In Town to work

Hello all
I'm back in Anchorage to pick up a few days' work and get some more supplies, mainly gas and food. The ability to snowmachine to the lake from the road has allowed us to steadily move most of our personal belongings from storage in Palmer to the plywood shack on the lake. Our friend Brian from Fairbanks recently took the machine (which I named Fat Man) down Marie Avenue directly to our property, but low snow cover and old stumps made it a little too rough to do regularly yet, and I'd like to avoid scarring the landscape. Marie Avenue is the surveyed 'street' that runs on the north border of our land; it will be awhile (decades hopefully) before it resembles a street in anything but title.
Either user error or bad wireless connection has led to problems with posting pictures. There has been much more progress than can be seen on these pages, thank goodness. Thanks to some well-timed help from Emily Bernhardt, her fella Brian and his young daughter Emma, (and their nine dogs) who were all down from Fairbanks, we got the outer roof cover, skylight and some outer wall panels up on the structure. Most importantly we got the stove running, and it is a beautiful sight. All of a sudden we had a home, but it's not yet the kind of home you take off any jackets at. Actually putting up the Yurt is such a novelty: the outer cover is vinyl-like fabric of some sort that is like an old man in character. It doesn't like the cold and doesn't like quick change. With daytime temperatures currently around -5deg. F, the fabric seems prone to cracking if flexed repeatedly at the same spot. The cover is lopsided over the structure, but that will easily be fixed when the time comes. We have yet to see if our modified Yurt structure will all come together as nicely as we hoped; the main thing that has yet to be seen is if the outer roof cover will fit down over the insulation rafters so the wall panels can hang vertically. In order to do that we have to crank up the stove to try to warm the outer cover from the inside; then maybe it will un-wrinkle and decide to cooperate. The Artic Yurt design will be nice and cozy soon enough.
So many things need to be done, but the winter temps and short days and necessity of picking up work slows things to a relatively lazy pace. I admire people who can build actual buildings, just building an elevated platform has taken Betsy and I seemingly forever. Everything I look back on seems like it should have taken a lot less time. But there was very rarely any need to rush as we are only working for ourselves. Although there have most definitely been extended moments of frustration, thrown hammers and graphic streams of curses that echo for far too long, the process overall has been pretty enjoyable.
So from the Bench, thanks for tuning in, we'll do our best to get more posts as soon as possible.
Bill