The Machines! The Terrible and Tremendous Machines!

Well, good news from the front office. The ratings are making a comeback after a sophomore slump. It seems people need to know the story. Especially people from Uganda, the newest country to come under the sway of Temporary Hermit. I have a strong suspicion that it is Xavier, and that means that at least until now he hasn't been eaten by a tapir in South America or dismembered by Moa birds in New Zealand. So, in celebration, I pour a glass from my cistern of Crown Royal, and relax into my overstuffed armchair in front of the fire to relate to you the story of the machines.

The machines are, quite simply, the number one reason to have a plot of land in the middle of nowhere. You NEED a road into your property, and the only way to build one is with some big, awesomely powerful diesel machinery! Huzzah! As a mentioned before, we used to have to walk in from the main road, but now we have about 3/4 of a mile of our own road,  which we built and maintain.

The first and most basic machine we have is the bulldozer. It was born sometime in the sixties, and it enjoyed some free love and flowers and all that crap before being sent to an island in Alaska, where it was abandoned for many a decade before some random crazy guy with a barge my father is somehow acquainted rescued it and sold it to us. This machine might be my favorite. It is small, there are three levers and two pedals, and it knocks stuff over or pushes it around.

You can stop one track or the other to make it turn left or right, and you can lift the blade up and down. That's it. It's kind of like Playmobil for everyone too old for Playmobil.

Next we have the front end loader, the larger brother of the bulldozer. This one is crazy. It's a lot bigger, and it does a lot more stuff. There is High/Low, forward and reverse lever for EACH track. On top of that each track has its own clutch. And then you have the controls for the bucket, which can go up and down, pivot, and open. The bulldozer was my plaything when I was 10, but the loader was off limits until I was 18. Look at all that crap you can screw up with in this cockpit!

I'm not sure when it was born, but I think sometime in the seventies.

And then we have the dump truck. It is huge, and by far the heaviest thing made by man when it is full. Interestingly, it is exactly as wide as the road itself, and while my dad claims that it did at one time have power steering, any vestige of that is long gone. This thing takes some upper body strength to handle. This is also the machine where things can go the most wrong. Two years ago a couple of my friends and I came out one weekend to do some road work, and my dad very nearly lost the dump truck into the swamp. It was tilting at a crazy angle and the wheels on one side were completely underwater. We had to shovel the bed out by hand (terrifying), and then finagle a way to pull it out with both the loader and the bulldozer at the same time (also terrifying). Notice that there is no bumper on the front. It got ripped off in the struggle to free the damn monstrosity from the grips of a watery grave.

Here we have the last entry. Stump named it Princess Tinky, but I think it should be called Hattori Hanzo or something cool like that. It has a plow on it right now, but in the summer it has a bucket on the front and a backhoe on the back. It does small scale slicing and dicing.

The day today was amazing. Not a cloud anywhere near, and I got the lowest temperature thus far: 7 below. (-21.6 for you foreigners). Went for a ski, and it took some mileage to warm up. Hopefully it won't get too much colder or I'm not going to want to be outside. The moon is back, baby, and it is great! The nighttime is luminescent. The stars aren't what they once were, but I don't even care. The wolves are so much less scary when you can see ten feet!

I Dust Off the Time Machine

Hey sports fans! I welcome you back. I have once again had a visitor from a new foreign country (the UK), but I must report, with great sadness, that my ratings have fallen from their lofty highs. I had a meeting with the network executives, and they have decided that people just don't identify with a temporary hermitage. So, to that end, I invite you on a journey through time, back to the beginning of Chez DuBrock. Back in those days it was but a simple trapper cabin perched bucolically between Nowhere and Purgatory. Relax your mind and we will travel backwards together....

Here we see the original structure on this property. It was built sometime around the birth of Jesus by a fellow named Joe Buck. His visits were limited to the wintertime, when he could trap the various and assorted furry things that spend their time out here. He was pretty damn good at making log cabins, and I must say this is a fine example. My dad once shot a bear in the FACE through a window of this cabin. This isn't hyperbole either. He actually did. So don't try and sneak up on him through a window. It won't work out. The only issue is that you must cross this to get to it:

I can hear you simple souls saying "Well, that looks like a lovely place to walk!", but you must consider that what Sancho is standing on is ice, and in the summertime, it is a horrible, swilling swamp full of voracious mosquitoes. When my family first started coming here during the year of my birth, Stump and I had to be carried across stretches of water by people in chest waders. The water, food, and anything else anybody might need to survive were similarly treated. When things weren't being carried across the swamp, they were trucked in this garden cart from the main road, which survived many a long season of abuse.

This humble log cabin built by Joe Buck served as base of operations until I was 12. I don't know if I was actually twelve, but I think all the years of manual labor has led to some repression, so it could have been earlier. We built a road into our property with some machines that I will introduce you to at a later date, and then moved to this fine example of rococo architecture provided (through some intermediaries), by the Alyeska Pipeline, where it used to serve as a warm up shack for their workers.

It was a huge step up, let me assure you. It had a stove and an oven, but even more importantly, beds for the children! We didn't have to sleep on the floor anymore, which I thought was just great. It is still just a one room hut, and we would be woken by the horrible screeching of my father's hand driven coffee grinder every morning, but an improvement. It sits in a really great clearing with some birch trees and a great view of the Crystalline Hills, which you can see behind it in the picture. I must add that clearing was done by the family, and to this day I have horrific arthritis from the years I spent raking a dirt patch before the grass finally took over. On top of it all there was no workman's comp. Shameful.

I remember being little and walking to someplace completely random in the forest where my old man had a square marked our with string, and he proclaimed "This is where we will have our house!" Even at my tender young age I'm sure I snickered and thought, "You crazy old water buffalo, that can't happen." But lo and behold! Before too long I was renewing my arthritic suffering with more raking. A whole new clearing was created, and we set to work building a colossal straw house. First we had a test building, known affectionately as "The Storage Shed". The name has a poetic connotation of beauty, with an undertone of functionality. Much like naming a ship the Queen Mary.

Then it was time for the big show, and we built this bigass house in the middle of nowhere. This is an early picture, taken before it was painted yellow.

I think Winston Churchill described our experience best when he said "If I hadn't drank a pint of brandy with breakfast, that goddamn chickenwire would have made me murder several people with a rusty crescent wrench by noon." In case you haven't built a straw house before, the ENTIRE thing has to be wrapped in chickenwire, inside and out. If you have never dealt with chickenwire, then you might as well be Marie Antoinette reading the Communist Manifesto. Chickenwire wasn't the only hurdle to be encountered during construction, but I don't feel like breaking down into tears by describing any further. Never mind, though, because we finished! When I was nineteen (after 3ish years of construction) the house was all done. And we had one helluva party. Everyone who went has never seen its equal, and I don't think anybody ever will.

In conclusion I add a hilarious picture of Sancho I took last night.

 And a photo especially for the Old Man. The sun still doesn't get high enough in the sky to get over the house, but late in the day it swings around the side and gets those panels. Yahoo!

Sancho Gets Psychoanalyzed

Ha! I have finally defeated the tubes. Here is a song I recorded out here.
















I think Sancho was deep in depression when we got out here. Back in Anchorage he had two dogs to play with all day long, and on top of that Stump took wing for Hawaii, to join in on all the whisky fueled yoga and Scrabble being offered by the parental vacation plan. So Sancho has been moping. He sits still for hours at a time, and his face shows profound sadness. So to alleviate this gloomy mood, we went outside. In honor of my father, I decided to abandon the many trails we have zigzagging drunkenly all over this place, and chose to zigzag drunkenly (only in appearance) through the trees down to the marsh and around in crazy circles on any frozen body of water I could find. Cross country skiing on ice sounds (at least to me), like a wild ride on a mechanical bull strapped to a tanker truck driving off a bridge, but sadly it was just somewhat more difficult not to fall down than skiing on snow. The lake was covered in these cool ice crystal snowflake things.

 I was a pretty big fan. Sancho couldn't figure out why I would be lying on my stomach in the middle of the lake, and kept running around, clearcut logging huge swaths of beautiful tiny ice trees. I admonished him but I'm not sure he understands clearcut logging. He has grown up in an era of more responsible natural resource management.

 I found the root of Sancho's depression when we were out in the deep snow, though. It turns out he has been living his entire life as a lie. The whole time he thought he was a dog, everyone believed he was a dog, and even other dogs told him he was a dog. But he isn't. He is actually the most gigantic rabbit that has ever lived. If you need proof, observe this picture of rabbit tracks.

And then observe this picture of Sancho tracks. I rest my case.

Also, the day was so clear that I'm pretty sure I could see Canada. This picture is lame because the mountains are so far away, but the very farthest ones that you can barely make out are in Canada. I think. More specifically, I think it's Mount Logan, North America's second tallest mountain.

Also, my march to global domination continues! Argentina, France, and New Zealand have joined the party! I suspect my lovely host family has been conned into viewing this blog. Hola! Bienvenidos! I now go to crack open the largest bottle of Crown Royal I have ever seen. I caught it while hunting in the wilds of the Costco liquor department. Nos vemos!

Lions, but No Witch or Wardrobe.

Oh man, had me a hectic day today. Unfortunately, not much interesting happened. Went to Costco, ran some random errands like getting distilled water for the batteries. The great news is that I have had THREE visits from South Africa. Well done Megan! South Africa is now my number one foreign country. And for that reason, I will pretend to be South African:

What? WHAT? I can't hear anything over all these vuvuzelas. I SAID I CAN'T HEAR ANYTHING OVER ALL THESE VUVUZELAS! WHY IS EVERYONE STILL BLOWING THOSE THINGS? I THOUGHT THE WORLD CUP ENDED ALREADY. MY EARS, MY POOR EARS. HEY, LOOK, I SEE A DINGO. WAIT, THEY DON'T HAVE DINGOS HERE. MUST BE A GOLDEN LAB. I LOVE GOLDEN LABS. HANG ON A MINUTE, IT LOOKS LIKE A CAT. HOLY CRAP ITS A LION! AHHHHHH ITS EATING MY LEGS. IT'S THE GHOST AND THE DARKNESS! WHY DON'T YOU STOP BLOWING THAT STUPID VUVUZELA AND HELP ME? AHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Hmmm, it appears I died. Bummer.

I did the drive back out to the cabin today, so I have reentered true hermitage. The temperature started below freezing in Anchorage, went up to around 40 in Palmer, about an hour north, and then dropped to 20 below zero near Glenallen before rising to 11 at the cabin. Weird, right? That's a big swing for a 300 mile drive.

 This is a picture of what I believe is Mount Sanford, and there are some others in there too that I can't remember. Anyway, this is close to Glenallen, which is about 200ish miles northeast of Anchorage. Notice they are pink! This is an interesting effect that occurs when the sun is low in the sky and shining through an unusual amount of atmosphere. The light turns pink because Alaska's atmosphere is mostly nitrogen, but the remainder is equal parts oxygen and pink cotton candy!

Stump Celebrates, Influenza Strikes, and I Turn Australian

I got an Australian yesterday!!! I will now pretend to be Australian: Throw another dingo on the barbie! Maybe we should just throw the barbie at the dingo. Its eating all our shrimp. Then maybe we should do something about all the horrible poisonous things with fangs that are gnawing on everything I love and hold dear. And why does every animal on this continent without horrible poisonous fangs carry its offspring around in a fanny pack? Vegemite? I'm not touching that shit. On second thought, I quit being Australian. I'll stick with good old fashioned wolves. 

This does mean that I have now hit 4 continents! Japan, Australia, Germany, US, and Canada! Whoo! I am declaring an official campaign to have Temporary Hermit be viewed on every continent. Megan, I'm looking at you for Africa. South America anybody? Who knows somebody in Antarctica? I feel like Antarcticans and I could bond over how we have none of the same animals despite the fact it's really cold.

Today Stump and I made the long journey into Anchorage. When we woke up it was 5 below and we left before the sun came up. We saw a bunch of mushers in Glenallen. Must be another village on the brink of total annihilation due to influenza again. Some people never learn. This is what the drive looked like when we weren't driving, but letting Sancho take a short walk.

Today is very notable in that Stump was born on this very date no less than 26 years ago! Congratulations Stump! To celebrate we went to town square, which they have turned into an ice rink and has a snowsculpture contest going on. Here is a Woolly Mammoth. Not the best sculpture in the contest, but certainly the one that most closely resembles a Woolly Mammoth.

 

I continue to fail at uploading a song. Why must these tubes be so difficult to navigate?

McCarthy Ho!

Today, Stump and I decided to take a trip out to McCarthy, the nearest population center. It isn't really too populous in the winter. Here is downtown. Not a mouse was stirring.



Our goal was to find a friend out there, but we didn't see anyone. We did, however see a raven eating a rabbit carcass. That is pretty close to human, I guess. Hey, want to see something cool?


BOOYAH. That's Root glacier to the right and Kennicott glacier to the left. Way back in the left you can also see Mt. Blackburn. Google has informed me that it is 16,390 ft tall, which makes it the 5th highest peak in North America, and the second tallest volcano. Despite the fact that it was foggy/cloudy at the cabin, it was darn near perfect out in McCarthy. It was still cold (0 degrees), but the sun was so nice you could just forget about it. Stump and I had a nice 8 mile ski, which Sancho just loved.

On the way back we saw a coyote in the car. We were on a road cut into the side of a steep slope, so there wasn't really anywhere for it to go but run away on the road. We followed it for a little while until Sancho caught sight and had an aneurysm. He didn't know whether to bark, whine, growl, or start talking excitedly like a hyperactive ten year old child after having a full I/V bag of pure caffeine injected straight into their jugular.

Also, we saw that raven eating a rabbit that I already mentioned. Deeeeelicious. Tomorrow, Stump and I make the journey to Anchorage so she can return to art school. Today is really all about the pretty pictures. The first is a spring near McCarthy, and the second is taken from the footbridge over the Kennicott River. Enjoy....






Also, I have been working on making a song or two out here with my father's left handed bass (which looks like it hasn't been played since he bought it...tsk tsk). Here is one!

Having technical difficulties! Will add the song later....

The Many (Surprising) Sides of Stump

Nature is starting to flex its muscle a little bit. After a full week of cloudy/windy/warm/mediocre-in-every-way weather, it's finally starting to look like Alaska outside. Its down to 2 degrees, and the sky was really clear all day, as it usually is in the coldest part of winter.

Sancho could somehow sense that things were different, and he was unusually placid in the morning. I stepped out to reignite the war with the hot tub, which if you will recall from yesterday's events, had been sidetracked into a skirmish with a spigot on the south side of the house. Stump had suggested that "spirits were taking the gruelies", which I immediately discounted as another example of the crazy alien babble that Stump regularly allows to escape her mouth. I got in touch with the Old Man (he was on a boat halfway between Maui and Lanai, with his leg up on the railing at the front, much like George Washington crossing the Delaware. In one hand he held the phone, calmly explaining how to solve my problem, and in the other he held a harpoon, scanning the horizon for sign of whale in the hopes of making a kill in the failing light, so the starving elders of the village might have some comfort), and he told me that Stump was quite correct. There is a diminutive banshee that lives inside that spigot. You have to sucker punch it in the face with a pipe cleaner before the water will flow. This is an artistic rendering of a banshee.



This information was so surprising I had to go ask Stump how it was she knew all this about the spigot. Turns out, Stump is a postgraduate art student! How wacky is that? I tell ya what, life is stranger than fiction sometimes. Here are two of Stump's pictures:



We ended up spending most of the day discussing Sancho. We were worried that we had become too close to him, and if that was true, was it us that had lost our humanity? (I guess in Stump's case, her stumpiness) Or had Sancho lost his dogness? We had just reached the peak of intellectual discovery only possible between two minds honed with the most precise knowledge when Sancho farted and pawed the door to go outside. We realized that we are going crazy, and three degree weather or not, need to get out more. So we went for a walk. Here are some photos from the daily journey. Notice the jet contrail reflecting the sunset in the first photo. The moon is just starting to make a comeback after being noticeably absent for so long.