It's a New Season

Tuesday was my last day to travel by snowmachine to the village for the winter. Is this the only place where April 24 can still be considered winter? Regardless, I am now settled in at the cabin until the river ice breaks up and floats the eight miles out to the Bering Sea, carving the riverbank along the way to possibly reveal a hidden Mammoth tusk or tooth and making new channels and sandbars for us to learn to navigate this summer. I parked my machine at Gregg’s shop, between the buildings, a cover pulled over to protect it from the elements until next fall. My 4-wheeler sits parked beside it, covered since last fall, waiting for my return from the Lower 48 in June to be uncovered and revved up for summer, when I’ll drive it the 12 miles out the dirt road and across the tundra to park at the cabin for berrypicking and summer exploration trips in the vast expanse that has become my backyard. Meanwhile, we wait and pray for the river to open before our flight leaves on May 13 to carry us to the arms of family spread from Washington to Michigan.

Tires ready for planting.

I rode home on the back of Gregg’s machine, pulling a sled filled with provisions including a case of whiskey and a rubber tub filled with caribou, milk, eggs, and other essentials. We also loaded up several, old 4-wheeler tires that Gregg has stacked outside his shop, having been thrown aside when folks had him install new tires for them.  After cutting the inner rims out of the top and bottom of the tires, they will serve as vegetable and flower planters both in and out of our garden space. I’ve been doing some reading about soil-warming techniques, and, living where we do, permafrost isn’t very far down and our soil stays pretty cold all summer, even with the long days of sunshine. Cold soil makes it nearly impossible to grow most vegetables – my radishes, cabbage, and beans in the garden last year just laughed at me. This year, I’ll be planting those in raised beds courtesy of those old tires!

Iron Dog & Iditarod Trail Markers

Gregg also made several trellises out of Iron Dog and Iditarod trail marker stakes that he gathered along the river and cross country trail between here and the village. The trails get marked with stakes every 100 yards or so in March. When the river breaks up, the stakes end up in the bottom of the river or out in the Bering Sea, so I feel like we do our part to keep the environment clean by gathering them and reusing them. It’s also free wood that can be used in a variety of ways around our homestead! They make perfect trellises for climbing vegies like cucumbers, beans, peas, and zucchini.

Wednesday, Gregg headed back to town, intending to continue making the trip until the river became unsafe, which was probably only a few days away. However, the river ice had changed so much overnight that he left town earlier than anticipated, and drove home on our oldest, smallest snowmachine, 2005 Skidoo Tundra – one that can be loaded

Ole' Trusty

onto a boat and taken back to town after the river opens. The cracks in the river are now 5-8 inches wide and the open holes are growing larger and meeting up, creating places where one has to water-skip the snowmachine from one patch of ice to the next. It’s no longer safe to drive on.

Fresh Jelly

Meanwhile, I stayed home and made jelly from blueberry juice that I had strained off of frozen berries I used in dessert bars. I hate to throw anything away, so I had saved the juice, instead of straining it down the sink. I also had some dried Lavender that a retiring teacher had given to me last week, after clearing out her kitchen pantry. After making Lavender tea (steeping the lavender in water and straining it through a cheese cloth), I mixed it with the blueberry juice and created an absolutely delightful jelly! I then made a batch of straight Lavender jelly that tastes similar to Fireweed jelly, quite a treat!

Thursday was the first day since October that not one person drove past our cabin on the river. We are settled in now for a couple of weeks of peace and quiet. It’s starting to sink in as to how truly self-sufficient Gregg and I could be if we had to. However, I sent him out to fish for dinner yesterday and the river was so muddy from the ice melting that he didn’t even get a bite. Thankfully, we have a week’s worth of semi-frozen caribou in the cooler, in addition to canned tuna, chicken, and Spam in the pantry (don’t knock it – browned Chorizo Spam is pretty darn good for breakfast!).  We certainly won’t starve.

If there was an emergency, we could probably ride out, cross country, on the little Tundra, although it would be quite a task to get it up to the top of the half-snowdrifted/half-mud hill. Once at the top, we could nurse it across the tundra to the road, drifted 10-feet high with snow the last time I saw it. In any case, I suppose it’s an option. We’ll just work smart and hope for the best.

New Clothesline

Today is Friday, and Gregg is currently building a sturdy clothesline across the deck so that I can make use of my first anniversary gift, a shiny, new wash tub and clothes wringer! We currently have a couple of bungee cords strung between posts on our porch that are barely enough to dry out wet towels and hand-washed underwear. We’ll need something more significant for workpants and shirts. Last summer, I took the heavy items like that and washed them at the Unalakleet River Lodge, where Gregg works in the summer. It was little more than a quarter-mile hike through the woods, carrying the clothes in a duffle bag on my back. However, I don’t like relying on others and wanted to be more self-sufficient… thus, my new wash tub.

Getting the Greenhouse ready.

My next project for today is to head down to the greenhouse to heavily soak all of the soil in my pots down there. The dirt is extremely dry from sitting out all winter and needs a couple of days of loving care before my little seedlings are transplanted into them. My tomato seedlings are six-inches high, so it’s time to send them to the greenhouse. We’re past hard freezes, now, and the days are amazingly long, at least 16 hours of daylight. I believe we gain an hour of sunlight every week right now. I’m counting on these vegies and herbs to not only provide us with a year’s worth of food, but also to give me a little extra to sell at Saturday Markets – I already have people asking about it. Perhaps I’ll just hang a sign out down by the river and have folks stop by here to get the produce fresh out of the greenhouse to take with them to their fish camps! That’ll be a first out here, for sure!