Autumn: Moose Hunting and Float Plane Seasons End; Permanent Fund Dividend Arrives

Other parts of the country refer to this time of year as Autumn or Fall. In Alaska, we refer to its functionality as “the end of moose hunting season” or “the end of the float plane season” or, soon, Freeze Up, when bogs and shallow lakes freeze, followed by slow moving sloughs, creeks, and finally, rivers. It is also time for the Permanent Fund Dividend, or “PFD” checks which are distributed to every resident Alaskan in October (along with the predictable retail sales campaigns hoping to capture some of that windfall).  




End of moose hunting season:

Cow and calf swimming; don't shoot.

August is the rainiest month in South Central Alaska, followed by September, so it always rains on moose hunters (the season for residents runs from mid-Aug to mid-Sept, and for non-residents, about 10 days in early Sept). This year it has rained almost every day for three weeks. I feel like Mrs. Noah. Last year it rained for ten days straight. I pity those out-of-state hunters, clutching their $400 big game licenses (but that cost is just a drop in the bucket. Guided, trophy moose hunts are advertised for $10,000 – 16,000 per person). There they sit, dressed in their Cabellas outfits, surrounded by a mountain of gun cases, coolers, and butcher bags, waiting, waiting, waiting in the lobby of one Anchorage air taxi or another as their vacation time ticks down to a disappointing end. Every once in a while, sitting in our remote cabin, listening to the rain beat on the metal roof, we'll be surprised to hear a small plane, followed by two or three more in quick succession. Walking down to the dock in our rain slickers, we see a thin line of blue sky in the direction of Anchorage, and figure that the pilots decided to make a quick exit from crowded air space toward some remote spot where their arrival circumstances might be questionable.

Permaculture: Dying Spruce = New Deck

Several years ago, my husband and I tried to build a birdhouse. No bird wanted to live in it. Then we built a stool. No person wanted to sit on it. And then we concluded that we never wanted to work together on another construction project!

I have full confidence that marriage counselors would be out of work if engaged couples attempted to build something together (or share a canoe or put up striped wallpaper). Let's just say that such endeavors clarify the yin and the yang in a couple and those who stick it out will last. In our case, because he can't cook and I can't fly, we need each other, so we stick together. However, we mutually agreed to never attempt future constructions together – never ever.

How Much Food Can a Part Time Gardener Raise in Alaska?

During WWII, Americans were encouraged to grow “victory gardens” of fresh food in their yards as a patriotic effort, and millions did, in back yards and on rooftops. After the war, the number declined, but in recent years, home-grown foods are enjoying a resurgence of interest among people who have never previously grown anything but mold in the refrigerator. (Including me!)  For those whose source of food tends to be a delivery van or a drive up window, the idea of growing food in the back yard (or window sill) may seem daunting. It doesn't have to be. In the future I will offer step by step articles for super easy seed starts to encourage the beginning gardener, since my successes and failures are still fresh in my mind. But with this article, I hope to inspire readers with the successes of an erstwhile terrible gardener.



Wild raspberries galore all summer!
I definitely did not grow up gardening and I gave up every summer in Texas.  Here, though, over the past three years, I have increased my production to 65 animal and herbal foods this summer. And guess what: most survive my care! Except for planting and harvesting at the beginning and end of the growing season, the time expenditure for all that is less than 1.5 hours per day. So a modest effort by someone else might require only 20 minutes, every other day.


Since a packet of (hundreds of) seeds costs about $2, a strawberry plant costs $1, a raspberry cane about $5, and a fruit tree sapling $10 – 50, depending on age/size/type (all these fruits are perennial – they last many years), the cost and quality of home grown fruit and vegetables is much more attractive than at a store. The cost of producing eggs and meat is higher than at a big box store, but we can justify that for a number of reasons I won't belabor here. My hope is that if I, a relative newbie, can grow so much food, perhaps this article will inspire you to start or expand your food raising efforts. (For more information about raising chickens, ducks, rabbits, and honeybees, see other articles on this blog).


Each section below lists the foods we raise/make, some notes about successes and failures, and comment about what foods in this category we still need to buy because we cannot raise/make them ourselves. I hope you will feel encouraged to grow something you can put in your next pizza or scrambled eggs.

Sweets: We tap birch trees for sap in April/May (used in cooking and making beer) and harvest honey in August/September (four hives).

Notes: Birch sap is less than 2% sugar, so it is a subtle replacement for water in oatmeal, coffee, and beer. It is also chock full of vitamins, including calcium. We collected 15 gallons last year from four trees in three days. Maple syrup is MUCH more efficient than birch syrup. But since maples don't grow this far north, we are preparing to collect 100 gallons from 14 trees over ten days in order to process a single gallon of delectable birch syrup! We will also collect additional gallons of sap for cooking and drinking. The sap needs to be chilled, but the honey is shelf stable, forever.

Honey about to be extracted from the comb

Our bees in Alaska do not overwinter so we have to buy new queens and “starter colonies” each spring. The first year, the bees spent more time building comb than making honey, so we netted only two gallons from a hive. The second year (with the existing comb), our honey harvest doubled. We do buy sugar for baking, but with next year's sweet harvests, I will endeavor to tweak recipes to use the sap and honey instead. I have learned that I can use honey instead of pharmaceutical products to cover a cut.  

Shopping: We buy flavorings that do not grow in a cold climate, like chocolate, vanilla, and coffee.

Fire Prevention at Remote Properties (or any others)

Rural property owners generally pay lower taxes than city people for the logical reason that they derive fewer municipal services. That's a fair trade, isn't it? Among services NOT available to many on-road, (and certainly not for off-road) properties is subsidized fire protection. This has implications not only for structural preservation but also for insurance. Be sure to inquire about both before you buy or rent that attractive remote property! Then, plan to take charge of your own fire safety.

To help, most counties, boroughs, and parishes in the country have a Division of Emergency Services with useful information pertinent to hazards in that particular region. Some of the following suggestions are derived from the “Wildfire Mitigation Program” of my borough in Alaska. In addition, local fire departments are terrific resources. A local volunteer fireman actually helped construct some of our early buildings and alerted us to many of the elements described below. A few years later, in exchange for a hot meal, my husband flew a local fire chief out to assess the success of our fire mitigation efforts and any neglected hazards. He even helped us chop down a huge dry and dying tree!  A great resource is Firewise.

Whether your property has existing buildings or you will build from scratch, plan to assess fire hazards and find ways to reduce them through prudent use of: (a) firebreaks and landscaping, b) hardscape, (c) flammable debris removal or storage, (d) well marked and accessible roads and driveways (if on the road system), (e) well positioned fire suppression systems (f) primary and secondary methods to report the emergency, and, finally (g) exit plans and provisions.

Examples of each below:

a) Firebreaks and Landscape: The recommended width of a fire break is at least 30 feet around buildings.  (This is referred to as "defensible space zone 1") (However, since fire rises, buildings on a steep slope need to triple that distance below the structures).  I have first hand knowledge of the reason. This summer, the area of Willow, Alaska suffered a wildfire of several thousand acres. Scores of buildings and vehicles were damaged. About 2,000 people were evacuated. As we fly low over that area on a regular basis, and then drive among its roads, we see clear evidence where the fire had “jumped” narrow roads and driveways but had not crossed broad cul de sacs, parking lots, or grass air strips. The clearing around your buildings does not have to be paved or graveled – it can have landscaping - but those plantings should be intelligently selected and well maintained.

Telecommute from a Remote Property (Problems and Solutions)

For many years, my husband and I enjoyed working from home and traveling for business, so our far flung clients rarely knew where we were. They reached us by cell phone or email, and we met them occasionally during the year. So when we decided to move full time from our high-rise condo to our off-road, off-grid log cabin in the middle of the Alaskan forest, our professional life was, surprisingly, the least significant (of many!) adjustment we had to make.

Telecommuting at its finest

True, we had to build the infrastructure to power Internet and telephony by solar and wind power. And true, too, the communications service is less robust and, occasionally, less reliable. But Bryan still smiles and dials financial folks in investment banking and I still write business documents and provide compliance services for the securities industry. But the trade off is worth while: those early evening hours we used to waste commuting across town to networking meetings filled with service providers and job seekers are now allocated to a kayaking happy hour on a lovely lake surrounded by mountains. What a wonderful trade.

The message I'd like to convey in this article is: Why live where you need to work instead of working where you want to live? For many professions, telecommuting from home is an increasingly viable option, so telecommuting from where you want that home to be, is, too.

Build a Private Airstrip Or Land on One? Think Twice

Let's hypothesize that some Sourdough wants to build a grass airstrip on his property so that his Cheechako buddies can visit. Below are mistakes the former might make that the latter might encounter – to his peril. The list should give prudent pilots plenty of food for thought before they land on any private airstrip... or build one.

A visiting flyer could encounter problems if the airstrip is:

• Adequate for the owner's one seater with a STOL kit and tundra tires who is familiar with the quirky bumps and holes, but problematic for other pilots and other planes. (for example, a short, narrow strip with animal holes at the end).
• Built on soft or clay soil with no underlayment and no camber for drainage, soupy in rain, rutted after a prior friend landed or a moose walked through, uneven shifting due to permafrost and ice heave.
• Studded with rocks that are loosened by each visitor, pitting propellers and low winged aircraft.
• Too short for visiting airplanes, or long enough to land but too short for visitor take offs when temperatures or humidity rise (leaving Cheechako Charlie a stranded, and possibly unwelcome, visitor until the weather changes).
• In many parts of the country, and CERTAINLY in Alaska,  the runway will be wet, slushy, and icy  many times of year.  As any car driver in similar situations can imagine, the rule of thumb for safe landings in these conditions is to multiply one's "normal" landing distance by 1.4 when wet, by 1.7 for snow, by 2.3 for standing water/slush and by a whopping 3.5-4.5 for ice.  PLUS a 15% margin of error.  So, for example, a Cessna 182 and 206 generally can land in 1400 feet.  However, ski planes have NO BRAKES unless one adds them (a $2000 extra).  A safe ski plane pilot  would avoid an icy strip of less than 5600 feet,  especially if there are trees, roads, or homes at the far end of the luge lane, or if the strip angles downward.  The past two warm winters here made strips perilously icy.  Pilots avoided our neighbor's strip in the woods all winter long.  They stuck to the much larger (if still icy) lake.        
•  Wide enough for the owner's plane or experienced pilots but too narrow for occasional pilots or in cross winds.
• Contains a tricky curve, laterally or vertically!
• Built steeper than the recommended 2% grade lengthwise or greater than the 2.5 % camber widthwise, or it angles down instead of up for landings, or the lay of the land changes over time and is not regraded by the owner.  Oriented downward, a 1% grade can increase a pilot's needed landing distance by 10%.  3% grade = 30%!  And who can see that from the air? 
• Obstructed on the ends, sides, or even middle of the strip – a downed tree, a piece of machinery, animals, trash, a windblown plastic chair.
• Oriented toward the prevailing wind in some seasons but not others. Positioned where mountains throw up quirky weather.  Positioned where landings speed up because of common tailwinds. 
• Infrequently maintained if the owner is not a frequent flyer. For example, the grass could be high enough to obscure obstructions, ruts or animals except right before the owner/pilot plans to fly.  Wet grass contributes to hydroplaning, while dry grass can "grab" on landing. (Where we live, the wild grasses grow one foot per week to eight feet and then flop over everything nearby).
• A windsock at ground level surrounded by trees/buildings will not offer much useful information, and it may be contrary to conditions above trees ... where you need it.
• Finally, most airplane insurance does not cover landings on private residential strips. Those visits are strictly “at your own risk,”  understandably!  The factors that most grossly exaggerate the length required for a safe landing are strips that are slippery (from ice, snow, water), where landings are graded downhill with a tailwind.   

The owner of the airstrip may encounter problems he didn't contemplate, either.

Communications Devices Can Save Your Life

Each week, Alaskans (and others around the world) read news reports of someone trapped for hours or days by bad weather, an avalanche, or an accident. The following devices could save them time, money, and possibly, lives. Many are the size of a deck of cards and not much heavier. The following recommendations come from Bryan Emerson, a member of Alaska Airmen Association, Willow CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) and Civil Air Patrol (search and rescue operations).  Below the article are resource links and purchase/use recommendations.  

Communications technology transmits information either one-way or two way. Both are useful.

UNILATERAL COMMUNICATIONS DEVICES:

Weather radio: (Advertised prices range from $20 – 100.) A weather radio is the size of a portable AM/FM radio, and, in fact, many portable and installed AM/FM radios include a local weather band that relays continuous loops of repeated and updated weather information for a target area. Dedicated weather radios offer multiple weather frequencies so that a traveler in remote locations can usually tune in to one or more. (In our part of the Alaska bush, we can hear two stations). Some devices allow for an external antenna that boosts reception. With this in mind, many prudent backpackers traveling through river valleys or the back side of mountains carry a lightweight coil of copper wire that they can plug into the radio and hand up on a tree.  Travelers can see the weather station frequencies for various locations on NOAA.gov.  Consider enrolling in a free online SKYWARN Spotter class.

APRS.fi: (free) This website program enables someone to track a traveler for free, on the website,

www.aprs.fi (FI for Finland) as long as the traveler carries a GPS equipped amateur radio (like a Kenwood) and has registered the radio call sign on the website. To work, the person with the transmitter needs to be within line of sight of (radio) repeater towers. (There are two in Anchorage). We have found it easy to follow the progress of a traveler on foot, car, or airplane throughout large swaths of the Mat-Su Valley, too. However, it cannot capture travel in river bottoms or the far side a mountain undetected by a repeater tower.

Housing Winter Rabbits in Cold Climates

Here in Alaska, we raise rabbits, ducks, and chickens for food. By mid-February, we had more animals than housing, but, for various reasons (like age, body heat, and pregnant rabbits), we did not want to “dispatch” any. This prompted some new housing ideas for the rabbits that worked out exceptionally well, in, of all places, in the chicken coop and greenhouse.

Rabbits in the chicken coop:

Because we know a woman who houses her menagerie of goats, poultry and rabbits in the

Zen (the rabbit) is on watch while the ducks nap
(note their heads tucked in, feeling safe) 

same enclosure, we decided to install two of the female rabbits in the coop with our harlequin ducks and Rhode Island Red chickens. One ran away the next day when we opened the run for “duck recess.” Her distinctive foot prints traveled extensively throughout the snowy yard. She successfully evaded predators (including an owl that killed one of the ducks). Ultimately, she settled under the hutches of the other rabbits, where she created a snug, straw filled burrow under their raised building. I hear her banging around as I tend to the other rabbits. When I feed them, she waits below their wire floors, much as my dog used to sit below my children's highchairs, assured of bits and pieces, sure to fall below. She looks healthy and content and has never chosen to return to the coop.

The other rabbit remained with the poultry. She has such equanimity that I named her Zen. At first it was startling (and delightful) to open the lid of the nesting boxes and see not only laying hens but a rabbit – popping her head up to look around! Clearly, though, she is “one of the guys.” She eats and drinks out the same bowls as the birds, and enjoys many of the same snacks, like green peas and birdseed. The rabbit and chickens will gather round me to eat out of my hand. During cold weather, she enjoyed a quiet siesta inside the coop, in a soft depression that she skootched into the straw, while the noisy ducks are outside, hoovering up the snow and digging into rotted tree roots. On sunny afternoons, I raise the nesting box lid, and each box is occupied by a duck, a chicken, or a rabbit, enjoying the sun on their face and the wind-blocking boxes around them. They look like commuters on a train, or kids in a school bus.. As the snow starts to recede and lay bare tempting patches of brown around the trees, Zen follows the ducks' peregrinations, ultimately spending most of the day with them - they guarding her or she guarding them!  She is not the far flung explorer that her erstwhile rabbit companion turned out to be. Zen is more of a companionable homebody.  

I Moved from a Texas High-Rise to an Alaska Outhouse

Journalist Alyson Ward, of the Houston (TX) Chronicle interviewed us about our transition from city folks in TX to rural, off-road, off-grid Alaska for the following article published on Thursday, Nov. 11, 2014, under the title, "Call of the Wild."   The link includes about 13 pictures, but below I have just cut and pasted the text.  See other articles on this blog, by me, expanding on issues of construction, solar and wind power, raising our own food, and commuting by plane and snowmachine (snow mobile).

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Alaskan reality TV in the past few years - The Discovery Channel's "Alaska: The Last Frontier," National Geographic's "Life Below Zero" and HGTV's "Living Alaska," to name a few. But surviving in harsh, frozen territory is reality, not TV, for former Houstonians Laura and Bryan Emerson since they traded their big-city lives for an off-the-grid log cabin north of Anchorage.

When the Emersons came through Houston recently to visit friends and clients, they shared photos and stories about their new lives. "Instead of his-and-hers cars, we have his-and-hers snow machines," Laura said.

For a decade, the couple - she's 57, he's 53 - lived in high-rise apartments in the Galleria area, far removed from nature.

"We didn't even mow a lawn," Laura said. "I didn't plant a petunia."

But the allure of Alaska had been irresistible to Bryan since 2002, when, not long after they married, the couple took an Alaskan cruise.

"He just fell in love with that place," Laura said. "I do think there are places that speak to people - some people are desert people or beach people - and this just sang to him."

A few years later, when Bryan and his father went to Alaska to hunt and fish, they found a tempting piece of property on a lake between Anchorage and Denali National Park. Bryan called the owner and asked if he'd ever consider selling. The property, it turned out, had been listed that day.

When he got back to Houston, Bryan casually asked his wife whether he could buy some land in Alaska.

"I think she rolled her eyes and said, 'Whatever,' " Bryan said. "That was good enough for me."

"He didn't get a 'no,' " Laura said, because she didn't think they'd really be living in Alaska. Not full time, anyway.

"The initial thought was that we would go up there for a couple of months in the summer," Bryan said. But as Laura's two sons left for college and the recession slowed Bryan's finance-consulting business, the Emersons started extending their stretches of Alaskan living. "Each year, we added a month or two," Bryan said.

Now they spend about 10 months a year (they escape to warmer climates in the worst of winter) in a cabin accessible only by dogsled, snow machine or float/ski plane.

Moving to the Alaskan wilderness isn't like moving to Austin. Before they left Texas, the Emersons spent months learning how to survive and be self-sufficient.

"I went up there (to visit) and felt totally out of my element - just like an idiot," said Laura, who's been a teacher, a chemical markets analyst, a professional writer and an investment-bank compliance officer. "Up there, it's dangerous to be an idiot."

So she came up with a curriculum. The couple took shooting classes, wilderness courses, first-aid training. They became Master Gardeners and learned how to make their own wine and beer; how to raise chickens, ducks, rabbits and bees; how to ice fish; and operate a snow machine. They became ham-radio operators, learned welding, plumbing and how to use a chain saw.

Bryan set up a "power tower" with solar panels and a small wind turbine for power, a phone antenna and a satellite receiver for Internet access. He does his work from home, starting his mornings at 5:30 to accommodate the time-zone differences with clients in Texas or New York.

Their two-story cabin - built by a neighbor from 106 local spruce trees - measures 16-by-24 feet inside and has roughly 750 square feet. When the weather's warm enough, they can relax and eat their meals on two story front porches.

The Emersons have no municipal services. They use wood to heat their home. They have an outhouse. The food shed has a propane-powered refrigerator, which they use in the summer. They keep chickens for eggs, rabbits for meat and bees for honey. They fish for pike and salmon, and Bryan hunts for bear in the spring and moose in the fall. He uses birch sap to make beer. In a greenhouse, Laura grows cucumbers, basil, peppers, and tomatoes.

They use a wood stove and a propane oven to cook their food. They've rigged a system that gives them running water in the summer, but in winter they lug buckets full of snow and melt it in a 6-gallon pot on the stove. Mail is delivered to a post-office box in Anchorage, and they fly down to pick it up every few weeks.

"We really have to be very intentional about what we do haul in because we have to dispose of it," Laura said. "I try to avoid glass. Plastic and paper, I can burn. But metal cans? You really have to think about all that stuff one takes for granted with a city garbage system."

In her blog, Laura details the daily efforts of surviving in wilderness Alaska - how they've learned to handle wastewater, food storage and some terrifying encounters with bears.

A few reality-TV and documentary-film producers have approached the Emersons about featuring them in a show. So far, they've declined. "They all seem so fake," Laura said.

"So many things I used to take for granted, like the flick of a light switch or the flush of a toilet," Laura said. "I never thought about where water comes from or where the sewage goes? How do you make electricity? It was just magic."  Now, we have to produce it and dispose of it.

Every day they can - generally between May and October, when the lake's not frozen - the Emersons have a mandatory happy hour, sipping their homemade beer and wine as they kayak on the lake, Mount McKinley and Mount Foraker visible in the distance. That's when they can really take in the beauty of the land they've worked so hard to make livable.

The Emersons' only neighbor within 10 miles lives about 15 acres away and, like many bush people, want to be left alone, so the couple is alone much of the time. Bryan makes frequent flights to Anchorage to attend meetings of the Civil Air Patrol (he's a member of the volunteer search-and-rescue team), but Laura sees other people less than once a month. Because of the power tower, she has weekly phone calls with relatives. Mostly, she keeps in touch through email, her blog, and her magazine column.

"I do like the silence and privacy and the fact that when I'm talking to people, it's because I've chosen to talk to them," she said. "I think I've become more introverted than I used to be."

Life is harder now, but Alaska has given the couple an "appreciate each moment, appreciate each day" mentality, Laura said. They listen to wind and birds instead of a noisy TV, which they don't have in their cabin. They savor every meal because it took such effort to secure it. And when they're back in civilization, Laura said, she'll marvel at the infrastructure that makes life so easy - "the electricity and water and power, but also a port or train system that brings in food from all over the world."

The Emersons know they can't live in wild Alaska forever because they won't always be able to handle the hard physical work an off-the-grid life requires. Even now, in the dead of winter, the Emersons trade the dark and cold for two months in South America - Peru one year, Argentina and Paraguay another.

"This year's going to be Ecuador," Laura said. "My thought is, maybe we'll find a place down there we want to retire to. If we can find a place that is my happy place the way Alaska is (Bryan's) happy place, that'll be a fair trade."

Cheap and Clean Home Cleaning Products: Vinegar, Baking Soda, Veg Oil, Salt, and Castile Soap

Frazzled cleaning?

When I lived in the city, I had a whole pantry full of smelly cleaning products. Now that I live remotely, I use only four, exceptionally versatile products. Imagine the cost and space savings as well as the lack of chemical smells! Whether your interest is in downsizing or escaping smelly fumes or questionable additives, consider the following prices, uses, and links to additional information and recipes.

Today, my cleaning supplies consist of:

(Prices at Walmart today):

Vinegar (1 gallon costs a bit over $2)

Baking soda (1 lb $0.56)

Generic vegetable oil (48 oz $2.50)

Castile soap (32 oz $8 – 22, depending on brand)

Salt (104 oz $5.20)

By contrast, I used to buy products like:

(prices at Walmart today)

Windex (26 oz $3.12)

Tide laundry detergent (138 oz $9)

Palmolive, (52 oz, $3)

Lysol multi-purpose cleaner (28 oz, $2.87)

Copper, brass cleaner (10 oz  $2..60)

silver cleaner, Shine Bright (8 oz, $6)

rug and carpet cleaner, Arm and Hammer (30 oz $?)

shampoo: Suave, (28 oz $2.88)

soap: Dial, (4 oz $3)

Suave hair conditioner (28 oz $2.88)

Rutland brick and stone cleaner  (16 oz $7.98)

Murphy's Wood Floor Cleaner (32 oz $3.48)

Lysol toilet bowl cleaner (24 oz $4.97)

Below is a partial list of household uses for these versatile products.  For more details, including recipes and proportions, see the embedded links.

Remote Cabins: Trash, Garbage, and Waste - Reuse, Re-purposing, Disposal Issues

Living off-grid means not only that we receive no electricity, but also no municipal services at all, including those for disposal of garbage, trash, sewage, and gray water. So we have become very intentional about what we buy, make, and use, because we have to figure out how to dispose of what remains. I welcome any additional clever ideas that readers may care to share.

Below are some examples of what we have done with wood ash, packaging, vegetable and meat leftovers (including bones), animal and human waste, and construction debris.  Some ideas may be useful even to urban readers.

Wood ash:

Alder wood fire

As a fertilizer, wood ash reads 0-1-3 and softens acidic soil, which is exactly what our property needs. Hard woods are higher in the desired nutrients than soft woods, according to the U of Oregon extension office. Do not use wood ash on potatoes or the related families of blueberries/azaleas/rhododendrons, which like acidic soil.

Vegetable waste:

• Kitchen and garden scraps can be fed to any of the animals (except citrus, potatoes, and onions) or trenched directly into gardens to enrich the soil. Some items work well in a compost tea or insect repellent. For example, sprays made from onion, red pepper, rhubarb, and tomato leaves repel many pests. Coffee and coffee grounds are best for acid loving plants. In fact, the Botanical Garden in Anchorage plants its potatoes in pots filled ONLY with coffee grounds scrounged from local coffee bars.  Banana and orange peels deter aphids, deliver potassium, phosphorous, and some nitrogen. Great around roses. Egg shells deliver calcium – particularly important to tomatoes and squash and the poultry themselves (pulverized) and they deter slugs (but are safe for red wigglers in vermiculture). In the winter, when we have fewer animals and frozen gardens, we keep red wigglers in the cabin in a worm farm and feed the excess vegetable matter to them. I have found that a compost pile doesn't work well for me here, so I just trench yard and kitchen scraps directly into gardens, particularly ones that are resting for a season. 
• Meat leftovers: All bones are made into soup stock, then offered to the poultry. After they have picked them clean, the bones are tossed into the wood stove to burn to ash for the gardens (0-12-0 nutrients). I cut up meat fat and chicken skin and feed it occasionally to our ducks and chickens both of which make their happiest discovery noises when they get those snacks. .

Raising Meat Rabbits in Alaska (Part 2)

Breeding: 

We have all heard the description of some prolific procreators (of any species) as “breeding like rabbits.” So I thought that putting a male and female together would be easy. However, like most things in nature, we have encountered great variability in the rabbits we have raised. Some females are natural mothers; others don't know what to do. Some females successfully evade the efforts of males by speed or by aggressive biting, scratching and pushing; others are passive.  Some males are natural sperm donors and others just want the exercise of chasing a female around, followed by a meal and a nap. (Sound like any people you know?) A congenial mating pair can potentially produce about 4 kindlings (litters) per year, yielding 16 – 32 kits (babies).  A male with two females can possibly double that.  

We have experience with two breeds over two years: Flemish giants and satins (medium size).  We plan to buy additional medium sized breeds in the future, to see which ones work best in our setting and produce the most efficient feed:meat/care ratio.  

Raising Ducks in Alaska

For several years, we have raised chickens and enjoyed their company, eggs, and insect eradication quite a bit.  Last winter, my husband suddenly thought, “Let's raise ducks, too. How different can it be?”

Well, four ducks later, I can tell you: VERY DIFFERENT.

Our chickens (Plymouth Rocks and Araucana) are analogous to quiet, diffident librarians, delicately “sipping tea and nibbling scones” in a warm, dry place, before going to bed early.

By contrast, the ducks (harlequins) are like big footed, gangly, noisy, messy teenagers, who strew their stuff all around, taking up space, spewing food and water everywhere, and wanting to stay up all night. When my husband first flew them to our property, in a tall pet carrier, I thought they were geese - they seemed so large.

Ducks leaving the lake, heading home

The woman in Palmer, AK, from whom we bought them, asked us to take a mating pair together, whom we named Mr. and Mrs. But because Mr. bonks the other two females with equal frequency (on land, in the snow or holding their heads under water – it doesn't matter), I can't say that I have observed any of the fidelity so famous in swans and loons. The other females we named Dora (because she was always the early explorer) and Daylate (which in retrospect is not well deserved, but at first, she always seemed “a day late and a dollar short”).

I found that raising ducks involved both “good news” and “bad news” - at least in our setting.

Remote Property Skills You Need to Acquire...before you move there

My earlier article,“Want to Buy a Remote Property? Think Again or Think Ahead,” has attracted more readers and follow-up questions than almost any other (besides those about raising chickens).

Some readers have contacted my husband and me to ask for additional advice. One man said he wanted to buy 300 acres in Montana and asked what he should do first. When we asked what experience he had with some of the relevant skills and information below, his answer was virtually none of them. It was our letters to him (and others) that have resulted in this posting.

I decided to pose this as a questionnaire/checklist that you can use to develop a priority list, time line, and budget to acquire some additional skills, tools, and information before committing to a remote location. I hope it will help you be more effective and efficient than we were!  (Note:  Please let me know any other suggestions that should be included here). 

The content is organized in labeled sections followed by numbered questions and then notes from our experience.

HEALTH:

If the answer to any question below is “no”, make an appointment, take a class, or start pumping iron.

1. Do you exercise? Build upper body strength.

2. Have you had a full physical exam recently? Get copies of your dental and health records. Ascertain any allergies (to elements in your target location, by going there at various times of year).
3. Have you assembled a good medical supply kit, as recommended by your doctor or other sources for a remote location? Keep supplies both at your remote home and in your vehicle, in case you get stranded.
4. Have you taken any recent Red Cross, Scout, FEMA, CDC or State courses in emergency and wilderness preparedness? Do you have relevant reference books? Do you know about the medicinal properties of plants on your property. 

Notes: Living on a remote property is physically demanding. We find that we use our back, shoulder, arm and core muscles more for projects on site, and our legs for hunting and hiking. Chainsaws, .30-06 rifles, and axes are all heavy and pull on your dominant side. Let's face it: many people age-out of a remote lifestyle when health or strength problems interfere. The better shape you are in, the longer you can do it and the more things you can do for yourself.

Do You Know Your Water Source, Use, Cost?

How much do you know about your own water supply and usage? Where does it come from? Where does it go? How much does it cost? Which inventors, engineers, and companies can you thank for these resources?

Many people are surprised to realize how little they know about resources they rely on so completely. I certainly took water for granted when I lived in a city with a municipal water supply. How will you do on the following quiz? 

Of the people I asked before writing this, many knew the source of their water, but NONE knew offhand, water consumption, unit costs, personal usage or post-use processing.  And yet, we all know how important water is. 

Once you take your quiz, you may be interested in my comparative source and usage rates at our little log cabin, off grid in Alaska, where I have become hyper- aware of how much we produce, how much it costs, and how much we can use before having to go without!

HOME WATER QUIZ:

a) What is the source of your water (for example, a lake, aquifer, river, glacier, rain, or well)?

b) Is that source stable or declining?

c) Where do the grey water (sink and tub) and sewage go?

d) How much power does it take to deliver your water to you (for example a truck delivery of bottled water, a pump for a well or the infrastructure of the municipal water system)? What is the source of that power?

e) If you use municipal water, how old is that complex? How does its water quality compare to other cities? (Call to see if they offer tours to individuals or groups. A city water plant is a fascinating and important place. Because of them, many cities conquered the water borne diseases that still bedevil many parts of the world. Find out how much your city's plant costs to build and maintain)

f) How much do you pay for your water supply?

g) How much water do you use?

h) For what? (some water monitors segregate statistics for outdoor and indoor use, or for potable or non-potable water. Some high-rises have water cooled air conditioning systems).

I) Do you know how much water is used in your average bath, shower, dishwasher, clothes wash cycle, toilet flush, lawn, swimming pool etc? (This is easy to look up on line) How much do you use for cooking and drinking, or for your pets?

HOW DID YOU DO?

Remote Cabins: Cost of Communications Technologies

Some people move out to the boonies to avoid communications with humans! Others, like us, can live in a lovely, remote spot only because of such technologies for business, emergencies, information, and personal connections. Below is a list of equipment we have bought or built, with price points, organized from least to most sophisticated (and power dependent). Some worked beautifully from the start. Others required several iterations to get right.

If you are at the point of comparing and contrasting several different remote properties, two prudent considerations might be to assess which communications products and services will work in one location vs. another and how much power various options will draw.  For example, a position on this or that side of a mountain, or high or low in a valley, can influence reception.  Every telephone company we called said that we would be unable to receive phone service at our location. However, an antenna that my husband installed high on a 120 foot power tower (solar/wind) proved capable of receiving line of sight signals from a cell phone tower about 45 miles away.  

Hand cranked radio ($20)

(for incoming communications during power outages)

We bought a used, hand cranked radio on E-Bay to use during Houston, TX hurricanes and have kept it for many years since. What a cheap, small, useful purchase! This is a no brainer to keep at home or in your vehicle.

Walkie talkies ($79)

(for two way communication in line-of-sight, limited ranges)

We love our walkie talkies (about $79 at Sportsman's Warehouse).

Remote Cabins: Cost of a Water Supply

Perhaps the most effective way to organize the daunting task of developing a remote homestead is to prioritize tasks and expenses based on Maslow's hierarchy of needs: water, food, warmth, shelter, and safety. This article describes how we developed a reliable water supply. Subsequent articles focus on food, warmth, shelter, and safety. Each piece outlines our experiences, good and bad, in developing such resources as a water and food supply, including some price points.  If you are considering alternate remote properties, one consideration might be the sources of fresh water, the depths of wells in the vicinity, and the cost of digging a wells (part of which is per foot down). 

Obviously clean, potable water is the first necessity for survival, but even non-potable water is important for fire suppression, hygiene, and gardening. For somebody like me, used to simply turning a tap for hot water or cold, without thinking about how the liquid GOT there and where it disappeared to afterward, “making” water was more complicated and expensive than I expected. I tried the most frugal solutions first, but inevitably ramped up to the expensive solution my husband had recommended all along. 

(I welcome your questions, and personal experiences developing a water supply).

Tiny Kitchen? Sumptuous Brunches in 30 Minutes

If breakfast is the most important meal of the day, then what is brunch but a celebration of that importance? You don't gobble up brunch – you savor it. The entrees tend to be special treat versions of comfort foods. But many people don't cook such brunches for themselves. Why not?

Even in my tiny home (two rooms totaling 750 sq ft), with few pots and pans and little counter space for preparation and assembly, this grumpy, not-a-morning person routinely churns out the following breakfast egg entrees for family and occasional friends within 30 minutes (after my coffee) such as:

• Fried eggs on tomato basil bruschetta,
  
• Huevos rancheros (eggs over refried beans and cheese, on tortillas topped with salsa)
  
• Scrambled eggs over crab, salmon or pike cakes, topped with a lemon aioli
  
• A frittata of roasted potatoes with sausage, peppers, onions, cheese and eggs
  
• Eggs on creamy spinach sprinkled with bacon and chives
  
• Cheesy potato slices topped with smoked salmon and an egg
  

My go-to secret for quick, interesting breakfasts? Appetizers. You might not think of those two words in the same context, but I serve delicious and innovative morning meals throughout the week by utilizing prior hors d'oevres (and other foods cooked for prior meals). And with breakfasts as hearty as these, I tend to cook only two meals a day, which usually are – guess what – brunch (a late breakfast) and hearty appetizers (another sort of celebratory meal) for an early dinner. (I've never understood how people can sleep on a full stomach after a heavy, late meal)

Recommended Books About Alaska

UPDATED WITH ADDITIONAL RECOMMENDATIONS
Whether you are planning to visit Alaska or are an armchair traveler, the following are books that I commend to your attention, in no particular order.  Selections below include poetry, fiction, cartoons, and non-fiction (natural world, true crime, autobiographies and history).  I will add to this blog over time.  

FICTION

Poetry:                        Robert Service

Sample titles: books:  Songs of a Sourdough (1907) with “The Shooting of Dan McGrew” and “The Cremation of Sam McGee” and The Spell of the Yukon and Other Verses.

Service is such a well known poet in Alaska that schools are named after him, but the fact is that he lived in Canada (Dawson City, Whitehorse, Vancouver), never Alaska.  Even so, Alaskan school children used to (maybe they still do, some places) have to memorize one of his ballads to deliver to the class or on, paper, to the teacher.  I highly recommend one of his slim books of verse to anyone interested in immersing himself or herself in the sights, sounds, and smells of the Gold Rush era.  His poems, with a driving rhythm that cries out to be read aloud (even to yourself) capture the loneliness and risks braved by men and women confronted by conniving men and women, as well as by weather, animals, topography, greed and hubris.  Each poem is a well told story with plot twists and emotional recoil – shifting between humor and pathos. Service was the most commercially successful poet of his age, derided by “high-brow” writers for writing doggerel and verse, rather than poetry.  That was fine by him.  And by me.

 

Touching fiction:         Eowyn Ivey:   

Sample title:    The Snow Child

Ivey’s first novel is one that has attracted attention and translations faster than you can say “October snowfall.”  I have recommended it to many of my friends because this is one of the few books about Alaska that that describe the arctic winter, not as a danger to be overcome (like Jack London’s tales), but as stunningly beautiful – a privilege to behold.  Her depiction of a yellow birch leaf flowing below the clear, icy surface of a creek is one such image early in the novel, followed by many others.  Her marvelous sense of place grounds a story that is also graced by a compelling plot populated by believable characters (married homesteaders in the 1920s and their nearest neighbors) who transition through experiences, over time.   This book describes some of the challenges and joys I have discovered in my little log cabin in the middle of nowhere in ways that I hope my friends can appreciate through this author’s skill. 

Raising Meat Rabbits in Alaska

We raise rabbits both for meat and manure for the gardens (and they eat vegetable scraps). Although I embraced the practicality of this, the practice of being so practical has been hard! After all, both my sisters have raised rabbits as pets and we all shared one as kids (named Thumper, of course).

In fact, I wonder if the reason that Americans and the English seem more squeamish about raising/serving rabbits for dinner than the French and Italians is because we all grew up with Beatrix Potter's bunnies and Disney's intrepid Thumper in “Bambi.”

Below is information about my experience with them,as pets and as fodder, labeled by category for easy skimming.