Those mountains in the distance tell me that winter is coming. The farthest ones are dusted with snow.
I’ve talked about breaking out of my rut. Back in Portland it was so easy to show up for work for five days, do errands on one day, and do housework the other, then repeat. Over and over. And suddenly an entire year has gone by with almost nothing to remember it by. It took a messed up sciatic nerve to shake me up and get me to look up from my rut.
Driving up here, a lot of times I’m passing through trees. They grow up alongside the roads thick and tall enough to block the view of anything other than the road. Then you come around a corner and the view opens up to see the hills and beyond. To see the mountains beyond and the whole wide world is a revelation.
I tell my shuttle guests that I decided I can have an adventure. My life came to the point where things opened up and could be arranged to allow me to make this change. But I had to see the possibility first. I had to look outside of the rut to see what else could be. And then I had to open my mind to ideas for how to work it out. Then I had to take the leap.
Look for the ruts. Look for what you can shake up. Look for ways to make things change that you’ve never thought of before. Do something you always wanted but never thought was possible.
Live.
Life is for living. If you wait for that magical someday it will get away from you. Winter will come and the chance will be gone. So look outside the rut and live.
I’m having a problem with social media lately. I’m sure a lot of you feel similar. With the election coming up and the death of an iconic figure the posts have gotten ever more shrill. When you add that to the protests that enable violence, memes and arguments for this side or that, and the general feeling that I’m being told that I should hate myself, I feel like the dumpster fire is burning from a toxic waste dump.
Last week someone posted about how if you disagree with her on this, that, and the other point then you can pretty much F— off and die because you must be a horrible person. Just for holding a different opinion. And her last several posts were all about the masks she was making that proclaim “Love Wins.” I don’t think she noticed the irony. It makes me very sad to see that reflected in so many other people’s posts. How can love win if you hate yourself or those who THINK differently than you? And these are the people that the major platforms keep suggesting that I follow. I can’t do that. I cannot pour that much toxicity into my mind and emotions.
I’m just starting to feel like I’ve shed some of the mindset that was so harmful when I lived in Oregon. I’m just starting to feel relaxed and happy. I’m enjoying my job, not showing up for the paycheck… although money is helpful. Perusing social media brings that feeling back and I don’t think it is good for me. I need to cut it out for a while. But I still want to share.
Here’s my plan. I’m going to allow myself to open those apps once a day for the next week. The only reason will be to share a new blog post. I don’t know how well this will work, but that’s why I said week, not month. Give it a try. And this way I will own my posts, not a big company that might decide it doesn’t like the way I think.
And now for a cabin update!
As of today we have five 2″x 12″x 20′ floor joists cut! And a few 2″x 6″ x 20′ boards as well.
Have I mentioned that we’ve had problems with the sawmill? My friend’s husband Lance has a 1989 WoodMizer portable sawmill. He has brought it with him from Washington to Alabama, back to Washington and now up to Alaska. I know he’s milled wood for another friend to build a house with. He has big ideas for what he can do with his sawmill, but it sat outside through the last two winters and that took a toll. It needed a battery, a servo motor, new wiring, a new chain and a new bolt to mount it. The rollers for the head needed replacing. It seemed like every time one thing was fixed another broke.
Friday the sawmill was fixed. We got out to my property and pushed it into place by hand. Lance leveled it out and gave us all the safety lecture. Then he, Chris, and his 13 year old son loaded up the first log while I got the three younger ones occupied with building a fire in the firepit to warm up. They got to practice using the hatchet to chop up twigs and small branches to feed the fire. I also chopped some of the slabs that came from squaring up the log.
We got two joists cut Friday before dark. There would have been a third, but the belts running the blade were worn enough that they started to let the blade slip out of place. We had to shut it down and try to find replacement belts. We found one and that let them cut some more this morning, but I guess that other one is necessary. So there is progress, but we can’t put anything together yet.
The other thing worth sharing is how many moose I’ve been seeing lately close to home. Almost every evening there will be one or more in the fields along the road. Of course they show up south of town, but never up north of town where I’m driving the shuttle. I’ve only seen moose racks on trucks coming in from hunting up there. It might change as hunting season ends. I just want to be able to show my guests a moose.
I guess that’s enough for now. I have to leave some new stuff for tomorrow. I’ll probably share links all next week as I write posts, but if you want to hide from the social media toxic dumpster fire too then go ahead and subscribe so you get an email whenever I post. I wish I could tell you how to do it, but I don’t know how to see my site the way visitors do. Most of what I’m doing is faking it as far as I can and one day I might actually know what I’m doing.
It’s a bit frosty this morning in Alaska. The temperature was supposed to dip down to 30°F overnight and I’ve started hearing snow warnings for the higher elevations. Everything looks more gold every day. It makes for dramatic pairings with the sunset light and stormy sky. We’re still getting some rain almost every day too. It’s altogether glorious, bright and damp.
Dramatic light on my evening drive home. There’s hay in that field. The extra rain all summer made this a terrible year for hay.
Work is going well. I find that transporting passengers might be only 30% of my job. Almost every day there is a list of items to be picked up or purchased and I get to do a lot of it. I like the freedom of it and when I do have passengers in my van it’s fun to talk with them. I get to geek out on local history and topics such as wildlife, highway development in Alaska, gold mines in history and today, the Alaska Pipeline, local trees and how their location affects growth, and rural cabin life. At least for the cabin life I have my friends as a reference point. They just hired a second driver so I can have scheduled days off. He’s lived here all his life so he knows the area and the driving requirements, but it almost feels like everything I listed is so normal to him that he can’t understand why anyone would be fascinated by it. I told him that it’s all about the adventure. Maybe that retiree from Tennessee would hate the actual work of running a gold claim, but he’ll dream about the adventure.
Still no real progress on my cabin, but the sawmill might be sorted out. Mostly. The other day N spent the morning replacing the rollers that allow the head to move end to end. Several had rusted up and we’re wearing flat spots by sliding instead of rolling. A new bolt had to be purchased and fitted to attach the new chain that runs the length of the mill. It’s how the head moves itself using sprockets. It looks like a hefty bicycle chain. Later that day Lance went over what wiring needs to be redone and she’ll tackle that while he’s gone on a long-haul trip down to Washington. I’m hoping that when he gets back we can get busy cutting lumber.
N gets an explanation from her dad on what needs to be rewired to make the sawmill work. She’s the resident fixer of many things.
Speaking of Washington… anyone watching the news at all knows that the entire west coast is having a bad fire season. I’ll be perfectly honest and say that I don’t know how bad it is most places. My focus has been on my property back home. I was first made aware of the situation last Tuesday when I got a text from my mom informing me that there was a fire down in the area between Eagle Creek and the Clackamas River. That’s just a mile or two as the crow flies. Just the day before there were power outages due to high winds. Then fire. The entirety of Clackamas County was on some level of evacuation notice. My property stayed at Level 1 for a couple of days before it went directly to Level 3.
Back in Oregon. Looking down the hill, you should be able to see my shop behind those trees.
The actual threat did not come from the fire down the hill, but from the Riverside fire that came within 1/2 mile of the town of Estacada. Eagle Creek is just 5 miles west of there. My boys, my nephew, and several of their friends put a couple of days worth of work into making sure that valuables and important things were secured and that the house itself was as safe as they could make it. Then we waited. I got the above pic on Thursday from just up the hill, showing how much smoke is in the air. But no flames were spotted. The fire is being fought back away from town and rain is predicted soon. I hear that already the wind was shifting and that people feel moisture in the air.
What a crazy year. I’m trying to wrap my head around the full scope of the craziness. Between pandemic and social unrest, natural disasters, and personal loss it can be hard to find the good. I don’t think we’ll understand the big picture for another few years. But there are good things in life. Just something as simple as knowing that my family is safe is good. Knowing that they had warning is good. Knowing that they were able to come together and do what needed to be done is good. I love seeing the reports of people taking care of each other and opening doors for strangers in need. I hope that these natural disasters can be something that erases some of the division that has grown up in our society. And I hope that the coming winter brings some relief from the craziness of the rest of the year.
Nothing is really happening on the cabin front. I wish I could say otherwise. Well… maybe not nothing. Another part arrived for the sawmill yesterday. With this and a few more adjustments to the wiring and alternator it should be fully functional. Just in time for the guy who knows how to run it to leave on a run to Seattle to pick up a trailer for his boss. I’m hoping I can arrange to have him pick up subflooring that has become scarce up here. It might be cheaper down there too.
So besides some maybe progress toward having progress on the cabin, I am in the middle of the first real week of my shuttle driver job. I’ve brought a dozen people up the hill and most of them back down. I’ve been working out what routines make sense to keep track of what I’m doing and who I’m picking up and where I’m taking them. And I’m getting better at the where and what when it comes to supplies that I need to pick up. So far I’ve tackled a couple of long lists. The only place that hasn’t worked quite as expected is Costco, and that’s only because the payment card I was given is a MC which Costco does not accept. We’ve made it work so far.
Today was fun because I picked up eight people who I brought up earlier in the week. Riding back into town I didn’t have to carry the conversation. They were all chatting about their experiences and how it did or didn’t live up to their expectations. I only had to ask questions a couple of times to keep the conversation going.
Six of the eight were going back in to the same hotel. The remaining two wanted to see the Santa Claus House in North Pole. We had just enough time to get there, let them explore for ten minutes, and get back to the airport in time for their flight. They didn’t have time for shopping, but I think it made their trip! Already I can see that this kind of thing is going to be more fun than anything I ever did driving transit. I get to be a small part of people’s escape and I get to make it just a little bit better. I think a few months of this will go a long way towards healing my sanity after Trimet.
My only concern is what it will be like in the snow. My drive in to work will be easy. It’s mostly flat. I just have to allow extra time. My drive up to Basecamp involves an 1100 ft gain in elevation. Most of that is up and down and up again. And curves. I know they are so much better about keeping the roads clear up here. Often you’ll see bare pavement. But there are a few places that I can see being tricky when it’s slick. I’ve been told that once the temp drops to 15° or lower tires can grip. I just want to feel it. There’s a difference between knowing the idea that it’ll be okay and living the idea that it’ll be okay. But there’s no point in worrying too early so I try to let it go.
Winter is getting closer. The green is slipping quickly into gold. You can feel the weather shifting. We all know it won’t be long. I just hope everything is ready by the time it comes.
