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.

 

[Don Alaska]

Our string of nice days may be coming to an end. August is normally our rainy season, but things are so mixed up weather-wise these days that I don't know what to expect. We are getting our house re-roofed, so that has been a noisy, messy experience. Lat time was 30 years ago. The old shingles have been removed and the roof has been "dried in" with a covering of the modern equivalent of roofing felt. We are awaiting the installers (shingle people) to arrive and that may be sometime this week depending on weather.

I have been working on an old John Deere walk-behind mower that I bought in 2001 (for $450 !!) that hasn't run for years, but is still in apparently good shape. I thought the carb was the problem, so I replaced the carb, but I now found a broken ignition coil, so that has now been ordered. If I can get it going, I will use it to trim the grass in the orchards and other places the riding mower cannot get to. I also changed the oil and the air filter on the John Deere tractor and that was a bit of a chore working on the tractor road and I cannot get to the garage area because of the roofing project. I intend to change the hydraulic/transmission fluid for perhaps the final time. I am getting so feeble that it is a major job for me to do that stuff now.

We have to schedule a trip to our son's house in "Upper Anchorage" as we proxied our fishing rights to him this year for the second year in a row. We are too old to do subsistence fishing now, and in Alaska we can give our fishing rights to others if we are disabled or over 65 years of age. We are entitled to 35 salmon by subsistence in this part of Alaska, so we have to go in to pick them up sometime. Our son has cleaned, vacuum packed and frozen them for us, so we just have to go in and pick them up in the next week or so. We will carry a few coolers with us and we have to clear room in our freezers to store them unless we can them--a major job if anyone here has canned fish or meat knows.

We are having the worst garden harvest perhaps ever since we have lived here, as the weather for much of the summer has been cold and miserable, and we have had to use heat in the little greenhouse. and fired up the woodstove in the big one a couple times, mostly to dry it out as the condensation in there ahs been terrible. Things are beginning to pick up with the recent good weather, but things are so far behind that it may be too late for the warmer crops. Lots of blossoms on the peppers and tomatoes, but the nights have been too cold to set fruit on most of the plants. Fortunately, we are only feeding the two old folks instead of the 8 active people we once did.

 

[Don Alaska]

House roofing is supposed to resume today, but they have not shown up yet this morning. Roofers here begin around 9 AM and work late as daylight is not generally an issue. They are also working on our road. It is scheduled to be paved. The dirt road was not an issue in the days when we moved here as we were the only ones living on the road. It was "built/dug" in 1954 and there was nobody living here then but the homesteader who owned the land. There were two homesteaders here--one family on each side of the lake. The railroad went through the place on the other side of the lake and perhaps provided access. The "highway system was quite simple apparently before the Pipeline days. There was no road directly connecting Anchorage and Fairbanks because of the mountain range between them.

Anyway the road was marked all over with locate paint telling them where the utilities were, but the telephone company hit the gas line when it was relocating the telephone/DSL line prior to paving or whatever is to be done. Natural gas was thus shut off when the line was repaired and a gas guy came around to relight the water heater after the gas was turned on. He re-lit the water heater but apparently left the setting on pilot so there was no hot water this morning and showers were aborted, as we are not going to take 38 F. degree showers.

The roofing guys have still not appeared, so it may be that they cannot get in due to the road work that is happening. They had our driveway blocked last night with a large hole, but my wife got out this morning to go to her church job and said there was just enough room to get her Camry out. I don't have to go anywhere at the moment, but I will take a shower once the water heats up.

 

[Mary Stetler]

Our string of nice days may be coming to an end. August is normally our rainy season, but things are so mixed up weather-wise these days that I don't know what to expect. We are getting our house re-roofed, so that has been a noisy, messy experience. Lat time was 30 years ago. The old shingles have been removed and the roof has been "dried in" with a covering of the modern equivalent of roofing felt. We are awaiting the installers (shingle people) to arrive and that may be sometime this week depending on weather.

I have been working on an old John Deere walk-behind mower that I bought in 2001 (for $450 !!) that hasn't run for years, but is still in apparently good shape. I thought the carb was the problem, so I replaced the carb, but I now found a broken ignition coil, so that has now been ordered. If I can get it going, I will use it to trim the grass in the orchards and other places the riding mower cannot get to. I also changed the oil and the air filter on the John Deere tractor and that was a bit of a chore working on the tractor road and I cannot get to the garage area because of the roofing project. I intend to change the hydraulic/transmission fluid for perhaps the final time. I am getting so feeble that it is a major job for me to do that stuff now.

We have to schedule a trip to our son's house in "Upper Anchorage" as we proxied our fishing rights to him this year for the second year in a row. We are too old to do subsistence fishing now, and in Alaska we can give our fishing rights to others if we are disabled or over 65 years of age. We are entitled to 35 salmon by subsistence in this part of Alaska, so we have to go in to pick them up sometime. Our son has cleaned, vacuum packed and frozen them for us, so we just have to go in and pick them up in the next week or so. We will carry a few coolers with us and we have to clear room in our freezers to store them unless we can them--a major job if anyone here has canned fish or meat knows.

We are having the worst garden harvest perhaps ever since we have lived here, as the weather for much of the summer has been cold and miserable, and we have had to use heat in the little greenhouse. and fired up the woodstove in the big one a couple times, mostly to dry it out as the condensation in there ahs been terrible. Things are beginning to pick up with the recent good weather, but things are so far behind that it may be too late for the warmer crops. Lots of blossoms on the peppers and tomatoes, but the nights have been too cold to set fruit on most of the plants. Fortunately, we are only feeding the two old folks instead of the 8 active people we once did.

That's funny. I have an antique commercial walk behind JD tractor too. It has a sulky if one is brave enough to ride it. It has been in storage for years. My old handiman tried to fix what he thought was wrong with it and it didn't help. I told him I thought it was the ignition and he said he could not find a replacement. My new handiman can fix a rainy day and probably could fix it. He thinks it is the ignition too. But I am not sure I want to bother just now. He has fixed everything I have asked him to do so I don't need it just now. It was good for mowing the steep hill up to the road which we don't do anymore.
And you are right. the weather is nuts this year. That and critters can make me crazy. But the bugs were not bad here except ticks.

 

[Marie Miller]

That's funny. I have an antique commercial walk behind JD tractor too. It has a sulky if one is brave enough to ride it. It has been in storage for years. My old handiman tried to fix what he thought was wrong with it and it didn't help. I told him I thought it was the ignition and he said he could not find a replacement. My new handiman can fix a rainy day and probably could fix it. He thinks it is the ignition too. But I am not sure I want to bother just now. He has fixed everything I have asked him to do so I don't need it just now. It was good for mowing the steep hill up to the road which we don't do anymore.
And you are right. the weather is nuts this year. That and critters can make me crazy. But the bugs were not bad here except ticks.

I like the compliment you pay your handyman!