Catching Up

If you will, let me go back about 4 weeks and catch up on what we've been up to around here. 
In the later part of March Paul, the kids and I went out to Prince George to bring in the remainder of the furs that we have for sale this trapping season.  We had a few other errands to run and some "fun" time planned for the kids at the area swimming pools. On our drive out there we got to experience spring.  The roads were pretty dry and there was next to no snow left.  When we got to Prince the people were actually wearing flip flops, and there we were still wearing long johns and winter boots!  So after a few unexpected and surprise visits at our hotel room from family members, we did all we had to do in town and got ready to head back.  One thing that every trip out includes, is a grocery trip to stock up on fresh produce.  So usually the morning before leaving I go out and buy all that our coolers can carry of unripe produce, I buy unripe so that I know it will make the trip back in here.
Back at the lake we were and are very much still having winter, just last mail day we went out (still with snowmobiles) and parts of the trail had 3-4 inches of fresh snow.  The weather changed in March from leaving our calm winter days behind to bringing us lots of wind and a little bit of everything that mother nature has to offer.  We have had snow, sleet, sun, and even thunder and lightening one night a few weeks back.  But lately the sun tries to shine, the south facing banks are bare, our nightly temperatures are around -13 and we are warming up to +10 or so during the day.  Our trail is most of the time frozen rock hard when we travel it, with the daily sunshine making any fresh snow disappear and leaving the hardpack there.  Paul and his dad put bolts through our skiis, they work by cutting through the surface ice and spraying snow back to the track.  Makes quite a difference with the heating up problems and has made travelling the trail better.  The few times that the trail wasn't frozen, it was melting and getting a little soft.  But not quadding material for us yet, we don't want to tear up the trail in the soft spots and leave the ruts to freeze, ending up with a rough trail.  So for now we'll keep on sledding until we see some sure signs of break-up here. 
The cool nights are good for our deep freezes.  We are not having to run the generator for them too much yet, so that is good.  We are trying to get down to just one freezer each, which shouldn't be a problem since our stockpiles of food we brought in are getting down.  One thing we still use the generator for on a weekly basis is for laundry.  We brought in a normal plain jane washer that we used to have in our cabin before we had a problem with frozen water.  Our water line from the spring about 450 ft up the hill froze off somewhere about a month back, that means we now haul water to the cabin and have made our laundry services portable.  Think Drag Queen turns Laundry Maid.  Paul rigged up one of the drags to haul the generator and the washing machine and he now hauls the unit up the hill and does the laundry directly at the water source.  Siffening the water with a hose directly to the washer.  And just so you know, all our detergents and cleaners we use here are all environmentaly friendly. 

So this option provided the kids with another form of entertainment too, Sasha and Aron take turns delivering the finished laundry down the hill to the cabin by GT.  They also haul water that way too, but they have learned to be heavy on the breaks because the load behind them can be very heavy.  Paul enjoys it too.