Do Not Feed The Wildlife

The return of the fox and his skittish companion have pulled on strings of compassion, being Christmas time and all. The meals have been pouring in, fish heads, tail fins, bread, smoked trout, and even a piece of chocolate for dessert, but something special was a breasted out Spruce hen for my friend. I spare no expense for the trust and friendship in this land where friends are not common.

Speaking of such wonderful sights, my Christmas present came early, two days early to be exact in the form of Sasquatch! Well, it is not Bigfoot, but equal in quality to the poor photography and rarity of these animals, it may as well have been the illusive monkey/man shaped giant. But today it was a seemingly hungry and time pressed Wolverine who scanned the river side for remains of food or a scent for a future kill. Whatever he was doing, he was in a hurry and no matter what noises I made, he cared little as my presence across the river was of no concern to him. Judging by size, color, behavior and likelihood in location, (contrary to my previous belief) I am almost certain it was a true wolverine.

The sunrises and sunsets are on occasion a fluid transition of color schemes, moving clouds and rays of light that allow no day to transpire. With less than two hours of sun a day, there have been these days when colors in the sky have remained from the rise and become the set.

There are ducks galore, and I don't know what variety they are, except they love to swim against the current and dive constantly and often under the ice shelf in search of .... I don't know what they are eating or looking for, but explorer's they are and many. I have tried to feed them bread. Loaves of bread I toss out to them, but they are not like back home, often taking flight keeping their wing tips wet with each constant flap and flick as they launch themselves not more than a few inches from the waters surface.

Other birds have been around, little white with red collared ones, small black ones that love to swim, the occasional seagull, an eagle now and then, magpies, crows, and more that I don't know of.

Along with my gathering wood, and supervising the lodge grounds, life is terribly slow. I have enjoyed the absence of the holiday chaos and all that it involves. My food supply is plenty, and although I eat from when I awake until I sleep, there is truly too much food. I will continue to eat with diligence and try to keep warm with winter weight, but that might only be an extra pound or two.

The lake is frozen from what I can see, but it continues to bellow and complain, cracking and making extremely loud, echoing tones that bounce from mountain to mountain and soften on the snow. I don't trust it enough to cross yet, and until I see a moose on it, I'll stay on my side.

It was a good day today, calm and clear. Christmas is about over but before it goes, Crab Cakes and Cous Cous with onion and green peas is for dinner. Hopefully everyone else had a wonderful time leading up to today and enjoyed it as much as you all could.

Merry Christmas!

Extreme Winds

The wind has been howling for several days now, and bringing the temperatures to well below zero when you factor in the wind chill, single digits without. I could not run fast enough from the sauna to my cabin, less than two minutes and the strands of my hair were frozen into chunks, making me stand bent over the wood stove to melt the ice. I watched the clouds of snow blow off the mountain tops all headed West leaving some sides nearly bare rock. Trees were swaying heavily, noises of cracking and breaking from either the trees or the ice on the lake, possibly both but were heard briefly before being drowned out by another fierce gust. The breeze was felt indoors, no matter how much I packed door jams with towels and blankets, I could not get warm enough yesterday until I was in bed under a few extra sets of covers. The wind turbines powered through, bending their metal foundations like a popsicle stick. I might need to check if they still work after blowing the circuit breakers and hearing a very unpleasant buzz coming from their power box. Which brings me to these amber colored ice cubes that I could hear bouncing off my tin roof in the early hours of the morning. It was so cold, the heat rising from my chimney pipe was cooled off so quickly that by the time it came out the top, it was just condensation of smoke, turned into liquid and thus frozen liquid smoke. Amazing! It smells good but I won't eat it. Inside my cabin, with just a mere crack in the window, it froze everything in my refrigerator, from my canned tuna to pineapple and my iced tea. Interesting enough, the tea was extracted from the water itself when frozen and I thought that to be very odd, even picture worthy.

A few other pictures of how cold it was, the waves that pounded the banks, grew to be in some spots about eight inches thick and upwards of over three feet wide. My boat was covered broadside, gas lines, oars, the motor, everything. Nothing a few whacks with a sledge hammer wouldn't fix.

As the pictures show, sunshine and blue skies have been very welcomed, although its not that nice to be out in for long periods which is anything longer than twenty minutes or so. I have gone through my first ten pounds plus of steak and had to thaw out another for butchering. When that was ready for cutting, I saved about five pounds for making jerky in the smoker and the oven. 2/3 of it was teriyaki and the rest was a dry rub and smoked. I preferred the oven, due to how thin it was cut, smoking was too strong by the time it was done. The oven made it near better than any store bought and its something I'll take away from here to hopefully make in years to come. I don't think making jerky out of rib eye will be cost effective in the real world but up here its all I've got and it sure is great.

These are the before cooking/smoking pictures. Smoking lasted about nine hours by time it was dried out and in the oven with the teriyaki on the sticks took about four to six hours. This was the first batch and after all was done, two pounds of jerky was all I had. Its gone!

So the ice continues to grow and form a life of its own, and looking quite pretty while doing it. I've never really looked at ice beyond the cubes in a tray for a cold drink but in large chunks, sheets and layers, it really is mesmerizing, or I am easily entertained. I think its a little of both, and anything new in my world up here is given a little extra time, extra thought and of course is photographed.

Salsa supply is gone, next time I will have to reserve at least seven gallons. I've got chips though!

I'll make do with some makeshift salsa.... we'll see.

Artistic Creations

Month three has begun and it will soon be a memory of good times, so I'm trying to make the most of it. I don't know what would have happened in these past two months had I been with the rest of you all, but up here its been slow, quiet and relatively comfortable.
December has started out nicely, blue sky and visible sun for a little over four hours. I must say that the cabin isn't placed in an ideal area for maximising the sight of sun. The mountains that tower over me are so close that the sun can not rise high enough to shine over the tops and reach my window, which I'm staring out looking lonesome for its light. I was informed that in Barrow, Alaska, they will not see a sunrise or sunset for the next seven weeks. I have it a little better than they, but anyone who depends on sunlight to survive, this is not a place for you. It was a great day to take a walk over the semi frozen lake, taking each step with caution, pounding my foot to hear any cracks or breaks.... and then taking another step. Once I determined that the first hundred feet from shore was solid, I ran and slid, shuffled my feet as if ice skating and having a great time actually getting some exercise. The fox who has still been absent from view was out long before I, making his rounds of the lake. I figured he was hunting, and judging by the scrambled footprints in the snow near what seemed to be tracks of some other extremely small critter, shrews or....???
His tracks led me further up the lake to where I just said enough was enough. He could have gone on for miles or another ten yards but figuring a way over a very unstable ice bridge and running creek under it was not on my to do list. I had to try anyway and it broke.

Some of the ice that broke was layered for a total of about six inches. It broke easily around the edges but remained solid in the middle. It really is neat to see how ice forms on all sorts of objects like rocks on the shoreline. Its as if the rock is glass, all shiny and smooth but with a little pressure, the coating chips away to reveal the plain old rock. Its also neat to see the bubbles captured in ice, thick and thin alike have these elongated masses of air, and it looks very artistic.

Sitting on Skype the other day, it was snowing quite heavily mid morning to after noon. Through the snowy distance there was a large flap of wings and a gentle glide to the shoreline where a Bald Eagle had just caught a fish and when I could look through the binoculars all I could see was the fish's tail flopping and the eagle glaring in my direction. He could probably see me better than I could see him, and for the times that he had to watch from above as I reeled in a fish, now it was his turn to show off his skills. I admired that. There was a pesky magpie that just landed in hope of sneaking a bite away from the much larger fisherman and although his dancing around was entertaining, the eagle had enough and flew off with a half eaten kill.

It wasn't but a short time later that with a glance out the window again, a large cow moose was wading across the river and was on her way out as I scrambled to get a picture. Without a care in the world, or maybe the only one being how she was going to warm up after a swim in the frigid waters, she just looked around and slowly meandered off into the woods. Had it been me, I would have waited for a better day, perhaps with a little more warmth.

Glowing from the sun strikes the clouds that paint my world orange and pink on the horizon and fade back to grey again every morning. On the best of these days, there is more than just the horizon that is filled with color, be it in the morning or the evening. Its hard to realize the potential of all clouds when the sun is not out. They are all dormant in color, and liveliness until given that breath, and they light up to beyond what anyone could imagine. How do such beautiful colors come from grey? I thought that a little black mixed with white was all that consisted of that color, not purple,orange, yellow, pink, red, and shades in between.

I'm not an artist so I don't know but I truly get inspired when staring into these daily creations.