Musings of an old man

[Don Alaska]

Your mentioning moving Arizona causes 2 questions to come to mind:

1-How long are the winters where you are?
2-How is your water situation in Alaska? I assume you are on a well. Is the aquifer long-term reliable? (I think the water situation in Arizona would be a constant source of stress.)

John, we live on a small spring-fed lake here and our water table is about 10 feet down although our well is 50 feet. Not everywhere in Alaska is water this available, especially around Fairbanks where the water is notoriously bad due to mineral content. We have iron and calcium but little else according to water tests we had done some years ago. I assume we are tapping into the springs that feed the lake.

Winters, however, are long and hard. Traditionally over time winter here started in September and lasted until April, however in recent years the seasons seem to be shifting with winter beginning in late October and lasting until May as has happened this year. Our ground was still frozen just a foot down as late as the beginning of June. Fruit trees are just now blooming while traditionally they bloom in late May. It is also very dark from November into January with only 4 to 6 hours of real daylight.

 

[Don Alaska]

I went to the baby shower on Friday. It was held in one of the grandest, but at the same time strangest, houses I have ever entered. When Obama was President, he visited Anchorage and did not meet with the governor or the mayor of the state's largest city, but did spend two hours having dinner in this house with the owner of the state's largest newspaper and one of his largest contributors and propagandists. This was her "summer cottage". I think it was listed at 7,000+ square feet and our acquaintance purchased it for an estimated 3.5 million dollars (according to Zillow). It had sat unoccupied for 5 years or more, but was maintained well. Still, quite a cottage! It had a very large teak deck overlooking a small lake that was big enough to fly planes from and almost everyone who lives on the lake is a pilot.

We went into Anchorage again today for a granddaughter's birthday party. So many trips to the "big city"! I haven't been there 4 times in a couple weeks since I commuted there to work. Hopefully we will be home for a while now since I still have so much to do. We don't put in the long days now since we have no children at home and no livestock other than a few chickens. We spend a lot more time sitting on the deck or patio watching the goings-on on our little lake. Getting old and enjoying more of the life we have left.

 

[Don Alaska]

With the cold rainy weather of late, it is getting a bit depressing. I said today that I was shifting into "bush mode". When we lived in the bush, we had to be prepared for anything and any weather. I would change from bright and sunny to cold and rainy is just a few minutes, and often we were on a boat up the river with no shelter or people anywhere around. I just put my ol' halibut fishing coat on today and went about the business I had to get done around the place. I did get the pump out of the lake and stowed as I don't think i will need it for the remainder of the year.

Moose came through and wiped out one of my wife's hanging baskets of petunias. Only one basket was destroyed, but now that they know about them, more of her flowers may be on the menu. Their favorite flower to eat is Livingston daisies for those of you who know flowers. I have pictures of my wife on the patio with a chair like a circus lion tamer trying to defend her flowers from moose predation. Her flowers make her summer every year. We have an electric fence around the vulnerable food crops, as we found early on here that the moose will decimate a cabbage crop in one night. They take a bite out of every head but do not eat the rest. A newcomer to gardening in Alaska post on Facebook asking what kind of insect destroyed all her cabbage in one night. She said everything was fine yesterday but something ate the center of all of her cabbage heads overnight. She got her answer as everyone responded in unison--moose. Moose will also pull all the bets out of the ground. They only eat thee leaves, but all the roots are pulled out.

 

[Marie Miller]

With the cold rainy weather of late, it is getting a bit depressing. I said today that I was shifting into "bush mode". When we lived in the bush, we had to be prepared for anything and any weather. I would change from bright and sunny to cold and rainy is just a few minutes, and often we were on a boat up the river with no shelter or people anywhere around. I just put my ol' halibut fishing coat on today and went about the business I had to get done around the place. I did get the pump out of the lake and stowed as I don't think i will need it for the remainder of the year.

Moose came through and wiped out one of my wife's hanging baskets of petunias. Only one basket was destroyed, but now that they know about them, more of her flowers may be on the menu. Their favorite flower to eat is Livingston daisies for those of you who know flowers. I have pictures of my wife on the patio with a chair like a circus lion tamer trying to defend her flowers from moose predation. Her flowers make her summer every year. We have an electric fence around the vulnerable food crops, as we found early on here that the moose will decimate a cabbage crop in one night. They take a bite out of every head but do not eat the rest. A newcomer to gardening in Alaska post on Facebook asking what kind of insect destroyed all her cabbage in one night. She said everything was fine yesterday but something ate the center of all of her cabbage heads overnight. She got her answer as everyone responded in unison--moose. Moose will also pull all the bets out of the ground. They only eat thee leaves, but all the roots are pulled out.

LOL - I had cute Whitetail munch every Chard plant down to the ground and leave everything else.