A bit of a rewind

I'm in the onerous process of going through a few months backlog of emails and found one from Massimo, a very fun Italian guest who stayed with us this past summer and forwarded us some pictures from his trip. I was extremely neglectful of the blog this past summer and have planned to rectify that by finally posting a lot of my summer pics in these coming weeks.

I'll start the process off with Massimo's pictures:

Yours truly paddling on the float trip.

Mom, Dad, and the two kids

Massimo (standing behind Audie), and his wife and two friends, yours truly, and the pupsters in front of our greenhouse.

We LOVE receiving pictures from our guests' stay here. I'll post them on the blog here, and they may even go on our website.

Happy December 1

I love the first day of a new month. It's like the beginning of every new year for me, or the start of a new season. Such anticipation, such a promise for a fresh start! This month of December we have so much to look forward to: winter solstice, Christmas, New Year's Eve. And now we've been back home for less than two weeks, we're finally getting back into a comfortable winter groove.

Oh, and by the way, what's another reason December 1 is so happy today? Because the temperature barely wavered below 28 degrees ABOVE zero! Can't beat that.

We had a rather eventful Thanksgiving around here, or rather pre-Thanksgiving. A few nights before the big day we were making dinner in the kitchen and the lights in the house dimmed slowly, came back on, and then there was a loud KER-BLAM! and an explosion of electrical sparks just outside the kitchen window. The transformer on the electrical pole just outside the house exploded and was smoking. Salad tongs in hand, we were plunged into darkness. And in darkness we stayed for two full days until our electrical supplier could get a new transformer installed. Luckily the temps weren't too cold then, either. Around 15 above, but we still needed to run our emergency generator every once in a while for our heat tape running to the well. We did empty out the refrigerator and put everything in our cold storage room, and we had very limited water, but other than that it wasn't a huge inconvenience. A good excuse for romantic candlelit suppers :) The very surprising thing ocurred when the new transformer was in place and our electricity was restored. For the past few years, a number of flourescent lights on the property have struggled to turn on. Lights have dimmed occasionally when a certain motor has engaged, and overall electricity has seemed delicate. And we use very little juice! We are always conserving. And just recently our gas stove (with a solenoid controlling the release of gas) was refusing to turn on. (It's a ghastly shame to admit it, but this year we actually bought a precooked turkey breast for Thanksgiving because the oven wasn't working for us.) Anyway....with the new transformer, suddenly the flourescent lights turned on in an instant. The stove fired right up. I swear the refrigerator light was shining brighter, and everything else too.

What we believe happened is the old transformer was an antique and it's probably been slowly frying itself up over the last few decades. So the lights turned back on Wednesday night and Thanksgiving was saved! We still had our precooked turkey breast, but I was able to whip up a sweet potato casserole and a cornbread-sausage stuffing in the oven too. And then we played one of our favorite games: mancala.

This is a really cool Indonesian mancala board that I bought Audie for his birthday last year. You can see it's kind of fish-shaped, and when done playing, it folds in half and sits on the shelf as a very decorative fish.

Sunset tonight was 3:15

Sunrise tomorrow will be 9:49

Do you see why I look forward to winter solstice??!!

Pictures from our two month trip, our elopement/wedding and honeymoon, will start getting posted tonight. I'm so excited to start sharing those photos.

Home again

We're back in Paxson, back in Alaska! It's been a long time from home. We've been traveling for the past two months, with the most exotic portion being a long journey to Southeast Asia: Laos, Thailand, and Cambodia. What an amazing part of the world! We loved it. We were very lucky to have our good friend and housesitter extraordinaire, Mary Ellen, here the entire time we were gone, renting out cabins and taking care of the dogs and chickens. It is so nice to be gone for such a long time, and to such a far-away destination, and NOT have to worry about a thing. Thank you again, a million times over, Mary Ellen, for allowing us to enjoy such a fantastic time away. I will be posting stories and pictures soon from this very special trip, and maybe even some short movies as we had a movie camera for the first time. What a great travel tool! For now, here's a quick look at a very typical scene from northern Laos, a woman working her rice field outside the small city of Luang Prabang:

In the meantime, we are taking reservations again for this winter and this coming summer, although we will be adjusting summer rates and don't have that posted on the website just yet.

Not too much snow here, maybe 7 inches on the ground. -30F, -35C here this morning...which is quite a culture shock for both of us after the heat and 98% humidity of Southeast Asia! But we are readjusting quickly.

It's really good to be home. Lots of unpacking to do still and a comfortable resettling in to the routines of winter. After nearly two months of not being on the internet (except for a few quick email checks), a pretty nice rest in my opinion, I'm actually excited to be back on-line and to share stories from here and abroad.

Holy smokes!

Not a single post did I do in July! I know we've been busy, but I didn't realize how much I'd neglected doing any updates here. July was a fantastic month for us: weather-wise and guest-wise. We didn't hire any extra help this summer because with all the doom and gloom predictions for a dire summer tourist season, we thought we wouldn't need anyone else around. Boy, were we wrong. We've been almost as busy as our best summer ever, which was last year. Which means I don't have any time to get on the blog. Plus, weather has been perfect: strong sun, warm temps, little smoke (from all the wildfires burning around the state). This has been a Perfect Paxson Summer.

I certainly have lots of stories to share and lots of photos too, especially once I recharge my camera batteries.

Last night we had 25 guests staying with us here on the property: a few independent travelers along with a group of 19 airmen from the Vermont National Guard who chose our place for their one weekend of R&R while on a training run here in Alaska. The Green Mountain Boys. Here for two nights, they were a lot of fun. Those who didn't fit in the cabins, set up tents along the river. They had bonfires, did fishing and hiking, and lots of relaxing and chillin'. We took them on a float trip that required our two rafts and all our kayaks. I'm certain they all returned to Eielson Air Force Base refreshed and recharged for their final week of flying.

Right after our Green Mountain Boys left, we snuck off the property to go to our top-secret raspberry picking spot and came home a few hours hours later with over six pounds of wild Alaskan raspberries. The berries are smaller this year than they should be (little rain to plump them up), but their taste is the most extraordinary raspberry flavor ever (lots of sun for all those wonderful sugars). And along with the two pounds of currants we picked, we have the makings for some great raspberry jam.

Tonight we have guests from Long Island, Germany, Peru, and Anchorage. Tomorrow I start some new painting projects. Life is good.

Another night on the Gulkana

Here are a couple of pics from the last float trip:

Often, when we're full in the raft or we have some adventurous folks around, we'll have guests follow us in the raft with some of our kayaks. A couple of nights ago, the weather was glorious, the mountains were in full view with their fresh snow (Audie was snowed on during his early morning bird tour two mornings ago!), and two fellows from California were having a great time river kayaking for the first time in their lives.

It's really hard to take photos and paddle a raft at the same time, reason why I don't often have photos from the float trips, but I happened to bring my camera along this night because just the night before on our trip we floated underneath TWO Northern Hawk Owlets sitting on a branch together, just watching us float right underneath them. I was bound and determined to be lucky and see them again that next night. Well....not as cute a pose, but we did find them. This little guy was sitting right on shore...

And his mom was in the spruce overhead, getting harassed and dive-bombed by two Arctic Terns. 
 And below is Audie, teaching our California kayakers and our rafters, a group of Italians, about our river. 

The winter larder

Fruit in Paxson is a problem. Produce in Fairbanks is marginal at best, and often as not looks fine in the store and then is rotten two days after we get it back home. Fairbanks is the end of the line for produce transport from the lower-48, and it shows. So this summer I decided to hook up with a special fruit supplier that a friend recommended to me, a supplier whose first stop is Alaska directy from California. My first delivery not too long ago I got 16 pounds of Rainier cherries, a crate of apricots, and half a crate of peaches....just to try it all out. What heaven! Fruit not spoiling, ripening on schedule, and so juicy and full of taste...It reminds me of life when I lived outside the state and good fruit is a given.

So we've nearly become fruitarians this last week, gobbling all this yummy fruit. Even with the small order I got, we are over-run, especially with cherries. So once again, thoughts have turned to winter and preserving this wonderful fruit. My first try with cherries is to freeze them. Here I was dunking them in cold water to preserve juice, cutting them in half to remove the pit which can lend an off-flavor if kept intact, then dunking the cherries in lemon juice diluted in water to prevent browning. I then freeze them flat on baking sheets so they are individually frozen, and then into freezer bags they go. Of course, after doing this for a few hours Audie came in the house and told me there is a cherry pitter in the back recesses of the top cupboard, one I had never seen. Will be doing some more bags today and will definitely save time instead of cutting them in half. 

I'll be getting more fruit deliveries, and hopefully our wild blueberry and raspberry season will be good this year too. 

And here's a quick shot of our first tour group breakfast in the Gathering Room. Thank you, Big Birders! It was a pleasure to host your group.

Good people

While we always seem to attract wonderful guests here, this last week has been exceptional! Happy, happy people. Lots of interesting folks staying and new friendships being formed.  

And while it's always sad to say good-bye to guests when they eventually have to leave us, yesterday I felt a true pang of regret. Martin and Lisa, honeymooners from South Africa, who stayed with us for four nights, charmed us from our immediate meeting in the office and throughout their stay exemplified who we consider to be our perfect guest: enthusiastic, easy-going, super friendly and inquisitive, nature lovers, and active explorers doing lots of hiking and kayaking during their stay. They left this wonderful note in their cabin's journal upon their departure:

11 June, 2009

Audie & Jenny - 

Words are quite hard to find to describe the disappointment at leaving here this morning!  After four nights in one of the most idyllic spots, in great comfort with friendly smiles and awesome hospitality, amazing activities and just all-out maximum relaxation, it's really hard to leave!  If we ever come back to Alaska we'll come stay here for much, much longer!  The highlight of our honeymoon so far!

Martin & Lisa

Cape Town, South Africa

It warms my heart! We definitely plan to keep in touch with them.

We also had stay with us for two nights a wood carver and we hope soon to be stocking his art in our gift shop! I think this will make a for a unique cabins gift shop indeed: selling the art of our prior guests! Also leaving this morning was a traveling trio of ladies who unfortunately only had time to stay with us for one night, but who were so full of jolly good cheer I wished they could have stayed for three or four or more nights! We had a couple from Anchorage who were here bicycling for their anniversary. A professional bird photographer here for three nights who came back every day with amazing photos, including one of a Smith's Longspur singing on top of a lupine! And there have been many other interesting guests too...just a string of good people lately.

We've been float-tripping a number of times. Lots of guests renting kayaks as the weather has been so fantastic. Even had a girl stop in who was camping in her RV, but was driving by and suddenly decided it was a perfect day to kayak. She stopped in, took a kayak out for a few hours, and then went on her way!

Dining at The Boathouse

So here's the last construction project to share with everyone for this year:

Our cabins, as most of our potential guests know, or should know, do not have kitchens in them (except the Guest House). The cabins were constructed this way by design: kitchens lead to messes, to sometimes lovely bread-baking smells and oft-times not so lovely oniony smells. We have always had grills available for guests to cook on, but this is not always enough. For the last few years, we have had the idea of a Community Kitchen in mind, one large kitchen that guests can share, where cooking messes and cooking smells are kept far from the peaceful restfulness of the cabins. And now after a few years of pondering what design we preferred, the walls are finally up!

And within five days, the structure was complete! We had a wonderful Austrian couple stay with us for one night right before construction started. They came back a week later to stay again, pulled in the driveway and were shocked to find such a large new building!

We had originally wanted a very airy outdoor pavilion-style kitchen, with insect screening around all the walls, but due to structural and snow-load considerations, we added more plywood walling than we had first considered. However, the kitchen is still quite large and airy, with expansive screened windows and doors all around. The right side of the building will be our raft, kayak, and bicycle storage area: hence, the name The Boathouse.
The inside is nowhere near finished. If you will be staying with us this summer, I doubt we will have anything ready inside except a large grill, but you are welcome to call and ask before you arrive. There is lots of finishing work to do inside. A grass picnic area will be adjacent to the building on the left, along with the dining tables inside. We think it will be a wonderful addition to our guests' stay here. 

Pictures speak louder than words

And they will definitely have to on this post as I've got some time to post pics, but no time to do much writing. Lots of busy little bee activity these days:

Now this was a big surprise! It's wonderful to feel like the luckiest girl in the world, and boy did I feel like it when presented with my engagement present! 

A sunning deck. Just for me. On top of our second story building, and well above tree line. 10 feet by 12 feet, and with expansive views to forever! 

The staircase was put in as I'm uncomfortable with heights and I once slid most of the way down this roof one winter climbing up here when it was quite icy. To access it, I climb the steps to our Gathering Room and walk on to the first story roof to the left, which is almost nearly flat. Then I can climb onto this step/ladder to get to my special place!

The view down from the top. This was constructed when I was on an overnight trip to Fairbanks. Besides being a wonderful place to sun (no shade from trees, no bugs as it's so high), it's also a perfect, perfect, perfect yoga spot and I've started doing my morning Sun Salute up here, looking directly at the eastern sky. 

It's the most endearing and love-filled present I've ever received, and I feel lucky that it's from my wonderful guy.

The Land Cruiser out on its first summer foray....taking a little break from construction projects, of which I'll post pictures probably tomorrow.

And a chicken shot. Happy, happy birds. The chicken yard encompasses a good extensive section of forest, and our birdies really turn into jungle fowl once again! Here are 5 of the 16, nestled in dirt, and living the kind of life a chicken is meant to live.

Safe and sound despite...

....a highly irregular move! Pics from the piano moving below. I'm a couple of weeks behind in getting pictures posted because, despite a sour economy and dire predictions of tourist levels, we've been very busy these last few weeks. 

Here the guys are getting the piano out of the truck that Audie and Alan drove north the beginning of this month:

They didn't carry the piano up the stairs as we designed the second floor deck so the side railings could be dismantled easily and large objects brought in with the skid-steer.

This is a 100 year old antique piano. A family heirloom. I really wasn't breathing while taking these pictures!

After surviving a possible second-story topple to a certain death of splintering wood and mangled wires, she entered safely to our new Community Room! The piano still is not set up yet, though my fingers are dying to do some tinkling. Work is now mostly finished upstairs so hope to have her reassembled and lovely music emanating from her soon!