Possibly Kinfolk?

Cobbler for Everyone!

Fresh basil from the window sill garden made the ingredient list complete for a peach cobbler I had been waiting some time to try. I planted the basil in october, and what little remained after a sprig here and there died off over the months of figuring how much or little to water and fertilize, I was ready to harvest. It didn't take but a slight tug to free the tiny stems, an already miniature basil variety, from the mossy soil that had so gingerly incubated the seeds. Watering the different herbs has required a tender hand on the pour, often resulting in pools that most certainly depleted vital nutrients. Nonetheless, the day had arrived to make the much thought about cobbler. A youtube video later, I was elbow deep in flour, sugar and a few non typical ingredients like cracked pepper and parmesan. Two cobblers were made, one made it to the picture round, the other was eaten too soon. It was a mixture of blackberry, raspberry and strawberry. Very good flavors on this unusual crust, but the peach with basil and pepper was also a winner and I just happened to snap a photo prior to cooking. No evidence was seen after they cooled off, not even a trace by supper time.

An odd thought struck me the other day. I churn inside when someone uses the term "outdoorsy" to describe themselves or their likes and or dislikes, but when did this term become relevant? If you think back a hundred years or not even, when was being inside an option? Everyone would have been classified as outdoors or nature oriented. Men and women alike would have led lives that should they have had the need to market themselves in any capacity, the term outdoors would not have occurred. It is possible that one might have on a bark piece of paper that they spent a year or ten outdoors, but the term to classify themselves as indoors or outdoors did not exist. Anyone that would say, much less use the term outdoorsy, is self incriminating evidence that they are in fact a house cat, a couch potato, a lover of walls, ceilings, floors and boundaries. Questions arise all the time such as, do you like the outdoors? Do you enjoy nature? and my favorite of course, are you outdoorsy?
I just don't know when the term was coined and accepted as a hobby, distancing ourselves from the life that seemingly every other person in history actually lived. Perhaps it started with the convenience of cars over horseback. I really can't say, but all I know is I cannot stand to hear people express the term as a hobby instead of a natural bent. Rants aside, the outdoors is not a hobby or a box that we check next to our likes or dislikes… It just is. The box should say "indoorsy". So the next time someone asks me if I am outdoors oriented or that dreaded other term with a "y", I'll know what to ask them in reply.

The weather is such a boring subject but its the most widely discussed up here because of its unpredictable change, what it allows and the chores that need tending to before a storm. The sun was in hiding for some length last month, and for a week now its been my daily companion. I'm very glad.
The neighbors had their arms wide open to receive me last Sunday for dinner. The trail down to their place is nearly nothing to follow, just a jumbled mess of fallen trees, alders and dry ground. I had been attempting to make it out of here and only got as far as the first creek that proved impossible to cross without some sort of aid. I built a bridge and thought I was bound for exploration and adventure. That might be glossing it over a bit, but cabin fever strikes without warning and preventative measures are always better than finding remedies. Sunday arrived and I bundled up head to toe, not an inch of skin was exposed to the sub zero temps as I double checked my gear and snow machine. I set off with a little too much enthusiasm to cross my less than safety approved bridge and wound up tossing myself off the machine when my glove gunned the throttle. Shaking the powder off, I got back on and set off. Bumps and bruises incurred through the gauntlet of branches and trees that poke and prod as I whip past in a frenzy for the open meadows. No sooner did my bridge come when crossing flawlessly, did another creek arise. The pounding rain storms and warm temperatures earlier  had eroded every drainage that could have possibly been. If  so much as a rock was out of place, it was ten times the hole and obstacle to swerve around. Trees had violently been heaved across the trail, some twenty feet or more from the splintered trunk that remained upright. Some of these massive spruce trees looked like prime candidates for a toothpick factory in China. Where one hurdle occurred, a new path was needed. Stuck here and there, lifting, pulling, pushing… all the while trying to keep from tipping over at every tree well, protruding stump or rock. Creek after creek, some of which I entered and shot out of, others I came to a skidding halt before nosing in the opposite bank. On one single occasion, I reversed the machine, aimed it at the nearest point across and gunned the throttle as if judges were about to score the jump for gold. My cargo included peace offering tortilla chips for the neighbors who love the finer appetizers of salsa and chips. I gave them what was left, certainly more smaller pieces than whole.

Nothing more than a few bruises, a small price to pay for a wonderful dinner with friends and some human contact amidst the lonely (in a good way) work of an Alaskan caretaker.

                                                  One bridge made out of a few needed.

               This tree snapped at the trunk, others 15 feet up. Winds were excessive, to be polite.

               Eight downed trees on the property in one storm. No damage.



February had the best full moon all winter, thus far. It rose one night as if someone had stuck it on a lamp post right outside my window. The color was there, the size and it could have fooled anyone to think it was in fact a lamp. I caught it just after the tree line, which is hard to distinguish but the spruce silhouettes are there. Moon beams have often been a term I never have seen or recognized until this past month. I've seen a few hundred full moons, and never thought much about the beam. It isn't all that often that a picture captures sun beams, through clouds on stormy day usually or through cracks and crevasses here and there. Apparently the moon does the same, not nearly as sharp or lively, but poking through the clouds just right, sure enough there are moon beams. Watching the night light arch across the widest sky ever seen, casting shadows in frigid lands to see darker black upon black; calmly reflecting wrath from an inferno to be called a gentle glow; beams are bright and straight; a pitted and porous ball of dust, a controlling force, a brute of our world, haunting, lurking, sacred; a sad man

LET THERE BE LIGHT…

Let there be light, and there was light…. except in the far reaches of life on the Agulowak. I have had one visible sunset in what would seem a six week accumulation of sunsets. The other night as our daily storm blew off into the horizon with the setting sun, I saw something just shy of a miracle. It was color. Suddenly the depth of darkness only known to myself and living organisms at the bottom of Marianas Trench was shattered by rays of ultra violet, vitamin d saturated, cancer causing glorious sunlight. Is that an exaggeration? Not much. A run on sentence perhaps.

Life in Alaska this winter is no more frigid than tropical. Variance's in weather are drastic and damaging to my fragile state of mind and to the summer watershed for the upcoming salmon runs of the prized Bristol Bay. But for myself, I can't quite make plans a day in advance due to the uncertainty of the elements. Horrendous winds have beaten my little cabin without mercy or avail for days. Shaking walls and flexing windows have my nerves on edge for the imminent crashing of a tall spruce tree that is perched on the hill towering over my rooftop. Computers rattling on the table, my cup of water vibrates true to the example given from a the great film Jurassic Park. The scare comes from a two thousand pound tree crushing my roof, not the man eating jaws of a breach in bioethics of cloning gone awry. So sleep has been peaceful when it happens, but the volume on my iPod can't even drown out the worst of the wind gusts. I'm alive.

Cooking hasn't been spectacular by any means, for the good or bad. Arguments with solid evidence could be made for the negative. I've made some nice soups and a few desserts with the added twist of a massive breakfast here and there. Despite weather's best intentions to keep me down, my appetite is thriving like never before. I've adopted the act of having two breakfasts daily, a more carb rich lunch and my usual protein enriched dinner with a very persistent sweet tooth to follow. Portion control is something I know nothing of and I don't  care to learn. We all have goals. We all have pleasures. Mine is gluttony in food and given the deprivation of almost everything else in the world right now, my embracing actions with food intake are safely one hundred percent justifiable. No one is  here to speak against me.

The two foxes are here some days and gone the next. They visit the neighbors down the on the lower lake and my only thought is that they are trying to work off all the good feeding they receive. Salmon, steak, turkey, salami, sausage… who would say no? I've even satisfied their sweet tooth with a graham cracker now and then. Maybe a piece of chocolate too.
There are several moose still in the area and they wreak havoc on my trails with the post hole sized foot print they leave times four for every moose. It is  real hazard for walking around and twisting an ankle.  It happens to be two sided that when you twist your ankle, its already in ice so there's no need to move.

More wood on the fire is needed for light, tea to follow for warmth-

You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch...

Christmas came early for my cabin this year and instead of a jolly fellow, this little beast showed up.
It all started with a long overdue snowfall that brought a few good inches of winter my way. I wanted to run the snow machine, as I hadn't been able to for a few weeks now. This truly does seem to be the most tame winter so far… given the fact it just began yesterday. Well, I was right behind my cabin on a hill, when this waddling creature made his way right in front of me. Mostly covered in snow at the moment and headed away from me, I really wasn't sure what to make of it at first and whether or not to run or chase had my mind pin balling the ideas while still trying to figure out what it was. Well it didn't take that long before I realized it wasn't a wolverine or a beaver but instead it was just a large, the largest I've ever seen, porcupine.
I wanted quills but not bad enough to crawl under the cabin and do what all the dogs and foxes and other curious animals do, get poked. I left him alone after a few pictures and he wandered off to do what porcupines do.

My fox friends are here, a big one and small one. I believe they know each other well enough to be courteous but not enough to share. One day, I was looking after the only one around at the time, the larger one when in suddenly took off. A few minutes later it returned with the small one and they both have taken turns guarding my front door ever since. I can't hardly go outside without one of them there, and if no one is on guard, I try to walk quietly to get water or to the freezer without having the hungry mouths come begging. I enjoy their company, watching them bicker and play around and how alert they are to the things I couldn't even begin to imagine hearing. I think that if a mouse sneezed across the river, they would stare for an hour trying to determine where their hunt would later take place.  Speaking of doomed mice, I am a trophy hunter for them now, with numbers climbing towards thirty. Another successful night of trapping had a nice, well fed mouse laying appropriately still on the little black plastic death pad that I call a great invention. Whether feeding the fox, a crow or magpie, a trout or whatever gets to the mice after I'm done doing the deed, I'm just very satisfied to have them out of the cabin and able to sleep quietly through the night.

I've made it past the shortest day of the year, the darkest but certainly not coldest. Yesterday it was in the low forty's and rather wet with rain and scattered sleet showers. The snow that was here, albeit not enough to bury my foot in, is now not enough to make a snowball. Christmas is in a few days and it was a nice treat to fatten myself up a little with some holiday cooking. I made cookies, just over four dozen for the month of december and within a week they were gone. The first few days I kept saying I'll freeze the rest as I nabbed one here and there, snacking away without a care. The last few days of my reckless, lack of self control gluttony were without a doubt the best. The cookies had a chance to absorb some moisture and become that prime, highly sought after, perfect cookie. There isn't any looking back and I'm not ashamed to have eaten all that butter and flour, because I just made another holiday snack and this time I went big.
Apple pie. Apple half pies. Although the pie wasn't anything to get excited about, it is safe to say I have a clean pie dish waiting for another baking inspiration to occur.

And finally another baking day happened with some delicious bread. I had wanted to make stuffing for thanksgiving but didn't have bread and decided not to hassle with it. After making this with the intention of stuffing, I ate a piece and then another and finally a third. I don't know which will happen, either stuffing or just eating sliced, buttered and salted, warm bread. Feeling guilty about all this indulgence won't really happen, but I do need to consider pacing myself. As you can see in the photos, these friends of mine are all to eager for sampling and they are not one to complain about anything that comes their way. Taking the pictures needed to be faster than their ability to dine and dash. Let the record state: They are quick.

Barely an example of not sharing well, the open mouths, one in the top left corner


Merry Christmas to everyone from the not so frozen and not so alone north -

Thanksgiving III

An even zero this morning at eleven a.m. and a high of eight by afternoon. The sunset last night was a pleasant sight for my dreary, white-washed sore eyes. Its been thick fog, low ceilings and cold all week, with the first good sign of a break this morning for Thanksgiving. The third year up here for turkey and pie is always a good milestone, third times a charm is often what people say. Duck was on the menu, not turkey or grouse, but a nice little canadian duck. No, I was not the hunter and yes it was from the store. As much as it pains me to say such a thing, I wasn't able to provide the sacrificial bird of my own accord. Nevertheless, it was a very nice change, a great, rich and robust flavor in the fat which made for a fantastic gravy. The meat itself was nothing to go on about but the gravy sure is. Pumpkin pie, quinoa and a few sprigs of fresh parsley from my window sill grown plants… A little color and good for one bite. I had made the pie last night, wanting it chilled after a discussion of which was better, warm or cold. So with that said, the smell was all to tempting and I had cut the first slice out before the duck had even seen the fires of an oven. I had to cut one more slice for dinner, and one more shortly before bed. After all, it is a celebration day, a holiday and a feasting day.
I won't be able to burn off the calories with all the rats in their race tomorrow while shopping, maybe a swim will do.

Happy Thanksgiving to all, and hopefully it is a good start to the holiday season.

Running the Gamut

Temperatures have fluctuated more than 50 degrees recently, but a common theme these past few days would have to be just plain cold. Snow has fallen, melted, fallen and blown away time and again. Rain, wind, sun and then repeat is the theme. Ice has started to accumulate on the lake in coves and bays where there isn't enough movement and the lake ice begins. It will fluctuate a bit, forming and breaking, melting and growing but one of these days it will be here for good.
There are limited things to do around the property, and even more so for exercise, so swimming has been a nice change of pace. The water temperature is a steady 35, and it really isn't noticeable with the suit on, hood and gloves. The cold part is actually the time between taking the suit off and the shower. Either way, it is very peaceful to be floating out there, doing laps and drifting with the current. I can't say how much longer this will last, but I hope to continue while the temperatures are above zero, and will most likely find a few days a month to get out there all through the winter and into the spring.
There have been some absolutely beautiful moments up here with the sun rising at a lower angle, combined with low temperatures that make a nice fog and decent photos.
And the best part of all, the fox is back! I can't be sure its the same one as years past, being extra friendly and carefree, though how many tame foxes are there in the wild? I won't complain if its not the same one, at least its company. Here are some photos of the past week or more. I'm hoping to have a nice Thanksgiving up here in a week, and hoping that a fox will join me for the holiday feast. The menu should be close to the following- Duck (whole/roasted), Stuffing and Pumpkin Pie. I might add some yams or something else, but likely there will be too much food as it is, and more would be gluttony. We'll see.

Enjoy-

Someday never comes

A break in the rain was the warmest reception Alaska has had to offer in the past month, and only but three or four times. I wasn't afraid to take advantage of the calm, before another storm I might add and this time it would be snow. I spent a little time on the river, boating up and down while enjoying whole heartily a dry and bug free evening. A solid month of showers, flurries and or both has the river raging at its peak, generally spring time flow. The usual boulders and identifying landscape are submerged and all to elusive while the rapids have grown more intense and creating quite the echoing roar. I have had the enjoyment of riding the river in its full length a few times now, both for work and pleasure. During the last severe wind storm, I had lost all communications to what I had believed was due to natures uneasy temperament around this time of year. However it was a logistical error on someones part back in the big city to announce a switch over in modem frequency... needless to say I, along with a few dozen other remotely located people around the state were isolated further by this oversight. Nearly a week later, a rainy boat ride into Aleknagik, a nice drive into Dillingham, there at the airport sat a new modem for me and all would soon be well.
The time away from computers and phones was a short lived and exhausting little ordeal, going through the emotions of boredom, excitement and wonder, to boredom and deep boredom. I wonder what everyone did when we weren't so connected to the world, having someone a fingers touch away online and yet thousands of miles in between. I'm still at a loss for  words to explain those thoughts and feelings occurring last week.

A rare glimpse of my cabin in sunlight-

The saying is too true... "red sky in morning.... and its going to be one miserable sort of day"

I'm not ready for my surrounding to look like this for six months straight but I'll accept whatever happens. It was a nice change from rain, and it really brightened the cabin inside, something the sun refuses to do. I didn't have to shovel much, but on the side of caution, I made the necessary removals in areas that I keep cleared out in case this was the point of no return. Substantial rains followed and made a massive soupy mess of everything, and the lackluster of gray continues on.