Too Much Rain!

Due to an excessive amount of rain early this summer a lot of the the trail leading out of the Chatanika valley has washed out. As a temporary fix a couple short diversion trails have been cut, but the long term solution is to cut about a mile of new trail from the river up the hill.

Doug had started a new section of trail from the river a couple years ago but it needs to be connected to the main road about a mile up the hill side. We have started a new trail from the road a ways up the hill that we intend on connecting to the old trail Doug cut a couple years ago.

Right now the trail is Doug's main focus so he can start hauling freight to the river to stock up for freeze up and the beginning of winter. Of course freeze up is still a few months away, but cutting trail is a very slow and labor intensive process. A good day of cutting trail may mean only making 50 to 100 yards a day!

I have helped with some of the trail work but I have also fired up the saw mill, finally, to get some lumber cut for both Doug and I. We got a late start on the saw mill due to all the rain this summer and I have spent some time in town looking for work as well.

The photos above show the major damage to the trails from water this summer. In a couple pics you should be able to make out the ruts left by the 4 wheeler tires showing how much trail washed away.

New additions to the family

Another thing that happened while I was in town was the geese and the swans both had babies. Doug's geese started out with three new born chicks but the local raven population dropped that down to two. The older geese are ever vigilant now, and always keep one eye on the sky.

I thought for sure the trumpeter swans, that nest on the lake, wouldn't have any babies due to all of the traffic during the fires, but I was wrong. I'am happy to report there are five "little," swan babies floating around on the lake feeding with their parents. Don't have a good picture of them yet but I'll keep trying.

Garden update

Here's a look at the garden after spending a few weeks in town and letting mother nature run it's course. To my surprise the local wildlife didn't touch any of the plants while I was gone. A couple days after I left the river it began raining and continued to rain almost everyday, for a few hours a day. The rain lasted for a few weeks and made my time in town a little miserable but on the up side the garden got watered everyday! As you can see even with out any fertilizer things did pretty good.

The radish plants were definitely ready to come out, and doing so opened up more room for the carrots. Iceberg and romaine lettuce plants are doing fantastic but the cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower didn't seem to take off. Doug pointed out that they require a lot of nutrients to keep them going so I probably won't be getting any of those out of the garden this year.