Building A Hot Tub in the Woods

For years, I yearned for a hot bath out here at our cabin in the woods.  Ah, the relaxation of sinking into deep warm water, maybe with a book and a glass of wine after exercise or at the end of an eventful day.

But moving, heating, and draining water are all challenges in this setting that I never appreciated when bathing in a city.  In a remote, off-grid home with six months of winter, a cold water well, and no septic system, a bathtub seems like a decadent pleasure in a former, urban life.

After several years of trouble shooting water delivery problems at Latitude 61, we finally felt confident about securing running water ... most of the time - after we re-insulated our well and water lines for improved reliability.  So I started to think again about a tub that could work within our constraints:

a) It would have to be outside, because there is no room in the outhouse, cabin, or shower house.
b) We would have to be able to fill it by hose and then heat the water by wood or propane, during long, cold winters without fear of hoses, couplings, and water freezing.
c) And it needed to be close enough to the cabin that I would even CONSIDER a cold and dry ingress and wet and slippery egress.

Second Podcast Interview by Off the Grid News: Alternative Power

This 20 minute interview by Michael Foust of Off the Grid News focuses on our evolving use of solar and wind power and how we (sometimes) ensure running water during our long winters.

Ski Plane Lands in Eight Inches of Winter Overflow

This year's warm and soggy winter weather has disappointed - and endangered - outdoor enthusiasts on all sorts of skis - cross country, snowmachines, and planes.  At any temperature, when ice thickens on lakes and rivers, it pushes water up through spider holes and other crevices to flow atop the ice, with inadequate places to drain.  Unseasonable winter rain/sleet deepened those pools.  The modest moniker of "Overflow" belies its danger.


Nearly frozen water is thick - almost viscous - and it has a terrific affinity for metal, adhering to and weighing down any surface it touches.  This impediment to forward movement is bad enough when visible, but it is even more treacherous when covered by a thin layer of snow that looks soft and deep but actually insulates the water enough to keep it from freezing thick and safe for transport.

When we arrived at Willow's little rural, gravel strip airport (originally an emergency runway for the Lend Lease planes in World War II), Barry Stanley of Denali Flying Service warned us, “The ice is thick, but be careful of overflow out there. Land fast so you won't bog down far from shore.”  Then his passenger regaled us with a few harrowing and expensive lessons learned by friends whose airplane skis were trapped in icy graves.

So cautioned, my husband circled our Piper PA-20 over the lake at 1000 feet to spy any open water.  We saw none but three spider holes in the northwest corner - far from where we intended to land.  So far, so good, but it was hard to see much else.  Although mid-day, the light was completely flat, providing no shadow to identify moose tracks, snow drifts, snowmachine or plane tracks that could catch a ski.  In such white- on- white conditions, depth perception is severely challenged. Where is the surface? What angle and speed will ensure a smooth landing instead of a chaotic bounce?

First Podcast Interview by Off the Grid News

Michael Foust of Off The Grid News conducted a fast moving 30 minute interview with us last week, asking us about water, power, food production, bears, and sources of revenue at our remote property.

Here is the link to the podcast.  If you are interested in this, you may be interested in some of his other weekly interviews with off-grid families throughout the US and Canada.

Canning Home Raised Rabbit and Vegetables for Winter Food

September is when we are busy putting up lots of food for winter.  This is a satisfying feeling, rather like graduation. The efforts expended in earlier months to feed ourselves prove fruitful.  

Some end-of-season herbs, I dry, crumble, and store in jars. I particularly love lemon balm, mints, and red clover in teas. Anise hyssop is good, too. I also save and dry orange peel throughout the year (great in pea soup and teas).  This year, I decided to dry nasturtium and mustard leaves,  to enjoy their pungent flavors in winter onion dips and baked potatoes.  (Nasturtium tastes like horseradish).

Other foods I can in mason jars, starting with vegetables.  Last week, I canned about 15 quarts of kohlrabi, beets, cabbage, broccoli leaves, and mixed vegetable broth (from tough stalks). (Question: Does anyone really LIKE kohlrabi?  It looks like an alien softball and the flavor is turnip-like, but it grows easily here.)

This week has been devoted to processing the rabbits, a time consuming, week-long endeavor for my husband and me.  We raised 15 healthy Flemish giants this year. (An adult is bigger than a house cat). Six will go to a young mom in Willow who will return them (or six others, since 6 become 36 pretty quickly) to us in the spring. The other 9 will yield plenty of food this winter.

After what I hope has been a happy and healthy life for the rabbits,  Bryan shoots them quickly with a .22.  To skin them with a super sharp Cutco knife, he built a plastic, waist-high abattoir and pulls up a little bench.  Saving the hides requires meticulous work, requiring about an hour per rabbit, so he harvests three in a morning.  That is about all I can cook in a day, anyway, if I expect to accomplish anything else.