More Winter Pictures

I ran across more pictures that brought back lots of fun memories. Some are a few years old. Most are family pictures that give more of an introduction to our life in the Alaskan bush. Some are just pretty pictures.
We cook and heat with wood and go through lots of firewood -- about 9 to 10 cords a year. This pile will last close to a year.



This is a marten (sable) that got into our cache.



We have one year-round neighbor. Bud is an 85 year old widower. He lives like we do, cutting his own wood and hauling his own water. He won't accept much help from us (although he never passes up chocolate treats and homemade bread). He says that if he's too old to do his own chores, then he's too old to be here. He's still going strong.



We bought goats and had them flown out to us a few years ago.



This one liked Jed's hat.



Jed loved the new kids. All animals seem to be crazy about him. He's incredibly instinctive with both animals and people.



We haul our water from a spring. Chuck dug it out a little, built a filter box and inserted a pipe. I suppose you could say we have running water. :-)



We had to fly someone out here to install our satellite internet system. Our phone system isn't very reliable, and it's been great to have internet.



These are Highbush Cranberries (not real cranberries). They're not good to eat off the bush, but they cook up into delicious jelly and cranberry butter (a lot like apple butter). Our favorite cranberry treat is homemade catsup. It's sort of a cross between regular catsup and barbecue sauce, only better than either one. It's nice to pick after the leaves are gone when there are no mosquitoes.







This is a picture of our caches. They're the first view of home we have coming down the trail.



Last November we had enough cold weather to start freezing the lake pretty good before we got much snow. Although none of us have ice skates, we still had fun sliding around the lake.



That's probably enough pictures of winter. Spring is on the way! The weather forecast (for what it's worth) says we're headed for a heat wave. Might even hit 50 later in the week!