Fairbanks Trip, Part Two

Livengood mining pictures...

Time to burn...

Well, I cut all these branches off the spruce trees back in June. Finally had a few dry days and it's supposed to rain tomorrow. So, it was time to get them burned. Plus I had a couple of piles of cut down alder that needed to be burned too.

Patty's propane torch made getting the fire started really easy.

I spent a couple of hours hauling wood over to the fire, but kept it pretty small. Didn't need to start the neighborhood on fire. Marge & Darlene both helped which was great.

Finally it got down to coals. Carol came by and we had a glass of wine & visited for a while. And Paul & Dylan stopped by when they finished Darlene's cable rail on her deck. All & all it was a great evening. I need to put a fire pit in the back yard next summer once I get the yard going.

This is Darlene & Izzy from next door.

Fairbanks Trip, Part One

I haven't been up to Fairbanks to visit in way too long. I'm guessing the last time was in 2000 or maybe 2001. Anyway, I finally braved the long drive and spent last weekend in Fairbanks. Stayed with Gwyn. Glenda was working days we didn't get much chance to visit. But we did go out for dinner on Sat night and chat for a couple of hours.

On Sunday afternoon we went up to Livengood with Richard. He is going to do some gold mining on his property and wanted to drop off his camp trailer. It was really a pretty drive. Only about 1.5 hour drive out of Fairbanks.

While we were walking around I found an old woodpecker nest. It was only about 5 feet off the ground. Kind of fun to look into.

Foggy Saturday Morning

Fall is definitely here. Look at the yellow brown color of the tundra. I took this early on Saturday morning. It was very clear except for a little ground fog out on the other side of the airport. You can just see the top of the gravel stockpile protruding up over the fog. Usually it's the other way, if the ceiling lets you see the gravel stockpile then the jet can land.

N190PE

It's been a pretty quiet week for visiting planes. This time of the summer, we usually have a lot of them. There was a pretty little Gulfstream 3 that came in a few days ago, but I didn't get a picture.



Here is one that landed at lunch time. I googled it, it belongs to the Dept. of Interior. Someone from Washington DC must be out on a tour. I came in from Galena, but I'm not sure where it was headed.

Platform Beds Finished

I finally got the 2 platform beds finished. They're pretty sturdy and colorful, so I'm happy with my first wood working project. Although the entire project became much more complicated than I originally planned.

Once I had the back guest room emptied out, I decided to repair a crack and repaint the walls. They'd really been scuffed up when the concrete floors were poured. Linda and Sally were here on Sat & Sun. Sat afternoon they helped me repaint the back bedroom. Since they both know what they're doing, it went really fast. And it came out great. So the back guest room looks clean and new.

Here is Sally taping and Linda getting the paint ready.

The master painter :-).

Then we put the pieces together. I had a little trouble and broke a drill bit, but they went together pretty quickly. Though once they were together I decided I needed to paint the edges of the plywood platforms. I didn't like the white showing under the mattress when it was put on the bed. So the new paint had to dry for a couple of days.

Tonight Valda helped me move the mattresses, then I made up the beds. I really like how they look.

Now I just need to sand and paint the nightstand table so it can replace the 2 blue totes I'm currenly using. It's currently in pieces in the living room. One step at a time :-).

N401ES Bell 412

The North Slope Borough 412 stopped in for fuel around lunch time today. I don't know if they're on a search, or out training.

A Trip to Northstar Island

I got to/had to go out to the island yesterday for a meeting. It was very nice to get out of my office for a couple of hours. The weather was pretty good and the ice pack around the island opened up pretty well. Kim had to pick his way through it but it was pretty easy to get there.

I do miss living out at STP. I love the spring & summer scenery out at the beach. We also saw lots of birds. The geese have their goslings with them, but didn't see any baby swans yet.

Woody, Glenn & I standing in front of the hovercraft, still in it's garage.

You can really see the open water, and then how the ice pieces are packed up around the island.

Are here are some pictures of our new crew boat. The American Resolution. She seats 30 passengers, instead of the 14 max our Hovercraft the Arctic Hawk can take.

We're going to be really busy the next 6 weeks. We're done with our drilling phase, so Nabors is moving the drilling rig off the island this summer with the Crowley barge.

Stress Crack Project

I'm really discovering that my little house projects have a way of expanding. I thought the platform bed painting project would take 3 or 4 days. I managed to stretch it out over 2 weeks. Then to top it off, I decided I should paint the back bedroom, before I moved the new beds in. Once I got the old beds out, I realized the stress crack in the corner between 2 sheet of drywall was really going to bug me, so I needed to fix it before I painted.

Here is a close up of the crack.



This one is the first coat of mud, you can really see the fiberglass tape, it's going to need a couple more coats.



To make this long story shorter, I went to Ulmers and got some drywall repair tape & mud. Thursday morning before I headed north I got the 3rd coat of mud on the wall. I also messed around filling in a few other little gouges caused by moving furniture, etc. It should be nice & dry & ready for sanding when I get home in 2 weeks.


Here it is with the 3rd coat of drywall mud, still wet. Not too bad for a first try.



Then I can finally paint (though I think the taping will take longer than the actual painting) and get the new beds moved into place.

Murphy Bed 2

Lee came by this morning to help me get the Murphy bed fixed. He read the instructions and explained what I'd misinterpreted. Took about 30 min to adjust, but now it's all done. The mattress is on the tray and it's all balanced. Let me know when you're coming for a visit and I'll put clean sheets on the bed.
Thanks Lee.

A Little Yard Work - Chainsaw

All I can say is - if me with a chainsaw and no adult supervision doesn't make you a bit nervous. It should...

Before

















After

Platform Beds Part 2

I'm not worried about attempting some of these projects. But I have to admit that I really don't know what I'm doing. I'm any of you who know anything about wood working are cringing when you see these, but it's actually been a fun project. These platforms aren't fancy furniture, but they're pretty sturdy and should work just fine. I thought this would take me about 3 days. More like 3 weeks and I'm still not done. But I'm getting close.




Mom was here for a couple of days. Yesterday afternoon she did some sanding for me. Then helped me get the primer on the bases.

Today I decided to do a bit more work with wood filler, then more sanding, then more primer. But the headboards are currently drying. They'll need some more sanding then I'll start with the final paint. Hope don't get too much more paint on my concrete floor. It's nice to be able to do this in the living room instead of trying to haul the pieces up and down the stairs to the basement.

Window Blinds for my back guest room.

One of the problems with all the windows in my guest rooms, is my non-Alaskan guests have a hard time sleeping in the summer. It's those 20+ hours of daylight. So I've been on a search for a good solution. There isn't much wall space, so regular curtains wouldn't work. I didn't want the them to block part of the view when they were open.

I got these at Home Depot. They're light blocking and cover the entire wall. Paul installed them for me when I was at work last week, so I just got to see them today.

I did have to order some longer brackets, but they do extend out past the door handle on the deck door.

I think there is still too much light that leaks in around the bottom in particular. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about that, but I'll work on it. However I think my out of State guests should be able to sleep now :-).

Northstar Island Expansion Project

Our NOC project is well underway. The crews have been working on adding new sheet pile and gravel since March. Plus they've been doing some repair work to the bench.

It's been very cold, wet & foggy the past few weeks. But we got a nice break on Monday. The fog cleared off, it was great to see the sun. So we sent Greg up in the helicopter to get some pics.















As you can see we're having a slow break up. The ice is melting in place, at least so far. There is a lot of melt water on top. And a few open leads. But we haven't had enough wind to break it up into ice pans that start floating around & slamming into each other. But it won't be long until that starts to happen.















Here you can clearly see the remains of our winter ice road to shore. But it's melting quicky.

And below is a photo out the other direction. Melting ice all the way to the horizon.

Murphy Bed for 2nd Guest Room

I was in Anchorage for few hours on Memorial Day. I stopped in at Scan Home to take a look at their Murphy Beds and decided I really liked this one. The price was pretty good with the sale that day, so I bought one and had it shipped.

Then it sat around the house for a week while I tried to figure out how to put it together. The instructions weren't very helpful and this sucker is HEAVY. On Tue Lynn was in town, so she helped me figure it ou and get it bolted together, laying on the floor.

So Wed night Marge & Carol came over for dinner. After dinner they help me get the Murphy bed standing up, and Marge screwed it into the studs behind the wall. It's pretty solid. The lift mechcanism is going to need a bit of adjusting once I get the mattress for it. But, it's 90% ready to go.

I'm really glad I decided to put a Murphy Bed in this room. When it's unfolded, it really fills up the room. So when it's not in use it can be tucked up, out of the way.

Platform Beds Started

As most of you know, patience is NOT my middle name. So spending a day with power tools usually entails much cussing, an injury or 2 and a broken power tool. I'm happy to say, that I only broke one drill bit and the power tools are all intact. Maybe I am learning a little patience. This project did go much better after I decided to actually use the drill bit instead of trying to screw the wood together skipping that step.


This is actually all Carols fault. A couple of months ago, she said she wanted to build a platform bed for her new house. She made is sound so easy, so I looked around on line and found a few web sites showing how to build different kinds of platforms for beds. This one looked easy so I decided to give it a try.
http://www.myfamilylovesit.com/blog/index.php/2008/01/21/how-to-build-a-platform-bed/
I don't like the metal frames with wheels that I have in the back guest room.

So after much considering, I stopped at Home Depot last week and ordered the 2x10's and 2x4's. They'll cut them to specific sizes. I tried Lowes first but they said they could only cut pieces in half, not to specific sizes.

Today I got to spend a couple of hours working on this project. Boy is it nice to have concrete floors and no furniture. I just put everything on a piece of cardboard in the living room and got started. It actually went pretty well.

Since the back guest room has 2 twin beds, I need 2 platforms. I got both the 2x10 bases screwed together, and one of the 2x4 tops. I also got the 2 headboard pieces sanded and the corners rounded off. Everything is stacked around the living room, waiting until I get home at the end of June. I'm hoping to get it all put together and painted and finished in about 3 days.