The turning point of winter happened subtly, gauged mostly by light. Since we are hemmed in by mountains to the east and west, in the depths of solstice-time the sun peeks around the mountains above Packer’s Spit and Mush Bay around 10:26 am. In the waning afternoon light of December and January, the sun winks behind the towering edifice of rock to our southwest at 2:30 pm. However! These days it's light out earlier and the sun actually clears the biggest mountain behind us for much more light. An extra hour of direct sun plus additional twilight hours displacing pitch black feels luxurious!

This is not to say that we don’t enjoy the heart of winter. We do! This slow cycle of months nurtures the seeds of creativity and provides time to work on projects we don’t have time for in other seasons. Tollef is building a beautiful custom countertop from a sizable piece of driftwood cedar he chainsaw milled, patiently step by step. Adelia is involved in volunteer salmon work, and we are both expanding our knowledge of seaweed through our kelp farming activities and our work together with other Kodiak mariculture farmers to move the nascent industry forward.

Even though temps have dipped from a day time of 37 degrees to 25 today, it still has been a mild winter for once. Unlike the last two years which have been old-timey challenging with prolonged cold and all those associated needs like more firewood, this year has been relatively easy, if rainy. The balmy temperatures have certainly lessened the firewood routines of homesteading life. It also helped that we replaced the old Jotel woodstove that had been in Tollef’s grandparents’ Northern Minnesota home (near Brainerd) for 50 years before the 10 years it heated our lives. By last winter, the bottom plate had rusted through so Tollef fabricated a replacement out of 1/4 inch steel, but it was getting tired and had a small fire box. Our new woodstove and its 600 pound hulk is now 80% efficient and includes a catalytic converter to reburn the flu gasses, a much appreciated improvement. On days like today with strong sunlight streaming in the picture windows, the solar gain heats up our house so much that we don’t have to feed the fire more than once first thing in the morning!

This marvelous daylight turns our brains toward spring, when the pace of days will speed up. One of our activities then will be a smoke salmon and/or halibut delivery for our Minnesota customers. Our halibut from Grace at Graceful Fisheries has been getting rave reviews from everyone who has purchased it - thank you to all those who have tried it - and the smoked salmon we were waiting on has finally been produced. We will be offering another option to get in on this special fish in either late March or early April. We will keep you posted on that delivery timeframe as soon as we have it set. In the meantime, we have opened the ordering portal so you can place your orders for springtime delights if you wish - readers of this blog post are the first to know!

Winter Musings