As care takers of this remote, Arctic- out-post, there is plenty of time to read;
Konstantin Dimitrich Levin thinks: "In infinite time, in the infinity of matter, in infinite space, a bubble - organism separates itself, and that bubble holds out for a while and then bursts, and that bubble is -me". -From, Leo Tolstoy's, Anna Karenina.
Yesterday afternoon I was skiing in a very odd flat white light towards an undefined place. Not an horizon, not a vanishing point, or even a place made soft, as in fog, but towards nothing. I wondered if I had died; how could I prove I had not? Was this skiing into muted whiteness "heaven" or purgatory? The more I began to think about the home made peanut butter cups Steve had made, sitting behind me on a warm shelf back in camp, the more I began to think, "This must be Hell. I am 4 miles away from those little delectables and I cannot see in any of the seven directions. Further more, they may all be gone when I return"!
Luckily, there were three left when I arrived, though a friendly little skirmish immediately broke out between the four of us over who would get to eat them all.
Now I am on to reading Plato's, Timaues. My interest (and my goal) is to be able to read, with comprehension, Casey's "The Philosophy of Place". Casey's book, written in the late 1990s, is about cosmogony (the theory of the creation of the universe), cosmology,( the study of the creation of the universe) mythology, Being verses Becoming, nothingness, sameness, chance and causation.
I was drawn to this title while digging around in the depths of a used book store on my way to Greenland. I had imagined it would be a difficult read what with its infinite references to Kant, Hildegarde, Descartes, Schopenhauer, Ovid, Plato, Homer and Zeus. I did manage to read 100 or so pages last fall, but quickly realised I had some major shortcomings; I had never studied Greek Mythology, I was rusty, at best, with Genesis (to say nothing of the rest of the world's creation myths)- had never read any of the great philosophers, and, I had not yet been able to accurately define cosmogony.
Were I at home, this heavy reading would not be allowed the same amount of time that I so generously can give it here; for I would be stirring the compost, digging in the garden, tinkering with the old 'Benz, visiting friends, learning about bees, skiing down "the Mountain"or puttering around in the shop.
One also has time to pay strict attention to being disciplined with a physical fitness regiment. I became inspired after running with a friend in Kangerlussuaq (and reading a Russian novel largely about suffering) . She, not being much older than me, proved much stronger than me. I reflected upon another friend, at home, who only a few years ago not only would not have been able to imagine what she is doing now on a bike, but would have died trying. Now I am unable to keep up with her, unless we are climbing up a mountain, but even that may have changed.
I suddenly understood that my nonchalant character of being able to hop on a bike and ride 25 plus miles or to pull on some running shoes and pace out 6 miles up a logging road without training, would either come to a screaming halt or might just never get any better. The only marathon I ever ran, though it was over snow, and was in Antarctica, was slow.:5.5 hours.
I was so slow the recreation crew, putting on the event had packed up the finish line and had gone "home". Only Steve, who had been skiing alongside of me, congratulated me. Two USCG cadets, off for a hike, gave us the time as neither of us had thought to wear watches.
And so, out of the blue, I decided to reclaim an old desire; to race an half Iron man. A half Iron man covers 70.3 miles in one day, and is divided up between swimming, biking, and running that is if you haven't had your jaw broken by some one else's flailing foot). I found a race on August 16 . 2009 at Lake Steven's, Washington. I will actually be home then and so have set my sights towards this date as a new training goal. I have been riding the spinning bike, rowing the rower, cross country skiing, lifting weights, stretching and following along with the athletic (impossibly fit) dancers featured in the NY City Ballet conditioning program (Gulag) DVD.
Wednesday is my rest day. After work, I eat, then promptly prepare for bed. I read allot on Wednesdays- and research geeky stuff on the Internet like triathlon training, sports nutrition, dry-land swimming techniques (swimming out of water) growing oats in western Washington, milk cows, plow horses and chicken concentration camps. That is, coyote and raccoon proof chicken keeping.
The highlights of this past week at Summit have been Steve's carving up of a fresh watermelon, the peanut butter cups, slot car racing, watching, "Waking Ned Devine", a moment of fair weather in which we actually saw the sun, last night's brief, full moon, and my having recently discovered that 3 out of the 4 of us love banana pudding!
Steve does not love banana pudding.
We have half a dozen #10 cans full of banana puree, lots of real whipping cream and cases of Nilla wafers.
I am placing a bet that Steve doesn't really know that he secretly loves banana pudding and that by the end of our time here, we will be all out of banana puree.
"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy".
-Stephen King

Thou shallt not eat only the fruits of the freezer trench

Tonight we are being treated to an authentic Mexican dinner by chef Andy and his assistant, former Mt Washington Weather Observatory Meteorologist, Kate. We have an abundance of fresh cilantro, limes, avocados, and tomatoes. Well, fresh as in, they wont be coming from the insides of a can.
Today the wind is blowing 20 knots which means the ambient temperatures are in the high teens. I had to turn the diesel sauna down to low.
We are all recovering from eating banana sourdough pancakes with maple syrup from Vermont and bacon from some noble pig whose life did not originate down in the freezer trench from whence he came. The freezer trench, is a long, narrow excavation in the snow where the bulk of the frozen food is stored. There are about 25 steps to descend down into this high Arctic supermarket from which we can take food for free; though this can pose problems for us when we return to the "real world" and have to remember to pay for our food at the check out counter, it is one of the luxuries of care taking a remote geological observatory.
Early this morning, before I had my tea, we began discussing the Paleo Diet. This is eating nothing that has been processed by any one other than yourself. Of course, meat, eggs, herbs and vegetables are easy, bee keeping and dairy become more complex and the most labor intensive of all: grains. I have been researching the different grains and legumes we might be able to grow in our valley. I have discovered that, out in the San Juan islands, there is a small farm that received a grant to experiment with rye. I caused a big sensation saying that I could take my sea kayak out to this island, fill it up with rye, paddle back to Bellingham and tow it back out to our home in the bike trailer. The grain that is, not the kayak.
I have a cousin, Jeff, who worked for his father, my Uncle Steve, who was a Mill Wright. I remember Jeff showing me a miller they had purchased at an auction that would thresh and grind grain into flour, sift it and then bag it. The whole machine was made mostly out of wood. In Tolstoy's Anna Karennina, the existential land owner, Levin, goes to the feild to cut with the Muzhiks (peasants) and falls into meditation scything from which he finds peace. I begin to day dream about hand scything 2 acres of leased river valley land, and possibly finding an old wooden milling machine like the one McRee and Associates acquired from some antiquated realm of the South.
We are fortunate to be here with another couple that shares not only a similar philosophy about the importance of simple living: self sufficiency by local farming, renewable energy, health and vitality being restored into the earth and arguably more importantly, into the community, but also has a similar sense of truly absurd humor and precious wit.
I suppose it is obvious that we have time to dream up here. Maybe it is a by product of the wide open landscape, like the ocean. Maybe it comes from not having any cares other than our routine chores. Last night I dreamed of ravens soaring over head and of swimming in an eddy in a river in up state NY. But those are not the dreams I nurture. No, I move about through my time here carefully considering such things as the Paleo Diet, the scything of oats, the milling of grains and the tending of bees. If I have learned anything from these years of contract work it is that one can be a fisherman or a farmer, or a ski bum or a polar gypsy mechanic. Even if one does not know how to play the accordion, does not mean they cant dare to dream of it.

The ordinary day

Every day begins with a read out of the temperature and wind speeds. This morning at 6 am the outdoor temperature was -4'F. with a wind speed of 4 kph. An hour later the temperature had dropped to -17'F. After my morning meditation I pulled on my bunny boots and slipped into my parka. I went outside and walked across the drifts dusted with a fine sugary powder. In the east, there was a pink smudge where the sun was obscured by low clouds and freezing fog. This tender blush of color, unusual to the eye that has adapted to a typically horizon-less white, was touched with a familiar insight subdued; that dawn, in the lower latitudes will yield a spectacular spectrum of colors. This hushing orb of damask rose sat out in the distance just above the snow like a single giant thing. We shared our presences and disappeared, I into the garage, it into the fog.
The "gen shack" is a modular container unit about 15' long by 7 feet wide. It sits inside the first half of the garage tent. Inside the gen shack is the power plant, totally self contained.
I look around inside at all the gauges that make up the waste heat system, at the online engine, at the temperature inside the module, at the fuel level and then I navigate through the soft key screen for the information I need to log from the generator's interface program.
Once I am sure that all systems are well, I go back over the the Green house and read the sight glass on the water tank. The Green House has a 200 gallon capacity water tank plumbed directly from the snow melter which is located just outside of the gen shack. By gravity feed, the water runs through plumbing in insulated arctic piping called, Bondstrand, which is buried deep beneath the snow. To complement the insulating properties of the snow, there is also wired, heat trace; imagine an extension cord that does nothing else but create resistive loads high enough to safely generate heat.
If the tank is low, I simply open a ball valve and let the water fill the tank. This takes a few moments, so I usually sit down upon the stoop in the mechanical room and stare at the wall and think.
The next run is over to the Big House to check on the water status there. The water tank in the BH has a 400 gallon capacity, but this one requires a pig in order to fill it, which is pulled over behind the tractor once a week. The "Pig" is simply a 200 gallon tank mounted to a Nansen sled (think wood and sinew and Polar expeditions) with an electric pump. The "Pig" got it's name from the original mobile water sled which had been covered with spray foam insulation ( giving a most dimply surface effect) and painted pink. Since then, a snout and a tail has been added to the original "Pig", but as this old "Pig' now leaks, its duties are reserved for parades.
After the rounds, I find something that is generally working well, break it and begin diagnosing what went wrong with it after it and I had our confrontation. Usually it is something that I have asked, politely, to come out of hibernation in order to do work in sub zero temperatures.
Snow machines, snow blowers, fuel oil heaters, fuel pumps, electric pumps, door ways, and sleds all seem to suddenly wish they had never signed up for high latitude service. In order to get closer to the tropical desires they yearn for (I blame disillusionment on the snow blower for this one) they refuse to work; guaranteeing a tow or a lift inside.
After work we work out, eat, discuss the day, talk about our dreams for home, or anywhere warm, and go to bed with our books.
All night I am tuned into the hum of the online generator. I is nothing like being lulled to sleep by the waves. It is like being a cross country trucker with an autopilot waiting for an oncoming car.
Eventually I doze off. In the morning, instead of birds and leaves and insects or laundry flapping or chickens scratching there is the sound of the engine purring away.
And maybe a pink blur, warming in the east..............

Burying the Green House

At midnight last night I was still awake. Altitude induced insomnia frequently occurs. We are eating allot of avocados and bananas. This has nothing to do with altitude induced insomnia, but has everything to do with grammatical errors. We also make fresh squeezed citrus juice. The supply of these tropical fruits is abundant enough for us to continue with our "Pago Pago" diet for at least two more weeks. Tonight's diner menu:
Potato leek soup, Cornish game hen with wild rice and wilted spinach and beet salad with a balsamic reduction followed by stewed fruit and scones. For breakfast we have been religious about eating our oatmeal which we garnish with flax seed, walnuts, prunes, soy milk and maple syrup. There is an alternative motive to this abundance of fiber rich foods: the more the toilets flush the less likely there will be any freezing of the outfall pipes.
We have all been riding the spinner cycles (well, all of us except Steve. Since there are only three bikes, Steve "rides" the rowing machine). We work out to cadence specific rock music, selected by our staff of one time bike racing, Andy, or to the directions of the pro cyclist on the DVD. Recently Andy remembered that there are some videos of the Tour dE France around, so now we will be using these as the carrots in front of the donkey cart while at, over 10,500 feet above sea level, "adrenalized" music pushes us into anaerobic states of joy.
Oh and for work? Well, I screwed a 24x6 inch piece of plywood over an intake vent on a diesel powered heater which lives outside inside a plywood box. This, to prevent snow from filling the box over the winter. The heater is only used during the summer to heat the inside of another arched tent where the "do not freeze" science cargo is stored.
Meanwhile, the science technicians, Andy and Kate, launched a NOAA weather balloon with it's carefully calibrated ozone sonde. Steve and I watched. Then I closed the enormous garage door by hauling away on a chain. Glad to be able to utilize my old tall ship sail raising skills, I was nearly tempted to break into song:
"Cape Cod girls they have no combs.........."
But I did not.
Steve got out the soap and the vacuum and has begun talking about shampooing the carpets.
During lunch Andy and Kate have been watching original episodes of Flash Gordon. Steve now wants a shiny black cummerbund. I am secretly fashioning GBI (Galactic Bureau of Investigation)insignias for all of us to wear on our uniform......eh em, I mean, parkas.
Today it is snowing softly, There is not enough of a breeze to change the course of the light powder to anything other than 90 degrees straight down. That's not true, as I look out the window, the 2 knots of wind is just enough to put the Angel dander on a bit of a slant. Yes, Angel's have dandruff too; they don't try to cure their dandruff, but are pleased as heavenly punch that they do have it. This is a very noble act, or I could say, "Angelic" since all the skiers of the world have found such infinite amounts of joy from skiing down, in and through this stuff and are endlessly abundant with giving their prayers of thanks.
Now I must go skiing in order to prepare myself for my day's work.