Its been over a month since Brie and I have posted something to our blog so I figured I would update everyone on how we are doing. We are going on our 11th week back in the Bush and I think both of can honestly say we see a lot of differences from year 1 to year 2 but there are a lot of the same things going on as well. One thing that Brie and I see as a major difference is how prepared we were coming back this year. We knew what to expect and what not to expect with living in the bush. Brie started a new job this year which added some stress to the beginning of the year but she LOVES her job and is very happy to be where she is and teaching the wonderful class that she has. Not much has changed in terms of my job. The Internet is still slow and my limitations are still there. I had some issues from the start with our power being shut off at random times for usually hours at a time. Over the summer the village was building in a new power plant and lucky for us they were completing it when we arrived. Much like everything else out here, there was no schedule for the outages; I would be working away and BOOM, no more power! Eventually the power plant was completed and the unexpected outages have ended.
Brie and I brought our Kitchen Aide mixer out this year. We really enjoyed the homemade cooking we did last year but it was a pain in the butt to make and hand knead the dough for our pizza's and breads. Since getting the mixer out here we have seen a world of difference with out cooking times. Unfortunately Brie has not been feeling well enough to do much cooking but I inform her daily on how nice it is to have that mixer out here. This year has been a good year so far with my cooking experimentation's. So far this year I have made homemade dinner rolls, found a new pizza crust along with making my own pizza sauce, failed on an apple crisp recipe, continued dominating in the homemade chocolate chip cookie department, baked a killer banana bread, tried crescent rolls, made a delicious chicken and wild rice soup, created a really good spaghetti meat sauce, and found out the hard way that my wife is not a big fan of bacon when she is pregnant. All and all its been a good 11 weeks so far!
We had less rain this summer/fall when we got back which gave me more opportunities to fish. Last year I only caught 2 salmon the whole year so I felt the need to redeem myself this year. I ended up catching 6 or 7 salmon plus one trout this year and I am pretty pleased with that. Our neighbor Ben put a net out and I helped him one day with that and he gave Brie and I another 6 fish to put in our freezer! We have about 20 fillets right now which should last us the year considering Brie and Salmon aren't a good mix right now. I made the mistake of using a Dill seasoning the first time I cooked fish this year and I quickly learned NO DILL.....I gave that bottle of seasoning to our neighbor Lida...
Moose hunting season for me was a wash this year. I went out with Brie's principal a couple times but we didn't see any bulls. I did get to see my first Moose up close but it was a cow so I couldn't shoot it. A couple of the teachers ended up getting a couple moose right before the season ended so I helped cut and process those; I was rewarded with a good stash of moose meat for the winter.
Brie has been feeling better over the last couple weeks. She has only had a couple days here and there where she has had issues; I started making her oatmeal every morning before she got out of bed and it seemed to help a lot. As I said earlier, we haven't tried making bacon again because the smell really made her sick. I miss bacon :(. Brie has been a trooper through the first several weeks of being pregnant. Nothing I say or do can make her feel better and obviously I cant understand how she feels; I do the best I can to help around the house and keep her from having to do to much.
The weather is slowly starting to cool down. We have been living in 50's and 60's since we got back here but over the last couple weeks its been more low 50's and mid 40's. All of our annoying bugs have finally gone away which is nice when we take walks. Huxley can be outside for extended periods of time now without getting a bunch of bug bites on his belly. Our extended forecast doesn't look very promising for snow. We are supposed to be in the low 40's and upper 30's for the next couple weeks but its supposed to be sunny. I am patiently waiting for the snow to fall. I keep looking at my snowmobile (for you lower 48ers) and thinking how nice it would be to take it for a spin but then reality sets in and I realize its nothing but dirt and gravel around me. I attached some handles to each side of my machine this weekend. I don't have a lot of storage options on the back so myself and a friend of mine figured out an easy way to attached these handles that allow me to use bungee cords to keep a bag or an extra gas can from falling off during my rides. One of the pictures above shows one of the handles.
Sunday was a busy day for both Brie and I. We woke up and realized our house was kind of messy. I had some dishes that needed to be cleaned, our microwave needed to be thrown out (sparking and smoking is never a good sign), our stove top needed to be cleaned, and laundry needed to be caught up. Once we started working together it didn't really take very long to get the house in order. After the house was clean I did my snowmobile handle thing and Brie made come curtains for our windows. We bought a bunch of fabric back in Des Moines this summer and we thought it would be fun to make curtains to cover our front and back door. Brie had extra fabric so she made a table cloth and a little something something for our kitchen window!! She is pretty amazing! Oh and I cannot forget her amazing job on the oven mitt. I kind of burned it a couple weeks back when I sat it on the burner which I had just used and forgot to shut off...Nothing like a smoky smell throughout the kitchen!! Brie loved that!
We are sure enjoying things out here this year. Not any more or less than last year but its nice to come back and actually enjoy things. We are looking forward to the rest of this year and the arrival of our baby boy/girl. We will hopefully do a better job with keeping this updated. Brie and I appreciate everyone that reads out stories and enjoys wanting to know how we are doing.
Miss you all! Looking forward to seeing everyone this spring!
Brandon
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