival there. We still have some great photos that she took. The balloons came in a variety of shapes and colors, including one that looked like Tony the Tiger.

The balloons we saw in Bend were all of the standard inverted teardrop shape, but it's still thrilling to hear the roar when they do a burn, and watch the heated air inflate the balloon and lift it heavenward.

Because a balloon travels with the wind, and because they lift so early in the #$*! morning, it's relatively calm and quiet in the basket. They are not totally at the whim of the weather, however. Breezes blow in different directions at different altitudes. By sending the balloon higher or lower, they can catch a breeze heading a different direction. How can they tell which way breezes are blowing at different heights? One way is to spit over the side. Then you watch the different directions it goes as it falls.

After watching several balloons take off from a school near Pilot Butte, we headed to Jake's Diner for breakfast. We did some shopping, we checked out a US Forest Service quarry where I can gather some lava rocks, and we headed home.

There I used my new chainsaw to carve up some logs that were laying around on our property. I made two short sections, and one long one. I still have more work to do, but when I'm done we'll have a log bench to sit on in the front yard.

The water in the pond is a bit murky, so I made a filter for it. I started with a small plastic bucket that a plant had come in and lined the bottom with cotton. Atop that I put some charcoal, and above that I put some open-cell foam that was used as packing material. I put a pump in the pond and ran the hose into the top of the bucket. The water flows through the foam, the charcoal and the cotton before running out the four holes in the bottom. The water's getting clearer.

At the store I looked for some actual filter floss to use instead of cotton, but they don't seem to sell it any more. When I was a kid, an aquarium filter was just a plastic box with plastic floss and chunks of carbon. Nowadays you have to buy a filter cartridge designed for the filter you have. What a racket.


Blog Tag: Chatter