Your GF is tough as nails, after two days hiking with cold feet and no way to get a hot shower I would curl into a ball and ask the gods to end my suffering already
the animal's journal
Re: the animal's journal
Wow, just wow.
Your GF is tough as nails, after two days hiking with cold feet and no way to get a hot shower I would curl into a ball and ask the gods to end my suffering already
Your GF is tough as nails, after two days hiking with cold feet and no way to get a hot shower I would curl into a ball and ask the gods to end my suffering already
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Western Red Cedar
- Posts: 1521
- Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2020 2:15 pm
Re: the animal's journal
Great update and lovely photos. I imagine those are two of the happiest dogs in North America 
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Gilberto de Piento
- Posts: 1968
- Joined: Tue Nov 12, 2013 10:23 pm
Re: the animal's journal
Four season harvest and solar gardening are both decent resources for year round gardening if your library has them. Neither is perfect but they helped me to understand the possibilities, especially since I am in a similar zone as one of the books.
A cobbled together cold frame placed over some random plants kept them going through last winter for me though there were plenty of downsides to the operation. It seems like a serious effort would have a lot of potential for a small crop. The double tunnel method seems like a good answer for those that are growing more.
A cobbled together cold frame placed over some random plants kept them going through last winter for me though there were plenty of downsides to the operation. It seems like a serious effort would have a lot of potential for a small crop. The double tunnel method seems like a good answer for those that are growing more.
Re: the animal's journal
After the race we laid low for a few days. i worked, my dear fiancee (DF) rested and we spent time with friends in the evenings. Caribou season opened August 10. DF and I shuttled a friend's car, who was on a river trip, and decided to camp out in the mountains on the way back and try our hand on opening day. Clouds were low and the valley we camped in was obscured as we settled in our tents reading before bed. Amidst the silence, we heard the growing sound of caribou hooves clicking. A group of probably 30-40 walked no more than 100 yards past our tent, a few individuals just barely visible in the dusk and fog. I went to bed anxious for the next morning, awaking at 4:30 am , looking around the valley for any sign of the caribou from the night before. No such luck and I looked around for about 2 hrs before hearing a barrage of shots up valley. I turned to see caribou walking along the mountain ridge at the head of the valley. I decided to change my position, moving to the top of the mountain and looking around for any stragglers. Reaching the opposite side, I saw a group of 30 or so moving down towards where the valley opened up from a spot high in the drainage. Running along the top of the mountainous plateau, I angled myself in position to cut them off and have a decent shot. I made it to about 120 yards out and waited for them to continue and allow me a good shot. One presented it and I took it. Success. About 100 lbs of meat along with the hide. I wrote a bit more about it on my blog if anyone's interested.
My pack out
The next day, one of my sisters came up to visit us for a week. We took her visit as an opportunity to head back to the Arctic and back to the cabin where I used to live for the first time in about 3 years. We spread the drive out over 2 days, stopping the first night in an alpine area where we camped (my sister's first time) and picked blueberries. Blueberries were plentiful and we were able to get about 3 gallons in an hour and a half. We visited old friends and neighbors of mine, checked out my friend's dog team and his new puppies, hiked around the country, drove thru the mountains and ate more blueberries.
Cabin and the yard showing signs of neglect
Bloobs!
It was a great time and great to show DF where I used to live. She cried the first time she saw the cabin, imagining me living there alone in the past. It was definitely a lot different with someone else around this time and I experienced no feelings of desperation or despair. DF expressed a desire to live there and we are tentatively making plans to return there next year. The thought is that we can spend the warmer/sunnier 9 mo or so there and the other 3 at our current base or elsewhere. The owner of the place is still on board with us living there and told us to stay as much as we want (at no charge). I really appreciate his generosity. It's also difficult wanting to put too much work into the place or maintaining it without any equity or a rock solid guarantee though. I'm still thinking of how to navigate this.
Prominent local mountain
The most challenging aspect of the trip was dealing with my sister. DF and I got to experience all the joys and wonders of a 14 yo girl.
Animal: We are thinking we can do X, Y, and/or Z, does that sound good to you?
Sister: I don't know
A: Ok, is there anything you'd like to do while you're here?
S: I don't know.
A: Ok, please let us know if there's anything you'd like to do or if you don't like what we are doing.
S: ....(silence)
A:What were you reading last night?
S: The book I've been reading the whole time.
A: I forgot, could you remind me what it is? What's it about?
S: ..........It's complex.... It's like a book in a long series of books
A:........Oh, ok.
And more riveting conversation just like this for a whole week! It was a very difficult experience for both DF and I. When she boarded the plane to leave we were left thinking that she did not enjoy one single aspect of what we did. I laughed and was surprised when just a week or 2 ago some family members informed us that she hasn't shut up about the trip since getting home, bragging to her new HS friends about her new sister in law and her trip to Alaska. Teenagers are bizarre.
DF and I went on a hunting trip for caribou again about a week after my sister left. It was an abbreviated version of the backpacking/packrafting trip we did about the same time last year (viewtopic.php?p=225387#p225387). This time we brought a rifle and wandered along the high country of the Alaska Range before floating back to our starting point. We saw lots and lots of caribou. I had a few opportunities to stalk and two times where I had a caribou in the crosshairs, safety off and my finger on the trigger. But I didn't fire any shots. I was a bit hesitant with the distance of the pack out on some of the opportunities and wasn't able to commit to anything. I was hoping we'd see something on our float out, but the one opportunity quickly fizzled out. We did enjoy ourselves though seeing all the caribou, plenty of sheep on the mountains above, a variety of birds, about a half dozen moose, a porcupine and a sow grizzly with 3 cubs(!!!). Not to mention the ample blueberries. It was more or less an Alaskan safari.
Last weekend we butchered the first of 3 pigs. It went very well and we ended up with about 126 lbs of meat from her. I took away 70 lbs of that for our household and also all the excess fat. I was able to render the fat down and now have a mason jar full of lard. We are butchering the last 2 in about 3 weeks. I am expecting about another 130 lbs of meat and will make an effort to get more fat this time, so perhaps 2-3 more jars of lard. Total costs will end up being just a little bit below $2.80 per pound. 50% of the cost is the initial purchase price and another 40% is related to the specialized protein feed. It'd be nice if we lived in the Midwest or similar environment as I'd substitute the protein for acorns. At the moment I don't know what a possible local equivalent could be or an alternative for the future. Going forward, the next animals we will keep will be Mangalista pigs and/or Icelandic sheep. I don't think we'll try the Berkshires again and we will be a lot more selective about who we partner with.
Lard!
We were able to get a screaming deal on some massive windows. 7 7 foot by 4 foot triple pane opaque windows for $10/piece. We got a nice 3 X 4 sliding window and a 4 x 3 picture window thrown in as well for free. All because the owner "was tired of looking at them." Hot dog. We will use them to build a greenhouse next spring.
We've been able to knock out a ton of our projects around the house before winter hits. We did some serious organizing, cleaned up some brush, installed gutters, put in the grounding rod, started a retaining wall for the foundation, wired up an interior light, and a few smaller projects. I'm planning on starting on a woodshed tomorrow and we also plan on making our stairs more permanent prior to winter. I was able to plant seeds/transplant trees for 5 of my 6 "rows" in my food forest (or orchard as DF prefers to call it). We'll see what, if anything, comes up/survives.
I've gone hunting two more times in the past week. Once wandering around in the mountains last weekend with some friends looking for caribou. We saw a group of 3 far off, but otherwise not much. Today I went on a float with some of the same friends looking for moose. Pretty colors and a great day on the river, but no moose. I will be going again for 2-3 days on a float trip later this week for moose, then caribou a few days later, moose again the following weekend and then potentially caribou again....Not a whole lot of w*rk to be done so I'm going to enjoy my time out in the country. Trying to do it all before we get hit with our first round of snow.
DF's family is coming up this week. It'll be my first time meeting all of them. We will be doing some floating, visiting a remote cabin and I'll be taking some of them out on the moose hunt. We'll be having a big fire and grill out tomorrow night with a bunch of our friends to celebrate my soon-to-be-sister-in-law's birthday. They are urban people and it'll be the first time to AK for about half of them. It should be a fun week, hopefully they'll enjoy it.
My pack out
The next day, one of my sisters came up to visit us for a week. We took her visit as an opportunity to head back to the Arctic and back to the cabin where I used to live for the first time in about 3 years. We spread the drive out over 2 days, stopping the first night in an alpine area where we camped (my sister's first time) and picked blueberries. Blueberries were plentiful and we were able to get about 3 gallons in an hour and a half. We visited old friends and neighbors of mine, checked out my friend's dog team and his new puppies, hiked around the country, drove thru the mountains and ate more blueberries.
Cabin and the yard showing signs of neglect
Bloobs!
It was a great time and great to show DF where I used to live. She cried the first time she saw the cabin, imagining me living there alone in the past. It was definitely a lot different with someone else around this time and I experienced no feelings of desperation or despair. DF expressed a desire to live there and we are tentatively making plans to return there next year. The thought is that we can spend the warmer/sunnier 9 mo or so there and the other 3 at our current base or elsewhere. The owner of the place is still on board with us living there and told us to stay as much as we want (at no charge). I really appreciate his generosity. It's also difficult wanting to put too much work into the place or maintaining it without any equity or a rock solid guarantee though. I'm still thinking of how to navigate this.
Prominent local mountain
The most challenging aspect of the trip was dealing with my sister. DF and I got to experience all the joys and wonders of a 14 yo girl.
Animal: We are thinking we can do X, Y, and/or Z, does that sound good to you?
Sister: I don't know
A: Ok, is there anything you'd like to do while you're here?
S: I don't know.
A: Ok, please let us know if there's anything you'd like to do or if you don't like what we are doing.
S: ....(silence)
A:What were you reading last night?
S: The book I've been reading the whole time.
A: I forgot, could you remind me what it is? What's it about?
S: ..........It's complex.... It's like a book in a long series of books
A:........Oh, ok.
And more riveting conversation just like this for a whole week! It was a very difficult experience for both DF and I. When she boarded the plane to leave we were left thinking that she did not enjoy one single aspect of what we did. I laughed and was surprised when just a week or 2 ago some family members informed us that she hasn't shut up about the trip since getting home, bragging to her new HS friends about her new sister in law and her trip to Alaska. Teenagers are bizarre.
DF and I went on a hunting trip for caribou again about a week after my sister left. It was an abbreviated version of the backpacking/packrafting trip we did about the same time last year (viewtopic.php?p=225387#p225387). This time we brought a rifle and wandered along the high country of the Alaska Range before floating back to our starting point. We saw lots and lots of caribou. I had a few opportunities to stalk and two times where I had a caribou in the crosshairs, safety off and my finger on the trigger. But I didn't fire any shots. I was a bit hesitant with the distance of the pack out on some of the opportunities and wasn't able to commit to anything. I was hoping we'd see something on our float out, but the one opportunity quickly fizzled out. We did enjoy ourselves though seeing all the caribou, plenty of sheep on the mountains above, a variety of birds, about a half dozen moose, a porcupine and a sow grizzly with 3 cubs(!!!). Not to mention the ample blueberries. It was more or less an Alaskan safari.
Last weekend we butchered the first of 3 pigs. It went very well and we ended up with about 126 lbs of meat from her. I took away 70 lbs of that for our household and also all the excess fat. I was able to render the fat down and now have a mason jar full of lard. We are butchering the last 2 in about 3 weeks. I am expecting about another 130 lbs of meat and will make an effort to get more fat this time, so perhaps 2-3 more jars of lard. Total costs will end up being just a little bit below $2.80 per pound. 50% of the cost is the initial purchase price and another 40% is related to the specialized protein feed. It'd be nice if we lived in the Midwest or similar environment as I'd substitute the protein for acorns. At the moment I don't know what a possible local equivalent could be or an alternative for the future. Going forward, the next animals we will keep will be Mangalista pigs and/or Icelandic sheep. I don't think we'll try the Berkshires again and we will be a lot more selective about who we partner with.
Lard!
We were able to get a screaming deal on some massive windows. 7 7 foot by 4 foot triple pane opaque windows for $10/piece. We got a nice 3 X 4 sliding window and a 4 x 3 picture window thrown in as well for free. All because the owner "was tired of looking at them." Hot dog. We will use them to build a greenhouse next spring.
We've been able to knock out a ton of our projects around the house before winter hits. We did some serious organizing, cleaned up some brush, installed gutters, put in the grounding rod, started a retaining wall for the foundation, wired up an interior light, and a few smaller projects. I'm planning on starting on a woodshed tomorrow and we also plan on making our stairs more permanent prior to winter. I was able to plant seeds/transplant trees for 5 of my 6 "rows" in my food forest (or orchard as DF prefers to call it). We'll see what, if anything, comes up/survives.
I've gone hunting two more times in the past week. Once wandering around in the mountains last weekend with some friends looking for caribou. We saw a group of 3 far off, but otherwise not much. Today I went on a float with some of the same friends looking for moose. Pretty colors and a great day on the river, but no moose. I will be going again for 2-3 days on a float trip later this week for moose, then caribou a few days later, moose again the following weekend and then potentially caribou again....Not a whole lot of w*rk to be done so I'm going to enjoy my time out in the country. Trying to do it all before we get hit with our first round of snow.
DF's family is coming up this week. It'll be my first time meeting all of them. We will be doing some floating, visiting a remote cabin and I'll be taking some of them out on the moose hunt. We'll be having a big fire and grill out tomorrow night with a bunch of our friends to celebrate my soon-to-be-sister-in-law's birthday. They are urban people and it'll be the first time to AK for about half of them. It should be a fun week, hopefully they'll enjoy it.
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Frugalchicos
- Posts: 699
- Joined: Wed Apr 19, 2017 9:23 pm
Re: the animal's journal
As always, amazing pictures and update.
You are definitely squeezing all the good in life creating memories and experiences you will never regret. Definitely, an incredible way of living an alternative life successfully
I think you make anyone living in an urban setting and working traditional jobs wonder what the heck we are doing with our lives. Good for you and thanks for the inspiration
You are definitely squeezing all the good in life creating memories and experiences you will never regret. Definitely, an incredible way of living an alternative life successfully
I think you make anyone living in an urban setting and working traditional jobs wonder what the heck we are doing with our lives. Good for you and thanks for the inspiration
Re: the animal's journal
That trip will be with your sister for a lifetime. What a great thing to do for her.
Have you looked into offering people a taste of the Alaska wilderness, via a high touch individual experience? The northwestern US is loaded with tech workers aspiring to freedom, but trapped by their golden handcuffs. At least in writing, you easily cross the liberal elite cultural divide. I imagine that combination of skills puts you in small company.
As an aside - linking to your blog from here makes it trivial for a blog reader find your journal, by searching for back links. You might know and be okay with that, but if not, heads up. Currently, such a check yields one post from Ego, referencing it in 2014:
viewtopic.php?p=68247#p68247
Have you looked into offering people a taste of the Alaska wilderness, via a high touch individual experience? The northwestern US is loaded with tech workers aspiring to freedom, but trapped by their golden handcuffs. At least in writing, you easily cross the liberal elite cultural divide. I imagine that combination of skills puts you in small company.
As an aside - linking to your blog from here makes it trivial for a blog reader find your journal, by searching for back links. You might know and be okay with that, but if not, heads up. Currently, such a check yields one post from Ego, referencing it in 2014:
viewtopic.php?p=68247#p68247
Re: the animal's journal
Thanks for the update.
Some side thought:
You write well, your pictures are cool and the awesome nature does the rest.
I really think you could build a lucrative side business by chaperoning urban people around.
I know for sure one day I will get in touch with you and offer you money to tag along on this sort of stuff.
Some side thought:
You write well, your pictures are cool and the awesome nature does the rest.
I really think you could build a lucrative side business by chaperoning urban people around.
I know for sure one day I will get in touch with you and offer you money to tag along on this sort of stuff.
Re: the animal's journal
Thanks guys. That is a great idea and I have considered it but I'm not sure how I would structure it. What parts do you find most interesting and what would you want to do yourselves? I have noticed that people would much rather have a planned out tour rather than being given a "custom" option for them to figure out. I'm not sure how I would go about marketing it.
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Western Red Cedar
- Posts: 1521
- Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2020 2:15 pm
Re: the animal's journal
I think you could set up some pretty dynamic options as a packrafting, hunting, and/or fishing guide. I'd be really interested in any of those. You wouldn't need to worry as much about physical fitness with packrafting, as opposed to backpacking. But, you'd also have the option to do some cool hikes from a base camp.
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The experience with your sister made me laugh. It reminded me a lot of when I took my nephew out a few years ago on his first backpacking trip. I wasn't sure if he actually enjoyed the trip while in the backcountry. He was kind of quiet, the bugs were pretty bad, and he somehow stepped in a lake so had wet feet for the night. I heard from my sister a couple weeks later that it was one of his favorite experiences and he couldn't stop talking about it. Teenagers indeed
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The experience with your sister made me laugh. It reminded me a lot of when I took my nephew out a few years ago on his first backpacking trip. I wasn't sure if he actually enjoyed the trip while in the backcountry. He was kind of quiet, the bugs were pretty bad, and he somehow stepped in a lake so had wet feet for the night. I heard from my sister a couple weeks later that it was one of his favorite experiences and he couldn't stop talking about it. Teenagers indeed
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mountainFrugal
- Posts: 1335
- Joined: Fri May 07, 2021 2:26 pm
Re: the animal's journal
Sign me up for your wilderness camp too! It would be great to get back to Alaska. Your images are always stunning.
Re: the animal's journal
Thanks guys. Part of the difficulty I'm having envisioning something is that I don't think I'd be able to do anything regarding hunting/fishing. You need special licenses to be able to do that and at the moment it is not something I'm interested in pursuing. I think people would be able to come with on a hunt as long as I'm the one doing the shooting but I can't imagine that is too appealing to others. Perhaps something including some component of packrafting, hiking, remote cabins and/or some wilderness/homestead skills. I'll need to think on it more to come up with something that might seem worthwhile. I am reminded with each visitor that normal things for me are not the norm for many other people, so perhaps that is clouding my ability to envision it. Curse of knowledge and all that.
Re: the animal's journal
Think of a minimum viable product and put it out there. If someone bites, do it and then evaluate how you liked it. A MVP for this could be something like: you’ll stay in a tent (or that Scamp?) on my land and meet my pigs the first night, then we’ll do a two or three night backpack trip on this epic route. Then you leave. Basically a hipcamp on steroids…. You could even use Airbnb as a platform to handle payment and marketing and such (check out Airbnb “experiences”). No need to start off with your own website and Llc or whatever. Tiny upfront investment, and as long as a bear doesn’t eat your guests the worst case is you don’t like it and never do it again.
I feel pretty confident if you put up something like that, just a simple guided backpack trip, people will bite. No need to get fancy - simply backpacking Alaska is a fantasy for a ton of people, because most of us lower 48ers are intimidated by everything y’all got going on up there. You can add fancy stuff later if you like.
I feel pretty confident if you put up something like that, just a simple guided backpack trip, people will bite. No need to get fancy - simply backpacking Alaska is a fantasy for a ton of people, because most of us lower 48ers are intimidated by everything y’all got going on up there. You can add fancy stuff later if you like.
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white belt
- Posts: 1524
- Joined: Sat May 21, 2011 12:15 am
Re: the animal's journal
Another classic technique recommended in various entrepreneurial books is to place some advertisements for a few different versions of your product, then choose the one that generates the most traffic/interest. I've never attempted this in my own life so MMV.
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classical_Liberal
- Posts: 2283
- Joined: Sun Mar 20, 2016 6:05 am
Re: the animal's journal
wait, wait.. DF back in June? So sorry I missed that, congrats!
Re: the animal's journal
@AH & @WB- Thanks for the ideas. Airbnb experiences does seem like an easy way to try it out. I'll see about putting something up this winter for some type of tour this summer. I wonder if Airbnb lets me choose more than one ad/listing.
@CL- Thanks!
@Ego- That's incredible! I immediately showed it to DF and she had a similar reaction. We are going to do this this winter. I'm very excited. Thanks for sharing, I don't know why we didn't think of that.
@CL- Thanks!
@Ego- That's incredible! I immediately showed it to DF and she had a similar reaction. We are going to do this this winter. I'm very excited. Thanks for sharing, I don't know why we didn't think of that.
Re: the animal's journal
I thought the ice thing was cool but was actually thinking the center where the Ice Ball was held and Will Steger in general may be good models for the Animal Wilderness Skills Center.
https://stegercenter.org/
https://stegercenter.org/
Re: the animal's journal
That it definitely is! I know this isn't the first time that you've suggested something like this to me and this is a strong model that helps to shape that vision. I sent DF the link to their site and she was incredibly enthused. She read their whole site and started scheming up ways we could do something similar. I think we could have something similar up and running sometime within the next 5 years.
Re: the animal's journal
The last of our visitors for the year, DF’s family, came at the beginning of September. It was my first time meeting all of them. I really enjoyed them and we had a great time showing them around. They are definitely more urban people and as such we ended up doing some things that we normally wouldn’t do such as a helicopter ride out to a glacier and going to as many restaurants as DF and I had gone to in the past year. Otherwise, we were still able to take them out to a remote recreational cabin 7 miles off the road and they were able to see the aurora. They really enjoyed the trip and want to make coming to Alaska an annual occurrence.
View from a hike during their visit
I went moose hunting two more times in September. Once for two days with a friend and my soon to be brother in law and then for four days with a few friends later in the month. The first trip was to an area I hadn’t been to before, but was a spot that the guy I bought my land from goes to every year and has success. It didn’t go well. We were planning on floating out, but spent most of our time navigating innumerable number of log jams and wondering how he navigated with a canoe. We saw no moose and very little sign, leaving a day early to head home.
River which we hunted off of
The second trip was out with friends to the area where I got my first moose in 2017. We spent four days out there looking around the flats from hills above and from a boat on the water. There was a big bull we were watching for the first couple days that we weren’t able to go after right away due to some camp politics. On day 3, we finally decided to make a move. One of my friends who originally spotted it was going to approach from the other side of our vantage point, 1 mile away and come in on the bull. My other friends and I couldn’t make out what was happening and decided I should go in. 45 min or so later, I found myself within 40 yds of the bull in thick brush, being challenged by his raking antlers. My heart beat out of my chest for the next half hour or so as I tried to position myself in an open area for a shot. Some point during this time the bull took off with one of his cows, escaping all of us. And we went home empty handed.
This hunting season was a little disappointing. I went out 15 days in total from August 10-September 25th (bulk of hunting season) and only had success on opening day. I have learned a lot though and will continue to improve my odds of success the more time I spend out in the field. Since winter caribou season opened on Oct 27th, I have gone out for 6 days, with no luck so far. I was able to get within 100 yds of a group of 7 caribou, but messed up the opportunity. Winter caribou season will be open for a while though and I plan to go again. I can get 2 caribou myself and 1 more if DF is with me. There is a winter moose season open right now, I tried to go for that but wasn’t able to access the area due to deep snow. That still may be a possibility but it will likely close in a few weeks.
Our collection of animal skins continues to grow, with one caribou skin from the hunt in August and another that was scavenged on the side of the trail on our most recent cabin trip. We are up to 5 caribou skins, 1 whitetail and 2 bear. We still aim to live in a tipi or tipi like structure and will use the caribou skins for that purpose. It’ll be double layered in the winter, so we will still need a lot more.
We killed and processed the last 2 pigs on September 25th. It went smoothly for the most part and we ended up with 196 lbs total of pork for our share. Total cost for the whole project came out to be $2.55/lb. I was also able to render more lard and made roughly an additional 1.5 gallons worth. It’s very good and has a neutral taste. I use it in cooking almost everything.
We were able to fill a 5 cu ft freezer entirely with the pork. It sits outside, unplugged.
A couple of our friends got married outside of town in early October. We decided to extend the trip and go to a public use cabin in the area. Our first of the winter. We were caught off guard with the snow, and left our skis at home. The trail was frozen though and without much snow , we travelled the 3 miles to the cabin with ease. We spent the evening reading, carving a spoon, playing cards and following my dog’s tracks in the snow for ~2 hours in the dark, trying to find him after he decided to run away exploring at sunset.
Not really much on the construction front lately. We were able to get a bunch of trim off Craigslist for $70, which was a win. I finally put up a pull up bar on the ceiling in the house and have been putting that to use. But the biggest project was building a woodshed. One of my friends/neighbors has a saw mill and has a ton of “scrap” wood. I was able to use that almost exclusively to build the woodshed. I really enjoyed that and found the project very fulfilling. This project also forced me to learn how to construct and set rafters. In September, I was able to use some of the live edge scrap material to build a dog house for my dog, that was also enjoyable. The ground has been frozen for a few weeks now though and temperatures are now down to 0F during the day and below 0 at night, so not much will be happening on the building front outdoors until the spring. We will be looking to extend our porch, that we will use as a gym and an outdoor kitchen. We also are considering adding a small addition (10’x 8’) for a bedroom.
Our garden harvest was downright pitiful. We were able to harvest about 5% of our expected output. I was hoping the potatoes would come through but we only ended up harvesting about 30lbs worth, from 85 whole seed potatoes. Nothing died, but nothing really had strong growth spurts either. Our thoughts are not enough dirt, not enough soil amendments and perhaps too early in the hugelkultr process. I added some dirt to the beds and will do more in the spring along with amendments. Maybe the composting of the downed material beneath the soil will begin to accelerate next year and allow us to have more success. Who knows. At the very least, we did have success in providing plenty of homes for the neighborhood voles.
This cow and calf probably harvested just as much out of our garden post season as we did during the season.
DF is extremely skilled with a chainsaw, and loves using one any chance she can. Late September she offered a 2 day introductory course on our property for women @$200 a pop. She had 8 people total and it was a big success. It was very fulfilling for her and she will be offering more classes starting in the spring. Her current job is not ideal. She works 12 hr night shifts the majority of the time with almost nothing to do during the shift. So she spends her time doing various personal projects, cooking, exercising, reading etc. She interviewed for what was her dream job recently but unfortunately it didn’t work out. I’m trying to help her scheme up new ideas, but we may be stuck with the current situation for a little bit. She is also a very talented baker and is planning on opening her own mobile panderia. I think the future is bright, just needs a little ironing out.
I’ve made a deliberate effort to reduce my screen time recently. The only social media I frequent regularly is Twitter. For the past 6 months or so I’ve observed somewhat of a digital sabbath and have refrained from using it on the weekends. We were gone for 4 days on our last cabin trip and I’ve decided to extend it beyond then. I’m at a week so far without looking at it and I will continue for who knows how long. I find it a very neutral activity at best and extremely shallow and pointless when I frequent it after a period of sustained absence.
I am trying to develop more analog hobbies beyond reading. Construction and building projects have been an easy way of achieving that. Writing (although on a computer) is similar and I was able to do a good bit last month, writing 20+ posts for my blog. DF got me a spoon carving kit in the spring and I have finally put that to use, carving my first spoon. I’m planning on carving another spoon or spatula for my mom for Christmas. I’d like to get into sewing, particularly with furs. I just passed the 1 year mark of taking Spanish lessons. I still really enjoy my teacher and have been still taking lessons 3 times a week.
The spoon as of a few weeks ago
We went out to another cabin last weekend 14 miles off the road. Snow conditions were really poor on the way out, so we ended up hiking in with our skis on our backs, walking on frozen tussocks and small continuous patches of snow. Our original plan was to do a ~75 mile loop, connecting 3 other cabins, but with poor trail conditions we ended up staying put at the first cabin for four days. Life is even simpler out there, I collected some wood from a nearby burn, to add to what we brought in and we chopped a hole in the ice in the lake in front of the cabin to get our water. I went out a few times each day up the trail, looking for caribou. Not much life in this area though, minimal vegetation and plenty of wind. A hungry country. I read to DF, we played cards, admired the night sky and the surrounding landscape. Something clicked for DF on this trip and she is absolutely in love with going to these remote places now. Initially, although she enjoyed it, she wondered what was the point of going to a dry cabin, that is far more remote and with less services, when we live in a dry cabin ourselves. Anyways, we are looking to move off the road system sometime in the next 5 years or so. We’ll have to agree on a place first, DF prefers further south on the coast, while I’d prefer somewhere north near the Arctic. Perhaps we’ll compromise and pick something halfway.
View from a hike during their visit
I went moose hunting two more times in September. Once for two days with a friend and my soon to be brother in law and then for four days with a few friends later in the month. The first trip was to an area I hadn’t been to before, but was a spot that the guy I bought my land from goes to every year and has success. It didn’t go well. We were planning on floating out, but spent most of our time navigating innumerable number of log jams and wondering how he navigated with a canoe. We saw no moose and very little sign, leaving a day early to head home.
River which we hunted off of
The second trip was out with friends to the area where I got my first moose in 2017. We spent four days out there looking around the flats from hills above and from a boat on the water. There was a big bull we were watching for the first couple days that we weren’t able to go after right away due to some camp politics. On day 3, we finally decided to make a move. One of my friends who originally spotted it was going to approach from the other side of our vantage point, 1 mile away and come in on the bull. My other friends and I couldn’t make out what was happening and decided I should go in. 45 min or so later, I found myself within 40 yds of the bull in thick brush, being challenged by his raking antlers. My heart beat out of my chest for the next half hour or so as I tried to position myself in an open area for a shot. Some point during this time the bull took off with one of his cows, escaping all of us. And we went home empty handed.
This hunting season was a little disappointing. I went out 15 days in total from August 10-September 25th (bulk of hunting season) and only had success on opening day. I have learned a lot though and will continue to improve my odds of success the more time I spend out in the field. Since winter caribou season opened on Oct 27th, I have gone out for 6 days, with no luck so far. I was able to get within 100 yds of a group of 7 caribou, but messed up the opportunity. Winter caribou season will be open for a while though and I plan to go again. I can get 2 caribou myself and 1 more if DF is with me. There is a winter moose season open right now, I tried to go for that but wasn’t able to access the area due to deep snow. That still may be a possibility but it will likely close in a few weeks.
Our collection of animal skins continues to grow, with one caribou skin from the hunt in August and another that was scavenged on the side of the trail on our most recent cabin trip. We are up to 5 caribou skins, 1 whitetail and 2 bear. We still aim to live in a tipi or tipi like structure and will use the caribou skins for that purpose. It’ll be double layered in the winter, so we will still need a lot more.
We killed and processed the last 2 pigs on September 25th. It went smoothly for the most part and we ended up with 196 lbs total of pork for our share. Total cost for the whole project came out to be $2.55/lb. I was also able to render more lard and made roughly an additional 1.5 gallons worth. It’s very good and has a neutral taste. I use it in cooking almost everything.
We were able to fill a 5 cu ft freezer entirely with the pork. It sits outside, unplugged.
A couple of our friends got married outside of town in early October. We decided to extend the trip and go to a public use cabin in the area. Our first of the winter. We were caught off guard with the snow, and left our skis at home. The trail was frozen though and without much snow , we travelled the 3 miles to the cabin with ease. We spent the evening reading, carving a spoon, playing cards and following my dog’s tracks in the snow for ~2 hours in the dark, trying to find him after he decided to run away exploring at sunset.
Not really much on the construction front lately. We were able to get a bunch of trim off Craigslist for $70, which was a win. I finally put up a pull up bar on the ceiling in the house and have been putting that to use. But the biggest project was building a woodshed. One of my friends/neighbors has a saw mill and has a ton of “scrap” wood. I was able to use that almost exclusively to build the woodshed. I really enjoyed that and found the project very fulfilling. This project also forced me to learn how to construct and set rafters. In September, I was able to use some of the live edge scrap material to build a dog house for my dog, that was also enjoyable. The ground has been frozen for a few weeks now though and temperatures are now down to 0F during the day and below 0 at night, so not much will be happening on the building front outdoors until the spring. We will be looking to extend our porch, that we will use as a gym and an outdoor kitchen. We also are considering adding a small addition (10’x 8’) for a bedroom.
Our garden harvest was downright pitiful. We were able to harvest about 5% of our expected output. I was hoping the potatoes would come through but we only ended up harvesting about 30lbs worth, from 85 whole seed potatoes. Nothing died, but nothing really had strong growth spurts either. Our thoughts are not enough dirt, not enough soil amendments and perhaps too early in the hugelkultr process. I added some dirt to the beds and will do more in the spring along with amendments. Maybe the composting of the downed material beneath the soil will begin to accelerate next year and allow us to have more success. Who knows. At the very least, we did have success in providing plenty of homes for the neighborhood voles.
This cow and calf probably harvested just as much out of our garden post season as we did during the season.
DF is extremely skilled with a chainsaw, and loves using one any chance she can. Late September she offered a 2 day introductory course on our property for women @$200 a pop. She had 8 people total and it was a big success. It was very fulfilling for her and she will be offering more classes starting in the spring. Her current job is not ideal. She works 12 hr night shifts the majority of the time with almost nothing to do during the shift. So she spends her time doing various personal projects, cooking, exercising, reading etc. She interviewed for what was her dream job recently but unfortunately it didn’t work out. I’m trying to help her scheme up new ideas, but we may be stuck with the current situation for a little bit. She is also a very talented baker and is planning on opening her own mobile panderia. I think the future is bright, just needs a little ironing out.
I’ve made a deliberate effort to reduce my screen time recently. The only social media I frequent regularly is Twitter. For the past 6 months or so I’ve observed somewhat of a digital sabbath and have refrained from using it on the weekends. We were gone for 4 days on our last cabin trip and I’ve decided to extend it beyond then. I’m at a week so far without looking at it and I will continue for who knows how long. I find it a very neutral activity at best and extremely shallow and pointless when I frequent it after a period of sustained absence.
I am trying to develop more analog hobbies beyond reading. Construction and building projects have been an easy way of achieving that. Writing (although on a computer) is similar and I was able to do a good bit last month, writing 20+ posts for my blog. DF got me a spoon carving kit in the spring and I have finally put that to use, carving my first spoon. I’m planning on carving another spoon or spatula for my mom for Christmas. I’d like to get into sewing, particularly with furs. I just passed the 1 year mark of taking Spanish lessons. I still really enjoy my teacher and have been still taking lessons 3 times a week.
The spoon as of a few weeks ago
We went out to another cabin last weekend 14 miles off the road. Snow conditions were really poor on the way out, so we ended up hiking in with our skis on our backs, walking on frozen tussocks and small continuous patches of snow. Our original plan was to do a ~75 mile loop, connecting 3 other cabins, but with poor trail conditions we ended up staying put at the first cabin for four days. Life is even simpler out there, I collected some wood from a nearby burn, to add to what we brought in and we chopped a hole in the ice in the lake in front of the cabin to get our water. I went out a few times each day up the trail, looking for caribou. Not much life in this area though, minimal vegetation and plenty of wind. A hungry country. I read to DF, we played cards, admired the night sky and the surrounding landscape. Something clicked for DF on this trip and she is absolutely in love with going to these remote places now. Initially, although she enjoyed it, she wondered what was the point of going to a dry cabin, that is far more remote and with less services, when we live in a dry cabin ourselves. Anyways, we are looking to move off the road system sometime in the next 5 years or so. We’ll have to agree on a place first, DF prefers further south on the coast, while I’d prefer somewhere north near the Arctic. Perhaps we’ll compromise and pick something halfway.
Re: the animal's journal
Loved reading that update, so many interesting/fun activities in your life!