Trip Home

8:00 am Monday morning,cold in Eagle where the plane has to land.-42 below zero F. My heart sank. Keep checking back in an hour they said then after 4 hours of this it was a go. Yahoo the temperature came up to -36 below and they could fly. Just past 1:00 pm I was in the sky,nice trip just a bit bumpy before landing.

Darrel meets the plane to pick up the mail and passengers who need a ride, he is also my friend Angie's Dad. I just love him,coolest guy in Eagle and a great friend.
I arrive our Eagle cabin, no sign of Andy yet he is on his way with a dog team to get me. The cabin is frozen solid and so are my travelling clothes that have been sitting there in near -50 degrees below zero,they are hard and brittle. As I try to get my liners inside my mukluks my hands are screaming in pain from the cold. Andy arrives covered in frost and suggested I go next door to finish getting ready, he needed to get a warm up also, -35 below is chilly traveling to say the least.

Andy then loaded the sled with my goodies arranging it so I could sit on a Rubbermaid tote in the sled with a blankets.

It was just before dark when Andy told the team of 10 dogs to tighten up and we were off like the wind. My white knight and his faithful steads bringing me back to my palace. What a ride, to our left the light of the day still visible highlighting the mountains with a sleepy pink glow, to the right came the moon bright and glorious, it seemed to be saying, Sun, I can out do your splendor! It was a sight to behold, dogs running with happy purposeful steps all covered in white frost from hot breath. Then the moon did it's magic ! It turned the snow a blue ting and lit the way for the dogs.

Peeking through the white wolf ruff on my parka at our dogs running at night, the moon casting shadows of them across the frozen river, I couldn't help feeling warm, loved and lucky to be in the middle of Nature's Perfection.

As we got closer to Calico I could hear the voices of the remaining dogs heralding our arrival.

How sweet it is.

Home From Fairbanks

My entries have suffered for a while due to my trip to Fairbanks for shopping, visiting and the Cheech and Chong show.
Ten days was a long time to be away but it went fast. Andy took me to Eagle on Thursday the 13th to catch my flight on Friday, then returned to Calico. I saw some friends in Eagle and my friend Sandy from Forty Mile River in Canada spent the night with me in the Eagle cabin. Great lady, fun girls night.

On Friday my plane cancelled due to poor flying conditions, #!%#@. They did fly on Saturday so all and all not to bad. Just me and Mic the pilot in a small 4 seater Lance plane. NOW THAT IS THE WAY TO SEE ALASKA'S VAST WILDERNESS. As we flew over over Calico I pointed and smiled. Mic said he likes to fly over because I always come out and wave. I told him I like it when you dip your wings and wave back, feels like company, especially when I am alone, it is a bright spot in my day.

When we touched down in Fairbanks my friend Angie is there to meet me. Angie is the type of person who should be cloned,king, giving and funny as hell. Spent half my time in Fairbanks with her until she went to Oklahoma City for a concert,then checked into Pike's hotel for the remainder. Partied hard watched football playoffs with Angie's husband and daughter, I do love football.

My friends Scott and Robbie from Tok arrived on Saturday to join me for the Cheech and Chong concert. What a time we had,laughed our asses off. Got an autograph and picture with them but the best part was when Tommy Chong asked me for my email address. He was very keen on dog mushing and our way of life and wanted to keep in touch and hopefully come visit for his own adventure.

The trip was a Blast but never as wonderful as coming home.

Bye Bye Christmas...

Weather not changing, still warm and windy 35F wind 22 mph

Busy day today, combined with the daily tasks the Christmas decorations were sadly put away for another year. The cabin walls look so lonely not having the warm glow of our little tree's yuletide light. No other time of year makes you think of family and friends with such longing,especially my Aunt Bernice, who pasted on her love of the season on to me from the moment I was born.

Andy took the dogs to his trapline today to reset and bait his sets. Nice warm day good time to work on the line.

Andy is cooking tonight, salmon stir fry. Yummy

Just another day..

Still windy and now above freezing, very odd for this time of year.

Today's events were minimal but not without some drama.
Sometime before noon today two of our friends drove by our cabin with their dog teams for a quick day run. Must of the dog teams, if not all, pass right by our kitchen window.It is a great trail also used by the 1000 mile Yukon Quest dogsled race.

A little while later our dogs alerted us to the arrival of yet another dog team. When we looked it was a sled with no driver, a run away team. A MUSHERS WORST NIGHTMARE, a tangled lines can injure a dog or cause a fight in the team. I knew the sled and dogs it was our friend's team who had just pasted by. We called his wife on the vhf radio and told her to be on the look out for the dogs coming home, so she fired up the snow machine to go meet them. As we hurried to get ready for a dog grab rescue N showed up and informed us that W had hurt his shoulder and he needed to get back to him and brace it.
Then I spotted the dogs running upriver. Sled still upright they turned going up the steep river bank into deep snow, that led to the overland trail. They stopped !!! Deep snow can be a blessing.
Andy and I planned to go with a small dog team and secure them when N showed up with his team and said W was walking the trail back to our cabin. We told him where the dogs had stopped and that W's wife was coming on snow machine, so off he went to get the dogs. W showed up soon after walking slow and in need of something for pain.
The strong wind and breath taking gusts blew his fast,fresh dog team and sled sideways on Ford Lake, now bare of snow due to high winds,leaving a slick surface of mostly dreaded, glare ice. Next thing a small patch of snow caught his runner and tipped his sled over causing him to fall sideways onto the hard ice. This sort of things happens to all of us even the very experienced like W..
When I told him that his team had stopped and where, he chuckled and said " Well that was a delayed WHOA".
N got all the dogs back to their kennel safe and sound, W's wife came and took him home on the snow machine. Hope he is up and running dogs again soon.

With that done it was back to the day at hand.

I got snow to melt for dog water, got the puppy food ready for the next few meals,we feed them 3 times a day. Andy fed dogs and poop scooped for our 22 dogs. This poop scooping may sound like the short straw job but in fact it is a nice time to and pet and visit them, all calm and content after having their breakfast.
"Laundry time"....Andy set up my new little washer in the generator shed with a 30 gal barrel for the water supply - I love it !!!! So much nicer than a scrubbing board, yes I said scrubbing board. The only other way is the laundromat in Eagle, $9 US per wash and 25 cents for every 3 minutes in the dryer plus you have to travel 12 miles to do laundry.

Cooked Lasagna on the wood stove for dinner,two beers on ice, this is a good place to stop.

The sky is clear and the stars are bright, looks like a we will have a good Northern Light's show tonight.

Ahhhh

My Blog begins today.

HAPPY NEW YEAR !!!!!
The start of a new year always gives way to reflections of the past and visions of the future.

In this blog I will journal our days and tell you of things past and present. Hope you enjoy it as I try to show you how we live this life many dream of.

This holiday season was perfect, just the two of us in our cabin in the woods.
New Year's eve plans got changed because the weather changed it. The wind came in at 24 MPH from the south and the temp went from 40 degrees F below zero up to 29 degrees F above. So the bonfire and bbq will have to wait. We had a great party anyway,ate ribs and french fries, drank champaign and welcomed in the NEW YEAR under the northern lights.
Woke up this morning to a glorious red sky, thought about getting my camera but I just laid there gazing instead. Somethings are just meant to be admired. Andy was up before me and had my tea ready, my favorite radio show on and our three month old puppies inside playing, can't think of a nicer way to start 2011.

Still very windy and warm today. Andy fed the dogs and then took his chainsaw to the river bank to cut wood and I lit sauna. Then we hooked up some dogs to the sled and went to the river to get water,quite the event in the wind and empty buckets. Andy drills a hole in the ice with an auger then I fill the buckets as he and the dogs bring them to the cabin. With that chore done, I went back to my normal, everyday, tasks and off Andy went with the dogs to get wood he had cut earlier on the other side of the river from a large, fallen tree.
After all the wood was split and stacked we called it a day and time to get in the sauna. Only about 5 hours of good light this time of year, good excuse to slow down and relax before the 24 hours of daylight returns. On January 20th the sun will peek over the mountain for about 1 minute, that is a big event for me.

The past 2 years have been a challenge for us after the the flood of 2009 set us back in a major way. Hard to start over but we are recovering. Looking forward to 2011 and all it has to offer.

I have posted a CBC podcast and a link to Mother Jones Magazine that tells of that disaster in our life.