Month: December 2022

This tree was down at the ice-covered beach.

The air was so cold that the freshwater running down from the river was freezing on the surface of the salty sea. Then, as the tide withdraws, it leaves the sheets of ice lying on the beach.

I’ve been struggling lately, feeling discouraged by my various projects and obligations. Not just discouraged… bored, too, I guess.

I spent a few hours today trying to start our generator. I thought it would be easy. A brief power failure this morning reminded me that it was something I wanted to make sure worked. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work. It’s brand-new – I’m not sure what’s wrong with it. And it’s too cold outside for me to want to spend more time troubleshooting it (I’d rather not start a gasoline engine indoors!).

There’s a quote attributed to Vincent Van Gogh: “I take great care of myself by carefully shutting myself away.”

This is relatable, today.

[daily log: walking, 3km; dogwalking, 3km]

This tree stands along the road a little bit west of our driveway.

The neighbors’ dog and I took a walk. Here she is resting a moment at the top of the west driveway.

The continuous rain-snow-rain-snow thing seems to have ended. Now cold air has arrived from northeast, and things will get very cold, but clear.

[daily log: walking, 3km; dogwalking, 3km]

This tree is along the snowy road. I took it a few days ago. More recently, the snowy road is an icy road.

Art and I went to town today, to do our “Thursday shopping” one day late. We didn’t go yesterday because I thought the roads would be too icy to drive easily. I thought the same thing today, but we went anyway, because I saw forecasts of a snowstorm coming, and I thought: “Well, the roads aren’t going to get better, they’re going to get worse.”

Indeed, the road was very icy. I drove very slowly, only slid around a little bit a few times, and the scariest part – the 6-mile hill – was much better than the other parts. I think some good Samaritan must have spread some salt or sand or something on the steep parts of the hill. We survived. And shopped.

[daily log: walking, 2km;]

This tree has been hanging out near the beach for a very long time. That’s the blue-green sea, in the background there.

The road to town was so horrible yesterday (coated with ice) that I decided the smartest option would be to play hooky from work today. Fortunately I have an understanding boss.

[daily log: walking, 3km;]

This tree was witness to a very high-speed, excited dog was we walked along the snowy road. She was running quite fast, and I just got lucky with this picture as she ran past me.

I got some chores done today. I filled the cistern from the well – still a manual task, and with the input stream off the hillside frozen, we have to make sure we don’t run short of water. I wasted a lot of water playing with hoses and fixing the frozen pipe problem last Sunday. I also did some unplanned maintenance on one of the database for the map website I maintain. But I was pleased that I was able to troubleshoot and solve the problem, despite knowing next-to-nothing about the programming language involved.

[daily log: walking, 5km; dogwalking, 3km]

This tree saw steady snowfall blanket bustling downtown Rockpit, Alaska.

I got to resume my dogwalking habit today, as neighbors Mike and Penny returned from their own travels with their dog Maya. Art and I restocked our larders with a more substantial shopping trip to town than usual, and came home for our traditional Thursday pizza dinner.

[daily log: walking, 5km; dogwalking, 3km]

This tree is adjacent to a culvert half-full of ice.

By the end of the day, temperatures were warming, however. There is mixed rain and snow forecast for tomorrow. And I’m off to work tomorrow – after almost four weeks… will I remember how to do my job?

[daily log: walking, 3km;]

This tree will be our Christmas tree – it’s a small sitka spruce I planted in a bucket.

I spent most of the day messing with our water system. I can’t say for sure, but my guess is that we had a plug of ice (frozen pipe) somewhere in the outdoor section of buried pipe between the cistern shed and house. So turning on the water supply was far from trivial. The day was crisp and sunny, with temperatures in the mid-to-upper 20’s.

First, I set up a giant construction-site-style heater to blow heat onto the spot where the water pipe enters the house. Counter-intuitively, the water enters the house at the side of the boat-shed, which is on the north side and “bottom” of the house. But it makes sense, since that was the part of the house that was constructed first. Here is the heater, a-heating.

Next, I wanted to apply “reverse pressure” to the buried pipe. So I used the same trick we’d used last summer when I had to repair the main house water filter: I stretched a garden hose down the hill from the cistern shed to a spigot on the house directly. This pressurizes the water in the house while bypassing the buried line. Unfortunately, I had been unwise when we departed – I hadn’t put the hoses away inside the house. Instead, they where lying around outside, full of frozen water. I had to bring them in and let them relax in the bathtub for a few hours, to help them thaw out.

Note to self: next time, put the hoses in the house before traveling!

Once we had pressure inside the house, and with the heater warming the inlet area (a lot! I got the plastic rim of the sunken spot with the intake valve almost too hot to touch), I guess that was what was needed to thaw the ice in the buried pipe.

It was all exhausting – especially since I’d imagined finally getting home and having a lazy day, after all my adventuring in the wild lands of the south. About 3 pm I took a long shower with our restored water pressure, and almost fell asleep before Arthur and I had dinner.

[daily log: walking, 4km; hose-wrangling, 2hr]