Making Beds

 I wasn't back to work for more than a day. People left and my boss and I decided to turn over a cabin to make future incoming guests easier to manage - using this cabin meant that I wouldn't have to rush a turnover in another cabin, and if cancelations happened and we ended up not needing that cabin, it's easy to break down and the laundry is all done.

So, I go in intent on needing to make only the one bed - a double, not that it matters - and I look over at the bunks. This cabin has two sets of bunk beds and a full size bed. It being so late in season, upper bunks have already been wrapped up and put away, but the bottom bunks were still made.

Mind you, I'm picky about appearances, but there was only a couple weeks total left in the season, so I was willing to overlook the style of those who worked in those cabins before, but, picky me, I decided I'd just tweak those two beds so they looked more like the one I was getting ready to make. Whoever had made them before liked to fold down the comforter, blanket, and sheet about 18 inches or so and tuck everything in all around. I always hated tucking in the comforter, because once it's out again - in use - the edge is all wrinkled, and untucked, it covers up some of the roughness of the bed frames. Another thing I used to do was iron out the wide hem on the sheets and pillowcases, because at some point in their history, before I worked with them, they crinkled up - some worse than others. My hope was that those crinkles would eventually iron out, but they never did. Laying flat, however, looks better. For just a few more days, I wasn't about to dig out the iron.

So, I was just going to spread up that fold and go back to making the original bed.

Now, mind you, when you pay anywhere between a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars to stay at a place where you will be sleeping in a bed, the last thing you should expect to do is to remake the bed so you can actually sleep in it. 

The moment I moved those blankets, I saw that whoever had made that bed before didn't give a damn about the guests that would be staying in that cabin. It made me wonder how many times she had done this very thing. It kinda made me mad, but looking back, I should have expected something of the sort because I'd already discovered a shorted blanket on another bed. Rather than spread the blanket out properly, it had been folded in half. It would have been fine if the guest was a child. An adult would have had cold feet, being left with only a sheet and the comforter to cover them. 

But back to this issue.

I grabbed those blankets to smooth them up and discovered that they only went so far as the wall, and carefully so, which pissed me off even more. I turned to the other bunk bed and discovered the same thing. Carefully smoothed to pass a casual inspection until someone sought to get in. The comforter was wide enough to nearly reach the floor once untucked from the front. Each layer was lined up to the wall as if they'd used a ruler. Not even an inch made it around the far corner of the mattress. Double my work if not my laundry. 

Sigh

Now I had 3 beds to make, but at least the end product was the way I liked it and my picky self was happy (short of the ironing).

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2020 - The Year of Changes

 Thanks to this most wonderful pandemic ravaging this world, I've been out of work all summer long. I go back tomorrow for the last days of the month - its something, but not exactly what I planned.

Being out of work this summer has kinda been a blessing. For starters, I managed to blow out my knee somehow just before coming out and snowshoeing around made it worse. Even now, it still bothers me, especially walking over uneven ground - ground slanted down is the worst. So, sitting around all summer helped that a lot. I would have had to quit, and I really didn't want to.

Another problem with me going to work - all our boats are giving up the ghost. Well, not all, but you get the idea. Last fall - oblivious to the future, of course - we had our two best running boats pulled out by a lodge owner who does that for $300 a year (winter) per boat. Not bad, they'd be back in the spring and we'd have our boats back in record time.

Then came 2020 

Then came Covid

The owners of that lodge still have not been able to come here, let alone out here to run their business. It is only thanks to the fact that locals who come down once a week to look after the place that one of those boats was launched. Not the one I usually drive. I wasn't going to work so I didn't really need it. Besides...

We had my old 'sports car' boat. Last year the steering cable broke, but we could put a tiller handle on it to steer it - so we did, but then the throttle cable was acting up worse than usual so my husband grew concerned about that, and then, last time we drove it, it wouldn't start (it has a key start, and there was nothing). Turns out it didn't recognize that it was in neutral, and if it's not in neutral, it won't start. Good thing my hubby was along - he could use a rope to start it. 

We also had a little 15hp we bought from those same lodge owners to troubleshoot, only now it runs worse than when we bought it. Correction, it ran okay when we got it, just not long enough to get me to work. No idea why. So there it sat. Now, after having sat for several years. it hardly starts at all and won't keep running. Kind of a mess.

That brings us to the one we had launched. A compression test says that it's really really low on both cylinders. I can't start it anyway. So, now that I'm going to work, my husband has to take me. Fortunately my boss brings me home. 

I was going to apply for retirement after this summer anyway.

And therein is another issue.

It would seem that the social security people think that everyone has loans so they use those loans as a means of identifying people. So, when I try to apply online, they ask me if I have these two loans and for a selection of choices for how much those loans are. Since I haven't had a loan for like 40 years or so, my information doesn't agree with theirs so I can't apply online. I might have to go to town this winter just so I can use my phone. Time will tell - sigh.

Not really a good year for me, but I suppose it could be worse.

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Summer's Over

Yeah, my summer is mostly over. Leaves are turning and berries are ripe. It smells awesome out there, like over ripe cranberries (high bush) and rain-washed whatever. The weather was truly odd this summer when talking about river levels. I finally made it to work on the first of June - it sucks that I missed two weeks of work. Because of that there were things I normally do that I skipped this year. I can wash walls next year - people aren't allowed to smoke inside anyway.

Water levels remained medium low all summer long, but as time passed, it became increasingly clear that water levels were rain dependent rather than snow-melt dependent - which is really out of the ordinary. Fortunately there was enough rain to keep the rivers full enough for me to drive to work. I drove a jet-drive through most of the summer because, at first, the water was really scary-low - meaning that gravel-bars I know to exist were sticking up, and some of them were very nearly over my head. Islands that I normally see were small mountains. There was one thing good about seeing the water that low. I learned that some channels where I'd driven for years, had moved, and some gravel-bars had grown (or seemed to have done so).

Other than water levels, which increased slowly, but steadily, my summer went well. I was able to devote time to my gardens, and got plenty of complements because of that. I met some great people, and even sold a couple books. I also passed out a few business cards, so with luck, I sold a few more books that way.

In other news related to work, I bought a soap mold. It has always been very nearly impossible for me to throw away used soap, so over the years, I've accumulated quite a few. The last lodge I worked at and now this one both use Dove soap, and I was stacking it on a shelf in the laundry room. It really rankled that they'd all been used only once or twice, some maybe a little more. They were full sized bars - it was such a waste. I did a little research and discovered that Dove makes half-sized bars, and my boss's wife was able to find some in town. Even so, it was a waste, so I kept those too. When I told her I would take her soaps and remake them into smaller bars, she did a little searching and found some fish-shaped molds. I haven't seen them yet, but then I'm still learning how to do this recycling of soaps. I took all the random (other than Dove) soaps and am trying to refine a recipe. My first effort was a bunch of unmeasured soap that I'd grated up years ago and put in a big glass cooky jar to this end. In a bigger pot (think double-boiler) I tried to melt the soap. The recipe I found online said to add a little water, so I did, adding a little more until the soap started to get soft. What was on the surface of my mass kept cooling to clumps, so I spooned it into my mold and tried to smooth it out. The result cooled quickly and I was able to cut them into blocks, trimming away the ugly edges to be added to my next batch. They are not pretty as far as color, and they are inconsistent in shape, but they are usable bars of soap, so I'm happy. However, my effort taught me that I needed a better recipe.

On to my second effort. I found a recipe that called for 2 cups of soap to 1 cup of water. My stumbling block was, how do you measure out 2 cups of soap. So I did the next best thing, I changed the volume measure to a weight measure. 2 cups is 16 oz or one pound so I weighed up 2 pounds of soap bars and started grating. When I bought my mold I thought I read in the questions or reviews somewhere that it holds 5 pounds of soap, and my first effort didn't fill my mold quite full. So I figured I'd aim for 4 pounds of soap, which (according to my recipe) called for 2 cups of water. I grated up my first pound of soap and added it to my cookie jar and after I added my 2 cups of water, I realized that there was no way my cookie jar was going to hold 4 pounds of grated soap. Cringe. I wanted to drain away that water, but didn't. I should have, but I added another pound of soap and proceeded.

This time, my concoction was more like what they said in the recipes in that I could pour it. It was thick, but was it thick enough? Time would tell. I did learn that 2 pounds of soap is the max my mold will hold. I let the block cool over night and it was solid enough to take out of it's mold, but it's still kinda soft. I cut it into some bars, discovering that my cut was thinner than I like, but it is what it is. Now those bars are laying out on a cooky sheet. According to my research, it's not uncommon for bars to cure for up to a week. Cross your fingers. Worse case scenario, I redo. I still got more soap to experiment on before I get to my boss's soap. I'll figure it all out.

In the mean time - On the first of August, my son who lives down in Arizona came up to visit and go fishing. He brought his two kids, his girlfriend, and her son. It was awesome. They stayed for two weeks and went fishing every day, bringing home nearly 18 fish every day. I also showed the girlfriend how to can fish. I canned up a couple batches to make room in the freezer, but starting a load after I got home from work meant staying up till near midnight. Needless to say, I only did enough to make room.

When he left, my son took a hundred pounds of frozen fish home with him as well as a case of canned, and my freezer was still stuffed. Three days after work was over, I started canning fish. Last week, my other son came out to help pull boats again and he took home 4 cases of fish. I am finally getting to the bottom of the freezer. I have fish thawing out here in the house for tomorrow's canning session and three more bags in the freezer to go, and I have six and a half cases of fish done as of today. That is more fish than I've canned up in a very long time.

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An Interesting Summer

Yep, an interesting summer indeed. Now I know for sure that I'm getting old. The start of work was a bit rocky in my opinion. Getting to know a new boss is not always a smooth journey. It seems he couldn't trust me to get the job done, concentrating more on how many hours I put in rather than the fact that I was forced to wait on the others to accomplish certain deeds before I could finish what I had going, and so needed to move on to a task I really wasn't ready to move on to. Ah but I'm just complaining; I can do that once in a while. I'm rather set in my ways, and I realized that I was rather spoiled over at my last place of employment.

As the summer progressed and things settled into a rhythm, a new kind of spoiling was discovered. Since I was expected to be there through dinner, my day ended up averaging 13 hours long, but for the duration of the King fishing season, there were empty cabins, and it was expected that I take a nap. Of course, my boss told me more than once that I would have to clean up after myself before the cabin could be rented during Silver season - as if I wouldn't know such a thing - as if he thought I would 'move in' to a cabin to the extent that it would require such 'cleaning up' after. There was no such place during Silver season, so those 13 hours were really long, even though my afternoons could still be considered down-time and I could just sit down somewhere, sleep was not an option. I took my computer to work so I could do some writing or editing. That worked out just fine until I got too tired to think. You see, there isn't even a day off. It's 13 hours a day, 7 days a week. The only days off are a week or so between King season and Silver season. I didn't really need the break to rest, not then, but it was nice to be able to catch up on things here at home.

As soon as the chef got his start-up supplies in, I put in my first list. Since my freezer was nearly empty, I ordered things to fill it. My reasoning was that since there were some things down in the bottom of the freezer, it would be easier to keep things frozen if it was full - meat stays frozen better next to other frozen meat rather than next to a volume of air - it just seemed hard to get the freezer to cycle. Then again, maybe I was imagining things. Next year I'll be ordering meats last.

Since my boss couldn't be bothered to buy a flight in order to get supplies out here (I'm talking about lodge supplies) my stuff didn't come and didn't come and still didn't come. The lodge was running out of stuff too. I was getting worried, I mean I had two more big lists of stuff to get out here, and if it was so much trouble to get this much, I was wondering how I would be getting the rest of it. Of course, the chef was fit to be tied as his options for what to fix for his guests were getting skinnier and skinnier. You see, at this lodge, they get their supplies only 'space available', meaning if a plane has to come out here empty or only partially loaded for someone else, they'll throw something of ours on, and since it was start-up season for all the lodges in the area, very few planes came out here empty - hence the occasional need to buy a flight at the cost of what one guest pays. Ah but that would have cut into his profit margin; we were expected to suck it up.

Yeah, in case you haven't guessed, I don't have a very high opinion of my new boss. For him, all his decisions are based on his profit margin or his personal advancement or image. That is no way to run a lodge. That's also a whole other rant.

But enough about my boss. He pays, so I will work there until I get a better offer somewhere else.

I finally got my meats and filled the freezer, and since the summer wasn't very hot, we were able to run it every other day most of the summer. There was an unanticipated side-effect to having a full freezer though. Something compounded by the cool summer which produce very nearly no berries - hungry bears - bears that know what a freezer is. So for the duration of the summer, my husband had to stay home and guard the freezer. There were at least two black bears who came around from time to time. Don was able to run whichever one off each time, but one time he actually had to fire his pistol off to do the job, and even then, the bear seemed to think about it. This happened by the time I reached work. One of them came back since I've been home and even though I'm a light sleeper, I wasn't able to prevent the bear from mauling the freezer. At 2:30 in the o'dark morning, I heard a noise and jumped out of bed. By the time I reached the front of the house, I heard another noise near the front door. Looking out the window to the right of the door showed me nothing out of place so I went to the other side of the house to look out over the freezer - there he was, highlighted by the moonlight, half way across the yard and heading away at a leisurely pace. I stayed up for another hour just to make sure he didn't come back - he didn't. The next morning I went out to look around and discovered an empty trash can tipped over and all kinds of muddy footprints all over the freezer. Seriously, he couldn't have worked on the freezer for very long, but still my newish freezer now has at least three new scars. He was biting at the lid, trying to get in. I think pure luck kept him out, like maybe he was leaning too hard on the lid while he was biting it and he didn't get a good hold on the lid, only pinching the top at best. Close call. We've been talking all summer about moving the freezer to the shop, or maybe back inside. This pretty much decides the issue. We also need to get a dog. I'm a light sleeper but a dog is better. 

Another thing that happened this fall, and earlier this summer I wish I'd seen, was a young moose came calling. When I saw him, I heard a thumpty-thump and thought it might be a bear (this happened before the previous account) so I jumped out of bed and went to look. There, standing in the middle of the yard was a young bull - maybe a 4-year-old. His rack was still bloody so he only just lost his velvet and he was cranky with rut. As I watched him, he started to make a head-down approach at our snowmachines. He could pick on most anything else, but not the snowmachines so I opened the window to holler at him. He backed off from that to check out the new distraction, but he wasn't done. I had to holler at him and even step out of the door to wave at him before he gave up and moseyed on up past the guest cabin. That afternoon, I jumped on the 4-wheeler to check the boats and saw him still hanging around up the sizeline not far from the cabin up there. I haven't seen him since.

Earlier during the summer, my husband told me about a young bull and cow that came calling. He said it was so funny. The poor bull was trying his hardest to impress his female friend by mock-charging various things in the yard, namely the big smoker still set up in the middle. Apparently his girlfriend wasn't too impressed, but that didn't stop him from trying. He didn't hurt anything so my husband just watched. When I got home, he told me about it, making sure I knew how badly the female of the species tortures their male suitors. haha It did sound so cute and so funny. I wish I could have seen it.

Yesterday, I went down to drain the rain out of the boats, they're pulled now, by the way, unless the water comes up again. My boat is tentatively pulled and left still low if that event happens - I couldn't even get the boat out of the slough until it is floating again anyway. I pulled the plug so my boat could go pee and then stood there looking out over the river. Around the corner came a pair of otters. I haven't seen otters for a while now - they are such a comical creature. The first one swimming around the corner immediately dove, but the other one did something like a double-take and the cocked his head to the side before following the example of his companion. I sat down in the hopes that my non-upright posture would be less threatening and they would come close again, but they didn't. They did hang around farther out though. They were hunting dieing fish, so I left so they could get on with it.

So there are critters around again, not like last year when my world was rather devoid of wildlife, to include those of the feathered variety. Not many of those around still though, but they are around. I'm thinking it'll be a while before the big flocks build up again. My spruce hen momma raised another family here. She had five chicks this year, and I'd occasionally meet them on the trail. It's rather funny when they decide to just walk along in front of the 4-wheeler. They are rather short-legged, you know. Their leisurely pace is really quite slow. hahaha I got a big kick out if it though.

I do love my life here. I would miss all of this if I moved to town.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Changes

Sometimes I wonder how civilization ever developed, but I know the answer to that easily enough. To move forward, you must abandon the past. Aahhh but I don't want to abandon what I have here. I like what I have here. But living this life here in this wilderness, needs careful planning, and sudden changes are difficult to manage.

Over the last few years, our sons have wanted us to spend winters at least in town. Their generous hearts are just looking out for our best interest, but neither Don nor I are very big on change, and spending the winter in town is a very big change. You might not think it is so hard - just go to town when summer work is over, but it's not that easy. I've spent years shutting down the lodge and getting it ready for the winter months, and shutting down a house is no different.

Here's a list of the things we did last fall to get ready to go to town.

outside:

• Make sure the boats are secure and the motors safe - we hauled 3 motors to the house
• Make sure the gas was safe and as hidden as we could manage - we didn't want someone to stop by and help themselves
• Make sure there was some firewood cut and ready for when we came back
• Make sure the generators were safe and ready to be used when we got back
• Make sure nothing was just laying around to be buried by the snow and therefore lost for the winter
• Make sure all my water buckets were upright and safe - it would make my first collection of snow easier

inside:

• There were a few frozen meats and such left in the freezer, so we moved them to the outside freezer - the hope was that winter would be cold enough to keep them good - that ended up not being the case
• Make sure all jared and bottled liquids were in the sink or in the shower so if they broke from freezing, I'd have less to clean up.
• Make sure there was no standing water, bits of coffee, or any other liquids sitting around
• Would have needed to make sure the propane was shut off but that bottle ran out that morning, so no worries there
• Hide all our handguns and our most valuable rifles - for the same reason we hid our fuel. We didn't want someone to break in and help themselves
• Make a list of supplies to bring out with us
• Try our best to make sure the battery bank was charged up as much as possible to protect them from freezing
• Pack: clothes, computers, power cords, internet cords, (forgot my camera)

shoulda:

• Put all dry goods not in a bucket into the now empty inside freezer
• Ordered propane before going to town - we're almost out now
• Made sure snowshoes were at the house - so glad we bought a pair in town

Well, that's most everything, and there's always the constant looking around to make sure we didn't miss anything.

So all that is just for getting ready to go to town. Being in town wasn't so bad but what with Carrs just a stroll away, it was way too easy to go buy a pack or two of cigarets, some candy, or muffins. Sometimes there was the Salisbury steak TV dinners or for me just red meat to fry up. Sometimes there was a few cans of chili, or tuna - whatever we were hungry for at the time. I got pretty good at keeping coffee available and bought our share, that and honey to put in it. Donnie is looking out for healthy foods and honey is healthier than sugar. At any rate, we ended up spending about $50+ every other day or so. So, our trip to town, counting the flight to and from, ultimately cost us a lot more money than we would have spent just staying out here.

I wanted to do it once though, at least. There were some good things that came from this trip. Don allowed me to buy a couple filleting knives from Amazon, which in turn allowed me to publish one of my books through CreateSpace, a free Amazon self publishing company, and THAT ended up being a good thing because it has paid for my internet for 2 months in a row so far. Also during my trip to town, I was able to hold a book signing. Now that was rather anticlimactic, but kinda fun. One of my books never made it to me, so I was a book short, but the bookstore bought 2 each of my other two books, and I sold 3 to customers (one was the book store owner's sister, but that's okay, she wasn't buying them as a favor to her sister or me. Another thing I wanted to do is look into some place where I could join some kind of exercise class. I was hoping to find a Kung Fu class, but would look into Yoga if I saw something. I did see a yoga place in my walking around but it was never open when I went by. And then there was the Alaska Club - probably why I didn't see anything else around. So I stopped in and just couldn't see myself spending $80 bucks for no less than six months. What I would have preferred is pay as I go in, maybe $10 per trip at the most. I wasn't going to be in town for six months, nor was I going to be able to go there every day. They tried their best though. I got the grand tour, and was impressed with all the things they offered, and with how clean the place was. Ha, maybe I should have applied for a cleaning job there. I might have got something that way.

Another thing I wanted to do is find a winter job. That way I could work out here for the summer and then have a job to go to in town for the winter, thus giving us a year-round income, but really this winter was more of an experiment so I didn't look very hard.

Then the floor gets pulled out from under me.

I heard a rumor. The lodge where I work went bankrupt - well, more correctly, the owners went bankrupt. I wouldn't have my normal job this summer. I kept hoping and hoping something would change, that surely someone would run the place to keep the money flowing and pay whatever the bill was. The previous owner even came down to look the place over, but what with the flood last fall, and with ongoing problems that needed to be fixed. He wasn't willing to make the investment. So, there it sits, soon to be abandoned in the care of the bank until someone decides to buy it. I need to get there and get my things before everything is inventoried and claimed as their property, and I have yet to be able to make it down the trail with the 4-wheeler. I can walk there, but there's no way I can carry a motor down there, and boats don't go very far without a motor.

Not to worry much, I do have work, but only part time. A friend at a neighboring lodge has been after me for years to work in his yard. Now I have the time. And the list of things I want to do here has grown over the years. Looks like I'll have time for some of that too, however, working here at home isn't going to earn us much, and such things like food, gas, and propane, cost money. Thanks to our now frivolous-seeming trip to town, and a bunch of other rather frivolous-seeming spending over the last few years, we are ill prepared for a sudden summer without work. I'm pretty sure we'll make it just fine, but there won't be any left over - back to scraping by from summer paycheck to summer paycheck, and if we lose our internet, book sales and publishing will also plummet. I so wanted my writing to support us someday, but though it is improving, that hasn't happened yet.

I'm kinda pissed about the lodge. It seems the owners had declared bankruptcy very early last summer, and they didn't trust me with this information. Had I known last summer the potential developments of this summer, I could have arranged for work then, and been all set, and no worries. But no, John, the caretaker, and I, were left scrambling for work, and him, for a place to live. He has lived at the lodge for 3 years now, I think, year round, though the flood drove him out of the cabin where he lived. I think that now qualifies as condemned. If they were worried that I'd quit early, they didn't know me very well. I have invested over 10 years into that place; it is my second home. Even now, I won't completely abandon it. I fully plan to stop by frequently and tend my gardens there, and mostly just keep an eye on the place. I'll be working almost next door anyway.

Last summer I looked into buying a small place upriver, but the owner wasn't willing to work with me. Who knows, that was last summer. I asked my family for financial help in that direction, maybe they will come through for me this year. I know I can pay them back; there's just no way I can get my own loan. Banks don't loan for buying businesses out here, not with a part time work record. They want their monthly payment every month, and no business out here will have a monthly income year round, not when half the year is spent with un-travelable conditions and winter business being thin at best, especially at first.

Living out here takes planning, and somethings I plan an entire year ahead. I came to work at Riversong because I couldn't get a firm yes from the lodge where I had worked before. My first stint at Riversong was the very last 3 weeks of the season with a for sure promise of a job next summer, and I stayed there ever since for the same reason. When hope for any kind of work at Riversong finally played out, I sent an email to a couple other of the lodges here on the river, but I was too late, they were already filled up. They too plan ahead, and rightly so. I'll still go around and offer my services on call. Maybe someone will quit or get fired. I've seen it at Riversong a few times. Some people just don't know what they're getting into coming out here, and end up not being able to take it. Some people think it's a working vacation and end up playing far more than working, and get themselves fired. Not that I wish anything bad for those hopeful workers, I'm just needing to work. Most of them are just filling a summer.

So - planning is vital - change can be painful - and hindsight can really torture sometimes

Decisions Decisions

Recently I was asked what it takes to live out here, especially with children. It got me to thinking; I've been asked before in one form or another. Other related comments mostly reflect astonishment that I live this kind of life and that I raised my kids out here.

What did I come out here with? My husband was already out here; he'd been working out here for two summers already, but he wasn't making enough along with my job in town, to pay the rent, utilities and buy food. I came out here with two dogs, two cats, two boys and a whole plane (bush plane - little) full of bags of clothes. That's it. I left behind so much. Everything else was stuffed in a storage compartment, and eventually nearly all of that was donated to the local charity.

When we first moved out here, my kids were six and nine. My biggest worry was school. Gad!!! Sure, I graduated from high school, I even had four years of college under my belt, though no degree, but what did I know about teaching? Especially my youngest. I didn't have a clue on how to teach him how to read and yet I was/am an avid reader. I was so lucky the school system had it all figured out for me.

Outside of schooling, I really didn't give the move much thought. I mean our ancestors moved their families hundreds of thousands of miles (by horse-drawn wagon) from civilization. What I did was not nearly so dangerous. They had to worry about Indians and starvation or freezing. All I had to worry about was possibly a bear.

We were caretakers our first winter out here. Part of our arrangement was groceries once a month. Our worst trouble was hauling in firewood. We didn't have a snowmachine until later in the winter when we could borrow one.

During the summers way back then my husband was the bread-winner. He worked as a fishing guide, and he was very good at it. Somehow, (I have yet to figure out how) he had all the different fish's habits down pat and could take you to whatever you wanted every day. I was the one to stay at home and raise the kids (and keep them alive so-to-speak).

Nowadays, my life is different and yet very much the same. Now, with a little creative trading, we own the property we live on. Now we live in a house the four of us built ourselves - part of the lumber came from a cabin we tore down for a friend who wanted it gone, part came from lumber we milled ourselves with a chainsaw, the rest, like the plywood and insulation, we had to buy and freight out here.

Now it's my paycheck that brings home the bread so-to-speak. I work summers at a fishing lodge where I have worked for over ten years now. When our government decided to require us to have insurance to cover our guests, we could no longer be self employed so my husband no longer guides. Our boys have grown up and now they are both married. I even have a grandson now; he's eight now. My how time flies.

Now, oddly enough, we have a satellite dish hanging on the side of our little house. Boy, it took me a while to get used to that, but because of that, now I am a published author, I have three blogs, and I'm well known on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Let me tell you, I certainly did NOT see THAT in my future way back when. hahahaha But it will be a long time before it pays for itself.

Here in this neck of the woods, there are several lodges. To the best of my knowledge, they all hire every summer. If you want to make a living year around, that's a little harder, but there's always someone who maybe needs some firewood cut or their roof shoveled when the snow gets deep. If you happen to be mechanically inclined, there's boat motors to work on or snowmachines. However, a good-paying summer job, with a little modest smart shopping, it's possible to be comfortable for the rest of the year.

Finding a home might not be so easy, but you could find somewhere out here to live. I'm trying to buy a small Bed and Breakfast see here, but I'm way short on funds, and because of my seasonal job, banks won't lend me a dime. You'd have to check local listings, but I'm sure there's plots of land with and without cabins all across the state. What remains to be seen is if they are within reach of work. Then again, there is always live-in work and take your summer loot to town, stock up on winter supplies and then go home.

After Work

Is there such a thing? Sometimes I wonder. It hasn't even been a week yet and I'm still trying to catch up here at home. Having 2 days of drenching rain hasn't helped but I'm making a dent, I think.

Yesterday, I organized the woodshed and now there's room for the big weed-eater and the lawn mower, and still enough room to walk back to the wood. Still some work to do in there though. I've even taken a small stab at the shop but that's mostly just a by-product of needing to find a place for the things I put in there from the woodshed. Doing things like sorting out the nails and putting nuts and bolts into coffee cans instead of leaving them rattling around in the bottom of bad boxes or broken tubs made a huge difference in both places.

Today, I burned those old boxes, and boy, was that a chore. It was raining so hard, the boxes were getting wet before they could catch fire. I managed to get most of them anyway. I'll be burning again in a day or two so I'll see what's left from this time. Even though I wore my Riversong rain jacket, I was drenched by the time I came back in. I guess it's not as waterproof as I thought.

What with all the rain we've been having, we've been concerned about the boats. We pulled my boat, the last one, last Wednesday, the day after my last day of work. I had to paddle it into the slough where we park because the water was too low. I ended up poling my way in; the narrowness didn't give me much room to hit water on the sides and there wasn't much water under the boat anyway. Enough to float it but that's all.

As of this evening, there has been enough rain over the last 2 days to bring the water level clear up level with the bank again. What took a come-along and an extra length of rope (about 10 feet) last Wednesday could have been done by hand this evening, well almost anyway.

It stopped raining around 4 this evening and there was even a tiny window of sunshine, but I'm sure the river won't catch up with all the rain-fall until tomorrow morning sometime. I hope the water doesn't go up a lot more, but I'm about as prepared for it as I can be. The plugs are all in and the anchors are all out. The fuel won't be in any danger unless the water comes up another six feet or so. It's happened before. I don't look forward to it.

A Day in my Life

A teacher friend of mine wanted to know what a day in my life was like. I told her to let me think on it a couple days and then I'd put something up - I must apologize for taking so long. Describing a day in my life isn't an easy task. My day is not your average work-a-day schedule. Sure, I have the normal daily tasks and they happen at normal times of the day, but even in those things, the changing seasons have an effect. My mornings are likely the most stable part of my day. Regardless of the season, pretty much the first thing I do is make coffee, check my emails and do my advertising on Facebook and Twitter. After that, the seasons play tiddlywinks with my daily schedule.

In the summer - from June to roughly the first part of September - I leave for work at seven in the morning. Returning home after work is a mite flexible, but mostly I leave there at five, or when I run out of work, whichever comes first. This concrete part of my life dictates my summer mornings, and now that I have internet, I get up at five, which gives me two hours for my morning ritual. As soon as I get back home, once again, I catch up on my emails, but also during that time, I'm fixing supper and possibly doing a few homely chores. On my one day a week off, I burn trash, wash dishes maybe clean the house a bit, whatever comes up that needs doing. Frankly, during the summer, my day seems really crunched.

During the winter, my day is much more relaxed. My morning starts at dawn, which isn't so bad since dawn is around eight in the morning this time of year. Once again I fix coffee, check my emails and do my advertising, but also mixed into my mornings, now that it's freezing at night, I go out and split up an armload of firewood. As it gets colder, that chore will migrate to the afternoon so I don't have to go out first thing in the morning before coffee.

Long around noonish, the battery on my computer is about run out so I go out and start the generator. I treat myself to a couple Facebook games for an hour or two and then I spend another hour or two on homely chores, whatever needs doing. This is usually the time of year when I dig into the corners of the house and scrape out the year's accumulation of gunk. This year I scrubbed walls too. (I don't do that every year, but I suppose I really should.) As soon as whatever chore I set for myself is finished for the day, I once again sit down in front of my computer. I quickly check through my emails again but really I'm checking for comments on my blogs and catching up on Goodreads, then it's on to writing or editing. Currently it's mostly editing, but once in a while I get a bur and need to write down an idea to be developed later. This sometimes happens in the middle of the night too. I love writing in the middle of the night - it's so quiet.

Supper and after also happens in front of the computer, and if my husband can leave the TV off (never), it's back to editing or writing for me. If the TV connection sucks (80-90% of the time), he demands a movie (DVD). If I get wrapped up in the movie, I'll usually go back to Facebook and one of my games or I'll go to Goodreads and chat with my friends there.

Usually, somewhere between ten at night and midnight, I fold and it's off to bed for me to begin it all again tomorrow.

Well folks, that's a simplified look at my day. There are always little events waiting around the corner to throw a monkey-wrench into whatever I might develop for a schedule, but as you can see, the most important thing I try to do revolves around my writing, the rest is unfortunately necessary and therefore must be done at some point.