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Friday, February 4, 2011

Our Trip to the Post Office

We went to the post office today. It was an absolutely perfect day outside. It was clear blue sky's, 5 degrees, no wind and visibilty went on forever!

Note: You can put your cursur over any of the pictures and click on it and it will enlarge the picture for better viewing.


We were only a short distance from home when we seen our first couple of Moose of the day. These two pictures are of the same Moose. A second one was on the side of the river bank in the trees right near this one but it blended in with the trees so well it does not show up in the pictures we had of him. The second one was really struggling to climb the bank through the deep snow. It is really something to watch nature unfold right before our eyes. I have seen many many moose and Myra has seen several just in the last two days. They are all over our area now, and struggling very hard with the depth of the snow. We have had well over 8' of snowfall so far.

This is our Post Office and Post Masters home complex. The long low building on the left is the Post Office building. The Cabin with the smoke at the chimney is his home and the other buildings are the wood shed, fuel shed, work shop etc.

As you look at these pictures take note. There are no fresh tracks in the snow going to the Post Office from this direction. We appear to be the first to go to the Post Office from the south since we got dumped on earlier this week. Myra took some of these pictures while I was breaking a trail across the river so we could get her over there on the narrow machine. (I rode the Wide track machine this trip!)(The flat area of snow below the hill of the Post Office is the frozen river.)
The actual Post Office Building. Please take notice, there is no ramps sidewalks, driveways outdoor mail drop boxes etc. lol This Post Office is on a hill on the side of the river. The air strip where the mail plane comes in is on the opposite side of the river from the post office.


This is our Post Master, Joe Delia. Joe is now 81 years old. He is the longest term employee in the postal system. He has been on the Post Office payroll for over 62 years. There have been full feature films made about Joe along with a documentary and some cameo appearances in many shows. Joe is full of stories and experiences every time we see him. He has spent his entire adult life in this area of the bush, hunting, trapping, guiding and of course, taking care of the mail. It used to be a part time position when it was not so busy out here. When he first started the mail plane only came in once or twice a month depending on the time of year. Now it comes in twice a week when the weather permits. We did go five weeks this fall when the weather never permitted a single plane.
Joe is telling stories about skining beavers for a Nature show documentarty for the US department of Fish and Game. He said he had taken about twenty beavers with him to the taping, in various stages of being skined. He had them all under a table he was working at and was demonstrating the various stages. The DNR guy that was supervising the taping did not know Joe had all those beavers, he thought Joe was skinning very fast because every time the guy turned around to do something Joe would pull out the next beaver and stash the last one. At he end of this documentary the DNR guy dubbed Joe the fastest skinner in the land, and the reputation had stuck for 40 years. (Just one of Joes stories of this day. He told us a half dozen today alone!) What a facinating fellow.

The inside of our Post Office. What more can I say...
Notice the bolts of material on the floor for one of the areas' more enterprising people. He makes holsters and snowmachine handlebar gauntlets and all sorts of stuff and ships them all over. See the oil burner stove!


We had delivered mail to about 10 people and were on our way home through a swamp. I was riding the narrow machine and Myra was following on the skandic when I made a little mistake while kind of playing. I was on one of those un-packed / packed old trails when I went half off. The machine started to roll over into the fluff and I fell off. By the time I got stood up I looked up Myra had out Her camera so here I am standing in the snow. I am standing as tall as I can. Look at the machine, One ski in the air. Look under the skwagon at the back of the snowmachine and you can see how deep and tipped over it is. It took me a while to dig myself out of this one. Myra never even got off of her machine and offered to help, can you believe that. She just watched, laughed and waited.

We had a great day and a lot of fun!
Thank You for allowing me to share this with you,
We are blessed, May you be blessed also.
Roger

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