The View from the Outhouse.
Saturday April 30, 2022.
Hello from Silty Slough. It has been 4 months since my last post. Several readers have sent messages asking where we have been and if everything is ok. Kari, the dogs, cats, and I are doing just fine.
Someone started a rumor that the boys and I cut down some black spruce trees. The BLM, Antifa, and a few tree hugger groups have been after us. So Mayor Cooper, Teddy and I have been laying low, spending a lot of time in the root cellar bunker. We didn’t cut any black spruce because they won’t work for us. We only mill white spruce that have been killed because the tree huggers squeezed the life out of them. I guess that makes us racist or something. Cooper thinks that since Elon bought Twitter with the money he made from selling electric cars to mostly liberalites it may be safe for us to surface again. Mayor Cooper was sort of waiting for Brandon’s disinformation officer Jen Psaki to leave the White House so he could hire her to put a different spin on our excuse for not posting the view. Coop thinks she is the very best spinner. Teddy doesn’t care as long as he has food and someone to lick on. The cats are Democrats so they don’t count.
Anyway on to the blow by blow, no pun intended toward Kamala.
Our friend Jess and our grandson Thor were out for Christmas. We all went to the Christmas Eve get together at Bentalit Lodge for a great meal and visit with neighbors. Christmas Day Kari and Jess cooked a wonderful prime rib dinner. Cory, Roger, and Myra joined us for the festivities. Jess stayed another day or so and the flew back home from Silty Slough International. With the help of Cory and Roger we managed to get Thor’s 1978 Arctic Cat Lynx snow machine going. More parts arrived in the mail and the new windshield set it all off. Thor can terrorize the neighborhood trails now.
Thor has to be back in school on Jan 3rd so he and I made our first trip of the winter to the landing on the snow machines on New Years Day. I think I made my last trip out here in the boat on Sept 22nd. About 100 days straight at the cabin. Roger went with us because he didn’t want us to make the trip alone. I don’t think the trail was marked yet but we know the way. It was warm and the wind was blowing about 30 with higher gusts. The trip was pretty good, but the wind was blowing a lot of pieces of the crusted snow. Roger got cut by one when it hit him on the way back home.
At the landing we got the truck out of our stall and put the snow machines away while Roger refueled his machine for his trip back home. I left the truck running and I guess in reverse and jumped out to fold the mirrors back out. I pulled Thor’s too far and when I pushed it back it was just enough to get the truck moving slowly backwards in the snow. I was hanging onto the mirror and yelling for Thor to hit the brake. He couldn’t see and hit the gas instead. I’m yelling NO, turn the key off. Finally things are back under control. Another cats-ass-trophy narrowly averted. Now to sneak around the corner to make sure Roger didn’t see any of this. All clear.
The wind is really blowing now for the drive home. When we got to Wasilla the traffic lights were out and it was pretty dark. Thor says Boompa, that’s what he calls me for some strange reason, we may not have any electricity at home. Hadn’t thought about that yet. So it’s cabin generators 3 home 0. When we got there the garage door opened so everything was ok. Wind is really blowing now I think about 50 or more. Lots of limbs down. Most of the snow has blown away, I don’t know where but it is gone. There is no food in the house, haven’t been here for a long time. Thor and I decide to brave the elements again and head to Palmer to find something to eat. I found where a lot of the snow went, drifted in the road to Palmer. It is blowing harder now, down to one lane in spots, whiteout in other spots. Not many people out but a few headlights can be seen. The Sunrise Grill is open so we got some food. We went back outside and I thought we were going to blow away on the slick streets before we could make it to the truck. Once inside I checked the Palmer aviation weather, gusting to 76 knots. Add 15 percent and that will give you miles per hour. Lucky we made it to the truck between gusts.
Sunday Jan 2
It is still windy. The wind is on again off again for the next few days. I’m in no hurry to head back to the cabin. There are semi trucks blown over by the highway and at one point the wind was measured at 120 knots just as the anemometer was blown away at the Palmer airport. Airplanes were blowing all over the place and they were asking for anyone with a heavy truck to bring it to tie them down to. At one point I was worried about the garage door blowing out of the opening.
Cory and Brandi stopped by and brought us a root beer float from KFC/A&W. Later Ben and Jenny stopped by to pick up Thor and also brought root beer floats. A couple hours later I read on the internet that the whole west wall of KFC blew over and they were shut down. Must have happened just after we got the last floats. Glad I had two.
Sunday January 9
I joined up with Roger or Cory to haul a load to the cabin. Kari and I need a lot of supplies for the building along with fuel and food items for the next year. I estimate at least 15 sled loads. We haul everything that we can that is heavy and has a long shelf life during the winter. Dog food, kitty litter, distilled water, margaritas, beer, canned goods, etc. I think I hauled fuel this time. We are out of gasoline and I dropped the three barrels so I could head back to town in the morning with empty propane bottles.
I’m going to stay in town for a few days and gather up more things to haul out to the cabin. I have a Doctors appointment on the 13th.
January 14, 2022
Ben and I met Jess and Steve Gahan at the landing for a trek to the cabin for the weekend. Ben and I are each pulling a load. As I remember it was a nice uneventful trip.
January 17, 2022
We had a good time over the weekend with Ben, Steve,and Jess. I think it was bitter cold yesterday so we delayed the trip back in until today. We took a load of trash to drop at the landfill along with empty fuel barrels. You can’t make/spend any money unless you are loaded both ways.
January 18
I headed back to Silty Slough with a load of fuel. Somewhere in here our friend Dave Reed joined in for a couple trips hauling fuel with us. This really helped out. One trip with Cory, Dave, and I was forever long. Cory was hauling a new side by side that hung over the sides of the sled and was a bit top heavy. Dave and I were hauling 3 barrels of fuel each. About at mile 21 on the trail it was dark and Cory came to a climb up on a sandbar that fell off to the left. About a par 4. It looked like for sure his sled was going to roll but he made it. I let off watching him and didn’t have enough steam up to make it and fell off to the left into deep snow with my load. It didn’t roll but the sled was stuck. I unhooked my machine and rode it out. Cory and Dave hooked to the back of the sled and drug it out. We got all hooked back up and underway again in less than 30 minutes. I think we would still be there if Cory’s sled had rolled.
January 20, 2022
I rested a day and then headed back in for a Dr appointment on the 24th and to pick up our friend and part time neighbor Steve Butts at the airport. My Dr appointment was to get the process started to get my FAA medical back and get started on another exciting adventure. More about that at a later date. As Jen would say I’ll circle back to that. It is always good to see Steve, I can’t remember where we ate but I’m sure it was good. We always eat good.
January 25, 2022
Eye appointment today for new glasses so I can pass my medical exam. Optometrist said I have cataracts, I knew it was coming, I thought about it a couple minutes and said let’s do it. So she referred me to Ophthalmic Associates in Anchorage for surgery.
January 29, 2022
Steve had some things to take care of and we made several trips to the landing hauling fuel and propane to be loaded and ready to depart on Saturday. We also did some work on his snow machine. I went shopping for a cheesecake to take out for Kari’s birthday on Sunday and picked the nicest one in the case at Three Bears.
Saturday morning Steve and I head out. It was another good trip. Didn’t get hurt, break anything, or get stuck.
Sunday January 30, 2022
It’s Kari’s birthday. We had a good meal and some refreshments, then it was time for the cheesecake. I had carefully packed it and it made the trip in great shape. I opened it up and started to cut it. It wasn’t a cheesecake at all. It was a white cake with white frosting. It just so happens that my favorite is white cake with white frosting. This really looks bad, but it was really a mistake. The other time I screwed up the cake was when the bakery put “Karen” on the cake instead of “Kari”. I can definitely tell you she is no Karen.
That about does it for January. It’s good to be back. I’ll still keep Cooper and Teddy watching for the BLM or any tree huggers.
Thank you Lord for watching out for us!!
From the Silty Slough, take care, stay safe, and healthy.
I’ll be in touch
Blue skies!!!
The View from the Outhouse 