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One of the real pluses about this cabin was that it has running water. It's tiny, it's 30 minutes from town down an atrocious road, it's next door to 20 sled dogs, and all of the appliances and furniture are miniaturized. But it has water. Water with a caveat.

The cabin water is stored in a 1,600 gallon above ground holding tank behind the cabin. (Curious? Pictures of plastic tanks here.) Water is delivered upon request by the "water wagon," and costs $.09 per gallon. Which means, if you do the math, that it costs about $150 to fill the tank. Whoa! Soooooo, R and I have been super stingy with our water use. I don't run it when I do dishes, but fill up the sink with soapy and rinse water. We take army showers, turning the water off when we shampoo and shave. (I keep a bucket in there to rinse my razor.) Just now I made tea and left a cup and a half of unused water in the pot. I figure I'll use it to rinse something out later. I also keep my rinse water in the sink and use it to wipe down counters and rinse the dishrag. It seems to be helping– we're down to about 250 gallons used per week.

Water holding tanks are common in Fairbanks, especially where the permafrost makes it difficult to lay pipe or dig wells. Many people with tanks keep a smaller 200-250 gallon tank in the back of a truck and fill it up at a filling station in town. Then you drive it home and pump it into the holding tank for use. It's a hassle, but cost about 1/3 as much as getting it delivered. All this and we put up with -50 degree temps, too. Why do we live here?

This summer has been…interesting. The things we take for granted…

If you'd like to get more reading done, try moving into a one room cabin with no cable TV. I've been reading nonstop here. Here's a list of what I've read so far.

• Confessions of a Teen Sleuth by Chelsea Cain. Ridiculous and hilarious parody of Nancy Drew and other teen mystery stories. Absolutely required reading for anyone who read Nancy Drew as a kid. Be warned though, the story is not plot driven, but strickly satire for satire's sake. I loved it.
• Rachel and Leah by Orson Scott Card. I chose this because it follows the same bits of Genesis as The Red Tent (Anita Diamant) which I loved. I found it pretty engaging, but also fairly anachronistic. Eh.
• A Jar of Dreams by Yoshiko Uchido. Kids' book about discrimination of Japanese shortly before WWII. Not bad, but would have been much more interesting (and accurate) to tell an internment camp story. This story was your basic someone's picking on me so I'll stand up for myself and isn't life better now kids' story.
• Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by JK Rowling. Reread these in anticipation of the book/movie releases. Boy there was a lot I'd forgotten. We're going to the midnight release of the last book. Which will be awesome.
• Truck but Michael Perry. Well-written and engaving memoir of rebuilding a truck/falling in love. He writes in a sort of narrative followed by historical information/description form. Similar to the travel writings of Bill Bryson, which I really enjoy.

I know there's more, but this is all I can think of offhand. I guess it's not the most impressive list on the planet, but it was a better way to spend the month of June than, say, playing videogames. Which I would totally do if we had a Nintendo Wii.