A familiar old flame

Yes, it was a pleasant sight to see an old flame in Alaska. Those of you who had been to our cabin before will recognize our old wood stove....those of you who hadn't, that is our old wood stove! Our buyers, Phil and Leann, were generous in allowing us to take out our wood stove and bring it with us here. They wanted gas heat in the old cabin.....we wanted to ditch the heatalator and put in an efficient wood stove. Funny how it all works out sometimes, ain't it?! The picture to the left is the old heatalator that the previous owner had. Served absolutely no purpose other than to see a "nice fire in the fireplace". It was encased in rock all the way up to the ceiling, so we demolished everything and yanked the thing out. We will eventually be re-rocking the old stuff that you see now, and then running rock up behind the wood stove. Was just more important 'now' to get an efficient source of heat in, besides the oil sucking furnace we have. Which brings me to exhibit C.

My ever growing woodpile. Oh this is nothing. My goal is to have 4 times the amount you see there before the end of August. And I will! This past week our friend Michelle (from the ferry) was over. Now she was raised on a farm so she fears not work. The four of us felled dead trees on the property, bucked rounds and hauled them, then split what we yielded. This is where 'Greg's Daylight Endurance Training' was initiated. Scott, you would have been proud, man. We would be up working wood until midnight! Long days....hard work....warm asses in the winter! ;) So the quest for wood has begun, and although daylight is slowly lessening (today was 18+ hours) there is still plenty of hours in the day to get the chores done. The other photo is of some of our wildflowers blooming along the side of the house. Mind you, these are our wildflowers. Do you see how tall and bountiful they get in comparison to Dorrington?! Wild. Flowers.

It was a long day today. The show went well for the first day. We made enough money to pay off our space and then some. Hopefully tomorrow goes as well or better. John is working until midnight tonight at the processing plant, and we are hitting it early to be ready for a long day tomorrow. So I leave you tonight with a thought. We did something not many would even concieve as even a notion in their minds. I will admit at times, only for a moment, even we wondered if we were crazy for doing it. But all along the way everything has been opening itself up to us. Even through the mind numbing events of retrograde, never once did anything signal us that we made a bad career decision in doing this move. We have been very happy, finding it so much easier to pursue those things that we yearned to change in our lives. We have absolutely no regrets. True, times may get rough yet. But everything has moved us in this direction, and we will only believe that despite the odds....we will keep moving forward. This is the best thing we have ever done. There is so much more detail to that of what we post on the blog. Not all good....and some even odd. I have a dream and desire to write a book someday on this adventure. I also had a dream and desire to one day move to Alaska. Everyone reading this will always be in our hearts, as you all meant and will continue to mean the world to us. You are an important part of this adventure in one way or another. Be it before the move, during, or after.....we couldn't have done it without all of you. Good night.