A Gusto!

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Much ado about August!

We have been hard at it getting done as much as we can before summer closes the door on us. The leaves have slowly begun to change and now float about with every breeze, which can only mean one thing: winter is coming!

A view of our front yard on a grey, foggy late-August morning.

At the beginning of the month, we spent an afternoon cruising through the beautiful Hatcher Pass, making occasional pit stops to search for blueberries or just to take in the view. It was a gorgeous clear day, perfect for such an excursion. We ended up with probably a quart of berries. In similar fashion to most of our fishing trips, by the time we really got into them everyone was pretty tired and ready to head home.

By Summit Lake in Hatcher Pass

A pair of violets in the tundra of Hatcher Pass. Blueberries just weren’t ripe yet.

The storage loft in the garage is complete and turned out great! Pete made a couple of trips up to our friends’ place near Talkeetna, where had brought the sawmill, and milled up the beams and floor boards. Wild North Design has already fulfilled many orders from this cozy space, and we look forward to many more once we get the rest of our equipment set up!

Pete spent some time chasing critters to put in the freezer, but hasn’t had much luck. He went fishing near our place a few times but always came home empty handed :( He also drove about four hours north to the Denali Highway to try and get a caribou. Him and a friend spent a couple days looking, but didn't have any luck. They figured they were a bit early and the caribou hadn't had to leave the base of the mountains looking for food. Most people around here set aside a week or more to go hunting, due to the vastness of the terrain and the time it can take to locate and reach the animals. He did say the scenery was amazing and so we have added a camping trip up there to our list of things to do (...sometime!)

A glacier off the Richardson Highway north of Paxson, Alaska. I could look up the name of it for you but I'd rather just look at it instead :D

Fortunately, a good friend got a big moose and gave us some of it. Added with the fish we netted last month, we do have a good amount of meat in the freezer. Although there’s much we can improve with our ability to gather food from the land, we have come a long way since this same time last year – and we’re sure we’ll be looking back from this point next year thinking the same thing!

Fresh moose steaks waiting to be packaged and frozen.

Moose meat curing.

We rented a mini excavator for a weekend and did a huge amount of work with it. Pete trenched in our 300 feet of electrical cable going from the meter to the cabin, 50 feet of conduit for the well pump wire, 40 feet of conduit between the cabin and garage, and another 40 feet of pipe under the driveway so we can run power and water to the garden. He dug 24 big holes for fence posts in the garden and found several massive rocks in the process. He also dug out some stumps and cleared more space for the firewood shed behind the cabin. Not to mention, pulled out several huge logs from the woods which we’ll cut up and split for firewood. We love when we are able to get a piece of heavy equipment on the property because of the speed in which major projects can be whipped out.

Even after putting overtime hours on the mini excavator we still didn’t get everything done with it which we wanted. Pete had to spend a few hours filling in some of the trenches by hand, which is agonizingly slow after witnessing the speed with which the trench was initially dug. We are sad when the equipment has to go back because there is almost always more we would like to do. There was a bit of sticker shock when we were considering buying a machine last summer due to the high cost of equipment up here. Now, however, we are considering the cost of renting the equipment every year and it’s starting to make more sense.

Bear liked hanging out in the cool trench on the hot summer day

As I write this on the last day of August the rain is pouring. Over 1 inch in the past 24 hours. Usually, August is the wettest month around here. This year, however, it waited until the last day of the month to make that the case!

All the moisture over the past few days has produced some humongous fungus! They love the cool, damp forest floor and they come in every shape, size, and color. Mushrooms are actually the fruit of mycelium. Starting from a singe spore, the mycelium network grows throughout the ground similar to how mold grows on bread. Large mycelium networks can collect and transport nutrients from hundreds or even thousands of feet away! Not only does the network feed itself, but it also works with the surrounding vegetation to exchange and transport nutrients between different plants and trees. It is also thought that plants and trees are able to use the network to send communication signals to each other, providing a heads-up warning of invading pests or other stressors. Fungus plays a vital role in the health of a forest ecosystem, so try to watch your step!

That's about it for August.
​Thanks for reading, Everyone!