The view from the outhouse
Saturday February 27
Hello everyone from Wolf Lake. I’ll pick up with the adventure on Thursday February 18. The Feb. 27 date listed at the top of the view is the date that I get around to thinking up enough words to report on the adventure.
Thursday 18th
Kari, the boys, and I are going to join Myra and Roger for the trip to the landing and home. We are staying a few days to get as many of our Dr. appointments out out of the way. Nothing really wrong just checkups, ears, eyes, teeth. Well I did wake up with a sore toe again, but managed to get my boot on. Myra is going to stay a couple days and do some shopping to replenish their supplies. The run in was really pleasant, good light, smooth trail, and fairly warm. About 20 degrees. Roger is heading back home with two sleds of freight. I stopped at All Steel on the way home to let my color co-ordinator sign off on the choice before they started rolling the metal.
Since we don’t spend much time at the house, the cupboards are bare. My foot is hurting pretty good, but we decided to go to the Diner in Palmer to eat. I have an appointment with my regular Dr. on Wed. to get it checked. We passed an urgent care place and I told them to drop me off and go on and eat. The Doctor confirmed Kari and Dr. Bubba’s diagnosis from the internet. Good to have a second opinion. Gout again. He gave me a prescription for some pills and I was on my way.
Friday 19th
My foot is better, I can at least get my shoe on. Audiologist appointment first thing this morning, told me that I can’t hear. We had a good discussion about cochlear implants, but I’m not at the point that I need them yet. Many things I didn’t know about them. Once you do it you can’t go back. Your outer and middle ears basically don’t do anything anymore. They drill a hole in your skull and insert a wire with 22 transmitters in your cochlea. This replaces the tens of thousands of hairs that amplify the sounds and stimulate the nerve endings. It will sound tinny…22 frequencies compared to thousands. I asked about music, she said if it was a song that you had already heard it would sound ok because your brain would remember and fill in the gaps. If you hadn’t heard it before it wouldn’t sound good at all. She also said it was about a one year process to get acclimated to them. I’ll be better about wearing my earplugs and try to keep what I have left for as long as I can. Now every other ad on FB is about cochlear implants.
Back to All Steel to confirm and pay for the metal roofing. They will produce it in about 10 days. They are giving me some pallets to stack plywood on, in my wisdom I drove Kari’s car this morning so I need to come back before 4 with my truck. On to the DMV to get trailer plates for the trailer in Indiana after a low pass at Krispy Kreme. Now back to All Steel and on to the landing to get my sled loaded with plywood for a run to the cabin tomorrow. I feel like we are getting things done, I just don’t know what.
Saturday 20th
Roger is on the way in. It is cold so he is waiting a bit to depart. Myra and I are going to join him for an afternoon departure. On the way to the landing I spotted a hammer….pretty good earthquake going right now…I would give it a five. Shook pretty long. I could feel it start with a slow shake in the concrete floor then it built a bit and the walls started to shake before it settled back down. (As I am writing Sat 27th 10:00am. Facebook will come alive in a minute with all the shakes posts.) I can’t afford another damage assessment for our condo. 33 miles away 20 miles deep 5.3. Back to the story. It is a good looking hammer right in the middle of my lane. I’m thinking… I should go back and get it…no not worth it…someone could run over it and fly up and hit or kill somebody. Just what I want to read about on FB. So I turned around and went back to pick it up. Pretty good DeWalt hammer. Just a little road rash on the
handle. I made it to the landing abut 5 minutes after Roger arrived. He has 2 sleds of 2x6s today. Good run today it is colder and all the overflow has frozen back up. When we got to Roger’s place he dropped his sleds and went ahead of me to Silty Slough in case he needed to break a trail up the ramp and on to the cabin. He helped me unload the plywood. Thanks buddy, see you tomorrow for the run back to the landing. I have some cabin chores to do, swap some propane bottles, dry and wind up my ratchet steps from today, and find a bite to eat.
Sunday 21st
Roger and I planned to leave by 10:00. I woke up about 6. Stripped the bed to bring home for the laundry, cooked some breakfast, and did the dishes. I’m on a roll, outside I started my machine to warm it up, loaded my empty propane bottles, pumped generator fuel, and added fuel to the snow machine. Everything is ready so I shut the machine off to go in and suit up. Time to leave, hit the key to start my machine, just cranks, no start. I flipped the kill switch both ways to try, no start. I dumped in a can of Heat. Called Roger, he is on his way over. Drives up hits the key cranks right up. He said the kill switch was off, but I had already tried it both ways. I think it was the heat, or maybe I just wasn’t holding my mouth right. Now we are headed for the landing. Another good run, just a little over two hours. I volunteered to help him get loaded up. 27 rusty heavy steel grates that they put down to land airplanes on. They were in the back of his parking spot covered with a couple feet of snow. By the time I had my sled and machine put away he had a path dug to them about 40 feet from the sleds. We dug the matts out and started loading. A couple breaks and we were finished and the load strapped down. Roger asked if I wanted to load my sled for the next trip, about 1600 pounds of sheetrock and plywood. Are you kidding? I’m on my way to the ER now. Really it wasn’t that bad. Now back home, Kari wants to go to Lowe’s to pick out the bathroom fixtures.
Monday February 22
We both had eye exams at noon. Good news neither of us need new glasses. I’m moving closer to cataract surgery in my left eye. Back to Lowe’s to finalize our bathrooms. Got the propane tanks filled so we might as well go back to the landing and get the sleds loaded for our planned trip Wednesday. We need to get the propane out of the truck to make room for the load of supplies going up on Wed morning.
Tuesday 23
Its a dentist appointment at noon then to Costco to shop and get my hearing aids tweaked up a bit. We were just about halfway to Anchorage when All Steel called wondering if I had a trailer to put my metal on. I wasn’t planning on it this week, but a quick text to Jack Jones and I had one lined up. As usual we had the wrong vehicle just to stop by on the way home and pick it up. Guess we aren’t going to the cabin tomorrow.
Wednesday 24
Kari and I pretty much have the windows decided on so I went to Builders Choice first thing to get a quote. They actually came in under what I expected them to cost. Kari and I headed for Chugiak to pick up the trailer. I called All Steel and they were rolling our metal. I can pick it up by 3 o’clock. Good deal better sooner than later. I don’t know how long the trail is going to hold up for hauling this year. The only constant is that it is sure to be different every year.
I figured that I better get the plans for Spruce Manor out of my head and onto paper so other people can see them. I am a knee high at the Autodesk Fusion 360 program that I use to make 3D drawings for printing. I figure that some of the knowledge from that may transfer to AutoCAD LT to make the 2D drawings that I need. So far the only common thing is my sign in at Autodesk. This program has me down on the floor by the throat. After half a day I’m able to draw a rectangle the size I want and dimension it. I’ve done online tutorials and watched endless videos trying to comprehend, paper space, model space, layers. I just missed an old
style drafting table on marketplace for $50. I could have gotten a T-square, scale, pencils, and an architectural template and be finished by now.
Jack Jones texted about 10 o’clock. His boiler that I hauled up from Indiana and installed over ten years ago has a leak in the heat exchanger. I’ll have to find him one or a new boiler. I have a new boiler in the hangar that I planned to take to the cabin. We’ll see what happens in the morning when I call the distributor. Jack takes very good care of my vehicles and won’t take any money from me, so this is my chance to reciprocate. Maybe another day here at the hangar house.
Thursday 25
I woke up at o dark thirty. The people in the midwest are already open. There is a heat exchanger online for $2600 plus shipping. My distributor can get me one shipped direct from the factory for $1358. I’ll take it UPS overnight.
I went back to Builders Choice after Kari and I made a few changes and pulled the trigger on the window order. I think I’ll start using that term more now just to aggravate the liberal “President by cheating Biden” supporters. Pull the trigger. How does it feel when you pull the trigger at the gas pump? Wait until they get into your 401k you morons.
Friday 26
I had a visit with the dermatologist at 9:00 am. He froze some spots on my head. I think next time I’ll just ride to the cabin without my helmet and freeze them off myself. He said one more visit and I’ll be good to go. Today is the day to get back to the cabin. When I got home we loaded the truck with the supplies and the boys and headed for the landing. We pulled into the driveway and got stuck in the snow. I broke my rule about driving in 2 wheel drive until I get stuck then using 4 wheel drive to get out. This time I was in 4 wheel drive when I pulled in. I don’t have a 6 wheel drive setting to get me out, so a little shoveling and a pull with my snow machine did the trick. It is snowing harder now, not much traffic at the landing, light is flat, getting dark soon. The little man on my shoulder is saying bag it for today, so we headed back home.
I keep hearing music in my head. We got to get out of this place, if it’s the last thing we ever do. I need to turn it up a little so I can hear it over my ringing ears.
If you are ever up at mile 54 of the Yentna River stop in. Like Homer, Alaska’s Tom Bodett says for Motel 6. We’ll leave the outhouse light on for you.
Stay safe and healthy, my friends. Thank you Lord for keeping us safe. I’ll be in touch.
Blue skies!!!
The View from the Outhouse 