June 3 and 4, Days 4 and 5

Yesterday was almost entirely devoted to finished getting the cabin in shape, but hurray!! it's cleaner than it has been in years! Here's the same counter as yesterday, with all the stuff sorted, organized, and put back away:

Isn't that better?

Today, the dogs and I took our first load of garbage to town. And did the first load of laundry. I mean, those hats weren't that bad - if you can brush off the mouse poop, it's like it was never there, right? Ok, ok... I washed all the hats!

When the salmon start to run, it's usually a time of sleep deprivation. We do OK because it's hard to feel sleepy with fish pouring into the skiff and the wind in your face. We spend the summer reminding each other that "You can sleep all winter!" Sadly, I think I particularly fail at sleeping in the winter but I am making up for it in this week. Good, solid, 8 hours of sleep almost every night since I've arrived!

My plan was to head into town, get the laundry started then head to the City Dock to pick up our 300 lbs of frozen food to put into the freezer in the net locker. Then head to the post office and relieve the postal staff of all the stuff they're holding for us and pick up the fishing permits that have been processed and mailed. But it never goes exactly as planned. It all depends on who happens to walk by the truck.

I did eventually achieve all those goals, and found that the post office wasn't holding much stuff. Some of it was already at AGS since I had it sent to me c/o AGS. But, something is missing - I ordered 5 gallon of food grade hydraulic fluid and a floor jack from Grainger in Anchorage to be delivered to AGS and I haven't seen it yet. I've only looked in one place, so I'm not worried yet, but I'm now in "looking for it" mode.

One thing that DID come, however, was Ollie's new Coyote Vest! Maybe I should have ordered a small... but here he is. It's made out of kevlar and the idea is that he would be an unpleasant mouthful for a coyote or scary dog, and if an eagle would dare attack something of these colors, it would only get the pink shield (attached to the yellow vest by velcro) and orange whiskers. Since the vest is kevlar, it should save him from an encounter with talons.

The next piece of excitement is that the first two crew members arrive tomorrow: Cecilia and Noah. 10:50 AM in King Salmon. And I think Noah will be bringing another crate of eggs. Since we're set to inherit a dorm refrigerator, the eggs should keep pretty well. I brought 16.5 dozen eggs in this crate.

I think all the eggs made it OK. I made sure they were packed tight AND that no matter which side the baggage handlers approached from, they could see the eggs. I've made a mistake in the past by packing clothing around the eggs to keep them from rattling around. That prevented the handlers from seeing what is in there. So... eggs to the outside. This crate is 11" high, 15.5" wide and 19.5" long. With the 16.5 dozen eggs, it weighed something like 37 lbs. I believe in using the full 50 lbs so next time, I'll look for a bit larger crate.