Life Dictated by Fall Flyable Weather

Life Dictated by Flyable Weather

October. A month of weather. Ice fog blanketed the landscape for days. When it lifted, the snow fell. When the snow stopped and the clouds cleared, temperatures dropped, and the wind howled. October consistently dishes out the worst weather we see.

Ice Fog: Normally this view is of  7,000 ft peaks! Photo Credit: Morgan Beasley

Normally we hunker down, writing out plans for the winter and roughing out the summer schedule. This year, the weather kept us apart for much of the month.

Morgan was kind enough to hold down the fort, working on cabin projects while Margaret was weathered on the eastern side of the range in our road system base for two weeks. When the weather was nice on our side of the mountains, there was wind and low ceilings in the mountain passes. The weather was simply not safely flyable. Luckily, it was a great trip to spend time with friends fishing, practice off-airport plane operations, writing, and prepping supplies for winter flights.

Dolly Varden on the Susitna River Photo Credit: Israel Mahay

When Margaret returned, Morgan went back to town to do some work on the plane putting on skis and doing basic maintenance with our friends at Fly Around Alaska.

We did spend Halloween together. For the holiday, we made home-made peanut butter cup candies, watched a spooky movie, and took a spooky nighttime walk.

The transition of the landscape east to west. Photo Credit: Margaret Stern

Coming up, we are grateful for a few months of quiet, skiing traplines, working on shop orders, and planning for summer. Looking forward to our annual Thanksgiving grouse hunt and another year of safe, happy, off-grid living.

Spruce Root Heart. Gratitude Photo Credit: Caity Potter

Since this was such a short month, I have decided to add another post about food on the homestead. It highlights what food we are able to get from our garden and the surrounding landscape, how we preserve it, and books and products we use to preserve our food.

New potatoes from the garden. 450 pounds put away for winter! Photo Credit: Makiko Yoshida

Take a look, and please let us know what other topics you would like to hear about.