I really need to find a better way to manage this blog! I guess I don’t update as often as I would like because I post daily on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. I HAVE been giving the blog some thought and I think I have come up with a way to be more consistent. Bear with me as I make the effort to be more present here.

That said, it has been almost a month since my last entry here! What has been happening at the Earthship? hmmm….not a whole lot. Winter has had us in his fierce grip for months now and we are so over it. Maybe 10 days ago? It looked like we were going to finally get a reprieve and then we got a new dump of snow! Then we had 25cm of snow on top of ice; oh what fun! We were already struggling with getting in and out to civilization. Oh, yea, so when I came home from my visit to the Valley back in late January, early February I did a grocery shopping but Luke said, not too much because we’ll go a few weeks after you get back. Yea, that didn’t happen. I made a solo trip to Nimpo and Anahim Lake to buy out their sad produce selections. I left early in the morn, with the roads still frozen solid due to our super cold, sunny days. Well, I got about 15km away from our place and didn’t it start to snow? Groan. Had I have been thinking straight, I would have turned around then and there and returned home but I was on a mission to get produce! You have to understand, a Vegetarian, without Produce is just …. wrong! Besides, I was expecting important mail so I simply had to carry on!

The drive into Tatla Lake was alright. I have a great truck. I picked up the mail; yup, there’s my mail in ballot! I popped over to Tatla Manor and had a quick visit with Joanna and Gerald, using Joanna as my witness for my ballot. I paid her with Apple Butter that I had made the night before in my shiny new InstaPot!  Once I got voting out of the way, talked Instapot for a bit with Joanna; discovered that Gerald, once upon a time, worked for Rivtow which is the company my Dad worked for when he was a logger/boom man! So looking forward to future visits with these guys!  As it was really starting to snow, Joanna insisted I drop in on my way home that I might ring Luke and let him know I was on my way home so if I didn’t turn up within a reasonable amount of time he could hop into the old Ford and come a looking for me and my produce.

I drove in blizzard like conditions to get my tired, soggy produce but at least it was green and was, a few days ago, crispy and crunchy, bursting with flavour and nutrients!! Fortified with the knowledge I would be eating well for the upcoming week I left Highway 20 and happily sang away with the songs on the radio (xiriusXM, for the win!) and confidently made my way home. It had stopped snowing and there didn’t appear to be much of an accumulation so I was feeling pretty good about the drive. Easily made it to Henry’s Crossing and that’s where the trip started to unravel, ever so slowly. There is an incline  just beyond the bridge that makes me a lil nervous and it was now covered in ice and snow. What fun! Sigh. 4 Low, here we go! I crawled up the hill. Now see, when I got home from the Valley all the weight was taken out of the back of the truck and was never replaced; I have to say, it was adding to my nervousness. Anyway, ‘bou got me through the incline, no worries!  Thankfully our closest neighbour lives just three kilometres from the Crossing so he lays some lovely tracks! However!!!! I actually stopped the truck at his turn-off and just stared at the road, willing it to be snow and ice free. Didn’t work. Sigh. 4 Low, here we go; crawled up that hill and a few more and then I got to the one just before the Casselman turn-off and, folks, I thought I was going to be spending the night there or making the long walk home, in the snowy dark, with wolves and coyotes about, leaving my precious produce to freeze and wilt in the back of the truck. Groan. I made a go of the hill. Got stuck. Reversed. Made a go. Got stuck. Reversed. Made a go. Got  stuck. Reversed. Okay, then I just put my head on the steering wheel. Had a conversation with the road that was well sprinkled with the worst swears I could think of. Had a conversation with ‘bou. “Look, girl, if we don’t get past this section then you are camping out in the wilderness tonight and I am going to get eaten by wolves. No pressure. But what do you think we should do?” The both of us gritted our teeth, got settled into 4 Low, Here we Go mode but instead of just crawling we made a F*&%$*g run for it! The two of us yelled and screamed at each other, gave each other encouragement and I am pleased to say, we made it! The rest of the 4.5 – 5 kilometres ‘bou just strutted her stuff! And I let her.

I relished in the limp produce. Made fabulous meals out of the stuff that was now past its prime – I am sure it wilted a bit in the journey home from all the hot air that ‘bou and I created. One thing I did come away with from this trip is that those awful smelling bagged salads hold up well to our conditions out here! While fresh lettuces just wilt and die, die, die a very sad death long before I can nibble on their once crisp leaves. Alas, the produce was gone all too soon! BUT! It was a weekend! Come on, Luke! Let’s go for a drive! Please understand that Luke has not left the Earthship since December so he was pretty keen to hit “civilization”! Luke, confidence brimming about the state of the roads loaded Bear and Sam into the truck. A trip away from the Earthship takes so long that we currently HAVE to take Sam and Panty Mc Pantersen with us; we look forward to having a kennel to leave them behind for a few hours!  Anyway, dogs in the cab, we set out. Huh! Guess I am a better driver than I think because Luke got us stuck to the point of needing to be hauled out on our way OUT to Highway 20! And it was on the maintained section of the dirt road! I’m not going to go into all the details about the trip but I will tell you that that section that I got stuck on 4.5 – 5 kilometres from here? Yea, Luke got stuck there too! We were to the point where we were going to get outta the truck, cut down some trees to throw into the back for some weight but, like me, Luke had a lil chat with ‘bou, cursed the road, got stuck into 4 Low, Here we Go and just gave her! We made it through the twelve metres! We praised ‘bou to the moon and back again and she proudly got us the remaining way home, puffing her hood up in the few tough spots, grinding her way through it!

And now here we are, Spring has sprung but someone forgot to tell Brittany Lake! It actually snowed the other day! We hover around 4C for a high during the day and get to -16C at night!!!!! But the sun is shining!  There is a huge battle going on at the moment; the Earth wants to be free but the Ice wants to keep the Earth encased in his icy grip! Earth sweats channels of water down every hillside she can find, pools into new lakes where there are no hillsides to roll down and then along comes Winter freezing it all up again through the night! And so Luke, Bear, Sam and I wade out in the muck, hoping that Spring will soon win this battle!

PS, we won’t be leaving the Earthship any time soon; at least not until some of the new found lakes have dried up!