Chili!

Oh yeah!!! The chili turned out really good.. A little more heat than I anticipated, but that just makes it go good with a pint of Homer Brewings finest Bitter. 

Gonna have to bring it down to Karachters this weekend and share!

Friday Night

My sweetie is off working late tonight so what to do.... 

I guess I could go and join in the local nightlife, or, I could take some quiet time at home and busy myself with some reloading. Setting up to reload for the 30-06, and some 30-30. 

One can just make them fast, or you can take some time and maybe, just maybe, they will shoot as good or better than the factory made stuff. Years ago when I got into this as a hobby, the goal was to make ammo that was better than anything you could buy already made up.. Well the factory stuff has gotten pretty good over the years so now, well, at least I can make it a whole lot less expensive. And really, that's a pretty good reason to roll yer own. 

Start out with 20 fired cases..

Knock the old primers, resize the cases and look things over close.. 

Make some repairs...

Press in some new primers

Now we're ready to make some choices with powder and bullets. 

Looks like the bullet choices I have on hand are not really what I'm looking for. These are better choices for the 30-30. 

We'll pick up some better choices and continue another day with the 30-06. 

I know I have a bunch of 30-30 brass here somewhere...

Chili kind of a day

Taking the afternoon off to make some chili. Have some moose burger and a moose roast to cut up in little pieces, add some dark beer, coffee, and a bunch of chili fixins and will see what happens..

Ski Time

It's been hard to get excited about skiing so far this season.. Here we are in the first week of December, in Alaska, and no snow to ski on. 

Screen shots from the weather forecast aren't promising either... 

I'm thinking the ski trails in my old stomping grounds are busy and full of activity.  

The weather patterns seem to have done a switch and put the Midwest in a deep freeze and gave Alaska the tropics!

Rock Chucker

It's been awhile since I've had a reloading bench set up, I picked up some lumber and put some pieces together and... There it is. 

Did some horse trading on a couple Facebook pages and came up with a sweet little Alaska Guide Gun in 375H&H.. I'm looking forward to working up a nice practice (read light recoil) load and a good moose hunting load.

Compare it to the 30-06 ... Should be fun!  My "go to" loads are 45 Colt for just some fun target plinking. I'll put some pictures up next time we get out for some shooting. 

Oh.. The Rock Chucker is the RCBS press 

 

Sauna Time

An afternoon enjoying some target practice with a few different handguns is something I haven't done for quite some time.. You'd think in Alaska a person could just step out the back door and set up a couple targets and have at it.. Well, that may be the case in 99.9 percent of Alaska. But my little corner, although well away from city lights, is still within the city limits of Homer, and discharging a firearm is against the law in about every city I can think of. 

So our little range session was well out of any city limits... And they just happen to have an old wood fired sauna out back behind the house.. Sauna time is just one of those things that I really miss since moving here.  So last night was a real treat. I'm gonna have to look into building a sauna here, even if I have to make it somewhat portable. 

Small but very cozy.. 

Thanksgiving Weekend

Setting up the Christmas Tree today.

Homer Sunset

Nice sunset this evening..  

Tradeoffs

It's taking time, but I'm getting used to the idea that I can't just run down to the local food market and get what I want. A recent trip to the Safeway market in search of chicken for a dinner was thwarted by an empty shelf.  I always try and have fresh strawberries on hand to add to my morning ritual of McCann's steel cut oats, and what I find is kind of hit or miss in the fresh produce. I have to believe that 15 or 20 years ago that actually seeing a fresh berry here would be next to impossible, and I'm not complaining, I'm really not. There are some trade offs to live here and once a person comes to terms with that, there gonna be better off. The idea of taking a 20 minute hot shower every morning is something many people here can only dream of.. Much of the area private wells are not an option, and unless you live in town, you will need to either haul in your own water, or have it delivered. Last I heard, delivered water is around .06 cents per gallon.  Natural gas for heating is just now becoming available in town and some of the outlying area and people are excited about it.  In some ways I feel like I've jumped back in time about 30 years.. To bad the rest of me hasn't done that!!  The idea of living in a remote area is tempered by the idea that, if I want to call and chat with friends or family living 3500 miles away, all I need to do is hit a button on my iPhone and I'm talking. Technology has found its way here, I'm sure fresh strawberries will be here too.. Maybe in another 20 years. So much for my rant.. I like living here, I don't miss the 45 minute commute to work and back every day, the photo above is 8am rush hour in down town Homer. We will be moving out of the apartment in town to a place up on the hill soon, so the trade off between watching the mass of taillights on Interstate 35 verses the view overlooking Grewingk Glacier on the drive down the hill into town is a no brainer. I had the audacity to make a post on Facebook yesterday about the recent lack of snow and the copious amount of rain days we've had, while the rest of the nation is locked in a deep freeze... I even checked the temps in Fairbanks and they're enjoying 20's and 30's all this week!  Needless to say my complaint was hit pretty hard by prople I know in Minnesota. As I sit here the latest one came from Aras, who reminded me "we have good beer here too!"  So I'm gonna be patient and wait for some snow.. It will show up, I'm sure of it!  Now I'll be thinking about next summer when I'm enjoying 60F degrees and sunshine, and they will be 95F with dew points near 70. 

So there are trade offs, some easy to see, and others just take some time to sink in. The idea of staying fit and trim here is another trade off.. A future rant!!

Vitamin D

It's been awhile since the sun has shared some vitamin d. I really don't remember the last full day of sunshine!  

For reasons unknown, the lights and heat at the hanger went dark this afternoon so I figured I'd take the opportunity to go out and absorb some sunshine. The weather forecast for the next 5 or 6 days is calling for a warm air mass from the Pacific to come north with lots of rain and snow. I'm ok with the snow, but the rain.. I think a couple inches of it is forecast for tomorrow alone!   

We're gaining daylight by 4 minutes a day now. Sunrise is a little before 10 am and sunset around 4:30 pm.. I like this time after Winter Solstice, the days getting longer are a good thing. 

Thoughts

I started this blog years ago as a way to keep friends and family up to date with my kayaking adventures. I guess I haven't been kayaking much in the last couple years, mostly because I've been living and working in Alaska for the last couple years and there just doesn't seem to be a community of kayakers here. The stand up paddle board seems to be the way people here are getting out on the water. I'm just not ready to make the investment in more sporting equipment yet. So to keep this blog alive and up to date I will have to change some direction with what I have to write about. Maybe a name change for the blog is in order too. 

Some thoughts and musings about life north of 59 degrees will have to be my chain of thought here for the time being. I hope I can keep things interesting and worth reading. 

At any rate.. I'd like to wish all good things and good health for the new year.