December: Rain, Snowmachines, and Lame Holiday Crafts

Believe it or not, December began with RAIN!  A “Pineapple Express” weather system brought a stream of warm, damp wind up from Hawaii, slammed into the tall mountains along the Alaska coast and caused all sorts of havoc, including historic records for rain, plus ice (and car crashes) and landslides (and loss of homes and people).  A mess.

Here, we were spared any damage, but temps rose to the mid-30s and the hard rain pelted some snow off roofs and hardened (finally) the soft snow in the yard.  The surface was no longer pillowy soft and smooth but looked like a patchwork of lightly melted marshmallows.  Over the course of the month the temperatures plummeted to -10F, and then jumped back up to the +30s.  These dramatic shifts felt like the weather version of bumper pool.

When the snow paths firmed up from the rain, we decided to groom them into wider, smoother, and harder surfaces.  This entails dragging a passive groomer (looks like a horizontal fence with angled iron bars) behind the snowmachine.

Two conditions delayed the task: 1) the snowmachine skis were coated in lumpy layers of ice and  2) the snow that had been sheltered from rain beneath the vehicle remained deep (several feet) and soft, between higher and harder paths pelted by rain.  So, we toted a sled of supplies and got to work.  First, we tipped the machine over on its side to melt the ice with a heat gun (like a hand hair dryer), powered by the generator and  scraped the ice off with a garden spade and a screwdriver.  When we tried to power out of position, the heavy rear treads predictably sank into the soft center snow.  Plan B:  we tied a strap around the base of a spruce tree ahead of us and I ratcheted the tow strap as Bryan climbed, a few inches at a time, out of the soft hole and up onto harder snow.  Then, he was able to whiz around the property and for about four miles into the woods, smoothing paths and widening curves, for pleasant afternoons of cross country skiing and walking.

For a month, our internet and telephone connectivity were inconveniently haphazard.   Apparently, one of our service providers had installed some upgrade for customers on the grid, but the old equipment they sold us to install several years ago is not compliant.  They gave us a 90% discount to turn off the service until spring, when can upgrade, too.  

Living remotely means that we have lots of back ups and work-arounds.  This is true for communications, too.  So this month, we could reliably make phone calls from the unheated power shed, but not from the warm cabin.  If I wanted to call my 89 year old dad, I had to bundle up and call from there.  It was worse for Bryan, whose business has been busier than he expected this time of year, with 5 or 6 business calls each morning.  He dressed up in his quilted Carhartts, bunny boots, glove liners, hat, and balaclava, standing among power tools and beekeeping supplies, hoping that the other guy didn't want a Zoom visual feed as they discussed business services.  Then “Mr. Popsicle” would return to the cabin, for some hot tea and a sweet treat.        

My husband and I are not big on decorating for holidays, but this year I was encouraged by a crafty friend who gave me a bag full of buttons, bows, and Christmas lights and told me to “DO SOMETHING” with them.  My arts and crafts instincts are sadly lacking, but I dutifully looked through Pinterest photos.

My evaluation:  pictures on Pinterest look A LOT BETTER than my lame attempts.  I decorated a “Charlie Brown tree” of spruce bows I wired together and decorated with Betty's lights, bows, and bullet casings (hey – they are shiny), topped with a flimsy branch star.  Then I assembled a tree like decoration of mason jar rings, green flannel, and buttons.  Frankly, everything looked like something my children made in elementary school.  They wouldn't win any blue ribbons, but I must admit that I really enjoyed the process, and the results made me chuckle.  That was not a bad outcome during a month when our world sorely needed laughter.

Next crafts project:  I am thinking of making earrings from the bullet casings, maybe with washers for some dingle-dangle appeal.  Stay tuned.  

Alaska November: Snow, Food, Predators

November temperatures varied from the +30s F to below 0 F. During surprisingly warm periods in the upper 20's F, a 25 hour storm dropped 3 feet of snow over the weekend of Nov 7/8, and then again over Thanksgiving weekend. (So I made a big batch of snow ice cream each time) Because of the soft, light snow, we lumbered about in the yard in awkward snowshoes almost all month, patting out paths, shoveling out doorways at the coop, outhouse, and greenhouse, and digging out the burn barrel.

Snow shoes don't skate along the top of soft snow. They spread out one's weight so a large area is pressed down, after which you lift the snowshoe up over the next two feet of snow and press down again. This is tiring – like climbing a stairmaster in a gym. I feel the exercise at the top insides of my thighs. A clear work out! We widened each path four snowshoes wide to provide a firm surface for the snowmachines, but the temperatures remained so high (20s and even 30s) that the upper layers never hardened up for our (admittedly old and heavy) machines. After they got stuck twice, we ignored them and continued to strap on the snowshoes for the rest of the month. (“Why fight a...xxx?” I think about this every season.) 

The mostly windless and temperature stable days and nights retained the pretty white layer above black branches and angled tree trunks. I find this so beautiful. But this also meant that the roofs retained their load of snow, too. Fortunately, half of our buildings have 45 degree roofs (1”:1” rise), so they shed snow easily. But the 30-33 degree roofs (1”:3” rise) needed some early attention to slough off the heavy load of precipitation. I found a website that helps one calculate the increasing weights of fresh, settled, wet snow and ice over a given expanse of roof. Yikes! A two foot snow dump can weigh 15,000 lbs on a 20 x 12 roof! I pity the families and work crews attending to the surprisingly shallow roofs I spy throughout this part of Alaska. Sure, flatter is cheaper to build, but... 20 years of maintenance?