McGrath Community Church Mission Work – July 17, 2015

Sorry the blog has not been current, but being in the bush is not always Internet friendly. The home we are staying has a small Internet data limit so I have had to use the library’s “high-speed” Internet, which I might as well have used the house connection! Amazing how the term “high-speed” is defined in some places!

This past week was a good week. Christie is getting her bearings with the solar power and the water dispenser for running water at the house we are staying. It has been great and we are very grateful to Pastor Wayne and his awesome wife Rosemary for the privilege of using their home. It is an amazing cabin that Pastor Wayne built himself, with Rosemary’s help of course! With the weather system that has hung over the area for several days, there has not been a lot of sunshine to charge up the batteries for the solar power…so Christie had to make a decision…dry my hair and use up battery power OR fix breakfast and use up battery power! I will let you guess which one she chose! I love this woman!

The cabin has an amazing wood-burning stove. The only problem, when you crank it up and get the fire going it really warms up the house. So Christie “Betty Crocker” Mason had not been able to do any baking. So, we have been doing most of our cooking on a Coleman 2 burner propane stove. The first time I used it I had to laugh as I remembered the Andy Griffith show where Barney got kicked out of Miss Mendleson’s boarding house for using his 1 burner hotplate and almost set the house on fire! We had to at least show you the setup here. Here I am modeling the stove and 2 burner stove.

One night it got down into the lower 40s and was very “cool” the next morning (even though Christie will not admit it). Christie wanted homemade biscuits, so she decided to try “stove top biscuits” on the 2 burner Coleman. (I was still not brave enough to crank up the BIG BOY stove for fear I would burn the house down). So she throws the biscuits together and lights up the Coleman. The were looking pretty good, and rising, but we were not sure about the bottoms…well, they got a little “brown”, but when you slap a little butter and jam on them they tasted pretty dang good!

I said, what the heck, let’s fire up the wood stove see what we can do…(Really, Christie wanted some brownies!!!) So, giving it the old school try, after about 30 minutes we finally got it started…and the room started to heat. Now the trick to controlling the oven temps is to use the dampers. They let the fire burn hot or warm…well, after reading online about how to do this, I discovered that you need to start closing the dampers about 30 minutes after the fire gets going real good. Well, when the temp gauge said 350 I told her to put them in…thinking the fire was cooling down. Well, I was a little late controlling the dampers and the brownies cooked very fast. We took them out and they had gotten hard around the edges, but for the most part they were pretty good.

Across the drive from us are Kevin and Dara, and their little boy. Super folks! They also have sled dogs, and they are beautiful. Kevin and Dara have both competing in sled races similar to the Iditarod Race. Of course, this made Christie feel right at home! She has her dogs and is loving it. Last December they left for a visit back home and came back to an unexpected Christmas present…Kissca! Never knew the mom was pregnant their winter coats are so thick. After they got back Kevin went out to feed them and when the mom came out of her house to eat he heard the whimpering of the pup!

The little boy next door and I have become buds…he will come over and walk around the house looking for me. We play ball and pick up rocks together! (Shut up Charlene!

Will try to get you all caught before the end of the day Wednesday, well, end of MY DAY!