Freeze Up at an Alaska Cabin

Freeze up is a brief and dramatic transition.

The first snow always makes me feel like we have suddenly switched from a color movie with sound to a silent black and white one.  The only colors remaining in view are the yellow needles of the tamarack (larch) trees and a few glistening red cranberries dangling from denuded branches.  The only sounds are of wind,  snow sloughing off our steep roofs and lake water freezing. 

First snow in the front yard

The first sunny day after any snowfall is gorgeous, with the diamond-like glints of snow crystals, reflected light, and the complicated geometry of sun and shadow formed by trees and the lumpy terrain of snow coated ground cover.

October 25 featured a full day and night of wet, soggy snow, in mid-30s F temperatures, coating the yard and topping the stumps with 6 inches.  Early the next morning, Bryan heard branches cracking and snapping under the weight.  

 

October at a Remote Alaska Homestead

 October is the start of freeze up.  This year, during the first half of October, snow started to cling to the apex of Mt. Susitna (about 4400 feet).  On the 16th, it appeared at the top of Little Su, too (about 3300 feet).  Most of the deciduous trees and bushes dropped their leaves (except for the yellow needles of tamaracks and the fat green maple-like leaves of the large domesticated currant bushes).  We raked up tarps full of birch leaves to mulch the raised bed gardens as well as two trellises of domesticated raspberry bushes.  We also re-wrapped the lowest 1-2 feet of young berry plants to protect them from under-snow girdling by hungry voles and hares.   Having lost several prior apple and cherry trees to such predation, I hope we can finally outsmart those little rodents.  

 During the first half of the unusually warm month, we were still able to gather fresh salads of sorrel, mustard, and nasturtium greens every day.  Tomatoes continued to grow in the greenhouse, even though I stopped watering in September.  A wonderful treat was our first small harvest of horseradish.  We divided the plants, cut the skinny horizontal roots for the kitchen and replanted the stronger, thicker tap roots for next year's growth. The ones I harvested for our use were so thin that I just used my thumb nail to scrape off the hairs and thin skin, then pulverized the roots with mayonnaise and yogurt for a tangy sauce.  It was so delicious that it lasted a mere 2 weeks!  I look forward to much more sauce in years to come, since the plant flourishes in our Alaska climate, and since our jalapenos seem to taste milder than those we grew in Texas.

September at a Remote Alaska Homestead

September is our month for beautiful autumn colors, rain, trail blazing, and molting chickens.

Our views are particularly attractive this time of year.  From my bed upstairs, I see the yellow birch trees below purple mountains reflected in perfect symmetry in the still lake. Through the north windows, I spy patches of sparkling water  hidden all summer by the leaves of trees.  From the kitchen window, I look uphill where  the understory plants, like highbush cranberry and devil's club, and the ground huggers like dwarf dogwood turn brilliant shades of yellow, red and purple.  The scents of autumn the musty fruity fragrance of cranberry bushes and on dry days, the tannic scent of dead birch and other leaves.  

 

July and August at a Remote Alaska Homestead

July is probably the best month to visit South Central Alaska.  Most of the mosquitoes are gone, weather is great (usually sunny, 60-80 during the day), flowers are growing in abundance.  Sunlight tops 20 hours, so I sleep with an eye mask.  

 

This year, though, our summer was unusually rainy (which benefited the berries but brought slugs to the gardens) and yellow jackets were unusually abundant.  We found hives under the front porch, in the greenhouse, and even in boots hung upside down outside the guest cabin.  In August, they attacked our bee hives, and we think may have moved into one hive abandoned by a colony that swarmed (departed),  leaving too small a group to defend itself from the aggressive predators.  Bryan duct taped the entrance and ventilation holes to suffocate the wasps.  Fortunately, because the two hives were so large and productive, he harvested the honey in several tranches in July and August, thus depriving the wasps of many gallons of that golden nectar.   

Are We Dependent, Self-sufficient, or Self-Sustaining?

 article posted on www.survivalblog.com

 

One of our goals each year is to decrease our dependency on others by increasing our skills and resources.  In the city, it was convenient to pay for services and products.  Living remotely, we learn to do many things ourselves or do without.  I evaluate aspects of our life on a continuum from dependent to independent:

*Dependent on others
*Self-reliant
*Self-sufficient
*Self-sustaining

Given recent news reports of coronavirus and the economy, tornadoes, wildfires, and power outages, perhaps readers are applying this sort of rubric to their situations, too.

a) DEPENDENT -  I judge us as dependent on items and skills/services  we have to BUY ONCE A YEAR or more often.  These include ANY rapidly depleted products made of petroleum (fuel, plastic) metal, glass, and paper (toilet paper!!!).  We are also dependent for  foods we enjoy but cannot grow, like tropical spices, coffee, citrus.  Finally, we rely on skilled service providers occasionally, too, for skilled construction, machine repair, taxidermy.

b) SELF-RELIANT - This simply means things we do ourselves, whether it is baking bread or cutting down a tree. 

c) SELF-SUFFICIENT - I define this as having the skills and products or resources on hand that will LAST 1 to 8 or 9 YEARS, before requiring replacement/renewal. These include our wind turbine, stored food (both homemade and purchased), annual foods that I grow from seed, most electric and gas tools, chickens, honeybees. (Hens lay for 3 years before aging out, and some years our honeybees overwinter but others they all die). A low cost of living is helpful to self-sufficiency, too.

d) SELF-SUSTAINING - This is the “gold standard” of independence.  It encompasses products and resources on hand that can conceivably last FOREVER, or at least a DECADE without outside servicing or replenishment.  Examples for us include our well and lake, accessible timber for fuel and construction, perennial fruit, herbs, and vegetables (both wild and planted/domesticated for  food and home remedies), solar panels, many hand tools and some long lasting gas and electric tools.  I also include black bear meat and the rabbits that we raise for their meat, fertilizer, and fur, since a buck and two does produce as many rabbits as we want, at a frequency and time of year that we can choose (by when we mate them).  Sadly, the lake is not a self--sustaining food source.  Voracious pike eliminated the prior tasty fish and are now eating each other to such an extent that the fish are vastly depleted in both number and size. To access other fish in nearby creeks, we need to maintain trails through the woods, which we have neglected. 

DECREASING DEPENDENCE:  Over the years, it has been something of a game for me to shave off a number of products we used to buy.  In many cases, this saves money.  In others, it increases our sense of competency. For example, I finally taught myself to sew and I find it more satisfying than I expected.  Previously,  I learned how to forage for wild foods for nutrition and medicine, and to make many staples such as hygiene and house cleaning products, condiments, and bread from relatively few, cheap, and versatile staples like salt, vinegar, yeast, or hydrogen peroxide.   My husband has become a more skillful carpenter.   

One “game” I like to play is to figure out how to repurpose something that previously was used only in one season or became trash.  Six foot x 22” metal grids variously function as bean trellises, rabbit hutches, and fur/potato drying racks.  The greenhouse houses our rabbits in the winter.  Plastic sleds haul wood in winter and hay, mulch, weeds in summer.  Tin cans become whimsical yard art.  Torn flannel sheets become comfortable pajama bottoms.  Kitchen garbage feeds the animals and gardens.  In such ways, we make fewer purchases, multiply the value of resources we already have, generate less trash, and preserve money, gasoline, space, and time.

In conclusion, we are certainly much more self-reliant than we ever were when living in a city, where services and products were so convenient to buy.  Except during hurricanes and floods, I did not think much about supply chains and accessibility.  Now, I certainly do.  We have sacrificed convenience in favor of increasing competence and a quiet sort of satisfaction.