I have a couple of adventures to relate to you all!! More Pics of Spike the Arctic Cat!! and what is it that I really do here all day long? Don't forget to check out the two new slide shows- They are at the top - a South Park character which you too can have, and a new link to news articles I find interesting. All added to the column on the left. If you are new to my blog check out the archives a well. Just a note - the year dates on the archives are wrong. Blogger is working on fixing that. They are all a year off.
Where is Spring? After a month of bright sunny days and cold cold temperatures, we are now forecast to get 4 - 8 inches of snow. It started snowing here today around noon and it is coming down hard 6 hours later. But good thing is the temp is warming up and we are above freezing right now. Hopefully a few days of this will unfreeze the water pipe coming from the spring to the tank house. It has been frozen for a while now and I am only using the tank water for showers (few and far between) and cooking. I melt snow for everything else. Works out ok but I sure would love a nice hot soaking bath..lol. According to the weather chick on NBC, we have another 6 weeks of winter. But spring/summer here is well worth the months of cold weather. Believe you me. and the winter isn't that bad either.
These pics were taken this afternoon about 3 hours apart. Already have two inches on the railings and coming down heavy.
Well first off I have some pics of my granddaughter Peyton. (See slide show) She is now 6 lbs and was scheduled to have her first surgery today (3/20) which has been put off until 4/4. She had some feeding issues this past weekend and the doctors wanted to make sure she was completely over that before the surgery. Mom and daughter are now in Roanoke Va. Dad is still in Kansas going through the Army mustering out process. Hopefully he will be in Roanoke in time for the surgery. Peyton is absolutely beautiful and has a head of hair. After the surgery, I will be getting new pics so you can see the before and after.. Some of these pics are of her cleft lip/palate but just imagine her without it and you will see how beautiful she is.
Here is Peyton and dad, Rob.
We finally got Jeremiah out of here. He was supposed to leave March 4th but due to the Homer Harbor being frozen we couldn't get a boat over here. So he stayed an extra week. We had the chance to take another row over to the mail shack and we were followed by the harbor seal. His little head would pop up and he would watch us and then slide back down into the water. We happened to meet up with the mail man, Bryan ,who is also the winter keeper at Yukon Island. He tools around in a souped up Zodiac, which is a rubber boat. This one has a windshield and two chairs but is still a rubber boat..lol. We had a regular traffic jam at the mail shack. Bryan graciously offered to ferry Jeremiah over to Homer on his next run. He lands at the beach below Lands End Hotel. He has to stay with the boat while his friend goes into town and does a grocery and mail run. We took him up on his offer and Jere was off on his next Alaska adventure. Once they got near the beach they had to break up ice with a hammer and then wade through about 2 feet of surf and ice to get to the beach. But Jeremiah got there, unscathed. He still had two days before his flight left so he picked up my truck at the harbor master's. However when he got there it wouldn't start and he walked back to the hotel. Fortunately someone picked him up. He contacted Jon and Nelda and they came down the next day. Turns out good ole Jere forgot to push in the clutch when he tried to crank the truck...DUH!!. Jeremiah also got to watch the Beluga Lake Ice Races - old beat up cars slipping and sliding on a frozen lake bed.. Check out Jeremiah's slide show which includes pics taken of Mako's water taxi, the Blue Two, frozen to the pier. They were taken by Gart, one of the taxi captains!!!
Some of you received a pic of an eagle flying from the back porch of the lodge. The story behind that is this - Apparently the next door neighbors put scraps out during low tide. Two eagles were hanging around and eating something from the mud flat. So I put out some chicken giblets on the railing and waited. One had already come down and picked up a piece I had thrown in the air. So I waited...and waited...and waited...and of course when I went into the living room, it flew down. I saw it coming and rushed back into the dining room and snapped off that shot. It thumped the railing pretty good. Spike was all aflutter. the eagle!!!!
And then of course there is Spike - he started following Jeremiah and me around the lodge grounds. We took pics of course. I have gotten him down to the main deck and onto the dock. But he wouldn't go any further than the water line...silly cat. Check out Spike's new slide show..
Spike in my lap helping me surf the net..
Wildlife sightings - I haven't seen anything new but I do have a new track which I believe is wolverine. The pads are bigger than the coyotes, wider apart and there is a tail drag. Also had a Great Horned Owl in the trees outside the living room the other night. He was hooting up a storm. I have a Bird Guide DVD and was able to ID the owl by listening to the owls sounds. By the time I got some boots and a jacket on he had flown across the mudflat and was in the trees across the way. Wish I could have seen him. Spike better watch his back...
Great Horned Owl..I didn't take this..It is from my Birding DVD
And my great adventure this month is something that I am very very proud of. So bear with me. Due to the extreme cold weather in the last month and a long period of high winds, I have used more diesel than usual in keeping the lodge warm. By warm I mean between 68 and 70 which is pretty comfortable. But the high winds really suck the heat out of the place. I had put the last barrel into the tank on 2/22. The rest of the 55 gal drums were down at the boat house. Jeremiah and I tried to move one up to the wood shed but between the two of us we couldn't do it. and as it turns out even if we had been able to get it in the cart, the ATV would not have been able to pull it up the hill with the snow and ice layer. (but i didn't know that then). Just so you know a 55 gal drum of diesel weighs 412.5 lbs.
I was going to ask either Keith (next door neighbor) or Bryan for help. But Keith left and I really hate asking for help. Because what if there really wasn't anyone around? Which could happen. I need to figure it out on my own. So yesterday I got busy, since a storm front was coming into the area in the next day or so.
Plan A - partially fill up an empty barrel from a full one, put it in the cart and bring up via ATV. So far so good. I put around 25 gals in an empty, bungied it to the dolly and took it around to the front of the boat house. However it was still too heavy for me to handled. I had to man handle it into the cart and then would have to man handle it off the cart and into the wood shed. So I removed around 5 gallons or so. I put it in the cart (read tip over and heave it into the cart) and took off to the wood shed. Now this trek is down some decking, around the tank/pump house and up a hill and around a curve. I got halfway up the hill and the ATV wouldn't go any further. And of course when I tried to back it down I got the cart stuck in a snow bank. So here I am, path blocked, cart stuck and about 140 lbs of fuel in a barrel.
So, Plan A1 - remove the slide door on the cart, push the barrel out and let it slide back down the hill, push the cart down the hill and remove some diesel. But of course it wasn't that easy. The slide door on the cart would not come up on one side. So now I am tired from all the heaving, frustrated and almost convinced I was going to have to call in the calvery. So I took a break and ate lunch.
PLAN A2 - after eating and absolutely coming to the conclusion I was going to figure this out, I found a crowbar in the boat house and got the slide door off the cart. Viola the rest of Plan A1 worked. Woo Hoo..well almost. Just to test it, I took the ATV with the cart back up the hill without the drum and it would not go past the curve. Well drats. just too much ice and snow and the load was too high.
Well I am just not going to call anyone for help. Gotta figure this out.
So PLAN B - Bungie the drum onto the dolly, tie the dolly to the back of the ATV and off we go. Did it and.....didn't work. sigh. Not gonna call anyone...my mantra of the day.
PLAN C - try a lower center of gravity. I put the drum on an orange plastic toboggan that I use for everything else. Bungied that drum to the toboggan, put the tow rope attached to the front of the toboggan around the ball on the ATV and took the hell off. AND IT WORKED...WOO HOO!!
I got that drum up the hill, got it off the toboggan, wrestled it up the step into the woodshed and made short work of pumping it into the tank.
Damn I was proud of myself...lol. (and no injuries except for a few bruises here and here) A bloodless coup.
So today, I went back down and brought up a total of 55 gals in three trips. I used the cart to bring the drum to the hill and then transferred the drum to the toboggan and away we went.
Took about two hours but I have diesel. And got it all done before the snow hit.
See Jeremiah's slide show for pics of the path from the boat house to the woodshed. When Keith and Randy return, I will get them to take a pic of me with the toboggan, ATV and cart...lol.
I find it pretty amazing the things I can do with no problem that I couldn't do without difficulty at the beginning of the winter. and it isn't like I am doing hard labor everyday. I don't. But I could barely move a full barrel of diesel fuel across the floor, rowing across the bay resulted in a few days of a sore back, and turning the boat over was an ordeal not to mention dragging it above the water line. I can climb over the railings to get under the buildings with no problem and get back up...which was a huge issue at first. Now I certainly couldn't go out and do hard physical labor by any means but I can do what needs to be done. Pretty damn cool if you ask me!!!
So what do I do all day when not heaving diesel around and doing the few lodge duties I have? I am online, online, online..I am a POGO.com fanatic and play online games a lot everyday. I read the news online, I talk to people, watch TV, listen to Opera and Classical on Sirius, read, take hikes, beach comb, bird watch, and of course play more POGO. Sometimes I just watch the mountains or on days like today, just watch it snow.
What a life, eh?
and here is something else really cool...a friend from high school found me online through classmates.com and we have been talking and catching up. AND I found a long lost cousin in CA. She teaches college in CA and of all things is involved in Lego Robotics. Pretty cool actually. Check out the ...http://www.collegeteacher.org/robotics/
She also had a bunch of pics of her dads, my uncle, she had scanned in. I found one from 1968 of both my brother and me. Both brothers are younger than me, but Chris is the oldest one in the pic and the baby is Richard. He was born in 1968 so this was taken late that year I imagine. No idea where though. Probably Erie on a visit.
Well that is it for now. Check out the two new slide shows. Everyone take care!!
Oh completely forgot about the Iditarod. Man I am hooked....I plan on volunteering next year, hopefully for all three weeks. Should be a blast!! It was pretty amazing. Check out www.iditarod.com
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