10.5.22 Wednesday

Mouse Trapline Tally:  7

(Total to-date for this year!)

What a day yesterday was!...

Kevin and I left on the trail around 9:15a.  Got to the trailhead and decided to move our vehicles and two snowmachines to a different spot in the parking lot.  I had been told that what I thought was a primo location is actually a snow corner where the town pushes the snow into the corners in the parking lot and if we left our vehicles there, they would be buried!

One snow machine wouldn't start so it stayed where it was.  In the meantime, we started the truck and the car, and drove both of them to storage to dig through some stuff.  Then Kevin went onto Anchorage, prepared to fly out this morning.  I went on to do some errands, load up the four-wheeler and trailer, and come back home.  

My first mistake was taking a slightly wrong turn about halfway down the trail.  I knew as soon as I'd done it that it was the wrong way.  The problem is that once you're committed, there's no easy way to turn around.  I am "reverse-challenged" when backing up a trailer.  So about 15 minutes later, I had managed to jackknife the trailer in the four-foot-wide trail, unhook the trailer in the mud, pull it (remember it's loaded down now, so no easy task!), around the other direction, five-point-stance the four-wheeler to get it turned around without tipping it sideways, then driving it past the trailer to hook everything back up.  Whew!

When I drove out that small trail, I got turned around again and ended up at a cabin (think it was our neighbors Matt & Christina?). No one was home.  I turned around to head back out, then realized I was headed BACK OUT the trail to town!  So the next side trail, I proceeded to turn the trailer around again, only slightly jack-knifed this time, then back on toward home. The drive usually takes about an hour, this one took me an hour and 20 minutes.  Oh, but the fun doesn't stop there!

I was unloading the trailer only to discover a SUPER-FLAT trailer tire!  UGH!  I have to question sometimes...am I really cut out for this??  I can air up a tire but I don't know anything about fixing a flat. And there is NO ONE around to help me.  I was so frustrated!  I decided to leave it be until today when my nerves were calmed down.

So I built up the nerve by early afternoon today to attack the tire.  The airing up of it is no big deal.  I've done that my whole life.  The intimidating part is trying to find the cord for the air compressor, the air chuck to attach to it, an air gauge, then plug it all into the generator to make it run.  If it has a hole or a slice in it, we're screwed until Kevin gets home to fix it...

I managed to get it all going and put some air into the tire.  I couldn't find an air gauge so had to guess it by feeling the good tire then the flat one.  Hopefully, it will just be a flook and it will hold the air.  I left everything out until I can check on it again until tomorrow.

Did I mention before that our propane refrigerator went out last week?  I had to replace the propane bottle the day before Kevin came home and couldn't get it to re-light.  I think Kevin was as frustrated as I was trying to coach me over the phone that night.  I laid on the floor for an hour trying to get it to ignite.  I decided not to open the door until he got back and could figure it out.

Well, when we got home last Thursday, he couldn't get it relit either.  So there, I don't feel like such an idiot now!  Come to find out, he determined that the thermocupler went out.  We gave it another day to determine exactly what to do.  In the end, all of the food we'd been storing in the small freezer was going to go bad.  We ordered a thermocupler from the company in Canada and prayed it would get here soon.  In the meantime, we ate like kings over the weekend before he had to leave!  Moose steaks, moose in sauce, halibut fried up, fish tacos, you get the picture.  And the dogs enjoyed themselves too, with any leftovers!

We have a small frig in one of the spare cabins so tried to get it up and running.  It would light but wouldn't engage and actually turn on.  The good thing is, it's cool enough now most of what was in the frig, besides any frozen items, are ok if they stay around 40 degrees.  That's what that cabin is at right now so we should be ok in the short term.  I grabbed some ice in a cooler before I came home yesterday so some things will be ok.  As least we have ice again. I never realized how much I enjoy ice until we didn't have it.  Oh, the joys of the little things....

Stay tuned...