Hi James,

Maureen: we have had quite a storm for the last 3 days - lots of fog, rain and 70K wind. We got a break yesterday for a few hours, which was a relief. The constant wind is wearing . A few days ago I mentioned that Charlie was flying to look for the cubs. I covered their favourite routes on foot. We finally gave up after several hours of this and they turned up on their own a day later. For the most part, they wander through camp once a day, usually in the morning. They cannot get right up the the cabin as you can tell by the pictures we sent last. They come in and visit through the electric fence. We don't want them ever to get into our food or compost pit. We are very careful that they not get into our out-house too. We have a wire 6" off the ground around the toilet that carries a current and they won't go over it! We have told them "no" many times about the toilet. I think our words and the hot-wire are doing the job. Interestingly I awakened last week to hear an adult bear walking by . It walked over to this small obstacle and wouldn't go any further either.

With the break in the weather yesterday, we joined them for a walk - like old times when they were younger. They still seem to enjoy our company which we determine by how much they wait for us. They can cover a lot of ground in a hurry. Chico usually leads and is constantly turning to see if we have caught up. We went to the meadow between our camp the the volcano where I played with Chico for a while breaking off chunks of ice and jumping on bigger ones. Biscuit spent some time fishing in the water for long strands of grass. On closer look I realized she was bringing up strings of salamander eggs. Now how did she figure that out? A more common food for this time of year is new-growth sedge. Rosie is enjoying it today as you can see in the photo.

Charlie: After returning from the walk with Maureen and our 3 bears, I decided to work on hooking up our new diesel heater. For the past two years we have used a wood burning stove for the cabin's heat but this has always been a hassle. We long ago burned the small amount of dead wood on the Siberian dwarf pine and alder. We have been relying on using driftwood from both coasts which either way is about a 20 mile round trip. I looked for logs that are about one foot in diameter and close to the mouth of the respective rivers as the ocean swell has usually been too high for me to land upon. I cut the logs into 3 and 1/2 foot lengths and stack them into the passenger seat, carrying 150 pounds in this way. In the last two years I have carried about 4 tons and sometimes in bad weather for flying. We always end up running out of wood and like now have spent 3 days without any heat. Temperature: 8-10C and windy with light rain! Not fun. We both wear wool hats 24 hours a day! Not very sexy at night!

Consequently this year we decided on the diesel heating alternative. In spite of my care with ordering all the parts to hook up this stove, I have misplaced an adapter and there is no local store for hundreds of miles!! Using lots of epoxy(our main emergency fix-it tool along with duct tape)and the 3/4 inch bung from the 55 gal. gas drum, I think I have solved the problem. If the chimney doesn't down draft, we will have a new source of heat by this afternoon.