December Snow

Although we had a few dustings in November, we didn't get our first real snow until December.

The snow started on the 10th and we ended up with almost 6 feet for the month.

This shot looks up at the lodge from the boardwalk.

This is snow flowing off the roof of the shop (it flows slowly--sort of like a glacier).

Looking down the boardwalk to the dock.

Jen clearing snow on the dock--she has fun at everything!

Getting aboard to shovel the Bob.

We have to "rake" the snow off the baitshed so the float won't sink.

Once the snow is off, we shovel or use the snowblower to get it off the dock.

This year, we have another floathouse to shovel that is anchored out in Schooner Cove, a small cove inside Warm Springs Bay.

The small area of the cove sometimes freezes solid, but we were able to push through the slush to get to the floathouse.

Approaching the floathouse.

We get out once a week or so to clear the snow off the float so it doesn't sink.

This was about 14 inches of snow.

The next time we tried to get in, the slush had frozen solid.

This was as close as the sun came to coming over the horizen at the solstice.

So far, we have not lost power or water during the cold spells, although we've come close. We have an overflow that we open under the deck in front of the lodge during cold weather so there is always water moving through the waterline and it won't freeze. We also run faucets and keep water flowing through the toilet to prevent lines from freezing.

We've had some damage from snow and ice ripping the built in rain gutters off, so we rake the snow off to keep the pressure from building too high. We just take the gutters off of the other buildings.

Every time it snows, we have to clear it off the top of the woodpile and dig the tarps out so we can get more wood when we need it.

We have two Honda snowblowers to help remove the snow. The tough part is clearing behind the lodge where the roof sheds. If we don't keep this area clear, the snow builds up over the windows to the roof and the roof can't shed anymore.

All fall I would occasionally start up the snowblowers and move them around to make sure they were ready. On the first real snowfall, I started one up and began moving it to the area I wanted to clear. It went about 10 yards before one cable broke, the other froze, and the belt snapped. The second snowblower's still running like a champ while we wait for parts to fix the first one.

Merry Christmas!

November at the Lodge

Well, I'm not doing too well on my goal of posting to this blog on a weekly basis. Maybe it will be a New Year's resolution and I'll improve after the first of the year.
November started out as a very wet month. We had 23 inches of rain in the first 15 days.Every fall, it seems like the big storms combine heavy rain with super high tides and waves from Chatham Strait to float the boardwalks. We've learned to make sure the boardwalks are tied down when we get here in the fall to prevent them from floating away.

We also had several windstorms which blew spray off the wavetops in our normally protected bay.

Of course, working on the firewood couldn't wait for good weather.

Although it hasn't been a big snow year yet, November did give us a few dustings that necessitated getting the snow shovels and snow blowers out. In December, I can't wear slippers when I do snow removal.

Something strange happened in the last half of the month. We had 10 days in a row of clear, dry weather.

We got outside projects done around the lodge and finished up our boat projects.

The tarps came off the wood shed and wood pile to get the firewood as dry as possible.

Jen and I even got in a little kayaking.

Kayaking in front of Baranof Falls.

Headed home.....that's the lodge in the background.

MORE WILDLIFE

This belted Kingfisher lives around the lodge and is usually found on top of the barbeque on the boat when we go down to the dock.

We have a large group of river otters that hangs out around the lodge. We often see as many as 8 of them swimming around, hauling out on the dock, or sliding on the snow.

This otter got a shrimp somewhere under the dock.

We had a lot of Varied Thrushes hanging out this fall. This one was eating stink currants.

This female merganser got a nice sculpin for breakfast.

Feral Bueller continues to prowl the grass looking for field mice and shrews.

She was such a good sport about wearing her "moose mount" when we found her infested with fleas. She was pulling all the fur out of her tail and hindquarters, so we would slap the mount on her as soon as she started to scratch.

It was tough for a while, but we ended up getting some flea medicine and flea foggers flown into a hatchery 14 miles up Chatham Strait and the flea problem finally seems to be gone. See our post, "Fleas in Paradise".
Feral, normally not a big fan of being held, got used to tolerating it as we would do a"flea search".
She loves it now that the snow is back.

And she still has the best scratching post in the world!

Thanksgiving Dinner

We were invited to go over to "town" (note--we call the community of Baranof with 12 cabins and 1 full time resident "town") for Thanksgiving dinner, so I volunteered to bake some pies and bread. Since we have plenty of bowls here, I decided to do them all at once.

Jen hates it when I bake because it's very messy.

Three loaves of sourdough, three loaves of sourdough egg braid, one pumpkin pie and one apple/rhubarb/blueberry ought to be enough to hold the 5 of us at dinner.

Isn't it amazing how many dirty dishes baking entails? Luckily Jennifer cheerfully volunteered to do the cleanup.

OK--I might have been stretching it a bit on the "cheerfully" part.

Thursday night, we kicked the evening off with a toast of "Baranof Elixer," Christine's homemade specialty, which was suprisingly good (but I don't want to know what's in it)!

Christine--our "Hostess with the Mostest"!

Carving the bird.

Luke and Hank dishing up.

Dinner is served!

I think Hank liked the apple/rhubarb/blueberry pie (that's pie filling on his nose)!

Thanks for a great dinner, Christine!