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

We keep Learning

The back of the seat on this snowmachine is about 36" tall. All you can see is the top of it. Why, you may ask.

Myra and I were going to go to the post office yesterday. We had gotten about a 6" of fresh snow in the morning and that is no big deal. We decided to take the two narrow track machines because they are more comfortable to ride than the scandic (wide track). As you can see by the picture, it was still snowing pretty hard.
When we went out onto the gravel bar in front of our place a few things became very apparent very fast. First and foremost is we had absolutely NO depth perception to the ground (snow) and second is that it was snowing much harder than we thought and forward visibility was not good. The snow was covering the windshield and face mask faster than it could be wiped clear.

We are already out on the gravel bar and the snow is very deep around here now. If you get off of the packed trail the narrow machines sink like the Titanic. They do not go down immediately but your demise is emanate. The only way to keep from sinking is to go very fast and very powerful, and since we could not see that was not going to happen.
Now, we traveled about a hundred yards onto the gravel bar and we find out that our nice packed trail has been turned into a maze of zig-zag spun out "one off" tracks from weekend "Go Fast" riders. (Explaination: There was a poker run on the river this weekend and we had about 100 snowmachiners go by our place, up river then down.) They played in the powder everywhere and just destroyed our path. We did not know that until we were out there, in limited visibility, pulling the skwagon.
There was now way to see which trail to stay on so I just took my best guess. As you can see by the picture, I guessed wrong. I followed the path as far as I could and eventully it turned real sharp and off I went into the powder. As you can see, the snowmachine sunk butt deep to a tall Inuit Indian.
Myra had gotten onto a different path when it crossed over the one I was on and she got stuck about 30 yards away from me.
We got hers out then I went back to mine and snapped this picture. We then got mine out. We started going again, on our seperate paths. I was glancing over at Myra as we were riding basically side by side and the funniest thing happened. She was standing up while driving so she could almost see where she was going. She got about half off of the track she was following and see did a slow motion sideways roll. I watched the whole thing as she tipped over into the fluff and disappeared. I was so captivated by watching her, I drove off of my track again and got stuck. It was worth it because it was so funny to watch her!
We are now about three quarters to one mile from the cabin. Our goal had been to get to the main marked trail out on the river, then we should be alright. We had now gone this far and realized we still can't see any of the markers on the main trail. We decided that we had to turn around and go home. That was not going to happen in these conditions on these machines. I put on the snow shoes and walked home and got the wide track snowmachine and drove back out while Myra just stayed with our machines at the end of the gravel bar.
I used the wide track machine to make a new trail all the way back to our landing and packed a turn around circle for each of the narrow machines. We dug out and packed down what we had to on the narrow machines and got them up onto the new trail I had made. Now we were home free. We rode the wide track and one machine home, then rode double back out to get the other machine and rode them both home again.
Whew, that was a ton of learning experience for one morning. Thank God that happened a mile from home instead of 3,4 10 miles from home.
More respect for this environment, More scouting the situation and Maybe don't watch quite so close when Myra tips over and pay attention to what I am supposed to be doing.
This whole affair to go a mile out and a mile back took over three hours. I got severe leg cramps last night from all the walking in the waste deep powder to dig out the snowmachines.
Hope we learned something!

By the way, we got a total of 23" of fresh powder in the last 24 hours and it is still snowing. I know you all are getting a snow storm back East also. Enjoy!
Thanks for reading and being with us,
God Bless and be Careful out there,
Roger

Quiet Sunday Morning

Sunrise at the Phillips; These pictures are from our bedroom window. Isn't it cool how God keeps trying to out-do himself!
I have been outside and it is so Quite I am pretty sure I heard a Bear snoring in its' Den!
Maybe just kidding about the bear but it is really still. What a beautiful day. It is -5 degrees, not a breath of air moving and the Ravens are talking back and forth across the forest occasionally.

It has been a pretty eventful week after being gone for soooo Long. We have managed to get some of the essentials done. The yard and trails are pretty well packed down, but still not groomed. We got the chimney cleaned for the wood burner. We got the high roof of the cabin shoveled off for the first and hopefully last time this year. We got the collapsed barn pretty well cleaned out.
We put the fuel barrels and some of the building supplies in the shop.
Most of the totes went under the cabin. Notice the "extended" hole I dug to get under the cabin!
The other more "sensitive items" like the boat canopy onto the back porch. I got the wood pile dug out so we can more easily access the wood, and we have gotten one trip of water.

Now it is time to start the chores: I need to change generator(s) oil, tear down the old barn before it snows, clean up the recently inundated shop, fix the Roof snow rake (it got broken moving heavy compacted snow), Get more water, pump gas into cans, groom the trails, fix the tongue on the skwagon (I broke it hauling too much stuff from the stuck freight sled), and of course there is bread to make, clothes to wash, cabin to clean etc, etc,etc.

Speaking of cleaning the snow off of the roof; I did some calculations. According to my figures we had over 600 cubic feet of heavy compacted snow on the high roof. According to the Internet resources this snow is about 20 lbs a cubic foot. That my friends is over 12,000 lbs of snow on the roof. There was not near that much on the canvas barn that collapsed, only about 1000 lbs.

I tried to take some pictures at the seep where we get our water, but I have a new camera (yea) and I goofed them up. I had to dig out several feet of snow to find our water supply. either the weight of all the snow or the last bigger earthquake knocked down the water feed pipe and collapsed my little pond. I had to re-do the pond and the pipe and cut a shelf on the ice from where the water had been running. It was a pretty long project to restore our water supply but we have it back now.

I will post more soon,
Thanks for letting us share our adventure!
See Ya,
Roger

33 Days Gone from Home

Hello All,
I left the cabin on 12-23-2010 and returned @ 10:20pm on 1-25-2011. Myra had gotten home just 4 days prior to me even though I flew to Michigan for eight days. With it being so cold that she cold not travel, she ended up spending several days in Anchorage with friends of ours. Thanks Joe and Janette.
Where do we start talking after 33 days away. The snow is building up!The dogs trying to find their old paths.
I flew from Detroit to Anchorage on Monday, arriving at the airport at 1:00 in the morning. I was too cheap to buy a motel room so I attempted to sleep in my truck in the parking lot of a store in Eagle River. I was up and on my way to Wasilla to do the stock up shopping by 7:00am. Several hours of shopping and picking up a new recliner for the Dogs and Myra and off to the landing I went.
At the landing I had to dig out the freight sled and snowmachine. Fill the fuel barrels with gas then load everything onto the sled. By the time I was done with preparation work it was 4:00 before I was headed up river.
The trip up river to Yentna Station was filled with a pretty hard snowfall then the last five miles it rained. I got soaking wet. I stopped at Yentna Station and had supper and debated spending the night, but the rain changed back to snow and I really wanted to get home so I forged on. This was a good thing and a bad thing all in the same decision.
The good thing first; The rain and wet snow makes the river ice very heavy so it sinks a little and water runs up above the ice, under the snow. This is called overflow, and it is very hard to drive through or over. It was a good thing I went home because there was a lot of overflow on Wednesday and I avoided that by going on home on Tuesday night.
The bad things; It snowed very hard so there were no fresh tracks to follow. I had to watch the trail very closely and trust the trail markers, and choose the right paths. Things went pretty well until I got about 6 miles from home. I ran out of gas in the snowmachine. I was hauling the heaviest load I have ever pulled and this was the first time I did not make it in one tank of gas. I was hauling 125 gallons of gas so I did have gas with me, just none in the snowmachine.
I unloaded one of the barrels of gas from the freight sled and opened it up. I did not have a syphon tube or gas cans just barrels of gas. I found a plastic bag under the seat of the snowmachine, that had been holding some spare parts. I took the bag and stuffed it into the opening of the barrel and shook it up and down to fill it with gas. then pulled it out, discovered it was full of pin holes and ran to the gas tank to pour it in. I repeated this about twenty times to get enough gas into the machine to get home.
Now I reloaded the barrel and headed home. I took the path into Fish Lakes Creek and followed the trail markers. Come to find out THE HARD WAY, the bank of the creek had collapsed and created a straight up 6 or 7 foot cliff. I hit that cliff at about 15 mile an hour, pulling about 1500 lbs. The snowmachine shot straight up and over the bank, the freight sled followed half way. As you can see in the pictures I stopped about 6' sideways from where the trail is heading into the bank. I flew and went sideways at the same time.


Once I got over the shock I got out the cell phone and IT WORKED. I called Myra and she came to get me with the two person snowmachine. I was still about three and a half miles from home. It would have been a heck of a walk in this fresh snow. I did walk about a half mile toward home, with my snow shoes while she was coming my way.
I got home about 10:15pm. I was one tired puppy!
Upon arrival at the cabin I took a quick look around and all looked good except I told Myra I need to shovel roofs first thing tomorrow.


As you can see by the picture, I should have shoveled that night. Crap! The snow that fell over night was just too much for the roof of the Barn.
I thought I would throw in a picture of what it looked like when we left just for fun.
Myra and I spent Wednesday morning packing snow in the yard and the trails so we could get the freight home by using the two up snowmachine and the skwagon.Myra got too far toward the edge of the packed snow and fell into the fluff. She was partially on packed yard and partially on fluff, that does not work.
I love that "What just happened" look!
I also spent time shoveling the rest of the roofs. We spent the afternoon hauling freight to the house, until help showed up in the way of our neighbors Tom and Willie. They helped finish with the freight and we used Tom's snowmachine to pull mine the rest of the way up the bank. They were a great help because those 30 gallon fuel barrels were on the back of the sled hanging over the edge of the bank. That would have been a real challenge for Myra and I by ourselves.
I spent today pulling things that I could get to out of the barn, then shoveling the snow off of the top of it. That was a real challenge since I had to climb onto this vinyl "bowl" of slippery snow and then operate a shovel while trying to stand up. It took a long time. Then got out a barrel fuel oil and filled up the house tank for the little furnace. We are shutting down the wood burner tonight so we can clean the chimney on Friday. I also have to get the rest of the stuff out of the barn or figure out how to raise the roof and support it with pine poles or something.
Lots and Lots of work to get caught up. We will keep you "Posted", pun intended.
Thank You, to all who follow our adventure. It makes all of this challenge and work a lot more fun when we are able to share the events.
Talk to you soon,
Roger

1 16 2011

I typed this on 1-16 but have not had internet access until today.

1-16-2011

I have some news that I would rather not share but it is all part of our adventure of life.
My stepmother passed away about 4:00 this morning in Coldwater Hospital in Michigan. She had gone in for laparoscopic gallbladder surgery and there were complications during recovery. She had surgery on Thursday and passed away on Sunday early morning. I will not go into anymore details, other than to say at 85 years old, no surgery is a minor surgery, but she was not doing very well before hand because of the need to have the problem fixed. God has other ideas for her this day.
I was due to fly home to Alaska today and instead my flight was changed to back to Michigan and I am now staying with my Dad at his home near Jonesville Mi.
Myra did fly back to Alaska and will be attempting to go home on Tuesday if the weather warms up a little. It was -41 degrees at home today according to a neighbor and that is too cold to travel on snowmachine safely. Can you believe this lady is going to the wilderness of Alaska by herself (with the help of neighbors) to take care of our home.
I am now scheduled to return to Alaska on Monday 1-24, late at night.
My Dad and stepmom were married on 7-6-1974 when I was a young teenager. They have resided in the same home the entire time, near Jonesville Michigan. They are on a few acres in the country and have a very nice setting. They have had a pretty nice life together. Dad is a retired truck driver and Mom was retired from an industrial job. They have been retired for many years now, and spent the majority of their time together.
I was looking for a note pad this evening and Dad handed me a spiral notebook. I opened it and the first few pages were covered with scores from the two of them playing Dominoes with each other. It brought quiet tears to both of us. We will bury her later this week.
Your Thoughts and Prayers are already appreciated.
Roger

Been a While

Hi all. Sorry there have not been any posts for a while. With the traveling the past few weeks it has been hectic and not too much to post. Any way I will give you all a quick rundown of the past couple of weeks and what is happening now.

We flew to Ohio on Christmas day and Mandy, Rick and the kids picked us up at the airport. It was so awesome to hear the kids reactions as they did not know that we were coming. They had been trying to guess who was coming but Mandy just kept telling them she didn't know either, that Santa had told her they needed to be there to pick up a special delivery. What fun! We had "Christmas" with the whole family then on the 26th. Our son Mike, his girlfriend and their kids, my brother Vance and his kids came over to Mandy and Ricks and we all had a great time. It was so wonderful being with all of them again. I have missed that.

The week between Christmas and New Years was busy, busy, busy! Trying to get around to see people and go to different places we wanted to was exhausting! And the chaos! That really took some getting used to again. I had just spent from September 12th until December 24th in the bush seeing only about a dozen people total in all that time. Roger had made a couple trips into town after the river froze but still had not spent long periods of time with a lot of people all at once. Needless to say that was mentally challenging at times. Not that I did not want to see everyone and do all these things, I just was out of practice.

On New Years Eve day we went to Rogers sister Naomi's for a family get together. Their sister Kaye was also in Ohio (she lives in Vegas) and so all the sibs and their dad and step mom got to get together. A good time was had by all! I went back to Mandy and Ricks for New Years Eve as I had told several people that I would be there on New Years Eve and New Years Day so if they wanted to see me they could stop by there. There was just no way to get around and see everyone so that worked well. Several of my friends stopped by, my brother and his kids came and spent the night and we all had a great time ringing in the New Year together with homemade pizza, tons of other munchies, and sparkling cider. Roger had the pleasure of ringing in the New Year with his siblings also as he had stayed at his sisters for the evening and spent time with them.

The week after New Years we went to Michigan and spent an evening in Muskegon visiting with family and friends there. We then went to Grand Rapids and went to see my 100 year old Grandma who is currently in a nursing home / rehab facility as she fell and broke a hip. Luckily it was not a total break and they were able to pin it back together but there is still rehab needed. It was wonderful to see her and spend some time with her, although it also was hard as her sense of time is pretty well gone and she would mix up things that happened forty years ago with things that had happened 4 days ago. She seemed happy and comfortable though and at peace with what was happening so that is a good thing. We spent that evening visiting with my cousins and their children and then back to Ohio the next day. We spent a couple more days in Ohio and then is was off to Florida to see my Mom.

We arrived in Florida on the the 9th and that was the warmest day we had while we were there. It was about 72 when we arrived and the rest of the time it was around 60. Of course to us that was great! But boy were the people down there ever griping. There were a couple of nights of frost warnings while we were there so we helped Mom cover plants or bring them in so that they didn't get damaged. While we were there we spent time helping her with odds and ends she needed done, Roger went through her files for me, and all in all had a good time. On Thursday the 13th we received a phone call that Rogers stepmother had had gall bladder surgery and that something had happened and she was now on life support. The next couple of days were up and down, lots of praying, and not sure what to do. We were scheduled to fly home to Alaska on the 16th. Ultimately Roger flew back to Michigan on the 16th while I flew home to Alaska. It was the right decision as his stepmother passed away that morning. He has been able to be there to help his Dad through this difficult time and that is good. 

I am currently in Anchorage as it has been way toooooooo cold to ride out to the cabin. Even the freight haulers and the planes haven't been running. The temps have been -30 for the past few days out in the valley and no one runs in that. The weather is supposed to start warming up today and tomorrow so if all goes well I will be riding out tomorrow with Dan from Yentna Station. I will probably stay there on Thursday night and then have Dan ride up the rest of the way with me on Friday. It will be a rather slow trip as we have will have to take Jeff and Hans back with us but that is OK with me. I am looking forward to seeing my puppy dogs. I have missed them. I know that they have been well taken care of while we were gone though so that helps. I am so thankful for our friends and neighbors up here that have made the trip home possible. I owe them a lot.

Well that is about it for the moment. Roger will be flying back Monday and gets in in the middle of the night so he will ride out Tuesday or Wednesday depending on weather, shopping etc. Life should get back to "normal" soon. Whatever that is! Have a great day and thanks for sharing our adventures.
Blessings to all, Myra

We Got Snow and Help

Myra and I are in Ohio. We have a neighbor named Willie checking on our place and running the generator for us while we are gone. I recieved this email this morning from another neighbor of ours that helps out alot around our little island in the forest.

"We got 10" yesterday, then 12" overnight and they are forecasting 6 to 12" by the time it tapers off this evening.... temp is +26, .... Willy reports that he got over to your place and cleaned off your tents.... and that was between 6 and 7 AM..... He had to walk part way, but got the job and is back home..... Andy and I were planning on going up at daybreak to give him a hand.... will still do that at least to get some trails opened up.... otherwise all is good.....

Happy New Year!!

Tom"

All I can say is THANK YOU to those that are helping to take care of our place in our absence. I think I am learning that this may be a bad time of year to be away from home. This much snow needs a lot of attention to keep it from doing damage and be travelable.
Thanks again to Willie, Tom and Andy!

PS: We had a great New Years Eve with Friends and Family. Got to visit for many hours and seen one sister that I have not seen in two years. Had fun with ALL!

Talk to you all again Soon,
Roger