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Tag Archives: AK

Guess what we’re doing today?

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Guess what we’re doing today?

On to another project.

No rest for the weary. Finished one cabin yesterday and rolled into the new job site this morning. This is a 12′ x 24′ cabin, dry in only. (No interior or finish work!!)

We spent half a day gathering supplies. The rest of the day we set our paver/pier foundation & brackets.

Ready for the floor system.

Then we sized our rough sawn beams and set them into place. Leveled and squared them and cut our rim joist and laid out our joist placement.

Time flies when you’re having fun. Time to clean up and stow our tools. Monday we will knock out the floor joists and blocking. Hopefully getting some sheeting down for the floor too.

Kayak Adventures

Thing 2 has been interested in kayaking for several years now. I bought him a starter kayak about 4 years ago I think. We don’t often use it but every once in a while a kayaking opportunity arises and we must go!

We’ve been kayaking to Cain’s Head out of Seward, across Kachemak Bay out of Homer and on Arc Lake and Stormy Lake. Once again we had the opportunity to kayak to Cain’s Head with IDEA for our beginning the year field trip.

We booked a cabin for the night before at Miller’s Landing. It’s a quaint little Alaska campground. It started out as a family homestead and the campsites are named after people. There’s a Wes and a Janet among others. I don’t recommend “Matt” as he’s a muddy mess with lots of tree roots!

Our cabin was a “tree” cabin, Alder, and sleeps 4. Me, my teens and one extra: Thing 2’s buddy, since it was his birthday trip and all. Trips like this are always the best because our friends are with us.

Staying over the night before is important, a 7:30am roll call on the beach with a two and half hour drive before isn’t very fun! So overnight it was.

We managed to get to the beach on time and started out paddling at 8 am.

Our crew on the beach.

The weather wasn’t awful but it wasn’t stellar either. Overcast and light to moderate rain all day. We had a brief moment of partly cloudy skies then the rain returned. But we managed to stay mostly dry with good rain gear. There is no bad weather, only bad clothing.~ old Norwegian saying.

Five miles out to the North Beach access. A nice uneventful paddle. Lots of birds and jumping silvers. We saw a jellyfish waiting to make our landing.

All that’s left of the Army’s dock at the North Beach site.

Then a two mile hike up to Fort McGilvray. An altitude gain of 650′, a “moderate” hike on the difficulty scale.

A scenic vantage point along the trail. The Seussical trees bordering a wetland.

We saw so many berries on our way up. Thing 1 was taking photos every other step. Moss, mushrooms, flowers, berries, her boyfriend, me…. Trees and rocks and … Everything.

Me and my girl on the Fort Trail.

We made it to the top and a quick walk through the Fort and then lunch break. Thing 2 discovered that he forgot to pack his lunch in so we all shared a bit of our lunches to help him out.

While eating lunch he spotted a porcupine up in the top of a tree above us. Strange creatures porcupines. Stellar Jays we’re fussing at us the whole time. We were in their space.

Then we started our descent. The trip back is always quicker. Too quick to pick all the berries I saw. I hate walking past berries and not picking them.

Safe to say that we’re all pretty tired at this point. Five miles kayaking, 4 miles hiking. Now another 5 miles back. Oy vey

Settled into our kayaks, ready as we’ll ever be.

All the muscles fussed at us on the way back. Even those we didn’t know we had. But by 3:03 pm we were back on the beach at Miller’s Landing.

These children decided they deserved ice cream after their efforts. We headed into Seward for ice cream and coffee for the Moms. There were still some congratulatory posters and banners up for Lydia Jacoby which was cool to experience.

Looking forward to the next kayaking adventure! But maybe not so far next time? Maybe.

#aklife

#kayaking

Campfire with Friends~ night before our kayaking adventure out of Seward to Cain’s Head with our homeschool group.

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Campfire with Friends~ night before our kayaking adventure out of Seward to Cain’s Head with our homeschool group.

Abundance

We figured this year would be plentiful with the Sh’mita starting this fall but we didn’t know how plentiful!

Everyone helps, even the little guy!

So far, two of our family units have gotten their desired count of fish. Three more of us are closer. We’ve shared with two other families that could come down and get fish, and have another couple of families on standby. And we’ve helped a couple young fellas fishing on their own this year navigate the regs and when they needed an extra hand.

A nice little flounder.

It feels good to be able to share Alaska’s bounty with others. There’s been many years when we just got enough to feed our own households. Sharing is caring.

Neighbor “boys” fishing for the first time on their own. Last night they had a huge haul and were a little overwhelmed. These two young men were polite and appreciative of any help. It’s nice to have good fishing neighbors.

Salmon Love

Salmon is life.

Fresh catch, ready to snip tails, head and gut, then into the ice slurry.

A major part of our diet is salmon.

Mo’s salmon in jars ready to be processed.

Salmon burgers, salmon salad, salmon patties, salmon pasta, salmon noodle casserole, salmon enchiladas, smoked salmon on bagels with cream cheese, lazy sushi bowls with smoked salmon on top, salmon jerky, candied salmon…. You get the picture?

Are you hungry yet?

#aklife #lovealaska #salmon4life #livingofftheland

Fish On!

We started our Personal Use Fishing season with a bang. First tide out, three nets set and within 12 minutes we had fish in all three nets.

Net in the water.

We pulled 34 fish our first tide. Needless to say fishing has been good so far.

I’ll check in later, I’ve got fish to process.

#AKLife

#lovealaska

#subsistance

#salmon4life

#salmonlove

Busy Little Bees

That’s how I feel this past week has gone, a busy, buzzy, blur.

We took last Friday off to spend the weekend at the cabin. I love going to the cabin but it requires a significant amount of preparation what with taking six people and a dog. So the day off from building work was spent on prepping work, grocery planning and shopping along with packing food and supplies. Then there’s the loading of the snow machines and gear, which Dean usually takes care of. So not really a “day off” from working.

But when you finally get there, the peace and quiet sets in and all that hustle and bustle is worthwhile. Then it feels like you’re a lazy little bee buzzing leisurely from flower to flower without a care in the world.

Back to work Monday and along came the snow. Dean works snow removal at nights when we’re in a snow cycle. Monday night was snow removal after building that day. Then Tuesday we started at a one hour delay and worked a short day because he had to go in Tuesday night. Weds was another short day and as soon as we got back from work we got a call for another moose salvage, so back out to collect a very young injured moose that had to be put down. Another late night. Moose takes precedence. Dean was supposed to work snow removal that night so Jake filled in so we could get the moose.

Thursday was another “day off” to work up the moose that we’d prepped and quartered the night (early morning?) before. Dean worked snow removal that night and I worked the moose.

Feeling a bit like burning the candle at both ends. Today we’re just wiped out. It’s not productive to try to build in cold temps while also being physically exhausted, neither is it safe. So we’re home again today. I’ll work on canning some of this moose meat, there’s nothing quite as good as fresh canned moose. And maybe take a nap.

I’ve never been more grateful to have so much to do.

A bee’s work is never done. 🐝

#gratefulforallthethings

#Aklife

AK49 Day

This day in 1959 Alaska entered the Union to become the 49th State. Happy AK49 Day!

Read more about it here.

#AK49

#Alaskaispartoftheusa

#werenotanislandinthepacific

#weuseUSdollarstoo

Moose Salvage

It’s a thing here in Alaska, to salvage moose after vehicle collision. If your lucky enough to get called, a quick response is required. Go pick up the critter beside the road and then bring it home to process it.

We got a call this morning just in time for Dean to load it into the truck and get it home, hang it up for me then leave for work. Lucky guy. So guess who got to process this little fella single handedly? Well I did have a good bit of assistance from Thing 2, so there’s that.

We had a host of onlookers patiently waiting for a scrap or two.

3 of the 11 eagles who came by to watch.
The first feathered friend to visit. They are so big.

It was cold today and I had to work against the sub zero temps. It took me about 3-4 hours but I got this little guy quartered and in the house to clean up and prep for processing. The rest of the day was spent picking hair, cleaning and cutting up the quarters. My bathtub looked like Lizzy Borden had been there.

This calf was pretty small. About half of him was too damaged for human consumption so will be made into dog food for Panda Bear. The rest of him will be processed into tasty breakfast sausage.

Its bittersweet when a young moose goes this way, but we’re thankful for the opportunity to make something good come from it. Tomorrow will be another full day of grinding, making sausage and dog food.

#alaskalife

#moosesalvage