Well, it appears I grossly underestimated the amount of sun we're getting in the afternoons. It came out on the west side of King Mountain at two minutes to two... and blasted us with rays for 19 minutes straight today! I washed the windows in its honor- nothing like some bright daylight to show up all the ways my housecleaning falls short!
Ben made the flight out from camp and brought more martens to skin and dry. I butchered a random bag of Dall sheep meat from the freezer, so our dogs are living large tonight and we have another 10 meals of wild meat carefully packaged for future dinners, plus a few pounds of to-be-ground meat.
My kitchen woodbox is full and overflowing, so I think tomorrow we'll bake some yummy treats. Today we feasted on halibut that I traded for cheese, along with cauliflower and the last of the zucchini. I baked a spaghetti squash and a butternut squash, so we'll have to dream up something good.
I'm kind of floating around today, not taking anything too seriously, and reveling in a few off-the-cuff compliments about the eggs and cheese I'm working so hard to cultivate. It makes my work really worth it, when I know that people value my skills.
I don't know how long Ben is home for, probably just a few days... and then he'll be back to the trapline. There's such a synergy to having a side-by-side team and we love having him here with us. But we understand it takes diversifying to get things done in a timely fashion, so we'll just enjoy this time while we have it.
The night skies have been amazing lately, a billion stars... at least.