Day 25- Saturday on the Homestead
Summer decided she needed a day off and went shopping. I drank a 1/2 gallon of coffee, as usual, and then went to work.
Packed the stove with card board and some kindling and lighted the stove for the first time. Temp in house was around 40 and two hours later it was 65. Checked the up stairs and found it to be about the same temp as the downstairs. Another small success leading up to moving in soon. I am truly sick of this camper trailer even though it has three slide outs and is very nice. But with three small dogs and a daughter it feels very cramped and I want my queen size bed back.
Did some insulating in the bathroom wall until I realized I need a better solution. Friend of mine told me about a spray foam system you could purchase from Home Depot. Will be getting that on my trip to Kenai on Monday.
Wandered around a bit trying to figure out things I could do without Summer’s help. Decided to try to to find out why a whole wall of receptacles has 120, volts but nothing will operate. I had determined that there was power because my little voltage checker would light up and beep. Figured out that the neutral and the ground wire were disconnected. Where is the $64,000 question. May have to run new wire from the panel. That might be easier than crawling under on the the muddy ground. Just need to figure out which breaker is feeding the voltage to that wall. Will do that tomorrow when Summer returns from being AWOL.
My friend Mike, surprised me by showing up at the house. Mike is a Florida resident with a home about 30 minutes away in Anchor Point. He and I walked around the grounds and the house and he pointed out things that could or should do based upon his 17 years of coming up here. Later we went to the Lands End Restaurant and had Elk meatloaf. This was my first time to eat out since arriving, if you don’t count McDonalds. Wasn’t your traditional meat loaf, it was more like ground elk, with a bit of beef fat for flavor, packed into a ring to shape it. It came sitting on top of a circular mash potato patty and was garnished deep fried onion bits and some sort of greenery that could have just been from the shrubs outside for all I know. It was very nice presentation and tasted good but not great. It would have been a lot better, if the meat had been better seasoned and the mash had been browned on both sides, or substituted with hash browns, so that you had some crunchiness besides the onion bits.
Got home and walked the dogs. Was walking two dogs with no hand for protection. Suddenly, something breaking noisily through the brush. I hurried the dogs into the trailer and disconnected them from the leashes. Picked up little Suzy, a six pound fur ball and a very large pistol and went back outside. Stood around for a couple of minutes before putting Suzy on the ground to do her business. Was most likely a moose as people telll me that you could be standing 10 feet from a bear and not know it unless it made a grunting noise or growled. They are exceptionally stealthy whereas moose just run over whatever is in front of them. Most people think of moose as Bullwinkle but moose kill far more people that bears in Alaska.
After the exciting dog walk, I had a couple of vodka-sevens, read some news and went to bed