The Mud Saga Continues.

Posted on May 17, 2012 by wilderness dweller

After being hauled out of the boghole, the truck had been sitting for a few days before I drove it.  I was going to take Wolf, the wwoofer, to Anahim Lake so he could hitch hike to Bella Coola.  I noticed nothing on the bush road, but as soon as I speeded up on the highway, there was an alarming vibration and soon the steering wheel was juddering dramatically.

Wolf and I got onto our hands and knees on the road and looked underneath.  There was a lot of dried mud caked around the join of the wheel and axle.  Maybe if we could shift it…..  But this proved to be an enormous job.  Firstly, it was jammed in behind various bits of truck, and secondly, we had no adequate tools.  The shovels were too big – a knife blade too small.  After 20 minutes of hacking, I heard a car and jumped up to flag it down.  The driver kindly gave Wolf his ride to Anahim Lake, and I continued with trying to loosen the mud.  I had to work at it one crumb at a time.  I was reminded of stories of prisoners who broke out of their jails using their finger nails to scrape away the mortar.  Who would have thought such soft sloppy silt would dry so hard?  Finally I loosened the last piece and it was with great relief that I found the truck was now performing normally.  When I had driven through the bog before, I always had a large puddle on the far side and that must have washed the mud off.  Because the truck was hauled out of the hole and driven no where, the mud had not been dislodged.

I did not want to risk trying to drive through the boghole again, so every time I wanted to go anywhere I had to walk the hour along the bush road to the truck, and walk the hour back again after my trip.  However, after about a week, the part of the boghole closest to my house was starting to dry out and I figured I could get through.

The other part, where I had got stuck, was still pretty bad, though.

Water was continuously seeping in from the bank on the left.  I dug a small trench to try and keep the worst of it out of the centre of the bog.  Next to Harry (the yellow dog) was a dead pine.  I figured if I cut it and a few other bushes out, I could squeeze by the soft spots. I had backpacked a small chainsaw out to the truck.

And so I was able to finally drive the truck home.

The other chore I have been occupying myself with this last week is enlarging a window.  I have long been frustrated that I could not see the mountains when I was working at the computer.

(The picture on the laptop is part of the backyard at Nuk Tessli)

So I cleared out the office and cut the hole.

And now I have 4 panes in the window facing the mountains instead of 3.

It has made the whole room seem larger.  (This is the advantage of living in a half-built house.  You can change your mind before you finish it!)

And this is what it looks like from the outside!

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Spring is right around the corner.

Posted on May 14, 2012 by wilderness dweller

Spring is right around the corner at Ginty Creek.

Dandelions are blooming.

Crazy beetles are whizzing in manic circles on the pond

The buds on the willow twigs are fattening.

A spruce grouse observes me from a branch.

And bears are running along the road.

Last Saturday, I went to a meeting at Nimpo Lake.  The ice had gone out about 3 days before.

It went out 3 days earlier than last year, which made it about 2 weeks later than “normal”.  The ice at Nuk Tessli goes out a month later.  In one month’s time I will be flying right between the mountains on the picture to get to the summer resort.

The temperature has been up to 20C during the day, but it is still freezing quite hard most nights.

We have also had some very cold winds.  But the sun rises early now, reaching the cabin before 6.00:am, and these cool spring mornings are full of birdsong and glorious.

 

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The boghole

Posted on May 8, 2012 by wilderness dweller

99% of my 4 km of road to Highway 20 is dry.  But in one shady spot there are two horrendous bogholes.  So far, the new truck has managed to drag itself through them.

This is what it looked like after a neighbour (who lives an hour to the east) got stuck.  He drove to my house in the morning on a hard frost.  But he left around 2:00pm.  About an hour later, he was walking back into my yard.

I drove down with the truck and tried to pull him out backwards, but his suburban was too heavy.  The engine block was sitting right on the mud.  There looked to be room to squeeze past – which I managed after several tries, but as my visitor said, I was so close I managed to scrape some of the mud off the side of the Suburban.  But I couldn’t pull him out from the front either.  We tried my trusty come-along, did lots of digging, and cut trees to try and lever the vehicle up, but the Suburban would not budge.  In the end I drove to the nearest neighbour about 20 minutes drive away and fortunately found him working in his yard.  He had a bigger truck and we loaded the back with concrete blocks to give it weight.  After about two hours, my visitor was pulled out.

We drove back home through the boghole with trepidation but no problem.  Wolf took the truck for a day trip and once again went out and back.

Yesterday, we went to Tatla.  The mud was much sloppier at the edge where I had gone before.  I gunned the motor and slithered through: unfortunately I was driving with the window half open.  Mud flew inside all over my town clothes and the truck interior but I did not dare stop. (You can see the contrast between the mud on the window and the part that was protected by the door.)

Near the highway we found a puddle and slung buckets of water to clear the windshield and mirrors so that I could drive.

We went to Nimpo and then to Tatla and returned home about 8.00pm.  A few yards into the boghole, the truck sank.

I could not open the drivers door so had to crawl out on the passenger side.

We tried the come-along once without success, but I didn’t want to spend too much time on it as it was an hour’s walk home and I wanted to try and phone for help before it was too late.  (A call after 9:00pm in this part of the world is not good manners.)

Fortunately, I got hold of Len Lamothe, who pulled my van out of the ice puddle about 5 weeks ago.  He arrived in his (very clean!) truck at 8.00:am this morning.

Fortunately, he had a firm place for his vehicle.  Unfortunately, my truck is now stranded on the highway side of the boghole.  We had loaded it with drinking water: the pond is not fit to drink: even when boiled long enough to make it safe, it tastes of swamp.  The river is not too bad at the moment, although it also needs boiling, but it almost a kilometre away and the only way to carry it from there is by backpack or hand.  On the dusty road to the boghole, we can at least use the wheelbarrow and take two 5-gallon jugs at once.

If only we could have got the truck home last night!  This morning I learned that the van is fixed.  Friends will be bringing it out from town in a couple of days.  It would have been great to have a vehicle on both sides of the hole.  But now I will have two vehicles stranded an hour’s walk from home.  Who knows when the boghole will be fit to drive through again?  People at a small community at the north end of Nimpo Lake have been cut off with a similar situation for  weeks.

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Signs of Spring at Ginty Creek.

Posted on May 8, 2012 by wilderness dweller

If you look at the pictures on the previous posts you will see mostly dull weather.  It seems to be getting colder and colder with unpleasant, strong winds.  However, there are small signs of spring.

The ice has been very late going off the pond, and waterfowl have been rare, but one day a pair of buffleheads landed.

The rhubarb is poking up its green, brain-like leaves.

Colour is intensifying on various species of willow twigs.

Pussy willows are yellow with pollen

Then the first soopolallie (also known as buffalo berry, or bear berry) started to show its tiny, simple, green flowers.

Likewise the mistletoe, a common parasite of the lodgepole pine, is putting forth its curious reproductive parts.  (The plastic mistletoe you get at Christmas is copied from a European species that has green leaves.)

Most precious of all were the tiny early purple violets, which bloom on the sunniest slopes.  They are so dwarfed that it is hard to get the camera down to their level.

On a trip to Tatla Lake a beaver was swimming on the small lake, now open, in front of the library.

Ruffed grouse have been drumming for some time near my house.  the males are so pumped with hormones they display at anything that moves, including cars.  Wolf had to get out of the truck and shoo this one off the road.

ruffed grouse

And finally, two days ago, the last of the ice went off  my pond.  This is on a par with last year, about 2 and a half weeks later than usual.

 

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April work at Ginty Creek

Posted on May 8, 2012 by wilderness dweller

The wwoofers have been keeping me busy.  Anne and Wolf insulated the whole of the attic.  We could not put the boards on as the road to Highway 20 is still too soft in one spot for the lumber truck to come.

attic insulation at Ginty Creek.

I drove Anne to Williams Lake at the end of April as she had to go back to France, and Wolf and I made a start on filling the woodshed.  There was a lot of scrap timber lying around after I cleared the road.

An advantage of living in an unfinished house means that you can change your mind about where things go.  While the wwoofers were working upstairs, I addressed a dark corner of the kitchen.

Then I took some of the wall apart.

You can see a small hole at the top.  That was made by a flicker, a kind of woodpecker, trying to get in from outside.

Then – voila!

I’ve wanted a door there for a long time.  The door was made by a neighbour (who lives over an hour’s drive west).  The facing boards still have to be put on.  And another friend is going to make me a stained glass window for it.

It makes doing dishes quite pleasurable to have the early sun pouring in and listen to all the birds singing.  (I’ll have to build a screen door pretty quick, though: the mosquitos are getting active.)

 

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Trip to Bella Coola

Posted on April 28, 2012 by wilderness dweller

Yesterday was a lovely frosty Chilcotin morning.

Chilcotin frost

We set off once again to Bella Coola.  West of Anahim Lake, the road is no longer paved.  There are usually soft spots in the spring, but I have never seen so many as this year.  My own road still has a horrendous quagmire (which the new truck drags itself out of) and other Chilcotin residents are also having major problems.

Highway 20 potholes

Heading west from Anahim it normally takes about 40 minutes on Highway 20 to reach Heckman Pass at the top of The Hill down to Bella Coola.  The road climbs only about another 1000 feet, but there is a great deal more snow on the pass.

Heckman Pass
The signs to the right are almost buried.

buried road signs on Highway 20 at Heckman Pass

The first hairpin bend sign isn’t going to make it.

hairpin bend sign near Heckman Pass

Near the bottom of The Hill, however, we had a treat – new green leaves!

spring green at the bottom of The Hill.

Nearby some false box was blooming.

false box

And so were the mosquitos!

Anne and mosquitos

Anne and Wolf walked along the Esker Trail.

Esker trail

The forest is just over the hill from Ginty Creek, but it is a totally different world.

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More fun with the road

Posted on April 21, 2012 by wilderness dweller

In the previous post I mentioned that I was taking friends to Bella Coola yesterday.  But fate took over and instead, I went to Williams Lake.  I drove the van out to the highway no problem.  Sure, there were a few slithers, but the north end is still mud and large lakes of water so the sliding around was expected.  On Highway 20, however, as soon as I started to speed up, it was obvious that there was something seriously wrong with the steering.  I must have done more damage that I thought when I slid off the road and hit a tree the other day.

It was about 7.00am.  I would have to get a tow.  I left the van near the highway so the tow truck would not have to drive through the bog holes.  It was an hour’s walk home.  A beautiful day, though, freezing quite hard and sunny for once.  Large puddles in the forest were skinned with ice.  The low sun sent golden shafts of light through the trees.

The nearest tow truck was half an hour’s drive away – and the operator was on vacation until May.  Another place was half an hour east but even if I got the van there, he might not be able to repair it, and I would have to wait for parts.  On the walk home I thought about a pickup truck my usual mechanic had for sale.  I was going to wait until I next went to Williams Lake to look at it, if it was still there.  I phoned the mechanic.  Yes, he still had the truck.  I phoned BCAA.  Because the Nimpo guy was away, the truck had to come from Williams Lake over 3 hours’ drive away.  It would take half an hour to load and another 3 + hours to drive back.  I was wondering if there would be time for me to buy the truck and get insurance before everything closed.  About an hour before I expected the tow truck, I set off walking back to Highway 20 carrying a backpack with overnight stuff in case I had to stay over. But the tow truck driver made good time.

It was just before 1.00pm before we started back to town.  I had brought lunch with me but it was too bouncy to eat in the tow truck.  The driver was not a conversationalist and although I cannot pick up radio, he was able to listen to a trucker’s radio show from the states.  The top thirty country tunes blasted from the speakers  for 2 hours.  This is not my favourite music.  All that whining and cliched sexism.  I did get a chuckle out of a chorus line from hit Number 3, though.  “Girl, you make my speakers go boom boom boom.”

Still it was an interesting ride as being high up in the cabin meant I could see all sorts of things not normally visible.  40 years ago in Australia I hitch-hiked a lot in big trucks: I had forgotten what fun it was to ride so high.

The snow was all gone from the Chilcotin but most of the ponds and lakes are still frozen.  We arrived in Williams Lake a little after 4.00pm.  BCAA picked up the tab for the tow – otherwise it would have cost about $1,000!!.  There was just enough time to do the paperwork, pick up 3 boxes of produce, and sneak into the building supply store 2 minutes before they closed to stuff the back of the pickup full of insulation.  It was dark when I got to my turnoff and I put the truck into 4wd and set it into the puddles and mud with some apprehension, but we made it home without mishap. This is not my favourite vehicle colour: but at least it doesn’t show the mud!)

The pickup will be good for the bush but not great for book tours.  The mechanic will check out the van and see if it is worth keeping.  There is a lot wrong with it – the steering, awd not working, back doors jammed shut (that alone will cost $500), windshield like a spiders web, 2 broken bumpers so we’ll see.

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Having fun on the road at Ginty Creek.

Posted on April 19, 2012 by wilderness dweller

On 7th April I went to town to pick up a wwoofer.  I left home at 5.00am – it was still dark and -12C.  One km away I encountered a large, frozen puddle.

van in frozen puddle

I knew I would crash through so drove cautiously into it.  That was a mistake. When I did crash through, I was stuck.  The ice in front was up to the bumper.  There was no way I could reach underneath to find something to fasten on a rope.  Fumbling in the moonlit dark, I set up the come-along at the back.  But this time I simply could not shift the van.  The all-wheel drive is not working properly.  I have not had a chance to go to Williams Lake to get it fixed.  (And April 7th was Easter weekend so no chance of a mechanic then.)

The full moon was setting as I walked back to the house.  There are two tow-truck operators in the area – both were away for several weeks.  I phoned a friend whose husband had a lot of heavy machines – at 6.00am he was already on the road hauling hay while the frost was in the ground.  He would not be able to come until the afternoon.  But my friend phoned a neighbour.  He eventually arrived and pulled me out.  The two of them had a 40-minute drive each way to rescue me and they would take nothing for their time.

So I got to highway 20 4 hours after I left home.  I should have already been in Williams Lake by then.  But the driving was excellent and by running around like a lunatic, I got everything done and picked up the wwoofer from the bus station.  Driving home it was quite late and thawing.  I wondered how I would make out on the road.  The snow was very sloppy and I crashed through into mud, but the puddle I had problems with was soft and I made it through.

A few days later we drove to Anahim Lake to pick up another wwoofer.  The ice puddle was surprisingly dried up and only half full.  But closer to the highway the road was nothing but mud and enormous lakes of water.

puddle on the telegraph road

The only way to tackle them was to go flat out.  Even so, I almost did not make it through this one.  (My gumboots were behind the seat in case I needed them in a hurry.)

I don’t enjoy this kind of driving! Another time I slewed off the road and crashed into a tree.  The bumper is broken and there is a big scrape on the front fender.  Most years I hunker down during this season but it seems that this year I have had to drive for one reason or another  every few days.  Still, I now have an energetic work force and am getting some work done.

The first job was burning brush.  Anne from France is operating the chainsaw, Wolf from Germany is behind.

Anne operating chainsaw

Here, Sam from France is at the rear of the stretcher of brush.  He and  Wolf are clearing old debris piles from the side of the road.

wolf and sam buring

But despite persistent cloud and very unpleasant cold winds, the snow has gone fast and we have had to quit burning the big piles.  The next big job is to insulate the attic.

Anne and Sam preparing to insulate the attic

The ponds, however, are still frozen.  When proofreading the latest version of Ginty’s Ghost, I read how the ponds were both open by the middle of April in 2009.  This year, however, they are still solid.

A river of water, however, is running over the ice on the lower pond.  It is going to be another very late year.

Tomorrow I am taking the 3 wwoofers to Bella Coola for the day.  Once again I will have to launch the van along the road.  Keep tuned to see what kind of trouble I get into this time.

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More wintry than winter!

Posted on April 6, 2012 by wilderness dweller

A big gap again – once more I have been incredibly busy – this time working with an editor to fine-tune the manuscript for Ginty’s Ghost (due out this fall.)  I have an outdated computer and our programs were not compatible so this made an enormous amount of extra work.  The editing was supposed to have been done in January but the editor was 7 weeks late – then we had the program problem – and of course the publisher wanted it last week so it was a terrible scramble to get it done.  Normally I enjoy the editing process but not this time.

At first it seemed as though the snow was going to melt away.  The trails thawed on the sunny side and stayed frozen on the shady side so they all became very lopsided and difficult to walk on.

trail thawing at Ginty Creek

But almost every day for quite a while, we have had more snow.

One morning at sunrise, we had a dramatic burst of light.

Very soon it was pouring with rain – after several hours it turned to snow.  It was wet and heavy and stuck on the trees.  It was the prettiest snow we’d had all winter.

There had been quite a bit of bare ground on sunnier slopes. but this new snow covered everything again.  The birds were frantic for food.  Most of the redpolls have headed north, but there are now about 20 juncos and about 50 redwing blackbirds.  They are voracious eaters.

redwing blackbirds

One morning the sky was clear.  It was -14C.  Nogwhon was a rich orange.

Noghwon

Finger Peak floated disembodied above a layer of fog.

But by afternoon, the storm clouds were piling up again.

storm clouds over Finger Peak

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Spring Equinox at Ginty Creek

Posted on March 24, 2012 by wilderness dweller

The equinox almost past me by as I was busy with other things.  We are now back into fabulous weather mode.  Still cold in the mornings – minus 15C – but above freezing in the afternoon.

The sun now rises far enough round to light Finger Peak in the mornings.

Finger peak, sunrise

And it completely clears Nogwhon when it sets.

Nogwhon sunset

But this weather is bringing some problems.  On my road, not far from Highway 20, is a very long stretch of glare ice.  This has never happened before, but the ground is so saturated from the overload of rain last summer and the previous fall, that water is oozing and flowing down the road.  The cold mornings mean that I am presented with a skating rink.  It is at its worst late morning, when the temperature has risen to about -2C.  The first time I drove it like that I swivelled right round but managed to do a multiple point turn to get back on track.  The second time I was not so lucky and slid into the snowbank left by the plough.  It is not easy to see on the photo but I am at the bottom of a small rise and totally stuck.  It was fortunate that the snowbank was there or I would have slid right off the road.

Even with creepers on my boots, I could not stand on the ice without hanging on to the van.  I had a bucket of ashes with me but they provided no traction whatsoever.  I had a shovel but the small bits of bare ground above the road were frozen solid.

Next, out came the trusty come-along.

The stump looks rotten but it was firmly anchored in the frozen ground.  Extricating the van was a tedious process.  The rope was a cheap one and very stretchy so a lot of the cranking was wasted energy.  I would get it as tight as I could, then start the van.  It would move a few inches until the tension was off the rope then spin out again.  It must have taken well over an hour to get up a few yards of rise, but when the road levelled out I could drive again.

Today the temperature rose to +6C and there was a lot of strong sunshine.  I drove down to the ice.  Now the top couple of inches of dirt on the bank was sloppy and thawing, and I shovelled a track of mud all the way down the edge of the ice.

As long as there is not too much seepage from the bank, the mud should provide traction the next time I want to drive out, which is in two  days’ time.  The dark earth should also melt a track down into the ice.  I shovelled more dirt into a couple of buckets, which are very heavy as the dirt is wet.  I can’t leave them in the van overnight or they will freeze so have had to lug them inside.  I hope I remember to put them in the van when I drive out on Monday.

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