Too Hot, Too much Going on!

Hello Everyone!
I have missed all of you, Sorry I have been away for so long.
It was 83 degrees yesterday. That is the first time I have seen that temperature in nearly 2 years. It did not even get that warm while we were in Florida last winter. It is much cooler today and only expected to get to mid fifties. That's more like it. Many Many things have taken place since last we spoke.
Myra went to town for five days with Jean and mainly ran a whole bunch of errands and did things with Jeans kids.
Ok, Ok, Ok,,, I am getting ahead of myself.... We put the boat into the water, oops, back up just a little farther.
The river broke up and Ice went out on May 5th. The ice flowed out of our slew where we park the boat on the 6th. We actually watched both events happen and it is just as neat as freeze up, only it is in reverse. Instead of watching a river stop flowing and turn solid, we watched over a period of a couple of hours, a solid block of ice turned into rubble then a clear water flowing river. As the ice would jam the water would back up and the river level would raise 4" to a foot then, whoosh, it would flush the jam and start flowing again and the level would drop. Then it would do it a gain.
This is the river on the morning of break-up.
This was about 2 hours after the first picture. The river is flowing a jumble of crushed ice. It is very noisy. The solid snow area in the middle is the gravel bar in front of our place which separates our slew from the main channel of the river.

Our slew did not break up until the next day. You can see the open "leed" of water in our slew but mostly solid ice. Ok, next adventure. We went for a 4 wheeler ride on some trails we had never taken before. We went with Willie, over to Fish Creek via these trails. They had not been traveled all winter so we took a chainsaw along. We ended up clearing 11 trees off of the trail with-in 1 mile. It turned into a lot of work, but, we got thru it and made our way along.

This is Myra's First water crossing on an ATV. We had to cross this little creek to finish our trip out to the mouth of Fish Lakes Creek. The dogs followed like troopers but boy were they a Mess when we got home. It was a very muddy trip but a whole lotta fun.

When we were on our way back to the cabin from the four wheeler adventure we went by the boat landing over by the lake (where we took our boat out). Tom happen to be there looking at whether he could put his barge in the water yet. He had decided against it with his big boat but we looked it over and decided we could put our much smaller boat in. I went home and got the battery and some gas and life jacket etc and headed back over. He got his bull dozer and hooked onto our boat and took it to the launch. I did some prep work on the boat AND---We attempted to back the boat into the water. There was still ice on the edge of the water and the trailer broke thru the ice and dropped down some. No Harm No Foul, so we thought at the time. Anyhow, we could not get the trailer into the water far enough to float the boat so we had to go to plan B. We pulled back up on the shore and slid the boat off of the trailer onto the ground at waters edge. Plan B.

Click on this picture then look under the boat. You will see chunks of ice under it.

We then took a board and a bull dozer and pushed the boat into the water. You can see ice floating around the boat and on shore. The boat started right up and I drove it a few miles home. Life is good!

It was a couple of days later that we left for town. The plan is to pick up Jean at Yentna Station, leave our dogs there and go on in. Myra and Jean are to go there way and I have a lot of running to do to pick up my guide license paper work and log books and tackle and (Oh yea, Willie went with us, I was to take him to a couple of appointments also). Then Willie and I are to return home the next day , to get ready for our first fishing guide job of the year. Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans. While going to Yentna Station I told Myra the boat was running slow. The motor sounded fine but something was not right. We were down about 10 miles an hour on speed for the rpm of the motor. I did not remember any problem when we took it out of the water but there is an adjustment that can be made on the jet propulsion unit that can affect this. When we stopped at Yentna station I talked to Dan about this adjustment and he told me it would be best done at the landing, so I decided to wait. I did not even look at it when we were at their place. (Ooops) About 6 miles down river from Dan and Jeans I had to back off the throttle for another boat to pass. When I throttled back up the boat started to speed then Bump, Roar, Stop. Ut Oh.. The motor is running fine but we are going nowhere. We throw out the anchor and raised the motor. The foot of the motor is Gone! Crap! We pulled anchor, paddled hard to shore and re-anchored. I put on my hip boots and out into the water I go. The foot is held on by 6 bolts and they are all sheared off. Upon further review I can see where 4 of them are broken previously and two had just sheared (dirt indications at the break points). Apparently, when the trailer dropped threw the ice the foot of the motor had hit and we didn't know it. That would explain the slow speed and the sheared bolts. The two bolts that did not shear were not enough to hold the torque of the motor on the foot and so, Bump, Roar, Stop. It just so happened about 10 minutes later another boat going down river was going by. We flagged them down. Myra Jean and Willie went to the landing with this boat. I stayed with our boat. I gave Myra a list of parts that we needed and told her to send them out with a boat that is coming this way. I walked the beach and fished and looked around and waited. Five hours and four hundred dollars later the parts showed up. Another guy that lives near where we broke had found me and he supplied me with tools to remove the broken off bolts and I went to work. A couple of hours later I was under way, toward the landing. The boat ran like a million dollars, and still is. Another lesson learned!!! When you think there might be a problem, look for it, don't wait. I could have fixed this for about $20 (new specialty bolt kit) had I found the broken bolts before all the parts fell off into the river where they will never be found. I also would not have been waiting along the river for 5 hours for a parts delivery. OK, Myra spent her 5 days in town and I spent one hectic time getting my and Willies stuff done and getting back home. I have turned our boat into a very nice Charter Fishing boat. I have my Business License and my Guide License and am open for business. Willie and I spent 15 days fishing together all of the time and he has been training me about King Salmon fishing and guiding. He went out with me on my first Hired charter and I took out my second one alone. Willie has been a God Send on teaching me so much about King Salmon and this territory for fishing. I intend to work with him as much as possible this summer.
If ANYONE that reads this blog wants to come up for a free Charter trip this year, get in touch with me and we will do it. Supply your transportation to and from my place and I will supply and air mattress and food and fishing gear while you are here. Lets Go Fishing!
You Might just catch something like this or bigger!! This is my First King Salmon of the season. 30lbs and 39". I have since had a 35#10oz fish in my hands (guiding) and many more. We are right at the beginning of King season. It goes until July 15th. Then it is silvers season. Kings up in this neck of the woods get as big as 75#s, Come on, let's go find it!
I have a lot more I could write about but it is time to get some things done. I will try not to stay away for so long.

Thank You for sharing this adventure with us.
See Ya,
Roger

A Little Info

I have been having trouble getting motivated to post on the blog lately. I don't know why, and I will try to get more frequent at it.
Life has been kind of slow and routine around here lately. I have been collecting this years fire wood and getting ready to cut down next years trees.
It has been very muddy as the frost is just a couple of inches below the surface. The water can't soak in as the snow melts so the surface is just mush on any flat surface.
Myra is still trying to get all of the garden plants started but she is having a time with them. After about two weeks of very good growth they seem to take turns dying off and we can't figure out why.
I walked ( Too Muddy, don't want to rut up the trails) over to Willies place on Saturday to watch a boxing "Pay per View" that he ordered on his satillite TV. I walked into his cabin and this is what I saw. No he is not "wasted" that is just the moment I caught his picture.
The hat he is wearing is his "Boxing Hat" that he wears each time he watches the fights. I guess he got the hat at a fight club in Thiland some years ago and it just gives him good memories.

The 4 wheelers are running well. They both started right up after setting since the end of October.
I built a new trailer frame that has three attachments in the works for it. The first attachment which is done is for picking up the end of logs and making it so that I can pull them around without digging up the yard or hurting the 4 wheeler. I have been using this for collecting my firewood. I had cut down 6 trees last year for this years firewood. It is those trees I am collecting now, getting ready to buck and split them. the other two trailer attachements are a "Barrel Lift" for hauling 20 to 55 gallon barrels and the third attachment will be a large flat bed top for hauling large items that I can not haul in the Skwagon. The Skwagon, by the way, is now a wagon again, for the summer.

We do have a little experiment going. I will get you pictures soon. In mid April I plained all of the boards for building stuff around here. I had created quite a pile of saw dust in the yard. All of the snow is gone around the saw dust now but, there is still 2 feet of snow right under the saw dust pile. We are going to see how long we can "store" snow on the open ground. There is still areas of snow in the woods and on the north sides of hills etc so it is not a true test until All other snow is gone.

Fishing season starts next Sunday. I am excited for that. I have got 9 dates set up so far for Guideing. I will be a professional fisherman for the first time in my life. Wish me luck!
Now I have to get the boat into the water but there is still ice on the lake where we need to launch it and too much mud. I guess I will be bank fishing in the beggining. The Guide dates don't start for a couple of weeks. I should have it ready by then.

That's all for now.
Living the dream!
See Ya,
Roger

Just Workin around Here

We have been working on the cabin for the last couple of weeks. You may have seen some of these pictures before but I wanted to show you the before and after of some of the cabin.


Living in a forest and having so much wood right here it does not make any sense to pay for and haul lumber here. I did receive a gift of a bunch of "Seconds" lumber from Tom and Patty from their lumber mill. It is all 1"x4" edges of the trees that they milled. All of it is rough sawn and odd size and length. I have spent a full day Planing it all to 3/4" thick and getting one side to good quality.


I have also been practicing cutting planks from fallen trees that I seen come down this winter. I cut the planks "free hand" with the chainsaw, then planed them down to usable boards.



We also cut a few saplings a couple of months ago and peeled them. We put them in the cabin for a Month to dry them out so we could use them.


Now I will start putting this all together for you.

These are the rough boards we received from Tom and Patty. Hans is "helping" me with my job site agility by laying in the middle of the work area and making me walk around him with every board. I have to plane every board at least twice to get them to dimensional thickness. I will have to rip every board twice on the table saw to get dimensional width.

This is one of the products of the 1"x4"s. this is a box covering the batteries we use to power the cabin. It doubles as a bench for putting on boots and outdoor clothing and has added storage inside for ATV batteries, boat battery, snowmachine batteries etc. What ever we are not using for a season needs to have the batteries removed and charged occasionally so this works out very well.

The area of the battery box used to look like this.

Then the area was stripped, got a new door and then re-sided with the same wood plus new that was here and already installed all over the down stairs. See the water heater behind the wood burner. That was not there in the previous picture. Oh, neither was the door! (the little white thing in the other picture is the end of the microwave on a shelf in the kitchen)


This is the same area, this morning. The battery box is down to the left under the power panel etc. I still have to build in the power panel and wiring but most of this area is done. This door goes out onto the new back porch. This is our main entrance now. the old door on the front of the cabin is emergency exit only. We don't even have steps to it any more.


We move to the front door area of the cabin now. I needed to make some big shelves for our "Modern" electronics to set on. This is where I used a couple of the planks that I cut and made with my chainsaw and planer.

These planks were cut from a spruce tree that had fallen across one of our trails this winter.

I was able to plane those rough planks into finish boards.

The front edge of both the cabinet and shelf are from the planks. The "post" that go to the ceiling are from the saplings that we cut and peeled. These post support the "electronics shelf" and 40' of shelving around the perimeter of the living space of the cabin. It was 1 year to the day from our Auction when all of this was disconnected, until the day we hooked it up here. We have our real Stereo now! See how we used Burlap material to trim around the Log beams and give it a finished look.


This is the best picture I could find of what the front door area looked like once upon a time. As you can see, it has changed a little bit.
I built this cabinet with the plank wood I made plus 1x4s I processed. Notice the bark edge front. Myra made the curtain for the front.
The shelf is also plank wood plus it is assembled and hung by the saplings.

This is our "New" front area of the cabin. See the self up high? Then the sapling on the wall. This sapling was cut in half length ways then I routered out the back and it is covering wiring that goes down the surface of the wall. Myra is printing pictures to fill this collage frame then we will hang it here. (( HEY Mike and Sharon --- There is an Empty space on the high shelf for Pictures of your kids!!! Hint Hint))
Notice Myras' garden. She has started a bunch of plants that will end up outside. There are more on a shelf above the wood burner. As you can see by looking out the window (these pictures were taken this morning) we are not ready to garden outside yet. The paneling leaning on the wall behind Myra is going to be installed upstairs. Right now the upstairs is just OSB nailed up and un-finished.

AND, while we have been doing all of this, I received word from the Coast Guard on Thursday that my license has been approved and I will be a Fishing Guide this summer. Woo Whoo!

Thank you all for letting us share all of this.
The cabin is becoming Home!
See Ya,
Roger

Spring Time

Spring is definitely in the air but, it is not like any Spring I have ever experienced before. The weather is and has been absolutely gorgeous. Other than the dump of snow we got while I was in Ohio it has been sunny and clear virtually every day. The highs have been in the 40s and today is forecast to be in the 50s. We still have a few feet of snow on the ground but it is disappearing every day. There are bare spots on just about every South facing slope and where ever we have shoveled it is down to the ground. These areas get very soupy in the afternoon as you might guess. Nights have still been in the Teens and low Twenties so everything is hard as a rock every morning but by early afternoon the snow is very punchy and can be hard to walk threw.
I have began putting away winter items like the roof rack and shovels and putting fuel stabilizer in the snowmachines etc. I thought about digging out the four wheelers but Mother Nature is doing a nice job of that and we can't ride them for about a month yet anyhow, so they can set for a while longer. Myra and I went for our last mail run of the season last Friday. We delivered our Tax stuff to the post office, picked up every bodies mail and then went to the Skwentna Roadhouse for lunch before returning home. I took some pictures of the river conditions on the trip home to try to share a little of the trip.

Myra is setting on an Ice Bridge that still goes over the open water. Last week there was no signs of open water here.

The river opens up in narrow channels first, where the fastest water flows and erodes the ice away.

Notice how clear the water is. This is the same river/water that is grey and full of silt in the summer. The Glacier is not yet melting enough to "muddy" the water for the summer.

When the Glacier starts to melt is when the violent breakup of the river will take place. The water level will raise and lift all of this ice and crumble it. Then it will flush it and the ice rubble will move and plug and move and plug cause violent water fluctuations and is a spectacle to see (so I am told). We obviously have not witnessed this before but we are looking forward to it. The river breakup happens May 2nd on average.

Usually about a week after that all of our snow will be gone on the trails and everything will turn to mush for about two weeks. It gets so soupy that the four wheelers can't even travel because the frost is just under the mud and you can't get any traction. I am told that the four wheeler often gets stuck setting on flat land, don't even try it until the frost is melted deep enough for the water to run away and the mud starts to stiffen.We already have Flies and Mosquitoes and little White and Brown Moths flying around.


Then we have these other little bugs that remind me of termites coming right up out of the snow. You should be able to see them in the video. we don't have termites in Alaska so I don't know what these are. There are not many mosquitoes yet and I have not been bitten by one so far. I think these are just the scouts going back to the nest with the recon info for the big clan. Yippee! It is the strangest thing to see all of these little insects and have so much snow on the ground. This does not happen in the Midwest I come from.

We also had another visitor during the week I was in Ohio. It was a Monster! Mazie Monster to be exact. Mazie Monster Jakcsy is traveling around the country for her three year old master, Addison Jakcsy. Addi and her Mommy knitted Mazie and created a Blog and a Facebook page for her. Mazie had another engagement she had to get to so she did not stay here very long at all. Hopefully she will come back later this year so I can visit with her and we take her fishing and four wheeling and sight seeing.

See Mazie Monsters adventures on Facebook at Mazie Monster Jakcsy. she can also be watched at Maziethemonster.blogspot.com

The dogs have been very content the last couple of days. Our neighbors finally cleaned their Moose and disposed of the bones and carcass down by Fish Creek. Each dog chose the same type of bone and brought them home. They each have a front lower leg and hoof to chew on. They have been extremely happy with their feast and spend most all of their time outside now. Yesterday, Hans was in the front yard near his when a Huge Bald Eagle came swooping in to take a look at the bone. It came in closer and tighter for a look and I believe it thought about taking his bone. Hans just sat on his haunches and watched the Eagle in amazement, just like I did (watch the eagle that is). The Eagle was really big with about a 4' wing span and very bright white head and tail. It was awesome to see the display. It stayed around close for about a minute then left for a while. It came back for one more pass about ten minutes later but Hans was still near his bone. I have not seen the Eagle any more yesterday or this morning. It was a huge gift to have one of these magnificent birds fly twenty to thirty feet away, for several passes. When ever God can give us a visitor like this one it makes me stand up and take notice of his creation in full appreciation.
Thank You for being with us,
What an Amazing Adventure
See Ya,
Roger

100th Post

I had another name for this post in mind but when I started to do this post the computer told me this is number 100 that we have put up. Wow, how time flys when you are having fun. When you think about it, typing 100 short stories about your life seems like a daunting task. We have done that in under 10 months. 10 short stories a month on average, over 2 a week, and I sometimes feel bad because I don't do it often enough, or because so many things have happened that I forget some things or I have to delay writing about them. Anyhow, WhewWho, #100 is on the board and it seams like yesterday that we got here.

Today is our 32nd wedding Anniversary! She did it! She put up with me the WHOLE TIME! April 14th 1979 we were married at ages ( Myra 16) and ( Me 18 ). 32 years, two great children, 6 wonderful Grandchildren and a lifetime filled with adventures and mis-adventures and here we are today. I Thank God every day for this life I have been blessed to experience. The Good, The Bad, The Ugly and The Great! I Love You Myra, Happy Anniversary.

As you may have guessed by know I made it home from Ohio. It was a more stressful snowmachine ride than usual because of conditions on the river. There were many areas of overflow ( where water is on top of the ice making slush out of very deep snow, that you can not ride threw ) that I had to watch for and go around. Overflow is nearly impossible to go threw if it is very wide and going threw the deep snow pulling a heavy freight sled to go around the overflow is no picnic either. Then there were two places where the "Ice Bridge" that was left over open water was very narrow and then I came to one place where the River had opened all the way across the trail. I had called a friend / neighbor who I knew came up the day before and he told me about the narrow Ice Bridges but where the river had opened all the way had happened over night, after I had talked to him. It is a funny, serious, sinking feeling to come up on an area where the trail goes right over an area about 15 feet wide of open water. The snowmachine tracks from the previous day just stop at the waters edge and start on the other side. OK, Now what do I do? I unhooked the freight sled and started looking for alternate ways around. I drove to the right and tried to find a way to cross going up river but ran into a woods that I could not pull the freight sled threw. I went back to the old crossing and started heading left and down river following beside the open water. About 1/3 mile down river the river closed back up so I traveled a ways farther, took a deep breath and hit the throttle and turned to cross and head up river. I crossed a small section of overflow but found I could get back up river to the main trail. I followed my same trail a few times back and forth to pack it down so I could pull the freight sled threw this new area. The only place still in question was the short overflow because you can't pack that, it gets worse every time you go threw it so I have to keep going wider around that spot. With the freight sled that means deep unpacked snow for about 30 yards, on top of overflow. Well, I went back to the main trail, hooked up to the freight sled and headed down my new trail. I got near the spot of overflow, hit the throttle to full speed, picked a new path and said a short prayer. OK, enough drama, I got threw it ok and back to the main trail to finish my trip home. Life is good today.
As you can see, I had a Freight Sled FULL of stuff.
When I got near home, to our trail off of the main trail, I unhooked from the freight sled and went to the cabin. Myra came back out with me and I took the Skwagon out because I had too much weight to pull the freight sled up to the cabin. I hooked the skwagon to the freight sled and pulled everything to the base of our landing where we get off of the river. That is where we did our unloading to haul home.

We used the skwagon to unload several loads off of the freight sled and took them to the cabin so I got light enough to pull the fuel barrels home. We had gotten about 15" to 17" of fresh snow 3 days earlier and no one had packed our trails so I had to be very careful how I pulled things in. I did not want to get stuck with all of this stuff. That freight sled had 75 gallons of fuel(550lbs plus barrel weight 50lbs), 100lbs of dog food, 62lbs of cat supplies, 200lbs of potting soil, and $650 in groceries (about 200lbs) plus 50lb suit case for a total of 1212lbs plus the weight of the sled. You don't just pull that over 15" of fresh unpacked snow for any distance.
This is what it looked like while the snow was still coming down. Myra took these pictures on last week while I was in Ohio.
It seems that each time I leave Myra for any length of time, we get a pretty good dump of snow.
I can't wait to see what happens if I go away for a week in June!

Myra did a Great Job of taking care of everything. The buildings were all cleaned off, the wood pile was accessible and the cabin was in good shape. Thanks Babe'!

Life is good today,
I Thank God for 32 event filled years and a safe journey home.
Thanks for letting us share with you!
Talk to you soon,
Roger

Busy Times

Sunrise on the Yentna River





OK where to start? It has been a busy week. At least for Roger. The temperatures are climbing and the snow is getting really soft so everyone is pushing to get the last of the freighting done before the river trail is no longer usable. Therefore most of the freighting is being done like from 3-4 am until mid morning. The temps are still dropping low enough to harden up the trail during the night so the freighters have to "make hay" while they can. Trying to haul during the day is just asking to burn up your machine. Which several of the haulers have done in the past week. Which was kind of to our advantage cause then they have been calling Roger to haul while they fix their machines. The bad part about it is that we had to cancel our day trip up the "ice road". Well I guess you just can't have it all.

I have been working on various things around the cabin as well as just doing the everyday things that need done i.e. bring in wood, make sure generator gets started on time, empty buckets, vacuum, laundry, meals at strange times (Whenever Roger can manage to stop in for one, Friday night was @ 11:30 pm). I also did some data entry this past week for Shan over at Northwoods Lodge.

The "Harvest Moon"

On my way back home from Northwoods on Wednesday I managed to put the 600 on its side. Tom from Bentalit Lodge (which is between Northwoods and our place) has been bulldozing snow around the upper airstrip and also the trails that run near it, getting ready to start using that airstrip again. They use the upper one spring, summer and fall and the one down on the swamp during the winter. I was heading for the trail into the woods and hit the "bank" wrong where he had dozed the snow  and OH CRAP! Over I went. It really was pretty comical, seemed like slow motion. Oh and of course I had an audience. Tom and Willy were just beyond that point loading wood to haul to Bentalit and saw the whole thing. Tom can move pretty quick for a 70 year old I do have to say. He was scared I was hurt. I wasn't, just kind of embarrassed. I let Tom know that I was OK and he did slow down. I had the machine righted by the time he got to me and Tom of course let me know that it happens to everyone. OK so got the machine started, took a different approach to the woods trail and made it home in one piece. Whew!

I really hate it when that kind of thing happens, but at least with the 600 most of the time I kind get it upright by myself. Not the Skandic that is for sure! Had to walk home and call for help the time I put that on its side. Thank God for good neighbors.

I have managed to finish a crocheted wool hat for Roger and started on a "paper clip" hanging light this week. By the way Christy, thanks for the hoop thingy and I am doing it in the colored paper clips. The silver ones were just too fancy looking for our cabin. It is turning out pretty neat looking but I have run out of paper clips so Roger will get more for me when he gets back from Ohio. He leaves tomorrow afternoon for Anchorage, flies out at like 1 am for Ohio where he will be doing his CE class to maintain his Ohio electrical license. He will be gone for a week so I will be here by myself. Wishing I was going with him so that I could see the kids and grandkids but...... someone has to take care of the "homestead" and the critters. I will be in Ohio from mid July until mid August for Mandy and Rick's wedding. They will be getting married on August 13th but I am going early so that I can be there for the shower and to help with some stuff. This week while Roger is gone I am hoping to spend the majority of time decorating the favor boxes. I am stamping and embossing them. It is quite a bit of work but it is a labor of love. I can't be there to do a lot of things but this is something I can do.

King of the Wood Pile!

Nap Time on the Wood Pile

So this past Friday I went to Northwoods again to finish the data entry, and on Saturday went up to the Skwentna Roadhouse for a potluck and a meet and greet type deal with representatives from 2 companies, one that put in the ice road to move heavy equipment upriver for the new mine and is the one putting in the natural gas pipeline to the new mine. The other company is the one putting in the new mine. I rode up and back with Eric and Shan from Northwoods Lodge. On the way home from Northwoods I thought "OK lets try  a different approach to the woods trail so that maybe I won't tip the snow machine over." It was late afternoon, the snow is soft and I am on a short, narrow track machine. Not the best combo. I decided to run between the air strip where Tom is busy bulldozing the snow off and the old trail that we used before he dozed it to haul his wood through. Had to keep some speed up so that the machine didn't sink too far in the soft snow, doing OK, made it across the snow, across the bulldozed trail, hit the beginning of the woods trail and one ski overshot the trail and OH CRAP, not again. Nope didn't tip it over but it sunk all the way down to the seat. GRRRRRRR! I really am getting sick and tired of this. It is a royal pain to get machines out when this happens. Got to dig out some of it, pack a path in front of it, etc. etc. Takes a bit of time and energy that is for sure. Oh and that is after you get through the snow that you have sunk to your thighs in. I started working on getting the machine out and I look up and here is Tom coming over on his dozer. He hops off, comes over helps lift the back end and says, "The heck with this I have a chain and a bulldozer, I'll pull it out". Of course about every other step you take right now you sink to your thighs so it was a challenge just to hook up the chain but Thanks again Tom! You are my "Hero". Made it the rest of the way home without any more problems but even the woods trails are getting soft.

Hans wants in & Isabelle wants out! Grass is always greener
on the other side of the fence eh!

Won't be long now and we will not be traveling for a bit. There will be a period of time when the snow is too soft or not enough left to run snow machines and it will be too mucky and watery to run the four wheelers, unless you want to get stuck in the deep muck. So when Roger gets back from Ohio he will do one more stock up grocery shopping, fuel etc before he heads home. I only hope that the river trail holds out til then. If not he will probably forgo the fuel, get the groceries and fly back out. Not much choice if the river isn't safe to travel. Most of the guys that haul freight say that you can usually run the river safely until about mid April. Praying that that holds true this year but a lot of folks have been saying that it has warmed up earlier than usual this spring. Time will tell I guess. Oh and it is out of my control!

Sunset on the Yentna River

Well it is about time to end this. Need to find a bite to eat, (can't cook anything right now cause Roger took all the propane tanks in with him to get them filled), probably should get started on making some space to bring in the dog food and other food stuffs that we have stored on the back porch this winter. Time to move it inside, the bears will be waking up soon and they LOVE dog food! That is what is used for baiting them if you have the proper permits to do so! Roger hopefully will be home in the next hour or so and then we will need to make sure a few things are done before he leaves tomorrow. It seems like there is always something that needs done, or fixed or whatever!

Bald Eagle along the Yentna River

Thanks for taking time to share our adventures. Hope you all have a great day! Blessings, Myra

96%

I did a two day course then an exam to get my Coast Guard license. I got a 96% on the exam. That was pretty cool. Oh yea,,, I was also class valadictorian (and I don't even know how to spell it). I suppose I should mention that there were only two people in the class.
Oh well, it was very informative and a good experience.
I also attempted to apply for a TWIC card but I have to go back in with more information, I got a Physical and took a drug test. I am proud to say I passed all things with flying colors. I studyed for a very long time for the drug test but I aced it. Yea! lol
Myra stayed at Dan and Jeans for the two days and we came back home today. Hans ran the WHOLE way home. 25 miles. He ate and fell asleep and has not even moved other than breathing for 4 hours.
The weather is really warming up and the river travel may become an issue much quicker than expected (normal).
Myra and I have made some plans to go up the Ice Road to the Happy River on Thursday. This will take us into the mountains that we look at out our front windows. I will make sure we take pictures and give you a good update.
Thanks for being here,
Talk to you later.
Roger