New Honda Foreman
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
Friday, November 27, 2009
Like a Honda commercial
Like a Honda commercial
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
Dan, Matt & Mandy, me and Chrissy out on ATVs on Moose Mountain today. Warm spell today up to 24 above. Too good to pass riding today.
log pile, covered in fresh snow
log pile, covered in fresh snow
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
Came down to our property today for the first time in a few weeks. Found everything covered in untouched, perfect snow.
Me after almost 48 hours and no sleep, Dave in his element.
Me after almost 48 hours and no sleep, Dave in his element.
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
Got to do a little bit of deer hunting in Kentucky recently.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Outhouse
Outhouse
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
We still need to put the sides on, each side has a sliding window in it.
Dutch door installed and working.
The ride home
The ride home
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
Chrissy shot this through the back window of the truck. Matt and I rode the outhouse up to our property in the back of the truck.
moving time
moving time
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
Dan, Matt, Chrissy and I loaded this beast into Dan's truck to move it about a mile to our property (built at Matt and Mandy's using their generously donated electricity)
Sunday, October 11, 2009
building the outhouse
building the outhouse
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
The seat will still get a layer of extruded polystyrene foam before its done. Its the only thing that keeps you from freezing to the seat when it gets really cold. We even purchased some metal roofing for this thing, it should be nice and sturdy.
building the outhouse
building the outhouse
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
Front door section goes up, holding it all together now. Slots cut out for ridge beam that will hold up the roof.
Doormaking
building the outhouse
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
Chrissy using our $5.00 1970's jig saw to cut out the doorway. Its a dutch style door with a curved top.
building the outhouse
building the outhouse
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
The throne, and one wall up. The outhouse is coming together.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
big burbot
big burbot
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
This is only the 2nd biggest burbot we caught on this trip. Amazing fishing.
driftwood campfire on the Tanana
driftwood campfire on the Tanana
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
driftwood campfire on the Tanana, slow burning since the wood is holding in tons of moisture. Made for a neat photo.
Full moon
Full moon
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
Full moon rising over the Tanana River. Camped on a sand bar.
Setting sun and Tundra Swans
Setting sun and Tundra Swans
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
Tundra swans overhead on the Tanana River, Fall 2009
meter pole
meter pole
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
Matt helping put the final touches on the meter pole setup before we raised it. Used a rope winch and muscle to get it up.
5' down
5' down
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
Hole augered and hand dug for our meter power pole. 150' in on our lot, then we have to deal with the additional 160 feet to our buildings.
5 feet is alot to dig down in a small hole like this.
Trails
IMG_1328
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
Lots of sheep trails all over. They rub the black lichen off the rocks with their hooves as they walk the same path over and over.
Big valley
IMG_1322
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
Photos just dont do justice for this area. Since there isnt much to use as a reference its hard to tell just how BIG this area is. It would take about 1.5 hours to cross this valley on the best of days.
campground
IMG_1315
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
Our tent felt so small in this huge valley in the White Mountains.
found in the yard
found in the yard
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
This was a great year for mushrooms. Found a few of these guys in the yard.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Shed caribou antler up high
Shed caribou antler up high
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
we found this way up in the middle of a very steep granite scree field.
blueberry
blueberry
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
blueberries were still abundant, since they have had a few frosts already, the sugars have set and they are soooo good. Very sweet and not bitter at all.
Looking up at the scree field we are about to climb.
Looking up at the scree field we are about to climb.
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
Nice view looking straight up the scree field we were heading up. Long and painful climb.
neat red plants
neat red plants
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
These guys were everywhere across the tundra in little patches, brightening things up.
sheep!
sheep!
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
It was strange to see so many sheep down low in the valley. What drove them there? More hunting pressure? Less predator pressure? Who knows.
sheep!
sheep!
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
there are sheep in both of these photos. We found 27 in all for the day, but none were legal shooting rams.
Morning glassing
Morning glassing
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
Dall Sheep season is on and we're scanning the hillsides.
IMG_1216
IMG_1216
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
Cleaning up the days catch on the Gulkana River outside Gakona
Fishing
Fishing
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
Sockeye Salmon fishing on the Gulkana River. Chrissy was fishing too, but she was the only one who was thoughtful enough to take photos. I will be sure to get photos of her on the next trip.
Chrissys stepping stone forms
Chrissys stepping stone forms
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
We had to make these fast, as it was all last minute thinking. We have a little bit of extra concrete, what to do with it....
making stepping stones
making stepping stones
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
Chrissy made some incredible stepping stones. I think that this might become a regular project.
Scree and pump
Scree and pump
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
You can see our single drain there, its going to be for a sink in the garage. We'll run some heat core wire through it so it wont freeze in the winter.
Using the giant scree board and finishing up the pumping
Using the giant scree board and finishing up the pumping
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
Almost at the end of our 11 yard load. Thanks to our repeated math work, we got the amount just right.
Concrete pumping
Concrete pumping
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
Giant scree board making its way across as we fill in the remaining area.
pumping in the concrete
pumping in the concrete
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
Dan is trying to fix the giant scree board on the fly.
Filling in the footers
Filling in the footers
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
Waiting for work as the footers get filled in.
clogged
clogged
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
the concrete pump got a big rock stuck in the condenser pipe and we had a tense 3 minutes of wait and see.
Filling the footers in
Filling the footers in
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
First the footers and then we moved to the inside.
trying to reconnect hoses
trying to reconnect hoses
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
Lots of clogged hose on the initial pump down the hill, had to unbuckle all the lengths of hose and beat the first run through with a hammer. Then once it was going, rebuckle the hoses back together.
Concrete pumping
Concrete pumping
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
3/8ths mix concrete pumped down the hill. Our good friends we're all awesome help.
Clogged hose
Clogged hose
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
Working our way down the hill unclogging the hose. The gravel in the concrete would separate from the water and clog the hose.
Waiting for something to happen
Waiting for something to happen
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
2 weeks later and we're back on track. This time, we're hiring a grout pump to pump the concrete the 260 feet downhill to our pad. This was a reasonable, but very expensive idea.
getting pulled out
getting pulled out
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
Concrete truck getting pulled out by another giant concrete truck.
Dan, Matt, Justin
Dan, Matt, Justin
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
Waiting to see what is going to happen with the concrete truck
Stuck and broken
Stuck and broken
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
Sorry its been so long since I have posted anything on here. This picture sums it all up in some ways. We had a real challenging time getting concrete down, its done now, but as you can see in the photos it was a challenge.
So, for this photo, the caption: Fully loaded with 11 yards of concrete and weighing in around 90,000 lbs this truck started sinking in our driveway on the left side. He sunk down about 6 inches and we all decided it was time to back off and try something else. He put it in reverse and started heading out. This is a 6 wheel drive, 3 locking axle truck. It started back, got about 20 feet and broke the front axle. Stuck. 90,000 lbs, 11 yards of wet concrete that has to keep spinning and no way to get it down the hill to where it needs to be.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Ready for concrete
Ready for concrete
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
All ready for concrete. The action starts Saturday morning.
Rebar in place
Rebar in place
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
Rebar on the chairs, two sticks of No. 5 all the way around. Its a little bit of overkill, but it feels better to go overboard on it than to have an earthquake and realize we didn't go far enough.
Hogwire
Hogwire
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
6"x6" hogwire flattened out, then we wired in a bunch of 1" chunks of foam in three positions all down the sections, this holds it up so that its planted inside the concrete instead of just sitting down on the bottom of the concrete.
Vapor barrier
Vapor barrier
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
Visqueen spread and doubled up, then stapled up along the inside of the forms.
Had to cut the edge at an angle
It still worked out alright
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
Thickened edge slab needs to have a slight angle between the pad and the footer to add some extra density in that spot.
4" duct tape
4" duct tape
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
Foam going down, using 4" duct tape to hold everything together. Fortunately we spent a really long time making sure everything was completely flat before we started this part. This 25 psi foam board is pretty amazing stuff, holds all my weight on one foot without cracking or compressing.
After work today
After work today
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
Picked up 17 sheets of 2" foam board insulation (R10!) for the concrete pad today. This will keep our feet from freezing solid.
The new and improved chicken run
The new and improved chicken run
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
New outdoor run for the chickens. They are much happier and we are too. We put typar on the ground so that when they crap all over the place we can actually clean it up. Huge design flaw in the last run.
Cow and triplets
Cow and triplets
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
Cow moose with triplets in the backyard. I dont know how common triplets are, but I haven't seen them before.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
2½ of the sides of the first forms up
2½ of the sides of the first forms up
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
Still waiting to hear if the concrete people can make it down the driveway with a full truck. If they can, we'll do two pours, one for the footers and one for the pad. If they cant, we'll have to hire a pump trailer to run the concrete down the 268 feet from the road above. This would also mean that we'll have to do a monolithic pour which is the less preferred way for us. Less forms to build, but big pain since we need to put down 2" of extruded polystyrene and 2 more inches of gravel down under the pad but not the footers.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Monday, June 22, 2009
Spruce Beetle
Spruce Beetle
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
Neat looking beetles, they are everywhere right now. I think each of our dogs has eaten about 20 so far.
Spray Foam
Spray Foam
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
Chrissy applying spray foam to the pipe inside a pipe setup we're using for our garage drain. 2" inside of 4" with spray foam all around.
13 hour day of platepacking
13 hour day of platepacking
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
We had a long weekend of moving gravel by hand and packing it down to make our pad area level.
Its all done now, flat and level within 1/4". We kept the packer an extra day and went ahead and wrapped up the driveway too. We got a fairly significant amount of rain on Sunday morning, so I packed and packed and packed the driveway. The rain lets the silty base absorb the sand and gravel topping and creates a concrete like material. It was really a pretty nice day. Cool from the rain and then occasional bursts of sunlight through the clouds. No bugs for a change too.
Chrissy is by far the toughest woman I have ever known.
We moved about 6 yards of gravel with shovels and wheelbarrow, spread it and packed, packed and repacked it, shot elevations over and over and worked until 2 am.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Trenching for drain
Trenching for drain
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
Trenching through pit run gravel and fractured schist is not an easy process. It would have been much much harder by hand though. The trencher would get jammed up on a rock about every other minute and we'd have to stop, turn it off and run the track back and forth to get it free.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Rhododendron tomentosum
Rhododendron tomentosum
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
not the prettiest, but one of the most fragrant.
birds
birdus
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
Chicken cant quite figure out what is going on with her reflection in the camera lens.
Monday, June 1, 2009
Sunday, May 31, 2009
First load of gravel on the driveway
First load of gravel on the driveway
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
Gravel down, Chrissy packing it in. 1 am thursday night.
Driveway widening
Driveway widening
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
We had to widen our driveway to make sure it will accomodate concrete trucks and by bringing it up a few feet, we lessened the grade too.
Log skidding
Log skidding
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
Got them all stacked eventually. 42 total in the one stack.
Bringing the logs up to thier summer home
Bringing the logs up to thier summer home
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
The process of bringing the logs up to the pile where they will finish drying and wait for milling.
Chrissy giving a fine size reference
Chrissy giving a fine size reference
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
Had to skid all the logs so that we could pick them up with the bucket on the backhoe and stack them off in the background in that pile. Top right.
Beetle
Beetle
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
I am still unclear about what kind of beetle this guy is. Anyone know?
Driveway progress
Driveway progress
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
Filling in the old driveway bed with new dirt and raising the whole thing up a few feet.
Panorama, Tanana River
Panorama, Tanana River
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
Just stitched together some photos from out in the middle of the main channel of the Tanana.
Digging the outhouse hole
Digging the outhouse hole
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
Phase one of comfortable bathroom experiences.
Pasque flowers
Pasque flowers
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
Found a secret hillside totally full of wild pasque flowers.
10 lines, 30 hooks, 1 burbot
10 lines, 30 hooks, 1 burbot
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
1 big burbot that fried up to feed 3 people. Yum.
logpile
logpile
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
Some of the 45 logs we have saved for milling siding later this year
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Trouble
Ball joint takes a dump on itself
Originally uploaded by justinmaple
The painful view from the inside.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Flickr
I have been adding photos to flickr with more regularity than I have been here.
You can take a look here
-Justin
You can take a look here
-Justin
Sunday, April 5, 2009
More tree cutting
We had to cut down one of the biggest trees at our place today. It would have been hovering over our house had we left it and after growing up with giant trees hovering overhead, I decided to forgo the experience with our own house. It is a white spruce and measured out 107' tall with a 6'6" circumference at the base. That is a huge tree for the Fairbanks area by any standard. We'll be using it in the house in some way or another, but we haven't figured out quite how yet.
-Justin
-Justin
Monday, March 30, 2009
Moose raided the chicken feed
Dogs were barking randomly tonight, and as I got up to see what was going on I noticed these guys out in the side yard between the porch and the outhouse.
They were munching on willow branches and we're looking pretty hungry. This time of year is hard on them as far as food goes, its getting pretty sparce. Then I look over at the chicken coop and notice that they have raided and completely eaten the chicken/rabbit food. We just bought a 50# bag yesterday. They knocked the container on the ground, broke the lid off and had proceeded to spread it all over the snow. When I walked over to check it out, the little guy decided he hadn't gotten enough earlier and came over to finish it off.
They were munching on willow branches and we're looking pretty hungry. This time of year is hard on them as far as food goes, its getting pretty sparce. Then I look over at the chicken coop and notice that they have raided and completely eaten the chicken/rabbit food. We just bought a 50# bag yesterday. They knocked the container on the ground, broke the lid off and had proceeded to spread it all over the snow. When I walked over to check it out, the little guy decided he hadn't gotten enough earlier and came over to finish it off.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Moose out in the driveway
Heard some rumblings from outside and the dogs were acting a little weird, so I got up and looked out to the driveway. Cow and two calf moose were eating up our willows along the road. Just snapping off big sections of branch and chewing on them. I am just glad that I didn't let the dogs out to investigate before I noticed the moose.
I put some video up on youtube here.
I put some video up on youtube here.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Houseguest
Dad came up for some wintertime relaxation. We had a great time and really enjoyed his company. He stayed with us at the cabin all but one night. He appreciates the outhouse like no one else seems to.
Dad's last night at our cabin. 3 dogs and 3 people in a 16'x20'.
Dad's last night at our cabin. 3 dogs and 3 people in a 16'x20'.
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Some photos from the weekend
Got out to our property on Saturday, split and then stacked wood all day. Got some photos along the way though. It was nice and sunny out with some fresh snow. The weather was agreeable at about 13 above. It was nice to comfortably work without a jacket for a change.
-Justin
Chrissy hiking up the driveway, this is going to be interesting winter driving.
Split and stacked alot of wood. All birch in this pile.
Neat shadows in the snow from the bright sun. Looking South.
Fresh snow makes everything look so nice.
-Justin
Chrissy hiking up the driveway, this is going to be interesting winter driving.
Split and stacked alot of wood. All birch in this pile.
Neat shadows in the snow from the bright sun. Looking South.
Fresh snow makes everything look so nice.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Warmed up tonight, walked the dogs
Chrissy got a teaching/subbing deal at a school near my work so we carpooled today. We got home and it had warmed up enough to take the dogs out on a bit of a walk. They have to get all bundled up though or else Gunnar and Squirrel get cold paws and start whining for home.
Snorri doesn't seem to mind much as long as she has a ball to chase/attack.
Not my most manly moment, but I sewed the one piece pajama like thing for Squirrel.
-28 F
Snorri trying to get Chrissy to kick the soccer ball, Squirrel just trying to stay upright.
Gunnar with a hostile ice beard and the look of "let me in the house already!"
Snorri doesn't seem to mind much as long as she has a ball to chase/attack.
Not my most manly moment, but I sewed the one piece pajama like thing for Squirrel.
-28 F
Snorri trying to get Chrissy to kick the soccer ball, Squirrel just trying to stay upright.
Gunnar with a hostile ice beard and the look of "let me in the house already!"
Monday, January 5, 2009
effortlessly beautiful
A friend of ours is showing me how to make furniture out of birch. I haven't taken any photos yet of the process (next time- as I plan to make more), but I did feel compelled to take a photo of the wood shavings. They just looked so pretty laying in a pile on the floor. I'll take a photo of the small table I'm making when I'm finished. It' really awesome working with the wood. It's taught me a lot. It's very forgiving. There's also something about it that's..... seductive I guess you might say.
Chrissy
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Cold starts, frozen everything and hard, slow work.
Its been cold lately. We're right in the midst of a "no end in sight" cold snap that has made everything outside a chore. Yesterday, Chrissy and I were itching to do some sort of physical work after being indoors in excess so we headed out to our property to split and stack some firewood. We brought along some cotton balls soaked with Vaseline so we could get an instant fire going as soon as we got there. It felt like it was probably in the -20 to -25 range out there which meant we had to keep starting up the truck every two hours or so since we don't have any electric yet. We got a good hot fire going and got to work. I was going to get some photos of the progress we made with the stacking, but the camera got too cold and couldn't muster up the power to turn on. I took a few photos when we first got there though..
Chrissy warming up by the burn barrel below the garage pad.
Looking South from below the garage pad. about 40 feet ahead is where we'll be building our house. Still need some site work on that portion.
Our garage pad, or part of it. Wood hauling sled in the foreground and one of the woodpiles we're in the process of moving in the background. We're thinking the garage is going to be 26' x 36' with two garage doors and a small shop on the end. We'll be living in this building for a bit while we build our house.
Our driveway looking North from the garage pad. I was standing just off to the left of the driveway which is why it looks like there is a log in the way. It meanders straight ahead and then takes a right up the hill pretty steep.
The birch tree laying out straight on the right is one we cut for Chrissy to use for some table legs. Shes been peeling logs at home lately.
We split wood for a while, which is really easy when its this cold. The logs just burst apart when the maul connects. Every bit of water in the wood is frozen and just waiting to fly apart. Then our friend Matt came up and we started the process of moving the previously seen woodpile over out of the way so we can start construction in its place in the spring.
Fortunately this will be the last time we need to move this wood before it takes a short trip to the stove. We still have 2 or 3 cords of wood that are cut into rounds and stacked that we'll try and split before the winters up as well as a fair amount of brush that we need to burn up while we have all this snow. The summertime wont allow any burning of brush and we don't want to just bury it.
Got up this morning and it was cold. -42 is what its reading at the house. We haven't even tried to start the truck, when its this cold it burns gas so fast and everything just feels like its about to break. We're just hanging out at home drinking coffee and watching videos.
The chicken coop has been holding out the cold pretty well. Our construction has proved effective. A week at -30 or colder was what I was fearing the most, but so far so good. We have 2 lights in there providing heat, a 250 watt infrared and an 80 watt red tint flood light. I had to wrap an old sleeping bag around the front door area of it to close up some of the small gaps, but other than that its been doing great.
The thermometer on the left the outside temperature. The one on the right is our wireless indoor and chicken coop thermometer. -43 outside, +40.8 in the coop.
Chrissy warming up by the burn barrel below the garage pad.
Looking South from below the garage pad. about 40 feet ahead is where we'll be building our house. Still need some site work on that portion.
Our garage pad, or part of it. Wood hauling sled in the foreground and one of the woodpiles we're in the process of moving in the background. We're thinking the garage is going to be 26' x 36' with two garage doors and a small shop on the end. We'll be living in this building for a bit while we build our house.
Our driveway looking North from the garage pad. I was standing just off to the left of the driveway which is why it looks like there is a log in the way. It meanders straight ahead and then takes a right up the hill pretty steep.
The birch tree laying out straight on the right is one we cut for Chrissy to use for some table legs. Shes been peeling logs at home lately.
We split wood for a while, which is really easy when its this cold. The logs just burst apart when the maul connects. Every bit of water in the wood is frozen and just waiting to fly apart. Then our friend Matt came up and we started the process of moving the previously seen woodpile over out of the way so we can start construction in its place in the spring.
Fortunately this will be the last time we need to move this wood before it takes a short trip to the stove. We still have 2 or 3 cords of wood that are cut into rounds and stacked that we'll try and split before the winters up as well as a fair amount of brush that we need to burn up while we have all this snow. The summertime wont allow any burning of brush and we don't want to just bury it.
Got up this morning and it was cold. -42 is what its reading at the house. We haven't even tried to start the truck, when its this cold it burns gas so fast and everything just feels like its about to break. We're just hanging out at home drinking coffee and watching videos.
The chicken coop has been holding out the cold pretty well. Our construction has proved effective. A week at -30 or colder was what I was fearing the most, but so far so good. We have 2 lights in there providing heat, a 250 watt infrared and an 80 watt red tint flood light. I had to wrap an old sleeping bag around the front door area of it to close up some of the small gaps, but other than that its been doing great.
The thermometer on the left the outside temperature. The one on the right is our wireless indoor and chicken coop thermometer. -43 outside, +40.8 in the coop.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
New Years Moon with Venus
35 below at the house and I just got home from work. The moon has been looking pretty amazing these last few days with cold clear sky. Today though, ice fog has moved in. Not too bad at our house which is a little higher up, but really thick and gross in town. Just imagine all the exhaust, steam, smoke and dust all swirling around between ground level and 50 feet up, as a nice fine particulate freezy mist.
Tried out my new camera from the driveway. Heres what the crescent Moon and Venus looked like at 4:45 pm. The blobs are particles from the ice fog that reflected the flash.
Tried out my new camera from the driveway. Heres what the crescent Moon and Venus looked like at 4:45 pm. The blobs are particles from the ice fog that reflected the flash.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Ice fishing without a proper hut... not so good.
A couple of Sundays ago we went ice fishing with a couple of friends. We drove about 40 miles out Chena Hot Springs Rd to a pond not too far from the springs- which was the real motivator upon my agreeing to partake in the excursion. A nice soak in piping hot water sounded like a decent trade off for spending a few hours on the ice. I think it was only hovering around zero that day, but the wind coming off the hills was wretched. April and I built a fire on the pond with some wood we pulled out of the nearby trees. It didn't do too much to help keep warm because the heat was blowing away from us. The act of hauling the wood out was doing a better job at that than the fire itself. Honestly, I think I was the only one not having a good time. I stuck it out as long as I could and finally admitted that I thought the whole thing was bullshit. They all had a good laugh and we packed up our stuff and left. For me it was a lesson learned. I will try ice fishing again, but it's going to be in hut where there's no wind.
oh yeah... I forgot to mention that we only caught one fish and it was about 4 inches long.
Chrissy
Saturday, November 8, 2008
some Halloween photos of the dogs that I haven't had a chance to put up
These are some photos that Mandy took. She also made the adorable costumes. Squirrel is the littlest one.
Friday, November 7, 2008
Ptarmigan hunting and scouting for Caribou
From last weekend, skied in, hiked up, up and up, got a few ptarmigan, spotted a good size moose and then two caribou hanging out on a mountainside.
Some more photos from Burbot fishing back at the beginning of October
Chrissy on the Tanana River
Some older wolf tracks on the river bank, pretty big ones.
Some of the delicious burbot.
All of these photos are courtesy of Mandy R
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Deep Freeze
Its been a cold October this year. Uncharacteristically cold for this early in the winter. Someone even told me that it was a record this year for the coldest October.
We haven't posted much lately because we haven't spent very much time at home. We've been busy with splitting firewood for next year, clearing brush from the land and having massive bonfires with it. Skiing will be good soon, as we just got some more snow and it seems that most of the trail systems nearby have been groomed to some degree. A little more snow and we'll be in great shape. This morning it was a bitter 12 below when I got up to let the dogs pee and check on the chickens. We're dogsitting for a lady I work with so we currently have 4 in the cabin. That's a tight squeeze with 480 sq. feet of living space, 1/4 of which is taken up by a bed. Our chickens have been belting out eggs at a rate of 4 a day. I am pretty impressed with their ability to stay warm. We put a 250 watt infrared heat lamp in the coop to keep them toasty and that's helped them out quite a bit.
Most people that I've talked with about chickens up here lock them up in a closed space for the winter and use a light to keep them warm. Chrissy and I couldn't handle that so we put a few towels over the doorway to the coop and cut them into overlapping strips so they hang down like the door to a walk in freezer. This seems to be keeping in the right amount of heat and keeping out cabin fever for the chickens. It took a day or so for them to figure out what a door was and how it works, but they managed to get it.
We still have our rabbit and hes started pulling his own weight a little. When I go out to check on the chickens in the morning, at least 3 of them are almost always huddled around the rabbit. This thing throws off heat like you couldn't imagine, hes got a huge ring of fat around his neck and can barely stand to be inside the chicken coop, but when he is... They all hover around, soaking up the heat loss.
I've been trying to get Chrissy to put up some photos of our newest dog Squirrel on here without any luck so far. After seeing this though, she might get motivated to do so. Squirrel is a little damien shia tzu that terrorizes Gunnar and Snorri, in a good way. She keeps everyone on their toes. She sort of found us a few months ago when Chrissy was still working at the greenhouse. An employee showed up with her and said she was following her husband home on his motorcycle, looking lonely and dejected with only a cheapy flea collar on. Chrissy obliged to take her home and put up flyers. We took her home, put up flyers, never heard anything and kept her. When you can see photos of her, you'll understand why we did. She has this pathetic loneliness about her that is pretty irresistible.
I'm headed up the Steese Highway this weekend to do some scouting for caribou with a friend. We cant hunt for another month or so, but wanted to get a headstart on things and ski around a bit. Plenty of snow up there for good skiing and we can do some ptarmigan