October at the Lodge

Jen and I are spending our fifth winter caretaking the Baranof Wilderness Lodge in Warm Springs Bay. The lodge is on the east side of Baranof Island (the opposite side from Sitka) and we will be here from early October until around May 1.

Loading up boxes at the lovely Condo Nasty. It's amazing how much stuff we "need" to keep Jennifer comfortable and happy for seven months.

It's about 90 nautical miles by boat from our slip in Sitka to Warm Springs Bay. We left early in the morning to catch the flood through Sergious Narrows and made it to the dock at the lodge about 11 hours later. We had boxes stacked in all available space below, several 150 # propane bottles lashed on the deck, and the cockpit full of supplies, including a new hot water heater.

Offloading at the lodge.

We have a small hydro-electric plant for power at the lodge. This gives us some electric baseboard heat, but the wood stove gives us most of our heat when the weather gets cold. We try to get as much wood cut in October as we can so it will be as dry as possible before we burn it.

There were still lots of blueberries around when we got here. I spent a couple hours picking these beauties up by the Baranof River one drizzly afternoon. The picking was very easy because all the leaves were already gone.

October was very wet and windy. We had over 22 inches of rain in October and several days with high winds and waves inside the bay. I took the lodge's 19 foot skiff over to the state float at the townsite on Halloween and almost disappeared between the waves. I would not have wanted to be out in Chatham Strait that night!
Our rain gauge showing almost 3" of rain. We record rainfall, high and low temperatures, and snowfall every 24 hours.

Sadie Creek running pretty high after a few days of heavy rain. The creek provides our hydro-electric power and domestic water.

Sadie Creek below our bridge running into Warm Springs Bay.

A few of our resident Harlequin Ducks winter in the bay.

We have a large group of river otters who hang out around the lodge. We have seen as many as eight running around the dock and they swim back and forth between the lodge and the "town" float. (We call the dozen cabins at Baranof "town")

Jen getting ready to cut Hank Short's birthday cake. You can see why we don't encourage her to experiment in the galley.

Feral Bueller's Photo Gallery--a glimpse in the life of a formally feral cat who really loves living at the lodge!

Feral leads the way up the ramp as Jennifer's bike is offloaded.

Heading up to the lodge along the boardwalk.

Jen and Feral are excited to be back to the lodge.

Looking for mice in the grass.

Mouse located and nuetralized!

The shrew who roared! (It didn't do him any good)

I never realized how many mice and shrews there are around until Jen put Feral on a diet. Feral decided to take responsibility for her own meals and she's been nailing the crap out of the little critters. She now spends a lot of time in the grass waiting for something to move, and seems to get one within minutes of going outside every day.

Halloween is Feral's favorite holiday!

This is either Count Dracula or a French cat with an attitude.

She likes to wear a different outfit each day before the trick or treaters arrive.

"It's Alive!"