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mooseoutfront

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Everything posted by mooseoutfront

  1. Cabin fever is real and dangerous. Alaska has an incredibly high suicide rate per capita. Alcoholism and drug abuse and domestic violence all skyrocket in the deep winter. It's not really the cold either. Everyone up here has the proper gear. It's the lack of light that gets in people's heads. The lack of light leads to Vitamin D deficiencies. That's the root cause of it all. Take your supplements, get properly dressed and get outdoors when the sun is out. The deep cold is beautiful to me. Winter is my favorite season. On January weekends when the temp is regularly 30 below or colder we'll get suited up, make a fire in the fire pit, smoke a joint and watch the Northern Lights until we get cold. Go in the cabin to warm up and then do it all over again. The Lights fascinate me.
  2. The vehicles have block heaters and heaters on the oil pan, transmission, and battery. We can plug them into generators if we need to. Our personal truck, the beat to shit red Dodge in the first pic in the thread just barely fits into a log one car garage that we have. The garage has a wood stove in it that we fire up when the temp gets to 40 below. Vehicles will start in the zero to 10 below range, but cold starts are not ideal for vehicle longevity. The garage usually stays about 30 degrees warmer than ambient, which is why we only need to fire up the stove at 40 below or colder. The plow rig only gets run in the winter when there is plowing to do. It's warm when it snows, so there is no problem getting it started. My company truck has an auto start on it that is hooked into the truck thermometer some way. I've got it set to auto start when the temp hits 20 below and run for 30 minutes every 2 hours. The plan is 10 more years in the woods, then retire down to the Pacific coast of Mexico and become ex pats. We could never live in a big city again, or in the lower 48 for that matter. We'll find something small and simple and laid back.
  3. We have been very, very fortunate. We keep an abundance of food and fuel on hand for the oh shit moment that hasn't come yet. But we are prepared. The closest I've ever come to getting bit in the ass was on a muzzle loader moose hunt with a buddy. Muzzle loader season is late November early December. We went 90 miles out the Rex Trail on snow machines (that's what they call snow mobiles up here for some reason). It was 30 below when we left. By the time we got to the Wood River, the thermometer my buddy had on his parka zipper had bottomed out at 70 below. We knew it was cold, but we didn't realize it was that cold. He looked at me and told me whatever I did to not let the snow machine die. It took us 6 hours to get back. It's the coldest I've ever been. Danger cold, beyond shivering. The only reason my fingers didn't freeze was because of the hot grips on the snow machine. When we finally got in cell range I called my wife and she said she could hear it in my voice. She had warmed blankets and towels ready for me when I got home. It was 68 below when I pulled up to the cabin. The last few hours of the ride home are basically a blur. It was all I could do not to pass out. I was on the verge of hallucinating. It was other worldly. My buddy thought he froze his feet. It took him 4 hours to get the feeling back in them. We were both very lucky and very stupid for not turning around sooner.
  4. Greenhouses are a must, but I do quite well.
  5. Lulz. She's still a Texas girl. She keeps it knocked back pretty well, but we all have our moments don't we?
  6. I couldn't hold his jock strap. We live 3.5 miles from the highway. It's all I can handle sometimes and I've got an awesome partner in my wife. He did it alone out in the bush for 20 or 30 years if I recall correctly. All the way into his 80's I think.
  7. In the summer, the outhouse thaws and it sounds like a cow patty hitting the ground. In the winter, it builds up into what we call the poop-cicle. Think of a stalagmite of shit rising up from the bottom. We have a dedicated stick we use to knock it down when it gets too close to the seat.
  8. What Brisket said. I can't even describe how bad they are at times.
  9. You get used to it. Let's just say you don't dilly dally, but it's not as bad as you think. You say your "Hey bears" where I live. As long as you don't surprise them, you really don't have to worry about them. They are. This has been a particularly tough one. We've had a metric shit ton of snow to deal with.
  10. We hunt. Mainly moose and grouse. I'm not that big a fan of caribou. Never had predator problems. That doesn't mean we don't keep an eye open for them, but they want nothing to do with humans. We had a black bear come up one time when I was grilling some meat. Magnum (the dog in the pic above) chased it off before I could grab the shotgun. We have a resident grizzly bear in the neighborhood, but I've only seen his tracks. He's a smart fucker. These are his tracks in my driveway. I wear a size 14.
  11. By off the grid I mean for our energy needs. We don't have electricity or indoor plumbing, but we can stream movies and have internet access at the cabin. There is a cell tower about 4 miles from us. We have 2 generators. A Honda 2200 for the small stuff. A 3500 for power tools and the meat grinder. We also have 5 battery packs I take to work on a rotation to charge.
  12. My wife grows the veggies. She does a fantastic job. She keeps us in potatoes all winter long. We home can or freeze the veggies that have a limited shelf life. I take care of the "secret garden." But since they legalized weed, It doesn't have to be secret anymore. The hardest thing to deal with is all the water in the Spring after thaw and break up. Alaska is basically a cold weather swamp. The cold. You acclimate pretty quickly.
  13. 1. I'm a chemist. Like many others in this state, I work in the energy industry. 2. It's winter, so all I basically have to do is go to my job. My wife is the "Cabin Bitch." A nickname she loves. She basically takes care of all the household chores right now. She literally keep the home fires burning. The summer and fall are my big contributing seasons. 3. It used to be an 80ish mile drive to Fairbanks. They built a store about 30 miles away from us around 4 years ago. It's been a game changer.
  14. Denali in the distance. The mountain is about 100 miles away in the pic.
  15. Aspens in the Fall
  16. It gets fucking cold.
  17. Biggest bear I've ever seen. The pic doesn't do him justice.
  18. We call this one meat coma
  19. The midnight sun. Pic taken at 12:03 am on the Summer Solstice
  20. After posting some in the non-Texas Winter weather thread, I had some requests to start my own thread about my life in Alaska. The backstory...My wife and I have lived completely off the grid in the Central Interior region of Alaska for going on 12 years now. It's the lifestyle we prefer, it's not out of necessity. We live in a 400 square foot one room log cabin in the woods, no electricity or indoor plumbing. We provide for ourselves as much as we can off the land by hunting, fishing, and gardening. We moved from Texas to chase my Grandfather's dream of living here. It was the best decision we ever made. I'm happy to answer questions.
  21. I know it’s a weather thread, but it’s always nice to cross paths with the critters around here. This is a young cow moose with last years calf that have been hanging out in our neighborhood. They are doing well, even at 30 below.
  22. I bartended/waited tables for about 5 years. I had a lot of fun. Most people were cool, but there are assholes everywhere. I agree that the Sunday after church crowd were the worst, but the only person that I really remember was this old fuck stain who shook his empty glass of ice at me when I was weeded behind the bar on a Monday night during football season. I ignored him and served everyone else but him. I thought he was going to have a stroke. I finally went over and explained to him that as the only bartender on shift that night I'm the last person in the world he wanted to piss off. I am the drink God, and that he was now cut off and needed to leave. He was speechless. I would like to he learned something that night, but I doubt it.
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