Saw mill

A couple days ago Doug and i got the saw mill fired up for the first time this season. He gave me a days' worth of instruction on how to use it and sent me on my way. What a cool machine, taking logs from the woods and turning them into any size lumber you need. It's a lot of work man handling the logs but if you use some leverage with a little elbow grease it's not to bad. I took some pics of a few of the steps to mill an 8X8 timber. As long as you check and double check your settings and various tensions the mill is very easy to use. I start off with a log about 9 feet long and 12 inches in diameter. After the log is clamped onto the bed, a few cuts are made in half inch steps until a good wide base cut is attained. All of the half inch scraps are saved and re-sawn into siding that you have seen on all of the newer buildings on Dougs property. What can't be cut into siding is thrown in another pile and later burned in the wood stove. Back to the log, after the wide base is attained the log is flipped over and the process is repeated until you have two nice parallel sides. Then the log is then turned, with one of the sawn edges against the log stops and a cut is made to square up to the parallel cuts. Then the log is flipped over and for the 8X8 timber several cuts of various thickness are made, those boards are set aside and re-sawed into other size lumber, until the 8X8 size is achieved. This is just one of the ways i've cut lumber in with the mill but there are many different ways to go about it. Most of the lumber we are milling will be use to finish framing the bathroom in. And the big 8X8 timbers are going on top of the concrete foundation blocks we've made, that is what the new addition is sitting on.

Introduction to the geese

I'd like to start off by introducing you to Buddy the blind goose. He was born blind and Doug has raised him since birth. Right now he has a little pen for himself because the other geese pick on him. And right now we are letting the geese roam free for the day, all around Dougs property, then pen them up at night. Originally when i got here i was taking care of 9 of the 12 geese down at the slough. Two of the geese stayed up at Dougs because they were sitting eggs. Eventually from the two, four or five little fuzz balls were born. I'm not sure if there were four or five born but i know at least one was taken by a raven and was blind. Doug was kind of thankful for that because one blind goose is enough. After the baby geese were born, the geese up at Dougs started calling to the geese on the slough. After a few days, on there own, the geese at the slough made there way up the hill and back to Dougs. One morning i was working on the shop building, turned around and there were the geese from the slough. Since then we have kept them all together and have taken them all down to the slough several times but they keep coming back up the hill. So now we let them out of there pen and let them roam free during the day. I will show you more video of the other geese after this post. The video i have today shows Buddy in his little pen in the front yard of Dougs.

A visit from my little black neighbor

About midnight last night i was getting ready to go to bed, made my way outside to put everthing away and cover the 4 wheeler and noticed Sammie was looking very hard at something up the hill. I walked aorund the corner of the cabin and up the hill right were i put my generator was that little black bear. This time i was a little more prepared and ran back into the cabin grabbed my camera and gun. Before i started recording video with my camera i was talking to and yelling at it to get it to run away but stopped so i could shoot some video. It hung around for about 5 minutes before it ran off up the hill. I make a statement in the video that the bear was hanging arround for a while so i grabbed my pistol but i had it with me the whole time i just didn't have a round in the chamber until the break in the video. I end up laughing in the video because i felt that bear was very affraid and was almost jabbering and talking back to me and i didn't feel to threatened by it. I feel shooting at/or around a bear is a last resort but when it started climbing trees it seemed it was not going to leave. Right at the end of the video i was prepaing to fire of a shot and that's when it ran off up the hill. It hung around on the steep hillside looking down at me for a minute before it ran off out of sight. I'm sure it will keep returning until i give it a reason not to. I preperation of my next encounter with it i am going to get a can of rocks together to throw at it to save my firearm as a last resort. Hopefuly in the future i'll be able to get some better footage and not have to play peek-a-boo around the trees.

Constrution of my water reservoir

Since i have been staying out in the bush one of the projects i have been working on is a water reservoir for the cabin on the lake. After spending over 35 years on and off in the Chatanika area Doug has discovered several springs running down the hill side on the south slope where he lives now. He has captured one of the springs in a reservoir a 1000 feet up the hill from his cabin for his water supply. Now half way between his cabin and mine on the lake another spring running down the hill has been discovered. About 900 feet, as the crow flies, from the lake cabin we have dammed up the spring and are constructing a reservoir to supply that cabin. The long term goal is to plumb the reservoir to the cabin. If my GPS is telling the truth we should have an elevation drop of 120 feet from the reservoir to the cabin meaning gravity should do all the work. For the time being i think i have it built up enough to just dunk a bucket to supply myself with water. Up til now i have been making my way to the river to get my drinking and cooking water. The reservoir is about a quarter of the distance to the river saving a lot of fuel in the ATV or mileage on my back when i don't have a machine. I have a short video and a couple of pictures showing the current state of the reservoir. You will see that the water looks pretty muddy but that is do the the fact that i just got done digging and laying plastic for the day. Normally it is totally clear and tastes great!

Update on the veggies

I put together a little video of the garden and the greenhouse today to show you the progress of the vegetables so far. I take a walk up the path to the terraced garden through the fenced in area that doesn't hold the geese very well anymore. Luckily they haven't figured out how to get into the garden, yet. We do need to do some weeding in the garden but you should be able to make out all the veggies from the weeds. The next step in the garden is to clean out the goose barn, full of straw and goose droppings and cover the garden. Doug says that stuff makes the best fertilizer in the world. Then a look at the progress in the greenhouse. Lots of tomatoes and cucumbers on the way. Still have my resident moose on the lake, usually see it early in the morning and then about 10pm in the evening. I would normally call it night but i hasn't been dark for a couple weeks now. I love that i can read a book at midnight in my cabin without a light. I am also preparing myself in the evening to get some snaps of that bear when it comes around again.

Summer has returned to the Chatanika

The last couple of weeks we haven't had very nice weather in the interior. Over cast and rainy every day. The rain is kind of a blessing since it has subdued the wild fires in the area, but it makes our lives in the bush a little more difficult. The trails end up in very poor condition and with-out the sun we have to run generators to maintain power. With the trails in poor condition we can't haul loads in from town, one item being fuel, so we have to be very frugal with our energy usage. On my last trip to town i was able to meet up with my friend Travis so i was able to pick up some larger items one of them being my own generator. Now i feel really spoiled. Doug happens to have an extra LCD TV so i'll be able to watch movies at my cabin now. As i mentioned in the previous post we installed a wind turbine on Dougs cabin. We happened to install that just at the right time, while the weather was crummy it happened to be very windy as well. The turbine only has a max output of 200 watts but just that little bit helped maintain voltage on overcast days. As the title suggests the last two days have been fantastic, lots of sun and warm, hope it hangs around. The generator i picked up is just a cheap off brand so i hope it lasts for a little while. Not too powerful but it powers a battery charger that is a perfect size for my set-up. It's also pretty quiet, runs about the level of a conversation between people, so if i run an extension cord about 50 feet away from the cabin i can hardly hear it. An addition of a few deep cycle batteries and i'll have the ideal set-up for my little cabin. Doug has given me a great start with stuff just laying around his cabin but i'll continue to upgrade my electrical system as $ permits. Just a couple pics today, one of the little generator i bought. I forgot to mention it is very fuel efficient as well, burns about 1 gallon of fuel per 7 hours. And on cloudy day i only need to run it about an hour to get a full charge in my batteries. The second pic i took this morning of my cabin being over-run by green! The bush has taken on a whole new look with everything flowering and the swamp grass has really taken off, in some places it's almost up to my chest! One last thing today. About 11pm last night when i was going to let Sammie in the cabin, lay down and read, i went outside and she was sitting very poised looking at something off in the distance. So i went inside and grabbed my binoculars stepped out the door and there down the hill close to the lake was a black bear staring back at me! I yelled at it a few times and it started slowly walking off, then i thought crap i need a picture so i ran back in the cabin grabbed my camera, but by the time i made it back outside it was gone, bummer. I think it might of been the same one i saw going through Dougs garbage. A bear keeps paying him a visit, usually in the morning, probably the same one.

Back in the bush, back to work

After a couple days in town i made my way back out to the bush and up to Dougs. I did miss Sammie very much and i think she was very happy to see me as well. One of the reasons for my trip to town was to pick several bolts needed to finish re-assembling one of the 4 wheelers. We have been with-out it for about 2 months and that made things out here much more difficult. On every trip to town having to float the other 4 wheeler across the river and then again on the return trip. I'm happy to say all is well with the other machine now so we are back to two running 4 wheelers again. The day after i got back to the bush it was right back to work. First on the list was installing a wind turbine Doug has had stored away for over a year. He had the perfect place already available on a telescoping tower that an old radio phone antenna was attached to. After routing some huge 6 gauge welding cable from the generator shed to the tower we mounted the turbine right to the tower with only a couple modifications. The interior of Alaska is not know for having very strong winds but on the days that the sun isn't shining through the clouds the wind can sometimes pick up. That makes it a great tie in to the charging system. The weather hasn't been very nice since my return to the bush, cloudy and rainy, so we have stayed on the same track and i have continued doing some additional wiring in the cabin and generator shed staying out of the rain. Tomorrow if this weather continues we'll keep working inside, plenty of jobs to do like finish laying some wood flooring and tiling the kitchen. I shot a couple pics of the wind turbine, the weather is pretty gloomy so i hope they turned out alright. I still am working on a bit about the geese so look for that soon and i'll get some pics of Doug up as well.

Back in town

Just wanted to let everyone know i've made my way back to town for a couple days and have plenty to take care of while i'm here. That means it'll be a few more days til i get a meaningful post back up. Sorry about the delay, i'll be on it as soon as i get back to the bush, as funny as that sounds. I also wanted to say thank you for being patient and i miss you all, can't wait to see everyone when i visit Minnesota, most likely in late August into September. Finally a quick hello to the Roby family and that wanna be lap dog Otis. In the pic you can see my little red and grey tent on the left next to my upside down bike, not quite tent city at Billie's yet but pretty close.

A typical day in the Chatanika valley III/First bear

Two videos today. First, the brief conclusion to a typical day. Not to much going on at the end of that day. But every day always brings something different. And second, a short clip on an encounter with one of Alaska's common residents. I'm working on a story about the time i spend with the geese out here and the strange things they do, so look for that soon. Gotta keep it short today, Doug went off to town this morning so i have lots to do up at his cabin tonight, one of them being keeping an eye on those rogue geese and their 3 newborn chicks.

A typical day in the Chatanika valley II

Continuing the story from yesterday. After getting up to Dougs place in the video I spend a couple hours playing in the dirt while Doug got the tools together for some trail maintenance. Then in the afternoon we head down the hill cut some trees and fill in the really bad parts of the trail. After that we chill at Dougs, while we surf the web on our computers and watch TV. At about 7pm that night i finally decide it's time to have some dinner and head to my cabin with Sammie. By the way dad Sammie is a female and she reminds me very much of Jasmin.

A typical day in the Chatanika valley

A little update on the fire situation. The fire that was close to use up over the hill appears to have been taken care of. Doug and i watched several helicopter trips hauling loads of supplies off the hill this morning. Most of the smoke in the area is coming from fires maybe 100miles away. As far as a plan, last year there was a very large fire making it's way to Dougs cabin so he used his water supply to wet the woods and area surrounding the cabin. Then, just as it started raining embers from the fire, the clouds opened up and it rained so hard it put out the blaze. If that hadn't happened Doug may have been in serious trouble. Moving on, i've put together a few videos i'll show you over the next couple of days about what Doug and i do in a day. I apologize in advance for where the videos are split but do to limited the amount i can upload at one time this is how it worked out best. The videos pretty much speak for themselves so please enjoy. Any questions let me know.