Old Man Winter Cometh
This morning A nice bull was standing in my driveway. I tried a few grunts and he ran like a whipped dog. I suppose a bigger bull had just finished tuning him up. Then again, he may have been tormented by one of the neighborhood grizzly bears.
We seem to have an abundance of them.
My next door neighbor hasn't had any more bears tearing up his yard lately, but it isn't over yet either.
I'm having 6 cords of wood delivered in a couple of weeks. I just can't wait to get busy splitting that stuff. Stacking is also a hassle, and I'm not crazy about that either.
I can't complain though with the price of Propane as high as it always is.
The rains have been going on for weeks and the snow line keeps creeping down the mountains.
There is a crispness in the air and the darkness is a little longer each day. Winter is as sure as the growing darkness.
I have been working feverishly getting things put away and covered up before the snows bury them for the winter.
Winter in Alaska is cruel and painful. Vehicles have to be pre-heated before driving. Ice on the roads makes a challenge out of just going to town. Darkness has a negative effect on people who aren't use to it.
You would think that staying indoors would be best due to the cold, but that isn't the case. We must stay outside and busy as much as possible or fall prey to cabin fever, which is depression at it's worst.
Lin and I stay on-the-go with our "winter projects". When we are home, it's a big fire in the fireplace with the lights low and the outside lights on to watch the snow swirling across our mountain. We have learned to enjoy the long dark winter nights as much as the long summer days.
Most folks think we have "total darkness" in the winter. Let me clear that up... The sun comes up at about 10:AM and goes down at around 3:PM on our shortest day.
However, up in Fairbanks and the Interior of Alaska, they have 23 hours of darkness in the winter. On the Arctic Slope, where I worked for two years, the sun goes down about now and doesn't come back up until April. That is a long night!
We have three freezers full of moose, salmon, clams, and wild berries canned.
I'll be changing over to studded tires in a few days and when I get that dadblasted wood put up, I'll be ready.
It's a bit different than Northern California where I was raised, but it is as close to the frontier life-style as I could get. Some of us thrive in the old "pioneer ways", and the tougher it gets, the more we grin.
I told an old California friend that I had to put salve on my teeth and gums in the winter. He was goofy enough to ask me why. I told him that it keeps them from cracking and freezing due to the amount of grinning. He went on to ask me why I grinned so much. I told him it was better than bawling and having those tears freeze on my whiskers. Chipping off all of those "ice-tears" is un"bear"able when it's 30 below!
I decided when I was young to live my dreams. I was determined to live in a land where I could be close to nature. I didn't want to have to wait for 50 weeks a year to get out and spend two weeks in the wilderness.
My yard is "wilderness". I have to look out of the window to see what kind of a critter is sleeping next to my truck, before I go out to get into it. I get a bit nervous when I hear a mad cow moose snort, or a grizzly sow "blowing through her nose," as I walk down the stairs.
A couple of months ago I was relaxing in my lawn chair, while tending to the BBQ. I was also catching a few "rays." Suddenly I was in the shade!! I opened up my eyes only to look up and see the bottom side of a cow moose walking slowly passed. She was courteous enough to not kick me over, but not concerned enough to keep from scaring the snot out of me. The little calf stopped long enough to sniff my ear, and I was frozen in time. The last thing I needed was to scare him, and have his big mamma kick me into the next water drainage.
There's never a dull moment!
We seem to have an abundance of them.
My next door neighbor hasn't had any more bears tearing up his yard lately, but it isn't over yet either.
I'm having 6 cords of wood delivered in a couple of weeks. I just can't wait to get busy splitting that stuff. Stacking is also a hassle, and I'm not crazy about that either.
I can't complain though with the price of Propane as high as it always is.
The rains have been going on for weeks and the snow line keeps creeping down the mountains.
There is a crispness in the air and the darkness is a little longer each day. Winter is as sure as the growing darkness.
I have been working feverishly getting things put away and covered up before the snows bury them for the winter.
Winter in Alaska is cruel and painful. Vehicles have to be pre-heated before driving. Ice on the roads makes a challenge out of just going to town. Darkness has a negative effect on people who aren't use to it.
You would think that staying indoors would be best due to the cold, but that isn't the case. We must stay outside and busy as much as possible or fall prey to cabin fever, which is depression at it's worst.
Lin and I stay on-the-go with our "winter projects". When we are home, it's a big fire in the fireplace with the lights low and the outside lights on to watch the snow swirling across our mountain. We have learned to enjoy the long dark winter nights as much as the long summer days.
Most folks think we have "total darkness" in the winter. Let me clear that up... The sun comes up at about 10:AM and goes down at around 3:PM on our shortest day.
However, up in Fairbanks and the Interior of Alaska, they have 23 hours of darkness in the winter. On the Arctic Slope, where I worked for two years, the sun goes down about now and doesn't come back up until April. That is a long night!
We have three freezers full of moose, salmon, clams, and wild berries canned.
I'll be changing over to studded tires in a few days and when I get that dadblasted wood put up, I'll be ready.
It's a bit different than Northern California where I was raised, but it is as close to the frontier life-style as I could get. Some of us thrive in the old "pioneer ways", and the tougher it gets, the more we grin.
I told an old California friend that I had to put salve on my teeth and gums in the winter. He was goofy enough to ask me why. I told him that it keeps them from cracking and freezing due to the amount of grinning. He went on to ask me why I grinned so much. I told him it was better than bawling and having those tears freeze on my whiskers. Chipping off all of those "ice-tears" is un"bear"able when it's 30 below!
I decided when I was young to live my dreams. I was determined to live in a land where I could be close to nature. I didn't want to have to wait for 50 weeks a year to get out and spend two weeks in the wilderness.
My yard is "wilderness". I have to look out of the window to see what kind of a critter is sleeping next to my truck, before I go out to get into it. I get a bit nervous when I hear a mad cow moose snort, or a grizzly sow "blowing through her nose," as I walk down the stairs.
A couple of months ago I was relaxing in my lawn chair, while tending to the BBQ. I was also catching a few "rays." Suddenly I was in the shade!! I opened up my eyes only to look up and see the bottom side of a cow moose walking slowly passed. She was courteous enough to not kick me over, but not concerned enough to keep from scaring the snot out of me. The little calf stopped long enough to sniff my ear, and I was frozen in time. The last thing I needed was to scare him, and have his big mamma kick me into the next water drainage.
There's never a dull moment!
posted by Bubba at 8:15 PM
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