Alaska welcomes Marit B.

April, Jeb, and little Marit are making the rounds in Fairbanks this week. It's Marit's first visit to Alaska...she seems to be enjoying it (although I think she's probably responding to another slice of cheese in this picture)! So nice to have them back, if only for a few days. We're all doing our best to get them back in the state.



We took a ride up to the construction site and showed Marit where her room will be when she visits her new baby "cousin".

Happy baby, happy Daddy. It's hard to tell in this photo, but Marit is really dressed for AK...she's got her own pair of carhart overalls. I think I need a pair if they look this cute! Later in the week we'll all head down to Anchorage for Shiway and Dave's wedding and a big 'ol friend reunion.

First floor framing starts

The framing started on Friday without Marcus (he had some salmon fishing of his own to do), but after a wall nearly went up where a wall wasn't supposed to be Max thought the guys should take a long weekend.


Marcus was back on Monday and made some good progress on the floor and basement walls. He also managed to corral the water tank.

The future utility room.

By now we have a floor, and today they're working on the exterior walls. We're looking forward to the main floor coming into shape this week.

Salmon day #4

Saturday was canning day. That meant a long day in the kitchen listening to the rattle of the pressure canners. Before we can the fish we put them in the smoker for a few hours. The fillets look good enough to eat when they come out!


And later Saturday was smoking day. Max is laying out the strips after they spent an hour in the brine. Here they'll dry a bit in the breeze before they get moved to the smoker.

Willow isn't a big fan of salmon - she's a kibble girl. So she spent salmon day watching everyone else work hard.

These are almost ready for the smoker.

Salmon processing

Max's fillet station.

Here's a look at the beautiful King salmon Max caught. Poor thing lost its head at the river and doesn't look quite as majestic as it did when it came out of the water. The majority of the red salmon that come up the Copper are hatchery raised and released for subsistence use, but all of the Kings are wild. We take care in processing all of the fish we bring home, but the King gets treated like royalty!

1/2 a fish down, 39 1/2 to go.

My vacuum-sealing station. I'm lucky to have the mosquito-free work space.

1 fish down, 39 to go. This is just the King meat...mmmm.

Concrete pour #2

The basement walls got filled with concrete this morning. So early, in fact, that they were done by the time Max got there with the camera. Here is the aftermath...much dirtier walls. Not to worry though, tomorrow they'll get covered up with a waterproof membrane that will keep the basement nice and dry under all that backfill.


Tomorrow our giant water tank will be lifted over the wall and set in place before the first floor joists go in. We should have a floor above the basement by the weekend. If we were typical Fairbanksans, that would be the point when we would move in. Doesn't really sound appealing...I guess we haven't been here long enough.

Chitina 2007

Max made the annual trip to the Copper River to collect another year's supply of salmon. He went with some friends this year, leaving me behind to mind the house construction and bring home the bacon.


Nice view of Mt. Blackburn lit up in the late evening sun. Their timing was just right for dipnetting. They hit a strong run of fish and all participants caught their limit the first night.

Calliope might have been the biggest catch of the trip, but Max managed to net a King salmon at the last minute.

Four adults with four permits made the trip. That's a lot of fish to move around between the truck and the cleaning station! This picture really shows how a day or two at Chitina feels...urgh. All made it home safe and sound in less than two days. What a marathon effort this year! Looking forward to a week of filleting and smoking fish. Here's our famous fishshaw in action...Max is proud of its new larger wheels for 2007. This cart has carried A LOT of fish over the years!

It's a basement!

Marcus and his crew have finished the basement wall installation. We actually have a basement!



Here it is from the north side. It's such a thrill to see our plans turning into a structure...look, they put windows and a door exactly where we wanted them!

Here's a view from the west. The wall area obscured by the driveway in this photo is basically the area that will eventually be backfilled and covered with dirt. The south (uphill) wall will be nearly completely below ground level.