Will finally got a tree. Off he went in Dan’s old trapper mukluks, carrying snowshoes in one hand for venturing off the trail into deep unpacked snow and an ax in the other. No sled. The tree he would get would be easily carried. Will was always fond of “real” trees. Charley Brown trees.
Now the tree was sitting in a proper tree stand, not hanging from the rafters. The stand was fashioned from a hollowed out cottonwood log which Will once used like a hall umbrella stand to hold his sticks and swords. Inside the log he placed a can of water and into the water he put the trunk of the little tree.
We decorated it with the cabin decorations from our years in the woods like the ornament gifts Will received as a baby, Dotties rocking horse, Cookies quilted stocking, a hand made sled from Mary Caneen. We dug out Will’s handmade ornaments from when he was 4 and 5 and 6 and 7. A clay Reepeecheep with a sword and a cape, one of his favorite storybook characters. A snowman. A wreath from a curtain ring painted green. We hung crocheted snowflakes and baker’s dough hearts made by me. We trimmed the tree with a red ribbon for a garland and talked about the garland we made the year we left the tree in its place and went off to Florida. Every Christmas we remember that garland. It was made of popcorn and cranberries and when we got back from our vacation it still circled the tree, the cranberries still in place, the popcorn all gone. Some busy cabin creature had had a feast without disturbing the rest of the tree.
Jordan was coming for Christmas Eve dinner and Tim and Carol if they could make it up the hill. Dan had a loaf of sour dough bread rising on the shelf over the wood stove and Will was getting ready to make ice cream. First decision, which ice cream maker to use. We had two which says something about cabin priorities. One had a bucket to hold the ingredients which then went into a larger bucket of snow to which rock salt was added to somehow make it colder. As long as you didn’t get the salt in the ingredients it made delicious ice cream. A smaller one was all of one piece with an extra thick lining with something in it to freeze. Before you used it you put it out in the cold to get good and frozen. No snow or salt needed. Both had paddles to churn the cream with handles for turning that connected to the paddles through the covers. Will went for the smaller one since it was cold enough to get it good and frozen.
Will wanted to flavor the ice cream with the frozen blueberries we brought from town but Dan was skeptical. He envisioned frozen little berries hard as little pebbles not being very palatable. Will got out the ice cream recipe book that Margie gave us with this neat little ice cream maker and found he could avoid the “pebbles” by cooking the berries into a sauce.
Jordan showed up hours early for dinner and happily joined in the churning. Ice cream made at the cabin is like nothing one can any longer buy. There were times in the past when Dan wanted an ice cream fix and would make a 40 mile round trip by snow machine to town to get cream to make it. Most often chocolate chip mint. There would be lots of already made chocolate chip mint in town but that wasn’t what he had in mind. It was the thought of home made ice cream that, for him, made sense out of such a trip.
After dinner we sat and talked late into the night. Stories of home brew adventures and misadventures. We laughed about the batch of home brew so strong it took only one drink to knock some people out, about the batch with the flies. Jordan talked about his attempt at wine with high bush cranberries and went over every step to find out from Dan what he could have done differently. We laughed at stories about denizens of the woods like Wayne and his trick of using a propane blow torch in his cold cabin to make hot toddies as he hopped about in his sleeping bag not wanting to come out of it long enough to get dressed. We laughed about the Talkeetna radio station offering to pick up your unwanted fruit cake for the fruit cake depository. What was that about and who were going to get those fruit cakes. Jordan asked about traplines and river drainages, and wildlife populations that come and go like the snow shoe hare whose tracks show up every spring only to be followed by the tracks of a lynx a short time later only to be followed by no more snowshoe hare tracks. He was very interested in where exactly Will had seen the wolverine, a real prize.
After a night of great stories Jordan went home with the left over ice cream, lots of ham for his Christmas breakfast, a bit of Dan’s sourdough starter and lots of stories and advice to help him make his way in the woods