The view from the outhouse
Thursday October 21, 2021
Hello from Silty Slough. Several days of rain ended this afternoon. The sun rose at 9:09 and set at 6:30. Nine hours and twenty one minutes of daylight. Living the dream of free solar electricity is drifting away for now until February or March. So now we mostly rely on the diesel generator, at how much a gallon Joe? I’m amazed at how the sun shines on these 8 panels that are about the size of a door. They make electricity and it goes down wires inside a pipe to a gizmo in the shop that puts it into a battery bank. Then it comes back out and through another gizmo, along some wires upstairs to the toaster where it is turned into enough heat to burn my bagel. The temp was 30 degrees this morning and it finally warmed up to 37. Skies are clear now. Still no snow and the river is extremely low. Since the last post we had a bit of good weather and we’re able to continue working on the addition to the asylum.
Thursday October 7
I needed 3 more rolls of bituthane roofing material so I had our son Ben pick it up and take it to Anchorage to come out to Skwentna on the mail plane today. It rained most of the day with low clouds, so no mail plane. With the rain there is no work on the project.
Friday October 8
The mail plane ran late in the afternoon and brought the bituthane and glow plugs for the generator. We didn’t make it to the post office today so now it will be Tuesday before we can get our treasures.
Saturday October 9
Rain today so I may not do much. Actually I probably won’t do anything. It would be a good time to update my to do list.
Sunday October 10
Weather is good so Roger and Cory made it today. We put the Tyvek on the second story walls and installed the windows in between rain showers.
Monday October 11
It is raining again, maybe I should think about turning the addition into an ark. This is Columbus Day or Indigenous People’s day today for all you woke morons. All of you want to delete or change history. I just hope I’m around long enough to delete everything about Joe and the Ho’s train wreck of an administration. I dug out two stumps. Kari and I swept out the addition so it would dry out before we are able to work again.
Tuesday October 12
Ben arrived by airplane today. They landed in the slough in the afternoon. Roger and Cory made a run to the post office and dropped the mail off to us on the island. I changed the glow plugs in the diesel generator. Hopefully that will cure the slow starting problem. Usually it fails to auto start in the middle of the night so I have a few trips dressed in my underwear and a headlamp under my belt… that is if I had a belt.
Wednesday October 13
Today the crew got the sub facia and purlins on the east side as far as we could go toward the existing cabin.
Thursday October 14
I cut 24 rafters for the west side while the crew completed all of the 1” over the deck and most of addition. Then they covered with bututhane. We are ready to set the rafters tomorrow.
Friday October 15
The crew set the rafters on the west side as far as we had the 1” lumber down. For the past week or more Roger and Cory still have been having a terrible time getting here in the boat. Boats don’t do well in below freezing temperatures.
Saturday October 16
Today it is cold, 25 degrees, the sun came out and it warmed up a bit in the afternoon. I cut the boards for Ben and Cory to put up the sub facia and purlins on the west side. Kari and Roger milled beams that we need for the area over the existing cabin. There was a pumpkin drop at the Skwentna airport and we got a mini air show when about a dozen planes flew by just above the river. One landed in the slough and a couple made touch and goes on the sandbar across the river. Roger and Ben planed the beams we need for tomorrow while Cory and I set the bathroom window in place.
Sunday October 17
This is our last day to work with a full crew.
We set the last two 6 x 6 rafters over the existing cabin and added another 3’ of 1” and bituthane. Then we built a temporary roof over the existing cabin until we can take part of the roof off in the spring and tie everything together.
Monday October 18
28 degrees sunny this morning, it warmed up to 41 later. Cory is taking the day off. Roger came by in the afternoon to get things picked up and buttoned up. He, Ben, and I patched the roof around the beams as best we could. Kari was cleaning up and arranging the lumber we will need if we can work any inside during the winter. The plane picked up Ben and grand dog Leo at 3:30 while Roger made one more trip to the post office.
Still no snow and no ice chunks in the river, but it won’t be long.
Tuesday October 19
Kari and I took down the down shelter where we planed the lumber and cleaned up a dump truck load of shavings and sawdust from the planing. Kari secured the tarps on the lumber piles so the stay covered for the winter.
Wednesday October 20
The generator is still failing to autostart every time it needs to. Time to do some cabin chores. Fill the batteries with distilled water. Check the specific gravity of the acid in each cell. I was afraid one cell was bad but they all checked within reason. I found a couple loose wires in the glow plug circuit, so I hope that fixes the auto start problem. Kari is doing laundry so I will give the batteries a hot equalizing charge for a few hours when she is finished.
I just had a great idea. I want to make some whiskey so I need a still. We also use quite a bit of distilled water for the batteries and my CPAP. As a matter of fact we are low on our supply right now. If I had a still we could distill our own. It is about a dollar a gallon in town, so with the rising cost of propane..”Let’s go Brandon”…I think I can distill my own for maybe $2 a gallon. I’ll have to get Mayor Cooper right on this good government program. We can say we are producing ethanol for fuel and get a grant. They don’t know we can’t grow corn in Alaska.
Thursday October 21. Snow was forecast most of the day but it didn’t happen just light rain and 37 degrees. I did nothing, just write this post. Tomorrow we will get busy on the to do list if I get a “Round Tuit”
Like my friend BobbyRay Howard says “It isn’t worth doing if you can’t put it off until tomorrow.”
Stay safe and healthy my friends.
Thank you Lord for watching over us.
I’ll be in touch.
Blue skies!!!
The View from the Outhouse 