Volcanoes

Augustine spitting out steam as usual

About 80% of all active volcanoes in the United States are in Alaska, so naturally we have a few close by here in the village.  Three are ever visible across the inlet: Augustine, Iliamna, and Redoubt.  Along the Southern edge of the horizon lies Augustine.  It is probably the least impressive to look at but it finds ways to make up for its humble appearance.  It seems that at least half of the days we can see Augustine, a trail of smoke rising from its peak also makes itself visible.  No one seems to notice, so we're assuming (and hoping) this is normal.  In 1986 it had a very large eruption that spewed ash as far as Anchoarage - a little over 300 miles - and wreaked havoc on flights, but hasn't seemed too aggressive since.

As you follow the shore north, Iliamna is the next volcano and it is very impressive to look at.  As the morning sun hits it (or should I say used to hit it considering our current daylight hours), the snow which covers this mountain year round glows a soft pink.  I, of course, always see this from the window at school when I do not have my camera handy so I have yet to capture it on digital film.  It has an impressive elevation of 10,000 feet and also spews a little bit of smoke regularly.  It's not had any major eruptions in recorded history, but I have mixed feelings about that information.  I cannot decide if that means it is unlikely to erupt any time soon, or that it has had a very long time to build up pressure and is waiting for an excuse to make its voice heard.

Keep traveling north, and you'll end with Redoubt.  He's as impressive as his southern neighbor, but has a much more exciting history.  It spewed ash an enthusiastic 45,000 feet in the air in 1989 and decided to relive its glory days a little over 2 years ago.  Redoubt has been relatively quiet since and I'm hoping it is still recovering from that adventure and hasn't gathered enough energy to to play just quite yet.  I'm thinking I'll be having some serious conversations with Jesus about more than just plane rides.

Thanksgiving

Fish rice

Our last night of Thanksgiving break is nearly over, drawing a close to that holiday and a small pause to our gluttony.  We've had several opportunities to eat more than we should beginning with the community meal the school hosted Wednesday.  They served the traditional American Thanksgiving foods as well as some traditional Alaskan dishes such as fish pie and fish rice (the rice has seaweed, fish eggs, dried and smoke salmon, onions, and cooked salmon).  We had a few members of the school staff to our house for more food Thursday and thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to relax and visit.  The 3-5 grade teacher invited us to his house last night for some Mexican food so we again stuffed ourselves.  He's from Mexico so it was pretty hard to resist and we had another enjoyable evening.  The village store also gave us a food basket with a 20lb turkey and tons of fruit so we'll have more opportunities to eat.  We also spent time with James and Carol playing cards (I totally beat Mike in Phase 10) and Mike helped them cut wood today.  They got to use the wench several times as the deep snow caused problems and the ice across the creek broke under one of the 4 wheelers.  While the 4 wheeler is embarrassed, no one was hurt so all is well.

We've had never ending snow for over a week now.  I'm reminded of my dad who tells of 3 separate times it started raining and never stopped - he has some great logic to it, but I can never remember it.  We're beginning to wonder if this will be the time when it started snowing and never stopped.  We've had over 40 inches of snow according to a weather site on the internet and it's still coming down.  Being the season of giving thanks, I am reminded to be thankful that I enjoy snow because I know I would be quite unhappy right now if I didn't.  We have also thought of some other things we are thankful for.

1. Ice cleats and whoever invented them

2. Given how much of it there is, we are thankful that we like eating fish.
3. The Wright brothers for inventing the airplane - even if it does encourage conversations with Jesus
4. A shelter that always finds its way home after wondering away late at night
5. That our answer was "Yes" to the first interview question we had for these jobs: "Do you like each other?"  We get a lot of together time here and enjoy it very much.
6. A Ranger that has a wench to pull us out of deep mud holes and icy creeks
7. The Internet without which we'd have little connection to all our friends and family back home.
8. Back up generators to keep us warm during power outages.
9. We'll be thankful to the phone company when they get our phone lines fixed - but they didn't get it done in time to make the Thanksgiving list.  Maybe by American Christmas.


And last, but certainly not least:
10. We are thankful that God provided us with such wonderful friends in the village.  We are truly blessed to know such great people and have the opportunity to spend time with them.  We have much to be thankful for, but great friends make the inconveniences sometimes experienced living in the Alaskan bush much less painful.

Getting Prescriptions in the Village





Sunny exploring the great white
mystery that is constantly
landing on her porch.

There is no pharmacy in the village so getting medicine can be a little tricky sometimes.  If we are out of the village when it's close to refill time, then we can simply call ahead and our prescription will be waiting for us to pick up at the pharmacy.  Since we are not always able to schedule a trip around refills we depend on the couple pharmacies that will fill prescriptions and let someone from the airport pick it up for us.  The pilots will then bring it over on their regular flights at no extra charge - something that is very much appreciated.  This seemingly simple process can become quite complicated at times.  The "airport" in the village is a simple shed with no attendant - or door for that matter - so one must meet the pilots on the runway to pick up the prescription.  If no one is there the pilots cannot, for obvious reasons, leave prescription medication at the airport so they take it back to Homer and try again later.  Of course they call before they bring it over, but scheduling is sometimes difficult since we do not leave school until 4:00 and the last flight lands at 4:30.  This doesn't leave much wiggle room for bad weather days when flights are few.  This got even more complicated for us this week because our phone has been out for two weeks so we didn't have the luxury of a phone call.  Luckily our good friends, who do not live in the teeny tiny portion of town still out of phone service, let us use their phone number.  Thus we did not spend the last two days waiting on the runway in a snowstorm just in case a flight made it over only to find out the prescription was coming on another flight. 

Thanksgiving Pie = Fish

Mike making fish pie

I am discovering some advantages to being the entire middle school and high school this week.  Since we teach the core subjects and there are no other teachers, the students do not have certain classes like art and music.  This means I have a legitimate excuse to occasionally sneak an art activity into the lesson plans when it works out well.  The school hosts a community dinner on Wednesday for Thanksgiving and much of our class time this week has been given to its preparation.  Monday the high school students made fruit pie and today Mike got a chance to accomplish two things, a homework assignment for our culture class and help with preparations, by making fish pie.  It's made much like any other pie, but is filled layers rice, butter, fish, mayaonaisse, and onions instead of the fruit filling we're accustomed to.  We tried some when we first arrived in the village and I must admit it's pretty tasty.  All of the staff members are also responsible for cooking a turkey to serve, so we've spent much of evening preparing ours.  Tomorrow morning we'll be preparing foods such as mashed potatoes that need to be cooked the day of and decorating so we can eat somewhere around 12:30.  Time is a little less specific in the village sometimes, so we'll see when food actually gets served.

We've also had much more snow!!  I'm thinking we're at least halfway to the 20 inches of annual snowfall that is average for Nanwalek, so we're either in for an unusual year or January, February, and March are very dry months.  The heavy snowfall combined with persistent high winds have led to some very impressive snow drifts.  We had to wade through knee deep snow to get out of the school building this afternoon.  Sunny, being the big fat chicken of a cat that she is, has very little experience with snow and was quite curious today, but faced some difficulties.  As she stood in the slightly open doorway (to our upstairs deck where she cannot be eaten by a dog or the wolf that's been perusing the village this week) she  wanted to go outside, but the wind kept blowing snow in on her face.  By the time she built up enough courage to venture beyond the door, she was busy shaking the snow off and then had to again build her courage back up.  She never did make it past the doorway so she still has little experience with snow.  We'll try again another time.

Still Talking to Jesus

The weather cleared up enough to allow me to make it back home yesterday and I am very much enjoying being home with my honey and my kitty purrs.  I'm not sure if I noticed the bumps less on Tuesday because I was expecting them or noticed them more yesterday because I wasn't expecting them, but I'm pretty sure the flight back in "good" weather was a little rougher than the flight out in bad weather.  And, as usual, we had to stop off in one of the towns along the way before getting home.  Considering take offs and landings are where most small plane accidents occur around here, I find all of the extra landings and take-offs that seem to always happen on my flights a little disconcerting.  So as we're heading for the runway in Seldovia, already tilting at a pretty good angle to make the turn, a nice little gust of wind caught the plane increasing that already uncomfortable angle.  At this point I remember continuing my usual ongoing conversation, "Jesus, you can't let me survive a flight in terrible weather only to kill me off in a flight during good weather.  That just doesn't seem right at all."



The picture's not the greatest in quality, but you can
see how high the sun gets.  It's noon and barely over
the top of the mountain.



Fortunately, I survived the flight and was able to return with all my goodies for Thanksgiving in tow.  I also learned an 18 gallon tub will hold much more than one would initially think.  I had two turkeys, 6 packages of cream cheese, a gallon of peanut oil (to supplement the larger 3 gallon container of peanut oil I did not put in the tub - you would think since it usually takes 4 gallons to fry a turkey, they would sell it in that size, but they do not), 2 pounds of cheese, a couple large containers of seasoning, a box of stuffing mix (sorry, but I hate stuffing so Stove Top's the closest I come to making it), a jar of cherries, a couple cans of evaporated milk, a turkey injector, 3 pounds of apples, a couple bags of walnuts and coconut, a couple boxes of tea, 2 Big Macs, 2 orders of fries, and a chicken sandwich from McDonald's and still had some room to spare.  And thanks to those Big Macs and fries, I am now the awesomest wife ever.

When it's springtime in Alaska . . .

Okay, so we're not in the springtime, but it definitely feels 40 below.  So I'm beginning to think the title for our blog was very appropriate.  The temperatures have been in the teens and the winds have been terrible making the wind chill below zero - I'm freezing my little tushy off!  The winds also gave me another opportunity to grow close to God as I had to fly out of the village on the last flight they would be taking due to those extreme winds.  I'm sure God had a sense of humor or I wouldn't find myself in these strange predicaments and I'm certain He gets a good laugh out of our conversations on those excruciatingly long plane rides.

The theme of our trip here - the unexpected - still seems to be hovering overhead, gently reminding us of its ever present self.  I planned to fly out at 4:30, but had to throw things together quickly and simply give up on my lesson plans for the last class because the high winds meant the last plane was leaving at 3:15.  About 45 minutes after arriving in Homer I decided to quit fighting with our truck and get a rental (for which I am thankful the district will be reimbursing).  I am also thankful I remembered the GPS as the directions "turn at the big rock" are much less useful in the dark - as it is right now until 9:00 on cloudy days.  A power outage greeted us at our assessment location.  Downed power lines close to the building encouraged us to find a new location, but it wasn't a serious delay as some of our tests arrived late.  The person who had them could not leave her house as she was surrounded by live, downed electric lines so we'll not complain about any inconveniences we suffered.  We worked in the basement of district office until noon, then moved to one of the area's high schools.  We're still waiting to find out where we'll be in the morning as electricity is back up and schools will be in session tomorrow.  Since we don't know what to expect for tomorrow, can the unexpected happen?  We may break this cycle yet.

My recent adventures have offered a few more valuable lessons:
1. High winds and dry snow make it very difficult to see the road well through headlights.

2. Roads covered with packed snow and ice are even more difficult to see any time of day.

3. When all else fails, make it up as you go.

Snow, Wind, and Furry Monsters

 For the past several months I have been living with a furry monster - and I'm not referring to a very cranky kitty.  Mike decided when we arrived that he was not going to shave his beard or cut his hair until we came home for Christmas in January.  As time progressed he looked less and less like the military man I married and more and more like a "mountain man".  Who knows, a few of the local bigfoot sightings may have been my husband on the back trails scoping out bears.  This weekend, however, he decided he could no longer stand all the scruff.  We did take some pictures before any trimming occurred so that our friends and family back home can sneak a peek at what I've been waking up to daily.



The wind has been on the assault for several days now.  I had mentioned previously that I was nervous about getting my groceries and am happy to say that they arrived safely on the only flight that came into the village on Thursday.  Friday also saw only one flight into the village as the wind speeds did nothing but increase.  Friday's winds brought more snow to the village so we've probably had a total of a foot in the last two weeks, something I'm enjoying very much.  The power outage that began Saturday morning, however, I am enjoying a bit less.  And since the winds are so strong no planes are coming into the village so no one can get here to fix the downed lines to get the electricity back on.  We do have a back-up generator, so things could be worse.  It powers most of the lights, the fridge, heater, microwave, freezer, and a couple plug-ins so we're not freezing or hanging out by candle light.  We are, however, trying to figure out what exactly we can cook with a microwave, crock pot, and waffle iron.  Considering all I've ever used the microwave for is reheating left-overs or heating water for hot chocolate that has been quite challenging.



On another note, I'm beginning to wonder if our shelter "garage" isn't happy to be a part of our family.  After getting it out of the creek a few weeks ago, we attached 4 pecker poles to the bottom frame, staked the frame to the ground, and lined the pecker poles with more stakes to keep it in place.  Last night it attempted to run away from home yet again.  So at 1:00 in the morning we're in the dark on snow and ice trying to fight the wind to get it back in place and tie it to the Ranger to keep it from going anywhere.  I'm not sure if it feels unloved or if it's just going through a rebellious stage, but it had better get over it quickly.



Furry Monster



The beginning of a very large snowman



Shipping to the Village

Sunny sits and watches the front
loader washing machine work all
the time - I guess she finds it pretty
cool too.

Being a in a fly in only location, we try to do most of our shopping online.  It saves us some time, trouble and money . . . most of the time.  We have discovered in our stay here that shipping is not always as simple and easy as it may seem.  First, you have to find a business that is willing to ship to Alaska.  This is much harder to do than I had expected and it's even harder to find places that will honor their "Free Shipping" promotions.  Next, you have to get it here.  This can sometimes be even more difficult than finding a business that ships to Alaska.

The US postal service will only deliver to a PO Box in the village, but this works out very well for us.  It goes from the plane to the post office, where it is picked up and brought to the school - nice and simple.  UPS and Fedex insist on a physical address, though and will not deliver to a post office box.  While we do technically have a physical address, no one in the village actually uses them and neither business rides the plane into the village to actually deliver the package to our door.  We've tried to explain this to them both, but they will entertain no other approach.  When all goes well, UPS and Fedex deliver the packages to the airport in Homer, the planes drop them off in the shed by the airport, and we go down to pick them up.  Not as nice and simple as the post office, but it works.  Sometimes, however, UPS and Fedex use the US postal service to deliver items the last stretch of the journey.  This means when I place my order I have to give a physical address for UPS or Fedex because they accept no PO boxes.  UPS/Fedex then brings the items most of the way and drops them off at the Homer post office which only delivers to a post office box.  Thus they get a lovely stamp on them, "Return to Sender."  I had a conversation with Homer post office about this system but their reply was "It's not our problem."  I'm a little confused that the very location which refuses to deliver mail with a physical address to Nanwalek will accept payment for a service they already know they will not provide, but I suppose that's one way to keep postage rates down.

Sun, where did you go?

The end of daylight savings time brought its usual extra hour of sleep which we took advantage happily.  Unfortunately it took away the sun in the process.  Last week the sun was setting at 6:00.  Now with the time change it's setting at 5:00 and will only continue to get earlier until late December.  While it does mean the sun is also rising an hour earlier, it's really hard to notice the difference between 9:30 and 8:30 when we're already at school in classrooms with no windows.  So today I went to school in the dark and came home after the sun had set - yuck!  I guess it's going to be a long, dark winter. 

If it continues to snow regularly, I think I may survive the darkness.  We woke up to another 3 inches yesterday morning and it has decided to stick around a little bit longer than our Halloween.  It's not too hard for the snow to stay around when the high for the day is 27 degrees.  Right now our temperatures are ranging between the low 20s to upper 30s, but it wouldn't feel so terribly cold except for the terrible winds we're getting.  The planes are supposed to come in every hour, but it's hit or miss with all the wind.  Some days we get no planes at all because the winds are so bad.  I'm planning on making a grocery order Wednesday, so I guess we'll see if I actually get it.

Snow!!

Halloween morning greeted us with a blanket of snow in the village!  We woke up to about 2 inches on the ground and it continued throughout the day to finish off at around 3 inches.  Little Miss Sunshine seemed to enjoy investigating the snow from the porch and the kids at school very much enjoyed the opportunity to declare war on Mike after school.  The village doesn't get as much snow as many would expect with the average year bringing only 24 inches so we won't be needing snowshoes to get around.  Ice cleats, on the other hand, are a necessity.  The snow comes heavy and wet - perfect for snowmen and snowball fights -  and looks beautiful.  Then the sun comes out and it turns slushy only to freeze solid during the night to cover a very hilly terrain with a solid layer of ice.  Unfortunately our snow did not last long.  We were supposed to get quite a bit more on Thursday, but someone didn't get the memo so we got a whole lot of rain instead so I'm anxiously waiting for the next snow.  

Most of the snow has melted in the village
but Bede's not letting his go as easily.



Snow coming down Halloween morning
You can see how much light we have
at 7:00 in the morning - none.