2010 trips to the

Trip Number 1 for 2010:

If it had not been so very cold, I'd have visited the cabin much sooner. In early December, one morning the temp was -47F here in Grande Prairie. That does not play nice with my Raynaud's Syndrome. And then, January 1, my annual auction of the Best of the Best Diamond Willow sticks kept me home for a couple of weeks.

This cow moose was resting near the cabin long ago; Don Pratt added the snowman and Diamond Willow stick.

WELCOME, btw, from me, Ken Laninga, in northern Alberta, Canada, to this, my BLOG.

It is still WINTER here; I checked my shadow just now and it appears that we are due for another 52 weeks of winter.

Tues, Jan. 19: My friend Marie and I arrived around 12:30 and it took about 3 hours to get the cabin comfortably warm. The road had been snow-plowed to my driveway, no further.

This is the view of the main road, from where my driveway turns in. This road goes north a mile and then west a mile and then ends. There are no buildings of any kind north of my cabin.

First thing I always do is empty the stove of all the ashes from the previous trip and get a fire going. In the stove this time I found a dead squirrel! After hauling our stuff on 3 toboggan loads, I got the 15 Rails I needed for customers who had asked for them. The temp outside was around -10C and there is about 14 inches of snow on the yard. It sure is nice to be away from the city with all its noise etc. So very peaceful here; no signs of life of any kind other than an occasional bird.

The field with the bales was much the same as it was last time we were here.

Wednesday: By 8:15 AM it was still dark. The temp is about -15C. We kept the fire going, of course, all night. I had filled the bird feeder and 3 bluejays were enjoying the offering.

I skinned dry sticks while Marie did her jigsaw puzzle and five bison fed in my field; east end. If you look very carefully, you can see 3 of them in this pic.

Around noon I figured it would be nice to walk south on the road to the top of the hill to take a picture of the cabin for my blog. So we did that. There were enough rabbit tracks to make it seem as if maybe they are making a come-back after many years' absence.

There were wolf tracks on the road too but they were not particularly large. I would hate to be a rabbit in this area! When we saw an animal far ahead on the road, I wished I had brought at least a hunting knife along for protection. It turned out to be a coyote.

Looking north, from a mile south of the cabin, you can see the cabin and my 3 granaries; the chalet is across the road, in the trees. Where the road appears to end, it goes one mile west and then really does end.

Thursday, Jan. 21. Today is the birthday of my brother John. John is spending his second winter in Arizona where he bought a condo a week or two ago. I made a collage of pictures of/for him and also a new "Wanted" poster and sent those down there on CD to get printed. This is a tiny version of the collage; it is a pic of his home place from the south, with a bison-shape design of 72 pictures of John which have been cropped. He was a bison rancher before retirement.

This is a small version of the "Wanted" poster; this new one has nails in the corners and bullet holes. I have other pages in my various websites detailing how I made these.

After lunch we took the same hike as yesterday.

In the afternoon a young bullmoose came out to feed on a bale about 250 yards from the cabin. If his antlers had been any smaller, I would have mistaken him for a cow moose.

Friday: In the afternoon we decided to try a bit of cross-country skiing so we went north up the road on old vehicle tracks to where there is a cutline which we use a great deal. I checked to see how it looked and was dismayed at what I saw. Due to the snowfall last October 2, it is impassible.

No way to use it with skis, nor horses, nor Argo. It looks like my sticking days are over. This is a very bad development. Even large trees are broken off.

Now it is time to head back for the city for a few days of bill-paying, stick-selling (hopefully) and general chores.