Country duck in the city park fountain

Sometimes I feel like this little country duck landed in the wrong pond.  I am sure many in the village assumed we would have to adjust to "roughing it" out here in this new setting.  However, being from a very laid-back, backwoodsy (I may have just created a new word there) community, we assumed a move to Alaska couldn't be too terribly different from our lives growing up.  So I cannot help but find some humor that I often feel like I ended up in a place a bit fancier than I'm accustomed to and don't always know quite what to do with myself.  We are constantly seeing foods and products that were so impossible to find back home that I always considered those items too fancy for a simple girl such as myself.  What I considered fancy in Missouri seems to be the norm in Alaska - so much for "roughing it".

My world is also surrounded by some seriously fancy technology.  Our school district has a quite complex network so I can print on any computer in the school district from my classroom - even 100 miles away in Soldotna.  If we need a program added to our computer, we send an e-mail to the tech guy and he "pushes" the software onto our computer from his office somewhere far removed from our location.  Whenever I log on to any computer in the school district, whether it be here in Nanwalek or Soldotna, all of my files go with me.  If I save it in My Documents, I can access it from my desktop easily from any computer on the network without digging through shared files and folders on some mysterious drive.  They are there as if I saved them to that computer's hard drive.  When I click on outlook my e-mail automatically opens up without even entering my password.  It's all pretty cool stuff, but far more advanced than this little duck is used to finding paddling around in her little mud puddle.

We have light!

Rainbow!  Hopefully this is a sign.

Today has been full of excitement.  We had our fourth straight day of sunshine!  While there has been a little rain and fog scattered throughout those days, it doesn't really count as rain simply because there has been some sun.  Some sunshine in the day now equals a sunny day.  Tony from maintenance also came over today and fixed our light fixture in the kitchen.  We've been using a desk lamp for light in the kitchen for most of the two months we've been here and are very appreciative of having our light fixture fixed - especially now that the sun is setting a little before 8:00.  The school district does not have a person in Nanwalek for maintenance work, so we have to wait until there is enough work here to be worth the cost of a trip into the village.

Such details of living in school housing is quite new to us and we are now realizing how fortunate we've been to have been home owners most of our adult lives.  Mike and I built our house the second year we were married so we've only lived in a home that wasn't ours for a little over two years.  Even in that setting, though, we pretty much had free reign to do as we pleased as long as it didn't result in damage to the house.  So getting permission to make minor adjustments and making requests for repairs is unfamiliar territory.  We've been so accustomed to fixing the problems around the house ourselves that it is sometimes difficult to be patient for someone to come fix it for us in a month or two when we could have the job finished in a few hours.  We know we're very fortunate to have housing provided, and especially fortunate to have such nice housing, but going from home owners to renters will definitely take getting used to.

Mud!

Last night we were greeted at the entryway by a seal skin waiting to be tanned. It's amazing how quickly the unusual becomes the norm.  Something occurred yesterday that was far more unusual than a seal skin sitting at the door, the sun came out.  Not only did it peek it's lazy head from behind the clouds, it stayed out all day yesterday and remained so for much of today.  We're not quite sure how to handle such unusual weather events.  After more than three weeks of solid rain I was beginning to believe my dad's joke about it started raining once and never stopped was about to prove true.  We are still under a boil water alert and the paths up the valley are a mudder's dream from all the rain.  The water in the creek was high enough a few days ago to allow a humpie salmon to hitch a ride in the ranger as Mike crossed. 

The mud gave me my first opportunity to be the driver in an impromptu mudding session.  I've been mudding before, but always as a passenger rather than a driver.  Considering Mike had gotten stuck and required assistance from the wench to free himself of the very same mud holes I would be traversing, I was a bit nervous.  However, I made it cleanly through each mud puddle without any issues, but I am quite certain the water level in the creek increased considerably in the 30 minutes between crossing with Mike driving and my own crossing.  Mike has suggested I crossed further upstream where the water was deeper, but I'm convinced the creek has it out for me and the water levels were intentionally higher for my crossing.

"It is on!"

Mike said those words a few days ago after his fishing pole had mysteriously moved to a new, much more difficult to find location.  It had received some assistance in it's unplanned travels from a certain someone at our school.  First Miss Carol's cordless phone was hidden in her desk then I'm not sure which came next.  At this point tape was placed over the keys on Miss Carol's computer keyboard and the cover of a woman's magazine was strategically taped over the front of Mike's diving magazine.  Even Mike had to admit she had done a very good job on that one.  It was very convincing with Mike's address tag on top of the faux cover.  It was actually convincing enough I was quite disappointed.  I saw the woman's magazine with the promise of Christmas cookie recipes in Mike's mailbox and thought "I'm not entirely sure how or why the Ladies Home Journal is coming to Mike, but I'll enjoy it very much!" (Norita, I'm missing you as I think of looking for good recipes)  At any rate, the proverbial gloves are apparently now off as these two battle it out to see who will be King/Queen of the pranks.  Their struggles to reign supreme should provide some entertainment for the rest of us at the school.  All this pranking, though, makes me wonder if Mike is the Mr. Cates of Nanwalek and Miss Carol is the .  .  . well, I'm still not divulging where exactly those "trophies" disappeared to.

Singing in the Rain

When we moved to Nanwalek we brought everything anyone would have ever considered necessary under any circumstances, but I have decided we definitely could have used at least one other item.  After having a great singing our hearts out to some super great tunes session with Mike I have decided that I either need my Daddi or a piano.  If Daddi (yes, I know it's not spelled normally, but my Daddi is extra special so he gets a special spelling) were here we could have a serious pickin' and singin' session (and grinnin' for you "Hee Haw" fans out there).  At the very least, I could get the chords out on a piano to help guide us along.  I am no piano player by any stretch of the imagination, but I can at least find the chords to get a basic guide.  Those of you who know me, know that rhythm was not one of the talents God blessed me with.  For those of you who don't, that person in the crowd who always puts their hands together at the wrong time when clapping is me.  Such is life I suppose.  I don't guess I have much to complain about if one of the things on  my wish list is an instrument I can't even play well enough to be called bad at it.

Having things to do inside has been of utmost importance these last several weeks as it is still raining daily.  We had a short break yesterday, but the forecast is calling for rain every day the rest of the week.  I've gotten so used to rain that I'm no longer considering sprinkling, drizzling, or even light rain as real rain.  Any level of rain that would have had me walking quickly to the door doesn't really get noticed as rain any more.  That's just a regular part of the day to day environment.  I can imagine after a little longer in these weather conditions I will find myself visiting home and asking questions like "What?  Aren't little water droplets just a normal part of the air?"

Fall

Rainy day at the beach

The leaves on the Devil's club are beginning to turn yellow so I suppose fall has come to Alaska.  The leaves are also turning on the aspen trees, but we don't have those in the village so we can't see their pretty colors as they prepare for winter.  Rain appears to accompany the fall as it finds it's way into the region as it has rained nearly every day for the last two weeks.  We are still under a boil water alert so I am assuming the continuous rain has prevented the water treatment from catching up with the increase in water.  We had hoped the boil water alert was so long due to the time it takes for water samples to be taken, sent out of the village, tested, and the results to be sent back to the village.  I suppose we'll just have to look at the water coolers in the hallway and hear the sound of water cups popping as the kids play them for a little while longer.  Fortunately Mrs. Carol in the office has a water pot that boils the water for hot chocolate so we can still enjoy that in the mornings.

The precipitation has also brought along cooler temperatures and fewer hours of sunshine with it.  Our temperatures are ranging from the low 40s at night to the mid 50s during the day so we'll have to start using our coats rather soon.  I had to remind myself of temperatures in the rest of the world to make sense of the Sunday comics, many of which referenced the heat of summer.  The sun is now rising at 7:30 and setting at 8:30 so it won't be long until we have less day light hours than our families back home.

A hunter and a kitty cat

So it started raining a week ago Saturday and finally had beautiful weather all weekend.  All the rain has caused the village to be in a boil water alert.  Nanwalek's water comes from a spring and isn't pumped up into the tanks (if I understand the process correctly).  Instead it just sort of flows into them at the pace nature has created.  All the rain has caused the tanks to fill up faster than the treatment system can keep up with so we have to boil our water before use.  It's kind of funny that I always thought of boil water alerts as a city problem, having always lived too far out to be on county water and here we are in the bush with such a "city problem".  It's better than running out of water (which has already happened once since we arrived) so we won't complain.

While the weather was beautiful in Nanwalek this weekend (it resumed raining today), we missed it all because we had to go to Anchorage.  We were hoping to do some serious fishing for silver salmon, but we are taking a college class that met Saturday.  It will probably be a bit labor intensive, being for graduate credit, but it's free to teachers in this region so we're pretty excited.  We'll save $1000 and it meets the criteria for one of the courses required for certification in Alaska so it's a little akin to Christmas for us.  It's just the kind of gift you get and then spend the next three days assembling kind of Christmas.  It's about the culture of the local native group and should be helpful and interesting.  We were given Suk'stun (the native language - I hope I spelled it correctly) names this weekend.  Mike is Pisurta which means hunter and I am Kuskaq which means cat - a name I thought appropriate for a crazy cat lady.

Red Fish, Pink Fish, Dead Fish, Stinky Fish!



First hole - all the white spots in the water are dead fish



The red and pink salmon are just beginning to die and, if one did not know salmon die after spawning, a trip up the valley would be a bit disconcerting.  I imagine the mental discours the large numbers of little salmon bodies in the water and along the banks would cause to occur in my head if I weren't expecting it.  "What is wrong with all these fish?!  Why are they dying in such huge numbers?!  Is there something wrong with the water? . . . Maybe it's best if I avoid any contact with it just in case there's some sort of terrible bacteria causing them all to die. . . I need some hand sanitizer . . . Why do I to read all those articles that say all these anti-bacterial products are creating super bacteria?  I don't have any hand sanitizer because I listen to them!  I wonder if I should bathe in a bleach solution when I get back?"



Luckily, I knew the salmon would die off after spawning (honestly it helps me feel less guilty about catching them and eating them), so I'm not freaking out searching the internet for possible causes of mass fish death and finding out if those causes could affect humans.  I am wishing they didn't have to smell quite so terribly in the process.  The odor is already strong and there are still many salmon swimming around that will quickly add to it's strength.  Carol took advantage of some of those still swimming salmon and hooked me up with some loose fish eggs.  I made my caviar out of fish eggs we cut out of a dead fish which had to be separated before soaking and salting.  She got loose fish eggs  from a live fish, but I'll not go into the details of the process.  I'm sure the fish is looking for a support group as we speak.  They are supposed to be fantastic with cream cheese so I'm anxiously waiting on a grocery order to check it out.

Weekend

Mike and James went fishing for silvers after
a hard day of cutting wood.

I would say we are watching the sun go down on our three day weekend, but considering the sun hasn't shown its face this weekend, I'm not sure it would be an appropriate metaphor.  We had a half a day of clouds with two and a half days of rain, rain, and more rain!  We had hopes of going to Dogfish, hiking to Port Graham, and possibly going halibut fishing this weekend and took the weather to indicate two things.  First, we should be big lazy bums with our three day weekend, and second, we didn't need to tempt ourselves to shoot a bear too early by going to Dogfish.  While anxious to get some meat in the freezer and a rug on the wall, we know we should wait until the salmon have finished running and the bears have had time to cleanse their systems of fish.  Apparently "You are what you eat" is quite true with bears eating fish as it makes their meat considerably less than tasty.

Mike and James have been checking their game cameras regularly to check out the bears in the area.  There has been a lot of bear sign in the woods, but positioning the cameras to catch the bears on film has proven difficult.  The other day the "bears" they caught on camera were furless, pinkish in color, and walked on two legs.  Some of the kids from school were determined to find where the cameras were and spent the better part of an afternoon searching for them, making up the larger part of the pictures taken in the process.

Chinese Take-out

Tonight we visited with Browning's new grandparents, James and Carol and ate Chinese take-out . . . in the village!  You can call in the order to the restaurant in Homer (the town we fly in and out from), they make the order, deliver it to the airport, and the pilots bring the food over with their regular flight for a small fee.  Chinese delivery to the village made easy!  We can't get that in Doniphan.  We can also get Pizza delivered to the village the very same way.  McDonald's and Starbucks will put your order in a taxi and send it to the airport as well.  The taxi fee is, or course, an additional charge and the likelihood of the food still being incredibly hot is rather small.  However, when you are desperate for a fix to your fast food addiction, you're willing to pay the extra cost and reheating is easily accomplished.

On a school note, we have successfully finished the second week of school and all has gone well so far.  The kids are great and have quit asking questions like "You're going to be here next year?", so we're hoping they have decided we're here for a little while.  I'm guessing from their surprise at that concept they have had several teachers for only a year and do not expect differently of us.  We, however, are enjoying Nanwalek very much and feel very blessed that God placed us here.



James took these pictures at first hole.  You can see the bear catching a fish in one.