Warm (Sort of) Below Zero

The week approaching Winter Solstice has been clear and cold.  Today, it is minus 15 degrees F.  Hoar frost (from ice fog) coats the bottom thirty feet of forest that spikes through 6.5 ft of sugary snow. The spruce boughs droop white. I see no animal tracks at all.  Everyone and everything is hunkered down on these short days of blue light at 9 am and sunset at 3 pm.

Hoar frost coats the branches

Outdoors, we do our jobs as quickly as thick mittens and bulky parkas allow.  When I light the fire for the hot tub, (yes, we bathe outside at these temperatures), I notice an inversion layer of cold air that presses the smoke to flow horizontally out of the chimney.  To the chickens, I carry warm water and snacks of meat fat or seedy berry pulp. I kick a hole in a frozen layer of the chicken water, pouring warm water in the allegedly heated bowl.  Their coop is insulated, with a thick carpet of straw, but their body heat and a light bulb are not enough to keep their eggs from freezing, which I boil and feed back to them. 

Down to about zero, we walk on the frozen lake, playing fetch with the dog, who skitters and slides on icy patches.  Below that temperature, a stroll or a brisk walk is less appealing to all of us.  Buddy lifts alternate back legs off the cold snow, but I have not yet succeeded in getting him to accept four fabric and Velcro booties.   

Our machines suffer, too.  The solar batteries are nowhere near as efficient in winter as summer, so we awaken to a loss of power every morning (if there is no wind for the wind turbine).  In the cold and dark, Bryan trudges uphill to the power shed, dragging a sled with the ever-reliable Honda generator that he warmed in the cabin overnight. Plugged in for about four hours (one gallon of gas), we eke out another 20 hours of electricity.

Inside the 750 sq ft cabin, the wood stove burns 30-45 logs per day, 24/7.  The 23 gallon aluminum hot water tank above the stove radiates some heat into the room, but we still need to wear several layers of clothes inside.  The double layered windows need additional insulation, so we hang blankets over rebar, tucking them behind the drapes during the day.  However, the chilliest corners of the log cabin measure 29 degrees today. Olive oil has congealed on a shelf.  The warmest center of the cabin, though, is a pleasant 60 - 63.

Summer view of our woodstove

The drain under the kitchen sink freezes, so every morning, we plug in an electric line that dangles inside the pipe to warm it.  On exceptionally cold days, when the drain line requires more power than we want to allocate, I wash dishes in a bucket and dump the gray water outside.  Outside, the well pump can freeze, too.  On those days, we bring in buckets of snow to melt for wash water. 

Challenging though this weather can be, it does offer compensatory benefits. 

We save up indoor projects and pleasures for this time of year. This morning I cuddled in bed with an Agatha Christie novel.  Previously, I finished two online courses on dog training and another on making herbal remedies.  Herbal leaves, berries, and flowers that I harvested and dried during the summer are turned into salves, balms, and tinctures now.   The chocolate brandy made in prior summers my husband likes to sip, warm, on cold winter evenings.  I favor mint tea with rosehips.

Some people may get cabin fever.  I figure it is my job to make sure that I don’t.

Our Dog Learns to Haul Firewood

Learning to haul firewood

On October 25, we awoke to a silent, frozen lake.  No water lapping at the shore, no ducks tempting our dog.  Ten noisy flocks of geese (50 -100 birds each) flapped southward on that day alone.  They knew it was high time to head out.  How far do they fly in a day? Where do they find water -perhaps rivers - which freeze later?   Given our weather, I was astonished to see a float plane fly north several days later when I outside was in the wood fired hot tub, and wondered, “Where the heck is he going?” NORTH????  It had to be a river.   

The day after the lake froze, our chocolate lab, Buddy, ventured down to the dock and tentatively punctured the thin ice with his paw, to explore it.  Perhaps he saw his reflection, like Narcissus.  He bent down to sniff the transparent surface and then lapped up some water from the hole.  He repeated this a few feet to the right, as though to confirm his initial experience. 

Two days later, he trotted out 30 foot ellipses on the thickening ice. I was a bit nervous that he might break through, but he was fine.  His toenails sounded EXACTLY like a woman in high heels traversing a marble floor!  All of a sudden, he spied a coyote along shore.  He tried to run but slipped and slid like the three stooges, during which time the animal ran off into the woods. During these initial days when the ice thickens, it makes eerie booms, shots, and groans. The dog is nonplussed by these sounds.

On shore, he trots, leaps and runs through the snow.  Early November storms raised the snow depth to 19 inches (chest high for him, knee high for me) and then deeper and deeper.  He plows through, digging with his whole head thrust into the snow, after which he shakes his head clear and sneezes.  On our walks among our buildings, Bryan and I point out tracks of hare and voles (meadow mice) which he explores, squeezing under decks and outbuildings when he smells a critter or two, who remain safely out of reach. 

Excitedly approaching Bryan

Given his enjoyment of the cold, his need for exercise, and his enthusiasm for “helping” us, I trained him to haul sled loads of logs about 60 feet from the wood corral to the back porch.  First I had to get him familiar with a chest harness, which, of course, he wanted to chew.  Then, I had to figure out the length of the sled rope so that when he turned around in curiosity, he wouldn’t get tangled up and flip the sled.  Finally, I had to add enough log weight that the sled would not bang into his back legs when he stopped.  As you may imagine, this required several practice sessions and lots of peanuts and praise.  On our fifth try, we had a kinda-sorta success, and on our third day, he successfully hauled (with more enthusiasm and less confusion) three sled loads of 8 or 9 logs each while I hauled a larger sled ahead of him.  A week later now, he gets excited when we start to load a sled with logs for him. We discovered that he was just as willing to haul without the harness, by simply picking up the rope in his mouth and pulling backwards.  After he chewed through the rope several times, we threaded a long wire through two holes in the sled, and attached a smaller rope to that, which the dog puts in his mouth.  This worked well.  Twice this week, he even hauled a generator downhill with Bryan, from the power shed to the cabin, a 400 ft distance.  This enthusiasm will come in handy for these rather tedious winter tasks, especially as we age (ahead of him). 

When we cut trees in the woods in March, Buddy will help too.  After Bryan limbs and bucks the tree into logs, Buddy and I will transport loads in the same plastic sleds he hauls now.  I will load two sleds with logs and our 6 legs will move them from where the tree fell to our 11 foot sled/ snowmachine on a hard packed trail nearby.  I bet he will love to run behind me as I navigate home to drop thick logs by the wood corral and thin ones by the hot tub.  I look forward to more inter-species teamwork.   

 His outdoor enthusiasm motivates me to enjoy more aspects of the long winter season, too.

How Long Will My Alaskan Harvest Feed Us?

For anyone who lives far from a supermarket (whether that is several hours by car or weeks by ferry, plane, or snowmobile/snowmachine), surely there are few things more comforting than a full larder.  The satisfaction is increased, for me, by seeing rows and rows of glass mason jars full of food that I have grown or foraged, and then dried or pressure canned to enjoy for months or even years in the future.

Potatoes in cold hole

Tucked in the food shed and the Arctic entry are 40 jars (quarts and pints) of brassica leaves (cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower) and turnips, plus the broth resulting from blanching (a quick plunge in boiling water, followed by cold water, for better preservation).  I will open about a quart per week for side dishes or additions to soups, rice, and stews.  The tightest heads, about 15, are stored in the refrigerator for crisp salads.  I have concluded that I enjoy this texture better than (sorry) wimpy lettuce. With this bounteous harvest of reliable veggies, I am learning lots of new recipes from Indian and Korean sources, as well as other renditions closer to home.  British Bubble and Squeak is a new favorite, in both name and flavor/texture.

Other shelves are loaded with 60 jars of rhubarb, raspberries and cranberry and currant juice.  We drink the juice throughout the year, and mix them and the berries into sweet and savory sauces, like BBQ sauce, vinagrettes, fruit salads, chutneys, and desserts.  These plants yield enough for more than a year’s consumption, plus extras for gifts.

Of herbs, cilantro and nasturtiums always do well.  We consume the seeds as well as the leaves. Dill, fennel, chives, rosehips, and garlic all produced less than last year and will not last through the winter.  But I dried quarts of fireweed, sweet gale, yarrow, and berry leaves, as well as a year’s worth of mint, for teas, remedies and cooking.    

One section of the food shed

In the freezer, I squeezed in several gallon bags of blanched veggies, predominantly cauliflower, carrots (mostly for winter carrot cake) and celery, as well as wild lamb`s quarter, mint, and chives.

            Indoors, I have glassed about 150 eggs (about 4.5 gallons) in a pickling lime solution, which will store at room temperature for upwards of 9 months, as I have discovered from several years of doing so.  I rely on glassed eggs in late autumn through winter, when the hens molt (shed their feathers), and, in response to low light levels and temperature, lay fewer eggs.  If/when we run low, toward the end of winter, we do have powdered eggs, which I relegate to baked goods.  I also have 3 gallons of tomatoes plucked from the greenhouse, ripening in covered bowls with a banana for extra ethylene (for ripening).

In the cold hole are 50 potatoes – half of last year`s harvest.  Still, if I cook 2-3 potatoes per week,  this number will last us through March, when we get resupplied by snowmachine haulers.

In the oddly hot spring and rainy late summer, some fruits and veggies produced enough to enjoy fresh during the summer, but not enough to store long term.  This includes several squash varieties, including cucumber.  I have never yet nurtured a decent pepper harvest, though they are my favorite vegetable.  The weather was particularly ill-suited to spinach, peas, and beans.  Haskap bushes flowered very early in the sun (while standing in snow), resulting in few berries.  Not even the birds were interested.  Only 3 apples from one young tree.   Still no cherries.

Kitchen shelves. Spruce log walls.

We feared a low honey harvest (since the insects do not like to fly in rain), but they produced a very respectable 15 gallons of golden nectar from 4 hives.  Thankfully, none of them swarmed or absconded during the heat wave of 80+ degree temps in early June (because their population was still low at that date).  I am not averse to sugar, but as beekeepers, we have bought none for years and use honey in all recipes that require sweetening, including baked goods and a quart per 6 gallons of homemade beer (so that libation is technically a braggot). This year`s harvest will last more than a year.

Sadly, we took no bear or moose this year, so our meat expenses are the same as anyone else`s. With inflation - Yikes!  However, with the bones and fat of every ham or chicken I buy, I make tasty broth for flavoring rice, beans, soups, and other dishes, and snacks for the carnivorous hens.  The pike in our lake have cannibalized each other so we caught none of edible size this summer.   We took a break from raising meat rabbits for two years and consumed our last quart as rabbit mole over pasta last month.  

Today is October 11.  Snow fell on the  4,600 ft mountains near us last week, and this morning we see Termination Dust on the  closest mountain of 2600 ft .  The temperature dipped to 35, leaving frost on the brown, crispy ferns and green grass.  Ten noisy flocks of geese winged their way south throughout the day.  So yesterday was likely the last salad I could gather directly from the gardens, as many leaves wilt in the cold, although  celery, cabbage, and the leaves of root vegetables (radish, carrots) are sturdy enough to linger after a few frosts. 

The hardy, late season greens that fed us included mustard, nasturtium, and lettuce leaves, topped with blue borage flowers (taste like cucumber) and orange nasturtium flowers (taste like horseradish).  I added the sole cucumber that grew, plus several of the smallest tomatoes.  I served it with a honey mustard dressing with currant juice, topped with croutons from a bread I made earlier in the week and little hard boiled eggs from our smallest hen.  A pretty and tasty dish.  

Hardy mint remains harvestable… for a few days.  I gathered a huge pile and will blanch it this afternoon so that we can enjoy a favorite condiment – a hot Indian chutney – through some of the winter months.

I will miss many of these fresh flavors during the winter, but our seasonal distinctions encourage me to savor every last bite in autumn.  Then, I look forward to cozy soups and stews for winter, such as vegetarian African peanut soup (with sweet potatoes or winter squash), split pea soup with ham (secret ingredient: dried orange rind), potato soup with all the ingredients one associates with loaded baked potatoes, and whatever creative concoctions bubble up on future chilly days.  

 

 

Podcast - Houston Investor Works Off-Grid in Alaska

 

Capitalism, Environmental, and Social Governance don’t always quite fit well together.  Bryan Emerson has found a way to do both.  He and his wife Laura gave up the hustle and bustle of city life to go off the grid deep in the forests of Alaska, an area so remote it can only be accessed by seaplane.

 

As an angel investor and investment banker since 2000 and serial entrepreneur since the 1970s, Bryan Emerson has developed a network of over 46,000 investors, entrepreneurs, and business professionals.  Most are fellow finance professionals who run venture funds, private equity funds, investment banks, and family offices and who, as individuals, enjoy investing personal money in angel rounds of promising companies too small for their corporate funding. 

 

Bryan’s investor network can be accessed at www.starlightcapital.co  

Podcast and original posting: https://missionmatters.com/emersons-go-off-the-grid/

Apple:  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/emersons-go-off-the-grid/id1631183772?i=1000582392119

Spotify:  https://open.spotify.com/episode/5lXukvD59mPf52YQASOa9N

How to: Homemade Dog Treats, Toys, and Shampoo

When we adopted a one year old chocolate lab in early summer, both animal shelters that we visited told us that they were so full that they could not accept another animal until adoptions clear space.  I read that this is true across the country.  Part of the reason is that so many people adopted pets when they were isolated by municipal Covid measures.  Later, some people had to go back to work, leaving an anxious dog alone to tear up the house or yard.  Another reason may be that the rapid rise of inflation has increased the costs of both human and pet supplies. So Fido is returned.

One amelioration of the latter issue is that many foods, hygiene supplies, and toys can be made, cheaply, quickly, and easily, from scratch.  Below are a few that I make for our dog, Buddy.

DOG TREATS

Dogs go through packages of dog treats fast, and they can be pricey.  But they are SO EASY to whip up at home from common ingredients and MANY websites offer great recipes. Just search for home made dog treats.  I have made several dog treats.  The simplest is:

2 cups flour (any kind)

½ cup peanut butter

Enough hot water to make a firm dough

Knead, flatten, and cut into preferred shapes and sizes. 

Cook at 350 degrees.  The duration depends on the thickness of your biscuits and how hard and shelf stable you want them to be.  For example, ones that are ½ inch thick and cooked for 20 minutes will have a brownie-like texture.  Thinner and 45 minutes yields a harder product.

I vary the recipe by adding salmon oil, oatmeal, pumpkin puree,  chopped dates, toasted barley.  The latter three provide fiber/roughage.

One great idea (again, for roughage) is to slowly dry (in an oven or dehydrator) a sweet potato or yam that has been cut into thin rings.  When the tuber is leathery hard, string it on a leather strand, like a necklace, for the dog to chew.

DOG SHAMPOO

The dog shampoo I make is very similar to the people shampoo that I also make, with castile soap, water, a bit of vinegar and a drop or two of essential oil.  I do not use nearly as much of the last ingredient for the dog as I do for us, since his nose is so much more sensitive.  After I brush him, I dip a cloth into the shampoo and rub it into his hair, with special attention to the insides of his back legs, that can have been splashed with urine.  I have read that once a month is about the right frequency.

 

DOG TOOTHPASTE

My son kindly sent me some purchased dog toothpaste and several plastic finger “brushes.”  My dog enjoys the almost daily ritual when I rub the nubby finger over his teeth and gums.  When I finish this tube, I will make my own.  Of the internet sources I have read, I have found that some ingredients used by people (including us) like baking powder and hydrogen peroxide are NOT appropriate for dogs since they do not spit out the residue as we do.  Coconut oil (which we use for oil pulling) IS OK for dogs, as are aloe vera and olive oil as bases.  Look up homemade dog toothpaste.

 

DOG TOYS

Our 5 acre woodsy property on a lake offer a variety of outdoor entertainments for a dog who likes to

run, grab sticks, and play in the water.  But how will be entertain him during our long Alaska winters, particularly during snow and rain storms and deep cold when we are not too enthusiastic about spending much time outside?

All dog owners know how fast their pets can tear through purchased toys.  Even Kong toys, which cost $15 + and are marketed as tough and long lasting, remained intact for less than a day with Buddy, although the sad remnants remained play worthy, longer. 

The internet offers lots of creative ideas for homemade toys. I have tried several to good effect and concocted some others:

·         I save food grade plastic containers, like peanut butter and popcorn jars.  First he rolls and sniffs, licks, plays with them.  Once he crunches the side of the container into an hourglass shape, I shove a dog treat into the lower portion.  He enjoys the mental stimulation of figuring out how to get to the treat. 

·         I tie string, rope, or paracord from the spiral staircase, looped through a dead tennis ball, rubber toys, or a pierced plastic jar.  The thinner strings he breaks and then plays with that.  The paracord lasts longest before he bites through it to release the toy. 

·         Cardboard toilet paper rolls or small cardboard containers taped shut with a treat inside.  At first he played very gently with these, but now they last about a minute.  Still, sometimes that is all the distraction one needs to redirect behavior.

·         Three rags or old socks wrapped around dog treats or peanuts and then tied, one inside another, entertain him for about 20 minutes.  

·         We bought bags of golf balls, tennis balls, and what look like croquet balls at thrift shops for very little money. Buddy strips the shell off the golf ball in an hour, shreds the tennis ball in two hours, and peels the skin off a baseball in about two hours, after which he unravels the tightly wrapped yarn over several days.   

·         Of course he loves sticks and slim logs and we have lots of those.   

 

I think I derive as much enjoyment from creating these supplies as he does from utilizing them.