The View from the Outhouse

Hello from Silty Slough. I’ll bet some of you may be thinking that I passed on, taking the final flight West. I’m still around. I check the In Memoriam section of ALPA magazine every month to confirm. It has been so long since the last View, I scrolled back to review my previous post from the outhouse, just to keep the lies straight.

I finished up flying on December 14. It all started several years prior when I told Lars “Too bad I’m too old to fly the jet.”. Well guess what, now I am too old. 73 is old enough to hang it up. I had a great couple of years flying around North America, not sure where all we went but Lars and I sure saw a lot of stuff. My favorite places were Yellowknife, NWT and Iqaluit, NT..300 miles from Greenland. When I first started flying I had about $624 in my checkbook, now 55 years later I have $324 in my checkbook. What a wild ride for only 300 bucks. Now it is back to the real world at Silty Slough, no more commuting to Anchorage by helicopter or Beaver on floats.

Mayor Cooper, Teddy, and I have been laying low since Elon ginned up DOGE. Some of the grants we applied for, EV charging station for cars and snowmachines in the slough, funds for Silty Slough Power & Light, and the converting piss to electricity project were somewhat questionable. We are still sweating the student loans for the boys to go to K9 University. It seems to have quieted down somewhat and now with the government shut down I think it is safe to come out of hiding. BTW, is the government still shut down? I haven’t missed them. Anyway, what could they possibly do to a 73-year-old man and a couple dogs. On that note I read where the average life expectancy for men is like 75.6 and women is like 79, so now I’m going to identify as a woman. If DOGE comes after us I’m going to identify as a dog or a grizzly bear. Even ICE won’t screw with a grizzly.

It was quite a winter traveling on the river. We made the first trip Jan. 3. It was glare ice with no snow for most of the winter. The river was the flattest I’ve ever seen it. You could go as fast as your gonads would allow. We got everything hauled and made the last trip back to the cabin March 24. Then we hung out at the cabin during the river breakup working on various cabin projects to try and giter done. Try being the keyword. Always more projects than time or money.

Sometime in the spring we were in town and I went to the ER for lower abdominal pain. They did a scan and decided that I had a bladder infection and by the way do you know you have triple A. I figured ER doctors were paid fairly well and didn’t think they needed to be selling AAA or extended car warranties. I misheard, is that a word, like misread. Kari cleared it up, an AAA is an abdominal aortic aneurism, a bulge in my aorta down where it splits to go to each of my legs. I’m thinking this isn’t good, so I hung around in town and went to a couple of specialists. Another scan and they decide it isn’t big enough to repair, they don’t do it until it is 5 centimeters. But you don’t understand I live in a cabin 60 miles from the end of the road. Are you sure it is ok?….no problem…any restrictions on lifting heavy things?…NO, come back in 6 months and we will do another scan, but if you want your FAA medical back we will fix it right now. I’ve been milling logs, lifting heavy chunks of wood and everything else. So far no problem. Scan scheduled in Jan.

We decided to bring the Wine Down out for a trip since it only made one half a trip the summer before. Thor and I were in the Wine Down following Kari in the Sea Ark. About a mile into the journey I told Thor to bring some weight forward. We were in a slight right turn when he brought one tote up and I reached over to move it. I also pulled the wheel to the left at the same time. When I looked up we were heading directly toward the shore several boat lengths away at about 30 mph. Hard right with the wheel but I couldn’t save it. We are off in the pucker brush high and dry. A nice gentleman came by in a barge and gave us a tow back to the landing. I was very sore the next day with a couple big bruises on my leg. The worst thing hurt being my pride. Lesson learned, mind the store, pay attention, do not get distracted.

Between trips to town, Cory came to help us work on the cabin, mill some logs, and get a fuel/storage shed framed up. I bought metal roofing at a good deal for the woodshed we built previously. There was some left over, so I felt compelled to use it, thus the fuel shed. There was only half enough metal for the roof, so I had to buy more. Now I just have a little left over to start another shed. Looking for ideas…wood fired oven shed… maybe Mayor Cooper and Teddy could get a SBA loan to start Silty Slough Pizza.

I submitted the draft to the censor, and she reminded me about my tooth, so back up a bit I went to town late October to fly. Several, meaning up to 5, years ago Kari gave me one of the big Hershey’s kisses. One evening I decided I needed some chocolate and proceeded to take a bite out of it. Big mistake, I broke my upper right front tooth…on a candy kiss. The next morning I got in to the dentist he said it couldn’t be repaired, needed to come out. Ok, they could do it the next day. No problem I have dental insurance so the dentist gave me an estimate for the treatment plan. Like taking your wrecked car to a body shop for a damage estimate. Extraction, bone graft, implant, new tooth to screw into the post, and only $700 for a fake tooth to wear while all this is happening. Total estimate about $8000. Lets see if you had all 32 teeth done that could run into some money. My insurance has an annual $2000 maximum so that was quickly used up. Tooth extracted, a very poor fake tooth made. Looked like a Chicklet stuck inside a mouthguard like I wore playing high school football. You had to remove it to eat so I ended up wearing it only once. So I waited until June for my insurance and the bone graft to heal up and went to a specialist that drilled a hole in the bone and inserted a titanium post to screw the new tooth into. Now I’m waiting for my insurance to heal up again so I can get my new tooth in 2026. Bonus, I got to look like a Jack-O-Lantern for two Halloweens.

Back to business. I think it’s great that our President is adding a ballroom to the White House. Presidents have been remodeling it for decades on the taxpayers dime. Mayor Copper and Teddy also agree. Mayor Cooper is going to write the President and suggest he name the addition “The Monica Lewinski Memorial Ball Room”. Any other suggestions?

It’s time to give everyone a break and continue this saga at a later date. Kari cooked a great meal, red wine braised beef shanks on the wood stove, home grown mashed potatoes, green beans, and fresh baked sourdough French bread courtesy of “Hoochie Mamma” that resides in our refrigerator most of her life. I told Kari that I really liked the green beans.

Time for a nap after such a good meal. I’m sorry for such a long post but think of all the post you didn’t have to read the past 47 weeks.

Thank you Lord for watching over us and your many blessings!!

I’ll be in touch.

Blue skies!!