Wood is Stacked!

This was the easiest year for wood EVER! We had more left over from last year than we maybe ever had. And we ordered wood that came BUCKED and SPLIT! WOW!

It was standing dead fire killed spruce, probably closer to 15 years dead? All the bark was off, it is dry, and bug free. Here’s the first load getting dumped off (by an electric dump truck!). And notice, it’s getting dumped RIGHT in front of the empty wood racks! Couldn’t be easier!

Here’s the first cord and a half:

And a few hours later, the second 1.5 cords arrived:

Feast and Gerties!

We were busy that day cooking up a feast, so the stacking waited for 2 more days (it poured rain the next day)! But we got it all stacked in one day. That’s an all time record for us! It usually takes so many weekends and we need to move the wood so many times as we process it. This was a treat!

Jeff was up since midnight smoking a brisket the day the wood arrived. I tried another recipe from ChatGPT for a three cheese, smoked flavour, macaroni and cheese. Our friend Alex came over for the feast. We had Jeff’s homemade coleslaw too, some baked beans I had froze from an earlier batch, and Jeff’s hot out-of-the-oven corn bread!

Alex brought over this heavenly chocolate dessert he made!

I have only seen the early show at Diamond Tooth Gertie’s this summer, so Alex insisted he rectify this. We planned to go to Gertie’s and watch all three shows.

We didn’t make it in time to get a seat for the first show, so we stood along side the front of the crowd.

We’ve had a lot of changes in this show in the last couple of years. The amazing singer who used to play Gertie, for years, left the show last year and a new team took over running the entire show. There is a new singer, and all new dancers. The dresses and costumes are new, and the choreography and songs are new.

A lot of the sexiness has been taken out of the shows and dancing, which I’ve been told was inevitable for the 2020’s? I guess change is inevitable. Even when you can pose with the cast after each show, that changed too, and now you can’t go anywhere near them. You must stand in front of the stairs, while they are on the stairs:

I don’t think the singing is nearly as good as it has been in the past, but the shows are entertaining, the dresses are stunning, and the songs are fun. They usually have 4 dancers, but they were down to three for this Saturday night – either sickness or just the time of the year? They made it work!

Jeff was so totally zonked, from all his brisket smoking (instead of sleeping), so he went home after the 8:30pm show. After that early show, the majority of the tourists cleared out, and Alex and I were able to score a decent table.

It wasn’t the front row centre that we were wanting, and we were disappointed in the tourists that lingered there. They didn’t even tap their toes, let alone clap or sing along!

Fortunately, they encouraged audience participation so Alex and I sang along, loudly! Especially in the Gold show (the Midnight show), where they hit pop favourites from all the decades, ending in a Taylor Swift trio.

I was actually even hoarse the next morning from all the singing and cheering we did. What a great time! Thanks for getting me out Alex! Since I stopped drinking (a couple of years ago now!) I don’t tend to go out much anymore, and for really no good reason! Live performances are so much fun and we’re fortunate to have many in this little town.

It was a bit shocking just how dark it was when we left after the midnight show. Fall is SO dark at night (it’s lighter at night once we have snow on the ground). Alex biked along side me because he promised Jeff to make sure I got home okay, then he biked home.

Tomatoes

The probability of frost has continued so we picked the rest of our tomatoes so they can ripen inside. We did pretty good this year again! Usually they’ll slowly ripen for another month or so on the counter.

Whitehorse

I zipped down to Whitehorse last Friday and back Saturday for that annual mammogram appointment.

I left in the dark and was so spoiled by an incredibly long sunrise as I headed south.

Seeing a sunrise just makes me even happier than my usual happy self. It’s a magically beautiful time of the day. Because we live in a river valley, we don’t get to see sunrises or sunsets. If you’re ever feeling down, I recommend the pick-me-up of seeing a sunrise, even if you have to go out of your way to see one. I pulled over at the Gravel Lake outhouse and stood in the parking lot watching the sunrise come up over the lake, between these spruce trees, for a few minutes.

When I got to the stretch of the Klondike highway that is under construction this year (it’s part of a 15-year plan to improve the road), we waited at a red light.

The wait started to get rather lengthy. The driver in front of me went window to window rallying everyone to just leave. He told me the people at the front of the line had been waiting for 45 minutes already.

So when a few of the vehicles decided to pull out, I said, what the heck, and I went with them.

They were pouring water on the road and eventually we met the pilot car and had to stop anyway, and wait for it to continue on to gather all the cars behind us that didn’t leave with us.

There was a bit of a cell signal here, in the middle of nowhere for some reason, so I had the pleasure of passing the time chatting with my dad who took a chance and called me after I sent him some sunrise pictures.

Because of this lengthy delay and waiting in line for gasoline in Pelly, it took me 7 hours, 25 minutes to get to the hospital for the appointment. I’m so glad I left plenty early (6am) because these delays are pretty common. So much less stressful than racing to get to an appointment so you aren’t late.

The appointment went fine. Then I could shop! But blegh, shopping is exhausting. It’s been at least a year and a half since I drove down to Whitehorse solo with time to shop and a vehicle to put my merchandise in. In my head, I thought I’d be going to the shops, walking every aisle, buying a year’s worth of supplies. Living this far from stores, you build up a bit of a romantic idea of what shopping could be like. But instead I went through my list and only got those things and only visited those aisles, and was totally wiped out.

It didn’t even take advantage of being in a city by going out for a nice dinner. I simply went into the A&W and had a teen burger and fries.

I stayed that night at the old Airport Chalet. It’s about a third of the price of any of the other hotels. It’s so old and dated, yet I can’t find a reason to not like it. It’s clean. The food is delicious. It feels entirely like 1979 in there. What more do you need?

I got up the next morning to do a bit more shopping, but knew we had been invited to a dinner out with friends that I wanted to get back for, so I headed back north by 10am or so.

It rained most of the drive, but I got to the construction just as the pilot car was pulling away with a line of cars, so I joined them. Great timing! With the rain, I put the truck in four wheel drive to get through the mucky mess!

Friends

The next day I went for a coffee (or in my case, a cold fiery ginger drink) at the new spa with my friends Janet and Tarie.

We spent the afternoon together, chatting and browsing our little shops, most of which are at the end of their season and will soon close up.

I love spending time with these gals!

Fall Colours

Jeff’s been planning a hunting trip with his old coworker and friend from Ontario. He’s just arrived in town after a quick drive up here from Ontario, and he brought his mom too, so they could both see the Yukon for the first time.

We took them up to the top of the Dome last night after supper. Here are some pictures of the fall colours from up there:

They’ll be visiting for a few weeks, and Jeff and Ray will be heading out hunting soon.

I’ll be driving back to Whitehorse soon too, to board Hank, and depart for California for a few days for work, should the Air Canada pilot strike not interfere with my plans!