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Monthly Archives: October 2011

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Men in Trees

28 Friday Oct 2011

Posted by Barbara in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Air Breeze wind turbine, land air turbine, off-grid living, Southwest Windpower air turbine

We’ve been a little disappointed by the contribution of our wind turbine. A Chinook wind came through a few days ago, warming us into the low 40’s. The turbine spun and hummed enthusiastically, but whether the tower’s too short (because we couldn’t manage to get that last ten-foot segment on it), or due to interference from nearby trees, or simply not enough steady wind, the turbine isn’t generating much power yet. That leaves us almost entirely dependent on solar power, though we do have a gas back-up generator.

This is what 11 a.m. looks like!

We don’t use much electricity; we’ve switched back to using propane lights almost exclusively. We might turn on the radio for news in the morning or music in the evening, but that takes very little power. What does require energy is charging batteries on tools and computers, and our internet connection. So I’ll make this post a short one.

The sun’s trajectory is starkly lower now. No longer strong enough to make the climb over the trees, the sun now peers lazily through them. We discovered that shade was putting the panels to sleep by mid-day. As much as we hated to do it, we had to top off several nice trees and cut down a large old stand entirely. Gary being the only one actually doing anything, he really hated to do it.

Gary on the ladder with his hand saw topping an offending tree

The spruce forest has grown up fast around our place; pictures from the sixties show very few trees. Now hundreds of shrub-high trees foretell an increasingly forested future, so we know what we cut will grow back. Still, it doesn’t escape us that no matter how small we try to make our footprint on the environment, we are cutting down trees for lumber, firewood and, sometimes, simply because they are in our way.

Sunrise:  9:20 a.m.
Sunset:  5:59 p.m.
Weather:  High 10, low -2, sunny and hazy. No wind.


					

What Color is Your Snowmachine?

25 Tuesday Oct 2011

Posted by Barbara in Travel

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Alaska snowmachine, Alaska snowmobile, Alaska winter travel, Ski-doo super-wide track

Gary and I made a final foray into Anchorage week before last. We had made what we thought would be our last trip the week prior—to get our snowmachine, skis for me, more flannel sheets, long underwear and socks, groceries, and anything else we might need in the coming months—but our snowmachine was held up at the port in Seattle, necessitating one last run to go get it.

It was just as well, too. The weather finally turned just cold enough for us to bring frozen foods back on our long drive. With highs around forty degrees, we could keep three large coolers’ worth of frozen food frozen and produce fresh in the truck bed. I grew up on canned goods like green beans, pears, and fruit cocktail (fighting with my siblings over the one-half maraschino cherry in the whole can) but had largely abandoned them in favor of the fresh produce available year-round in San Francisco. Here in our Alaskan pantry we have canned tomatoes, olives, corn, beets, pineapple; purees of pumpkin, butternut squash, and sweet potatoes; and even canned mushrooms. And, though days are shorter now, Alaska’s gardeners thoroughly exploited the long summer days. We stayed with Gary’s sister Karen and her family on the outskirts of Anchorage; they showered us with home-grown celery, carrots, tomatoes, eggplant, cucumbers, and peppers, and we bought apples, bananas, onions, and sweet potatoes. Everything made it home at more or less the right temperature. So the trip to Anchorage saved me from a winter of canned green beans.

Of course, what we’d really gone for was to get our snowmachine before we were snowed in─or out. Chuck, our salesman, promised us the snowmachine would be ready for us Friday morning, which meant we needed to leave on Thursday.

Closing up the cabin in cold weather is a big job. Before leaving we got a good fire going and brought in plenty of firewood and tinder for our return. I filtered lots of water so our ceramic filter could start drying Wednesday; we worried it might crack if it froze with water in it while we were gone. We ate the last of our onions and put the potatoes in a cooler with a sleeping bag wrapped around it for insulation, setting it not far from the wood stove. We did as much as we could ahead of time to allow for an early start, and were pleased to have made it to Karen’s in time to take a shower and read the paper before dinner.  We even had time to stop on the way to buy an eight-foot red sled for hauling lumber or camping gear with the snowmachine.

On Friday we got to Costco shortly after it opened and did the rest of our shopping before picking up the snowmachine. You can’t just leave something like that in your truck while you shop and expect it to be there when you get back, so once we had the snow machine one of us always stayed with the truck. Everything went off without a hitch—almost literally; we pointed out to Chuck he’d failed to install the promised hitch so we could pull the sled.  But by evening we had groceries, warm things, a snowmachine, and were back at Karen’s doing loads of laundry and watching movies with the family while Ella kept her eye on the family cat.

Snow began to fall as we made our way home Saturday, the truck bed packed full with the coolers tied down alongside the snowmachine.  We got home just as it was getting dark and woke to four inches of fluffy white on Sunday.

Gary took the snowmachine on its maiden run that morning to break trail on our driveway and around the cabin and outbuildings in order to pack the snow, making walking easier and setting a good base for skiing. But who wants to ski on the driveway? On Monday we went further afield to break some trail for real skiing.

Hunters and recreational ATV users have cut hundreds of “off-road” roads throughout the wilderness, exploiting what used to be a system of animal trails. We hate to see so many roads, but they do make for easy snow-machining. Gary drove and Ella ran alongside through snow untouched except for tracks of red fox, snowshoe hare, and caribou. Oh, and mice. Tracks of mice and voles are everywhere.

When we stopped after riding for ten or fifteen minutes, we looked down on the fog and up to the mountains, some sprinkled with snow, some covered. This will be beautiful skiing, I thought.

Our snowmachine is yellow! What color is yours?

We could only attend to the view when we stopped, though, because Gary was focused on trailblazing and I…well, I was having trouble paying attention. I had never ridden a snowmachine before. At the start of the ride I marveled to float past our icy creek, out the gate and down the road. When we turned onto the ATV trail leading into the woods, the snow didn’t fully cushion the bumps.  My ride went from nice to exciting.

Gary turned his head a bit and asked, “How are you doing back there?”

“Great!” I said. I was really having fun. Ella was having fun, too, racing alongside us with a smooth, elegant gait.

As we penetrated the forest, the trail steepened. The bumps were no longer reliably due to shrubs but often to snow-covered rock. I felt every muscle tense with each bump, as though riding a willful horse, and knew I would be sore in the morning.  I shifted my weight to avoid tipping. My breathing changed to what I imagine is taught in a Lamaze class.

“Whoa!” I screamed.

Gary stopped and turned his head.

“Sorry”, I said sheepishly. “I didn’t mean it.”

Closing my eyes helped, especially as Gary picked up speed to climb a ridge. But at a crucial point in the climb, I let out two more loud shrieks and he stopped again. Oops. Maybe a piece of leather to bite on would have helped me. Too late; the machine was stuck. I disembarked while Gary reversed out and could get going again.

To be clear, this is no racing machine. Its wide track makes it very stable, and we weren’t going fast, maybe ten or fifteen miles per hour, slower still when going over rocks or through snow-covered spruce branches. Gary insisted this was an easy ride. We made it back to the road without incident and rode toward our cabin. Ella and I were surprised when Gary slowed but went past our gate.

“Up!” he called to Ella.

Up she jumped, riding between his arms as he accelerated. Forty-five miles per hour seemed like a hundred to me, even on the road. About a half-mile from our turnoff, we stopped again. I could hardly pry my hands loose from gripping the passenger seat handles so long and hard in the cold.

Getting ready to go for the first time!

“You’re driving home,” Gary announced, climbing off.

And so I did. Gary held onto me, and Ella ran alongside.

“Drive on the loose snow,” Gary suggested.

It was smoother than on the trail we had just made.

“Don’t go into the ditch!” he said, more urgently this time.

Then I practiced shifting gears. The machine made an angry sound because I failed to come to a complete stop first, but machine, people and dog alike survived. I couldn’t bring myself to test the machine’s speed past twenty miles per hour, which seemed fast enough. We moved fast through the cold air, then slower, then fast again. Ella kept pace. It was exhilarating and less scary than I expected.

Tuesday we went out again, this time carrying our new red sled. We explored a little more and loaded up the sled with downed, dry wood. It was a wonderful ride. What had my problem been? This was great fun! By tomorrow, I thought, I’ll be begging to drive.

Special thanks to Erin for the title, “What Color is Your Snowmachine?”

Sunrise: 9:11 a.m.
Sunset:  6:09 p.m.

Today's weather photo, snow and wind at noon. Note the red sled filled with (snow-covered) lumber!

Weather: High 38, Low 22, cloudy, snowy and very windy!

On Becoming Alaskan

16 Sunday Oct 2011

Posted by Barbara in Uncategorized

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Alaska residency, Fairbanks DMV, moving to Alaska, Trapper Creek DMV

I’ve been in a hurry to switch my residency from California to Alaska. Of course I want to be treated as a partial-year resident for tax purposes, as there are no state income taxes in Alaska. An added advantage is that after one year I will be eligible for the Permanent Fund dividend, which could be a couple of thousand dollars per year. But I also wanted to get the California plates off my car. It seems the reputation of Californians in general and San Franciscans in particular is just as bad here as it is in Oregon or anywhere else–maybe worse.

When we went to Anchorage a few days after my arrival to take Richard to the airport, we stopped in Trapper Creek to get my Alaska driver’s license and plates. The DMV there is a combination DMV and gift shop as well as provider of office services. The gift shop was small but nice, with some great wildlife cards and cookbooks specific to local fruit and game. I had plenty of time to peruse the merchandise, since several customers were ahead of me and the proprietor, Mary, served all functions.

This is our nearest DMV

A sixteen-year-old sat on a bar stool at the counter. Mary quizzed her on DMV test questions. The girl had already failed the test and this interchange wasn’t going to make a difference until she was eligible to test again, but Mary wanted her to learn how to think about the questions.

“What would be an example of less-than-ideal road conditions?” she asked the girl.

“I dunno,” the girl answered. In fairness, this kind of grilling in front of six or eight onlookers might not put me in a learning mindset, either.

“OK, think about a less-than-ideal condition for a Friday night date. What would that be? A big pimple just appeared on your chin, your hair isn’t doing what it’s supposed to do. What else? Now, this isn’t about a date, but can you think about what a less-than-ideal road condition might be?”

Mary was working hard. The girl was, well…let’s just say she was uncomprehending.

After about five minutes and several aborted attempts, the hapless teen successfully identified snow as being less than ideal for driving. This painstaking process was repeated for the remaining five questions the girl had missed on her test. I was not next in line.

When I finally got the nod, I pulled out all the documentation I thought I needed. Mary gave me the bad news that I needed my social security card and the title, not the registration, of my car. Still, she administered the test and gave me my completed paperwork.

“Take this to any DMV within the next 12 months with your social security card and title and they’ll be able to help you,” she told me.

I tried again at the Fairbanks DMV a few weeks later. Gary had gone through the ordeal with me in Trapper Creek, so this time opted to wait with Ella in his truck. The DMV was an oasis of calm compared to any other DMV I’ve been in, with just a few young drivers and unfailingly polite military personnel ahead of me in a quiet, spacious room with a video display running wildlife footage. Still, it took me an hour to get to the counter. All the workers seemed happy and friendly, save one: an otherwise attractive woman in her forties with a peevish look on her face. I felt relieved when the monitor above her station called for number 196. I held number 197. But number 196, from neglect or wisdom, failed to surface. I got the grouchy lady.

She insisted on reconfirming everything Mary had signed off on, although I didn’t have to take the test again.

“Proof of address?” she asked.

I confidently pulled out my cell phone bill, which Mary had signed off on.

“P.O. boxes are not acceptable. I need proof of your physical address. Mail, a utility bill, a pay stub from your employer,” she said.

Once I convinced her that I am retired and living beyond the service area of the U.S. Post Office and the utility companies, she sent me to wait for a manager. While waiting, I remembered I had arranged delivery of fuel from a company that had e-mail. The manager agreed that an invoice with the delivery address would suffice. But I would have to get it faxed in and start over in the back of the queue.

I never did hear back from the fuel-delivery people, but Gary suggested I contact Alaska Satellite Internet, the folks who had arranged for the installation of our satellite dish. While he shopped for the wind turbine, I called them. April promised to find my invoice with the delivery address and fax it to the Fairbanks DMV.

The delivery address is just the milepost on the road near our cabin. It isn’t an address, really. It isn’t in the town or even the borough where our post office box is, and we’re not actually on the road; it’s just what we tell people so they know where to start looking for us. But now it’s my physical address, complete with erroneous town and zip code.

An hour later we went back. The first fax was cut off and didn’t show my address. The second fax, same thing. I found a copy of the invoice on my iPad, but they would only accept it if I forwarded it to the manager. I did, but their system didn’t like my system and delivery failed. I was bounced back to waiting mode again and again. Finally, I asked April to put the delivery address on the cover sheet, and at that point even the manager was sufficiently tired of me to accept it.

Five hours from the time I walked into the Fairbanks DMV, I was the proud holder of an Alaska driver’s license and new license plates, and a registered voter to boot. The photo wasn’t horrible, considering it had been a while since I washed my hair. Then I saw it: the woman had added five pounds to my weight. At least some things in life are free!

Last week I got my voter registration card. No fools, the folks at the Division of Elections understand I’m not in the same borough as my P.O. box. So they’ve assigned me a polling place at the farthest reaches of my borough, over five hours away. I can’t wait to see how long it takes to get that fixed!

Sights and Surprises

It is not unusual to see military jets overhead.  But I was surprised to hear something I don’t think I’ve heard since elementary school:  sonic booms.  One night there were four, then two the next night.  On the bright side, my wood stacks are still standing!

Northern Hawk Owl posing on a spruce on the hill just above our cabin

I didn’t see the Northern Hawk Owl that flew two feet over my head until Gary pointed it out where it had landed on the top of a spruce tree.

Dogs and dog mushers are in serious training mode now.

Look very carefully, and you'll see part of the dog team pulling an ATV

There is not enough snow yet for the dogs to pull sleds, so they pull ATV’s (all-terrain vehicles). This crew of about 16 smallish racing dogs was pulling two men in an ATV down the road near our cabin.  Judging from where we saw their truck (complete with kennel), they had a full day of it, about 60 miles round-trip.

Weather:  High 37, Low 28
Sunrise: 8:44 a.m.
Sunset:  6:38 p.m.

Aside

Missed Photo Opportunity of the Month

09 Sunday Oct 2011

Posted by Barbara in Uncategorized

≈ 3 Comments

A cloudless night brought a cold still morning today. It was just above zero when I got up, blue and beautiful.

View from our hill on a sunny Sunday morning

I followed Ella up the hill, intending to capture the progress of the snows as they reach lower and lower. Each photo represented just a fragment of the panorama, and I had barely gotten started when my camera battery died.

Forced to savor the view without a viewfinder, I put my camera in its case and paused. Ella was lying beside me. I turned to the view behind me, and not thirty feet away stood an enormous caribou bull. He was approaching slowly, curious perhaps. His antlers looked to me like an elegant flourish rather than a weapon, but it did strike me that I was out-armed. Startled, I grabbed my walking stick, and the movement in turn startled him. By this time Ella was alert and heading his way. He didn’t flee, but he did turn away.  I had turned homeward, and we looked back at each other over our shoulders.

Another part of this morning's panorama

Weather:
High 44, low 0 degrees, sunny and clear all day

Sunrise/Sunset:
8:24 a.m./7:02 p.m.

It Was Bluish When I Sat Down on It

08 Saturday Oct 2011

Posted by Barbara in Food and Hospitality

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Alaska berry picking, Alaskan wild blueberries, low bush cranberries

The blueberries had already begun to ripen before I left San Francisco. They grow in abundance, covering the tundra for miles around our cabin.

Gary and Ella lead the way to the best blueberry patches

Gary and other locals insist that what I consider abundant is in fact a relatively weak showing. But I come from the land of Whole Foods, home of $6 half-pints, so it looks like a lot to me.

Wild blueberries are even more nutritious than their domestic counterparts; they have more antioxidants and a more concentrated, tangy flavor.  Canned, these berries will be an important supplement to our winter diet—fresh fruits and vegetables will be in short supply.

Picking berries is fun for an afternoon, and somewhat less so after that. Still, if it gets tedious, it’s tedious in some of the most dramatically beautiful landscape I’ve ever seen, so I look around a bit too often and find I’m picking at half the rate Gary is.

Ella entertaining herself at full speed while we pick blueberries

Ella gets bored, too, but does her best to stay occupied. Maybe she thinks the task at hand is to strip the tundra of all of these pesky berries. It seems that way when she plops down next to me and starts stripping the fullest branches of their fruit just before I can get to them. When she tires of eating blueberries, Ella runs in circles as fast as her legs can carry her, finishing at a dead run straight for me and knocking me over with kisses.

The berries grow low to the ground, so when I find a patch I like I usually settle in by sitting, which seems easier on my back. But even the most innocent-looking patch of caribou lichen hides fallen blueberries, and what is blue on the bush becomes distinctly purple on the seat of my pants. Oddly, it is green on my tongue. If you are told you are eating wild Alaskan blueberries, and your tongue doesn’t turn green, they aren’t the real deal.

It took a few hours to fill this bucket!

Heading home, we carry our buckets of blueberries high over the sunset-red dwarf birch brush to avoid getting extra leaves in the buckets. Wild blueberries should be cleaned of sticks and leaves as soon as possible after picking before they get soft. Gary showed me how they almost clean themselves if you roll them a cup at a time down the length of a cake pan. The berries roll, but leaves and sticks don’t. Berries that have been sitting too long in the fridge or those that have softened on the bush after an overnight freeze or two are more of a challenge. They don’t roll as well, and the minuscule leaves get stuck in the juice.

In the end we put up 13 quarts of blueberries in Mason jars, which Gary assures me is nothing to brag about. But this was my first time canning, so I’m bragging anyway. We canned them with a bit of sugar, ready to be turned into pies or smoothies or just about anything. But for the most part, we are likely to freeze the juicy contents of a jar in small batches, ready to eat as the perfect dessert around a warm winter fire.

Lowbush cranberry—lingonberry—season has come and gone. They ripen just as the blueberries are starting to soften on the bush. Gemlike amidst the soft green caribou lichen curling under spruce trees, it seems almost a shame to pick them. Almost. We put up nearly as many jars of cranberries as blueberries, saving some out to make chutney to go with our caribou and moose roasts.

The last blueberries are still out there, weeks after we declared the season over. Frozen hard these wintery mornings on bushes barren of leaves, they might be almost easy to pick now. Every morning I promise myself I’ll go out and pick just one more bucketful.

Sights and Surprises

We drove to Anchorage in an unsuccessful attempt to pick up our snowmachine. On the Parks Highway past the Talkeetna spur road, between No Dogmushers Road and the turnout to the Gigglewood Lakeside Inn, a bald eagle soared just above us. The iconic bald eagle images we see every day are so much smaller than life.

View toward Denali yesterday

Driving back yesterday, we had some dramatic views toward Denali.

Weather:  High 42, Low 28
Sunrise:  8:22 a.m.
Sunset:  7:05 p.m.

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