Gifts from God, Lessons for Me

I wrote this two nights ago. We did not have Internet for a while so I could not post. I wanted to write it while it was still very near to me, and hopefully the feelings come through.


Gifts from God! Blessings in disguise! Two lessons I hope I learned. Two near tragedies, both will turn out OK, one already has.
I received this email from a neighbor a couple of miles away, this morning. I had also received a couple of phone calls before this.


Missing anything? Andy says he retrieved your boat as it drifted past his place this AM.... I advised him to bring it over to our lake for safe keeping till the water goes down a bit. Looks like we had at least a 3 foot rise overnight.....
Tom 733-2716 or 863-5428 cell


As you may have guessed, our boat came loose while we slept and it headed down river, all by its self. This can easily turn very bad in a hurry if it gets caught on a tree along the edge of the river or goes into a gravel bar, the fast current can easily overturn it and sink it. Andy owns King Bear lodge across from Lake Creek about 6 miles downriver from us. They saw our boat drifting about 6:15am and called us as they headed out the door to go get it; we slept thru the phone call. Andy and his son got our boat and luckily I had left the key in it so they could start it. They don’t have a boat big enough to tow our boat in high water and they would have had to just tie it to shore somewhere. Anyhow, they got it and brought it up to Fish Lakes Creek, which we can drive to on our ATV’s, over at Bentallit Lodge, aka the air strip. Tom owns Bentallit and shot me the email you see above. We went down to the river at our landing to look things over, the rope that we tie onto was fine and the anchor point was good. The river was indeed, over 3' higher than when I tied the boat the previous evening. We went to check out the boat and the other rope that we use from the boat to the shore rope was good. Conclusion, I did not tie a good knot when I got back from fishing. It was raining like heck, I was in a hurry to show Myra I was the great provider and had caught my first Silver and I did not tie it right. The boat was un-touched, not even a scratch. This is our first gift from God. PS: We left the boat in the lake until this water level goes down some. There are many floating trees coming down the river and no sense in giving one of those a chance to catch on our boat. We received a second call about 2 hours later that another boat was floating down river and did we know who might own that one. We didn't!

Gift number 2! Over the last week I have jacked the cabin up to with-in a few inches of the final desired height. Today I was taking it up that last few inches, nearing five feet high on the down hill side.




I had taken the picture above about noon, before I started lifting the cabin today. I had taken the cabin up the first lift and was half way through the final lift, it was going to be as high as it is going; when the supports let loose and the cabin fell. It went five feet west, two feet north and about five feet down. It crashed hard!

With all the rain we had yesterday the ground had softened and I was obviously not taking the right precautions with how high I had the cabin in the air. It is right now (as I type this) setting flat on the ground and debris, tilted about a foot down hill to the south (above picture). Here comes the gift part. Myra was outside, she had been moving dirt around getting started on the root cellar and using the dirt to level the trail to the boat. She had finished for the day and had just decided to watch me finish the last lift. The dogs were under the cabin while I was lifting it, as they usually were. I had lifted one corner a little and was walking to the other corner when I stopped to talk to Myra. Jeff came out from under the cabin toward us. We spoke for about 15 seconds, I don’t remember what about, and all of a sudden the cabin took off on its spill. We saw Hans run for the back of the cabin toward us, the cabin went forward and crashed. Hans had slid into one of the holes I had dug to get under the cabin when I first started the project. He slithered out from under and took off down the trail. It took us 3 or 4 minutes to get him to come back, but he did. No ONE hurt. The cats were shook up, mentally and physically, but OK.
The cabin was a mess inside with things thrown all over. Only one broken dish and it was one that was left here by the previous owners.

No windows broke, the door still opens and no holes in the floor where it crashed down on things. The little generator is under the cabin but I can see it and it looks like it may have survived, time will tell. I am typing this on Word and will have to cut and paste this into the blog (obviously have). We do not have satellite at the moment; Ya think the dish might have moved a little?
By the time you read this, I will have already leveled the cabin and begun to pick it up again. I won’t reset the dish until the cabin is level, just too much hassle. I will have found a new way to set the cabin temporarily, as I lift, so I don’t have to depend on the same system that just failed. I don’t think I want to do the same thing over again and expect a different result. I will do it different.
It was a day full of lessons, followed with blessings. The weather was gorgeous, the boat is un-hurt, the cabin will survive and no one got hurt! I have learned a few things today. The lessons may be tough to receive but I obviously needed them.
I am Grateful for many things today and I am glad to be able to share with you!
Thanks for being here with us. (and yes, I cried a little too) Roger

I need to add a few more notes, It's a day and a half later now: The cabin is on it's way back up. I have got some things out from under it and still can't get a couple of things. The little generator still runs but looks a little worse for wear. The gas tank is a little smaller now because it got crushed a little.

I have not been able to get a few things out yet. This is a tote and other things still under the cabin (below).

This is the new support system for the cabin going back up again, and the cabin on it's way back up; To stay this time, I hope and pray. This is a very long post, Thank You for taking the time to let me share. I truly am blessed to be here today.

Roger

Now that I am finally done shaking and can breathe again I just have to agree with Roger that we are truly blessed. What could have been a horrible tradegy wasn't. It has been a real rollercoaster ride the last couple of days emotionally and hopefully this particular ride is coming to an end soon. I am truly grateful and blessed to be typing this today. Blessings to all of you, Myra

Awesome View

Well Roger has managed to raise the cabin some more. And even kept it from moving farther south! He does want to go up a little more, like 6-8 more inches. That will make it possible to store things underneath and at least walk bent over rather than crawling around.

The Yentna River

Here is the view from our bedroom when the clouds allow. It is amazing and ever changing. I am looking forward to seeing it in all the different seasons. You can just see the mountains beyond the trees on the other side of the river. We need to do some more clearing out of the trees but that will happen in time.

Not much else right now just keep plugging away at the chores that need done around here. I have gotten quite good at doing 2-3 days worth of dishes in under 5 gallons of water. It is amazing what you learn when you have to haul water and not just turn on a tap and let it flow. I figured out real quick that I could that many dishes in the same amount of water as 1 days worth so why be wasteful? (Plus I really don't like doing dishes everyday).
Time to call it a day so thanks for sharing our adventure and we will "talk" to you soon. Blessings, Myra

Our Walk to the Boat

Every day at least once and sometimes twice I or We must go to the boat and check on it. We decided to take our cameras along tonight and show you a little of the trip. There are two reasons for the trip to the boat. Number one and most important is because the water level on the river changes so dramatically. I am not exaggerating when I tell you that the river level can fluctuate 14" in one day, maybe even more but I have not put out a measuring stick and don't want to tell you wrong. With this much change in depth the boat ends up setting on the bottom, or floating to high against the shore. It Literally has gone from floating in the morning to me struggling to get it off of the mud in the afternoon and back to floating loose on the rope the next morning.
The river is fed from a glacier and if the sun hits the glacier or it gets real warm the glacier melts and the river goes up real quick. If it rains alot in the valley the river raises slowly. If It only rains a little or it is cool and cloudy the river drains just as fast as it goes up. I have set in the river with the GPS unit in the boat and drifted as slow as 3 MPH and I have set in the same area of the river and drifted as fast as 8mph. That is an amazing change and it can happen in under 12 hours.
So anyhow, I - We walk to the boat once or twice a day to tie it shorter or push it off the mud and let rope out or just do nothing depending on the river. Reason number two to walk to the boat twice a day is to check and see if bears have decided to visit and tear things up. Not that we could do anything about it by then unless we catch them in the act, but if we go there often it tends to keep our scent fresh and the bears away.
The dogs are hiding from us along the side of the trail. They do this then jump out at us, or come out behind us and run up on us. It is a neat game.

Myra is walking off to take a picture of the flower you see up close. Look at the height of the flowers compared to her. NO SHE is NOT that short.

The brown strip is the trail that we cut in for the ATVs and us, the weeds in the middle just insist on growing even though we travel this trail multiple times a day.

There are other wild flowers that I failed to take pictures of while they were in bloom and we will be making Jam from one of them, we will show you pictures of it when the time comes.

The mess in the yard behind Myra is from Peeling the logs for the Pilings. We only have a few left to do.

It is a great day to be alive,

Thanks for sharing this with us,

Roger

The walk to the river/boat is nice. There is always something beautiful to see, even if it is just the way a tree twists and bends or the bees gather pollen from the wildflowers.

I am looking forward to getting the pilings done as then maybe it will seem like things are moving a little quicker. At least there will be "visible" progress i.e. building the back porch, putting in the door to that porch. I am ready to get things "organized" LOL. At least somewhat.

Guess that's about it for me today so Take care and we will do the same.

Blessings, Myra

Weather / Sunlight / Pilings / More

I got all the Piling logs for the cabin cut today and brought up to the front yard. Pilings are basically vertical logs stuck in the ground that the cabin sits on. The original Pilings were rotted and junk so the cabin was setting on boards laying on the ground when we got here. That is definitely not the thing to have here because of the depth of snow fall and quantity of ground creatures, you want the cabin up off the ground. I have been jacking it up a little every few days and we are getting close to having it high enough so it is time to get the new Pilings ready.

Anyhow, they are here at the cabin and Myra got one of them most of the way peeled today.

We will treat them with a preservative so they don't rot very fast (15 to 20 years). I probably won't care if they rot then.

I did go out back to rescue the ATV this morning. I was able to remove the whole drive shaft to the back wheel and put the tire back on. I just drove it home with 3 wheel drive and we will limp that one around until we get the new part. I ordered it today but it is 10 to 12 days from getting in to the dealer, then we have to pick it up, so who knows how long.

The Upstairs looks great for the arrangement Myra finally settled on. I like it a lot. (THANKS BABE')

It is starting to get very dim at night now. It still does not get totally dark outside but it gets dark enough it is dark inside. You can still go walking around outside with out a flashlight any time of the night, but we are getting close to full darkness about 2:30 to 3:am.

The weather has been very consistent. It has been mid Fifties almost every day, with a rare occasion when it will shoot up to mid 60s. Today was one of those days, it got up to 63 and mostly sunny. I sweat my butt off on days like this. I literally wore light shorts under carhartt bibs and a very light weight vented fishing shirt and roasted all day.

It is amazing how fast the body acclimates to the change in climate. Even JEFF has as much hair now as he had all of last winter. He is not shedding, just growing a very full coat.

Speaking of Jeff, he is getting very muscular and he eats like a horse. He plays with Hans, the pup a lot and he runs with me when I am on the ATV almost everywhere I go now. That worries me when I am pulling logs around or hauling the trailer because he does not always watch out real well. The pup pretty much stays around the cabin when I get on the ATV, I think he has figured out he can't keep up yet.

Speaking of sweating my butt off, when we got to Alaska the belt I am wearing was on it's last notch at the end. I am now bouncing between the 3rd and 4th hole. I don't have a clue if I am losing weight, getting in shape or the belt is stretching. We did not bring a scale, but I am able to get into one pair of jeans I couldn't wear when we left Ohio.

I learned a valuable lesson yesterday. I had to weld some pieces on the ATV trailer. It was the first time. I have not welded in 4 or 5 months. I have been letting my beard grow. I made my first weld, I had on welding gloves which are thick, the welding mask was down. I finished that first weld, I reached up like I have always done and hooked a thumb under the welding mask to flip it up. I never knew how hard you can pull a beard from under the chin with one thumb. OMG, I almost cried! I have since learned a new technique to flip up the welding mask.

It has been a fun day,

Thanks for reading, we are always thinking about you all.

OK so the upstairs arrangement is finally done! Only took 3 times as long as I had figured on. Which seems pretty typical around here. You start on one thing, have to do something else in order to do what you first started and round and round it goes! Now I will start on the downstairs. Slowly. It is a good thing we are "retired" and not in a hurry. LOL. A lot depends on the weather right now as we need to get the pilings done and get more firewood put up yet.

I had taken some pictures to post showing some of the changes around here but apparently my card is corrupted and there was nothing on it! I really hate when that kind of stuff happens. I will try again tomorrow. At least I have another card I can use.

It is really weird strapping on a gun to go outside and take pictures or hang laundry or whatever! I just know that I do not want to come face to face with a sow and her cubs and not have one with me! You get used to it sort of. The longer we are here the less signs of bear I am seeing close to the cabin anyway. There are still lots of trails farther out around the area.

Well it has been a long day, the pup got me up about 6:15 this morning to go out (better than not and peeing in the house!!!) and I had been awake until about 1 am. Time to get ready for bed I do believe.

Blessings to all, Myra