Back to the big City 2022!

I’ve been trying to get everyone caught up forever! We got back to Fairbanks late the first week of March. We’ve been running around like crazy ever since. This was the first year in a few that the Alaska Trappers Association hosted the annual local auction and fundraising benefit. We participate in both. The kids have been sick twice in the short time we’ve been in town. I needed to get the store up and running before I did a post or we loose important sales. Finally, I have the opportunity to let everyone know how the winter went for us.

The fall was a good time to finally relax and enjoy being a family after a hectic summer topped off with Tylers guiding season. Again, we couldn’t fish for salmon because the run has been too poor. Tyler didn’t have any major building or construction projects to do so we worked on some maintenance chores and slowed down time a bit while we could. Nearly everyday until the weather became cold enough to freeze the river we went for nice walks with the family. We had 4 puppies last spring and kept them all. The dogs all got to have a lot of nice long strolls with us as well. We fished for grayling and let Sydney reel em in. The grouse population was incredible this past season and we did a lot of hunting. The kids got used to going out for a grouse hunt everyday after their naptime. They would wake up excited to put on their boots. On one of the first few days in the woods we were walking home from a river walk when Sydney spotted the first grouse of the season, she was so excited. Making us proud, she quietly looked at us and put her finger to her lips to shush us and she started to walk real slow creeping closer to the grouse. She could see it but we hadn’t spotted it yet and she was going to show us when all of a sudden our dog Whiskey burst down the lane and flushed the grouse up in a frantic flight. She was so mad at the dog for ruining the moment for her.

After that day we started hunting regularly and though Sydney wasn’t ready to start shooting she loves to spot them and acts as our loyal bird dog retrieving them proudly. We just had a grouse in the tree in town here a few nights ago and Blaze kept insisting we shoot it because he absolutely loves me to make him fried grouse for his dinner. We don’t shoot the grouse in town and he had a hard time understanding. We feasted through the fall on a few dozen grouse all harvested within a couple miles of our cabin.

This is a picture of us getting ready to hop in the plane and fly out to the trapline for the winter. If you look closely you can see one of our dogs, Hatchet pressed up against the window between us. The kids were excited and our flights went well.

Sydney absolutely adores all 7 of our dogs and the dogs are very good with our kids. The don’t jump one the kids and treat them with care. Sydney spends a lot of time with the dogs. They are all various pawns in her games of imagination.

Blaze is proudly showing us the beautiful stick stringer of grayling we caught that evening for dinner. Sydney is creeping up pretending to be a cat about to steal the fish. Our lives are all about the kids right now. We’re trying to have good experiences with them and teach them well. I started doing a bit of a school lesson with Sydney everyday in the fall. Teaching Sydney was such rewarding experience for me this past winter. Sydney is going to turn 5 at the end of April but she is already a good writer. Her handwriting is easier to read than Tylers, haha! She does a bit of reading and we are working on memorizing the first one hundred site words.

I can see that homeschooling in the woods is going to be a good experience where it’s easy to find time and focus on our tasks. Our winter wasn’t all too exciting but that’s a good thing really. We all stayed healthy and had some fun.

It was about mid November that we started getting enough ice to get out and do some beaver trapping with the kids and get some meat for the dogs. It’s really fun to take kids beaver trapping. Showing them what to look for. Chopping holes in the ice. showing them how to make a set and then pulling up a big beaver from the ice the next day. When Tyler skins the beaver he cuts off the tail. Blaze waits for him to cut off the tail and he will pick it up and bring it to me slapping it on the kitchen counter he’ll say “cook it up!” He loves to eat beaver tail.

At the end of November, when the sun started to disappear my Grandma Elaine died. It was a very difficult time for me. I always felt close to my Grandma. She was my last living Grandparent. I didn’t get to say goodbye. I felt racked with guilt that I wasn’t close to my family. There’s no way I could afford to fly out of the wilderness and then to Minnesota. I envied my brothers that no matter how sad it was, they had the opportunity to say or hear something meaningful from Grandma before she died. I hadn’t seen Grandma since Blaze was a newborn and then covid came into play. The last time I spoke to her was right before I got on the airplane to fly out to the trapline. I literally had to say goodbye to her because the pilot was waiting for me to climb up. I wish I could have been there to help my Mom. To hug her and relieve her of Grandmas bedside when she was exhausted and needed to sleep. I’m crying right now of course and that’s the way it will be for some time yet. Life is so precious and fleeting.

In December the darkness fell and we lost a good Fairbanks friend of ours. Another bout of loss and pain.

We didn’t have any injuries or illnesses which was very fortunate. We did have a bit of a dog problem though. One of our pups, Hatchet got an infected pocket under his muzzle and we weren’t sure how it was going to turn out for a while. We couldn’t figure out why he was swelling up so badly. There were no holes or visible wounds in his mouth or on his neck. We brought him to live inside, gave him antibiotics and decided to wait and see for a few days. In a couple of days after some serious swelling and discomfort the thing opened up and drained and he was better after that. It took a while to heal but he got back to normal.

We rotate dogs in the house for family time. This next picture is of Anja. Anja lets the kids play with her all day. Here she is letting all of her new puppies nurse. Sydney likes to pretend she is like a doggie midwife. If your sight isn’t very well….those pups are stuffed animals.

It was hard to get around the trapline till late December. There wasn’t enough snow on the tails to run the sled very well and the river rock was all exposed as well. In late December we finally got enough snow for Tyler to get all set up. He trapped very hard in January and February to make up for lost time and he was successful but was also away from home a lot and it was me and the kids holding down the fort many a night. I would get very lonely if I wasn’t with Tyler before the kids were born but now Sydney and Blaze are becoming lively company to keep me busy and my mind off of things. If Tylers gone for a few days I tried to make it fun and do craft projects and baked treats. Sydney would relish getting to snuggle next to me at night in bed.

 

 

I did as much fur sewing as I could get way with. I had a lot of fun sewing and I like having a job I can do from home and still care for my family. I like to keep busy all day long and sewing makes me feel good. I ran myself out of materials to work with the first week of February and that was really a sad day for me, haha. I was ready to get to town soon so I could get back to work some. I didn’t want to fly back to town before March, though, because it was an extremely cold winter up here and I didn’t want to do any traveling until the weather was more mild.

In February we got the kids out on the dogsled for some fun runs with all of the dogs. It’s really exciting for them to go on a ride with the dogs. They cheer the the dogs on for the first half of the ride and then they fall asleep to the peaceful rhythm of the gliding sled and the whispery sound of the dogs feet padding along down the trail. At the end they pop awake again and beg to give the dogs their after run treats.

In the evenings if the Northern lights are out, we turn off all of the lights in the cabin for a while and the whole family crowds around our biggest window facing our closest most prominent mountain and watch the Northern lights erupt out of the ridge line like the bubbling steam of a witches cauldron.

I’d never tried it before this year but apparently you can roast marshmallows perfectly over a wood stove and the kids can stay occupied for quite some time toasting a couple marshmallows over the stove for a treat.

In March our good friend came to pick us up and bring us back to town. I went first with the kids and three of the dogs. When I got to town I shoveled like crazy because the snow was so deep in Fairbanks. There was over 90” of precipitation in Fairbanks over the winter! One of my friends kept insisting she should shovel off my steps for me before I got home and I kept telling her it wasn’t necessary and that I would get by on my own but I was sure glad she did it anyway. Here’s a picture of tunnel she dug to our front steps here in Fairbanks. Coming up our path to the cabin I walked alongside our 6 foot garden fence and it didn’t look any higher than my thighs.

 

Tyler just finished up cleaning, bleaching and gluing all of the skulls we’re going to sell from this past season. Tyler’s literary agent pitched his book several weeks back and we are waiting and hoping for some good news, it all comes down to marketing and so fa,r some of the response from publishers has been, “I love the writing, but it would be a better sell if they were still on TV”.  Tyler’s off to start some conventional work tomorrow putting a roof on a new house. I’ve got 48 tomato plants started and 18 peppers.  I’m already thinking of the next post on the blog I’ve been thinking about all winter. The topic is going to be prepping and survival with my personal spin on things, it should be fun!

This was part of Sydney’s school work this morning. Cheers! Be back soon, promise.