Month: October 2017

Good Night, Good Evening, and Good Morning

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Today was a long hard day.  We both just didn’t have the stamina to work as hard as we have been.  We chased around power and what could cause such weirdness in the power.  Long story, just wait for my Dad’s post.

This will be my second night in the house sleeping alone with my two dogs.  Dad and Suzy are still in the camper, just in my old bed.  Last night was strange.  This is an older house and it’s an Alaskan house so you can say that it wasn’t quite put together by code. It took me a long time to fall asleep and stay asleep.  So lets say I tossed and turned half the night.  In any house you have to get used to the strange sounds that occur.  It’s always an adventure. It is Halloween and it’s a beautiful sky tonight with a large half moon.  I’m not gonna let my imagination take hold of me.  As far as I know, everyone involved with this house is still alive.  See!  There’s my imagination taking hold of me again.   It’s 8:50 pm now and I feel I could sleep for a century.

Tonight I feel pretty good and think I could sleep all the way through.  Just incase I am taking a Benadryl.  Again, it’s ah old house and it is pretty dusty since we got here, it doesn’t help that we are putting this old house back together.  An allergy pill is just the trick with a humidifier.  Boy, is it dry here.  Moisturize me!  Moisturize me!  LOL!  A little Cassandra there from Doctor Who to lighten the mood.

So, I bid you good night, good evening, and good morning where ever you are.

 

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Bob’s Version: Day 39 Homestead

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Homestead DAY 39
Overslept again. I just can’t seem to get up in the mornings. Summer seems to think it is the lack of sun light. Her new acquaintances all say that they take a Vitamin B12 and D supplements to counteract the depression. I don’t feel depressed just exhausted from constant labor. I haven’t really taken a day off from the renovation and moving our stuff in.

*We didn’t finish Saturday’s To Do List. Today we continued Saturday. Summer got most of our clothing moved from the trailer to the house whilst I plugged away at getting the oil heater running. Had to make a couple of calls before I got the little turkey running. The big problem with the heater was my impatience. For reasons unbeknownst to me the stove has a slow start built into the programming. I wasn’t giving it the 5-6 minutes to light itself. After it fired up, it was all heat and no aggravation. Will call tomorrow and get fuel oil delivered as we are running on whatever was in the tanks when we bought the place. Summer found out Friday that the oil people want us to have, at a minimum, a 300 gallon tank. Been shopping on Craigslist to find one nearby. No luck so far.
*Cut up some more of the destruction debris to fuel the wood stove. Still no fire wood delivery, as the ground has yet to freeze, so the logging people cannot get into the woods. Will have to cut up a bunch more for tomorrow as the temps will be in the 40’s overnight.
*Opened the trailer full of our stuff and extricated the lawn tractor, the concrete mixer, my third chainsaw, some odds and ends and, at last we got to Summer’s bedding out. She was jumping for joy that she would get to sleep in her own bed tonight. We could have gotten to my bed but I wasn’t motivated to move all of the stuff necessary to do so. Like Scarlett “I’ll think about that tomorrow”.
* We got the washer and dryer into the house. Problem is simple: there are no connections for either. Still it is progress.
*The dogs seem to have turned the corner from merely nuisance to aggravating as hell. Gandy seems to anticipate where you need to walk, gets in front and slow walks you to your destination. Taco has the whiny thing going on. Boredom, I guess. Suzy has taken to being extremely needy. I can’t walk away 10 feet without her running over to me to be picked up. The three of them seem to be conniving to keep us from getting anything done. Perhaps, they are feeling insecure due to staying in the house during the day and the camper at night. All of that will change as Summer has moved in and I will move in tomorrow. Tonight I get the good bed in the camper. Whoopeee!!!
*Summer and I both have problems driving here. The scenery is so beautiful that it distracts you from the road and driving. I have come close to leaving the pavement on several occasions.
*Tomorrow we intend to wash these stinking dogs, diminish the electrical and water for the kitchen. Will be nice to have a working kitchen again. Oh and I’m going to see if the third POULAN chainsaw will start and run. I’m not feeling very confident as two others have refused to start.
*Tonight’s fare was loaded baked potato and beanie weenies left from lunch. Neither of us were in the mood to eat a big dinner after all of the work today.

Same Costume Same Year

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I know I have lost weight working the hard homesteader life and remodeling the house.  It occurred to me to compare pictures to see how much I really lost.  I am thrilled!!!  I didn’t even notice until later that my corset was too big!  I had it cinched up all the way and I still had some room.  Now, I have tried all kinds of diets and this one is the best.  I call it the Alaska Diet.  Work hard and eat less.  When you eat, eat healthy.

 

Before – Feb. 2017
After – Oct. 2017

Today, Dad got the oil heater going and it works.  We also unloaded stuff into the house including my bed!  I am sleeping in the house tonight.  Dad and I ran out of steam at this point and were hungry, so we stopped for the night.  I made baked potatoes in the wood stove and beanie weenies.  I’m saving the steaks for tomorrow night. Speaking about tomorrow, Dad is getting his bed in the house as well.  We are so close to living in the house completely!  Dad can’t wait!

I am sitting here by the fire writing and enjoying the fact that I don’t have to walk outside to use the bathroom.  Before bed though, I have to walk back to the camper and get my pillows, heating blanket, iPad and iPhone chargers, dog water bowl for upstairs and then it’s bedtime for Bonzo!  I am so freaking thrilled about being in the house!

I wish we could have done more today, but there is always tomorrow.  Be safe my friends and have a great night or day where ever you are.

 

The Halloween Party: Oct. 28, 2017

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I tell you what.  It’s been a long time since I’ve attended a halloween party!  My wonderful neighbors/friends, in which I feel like I’ve known them forever, invited me to their family party.  I got to meet Homer/Fritz Creek’s finest and made a bunch of new friends in the process.  It was a pot luck and a bonfire with libations.  Kids playing on trampolines and swings.  It was a great break from all the hard working my Dad and I put forth.

There is one thing that is so great about this town.  You get the small town feel up north with a great southern hospitality, but without the southern accents.  That’s where I come in.  LOL

I just want to thank my friends Tiana and Cory for just taking me in that faithful night when Gandie had his senile spell and he found you.  Totally meant to be.

After – Oct. 2017

Bob’s Version: Day 38 Homestead

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Day 38 Homestead

Thought I was going to sleep in my own bed tonight but time and circumstance have no respect for the plans of us mere mortals. We had six things on today’s To Do List we did three of them. We cleaned up the construction debris and hauled all of the trash to the dump station. That was two of the three things. Summer made a special dip for the party she was attending this evening. That was the third thing.
*The dirt guy came over and spread the gravel out and then informed us that we needed 2,maybe three more truck loads to finish the job. It’s kinda like a friend of mine used to say about his gambling. “It’s only green paper”. Brian could have spread the gravel thinner. I’m reasonably certain that in six months or so we would have been unhappy about the job. So 2-3 more loads will be arriving on Monday.
*I have a few rules that govern my life and a friend of mine wanted me to produce them in writing. The Bob Steele Rules are as follows:
1. EVERYTHING that happens to you, good or bad, is, generally, your own damned fault.
2. No decision is permanent as decisions are tied to circumstance and ciumstances are in a constant flux.
3. You can’t help people that won’t help themselves.
4. You can’t help people, if you can’t help yourself.
5. If you see something that needs to be done, DO IT.
6. In interpersonal relationship problems the best thing to do is nothing.
7. You can’t win an argument with an idiot and you end up just wasting your valuable time.
8. Never loan money to family or employees unless you want them out of your life.
9. Never lie, steal or cheat because it will kill the very essence of your humanity.
10. Whether you believe in a God or not, praying and asking forgiveness is cathartic .
I’m sure that some of you will think that the rules are a bunch of baloney, but as I have learned them the hard way they have changed my life and made life easier.
*Back to the homestead. Tomorrow, Sunday, we will attempt to finish Saturday’s To Do List and complete Sunday’s list as well. Brother Murphy has been my constant companion since we began this trek.
*I am aware that I’ve said this before, I think I’ve, finally, solved all of the water leak problems. The water system has been stable and without leaks for two days now.
*Summer was invited to a Halloween party, so no cooking was done. Dinner was half of a corned beef sandwich several thick slices of summer sausage with crackers, a big chunk of angel food cake and a couple of vodkas. Not exactly a great dinner. I would have preferred chocolate cake with butter cream-chocolate icing.

Bob’s Version: Day 37 Homestead

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Homestead DAY 37

alaskaorbust.blog for video, pictures and comments. Summer is uploading stuff daily.
*Those of you who have experienced cold weather know that there are days when you just feel cold regardless of how you are dressed. Today, I was doing the opposite. The temps were in the forties and I was feeling overly warm to the point I was doing my shopping in a tee shirt. All my shorts are packed somewhere so I couldn’t wear those. I guess I could have gone in my underwear except that I stood a very good chance of ending up in a padded cell for a few days.
*I ran around Homer doing my errands and Summer stayed home cleaning up the construction mess. A continuous job for both of us. I didn’t get the oil stove up and running because I had to go to three different places to find the parts I needed. I keep saying that this place would be an excellent place to open a hardware store. I don’t understand the being out of stock situation that is common up here. Everyone has their inventory on computer and can know from minute to minute what is out of stock or at the reorder point. Even the big guys like Home Deport and a local chain, Spenard’s Building Supplies are constantly out of stock on common things. If you had fifty of something that you sell a lot of and it sells out every time before your reorder cycle, why wouldn’t you order 60 the next time?
*The gravel people dumped two loads of material into the yard while I was gone I had just about given up on getting the yard leveled and the gravel spread. Shortly, after the last dump load of gravel, we heard a bull dozer. We went out to find the dirt guy scraping away brush and debris. In less than an hour, he had leveled the pad where we wanted the gravel spread and filled several holes on the perimeter. It was about 5:00 when he went home. This left me and Summer to spread out the TYPAR, which is a road surfacing plastic material, over the area where we wanted the gravel. The reason for the TYPAR is that the land is soft, wet tundra and anything placed on top of it will beginning sinking immediately. The gravel would just disappear in a few months. It was almost dark when we finished the chore. With the wind blowing like crazy we were forced to take shovels full of gravel and place them around the perimeter. One shovel full at the time was the time consuming project as both of our wheelbarrows are still in Florida. Summer went inside to start dinner and I stayed outside perfecting our wind proofing project. Just as I was satisfied that the TYPAR would still be in place tomorrow morning, the wind died.
*My back problem continues. My back hurts exactly where the bar in the sofa bed crosses my body. Tomorrow I plan to extricate my bed from the trailer and spend my first night in our new home. No more travel trailer living for Summer myself and three dogs.
* Summer sautéed onions and garlic added that to store bought spaghetti sauce. Noodles, parmesan and a tasty sauce was dinner.

Big Improvements!

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So in order to get our container and park the camper in the actual yard we needed to do a lot of dirt work.  It’s so hard to work on the property when you’re constantly dodging holes, walking through ankle deep mud and large piles of dirt.  SO, we got someone in to fix the problem and create a driveway.

Bob’s Version: Day 36 Homestead

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DAY 36 Homestead

As many of you know this house was a derelict. No water, no electricity, no heat and I have absolutely seen ‘crack houses’ in better shape. Nevertheless, we have persisted and have gotten all of those in place. By tomorrow evening we will have another, more consistent, source of heat, our Toyo oil stove. It is only 22k btu but is a constant 22k btu as opposed to the varying heat from the wood stove. We’ve ordered six cords of wood but won’t get them until the ground freezes solid. In the meantime, we are burning the lumber left over from the previous idiot destroying the water room. With both oil and wood we should be able to stay nice and warm during the winter.
Projects today consisted of repairing the water piping again, running the line for the oil, cleaning up, feeding the wood stove and bringing our water tank plumbing up to the standards of our water supplier.
Found out too late that PVC pipe is not the best product for Alaska. The water supplier said the we should put our pump house entirely in PEX. The house is already piped in PEX because it does so well in the cold.
Why I didn’t do the pump house the same way can only be attributed too a serious lack of brains, common sense or both. Next time I’m in Home Depot I will be buying the parts to convert all of it to PEX.
It was a kinda goofy day that seemed to turn me every which way but loose.
Dinner was thinly sliced flank steak on top of a salad.

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