January 11, 2003

• Dawn water run–

  
  

  We have been putting off going to the spring for water.  First it was very cold, then after it warmed up the freezing rain made both the highway and the trail down to the waterhole too slick.

  
  

  Another factor was Doug’s sleep schedule.  That young man came from a planet with a longer rotational period than this one.  His body clock cycles to a day about 28 or 29 hours long.  When he was in school, it was inconvenient when he cycled around to being awake at night and asleep in the daylight hours.

  
  

  Now, I like it when he’s asleep while I’m awake.  We keep the woodstove stoked without my having to drag myself out of bed in the wee smalls to do it.  There’s also no competition for the computer then.  Doug uses the computer about 70% of the time; I get it the other half of the time, and Greyfox gets whatever time is left over.

  
  

  But this week, Doug’s diurnal cycle had him going down around the time I got up.  For 2 or 3 days, as our water supply diminished (giving him, for once, a good excuse not to wash dishes) the only times when both of us were alert enough to make a water run, it was dark.  Nighttime water runs are much more difficult and even dangerous.

  
  

  This morning at first light I was up and dressing.  I told Doug to wind up whatever he was doing online.  While he did that and grabbed a granola bar (I still haven’t had my breakfast.) I started loading buckets and jugs into the car.

  
  

  It was 9 AM and barely light when we got out of here.  Fifty minutes later, still before sunrise, we were home warming our fingers and noses.  It’s 10:44 now as I write this and I can see the rising sun out the window.  Our days are getting longer, gaining a few minutes each day, but the nights are still long… and cold.

  
  

  We didn’t take Koji because Greyfox had left some merchandise on the back seat of the car.  Poor dog, his people thought it was more important to get out there and back before Doug fell asleep, than to unload the car and take him.  I’m sure he disagreed.  He made that abundantly clear as we were leaving.

  
  

  As Doug was filling the last of the jugs, I was watching the single headlight of a snowmachine approach across the muskeg, above.  Not one of our neighbors, this was obviously a weekender.  The only thing on his machine was him.  If it had been a local, there would at least have been a gas can, a water jug, or a bag of groceries from the general store.  This is a recreational machine.

  
  

  He zoomed on past without slowing, leaving us choking on his fumes.  There are no emissions standards for those things.  They pollute much more than cars and trucks do.  A single 2-cycle snowmobile can produce more emissions than 1,700 new cars that meet California emissions standards.  (source:  Nat’l Parks and Conservation Assn.) 

  
  

  We don’t much appreciate the weekend snowmachiners who come out here from Anchorage.  Besides the noise and noxious fumes, some of the riders chase moose, break into remote cabins, tear up people’s yards with their tracks….  I don’t feel as strongly about them as Greyfox, who cheers every time he hears about any of them getting caught by an avalanche they’ve caused.

  
  

  Well, enough grousing about the snowmachiners.  Doug just crawled into the sack, and I’m going to go cook my breakfast.  Greyfox isn’t up yet.  He was at the computer late last night, blogging his take on religion.  When I get the coffee started, that will probably lure him out.

  • 3:04 pm
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