Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Flooding.......Mother Natures House Cleaning

I got home from work Monday night and finally got to go kayaking today. TJ (my sister) and I ran Willow Creek today for the first time since the water level has come back down from flood stage. It is amazing how high the water got last week and it is even more amazing how much cleaner the whole creek looks. All of the rock walls were polished clean of all the moss and other vegetation. All of the little nooks and crannies in the rock walls that had filled with sand over the years have been emptied, and beaches that were covered with cobblestones and sand have had all of the sand washed away. There is one beach that used to be mostly rock and some sand is now piled high with sand. If we had a little sun it would be a great place to lay around all day. Lower downstream out of the canyon all of the overhanging brush has been cleaned away from the riverbanks. The creek looks like it had the cleaning and gardening crew from Disneyland spend a month cleaning the rocks and pruning the brush.

It was a beautiful day on the water, although every day on the water is beautiful. I am probably the only one around that wouldn't be upset if it decided to rain some more.


Here is a couple pictures of TJ and I on the Cowichan river on Vancouver Island BC last April.



Saturday, August 26, 2006

Brrrrrr......

Thirty three degrees and breezy. We walked on the runway tonight and it was sure chilly. The grass has almost all turned brown and all of the duckling's are quite big and getting ready for their trek south. The closer winter gets, the closer I am to renting a beach house somewhere. If we could farm out the dogs and fit the alpacas and horse into a big duffel bag, we could head for the beach.
Actually we are probably going to go to Maine and enjoy the fall colors the last of October and first of November so I guess the beaches will have to wait.

With fall comes hunting season. Hunting season means that most of the animals start heading down out of the mountains and into the trees for a little cover and to spend the winter. Sandi sent me a picture she took last week, she thought that SHE had finally captured Bigfoot on film for real,lurking in the woods........


After all of the
excitement it
turns out it was
just me peeling a
willow for roasting
marshmallows.

So much for fame and fortune! I don't think this picture will make it into mysteries of the unexplained, but I think people that know me are pretty sure that I could.

I have been watching the water levels drop on the USGS realtime gauges all week. A welcome sight for those who's property flooded last week, but a disappointment for me because I think by the time I get home the levels will be back to where they were when I left. Oh well, hopefully I'll get a day or two out of it.

Friday, August 25, 2006

Concrete countertops.....

This time home I have another kitchen to work on. I don't know the colors yet but it is going to be a good project. Here are a few pictures of the last house I worked on. We used concrete for the front entry, the hearth, and the bar countertop. All of it was sand in color and accented with a copper fern for the entry and mother of pearl and ammonites throughout all of the pieces.















Thursday, August 24, 2006

My first editorial.....

Last year when Dad was in the hospital after his aneurysm I wrote more than I had ever written in any one week. A few people suggested I write more, and a few thought I should try writing editorials. Today I submitted my first editorial. Here is what I wanted to submit:
________________________________
On 8/24 The ADN reported on BP's recent compressor shutdown which dropped Prudhoe Bay's output by 90,000 Barrels a day, in that same article (as with most articles written recently) they also included the details of the oil spill that BP had in March. It seems that all topics get back to the enormous March oil spill. Here is what ADN reported:
Its troubles began in early March when a leaky pipeline released an estimated 201,000 gallons of oil onto the frozen tundra. It was the largest North Slope oil spill in nearly three decades of production there, and the event attracted scrutiny from federal pipeline regulators, members of Congress and criminal investigators.
I am particularly disturbed that when the media reports on the oil industry they always quote production in Barrels, however when there is a leak or a spill it is always quoted in Gallons. For those who don't know there are 42 gallons in each barrel of oil.
In March when BP had a pipeline leak that made national news, however I did not see a single article that reported 4785 Barrels of oil spilled onto the frozen tundra. I am also very bothered by the fact that after all the national attention BP has received since their March spill; I did not hear or read a single article about CITGO's recent spill in Louisiana. What spill you say?
The Lake Charles American Press reports (07/05/2006), 71,000 barrels (2.9 million gallons) of slop oil containing hazardous chemicals that leaked from the Citgo Refinery waste oil tank on the Calcasieu River may well be the largest oil spill and the largest hazardous liquid spill in Southwest Louisiana. The spill happened June 19 after a violent rainstorm.
An estimated 25,000 Barrels of that was released into Calcasieu River. Let me do the math for you, that equals 1,050,000 GALLONS of slop oil. I did not see this in any paper or on any major media channel, nor did I hear about any federal regulators or criminal investigators on the news.
The bottom line here is that since the lower 48 is not trying to develop new oilfields in environmentally sensitive areas the US media doesn't seem to care what happens to the environment. In my book it is much easier to clean up 201,000 Gallons of oil off of the frozen tundra than it would be to clean up 1,050,000 Gallons out of a river.
I am more than disappointed in our media and how they report the news.
_________________________________________

Since they only allow 225 words here is what I was limited to. Oh, I used every one of the 225 words allowed.
_________________________________________
On 8/24 ADN quoted this about BP:
"Its troubles began in early March when a leaky pipeline released an estimated 201,000 gallons of oil onto the frozen tundra."
I'm disturbed that when the media reports on the oil industry they always quote production in Barrels, when there's a spill it's always quoted in Gallons. I didn't see a single article that reported 4785 Barrels of oil spilled onto the frozen tundra in March. I'm bothered by the fact that after all the national attention BP received since that I didn't see a single article about CITGO's recent spill in Louisiana. What spill?
The Lake Charles American Press reports (07/05/2006), 71,000 barrels (2.9 million gallons) of slop oil containing hazardous chemicals that leaked from the Citgo Refinery waste oil tank on the Calcasieu River may well be the largest oil spill and the largest hazardous liquid spill in Southwest Louisiana. The spill happened June 19 after a violent rainstorm.
An estimated 25,000BBLs was released into Calcasieu River. That equals 1,050,000 GALLONS. I didn't see this incident on national news.
Since the lower 48 isn't trying to develop new oilfields in environmentally sensitive areas the media doesn't care what happens to the environment. Alaska's Oil Industry is held to a higher standard than any other I know of, yet gets scrutinized more than anyone else when things don't go right.
_____________________________________________________

I don't know if they will print it but it was worth a shot.

Although I work for a major oil company I am very concerned about environmental issues and protection. Without environmentalists I have no doubt that the North Slope would be just as polluted as the rest of the country has been by industry. I am perplexed however that our society is more concerned with the conservation of the small section of ANWR that the oil companies wants to explore and develop than they are about the pollution of the Gulf Coast by industry. Think about how many people visit and live on the Gulf Coast versus how many people in this country will ever see ANWR.

Now think about how many people are upset by the increase in oil prices, yet how many of us are really conserving fuel or investing in alternative energy sources? Until our society as a whole changes it's daily fuel consumption and dependence on fossil fuels we all need to think really hard about how critical we are of the companies that bring these products to market.

OK I'm done ranting.

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Fun's over the fog is gone.....

Well the fog cleared today and we were able to fly back to Alpine around six this evening. Last night was pretty uneventful and I don't have much to tell so I'll post a few more pictures of Sandi and Billy from this summer.




Monday, August 21, 2006

Stranded on the Delta.....

As some might know the oil field in which I work is the newest oilfield to be brought online in the US, we started production in November of 2000. It is nice to work in a place that is new and has state of the art equipment, however with todays environmental standards there are many challenges. For starters our whole production facility, living quarters, 1 drill site (all of the wells), maintenance facilities, warehouse, water treatment, wastewater treatment plant, airstrip, and heli pads are all sited on a 90 acre gravel pad in the middle of the Colville River Delta. We have one drill site in production that is two miles away that is currently producing oil and one about four miles away that is near start up. Right now I am at our newest drill site (called a sattelite field) this one is about four miles north of Alpine in sight of the Arctic Ocean, but the catcher is that due to the vast amount of wetlands we had to make it roadless. It is only accessible by air in the summer. There are several flights in the mornings and several in the evenings to get out here to work. The catcher is that it is the foggiest place on the Delta and when there is fog there isn't transportation to or from the pad. So, since it fogged up about an hour before time to go we are all still here. The living quarters are not like the ones back at Alpine. There is an Emergency Living Quarters (ELQ)on the pad that serves as an office, sleeping quarters, and kind of a kitchen. There are two things that I am not really excited about, the first is sleeping in the same room as seven other men (but I can get over that), the second is that there is not any potable water, water supply or waste water handling. That being said, my least favorite thing is the incinolette. What is that you say? Let me tell you, it is a toilet that burns what is left in it so there is no disposal. I won't go into details but it makes life interesting. Things could always be worse. Like had someone not had the foresight to order a gas grill for out here, or had Mark Dugas not had the forsight to bring a case of hamburger patties out last week we might not have enjoyed such a nice dinner.




The cage (bars) behind me is to keep the polar bears out of the ELQ (no kidding).

Well I am off to sleep.......

Sunday, August 20, 2006

Receeding water??

Well the water levels at home seem to be decreasing a bit. I guess it just depends on how much it decides to rain this week as to what direction all of the river levels will do.
Sandi sent me a few pictures she took at two of the bridges that cross Willow Creek.






Sandi said the clouds have lifted a little and she is able to see Denali for the first time in more than a week. She sent this picture tonight of a rainbow that was right above her garden.




__________________


Before all of this flooding I was planning on posting some of the pictures we have of Sandi on her horse (Billy) this summer. Here are a couple to start.






Saturday, August 19, 2006

It could always be worse........

I got an email from a friend today complaining about a week of rain, I woke up this morning to snow. Normally I'd take snow over rain any day, but not any day in AUGUST! I have some friends from Longview Washington and they had 51 consecutive days of rain last winter, so a week doesn't seem too bad.















FLOOD STAGE.........................................................................

This year is 20 years since the last time Willow Creek and surrounding area flooded. That flood changed Willow Creek quite a bit, I'm curious to see how much the character of the creek changes after this flood. With any luck maybe we will get a few more playholes and waves out of it.

Friday, August 18, 2006

Bad scheduling....

I just seem to be just a bit off with my schedule. Usually I get lucky with my 2 week on (at work) and 2 week off (at home) schedule and catch the best weather. Not this year! I missed the week of 80 degree weather we had in May that was totally unseasonable, and now I am missing the monsoon season. Most people would want to miss out on the rain but if I had my choice I'd rather be home for the torrential down pour than the constant drizzle we've had every time I've been home. I know that doesn't make a lot of sense so let me explain.

DRIZZLE= not much precipitation, not fun to work in, not great to play in
TORRENTIAL DOWN POUR= tons of precipitation= lots of run off= increased river levels= GREAT KAYAKING






These pictures are last summer on the Little Susitna River at a flow of 1200 Cubic Feet per Second (CFS). Right now this same little river is at flood stage and is running 4810 CFS and peaked at over 8000 CFS. Willow Creek is the creek I live on (well close to) and it is at flood stage- 5680 CFS. Normally it is around 700 to 1200 CFS right now. Last time I was home all of the river levels were too low to really paddle. It didn't rain enough to bring them up enough to paddle. Now I'm stuck here and everything is completely flooding.
Damn the bad luck!

Thursday, August 17, 2006

It tried to snow today! In the Arctic that is....

I am at work this week, and for those who don't know I work on the north slope of Alaska 600 miles from where I live. The site I work at is completely remote and in the middle of the Colville River Delta (second largest in the US to the Mississippi Delta), we can only be accessed by air or water in the summer and after January we usually have an ice road that connects to the Kuparuk/ Prudhoe Bay road system.

So today it tried to snow. Blech, I am not at all ready for this. Would someone from New Mexico or Texas please take a big box and fill it with some hot afternoon air and mail it to me!

I have been posting pictures of our house and a few of our projects from this summer over the last few days. We started working on a "cabin" during the summer of 2001 then decided to turn it into a house that fall. Since then we have been working on getting the house, yard and Sandi's garden as presentable as it is today.

Our house is timber frame construction, with the same traditional joinery of timberframes from the past several hundred years. All of the joints are held together with wood pegs.
When we started our house project the three things I wanted to do the most was cut the timber frame, build the cabinets, and make the concrete countertops. In the years since we started I have acquired the tools for all three of these specialties (plus quite a few more). If you aren't familiar with concrete countertops they are much more than a slab of sidewalk on top of a cabinet. Liquid stone might be the best way to describe concrete counters, the only limitation is your imagination.
Last year I decided since I had all of the tools I would start a small business; Hatcher Pass Timberworks & Custom Concrete. To date I have only made countertops and haven't had a chance to do any timberframing but my lawn pavilion is kind of an advertisement for what I want to do with my timberframing skills. I don't have the desire to build houses but I would enjoy cutting frames for cabins and gazeebo's.

Here are a few concrete countertop pictures from our house. I will post some of my other projects later. My male model is my son Thane.




















Wednesday, August 16, 2006

More construction Pictures

Today I'll just post a few pictures from around the house.

This is a photo of the Pavilion as it stands now and as it was during cutting.












































This is the barn slab on the day of the pour.






This is our house from the yard.



























Here is Thane working as a crossing guard for the Alpacka herd.





Thane on his John Deere.