I miss the birdies

I haven't heard the flocks of little tweeters going through the trees in ages. This might be good news for the dragonflies - they seem to be hanging around longer than usual, but the resounding silence as I walk to the boats is deafening. Used to be you could almost always hear a Woodpecker somewhere near or far. We even had a family raised right in our yard some years ago.

There's a Spruce hen (Grouse I think) family around. She's got like eight babies, half grown now. I see them, or sign of them, rather frequently. Today there were marks of them digging in the gravel in front of the outhouse and their little dust bath spots down along the trail. She's such a good momma. I really enjoy watching them when I have the chance.

We also had a Robin this spring. Not at all shy, it would come to within a couple feet of whoever was outside in an effort to figure out what they were doing. I tried feeding it but it never checked out my offering - not that I know of anyway. It was gone for a while - sitting I think, and then next time I saw it, there was another. It might have been a chick or a mate, it was hard to tell and I haven't seen them since.

I saw a Gray Jay once but that's it for that. There's usually at least a handful around.

Haven't seen any crows at all, and though they don't hang around here much, I generally see them from time to time as they pass through.

We even had some Swallows early this spring. Three of them, darting around, playing with each other and chasing bugs. They too generally don't hang around here though I wish they would. It's not as if there's not plenty of mosquitoes for them.

And the little ground birdies - I don't know what they're called. There has always been at least one family down near the boats and one or two around here. I found a nest once - such a tiny thing. They're cute little birds that do as much running around as they do flying. I think I saw their tracks along the edge of the water down at the boats today, but I just haven't see or heard them anywhere. They're the birds that sound like you're clicking dice together - that's their alarm call.

It's the happy chatter of flocks of maybe a hundred or more small birds flitting from treetop to treetop that is most missed. The rest don't really make much noise during the course of their day.

Even the big Raven seems few and far between. I seldom see them let alone hear them. They used to come here to play with the dog two or three times a week, and even when the dog didn't play, they came around hoping. Comical birds.

So where are all my birdies? Do I blame the super late freezing weather this spring? Do I blame the super hot weather that followed right after? That's the only thing I can think of that was different. Heck, I don't even recall hearing Swans flying over this spring, but that's not so unusual. They don't always fly over. I hear them most when they start heading south for the winter - them and the geese.

I miss my birdies.

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

To-Do List

When we first move here and build our little back-woods house. I had a 40 foot by 40 foot vegetable garden out back. A neighbor had come over with his big earth mover (big for me anyway - probably tiny by out-in-the-world standards). Anyway, he came over and shoved some stumps out of the yard creating the little pond out front. He also widened our trail down to the boats (there were a couple places where our little three-wheeler ATV would rub it's wheels on the trees, not tight but still a rub).

It being my first summer here, I had started clearing a row for a garden, figuring that during the course of the summer, I might be able to get another one or two cleared and ready for the next year. I guess he saw me hacking away at the alders with a machete and an axe, and then with a pick to get the roots up. Our neighbor came over to where I was and set his blade on the ground, just at surface level and four passes later I had a huge garden bed all cleared and ready for turning up and boxing into rows.

With a book of Square Foot Gardening in hand, I made use of the left over slabs from milling the lumber for our house, I ended up with 8 rows each 4-foot wide, with two-foot isles between, and by coincidence, they ended up being 40 feet long. Accidentally perfectly square - I was thrilled. I grew carrots, beets, rutabagas, with satisfying success. I also used up 4 rows with potatoes with great success at first but diminishing since. Another row was devoted to bush zucchini and other summer squash. Then there were bush beans in another row. Spinach and lettuce in another row. I even tried broccoli and cauliflower. I was in gardening heaven.

Then I got work out on the river. We needed the money. My efforts to feed us only covered part of our bill. So I'd go to work all day, and then come home and head directly out to the garden to try to keep it weeded (a full time job by itself). But then, after an hour if I was lucky, my husband would come get me asking to come help entertain our guests. Sigh - well, with me there, conversation could be at about the level of a two year old rather than an infant, and my husband had been dealing with him all day. You see, he was very German. He knew a few English words, probably better than my German, but my husband couldn't speak any and horribly mispronounced what he could say. I'd taken German in high school, and tried to take more in college, but quit when I realized I just couldn't remember the vocabulary. I was okay with grammer and spelling, mostly, and I could follow a conversation by gist if not specifics, but actually carrying on a conversation was beyond me - I simply didn't have the words. So, with this guy (bless his heart) I tried to be something of a translater/go-between in the conversation. I was not very good at it, but it served to pass the evening.

Next day, it was the same routine, so my garden began to deteriorate quickly. I planted less and less each year until finally giving up. My boss offered that I could order supplies through the same companies they ordered their food, and she would take the cost out of my paycheck. It would save us trips to town costing airfare, taxis and motel costs - a huge savings for us. So, I gave up on my garden, much to my dismay and sadness.

A couple years ago, my son and daughter-in-law were staying out here and they decided they wanted to plant potatoes back there. Back to the pick, machete, and axe, but he's a big boy and he had three rows cleared in only a couple days. He was sure dirty and sweaty when he came in after working out there.

So what's all this about?

Guess what I decided to do today?

Mother's day of all days

Have you guessed yet?

Yeah, I took a stroll this afternoon just assessing the yard and such. Still too much snow, and where there's no snow, it's still really soggy. My stroll ended up back at my long neglected garden. For lack of something more constructive to do, and since I did buy some new seeds this year, and since it looks like I won't have much work out on the river this year, if ever again. I went to the woodshed and got my tiller-rake. That's a four-toothed tiller on a long rake-like handle. I have a little three-pronged thing I can use for closer, easier work. This long handled thing is really handy for raking dead cane out of raspberry bushes and other such things since it combs through long stuff really well. My goal - to rake last year's dead canes and such off at least one row. Also, a couple years ago we dropped a spruce tree across my garden so there were all those branches to clear away too.

That sounds simple enough, but then I decided to cut the elder bushes away from the edge to make it easier to rake - branches were hanging over where I was trying to rake. Out of breath anyway, I took a trip to the house for the hand saw.

That project evolved into locating the chicken wire I had once kept around my garden. You see, I used to also have chickens, ducks and geese, and given the opportunity they were always back in the garden as opposed to anywhere else. I haven't had them for five years now so the fence posts have almost all rotted off at ground level and the fencing had been crushed down by snow. There was also a really heavy wired fence I'd teepee'd down one row for peas to climb once upon a time back when. That worked fine, but without being able to weed, my harvest was pitiful. When my son cleared the row, he tossed that aside - it was useless for potatoes. Anyway, I found that, and I found the fencing. It was one of those things I've always wanted to do and never really having the time or energy to do it. The best time being like now, before anything really starts to grow. Some of it is still frozen down, but with luck I'll be able to move it all tomorrow, then I'll drag it out into the yard where I can straighten it out and roll it up.

My mother's day accomplishment - lots of raking (for a first time in a while). Branches cleared and crap raked off of one row. Two stretches (40 or so feet long each) mostly loosened up and pulled free. Boy am I pooped.

My plans for tomorrow - Maybe another row raked but maybe not - still snow there. But at least I will be cutting more alder bushes away from another fence line. If I can't clear that second row, I'll be trying to free up another stretch of chicken wire at least. In the process, I hope to find a rhubarb plant and a chives patch I used to have back there. I'm curious to see if they survived the neglect.

Progressive plans - whether I plant them all or not (I doubt it) I intend to rake off the entire patch and find all that chicken wire. I've been wanting to do it for years - now is the time.

Anyone wanna come help?

My Adventure in Town

Early last January, we made the trip to Eagle River for the bulk of the winter. There were a long list of pros and cons to the idea. One thing I intended to accomplish was to have my very first book signing with real books. To that end I ordered a box of books (Prince in Hiding) as soon as I hit town. Sadly those books were sent to the wrong address and subsequently went completely missing. Another thing I accomplished was to buy something from Amazon.com which allowed me to publish my blog novel, which I was able to order within a week. Looking forward to my book signing, I now had three books to show, or at least I would have if that box had reached me. Early in February, I started the finishing process with one of my publishers to get yet another book out there. Now this one I hadn't really planned on showing at my book signing, but I sent them an email asking if maybe it might be done on time. Well, it was, but then I had trouble ordering the books. First my husband's card didn't work and then mine didn't work, so I asked my bank what the issue was. No problem on their end so I don't know what the issue was, I ended up having to mail a check, so sadly that book never made it to Eagle River so I had them send them to me. It is probably up at the post office now. Well, the book signing went swimmingly just the same. Not a big turnout as I'd hoped but it was just a little book store way out in Eagle River. I managed to sell three of my books to customers and four to the store itself. I was happy with that paycheck.

Another happy thing that happened to me was that Donnie and Marylou were able to get me a Kindle Fire for Christmas. I now have fifty brand new books on it, some old favorites I haven't read in MANY years but mostly new ones published by writer friends of mine or simply very interesting books available at $2 or less most of them. No longer will I be languishing for something to read. hahaha And you know the best thing about my new Kindle, the screen lights up so I don't need a night light to read. I'm thrilled.

I also tried to take a stab at a non-fiction writing job but that was an abysmal failure.

So that was pretty much the extent of my excitement in town. The rest of the time was rather boring, A few movies. A few shopping trips. Walking to the store a couple blocks away about every other day. The occasional walk to the bank to deposit a royalty check (those were a pleasant surprise). Most of the time being spent on line accomplishing not much productive.

No TV was kind of annoying for Don, but we could have watched movies if the ceiling to the apartment above had been a little more soundproof. One very annoying thing about that apartment building was the design. Who would put a bedroom over a living room? All the doors are in the same place. Most of the windows are in the same place. It makes no sense to me. So since out living room was directly under their bedroom us watching anything on TV was almost impossible without keeping them awake. So about the only time we could watch movies was on the kids' days off when we could watch something in the middle of the day.

The biggest con about our trip to town was the return. When our planned date came around weather wouldn't let us fly. That was probably a good thing though. Let me explain.

Since we couldn't fly to land on the river, a fete that would have been fine despite the two or three feet of snow since we went to town. It wasn't the landing or taking off we were worried about it was the getting around after we were on the ground. The pilot was willing to wait and my son was planning to come out. He was intending to help us dig out the snowmachine and get us mobile again, and then he would fly back with the pilot.

When that plan fell through Don called the people who fly choppers out here from time to time and they gave us a great deal on a flight, so we decided to go that route and they could land us right here at the house, something I made sure could be done summer before last. So we had bought a pair of new snowshoes for Don, thank goodness because once I broke through the crust I was up to my waist in snow.

Here in the house, we discovered we'd had a little house guest for a time. He pigged out on an entire case of Wheat Thins cereal, some of the ramen noodles and whatever saltine crackers we had left here. We haven't been able to figure out if it was a martin or a squirrel, I'm leaning toward martin because I think a squirrel would have moved in permanent; the visitor was only here enough to eat and potty somewhere (I'll find it) and then go.

We got out here Thursday afternoon, and the rest of the day was sweep up the cereal crumbs and throw out the empty boxes, split some firewood and start a fire (wash off the stove first). Hook up the propane to melt some water for drinking, coffee and washing off said stove so it can be lit. Dig out and get the generator started. Oh, and bring in our new TV and other things we didn't want to freeze outside. The bad thing about doing all that was the need to put snowshoes on in order to go anywhere in the yard.

Yesterday was a big dig-out day. Don headed down to the docks to dig out the snowmachine, a two hour project (see why it wasn't a good idea to fly out?) Donnie might have been able to dig the machine out in quicker than two hours but then again maybe not, and that's not counting getting things to the snowmachine cause there's no guarantee we'd be able to get the machine up and down the hill, let alone with any kind of a load. If we'd taken a plane out, we'd have been fighting to get everything to the house until dark, and then we'd have still had to do all the other things. Having to snowshoe around everywhere was a bit of a pain but still tons easier than the alternative.

I first dug out the freezer to check the supplies we'd left here (They survived the warm winter just fine, by the way, something we were worried about). Then I started in shoveling the snow off the bedroom. Poo I was SO out of shape from my leisurely stay in town. I would stop every so often, mostly to listen for Don to come back. He didn't ... and he didn't ... and he didn't. So I got worried and headed down there to see what there was to see. Dang that wasn't easy either. I had to stop and rest along the way more than once, and the walking wasn't all that hard, there was something of a crust, just not hard enough to just walk. As it was I only sunk a couple inches at the worst. Anyway, Don met me before I got all the way there so I got to ride back. Yeah, that was pretty much it for the day for us old people.

Today was almost a day of rest. Rather than finish shoveling the snow off the roof, I decided to find the kitchen I'd put all freezable things in the sink in case they broke from freezing. That stuff all survived the winter well too, the only thing that didn't was a soda I forgot sitting on the counter. It froze and got sticky all over. So some Simple Green and water I had heating on the wood stove and everything got washed off and put away again. My next task, also in the kitchen was to finish finding all the cereal crumbs. I'll probably be finding cereal crumbs for a long time, but I got the bulk of it, and I have a kitchen again, until I need to wash dishes.

We got some new things while we were in town and we're slowly getting them all hooked up and figured out. Got a new TV but can't figure out how to get it to recognize the DVD player, so all those new movies we bought, we still can't watch. We also bought a solar panel and currently we have it leaning up in the front window. It's a disadvantaged location but it's mostly just to see how well it works. It works really well but doesn't quite keep up with our standard usage so we might need another one or maybe two. Got a new inverter too; I'm hoping that will make a difference but I'm no electrician so I have no idea.

So, though my trip to town was kinda fun in some respects, I don't think we'll be doing it again for a while. Not unless I can find some kind of job while I'm there. Here, I might not do much, but I do more than I did in town. Shoveling snow once in a while. Splitting wood every day. Going out to get a tree once in a while. It all serves to help keep me healthy.

The Tree from Hell is Finally Gone

I do believe Mother Nature created a new, fire-retardant breed of spruce tree. Last winter, on the advice of a helicopter pilot friend of mine, three trees he recommended be cut found their way either into our wood stove or into our woodshed. Two of them were spruce and one of them was birch. To date, these two kinds of trees do very well heating our house.

The cheery crackle you hear in your fireplace or woodstove is the sap taking off with little explosions. That's one reason forest fires are SO dangerous. You get whole trees literally exploding and showering sparks everywhere.

This tree, like I said, cut way last year, some of it we tried to burn then, but it was just too wet. The rest went into the woodshed to dry out for the summer. Now, granted, last summer wasn't exactly hot or even dry for that matter, but in the woodshed nothing was out in the weather. Never before did we have an issue of the wood not drying out...until now.

Not only was the entire length of that tree a real B***CH to split, but it was, of all things still wet this winter. And it wasn't wet with sap either. Not once that I recall did it go snap crackle pop. Now understand, this was a rather healthy tree, a nice big Christmas tree type tree. Generally, we avoid this kind of tree because it usually has lots of branches and this one was no different. The issue was how just plain water-wet it was. Heaven forbid we tried to heat the house with only that wood. Guaranteed the stove would go out (as happened last night).

This morning we went out and split up this gnarly stump we've been avoiding for the last couple years because it's so knotty, but it was dry, I mean really dry, and with that we got some heat in the house - no we weren't freezing in here, but it was rather cooler than comfortable for inside. I also took those last pieces of 'that tree' and split them up into much smaller pieces. Then we went out and dropped a small birch and a smaller spruce (of the regular kind) which we split and brought in. Now mind you, both the birch and the spruce are green but finally the house is getting hot. The best part is 'that tree' is now all burned up. We spent most of the afternoon with the flue wide open so that soggy wood would burn up and be gone. And believe me, it had to be wide open just to keep it burning.

But

IT'S GONE

YAY

hahaha

Tick-Tock - Tick-Tock

Everyone has one of those things, and many people have all kinds stashed here and there. In fact, a nice big wall clock was one of the very first things I bought when I first got married and set up housekeeping in our first place. It's a wooden frame with a white face. I took some time selecting this clock. I wanted to be able to tell the time from across the room if need be. As it so happens I do believe the old saying, 'they don't make them like they used to' holds true for this clock. Not only have I managed to hang onto it throughout all of my moves, it has kept very good time and a single C battery lasts like two or three years.

I can't say the same for some of the newer appliances in my life. I recently had to buy a new chest freezer because my old one finally gave up the ghost after over twelve years of good service to us and who knows how many years of service to the lodge before it was given to us. They were going to throw it away because the guides at the time kept overloading the poor thing and then forcing the lid closed, so it was all bent and warped and the plastic inside was all busted up. We fixed all that and it worked just fine. Our new freezer is maybe a third the size and we had to get a bigger generator to run it.

Energy efficient - I wonder if these new engineers really know what that means. In my book, 'energy efficient' means that it takes less energy to run it. Apparently that is not the case. Our little generator would run it as long as it was running, but as soon as it started to cycle, the poor little thing didn't have a chance. More often than not, the starting up of the freezer would cause the lights and TV to blink completely off. It's a good thing our computers were always run on the inverter. Plus I do believe the generator doing that messed up our battery charger too, but I'm not sure. We needed a new generator anyway, and it was a hard decision whether to get another one like we had or go bigger. Bigger meant more gas - ugh - well you know that cycle.

But I digress

Back to the clock. Last spring one of the things on my shopping list was a radio we could wire into our house battery bank (12v). A car radio was the goal but little did I know those things are EXPENSIVE!!! So I opted for a 12v boombox. It's a little thing - less than a foot wide and that's with two speakers. It gets pretty good reception too, for way out here. The only trouble is, it gets 0 reception anywhere close to the inverter (where the house batteries are), SO it sits over by the kitchen sink on the other end of the house. Not so far away as far as hearing is concerned, but way far away as far as wiring it to the battery bank, so it runs on 8 C batteries. As with most modern 'energy efficient' things these days, it doesn't take this little radio very long to burn up 8 batteries. Knowing this (but obviously not well enough) I bought what I thought was enough batteries to keep us in a few hours of audio every day until we either went to town or could order a plane of supplies, which ever happened first.

By the time I got down to the last of the batteries, I was short ONE C battery - only ONE - Gaaa. This shortage prompted us to search through every flashlight we had and dig through every dusty corner in the house in search of a single C battery that might have some life left in it. The trash was soon filled with exploded batteries and dead flashlights, and we now have several ancient flashlights in working order that hadn't been touched in years. NO C BATTERY IN THE LOT!!! Well actually there was but nothing worth saving.

So what did I do? You guessed it. At 2:37 I took that one battery out of my faithful clock and put it in the radio. I mean really out here my days are clocked by the sun or by the battery life on my computer or by the battery life on the house batteries. We never really looked at the clock anymore. I got it down twice a year to change the time when daylight savings came around and left, and she got dusted off then too. We could do with out for a little while.

BOY WAS I WRONG!!! Every morning I'd glance at the clock to see what time the dog got me up. Usually somewhere between 8:30 and 9:30. Now I get up at 2:37. My husband had the generator timed. He knows that if we start it at or after 5:00 in the evening, I'll need to top it off by the time I go to bed or at least somewhere around 11:00. Now we start the generator at 2:37, and somehow 10:00 or 11:00 never come around so we have to top off the generator around 2:37. The other day, the generator actually ran out of gas because it was only 2:37, no where near time to top it off, even though it had been dark for hours. At night, I prefer to go to bed by or near midnight, now I go to bed at 2:37. Afternoon chores like splitting wood need to happen before dark, so once again we're watching the clock in order to be out there before 5ish, but it's only 2:37. My husband now tells me I contributed to his insanity. Who knew we still looked at the clock so much? It's not something I ever noticed. What time it was never really mattered that much, not until summer when I needed to be out the door by 7:00 in the morning having finished my advertising and checking my emails.

Now, my husband has brought my alarm clock into the living room and enthroned it in front of the TV. sanity has returned to our lives. It's 5:53 in the evening, not 2:37 hahahaha

So - how many times do you look at the clock? Do you know? I certainly didn't.

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.