The View from the Outhouse

Hello everyone from Silty Slough. Today is the first day of winter 7 below zero at noon on the shortest day of the year. The sun rose at 10:28 and will set at 3:37 5 hours and 9 minutes of daylight. Tomorrow we gain a few seconds and the salmon turn around and start swimming back toward Alaska.

After Thanksgiving Kari and I trimmed out the beadboard walls and ceiling in the master bathroom.

I plowed snow and did other cabin chores.

I figured flying was over until spring but received the welcomed call letting me know I had won an all expense paid trip to Kelowna, BC, overnight, then to Yellowknife, NT and back to Anchorage. The river is still not frozen good enough for travel so Chris from Pollux Aviation came out and picked me up in one of their R44 helicopters. Life isn’t all skittles and beer flying the jet. Up at 2:30 am to show up at 5 for a 7 o’clock departure. Short day though only a little over 3 hours to Kelowna, have lunch then take a nap before dinner. A lot of my job is efficiently wasting time between flights. Next day, non stop to Yellowknife. It is dark and cold when we arrive. Bought some fuel and the crew we are transporting arrives. They jump off their plane and hop into ours. Back home to Anchorage and in bed by 11pm. Could have been a little earlier but I made a stop at the Country Store for a scoop of butter pecan ice cream. I figured I owed it to myself. Day after tomorrow we do a quick day trip to Fairbanks. That should do it until spring.

I’m going to hang around Wolf Lake a few days. I need to dig the trailer out and go pick up my new snow machine in Anchorage. It has snowed a lot this year and my main chore is blowing snow followed by replacing shear pins in the blower. Got 3 at once when I picked up an 18” piece of 2 x 6 that the trailer tongue I plowed out was sitting on. The stupid operator makes the snow blowers life a hard one. A lot of things are like that with machines and life. I have a few more days to wait to fly back out to the cabin. Our grandson, Thor has a test on the 14th so I’m flying out on the 16th and he will fly back in to go to Hawaii to visit his family there for Christmas.

Kari has a list of food and supplies for the holidays along with all the packages that arrived in the mail. I’ll take the R-66 helicopter back out. It has a turbine engine that takes up less space and leaves room for a baggage compartment. I spent a couple days shopping at Costco and Fred Meyer. I hit the mother lode, Friday is 4x fuel points.

Saturday morning the 16th Jess and Steve Gahan showed up to help me pack everything and get it to the other side of the airport to Pollux. I think they just came over to make sure I was really leaving, since they have been feeding me almost every night. Chris did an amazing job packing the helicopter. You couldn’t have fit another popsicle stick in. Nice flight. Still quite a bit of open water on the rivers. Glad I took the helicopter. Kari and Thor were waiting when we arrived at the landing spot at the top of the ramp.

Chris left it running while we unloaded. Do you ever notice how much taller you feel when the rotor blades are spinning over your head? Everyone always ducks. We load Thor’s bags and give him a hug. He is off for Hawaii. Meanwhile in Silty Slough there are things to put away, snow to plow, things to repair.

While I was away they turned the Northern Lights on. Thor took pictures and wanted me to post some.

There is some traffic on the river now. Mostly iron doggers, no heavy freight haulers yet. Temps are colder now so it won’t be much longer until we can start hauling.

Jess is coming out for Christmas since Steve has to work. We have the R-66 loaded again with food, supplies, and quilting fabric.

Roger and Andy are going to try to make it to the post office today. First trip in almost 3 months. We are going to try to head to town by snow machine right after new years.

On a side note, I just read the truss plant roof in Anchorage caved in from snow. I thought these were the people that knew all about roof design and snow loads.

From Silty Slough, Kari, Mayor Cooper, Teddy, Oden the cat, Piper, and I wish all of you a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

Thank you Lord for your many blessings!!

I’ll be in touch.

Blue skies!!