Gus Approved

Gus sleeping in the loft.

When word reached the kids that we were heading to the property for the weekend, they scrabbled to find alternatives. Wyatt scored and found a friend to foster him for a night. But by Friday night with the numbers on the phone just about worn away from the pad, a crying Gus came upstairs. He was upset because the sleepover plans fell through and now he "had to go to the property." I told him to call a friend to take with him. The first kid he talked to jumped at the chance, and was promptly dropped off at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday morning. By the time we left the house an hour later, they were both gearing up and talking about what to do.

This was going to be a "fun" weekend, no compressor, wood, or chopsaw, so we loaded mattresses, bedding, warm weather gear, food, sleds, and snowmachines. Some how the chainsaw snuck its way into the truck, and I should have sensed it was trouble! The fun at the property was limited for the first 2 hours as we were busy getting everything set up. We needed firewood for both the stove inside the cabin, and we also invited friends to join us for an outside fire, grill, and snowmachine ride. Rose and Myron had their machines unloaded when we arrived at the property, and they helped us get organized. The big boys busied themselves with the wood, while us ladies cleaned up the inside and started a fire outside. Bryant messed with a sledding hill for the kids, which they used on and off the entire weekend. It wasn't long before Danalynn and Tim and their two kids joined us and we were all sitting around the fire, eating, and talking about our summer plans.

As it turned out I never did get on the snowmachine on Saturday. On Sunday, I put most of my miles on the machine pulling the kids with a tow rope around the swamp in back of the property and the other miles were racked up by hauling wood in a sled back and forth to the truck and cabin. With no real destination in my head I didn't go too far, and quite honestly, I enjoyed piddling around the cabin. About halfway through our Sunday woodcutting expedition Bryant says, "We're not really following through with our relaxing weekend are we?" Postholing through 3 feet of snow to the sled with two heavy chunks of birch in my arms, I couldn't agree more.

I guess neither of us cared too much about relaxing, because we finished up with that tree and ended up bucking enough wood for two rows in the truck to bring home and a healthy stash for the cabin. On the way home when we stopped off in Palmer to pick up Wyatt, Gus said, "Wyatt the property wasn't too bad."

The "fun weekend at the property" even received Gus's stamp of approval.

Iditarod Fever

I first heard of the Iditarod when I visited Alaska in 1989 on a backpacking trip with the Outdoor Recreation Center I worked at in college. A woman on the trip was so excited after buying a T-shirt from a gift store in Anchorage that said, "Alaska - Where Men are Men and Women win the Iditarod." Of course this had no meaning to me. She patiently explained that Susan Butcher and Libby Riddles were dominating this 1000 mile sled dog race; women could compete and win against men in dogsledding. At the time, I didn't even think this trivia was important let alone something I'd remember years down the road.

But I did. When I moved to Alaska in 1993, it didn't take long for me to hear more about the Iditarod and establish a connection to this yearly mushing race from Wasilla, AK to Nome, AK. It wasn't the women winning part that turned me on, but the awesome wilderness adventure. I admired the gruesome slog mushers endured over mountainous terrain, frozen rivers, and the crazy weather conditions throughout the race. Over the years through articles in the newspaper, I followed the pre-race speculations of journalists and familiarized myself with the mushers, their victories, their defeats, and challenges they faced both during the race and training. With the invention of the Internet, recent updates instead of day old publications became possible and more information about the race became readily available. I devoured it and talked Iditarod to pretty much anyone who seemed slightly interested in this type of conversation.

Maybe it was because I was wrapped up in completing the school yearbook or maybe our early Spring Break interfered with any type of Iditarod lesson plan, but it took a little longer this year for my temperature to rise. The Iditarod mushers were checking into Yetna Station, about 20 miles into the race before I truly felt the heat coming on. Once ignited, it didn't take long for the fever to take hold and hallucinations to begin. Last Friday while driving to the property, I started the age old conversation with Bryant about us owning the perfect piece of property for a sleddogs - Iditarod trail out our backdoor, lots of space for doghouses, water on the property, and now we even have cabin. We could be living the ultimate Alaskan lifestyle.

In my altered state of conciousness, I rambled on for a few minutes. Then, I mentioned that if I started a dog kennel, I would name my first dog two-stroke. I also thought a litter of pups named after snowmachines would be pretty neat, Rev, Renegade, Panther, Jag, Bravo. Bryant reminded me that most dog mushers don't really like snowmachines, otherwise they would buy gas, which is cheaper than dogfood. I decided on a new theme - classic authors, Tolstoy, Sinclair, Steinbeck, and of course a lead dog named London, in honor of Jack London's who authored White Fang and Call of the Wild. Bryant offered the theme of weather and mentioned a pup named cumulus. By this time, I was feeling down giddy and eagerly added cirrus, stratus, blizzard, stormy, tornado, hurricane, and cyclone. Lance Mackey may be the one of the best mushers in Iditarod history but that doesn't matter. His lead dog is Larry and he doesn't have a whole kennel of dogs with the coolest names around like mine would be.

In my delirium and imaginary world of Fantasy Mushing, I envisioned myself mushing my way through the windblown snow of Rainy Pass yelling, "Hike (Get Moving)" or "Gee (Turn Left)" while the Northern Lights danced in the sky. This delusion was getting out of control. This fever was reaching new heights . . . but after 16 years, I have a self-cure. I knew what needed to be done.

"Yeah," I half-heartedly reveal to Bryant, "I really don't even like dogs as much as I like the adventure and I've really learned to like my 8 hours of sleep. And I definitely don't want anything else to feed, water, exercise, or clean-up after." I knew my next piece of self-talk would bring my body temperature back to normal. "Besides," I added, "Who wants to be chained every night to a kennel of dogs?"

I did it! Iditarod Fever - killed again for another year.

The End in Sight

These two pictures show the tasks completed in the last two weekends, a door, ceiling, siding, and heat. I thought we were almost done two days ago, but I learned quickly that each piece of the project entails a detail that is easily overlooked and it is only afterward that either the mistake or a more efficient way is revealed. A good example is the tongue and grove ceiling. We thought working with the 16 foot lengths would be easier, but soon discovered with a small inside working space, warped boards, high ceiling, shaky scaffolding set-up, and two people, the job became labor some quite quickly. Near the loft part of the ceiling, boards were eventually cut into a 8 foot, 4 foot pattern, which helped tremendously. As we labored through the weekend, the country song "life's a dance, you learn as you go" kept repeating itself in my mind. While there are plenty of details to finish up, it is no longer a major construction zone. Our plan next weekend is to overnight at the property, and bring snowmachines instead of a compressor.

For more pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/jillcaho/Shabin