Living in Alaska

Came out of the hills out side of Ketchikan because I needed to see civilization for a bit. As I entered town from the east I went through a park area where there was a group of folks dressed all in black and looking somber. I doffed my hat as I made my way through into town. I came to the farmer's market, and again there was the nearly all black display. I then realized it was Halloween. I checked my shadow, Very bushy hair and beard, figured I could pass for a werewolf without fussing about a change. I had lost track of time living alone in the hills. There was a small "wishing" cauldron for a local health care clinic, so I dug down into my pockets and started tossing in the change I found there. I only had a few dollars in change so just tossed it all in but a silver dollar and a quarter (the Wright Brother's Flyer on the back.) I then wandered with the crowd for a bit, finally heading down the street to a place where I smelled some sort of rice custard. Stepping into the historical looking house, I tucked my three colanders on a chain fruit drying basket under my arm and put my wool cap in them. The women were dressed in turn of the century clothing that reminded me of Renaissance garb. I told them that and one laughed, she did that during the summer in California. I told her I used to live there. I looked at the cast iron stoves and how the chimneys were arranged. Very nice, efficient and durable I remarked. The laughing woman told me this was the Aurora House and all the fixtures were authentic. I mentioned that my stove was just like it, but I had a different chimney arrangement as I had to preserve as much heat as possible. She showed me over to the dining table which was set for dessert, they had just set out the rice custard with whipped cream and raspberries on top. I pulled out my dollar and a quarter, this is all I had money wise. She gave me one "on the house." It was delicious as it smelled. I then looked around and noticed a couple of broken wires that were preventing an electric signboard from working in their gift shop. I offered to fix it for them. I took it back into the manager's office and after a few minutes with a leatherman and my butane soldering torch I had the thing back together. The two foot long LCD sprang to life and we plugged in the memory stick with the display on it and it began to loop through the display, music and all. The owner of the house asked if I knew anything about movie projectors. I answered that I was an AV technician back when 16mm projectors were all the rage in schools. So I got the tour of the antiques in the back of the house. Many items needing repairs, some major some minor, some with their only hope being hand made replacements as there were unlikely to be any spare parts. I was able to make a couple of the projectors complete from the three she had. They wanted my phone number but I didn't have a phone. I have a radio, I told them, and email. So I gave them that. They fed me dinner and gave me gift certificates, which I later discretely traded for cash which I used to buy rice and corn and beans and sugar which I loaded into a pedi-cab and hauled out to the edge of town where my dogs were waiting with the dog cart (Sled on wheels.) I had treats for the dogs as well, they seemed happy to see me and we made our way back up the trail.
My house was tucked into a hill with some openings for windows and the door. Solar panels and a couple of windmills were hidden in a clearing screened by oaks of some sort. I had a vegetable garden that had been pretty much harvested out and a greenhouse, which I had just finished not to long ago, that was also where the sleds and the snowmobile were stored. Inside was a nice three room living area, kitchen, library/dining/den and the master bedroom with a rather luxurious hottub style bath and multi head shower. That is where most of the "extra" wattage was consumed. I had a couple of root cellars and a smoke house as well as a guest room and computer/radio room "up the hill" my emergency generator and extra fuel was stored "up the hill" as well. I had a couple of 100 lb propane tanks stored in a bunker, and they provided cooking and climate control when there wasn't enough sun and wind (No sun much of the year, but the wind usually made up for it. With enough to run the flash heater on the hottub, very nice in the winter.)