It has been a quiet winter so far here on the Colvile River Delta homestead, known as Colville Village. We slipped into freezing weather late September, and ice on the river was thick enough to set a fish net by October 3rd. Ruby loves to go with
Jim and tries to help pull the sled. We do not fish commercially any longer, but only subsistently for what we need for ourselves and our dogs. We catch about 1000 # of fish in a few days and then pull the net for the season.Late October, Jim made his anual trek south to visit our kids and take care of eye and dental appointments. He spent many extra hours cutting, splitting, and stacking extra wood for me, plus any other chores he coukd do ahead of time, before leaving. While he was gone,Teena “held down the fort” on the homestead and kept the house warm and comfy and generator fueled, serviced, and running smoothly. These days we have very modern and fast communications at the homestead that operate off a strong backup battery system, should electrical power fail, so Jim and I can stay in touch easily. I did have one episode of needing help, when the generator failed to restart properly after an oil change. Thanks to cell phones, I was able to quickly get instructions on resetting an accidentally tripped toggle switch to the actuator on the generator. Soon all was back to normal.
While Jim was away from home he spent time with Aaron and Autumn, Isaac and family, and Derek and Cindy in the greater Anchorage area and then Jay and family in Fairbanks.
When leaving the homestead to travel this time of year, we have to ride a snowmachine about 5 miles across the river and tundra to the closest point on the year-round road system to where we access our pickup truck. There we switch modes of transportation, and drive 2 1/2 hours to Deadhorse where the commercial airlines operates. Then a jet ride to Fairbanks or Anchorage. Reverse this to return home.
A few weeks after Jim returned home, Teena left for 10 days to enjoy some time with family and friends… mostly kids, and grandkids.
Unfortunately, I discovered that this late 2015 post was never published, but sat on my blog as a draft for the past 11 months. Now you can read it and just think "ditto" for this fall of 2016, except it is October 8th and still no freeze-up, or snow.
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