Spring or Winter….hard sayin’, not knowin’

I know, it’s silly to talk about the weather.  Too cold, too warm, just right, etc etc.  I’m not going to bitch and moan, only recognize how gullible I was just a few weeks ago.  Snow all but melted away, green grass out my window – I put my skis away and geared up for a solid running season.  We began Friday Night Fives (5k at 5pm on Fridays, starting at Two Sisters), I happily ‘donated’ my registration fee to the Nordic Club in Anchorage and decided against driving back up there for the 40k Tour of Anchorage (which was today – hope ya’ll had fun up there!).  Well, it was entirely novice and (mostly) I knew it. This past week we’ve had blizzarding conditions – they cancelled school on Friday!  WOAH!  Snow.  Lots of snow.  So, I’ve brought my skis back out, put my running sneaker insoles back in my xtra tuffs, and admitted that I was wrong.  It’s only March.  It’s still winter. 

An early sign of spring, however, is that Chris (my super-rad-smokejumping-little-brother) began the move back into workin’ summer mode.  Which means not only do we get to visit with him for a few days before he heads to Fairbanks, the household dog count goes from 2 to 3.  Only a 1-dog increase, I know.  But it’s a lot more dog.  A Lot.  Sheamus is pretty funny, though, and we’re happy to have his big head and dopey beautiful blue eyes back in the house. 

This is a TERRIBLE picture.  However, it’s the only picture I have of my brother and I, and so here it is.  Chris graciously joined me on a day-trip to Seward.  7+ hours of driving, mostly in blizzard conditions, I worked for several hours, we had lunch with Jen and hung out for an hour or so at the SeaLife Center (Thanks, Jen, for the comp tix!).  I toured the Seward harbor for work, Chris drank coffee, and then he played with a lovely harbor seal before we left.

 

Chris successfully made it to Fairbanks and is settling into life again as an AK Smokejumper.  He does have a blog (it’s linked over on the right), but he’s worse at updating it than I am.  Maybe he’ll get bored up there and throw up some pictures – maybe even the ones I took of him cooking some *incredible* shrimp and grits for Ben, Blaine, Katie and I!  When did he become such a cook?!  I love it.

In Sunday news, I went for a morning ski with Kaya and Shaemus…it was beautiful, snowy, and quiet. 

 

And then we stopped by the sawmill to see Ben, Jefe, Steve, Pemba, and China – and of course, the new boats!!!!

Those boys do good work.  I am terribly impressed and excited and smitten with these boats….(Ben’s is in red/blue, Jeff’s in yellow/gray).  The day was rounded out with a little bit of dog-roughhousing at the sawmill and then the beach.  This evening I dusted the leaves of our plants. Can anyone tell me tricks to avoid big broad leaves gathering inches of dust on them?  It’s a fairly laborious task to wipe down each leaf, though they look so much better now – I can only imagine that breathing is also a whole lot easier. 

 

snow mountains = ski!

This isn't going to be Mexico Part II. I apologize, and wonder if I'll ever get around to putting that up here. We'll see...we're already over 9 hours of daylight in Homer, and that sort of change is not terribly conducive to more computer-blog updating time than I already spend at work. However, it was pouring rain the other day, so you never know when I might feel housebound and inspired.

For now, however, I'm just avoiding working on grant proposals in Girdwood! It's 9:30pm and I'm sleepy tired. I drove up last night for a three day Level 1 avalanche course through the Alaska Avalanche School.

You might say, but Rachel, you aren't really much of a downhill skier, are you? And, well, it's true. I'm a complete novice. However, I am enamored with the idea of backcountry skiing, and spent the initial $$$ to buy a set of used randonee/alpine touring gear. That being said, I'm absolutely not going to be driving up to Girdwood to lay out the additional cash to practice skiing at Alyeska (though I had a ton of fun up here a few weeks ago with friends!). So the place to practice will be the place I love - in the mountains. Which happens to be an area where avalanches occur. It's true. Sadly it sounds as though three people were killed today - two in Turnagain Pass and one above Eagle River. Those who know me know I'm not too much of a wicked big risk taker. But even with that being said, some pictures of these avalanche releases don't look too out-of-my-range:
(from the Chugach National Forest Avalanche Advisory website: www.cnfaic.org)

So here I am, in a three day (and I mean full day - 8am-7pm) class about how, why, and where avalanches happen. Just a few photos from today:

Head towards the light…. (a.k.a. Mexico, Part 1)

I was determined to leave Alaska during the holiday break this year, having not left the state on a ‘vacation’ for a couple of years.  The choices were either to head back to New England to see family and friends (always a good option, though maybe not the best one in the middle of December), or head to warmer climes.  Ben conceded that it is indeed freaking dark here in the winter.  Very dark.  As such, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to head south, head towards the sun, head towards the light.  So for just  over 2 weeks we soaked it up in Mexico, traveling from Mexico City to Oaxaca City, then down to the Pacific coast to play in the ocean for a bit. 

   There are very few pictures of me through this entire trip.  I am the one with the camera, and the one with a love of taking pictures.  Therefore, there are a fair number of pictures of Ben looking at things, or trying to do something while I snap away.  Here’s one from our bathroom, as we were both trying to pack at 10:00PM the night before leaving.

I really wanted to go into Mexico City.  I began to regret that desire a little as we flew over the largest city in the world – the rosy smog blanketed everything as far as you could see, and it was thick.  But I had reserved us a room in the neighborhood of La Condesa, at the Red Tree House.  What a **great** place!!!  Aside from having a killer headache from the altitude, I really enjoyed our brief time in Mexico City.  We ambled about that evening (Wed, Dec 9th), getting lost and watching people walking their dogs, repairing furniture, going about their business.  In the morning we walked up a ways to the metro station and took the subway to the bus station to catch a bus south to Oaxaca City.

   Taking pictures on the way out of Mexico City.  I really didn’t do it justice.  One of my favorite things about flying over the city was just how colorful it was.  A sprawling mass of city, but with a veritable rainbow of color everywhere you looked. 

The bus to Oaxaca took 6 hours.  We watched Transformers, the first one, in spanish.  It is really quite terrible, but much better than the second one.   Then there was some sappy movie with John Cusak that I couldn’t hear well enough to make out the plot from my haggard and rusty understanding of Spanish.  We were watching some spectacular battles from Prince Caspian as we pulled into the bus station, around 6PM, in Oaxaca City.

We found a really nice place to stay, Las Mariposas, a bit north and west of the Zocalo, or central plaza.  No matter that we were a ways off of the central plaza – there was another park just up from us with a carnival in town, and parades with full horn sections and amazingly loud firecrackers everywhere at all times.  No, seriously.  Always.  And everywhere.  I’m not exaggerating. (much)

Anyways, these folks know how to fiesta!  Lots of celebration, lots of Catholic masses, lots of small children dressed up.  Dec 12th was the festival for the Virgin Guadalupe – a major deal.  On the bus ride down we had seen streams of people walking and biking along the highway on pilgrimage to Mexico City for Guadalupe.

    

 

On one day we took a local bus about 30 minutes out of town to a village where life largely revolves around weaving.  Most houses have looms in them, and there are fantastic rugs and a myriad of other woven products made and sold there.  We walked around town for awhile, noting how very quite it  seemed.  Wicked hot, we popped in somewhere for a drink and talked for quite some time with three (fairly drunk) boys who informed us that due to it being Guadalupe Day, most people were at home or somewhere preparing for the major fiesta to be held that night.  They were pretty adamant that Ben was a dead ringer for James Hetfield – right, of Metallica.  Sweet. 

 

Maybe if he had the leather pants, and was a bit more in touch with his rockstar side…

The amazing and elaborate nativity scene at our hotel…

Below are all pictures of the Zocalo – with the big cathedral and just heaps of people strolling about in the cool evening (Oaxaca is still high enough in the mountains that I would put on a long-sleeved shirt after the sun set).  Parades, fireworks, large paper-mache puppets were marched down the streets all the time.  It was really festive, really energetic. 

 

Amigos, Perros, Playas, y Nieve

The weather has been beautiful and blustery this month, with some spectacular sunsets!  The other night I took the dogs to the beach for a walk and the waves coming in were perfect – a handful of folks were out surfing on the point.

In land-based news, ski season is upon us! Yeah!  It was great to get out for early-season skiing, even if it was on an inch of snow over the frozen reservoir. 

Katie, Blaine & I headed up there the weekend before Thanksgiving:

There wasn’t enough snow on Bridge Creek to ski up it, so we de-skied and walked up aways.

I have so many of these ridiculous self-portraits. 

Thanksgiving!  I love Thanksgiving.  Ben graciously gave in to my love of cooking and eating and friends and family and we hosted Tday again this year at the house.  We got up at 9AM and cooked and cooked and cooked, cleaned a little, cooked some more.  Oh, and Ben decided he needed to hem two pairs of his pants. 

 

Mike took a little while waking up….

  

Megan and Steve were wonderful company, along with Steve, Susie, Charlie, Debbie, Elias, and Mikey.  And, of course, Kaya, Pemba, and LE.  I took precious few pictures, but enjoyed the day and the evening thoroughly.  Many thanks and deep appreciation.

We’re heading to Mexico next week, after a week of work, hopefully some more skiing, and trip-prep.  Then a weekend in Anchorage for work, a couple of days in Seattle, then SOUTH! 

Hasta pronto, mis amigos.

Visiting Winter.

October was a really long month.  I don’t mean to say that it was a bad month, indeed just the opposite!  I was able to travel to Seattle and to Kodiak, Alaska – both for work.  Though I have developed a strong fear of the small planes that get me out of Homer, I still love to be on the go – I love airports and the entire feeling of traveling and transit.  However, at the end of it all (especially having just come off of Cross Country season with State on October 2) I was tired.  Tired and looking out my office window at bluebird skies and crisp fall-winter transition days.  Too beautiful for idle contemplation – I made reservations for a US Forest Service cabin in the Chugach Mountains, at the Crescent Lake Saddle Cabin.  Ben, me, Kaya, and Pemba headed out on Saturday morning….after Ben did some last-minute excavating.

   

I manage to always get a lot of pictures of Ben walking in front of me, generally with dogs. 

So I have to take pictures of myself every now and again…just to show I Was There!

Kaya and Pemba enjoying a small shrub-toy outside of the cabin

Ben, playing with my new-ish stove.   The giant flames terrify me.  Must.Be.Calm.  Ben is very assured that we will not burn down the sweet cabin, but I’m not always so sure.   He’s generally correct, and the stove is a *much* faster way than the woodstove to get hot coffee in the morning .

The woodstove, however, keeps us warm.  And Pemba warm.  Which is very important.  This small little black dog may not be the toughest, not that Ben hasn’t tried to harden her throughout life.  Come to find out she’s VERY restless if she only has a cold hard floor, not  her couch to sleep on….

And below is a small sampling of my photo shoots.  The weather was incredible – some snow on Sunday morning, blue skies, frosty crisp air.  The mountains were snow-covered, rocks starkly outlined by their white counterparts…I was often struck still by the beauty & immensity.  Sometimes I think one can get too wrapped up in their own personal world.  However, when push comes to shove, there is so much more out there – more sorrow, more beauty, more depth and brilliance than one individual can truly pull all in and grasp.  Which is fabulous – it’s all out there, the exquisite and the sorrowful, to lend and learn wisdom, experience, compassion, etc etc etc etc…..

   

Happy Winter, everyone!  May you embrace and enjoy the still cold beauty of it, in whatever way you experience this life.

A Quick August Re-cap

I'll be brief on August ... on the 3rd, the Homer High School Cross Country Running Team began practice.  With me as head coach ... naively embarking upon a second job that has taken a phenomenal amount of time & brain-space.  Ben has been incredibly patient in listening to me talk about 17 high school students waaaaay more than anyone should have to listen to.  That being said, it's been a fun adventure, we have Regions this weekend, States next weekend, and another season has come and gone.  8 Weeks, I can hardly complain.

 

August is the Gibson Family month.  Ben's sister and family come to Homer for the month, along with other sisters, neices/nephews, aunts/uncles, family friends, etc etc.  While Sam and the kids (the England-family) were staying at the house, Ben, Kaya, Shaemus, Pemba, and I stayed at Charlie, Debbie, and Elias' (aunt, uncle, & cousin) cabin-by-the-sea.

This is the only real picture I took during our tenure at the cabin.  I was sitting on the bed at the time, so all at once you can get a sense of how lovely and sweet and small this space was.  The beach was just outside the window, and Shaemus fully enjoyed sitting on the top of the hill, watching the people and crows and other dogs meandering below. 

Also in August, Ben & Josiah tried their hands at set-netting.  There is a personal use fishery in Kachemak Bay for silver salmon.  The openings are 48 hours, and you hang a gill net that you hope fishes will swim into.  More or less, this is the idea.

The net, with a buoy at each end and floats along the length.

A few salmon were caught, although I'm not entirely sure it would classify as the "bloodbath" that I was assured would ensue....

Next time, next time...

To wrap August up, Chris came down before heading back south to Maine to pick up Shaemus and visit.  Coincidentally, he arrived for my birthday!  We loaded up the boat with dogs, Blaine, Katie, Ben, Chris, & I, food and beer, and headed across the Bay to the head of Tutka Bay for some first-class bushwacking up a beautiful valley.

The boys tried to lend a hand to Katie for a river-crossing..

Rainforest-y, wet, sunny, thorny Across The Bay.  Loved It.

All Points North

On July 9th, Ben and I headed North to Fairbanks for Blaine and Katie's wedding. We took a week to drive nearly 1,600 miles to not only attend one of the best weddings I've been to, but also to take in the Interior and drive back via the Richardson and Denali highways.


We stopped at Tern Lake to make lunch sandwiches on the way from Homer on Day 1. That night we camped on the banks of the Susitna River, just below the Parks Hwy bridge, north of Talkeetna.
I only took 2 pictures at the wedding. It was so much more fun to be sitting there and participating and taking it in than trying to record it all... Katie and Blaine both looked beautiful, and the par-tay afterwards at the Mushers Hall was a damn good time.
I was honored to be asked by Katie & Blaine to start off the wedding ceremony with a reading, The Invitation, by Oriah Mountain Dreamer:
It doesn't interest me what you do for a living
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love
for your dreams
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon...
I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow
if you have been opened by life's betrayals
or have become shriveled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your
fingers and toes
without cautioning us to
be careful
be realistic
to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.

If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand on the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
"Yes."

It doesn't interest me
to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after a night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the center of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments.

I was surprised by how nervous I was after I began - apparently you couldn't hear my voice shaking, but I was so overwhelmed by what I was saying, the people before me, the marriage of these two who I love so dearly....I could feel my voice and my hands and my throat and legs all shaking.

Some photos from our trip home, along the Denali Highway...and then stopping in Houston to buy Charlie $50 worth of "pretty fireworks". It was fairly priceless to watch Ben ask the fireworks selling girl which ones were "the pretty ones".


Lots of time was spent assessing the landscape and the Gazetteer...heaps of great trips abound! So exciting, in fact, that I went and bought myself an Alpaca Packraft when we got home...

F.i.S.h.I.n.G.

Last year I worked for the International Pacific Halibut Commission. Nearly 150,000 dead halibut passed my hands, I waved a wand over each - concurrently blessing them and checking each for a tag in its head. But never ever have I personally killed a halibut.

A few nights ago Jeff finally came home from his brief respite with 'employment' with the fantastic idea to gear up and head out on the Bay to assess the halibut situation out there...beautiful. I went out to the garden to finish planing some flowers while the boys got rods and reels and bait and the proper fixin's for an evening of fishing.

And beautiful it was! No halibut were found, but I caught an Irish Lord (a oft berated fish of little value to fisher-folk), and Ben and Jeff reeled in a small handful of p. cod - great for bait, apparently! Kaya hated the boating part, but loved the fishing. Shaemus couldn't really care less really, and slept through most of the fishing part, and Pemba loved every minute (evidenced by her full-body trembling and occasional 4-paws on the gunwales).

River Rally 2009

Just pictures for now - it's so beautiful and SUMMER outside, it's hard to buckle down and post much on the blog. Last week I went to Baltimore, MD for the River Network's annual conference - River Rally!
I **loved** it. Loved the people, being in the City, loved the field of work and the passion. I was humbled by the sheer number of people that believe in the power of stories, the importance of community. I left feeling inspired, empowered, and oh-so-thankful to be back home!

Hope, Alaska

I told Ben that I was determined to go and sleep in a tent, and not in the backyard. i didn't have to work on Monday, Memorial Day, and was long overdue to get out of dodge for a little bit. Plans hadn't been set, and come to find out it was the opening weekend for Saturday night music @ the Seaview Cafe in Hope - quite possibly my most-favorite-town-in-Alaska. Ian and friends joined us on Saturday, and we camped in Hope. In Hope - as in, the most populated place on earth (or so it felt) on Memorial Day. We were at the end of the road, in between a parking lot and Turnagain Arm, surrounded by people and city-folk reveling in their camping holiday weekend. Not *entirely* what I had in mind, but I got what I wanted - sleeping in a tent! The music on Saturday night was fantastic - an AK band the Whipsaws - it was great to see Ian, and we hiked up Point Hope on Sunday .. beautiful and alpine and steep and sweeping. Loved it.


Who knew so many people could fit in this wee-area??!?
Ian , getting his ducks in a row before a run /hike

While Ben & I were up on Point Hope, we saw the bore tide coming in Turnagain Arm! This is a crazy phenomenon which has something to do with how shallow the arm is and how much water floods in during certain tides. Turnagain Arm is not a place for recreating - the mud will suck you in, the water will wash you away. But it's certainly beautiful. And funny to see so much water with no boats on it....

Pesto from stinging nettles

(from Two Sisters Bakery)

* A big bunch of young nettles (~8cups), picked in the yard (careful to avoid the known spots where dogs and other household members may pee) and boiled for 2 minutes
* 1 cup-ish of shredded parmesean cheese
* 1 cup-ish of walnuts
* 5 garlic cloves
* salt
* dash o' pepper
* ~1/2 cup of olive oil

Spring update - summer's here!

It feels completely like summer. The past 2 days have been warmer than any I've felt in over a year (I don't actually thing this is an exaggeration), the sun doesn't set till after 10pm, and I've been killing some massive mosquitoes. It's entirely possible that we haven't seen the last of frost and cold and a rainy spring, but for now I'm going to bask in the blue skies and hot sun.

My computer is nearly in its death-throes, and so can't really handle much in the way of blog-updating. For now I'll post up some pictures from Chris' first visit, in late-March, when he dropped off Shaemus, a low-tide walk I took on Easter with the dogs, a day trip across the Bay with Ben, Mike, Jeff, Stacey, and the dog pack, and the gardening adventures we've set forth on!

Diamond Creek - Bishop's Beach, Easter Sunday

Chris, Megan & I went to the Bear Creek Winery on Megan's birthday to do some wine tasting of local berry wines. MMmmmm - we had smoked halibut on crackers with cream cheese to snack on as we sipped our way through the wine selection.

Mt Redoubt erupted while Chris was here - ash fall #1 of the year ... what a freaking mess!

We were both pretty impressed with the coating that Homer received.

A few weeks ago we went across the Bay to hike up a braided river, we'll just call it the Woz here since I can't remember/don't know how to spell the full name, for the day. Ben anchored the boat offshore and pack-rafted in with Pemba in hot pursuit... Mike, coming after Ben with a giant stick.

Jeff & Stacey

Back on the home front, work on the garden has begun in full force. Heavy machinery (well, not so much unless you count a chainsaw & rototiller...) and some elbow grease. A lot of the latter, actually. ~700 sq ft that needs to be surrounded by a moose-proof fence, ~150 hummocks to be removed, and thousands of pushkie (i.e. cow parsnip)(which, incidentally, I'm apparently very allergic to) to uproot and battle back. Payback for all of this labor? Aside from warm feelings of a job-well-done (and burly muscles)(and welts from the pushkies), potatoes and onions and spinach and dill and carrots and turnips maybe and leaks and radishes and .... etc etc etc! Yeah!

The Heavy Machinery

And the elbow grease

Baby pushkies. My nemesis, whom I will be battling all summer long. Bring it.

Dogs are so helpful.....they have been working hard checking out all the best places to nap in the shade or sun around the garden.

Ben, assessing the garden situation. A man with a plan. And some wicked-old-tools.

Pemba {hearts} the buoy...

Happy SpringSummer!

Sushi and St Patty's Day!

I'm combining these two posts because I've been a wicked slacker and have heaps of pictures I'd love to share but am feeling a bit backed-up.  Sue came over approximately forever ago, and we made sushi & wontons.  Jeff came home and deep fried them, and then Ben came home and ate just about all of them.  Mmm...deep frying.

Go Team!

For St Patrick's Day, Jeff made corned beef, with potatoes and cabbage.  Dyed green, of course.  It was my first (and Stacey's first) corned beef.  Oh how far I've fallen.....it was supa-good.

 

Car bombs were had and it was good.  Uh - let's not really talk about it, but there might still be leftovers in the fridge.  Apparently 3-4 people in this house weren't enough to do what needed to be done to finish off the phenomenal amount of corned beef stew that was made.

the most beautiful shot-gun wedding

In early February I listened to a phone message from my friend John, up in Fairbanks.  He was calling to ask for my mailing address as he needed to send me a wedding invitation.  WHAT?!  Ok, granted I'm rather out-of-the-loop down here, and I wasn't *terribly* surprised, except by the short notice!  But who doesn't love a shot-gun wedding?!  Shortly after the word came down to Homer-town, Katie, Blaine, and I booked tickets to fly up to Fairbanks for the weekend of Feb. 21st --- Congratulations to Miki & John!  The wedding was so beautiful (yes I cried, but just a smidge...), it was personally wonderful to be back in Fbx and see so many people I love dearly and see far too infrequently.  Without further ado - some photos:

(oh - did I mention I was diagnosed with strep throat about 28 hours prior to leaving for Fbx?  As a result, I was quarantined at Josiah's where I was housesitting while everyone had a kickin' margarita par-tay...and as a result of that, Katie and Blaine weren't feeling so hot for the flight up.  I, on the other hand, was all jacked up on antibiotics and feeling ... well, less than great, but better than those guys!)

John & Miki rented out a B&B on Chena Ridge for the festivities.  It was gorgeous.  When we got there on Saturday morning, they were out on the deck doing some photos.  Tears immediately sprang up - have I also mentioned that I cry pretty easily?

Katie's dad, Jim, officiated the wedding ceremony.  Here's Miki, Chris Villano, John & Jim.

Seth and Chrissy - gearing up cameras for the big event.  The wedding ceremony was held on the porch in the beautiful sun.

Blaine and Katie helped with the saki ceremony, a part of traditional Japanese weddings.  John made all of the saki dishes, and created the hare-fur cozy for it! 

YEAH!!

Everyone was present on the porch for the ceremony - the attendees and the ample drink stock.

Toasting! A married man, with Jon and Ken - 2 members of Slim Pickin - a wonderful new Fairbanks band!  Somehow I didn't get any pictures of Greta, who was also there singing.

Cake-feeding time!

And breakfast the morning after!

No trip to Fbx would be complete without a walk on the pooch loop (with Emily Sousa and Ella, of course!) and a trip to Lulu's

Winter playground

We seem to go from ice to snow to more snow to ice, repeat until spring, down here in Homer.  Right now we're in the most beautiful snow-zone, but a few weeks ago the ice was pretty serious.  Ben's driveway was out-of-hand, leading me to parking at the bottom and carefully walking up for nearly a week.  Just so you don't think I'm too much of a wimp, I took some pictures on a beautiful walk/slide down the driveway.

Here's looking down, and then looking back up.  A solid sheet of ice.  It's still there, but it's now covered in nearly a foot of snow allowing for a bit more traction on the way up and, more importantly, on the way down.

I hosted a pizza par-tay the other night, complete with Indian pizza and trivial pursuit.  I discovered that I have gotten no better with 'Arts & Entertainment' trivia over the years.

This is the Indian pizza I made - a 'naan' crust, spinach-spiced sauce, mushrooms, cauliflower, green onion, tomatoes, cilantro.  No cheese, but it was incredible.  Yeah!

It was great to see people, especially since it was blizzarding outside pretty fierce.  The next morning we had heaps and heaps - and I loved it!!!

Last weekend I went adventuring with Josiah (and Kaya) on Saturday and skiing at the wee-lil' rope-tow on Sunday with Julie and Tim (followed by the Superbowl at Blaine & Katie's, complete with a keg of beer brewed and kegged by Blaine himself).

A very-nice-man stopped on his snowmachine while we were snowshoeing back up from Beaver Flats to tell us that he had an active coyote trap-line along there.  His words exactly were, "I've never caught a dog yet, and I wouldn't want yours to be the first one."  Great.  I had entirely forgotten to put the leash in my pack, and so Kaya got to practice a solid hour of heeling.

Here's Tim and Julie, showing off hot tele moves on the "slopes".  The ski hill was nice, but it really was a terrible tease for skiing...soon soon I'm going to have to get out!

And then she had a kayak...

Well, that might be jumping the gun just a smidge - I indeed have a completed and waterproofed kayak (well, the waterproofing has not yet been tested).  I still need to put in deck lines before she's really ready to be tested, and given my panic-y feelings about drilling into my completed and coated frame/skin - that part may take a little bit.

But to hold you over until I have the maiden-launch, here is a little taste of what happened in between the start of skinning and the completion:

The decks needed two rounds of stitching.  The top photo shows the first stitch, drawing the two sides together.  Once that was done (and let me tell you, it took a long long painful time.  A co-worker of mine is a sailor, and suggested using a spray bottle to wet the nylon and make it stretch more in order to sew it tight.  Brilliance.  Nylon apparently stretches around 22% when wet - my life took a turn for the better from that moment on)

After the decks were all sewn up, I had to cut into the cockpit area and sew in the coaming.  It was slightly terrifying, but I heated up the sauder gun, took a deep breath (away from the burning-nylon fumes) and started cutting....

I pushed nails up through the skin and out the holes in the coaming to hold it in place when I was getting ready to sew it.  When it was all set, I took the nails out one-by-one and followed them around with thread.  It was a testament to how tough this ballistic nylon is - it was difficult to pierce it with these nails.

Ben and Steve (Collins) both inquired as to whether this spike-system was employed to keep seals from boarding the decks.  They were both disappointed when I said it was temporary...

Here it is - inside and out.

The next, and final, step was to coat it with the 2-part polyurethane that I ordered with the skin from Corey at the Skin Boat School in Anacortes, WA.  This process was pretty fun and went quickly.  I did the hull first, doing three coats in sequence, wet-on-wet.  The next day I came out to do the deck and was turned around by the gross amount of sawdust in the air that was being produced by Ben and Jeff's boatbuilding adventure.  I was assured that the following day would be much clear-er in the shop, so I came back then.  It's safe to say that there are many little particles of waste from their boats embedded in the coating of my boat - it'll just make it stronger, right?

I was going to dye the skin, but thought about it too late and didn't want to wait for an ordered dye to come in the mail.  You need a pretty strong acid dye (more umpfh than RIT that you can get in town), and I was ready to go.  So my boat is clear-ish, all of the woodwork showing through in the light.  When the polyurethane dried it came out quite a bit more opaque, but you still get the idea.

Some final shots from the shop:

And a mid-winter kayak update.

The coaming, in all of its epoxy-d glory, is done and done.

I have to say, it's very shiny.  Very.

Shiny and ready to be sewn into the skin.  Except, of course, the skin is a bitch to sew on.  Yep.  Excuse the language, but for the love.  I have sewn and re-sewn, my fingers and knuckles kind of hurt, and I still don't know if it's at an acceptable place.  The problem is in the tension and in the puckering that is occurring across the decks.  Grr.

But some pretty pictures:

 

Kaya thinks this is all very boring.  But Ben is working on not only her jumping skills, but also her show dog potential.  Look at her, sittin' pretty.  She loves it.  Really.

Miscellaneous in January

I think that could be the theme for this month: miscellaneous.

It's been a little difficult to settle back into the working world of a desk-job.  I think that my father has helped ruin me in that respect, further maintained by years of field work and grad school.  I have never really had to go and sit and be at a computer for 40 hours every week, from now until....it's a good job, with wonderful people, and a good mission.  And you have to get paid, right?  Right?  (I'm just not entirely convinced that there is one way to skin that [proverbial] cat)

Anyways...some pictures (I apologize - they're grossly dog-centric):

Happy Solstice morning! 

Me, catching up on the waaaaay backlogged amount of data entry that had to be done at work.  Data entry can be so painful (post-it notes from 2006 have a way of making tears come to your eyes) 

Can you see the bag of flour in the middle of the floor?  LE had some "issues" with grains, etc. this winter.

 

Ben, trying to get Kaya to jump jump

in vain.

Ice in the Harbor in Homer......

  And the dogs before Pemba decided to go swimming in diesel fuel. 

Juneau Lake Cabin trip

After starting my new job in November, I learned that I would have nearly two weeks off over the holidays!  That sure isn't grad school (where no one really misses you for 6+ weeks at a go), but a 2 week paid vacation is nothing to shrug off.  That being said, the timing was such that a trip to New England was not going to be affordable on any front (though really, when is it ever?), and I wasn't so much in the mood to drop so much cash.  So what's a girl to do with her free time in the dead of an Alaskan winter?

I somehow managed, finding myself some activities to pass the time including a three day trip up to the Chugach mountains on the Resurrection Trail with Kaya, Ben, and Pemba in between Christmas and New Years.

I hadn't fully appreciated the fact that indeed, southcentral Alaska does experience low temperatures.  Somehow being in Homer and having -5 be a chilly mercury reading made me a little complacent.  At the trail head in Cooper Landing (a little over 2 hour drive north/northeast from Homer) it was somewhere in the -20 range.  Though I realize it was easily -50 in Fairbanks over this time period, let's go back to the fact that I'm now living in Homer.  For better or for worse, -5 = cold.  -20?  Not terrible but I regretted a few things, mainly the paucity of chocolate, the lack of food readily accessible, my frozen-solid camelback...We started at the trailhead at around 1pm, ready for a 9.5 mile ski in to Juneau Lake Cabin, one of the public use cabins the Forest Service maintains. 

  

The dogs were *so* ready by the time we got started, as were we.  Thinking about how great Kaya's been in some past sledding-adventures (White Mountain trip awhile back, Thanskgiving with the wine), I hooked her up to her sled with my pack strapped safely in.

d.i.s.a.s.t.e.r.

At the get-go, Ben was fairly well distracted (I thinK) by getting himself ready.  So he may have missed the absolute ridiculous beginnings of what proved to be a failed endeavor.  Long blue sled, half a dozen ropes everywhere, incredibly excited husky, freezing cold, me with mittens, ski gloves, and dressed warmly enough to feel a little less than graceful in my outfit.  The trail proved to be too narrow and too winding for the intrepid team of Kaya and I.  I let her go free, and I was stuck pulling the sled.

What a mess..

After our trip to Emerald Lake this summer, where Kaya managed to free herself of a very expensive and on-loan dog pack somewhere deep in the woods, she wasn't allowed to carry anything.   And this led to the ridiculousness of Kaya the sled dog running wild and free, and Pemba, the miniature-sized black lab, carrying all of the dog food and who-knows-what-else-Ben-stuffed-in-there in her bright orange pack. 

We made it out to the cabin with just enough light to spare, and no skin irreparably frozen.  So many thanks to the folks who came before us, whoever they were, for leaving some firewood chopped and ready in the cabin.  We were sufficiently chilled that gathering would have been a chore - warming up and eating were the top priorities to be attended to. 

Dinner of tortellini's & sauce, bread, butter, and veggies (in butter - they were wonderful despite Ben's reticence) was phenomenal.  Boxed wine complemented the whole thing nicely.

The dogs were toasted.  Pemba fell asleep on Ben's boots and didn't twitch for a good long time.

And Kaya curled into her tight husky-ball and paid us all no attention

The next day we geared up with some coffee, burned up the rest of the firewood that had been left for us toasting bagels, and went off to collect more warmth.  This involved using the variety of tools provided to us by the Forest Service and cutting down a dead tree, bucking it into "carry-able" lengths, hauling it to the cabin, and further sawing & chopping pieces to go in the wee-but-efficient woodstove to keep us warm (/alive). 

Let it be known that Ben does not take pictures, and as such you all will just have to imagine me, burly and strong, hauling down equally-sized logs.  It's true.  I did.  Just sayin' is all.  I also learned how to chop wood!  I'm a little ashamed, but only once before had I ever tried (when Emily briefly showed me and I managed to not injure anyone). 

 

 

We skied for a bit after wood-gathering and after lunch, and by the end of the day we were thankful for a warm cabin, beautiful sunrises/sunsets (they happen so closely to one another these days...), happy & tired dogs, and good food.....

Ben was verklempt at the beauty of our sausage dinner

The next morning we gathered our things, made sure plenty of food was readily available for eating, melted a bunch of snow for water, put on our skis and headed back out to the trailhead.

 

A past-due Thanksgiving update!

I'll be fairly brief on some catch-up posts ... it's been so long since I've posted anything on here, but I'm going to go back quickly to Thanksgiving.  Justine flew over to Homer from Juneau - it had been nearly a year since I had saw her, one of my most favorite people who I miss dearly.

For Thanksgiving day our household joined Ben's household for a big shin-dig.  Megan, Justine, and I cooked and cooked - our house brought two pumpkin pies, one apple pie, a green bean casserole, and biscuits.  Regular and cheese.  Woah - the cheese biscuits were amazing.  (I can't believe I can call up our Tday dishes this far past...)  Ben hosted dinner with 16 guests and an absolutely phenomenal amount of food.  It was incredible - after everyone had two- to three-helpings, you almost couldn't tell the food had been touched. 

So what to do but sled all leftovers to a cabin a little ways out of town?  Dogs, food, and wine were packed up and a handful of us went out the next day for a ski/dinner/sauna.

 

The truck got stuck, we were about a mile short of the cabin, and we all decided to not push our luck too hard.  Kaya earned her keep - I strapped her to her sled and she pulled in all of the wine.  Good dog.

Shoveling out the front of the cabin...

And hands down one of the best snowmen I've seen.