Summer, friend or foe?

  Good morning everyone, it would seem that Summer has arrived with a vengeance. The sun has been out everyday now and the days and nights have grown warmer. I don't use the wood stove anymore which is nice. The mornings are more pleasant at 40 to 50 degrees in the morning which makes sitting on the deck having coffee and listening to the birds enjoyable. Those first few hours are great.

   As the day grows older, the Sun becomes a virtual enemy to me. Let me remind everyone, I am the biggest fan of Winter, I like it cool and cold. I get way more done work wise. The past few days here have been brutal. The temperatures have ridden to the 75 to 80 degrees and no breeze. That to me is unbearable and takes the wind out of my sails. Yesterday was the worse. By 1pm, my thermometer read 80 degrees and a couple hours later it read 86 degrees in the shade. By the time 3:30 pm came around and the sun hit my thermometer read 96 degrees. Yep, you are reading this right...96 degrees. That's crazy hot, now I am inside the cabin, curtains closed, generator running and fan in the window, I need a bigger fan. I have a feeling this is going to be a very hot Summer.

   These temps. could interfere with my plans big time, at my remote property, the temps. are usually a bit warmer than here. This means, my workday will start much later in the evening and I will have to sleep during the day which is hard for me to do. I will have to figure it out for sure. I have seen a pattern forming here in Alaska with the Summers increasingly getting
warmer from the old days. I'm not sure about the science end of this but, I do know from personal experience, something is happening whether it is Global warming or Climate change something is causing it. I for one believe, we as a people are a big part of this change. Think about it, all over this world, gases are being thrown into the air and that can't be good. I really don't want to make this political but, I believe we are killing this Environment and that needs to change.

   I have a very big task ahead of me and that is to re-evaluate my way of life and do my part living a  more healthy lifestyle and keep my polluting the Environment very little to close to no polluting as much as I can. My only hope in this post is to maybe influence others to do what they can to help also. I know we can't do it 100% but, every little bit does help, even 1% is a start.

   Sorry, I had pictures but, forgot my camera so, the next time I will remember. I hope everyone had a nice weekend. I want to thank those of you who have stuck with my Blog. Take care, JOHN

Making progress

Hi everyone, well Spring has sprung or I had thought so. The days were getting sunny and warm and we had quite a bit of rain and that melted a lot of the snow in my yard.

But then, the inevitable happened last Saturday morning, I woke up to this




I suppose you can imagine my reaction, words not necessary,lol. I couldn't believe my eyes. Thought I was in the Twilight Zone. But, this is Alaska where the unusual is constant. Fortunately, it warmed up and was pretty much gone by the next day. It didn't help the drying up process. I was soon back to this

Anyway, I decided I needed a good breakfast to cheer me up, Ham, Sweet peppers and onions sauteed in butter

Add eggs

and breakfast is served, Mmmmmm! Good

This week started out fine and the reports are calling for more rain so,  seeing as yesterday was a beautiful day, +68 degrees and sunny, I got motivated and painted the exterior of my town cabin.

BEFORE





AFTER





This is the first coat, I hope to get the deck, door and trim painted this afternoon. I think it will look nice once it is finished. Then, I will start yard cleanup, a newly painted place looks terrible when there is all kinds of stuff laying around. The ground is still pretty wet in places. I hope to get it dried up some so, I can have gravel hauled in and spread around to get better drainage and more even ground.

  Sorry for not posting sooner, with all the rain we had, there was nothing to photograph. I am making progress. A friend flew over my remote property and said there is quite a bit of snow on it and my lake isn't open yet. Sheesh, I really wanted to get started up there. Hopefully, it will get so hot, everything will melt.
  Hope everyone is doing good, take care.

Still cleaning up

  It seems Spring is really arriving, woke up 6am to 42 degrees. I have not been having a fire at night but, do start one in the morning to take the chill off. I usually split one round and that pretty much does it. The days are now hitting the 60 degree mark. To tell the truth, I  don't have much in the way of progress at the town cabin but, I should be doing more in the days to come.

  I did do some extensive activity the last couple of days as my photos indicates

 This is a closeup so there is no mistake of the hard work I have put in

  Yes, the Winter weight is still there and will be seriously working on it

 The yard is starting to clear out finally

  After all that hard work holding and tilting those Coronas, I needed a good meal. You start with the rice

  add the main ingredients, Chunks of moose meat, sweet peppers, onions and mushrooms stir fried to perfection

  and WALA?

  OOPS! Forgot something yep, ice cold Corona

  I may have to start cutting down on the proportions though.

  Pretty soon, it will be Halibut and Salmon.What was that? Of course that includes, Ice Cold Corona, LOL.
In case everyone wonders, I don't drink to excess, I drink to me. Just kidding. Well, I would like to wish all the ladies out there a very

                       " Happy Mothers Day "

More Spring cleanup and Remote living.

Yesterday was a really beautiful day, warm and sunny so, I decided to start getting rid of the snow, as it was starting to make puddles of water everywhere.  What it looked like






Here are the results of my work

There was a lot of ice towards the bottom and had to use my chipper to break it up. As you can see, it got pretty warm

All the melting caused soft ground which means mud so, I had to put a pallet with a piece of plywood on it in front of my steps
 




I forgot, I started off with a breakfast I came up with. Fried egg, Portabello mushroom, horseradish sauce on homemade holey bread,LOL  Actually, it tasted good

I will continue working on moving the snow.

I wanted to continue about remote living. The first post was to give a general idea about living remote. There are pros and cons. The pros are a good part of living remote, and the cons? Well, it something you accept and tolerate. As far as I'm concerned the cons don't bother me and has become a part of my life. The one thing I enjoy about living remote is Winter and getting up early morning, having fresh coffee , filling the wood stove and then breakfast waiting for daylight to start. Usually, I will have a fresh loaf of bread baking or cinnamon rolls. Mmmmm! I can smell them now. I will sit looking out the picture window looking for animals as I think about what to do. Probably a good day to split wood and/or haul water, do some shoveling or tamp down a path with snowshoes. Maybe putting on a day pack and snowshoes and going for a long hike. This beats having to get up every morning and commuting among all the traffic and sitting in an office or having a job you have to be there and in a lot of cases, not wanting to be. Living remote, you are definately in charge of you own life and not a slave to the confines of the so called civilized world. I don't miss the noise, the crime, crowded malls and etc. Living remote, you find your mind is a lot sharper and you pretty much notice anything out of place and aware of everything around you. OK, that's enough for today. I will update at least once a week. Take care and HAPPY SPRING?