Tag Archives: Alaska blog

Division of Labor

30 Monday Jan 2012

Posted by in Daily Life

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When I arrived here last August I watched Gary, guest-like, for a few days and then took on the simplest, most familiar tasks. I could do dishes, get water, and sweep with minimal instruction, but that was about it. While I can build and stoke the fire now, it took some practice.  Gary taught me how to clean and can the berries we picked, dig post holes and provide a second set of hands for raising the wind tower and solar platform. I gather brush and use it to build small bonfires for burning garbage. I learned to stack wood the hard way. I tried splitting wood, but had trouble controlling the heavy axe and abandoned the effort while I still had all my toes. Everyone I’ve met here can split wood — unless they’re at least forty-five years older or younger than I am — so I know I’ll have to master it eventually.

I learned how to stack wood the hard way! (see http://www.indeep-alaska.com/2011/09/ Sights and Surprises)

As things have settled out this winter I usually make coffee and breakfast.  Dinnertime comes too early to make lunch worthwhile, but as days grow longer that will change. Either one of us might make dinner, with a goal of having leftovers to reheat for a future meal or two. Gary sharpens the knives and I keep the kitchen supplies filled from the upstairs pantry (bedroom) where our fifty-pound sack of oatmeal and ten- and twenty-five pound sacks of various types of flour, lentils, pasta and grains reside.

I never learned the skilled trades that make up much of Gary’s work — logging, milling, construction and setting up alternative energy systems — so I’ve gratefully retained many of the minimum-wage jobs. I missed having a dishwasher when I first arrived, but a month or two later found myself telling Aunt Vee I was surprised to find I actually didn’t mind doing dishes.

“Warm water,” she replied knowingly.

Yes, that might explain it.

Fire in the hole!

I do miss having a sink that drains properly; we’re not sure whether the underground tank is full, clogged or frozen, but the sink now drains into a bucket. As often as not, Gary carries the bucket out to the compost pile. This saves me some laundry, as I frequently manage to slop the contents on my pants leg. Since we do laundry by hand between trips to town, we each do our own; as you might imagine, nothing gets washed before its time.  We don’t have a bathroom to clean, but the outhouse isn’t entirely maintenance-free. We have a problem common to outhouses in the frozen north, a stalagmite of sorts, so Gary gamely doused it with diesel fuel and lit a match. I hope that will be the end of that.

At least the ice chisel wasn't buried! The shovel is just to the left -- see it? Me neither. For more on the water hole, see http://www.indeep-alaska.com/2011/12/03/Riverdance/

One of my favorite jobs has been getting water. In this weather, though, it’s a much harder task, so I try to get enough for two days when I go. A couple of weeks ago I found snowdrifts encroaching on my view of the icescape under the river’s surface. Snow is stealing my room; as I shovel a space for myself around the water, I’m at a loss to know where to put it all. Shoveling it up to the surface is tiring. I did push some into the hole, but the ice on the river bottom is thickening, and I worry that dumping large quantities might hasten the day when the hole is too shallow.

It was thirty-eight below when I went to get water the other day. My gloves iced up, so I switched them out for the mittens in my pocket. The plastic dipping bucket grew impossibly heavy with ice; I removed the worst of the buildup with the ice chisel, careful not to break the plastic, brittle in the cold. Ice on the buckets’ rims and lids frustrated my efforts to seal them. As my water spilled, new ice formed an imperfect seal, so I tried to coax the buckets into staying upright as I pulled the sled home. One refused, so I knocked ice from the buckets and sled and made a second trip.

Gary reopening the water hole in -48 degree weather

I looked downriver to the sunset-pink Alaska Range; in the bitter cold I could see ice fog steaming from an open lead of water a hundred yards away. I’ll have to check it out; it might just be my next watering hole. Yesterday Gary and I went together to get water; it was forty-eight below. The hole, vigilantly protected with spruce boughs and snow, had nevertheless frozen over, and Gary had to reopen it with the ice chisel.

I want to be learning and doing more, particularly outdoors. Gary usually maintains the paths around our little campus, packing them every few days with the snowmachine. Recently he suggested I take over occasionally as a way of getting more comfortable with driving the thing. It may not have been wise to take him up on it on Friday the thirteenth, the day after our biggest snowfall and windstorm.

I started down the main drive toward the gate, circled past Gary’s truck and the logs we’d had delivered last summer — well, past the truck, certainly, but quite possibly over the logs. Gary breaks trail around the nearby campground so mushers and others can access the outhouses there. I was feeling confident, so rode out the gate to the campground. The snow was deep, his path completely obliterated, but how hard could it be?

Instead of a picture of another tipped snowmachine, I'll show you the view from the solar platform as we were working to set up the new panels.

I tipped over just past the first picnic table. I walked home for the shovel, but after shoveling long and hard the snowmachine still wouldn’t budge. I looked up when Ella whimpered to see Gary skiing toward us. Once we had the snow shoveled out of the way, he grabbed a handlebar and put all his weight on the skyward-facing running board of the machine to right it.

“Will you be able to finish the loop?” he asked.

The only thing I was confident of now was that I would not be able to steer through the turn, so Gary rode the full loop. He explained that I should never sit down while breaking trail and gave me other tips on how to avoid tipping, then left it to me to reinforce the path and continue my work. I made it back home and began reinforcing paths around the cabin and outbuildings. You could say I got stuck once again, or many more times, depending on how you count; I tipped, shoveled, inched forward and back, got stuck, shoveled, inched forward and back…you get the idea. At one point I got going and had to floor it to keep moving. I was heading directly, and rapidly, for the tool shed. A vole heard me coming and got out of there in a big hurry.

I missed the shed but thoroughly demolished what had once been a path; Gary shoveled for quite awhile to level things out.

“Can you drive the path now?” he asked when he’d finished.

No.

“I’m not sure I can either,” he sighed, but mercifully took over to repair the damage.

Gary rode over the scarred path, and then I rode it myself as reinforcement, for the path and for myself. I learned some good lessons that day: be prepared; don’t sit on your butt; use your weight judiciously; if you feel yourself losing balance, stop and take stock; if you can’t move forward, go back and try again; and don’t be chicken.

We have more hungry moose browsing in the extreme cold. This moose on our drive surprised me as much as I surprised her!

Sunrise:  9:39 a.m.
Sunset:   4:39 p.m.
Weather: High, -8°; low, -21°, calm and partly cloudy. Yesterday it was -48°. Go figure!

Easily Amused

22 Sunday Jan 2012

Posted by in Daily Life

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We spend our free time much as you might: we read, cook, work puzzles, enjoy a movie and popcorn most Saturday nights, walk, hike and ski. We have plenty of free time now, particularly when it gets too cold to stay outside long, and are always looking for new ways to amuse ourselves. Here’s what we’ve been up to lately:

Gimme Shelter

Ella's making a U-turn, heading back to me full speed in a game of Chicken

One of our favorite pastimes is to walk down the road, checking for signs of wildlife, snowmachine traffic or dog teams. Ella bounces ahead, turning to take a bite of snow before racing back to us in a game of chicken, then falls behind as she finds something good to sniff, taste or roll in. As Ella and I neared the end of our walk the other day, we found Gary in front of the campground entrance, shoveling snow into a pile. He couldn’t have been at it long, but already it was as tall as he is. I knew what it was — he’d been talking of building a snow shelter there. Just for fun, mainly, but it could serve a traveler stranded by weather, or by recalcitrant machines or dogs.

By the time we got back from our walk, Gary had piled most of the snow for the shelter

We let it set up for a couple of days. After Gary shoveled out the arched entrance, we took turns: one of us would get on our belly or back, carving snow from the interior while the other scraped and shoveled the resulting snow-debris out. It didn’t take long before we could kneel inside, making the work quicker and a lot more fun. Within an hour or two, the shelter was in move-in condition. Now as we walk by, we check to see if we’ve had any visitors.

It's plenty roomy in there!

A long tunnel entrance, like those in igloo cartoons, would make the shelter warmer, but getting the snow out through the narrow opening would not have been fun. It’s not too late; enough snow is piled up to the side of the entrance, we could add the tunnel and close off the existing entrance. The urge to remodel — it must be universal.

Secret Lives of Dogs

Like any family member, Ella has certain responsibilities. She’s a shepherd, so she keeps her flock of two together if she can and, failing that, keeps a protective eye on the one she’s with. She cleans the floor of crumbs and spills, and tells us when it’s time for dinner. Her ears are on constant alert, and she’ll give a little “woof” for something just interesting enough to comment on, a sharp bark if it’s noteworthy, and a growl if she perceives a threat.

Ella gets a biscuit for accompanying us to the outhouse. When she hears the words “who wants to go poop?” she’s at the ready. We feed her the biscuit slowly, in pieces, and then she wanders out of sight. Gary told me early on if Ella growls it’s wise to get up, ready or not, to check out the threat. Not long ago I rushed out to see a moose disappearing toward the creek. But usually she waits silently, and when I emerge she is consistently sitting just a few feet away on the drive, positioned with a good view of the area.

Ella alerts us to moose; these took one look at us and crossed the river

I was in the cabin the other day when Ella went with Gary to the outhouse. She devoured her biscuit and went to sit at her post. I stopped to watch from the window. After a moment she stretched, as she so often does, the “downward dog” followed by a “salute to the sun.” Then, without warning or apparent provocation she raced to the cabin and back. As though conjuring an imaginary playmate she bowed in invitation to play, bounced in a 180-degree turn and bowed again. After a half-dozen repetitions, she raced to the cabin again, on the way performing a single lutz – a mid-air 360-degree turn – without breaking stride. She ran back to her spot, then toward the creek. She tore back past the outhouse and circled the cabin at full speed before returning to her post.

There she sat, sedately, when Gary emerged.

Birdbrain

Once the snows settled in for good, we began feeding the birds. Canadian Jays are not shy – hence their other name, Camp Robbers. I noticed one flitting and flirting about the front of the cabin as I went in and out with morning chores.

“You could put a few pieces of Ella’s food on the windowsill,” Gary suggested.

Canadian Jay begging at the kitchen window

The next morning when the Jay saw me and started his song, I stepped back inside to grab a handful of dog food. I placed it on the kitchen’s outer sills. I was barely inside when the Jay landed, picking up at least three pieces before flying off. His friends have joined in, and I wait for them to make themselves known each morning before I put food out.

As I was carrying a bucket of dirty dishwater to the compost pile recently, I saw a piece of dog food in the snow. Some greedy bird must have dropped it on the way to his cache. Ella was uncharacteristically slow to notice.

“Ella!” I called and pointed. “Git it!”

Ella looked twice as if unsure of my meaning, but she ate it, and then a second piece I found nearby. The next day I found more pieces near the outhouse.

“Git it!” I pointed, and this time she didn’t hesitate.

“I’m thinking of cutting back on the Jays’ food,” I told Gary as we walked toward the river. “They’re dropping pieces and not coming back for them,” I said, pointing to a spot where several pieces lay.

Gary laughed. And laughed. He almost fell over laughing, but finessed it so I was the one who landed in the snow.

“That’s rabbit poop!” he gasped, pointing to the “dog food.”

Ella looked, too. Without waiting to be told, she gobbled it up.

Sunrise: 10:00 a.m.
Sunset:  4:14 p.m.

Another beautiful sunset

Weather:  High 0°, Low -6°, much warmer than the -30’s we’ve been seeing (down to -42° Friday). Light, steady snow.

Riverdance

03 Saturday Dec 2011

Posted by in Nature

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I come from a place where the seasons are constrained in an extraordinarily tight and moderate range. San Francisco rarely sees temperatures above 90 or below 40. Seasonal change is comparatively subtle. Autumn leaves drop in the heat of Indian Summer; cherry blossoms appear when the year is new, and reliable old oak trees come into focus on the straw-brown hillsides well before summer fog rolls into the City.

Here I expected a monotony of winter broken mainly by changes in temperature, snowfall and wind. And the freeze-up of the river, I knew that was coming. But I naively imagined ice would spread from the banks inward, simply a thickening layer over the water.

Early ice on the river

At first that’s what seemed to be happening. One day the stepping stones I had used to get to the clear flowing water in summer had a thin shell of ice. A scenic frost formed around them, and soon ice scalloped the length of the shoreline and began to edge the mid-stream boulders. The rush of water swept young ice into its stream, and I filled my buckets with icewater.

Ladling slush from the overflow

I was surprised by what happened next. Unseen ice forming along the frozen riverbed narrowed the creek’s channels, pushing water up and over the surface crust. Slushy water flowed onto the banks and through the willow brush. I learned to wade cautiously until I found myself in ladle-worthy depths.

Once temperatures dropped close to zero, slush quickly turned to ice. Snowfall covered the slightest crusts, creating the appearance of a river largely frozen over, breached only by a few pools. Under the snow was a patchwork of ice, made thick or thin by forces of air, sun, wind, water and snow. A deep eddy was close to shore; the ice leading to it was solid, so I had an easy filling station for my water buckets. Briefly. A cold snap brought temperatures as low as 38 below zero. High winds made a good excuse not to go out one day and that was enough; the pool had closed.

Surface ice forming on the creek

I moved on to the next opening, but the hole quickly became the very definition of a slippery slope, a two-foot perimeter of slick and sloping ice. When I didn’t come back promptly from my water errand one day, Gary found me with the ice chisel, back at my original spot hacking away fruitlessly. Taking over, he chopped through six inches of solid ice. To defend the breach, we laid spruce boughs over it and topped them with an insulating blanket of snow.

We hiked upstream on the riverbed, turning home at sunset

We left to spend Thanksgiving with Gary’s sister and her family near Anchorage. It stayed cold, so we delayed our return and didn’t go back to the creek for a week. Everything had changed. The creek looked as though it had been hit by an earthquake. Long fissures appeared through thick ice along the shore. Its sources frozen, the river rapidly lost volume, leaving nothing to support the surface. Here and there ice had crashed to a new, lower surface; in other spots it had cracked but held, for the moment. Our water hole was intact—if a hole can be intact—perfectly protected by the snow-covered boughs. But the water level had dropped a good two feet; a new layer of ice had formed below. The water was well out of reach.

Ella peers down toward the new watering hole

Our second pool, too, was gone. Heavy ice covering an area about half the size of our kitchen had collapsed down about three feet, revealing a ceiling about eight inches thick. A smaller shelf appears above the floor, making it seem like a room.

Standing quietly, we could hear water. Gary stepped down onto the floor, chopping at it with axe and ice chisel. The ice was about two feet thick. He worked up a sweat, making a hole large enough to dip the bucket in. We brought bigger boughs and shoveled more snow to protect it.

The ice is nearly as thick as the bucket is tall

I love my new watering hole. I can sit on the floor and peer under the river’s surface. Icicles hang from the bottom of the surface ice, and the ice version of stalagmites rise from the floor. It is decorated with crystals and carpeted with snow. I can look right through the sheered edge of the surface ice; transparent blue, it is utterly gorgeous. I hope the ice and water will stay awhile, unaltered. But I know that when I come back to find my ice room changed, something beautiful will take its place.

The ice is transparent where it sheered off; I can see under the river's surface of ice

It may not be convenient, but it will be beautiful.

Sunrise: 10:07 a.m.
Sunset:  3:23 p.m.
Weather: High 28, low 14, light snow off and on throughout the day.