A Burger and Drinks

It was an absolutely perfect day on Saturday. I went outside to do chores and I kept getting sidetracked, playing with the dogs or taking off into the woods on the Snowmachine or whatever. I could not focus on getting anything of substance done so I gave up. I went into the cabin and ask Myra if she wanted to go out to dinner. She said yes! This of course required suiting up and getting on the snowmachines for a ride. I gave her the option of where to go. Skwentna Roadhouse is about 9 miles up river, Yentna Station Roadhouse is about 25 miles down river and Northwoods lodge is about 2 1/2 miles over land behind us. She chose Yentna Station, Yippee! We took off down river and I played in the powder snow for miles on end, with the snowmachine. I would get quite a bit ahead of her then I would stop and wait for her to catch up. These pictures were as she caught up to me once. What a beautiful drive to go out to dinner and back. We went to the Roadhouse and had burgers and visited with Dan and Jean for a couple hours and road back home.

Notice I didn't mention drinks yet, that was a set up. I keep talking about going to get water but I don't think I have ever included any good pictures so here we go. This is the drinks part of the title.

The water literally runs out of the side of a hill along the river. It was -10 degrees when I shot this video and pictures. As you can see the water flows just fine. It even flows well enough that it does not freeze in the 10' long pipe that is in open air.

I added the pictures for a little more clarification. You cans barely see the tip of the pipe under the rocks at the low end of the water trail. I keep a plastic "trash can lid" over the seep to keep out debris etc. I removed it for the pictures.

See the Ice hanging out of Hans mouth. He likes going after water with me. He drinks right from the stream frequently.
It is hard to give you a good image of the ice under the pipe because of lighting and angles but imagine this; The little bit of ice you can see building up from the Ice shelf has built up in just an overnight. I got water the day before and cut the ice down then also. The ice shelf that looks flat is 3" higher than yesterday, then the cone is on top of that. I typically have to cut down 15" or more of ice if I have not gotten water for a few days.

I did some calculations just for fun about this water source. I am not able to capture all of the water that comes out of this "seep" but, all winter I have been getting about 1 1/2 gallons per minute. In the fall I was getting over two gallons a minute. The calculation went like this. 1 1/2 gpm times 60 minutes times 24 hours times 365 days. That is 788,400 gallons per year and that is the minimum that runs out of this little hole in the ground. That just amazed me to stop and think about that. Three quarters of a million gallons, minimum!

What an awesome gift to be given.
I appreciate what God gives us to use and enjoy
Thank you for letting me share with you today,
Roger