Water Day - Summer

On a Summer Water Day, which comes around every couple of weeks, it’s time to get the water from the river up the hill to the cabin. Thanks to a portable, electric water pump, we no longer have to haul it up 40-some steps in 5-gallon buckets weighing 40 pounds a piece. It’s surprising how two garden hoses, a 100-foot length of extension cord, and a small, $100 pump can feel like such a luxury.

Cleaning buckets

Everything's ready to go!

The first task is to gather all of the buckets, pots, and water jugs, wipe out the river sediment from the inside bottoms so that they’re clean to start with again, and turn on the generator, which entails the “on” switch, engaging the choke, pulling the cord a couple of times, and letting it warm up before turning the choke back off. We have a small, portable, 2,000 watt Honda generator that’s been serving the cabin well for over 12 years. However, it is starting to sputter on occasion, so we’ve just ordered a new one – not bad for a $1,000 investment. I’d really hate for the old generator to just peter out one day while I’m in the middle of a sewing marathon. No worries. Hopefully, the new one will arrive via NAC (Northern Air Cargo) by next week from Anchorage. Everything is a process out here.

Generator

100 feet of hose and extension cord

Which leads me back to Water Day. We keep the 100-foot extension cord lying on the hill so that it’s ready to plug in when needed. After getting that plugged into the generator, it’s down the stairs to the green house where the garden hoses are stored under the back bench along with the water pump. We have to screw the two 50-foot hoses together and then carry the end of one down the last set of steps to the boat, along with the pump. Also, the extension cord is left with the last 50 feet curled up on the deck by the greenhouse, so that must be uncurled and the end carried down to the boat where the pump is sitting on the back bench, near the motor.

Water Pump

Water Pump nozzle

At this point, we can screw the hose onto the pump, and then, using a 9/16 wrench, we need to open up the primer hole and fill the pump up with water using the stainless steel coffee cup that we keep in the boat in case we get thirsty when we are out and about (Unalakleet River water is just about the best thing going!). Once the primer hole overflows and the cap has been screwed back on, it’s time to put the pump nozzle over the side of the back of the boat. We put it off the back, because the water is running faster further out toward the middle of the river, making it cleaner. We’re finally ready to plug in the water pump (remember, we already have the generator going, so the extension cord is live when it hooks on to the pump).

After about six seconds, water starts pouring out of the end of the double-length hose and into the 35-gallon trash barrel sitting outside of the greenhouse. That’s the first bucket to fill, being that the initial water can be a bit cloudy from sediment left in the hose from the last time. That trash barrel will provide all of the water that the greenhouse needs for the next couple of weeks.

Then, the end of the hose is carefully carried up the steps to the main deck where the majority of the buckets have been assembled. We fill the 5-gallon buckets for the house, first, so that one of us can be carrying those 40-pound beasts into the house. Two go inside at a time. Stacked, they provide an end table for the couch. Two more are stacked just outside the front door, to be rotated inside as needed. Two large, steel pots are filled and taken inside to provide initial drinking water for our three dogs and wash water for the kitchen. The two-gallon, counter, water dispenser is filled to provide our version of running water for drinking. Finally, the outside dog water tub is filled along with another 35-gallon trashcan to provide ready refills for the cabin.

Rain Bucket

An important side note is that we have one, particular, 5-gallon bucket, which has small holes, the diameter of a pencil, drilled in the lid. This bucket is the first one we use in the house, because it is then placed underneath the porch, at the end of a drainpipe leading down from the metal roof, providing us with rainwater. The holes keep the larger debris, like leaves and sticks out of the bucket, but the rainwater still needs to be strained of pine needles and such before use. We only use rainwater for washing or the dog bowl because it doesn’t taste as good as the river water.

Cleaning rugs

After all of the buckets are filled, we spray down the garden good, if it’s been dry, and wash any rugs or other mats that need it. Fresh river water, a little laundry soap, and a sturdy broom work amazingly well to clean rugs, which are then left to dry on the porch rails.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking the work is done yet! First, we unplug the extension cord from the generator before turning it off, because it’s hard on both the generator and the pump to turn off the generator while the pump is still plugged in. Now, we head back down the 40-some steps to the boat to unplug the pump and empty the excess water out of it, unscrew the hose, and haul the pump, which weighs a good 15 pounds, hose, and extension cord back up to the greenhouse deck where we unscrew the two hoses, roll them up and return them to the greenhouse along with the pump. The lower 50-foot of extension cord is then rolled up and placed neatly next to the greenhouse, ready for the next Water Day.

In all, it only takes about 20 minutes of hard work for two people working together, and there is an amazing sense of accomplishment and teamwork when it is all done.

Water Day is a completely different beast in the throws of winter.

German Apple Pancake Recipe

German Apple Pancake

(2 servings – seriously)

Batter

½ c. flour,

¼ t. cinnamon

¼ t. cardamom

2 T brown sugar

½ c. milk

1 t. vanilla

3 eggs

Apple mixture

1 apple, peeled & chopped

2 T. brown sugar

¼ t. cinnamon

¼ t. cardamom

Turn oven to 400 and heat 3 T. butter in 10” cast iron skillet in oven.

Toss apple mixture together and spread over melted butter in skillet. Return to oven.

Mix dry ingredients together. Add milk & vanilla and whisk until smooth. Whisk in eggs one at a time. Pour batter over apples.

Bake 15-20 minutes, until center is set.

As soon as you take the pancake out of the oven, it will start to fall – no worries; that’s normal!

Serve topped with a touch of warm maple syrup!

What Do You Do with All of Your Spare Time?

This is the seventh in a series of posts I’m writing in answer to the questions I get asked the most.

“What do you do with all of your spare time?”

Thankfully, both what I love to do on a daily basis and what it takes to survive off grid intersect often, running at a close parallel most of the time. Last night, I was up late watching Downton Abbey, Season 4, Disc 1, which just arrived from Netlflix. So, this morning, I lounged in bed until the sun was high overhead around 10am. I only have to tilt my head back on the pillow to look outside the window at the blue sky scattered with cottony clouds, a slight chill in the air fogging the windows on the inside, just around the corners.

Gregg has been up for a couple of hours reading trapping magazines and working Sudoku puzzles, so the coffee’s warm and sits atop the heating stove. We’ve had a hard freeze the past couple of nights and a heavy frost coats the grass and shrubs across the still river, so still that it makes me stare an extra few seconds, making sure there is still an occasional ripple. There, it’s still flowing.

I drink a couple of cups of coffee, laced generously with coconut milk, and settle in with my latest read. Sometimes, I have a “Mother Earth News” or “Cook’s Country” magazine that I’m working my way through. However, this morning, I’m in the middle of a self-published novel by Roman Acleaf, The Tundra Diary: A Didactic Alaskan Novel, about a teacher’s first year teaching in a rural Alaskan Arctic village. I can relate and it is a good reminder of things I’ve seen and done, but not written about yet – I need to get those experiences down on paper. Meanwhile, Johnny Cash is crooning on the local radio station, KNSA, “Feeling unknown and your all alone, flesh and bone, by the telephone… I was a giver. You know I’m a forgiver. Reach out and touch me.” I allow myself an hour, sometimes more, depending on the weather, in this indulgent behavior. The day awaits.

After we decide on a light breakfast consisting of thick slices of Apple Butter Bread, Gregg heads out to burn boxes down by the river and I turn my attention to the greasy stovetop and counters in the kitchen. Once they are acceptable, it’s time to move the dog beds outside to the porch for the day, where they can relax in the cool sunshine and chew on moose bones. I head down the 25 or so steps to the greenhouse, which sits on six foot poles above the low, grassy area just a few feet above the river’s edge. It feels like descending from a treehouse, stepping on the yellow leaf covered planks and looking through the bare branches hanging at eye level. There is a handrail only on the house-side of the steps so that large objects can be easily hauled up and down, to and from the cabin, like the new kitchen stove and its box that Gregg is just now adding to the burn pile.

It is 40 degrees in the greenhouse and the inside most likely didn’t feel the effects of last night’s freeze. However, the plants have stopped growing for the year, the few vegetables having remained the same size for a couple of weeks, now. It’s time to harvest. Carrots are the crop of the day. I planted about four dozen of them in various containers. The largest, 3-4 inches long, came out of the clear plastic, Black Velvet bottles that I had cut the tops off of. I planted three to a bottle and they did fairly well, but some were stunted about an inch from the surface soil and then split into several carrot fingers reaching further down into the container. I’ll have to study up on that before next spring and try again. The ones that I planted in 3-gallon planters never got bigger around than the last digit on my pinkie finger. Oh, well, after trimmed and cleaned, the summer’s yield will be one good side dish for the two of us tonight, alongside Halibut filets that I caught a few weeks ago, and some potatoes left over from the River Lodge’s end-of-season cleanup.

As set the container of semi-clean carrots to soak on the kitchen counter in a Glad plastic tub filled with river water, I grab the couple of plastic containers (empty whiskey jug and battery package) that can be reused later, two ginger ale cans for the recycling box, and the 1 ½ pound Folgers can which serves as our kitchen compost bucket, and head downstairs. With everything in its place and a good stir of the compost tub outside, it’s time to head to the garden to harvest the beets. I’m not expecting much because the stalks and leaves are only about 6-inches tall. My expectations are met with roots the size of a pen refill tube and no bulbs at all. Compost material, at best.

I picked the last of the peas and beans a couple of days ago and added them to a Thai Curry that I had made for dinner. Our biggest green tomato is smaller than a ping pong ball, cuke is small, prickly, and wonting, the Walla Walla onions not much more than the chives, peppers are non-existent, cabbages gave us leaves but no heads, and on and on. I know I shouldn’t be disappointed because I knew we got a late start this year and it was a long shot to even plant, but the summer was so exciting, watching the plants grow and nourishing them with river water, organic fertilizer, and hand-crushed egg shells.

After feeding the beets to the compost tub near the garden, I head back down the steps with some empty food and wine boxes from the trash for Gregg to add to the fire. I decide to start a box of burnable waste to reduce our trash that needs to go to town this winter. Sitting on the bottom set of steps, just outside of the greenhouse, I watch the boxes turn to ashes while Gregg throws a stick for Nuka, her favorite game. He tells me he heard a moose crashing around in the brush across the river. We get quiet and listen and he rustles some nearby branches with the stick he had been throwing for Nuka, making a sound similar to a moose scraping his antlers. Silence. I notice there are a couple of shriveled, seed-filled, Marigold pods in the flower box on the greenhouse landing, pinch them off, and search their purple-flower-neighbors (I don’t know what their called), but their seed pods are still green.  I hold the precious Marigold seeds tight in my hand as I ascend back up two levels to the cabin porch and collect any seeds ready from those flower boxes, as well. More Marigolds and some yellow daisies. I smile and take them inside where I’ll leave them to dry out on a paper towel for the day before squirreling them away in my homemade seed envelopes for safe-keeping until spring.

By noon, my hands are cold from washing the carrots outside in 33 degree water from the river. Time for another cup of coffee and spend a couple of hours writing while Gregg empties the mouse traps downstairs that he baits with dog food (he keeps the mice for trapline bait), takes a walk over to check on the River Lodge, boarded up for winter, comes back to report one grouse and his regret at not having taken his .22 with him, and settles in at the kitchen table for another round of Sudoku.

Today is quieter than most. We enjoyed having a lifelong friend of his here for a visit for the past 12 days, but he left on yesterday’s afternoon flight, bound for his home in Minnesota. The quietness of just the two of us is comfortable and welcome.

It’s already two in the afternoon. Where did the morning go? This afternoon, after we enjoy a late lunch of grilled cheese sandwiches and Salt & Vinegar Lay’s, I’ll probably do some quilting before making our Halibut/Carrot/Potato dinner, after which, we’ll turn on the generator to use the internet,  listen to Sirius Radio, and maybe even watch a movie, most probably a western of some sort. Internet time is when I do most of my “work,” marketing my three online businesses, Younique (makeup), Perfectly Posh (bath & body products), and PawTree (pet supplies). That’s also when I research online teaching opportunities and send off magazine submissions. Tonight, I’ll probably also put together a baking plan for what I need to make Thursday and Friday for this Saturday’s Market in town.

What was I writing about? Oh yeah, what I do with all of my spare time!

Wheeler Crash

It seemed like a good idea at the time. But, now the razor blades on my skull and gut pain with every breath tell a different story.

It was mid-September, the first snowflakes fell a week ago, and we needed to get the broke-down 4-wheeler back to town to get it in working order before spring. It had bald tires and no brakes – neither of which I truly identified before I drove it out to the cabin in June, reeling down the switchbacks on the mountain at mock 9 and coasting to a stop, feet on the ground like a Flintstone’s brake pad, three feet before heading over the last hump into the fast running Unalakleet River. Whew!  The only place that wheeler was going was back up the hill to town and the shop to be fixed!

The tires had gone flat over the summer, of course, so we got them aired up and I headed up the hill that Wednesday morning while Gregg enjoyed an extra cup of coffee at the cabin before heading to town in the boat to meet me. He needed to keep the dogs inside so that they wouldn’t chase me to town. We had been having an unusually wet fall and the trail was covered with the yellow, birch leaves blown down in the 30 knot winds the day before.  It was truly a beautiful morning and I was ready for an adventure, or so I thought.

As I headed up the first hill, in front of the Erickson’s vacant cabin, the Wheeler was running smooth and I was looking forward to a colorful trip to town, yellow, orange, and red leaves against the evergreens of the mountainsides. My phone was tucked away in my right side raincoat pocket, ready to document the ride. I had donned my Helly Hanson rain gear for the trip, knowing the chance was great that I’d encounter some rain on the 12 mile journey, somewhere. My prescription glasses were tucked away in my left pocket and I was wearing my riding glasses – actually yellow, hunting glasses left over from when I took care of our family pheasant hunting farm in North Dakota. They wrapped around the sides of my eyes, providing wind and rain protection without having to wear full-on goggles.

As I rounded the next corner, the machine started to strain with the incline, so I leaned left, uphill, heavy on the handlebars and downshifted to 2^nd gear with a tap of my left foot. As soon as I was out of the switchback, I was wishing I had gotten a faster start, looking up the long, straight, yellow-leaf covered hill in front of me.  Just another six feet and I’d be over the worst of it, I thought to myself when the tires started spinning. Instinctively, I pressed down on the thumb throttle, but was sliding backward already, the leaves providing a sled-like ride, gravity kicking in full force. I tried both hand brakes and foot brakes at the same time. Nothing. Now, the wheels were rolling backwards; I wasn’t just sliding on leaves. I was moving so fast that I was afraid to turn around and look back, but I knew the switchback was coming quickly and the trees beyond that would put an end to this backward race. I had to jump off. I leaned right, which was more uphill at this point than left and the force of my feet pushing off of the wheeler sent it tipping the other way.

I rolled a few times, heard my head smack against something hard and landed on my back, head downhill. My eyes opened to the green and yellow leaf canopy gently shaking in the breeze. Everything hurt, but the left side of my head and ribs had taken the brunt of the fall. I held my left arm tight to my ribs, and felt my head with my right hand, while I worked my way to my feet. No blood. That was good, but a knot the size of a lemon was quickly rising above my left ear. Every step jarred my ribs, which felt like they were going to burst out of my body. I stumbled the couple hundred yards back down the hill, past the overturned Polaris, through the woods to our cabin, moaning with every move. Gregg heard me coming and ran down the steps to meet me, just a few short steps from the boat, which would provide our bumpy, ambulance ride to the clinic in town, eight miles downriver.

Broken ribs, a broken windshield, and a very sore noggin seem like a small price to pay for an accident that could have been much worse.

Today, three days later, I have a funny sensation on my head like there’s a knife blade there with a scab forming around it. I can’t stand for more than a few minutes without my back hurting. Any range of motion with my right arm makes my ribs snap, crackle, and pop. I can’t bend over or it feels like my insides will break right through my skin and fall out on the floor. Forget laughing. I’m pretty sure I’d die if I sneezed. More bruises show up every day.

The good news is that I can make it back and forth to the outhouse on my own. I can get up and down the stairs to the bedroom loft. Gregg is a very attentive nursemaid. I’ve got puppies to snuggle with. Most of all, I’m alive.