Mid Winter Blues

The days are getting longer at a rapid pace. Evening on the lake at approximately 6PM.

 Our firewood supply is getting skinny, so warm temperatures must be just around the corner!

Did you know that there is a 4 wheeler next to the sign buried under the snow hill? One of the autumn casualties that didn't get moved to it's winter resting spot before the first snow fall.

View from kitchen window shows the snow trying to slide off of the roof but keeps freezing. Hopefully in March it will let go!

 With fresh snow continuing to fall and nighttime temperatures dipping into the negative double digits, it’s hard to believe spring time is ever going to find it’s way here. Many locals who are seasoned in long winters, including the moose, are getting antsy with the persistent snowfall. It's SO deep! However, in just a couple of weeks we should start seeing daytime temps climb well above freezing. Bring on the mid-March meltdown!  

"Lady A" or the aurora borealis, showing rare colors of pinks. Photo courtesy of Valerie Hanson.

 It’s not all dark and gloomy around here though! The end of February brought a large solar storm which produced some incredible aurora. This was one of the brightest since we’ve moved here; showing almost every color of the rainbow, it was quite spectacular. The Northern Lights came out around 9:30PM and lasted all night long until about 5AM. This allowed many locals to take in the energizing light show who normally go to bed early. Also, we’ve lately been gaining almost 6 minutes of daylight each day. It doesn’t sound like much, but that’s an extra hour of daylight every 11 days! By the end of March we’ll be receiving over 13 hours of daylight, over 16 hours by the end of April, and it will peak at about 19.5 hours in the middle of June. With all this snow cover, it makes me question the mosquito population come May and June. The ground will take longer to thaw causing the snowmelt to hang around longer allowing lots of breeding grounds for the blood-sucking pests. 

Quiet snow covered structures in February. Life slows down to almost a halt at the peak of winter.

Spring time will bring a welcome change of pace to the homestead. While we currently have waist deep snow anywhere off the maintained path, there are lots of projects just waiting for us to reach them (I’m looking at you, collapsed greenhouse lean-to!). We also need to get all of the garden seeds planned out and sprouted. In addition, we need to decide what and how much livestock we want to raise this summer. Growing a large garden and raising livestock is not particularly difficult, however it does demand a lot of attention. This means we really aren’t able to venture too far from home for any length of time during the summer months. This is sort of a hidden cost which we are now mindful of as we plan our summer endeavors.  

In the shop, Pete has been chugging along getting the drywall finished up and we are planning on painting early March. Then, we’ll finally get to move in and work in our awesome new space! It can feel as if tedious projects like this move extremely slow and drag on forever. Looking back, however, it was only seven months ago when we broke ground on the project, working mostly alone. Can't forget to thank Pete's brother for help in September with the difficult installation of the roof! Since July of 2022, Pete has prepped the site, built the forms, poured the slab, built the structure, wrapped it in steel, insulated it, installed electrical and the heating system, indoor and exterior lighting, and nearly finished out all of the drywall. I helped with supervision, ladder spotting, encouragement, snack breaks, and the difficult first time cement pour in July. I've spent some time in the shop doing small tasks for my Wild North business and boy, I'm itching to move in! We leave the thermostat set at 50 degrees but it's still cozy enough to work and cure paints, stains, and glue--not epoxy yet! A personal goal we set from learning with the cabin build is to finish out the structure before moving in, otherwise the little details will never get finished and you'll end up working around the unfinished projects/clutter. 

We've lost count how many times we've had to shovel roofs this winter. Here, Pete is shoveling the shop roof while it snowed.

One of Pete’s favorite sayings when it comes to building is “fast, cheap, and quality; you can only choose two”. We typically opt for high quality and low cost, meaning things seem to take a long time. This doesn’t mean we intend for all of our future projects to also move at a snail’s pace, because who's got time for that? We are looking at these first projects sort of as our practice rounds. Now, when it comes time to hire out and let the professionals work, we will feel more confident in our quality investments.  

The swingset is half buried in this winter's snowfall.

Beans soaking up the Sunday midday sun.

Once we get everything moved in and set up, we’re hoping to start working on some really cool designs! We’ll have lots of space to start doing some much larger epoxy resin pieces. We also plan on doing a lot more work with our CNC router and  eventually upgrading to a bigger laser machine as well. Up until now, we’ve been doing most of our work inside our tiny cabin which has really limited the quantity and size of what we can do.

Arctic wolf custom that glows blue in the dark.

Custom humpbacks in a new color.

A Valentine's day gift.

 Well, that’s about all for this month. Hope everyone is fairing well in the thick of winter. Spring will be here before we know it! Thanks for reading and take care, everyone!

It's a good habit to look both ways before exiting the home in Alaska.

Passing through in early February.

Adult moose bedded down nearby.