An era has passed. Back in 1995 I traded in my old Mazda B2000 pickup for a newer (1990) Mazda B2200. It was at a Saturn dealer of all places, and I felt like it was a good deal. That became my DC commuting vehicle—three-hour round trips daily. When we moved to Alaska in 1997 there was room in the 40-foot container with all our household goods for the pickup, so we loaded it on last. And it’s been a stalwart part of our Alaska lives since. Until now.
Old Blue
The month of Swainson’s Thrush song, which some call June, is now past. We heard their last concert on 2 July, and the next day dragonflies and daisies became the warm-weather theme. And by warm I mean for this year, which has been rather cool. We’re finally getting days into the 70s. It sure beats the heat and wildfire smoke that we get too often at this time of year. Having to light fires in the wood stove in June is not as joyful as in winter, but with $5.99/gal. fuel oil it’s flame on, Johnny.
Late last fall I practically strained my arm patting myself on the back for getting all the wood I had diced up in the woods over the summer stacked out there. I’ve been beavering away getting this year’s wood split and stacked in the wood shed, and as it fills up I am only just getting the Boombah Haulage Company up and running again. This involves hauling wood out of the woods on my back from those scattered stacks and re-stacking it near the wood shed for next summer’s splitting and stacking. It’s therapeutic, I keep reminding myself in the evenings when I am stiff as a board. That stiffness goes away by the next morning, so the guy is just a whiner. Anyway, the wood I haul now is for next winter.
I like to start out each Haulage season with the biggest pieces that are the farthest away. Then it seems to get easier as I go along. This year there were some real base-of-the-tree monsters that just about broke the equipment. I cut up trees into 16-inch pieces from the base, and when they get thin enough to carry one longer piece I go to four-footers to make carrying more efficient.
When that far stack was gone and only the four-footers remained, I glanced over the little slope and saw a lone four-footer that had escaped the fall roundup. When I got there, though, even further over the slope I could see that the low-bid contractor I’d had working for the Haulage Company (the one with the strained arm from back patting) had missed two whole trees lying there diced up and had not stacked them. We call this situation “The squirrel lost his nuts.”
So I’ve started remedying the lost nuts problem with long hauls: 10.5-minute round trips. Doing that for an hour a day might also be therapeutic. I’ll get back to you on that. Right now I need to stop my wandering eyes from identifying new wood that far out.
And that’s the season’s report. The wood shed is nearly full with this coming winter’s wood, and next winter’s wood is slowly making its way home.
I’ve been meaning to write a blog post on being buttoned up for the winter, but we’re well past that happy phase and deep into the reason we were buttoning in the first place. Now we’re topping off the buttons with scarves, sweaters, and extra blankets and burning the densest firewood for maximum heat.
Another crisp day in Fairbanks
Normally, the cold doesn’t bother me much. It’s a good reminder of where we live and the importance of being aware of your surroundings. Here at home we have plenty of firewood, and all is generally well with the world—as long as I remember to plug in my truck.
But we’ve been getting used to global warming making our winters less cold. One account I saw recently indicated that we haven’t seen weather like this since 2012. So, like many here, I am ready for a break from -40s and -30s and even -20s. Collectively, given my current state of mind (having looked at the weather forecast), I’m now calling this weather the “Minus Shitties.”
Oh, the weather’s in the minus shitties…
There are good sides. Here on a Science Saturday as I go over page proofs for a forthcoming paper, I see chickadees and redpolls coming in to the feeder; a Christmas-like ambience to the quiet woods; and I’m enjoying the good, crackling blaze of birch logs in the woodstove. And who doesn’t like this time of year? The fridge is stocked with rare treats just begging to be sampled. For lunch I had an exquisite Stilton and smoked-salmon omelet that would have had the gods themselves agog with delight.
Today we’re experiencing the earliest sunset of the year (2:39 PM), and I look out the window at some of next winter’s wood, diced and stacked in the woods waiting for the seasonal re-opening of the Boombah Haulage Company. Oddly enough, the company’s sole employee was able to get all of the wood that was on the ground and diced up stacked during our protracted freeze-up earlier in the year. The slacker doesn’t know how lucky he is. (Or does he?) When it warms up a bit, we’ll send him out on a stack inspection.
Wood for next winter, diced, stacked, and waiting for haulage.
It began in January on a trip to Seattle. My guts did not feel right. It took awhile for the serious discomfort to go away, and I was not sure what was going on. I’d get periodic resurgences—a really uncomfortable feeling, like there was a baseball lodged in there that wasn’t moving.
Then it advanced a bit more, waxing and waning, and began to include pain. And then I remembered that this was not the first time. It was just different. Diverticulitis. I’d first had it in 2012, brought on by plant secondary compounds, like spicy lettuce leaves (e.g., arugula). That had gotten quite painful, and a trip to the emergency room sorted it out with antibiotics and a liquid diet graduating slowly back up to and through soft foods. Periodically I’d get a little ping to remind me, but I didn’t have another real case until this sort with its different feeling in 2024.
We have a simple, delicious recipe for shell-on jumbo shrimp that we use for celebrations. We call it Magic Shrimp. It’s dirt easy: