Village Updates

So I know we've left the village, but it's still a very special place that will always have a piece of my heart, as will James and Carol.  They just thought they got rid of us.  We may not be there anymore, but we'll definately be chatting.  I got to visit with her on the phone and hear how everything is going in the village.  They've had some warm weather, so much so that it was comfortable outside without a jacket (and my brain fried by temperatures above 100 is thinking "What was I thinking?").  Summer solstice was last week so the longest day of the year has come and gone and she said you can tell the days are getting shorter.  Since it never gets dark right now, I'm not sure how exactly one goes about figuring that, but she says you can.  The red salmon usually start running in late May and we were told they had seen some in First Hole shortly after we left the village.  This year, however, they aren't coming upstream in large enough numbers so Fish & Game has shut down all fishing in the village.  Everyone is hoping that the salmon are being slow because the water is considerably colder than it usually is at this time of year and that they'll start coming in later.  If not, those who decided to be the early birds and have already cleaned out their freezers of last year's fish, might wish they had procrastinated a little more.  This year the early bird may go hungry - or at least not eat much fish.

Sunny's Corner

Hi!  This is Sunny and I finally convinced mommy and daddy to let me write and share my story.  Last summer we all moved to Alaska and have had a lot of fun this past year.  There was much to do in the village and I kept myself very busy despite my family's interference.  I tried to visit the neighbors downstairs several times, but had to be very sneaky to even get out the apartment door.  I also tried to explore the village and introduce myself to everyone but mommy always got me at the outside door and would never let me get any further - how very unfriendly!  She kept fussing about the dogs in the village.  I guess she was afraid they might kidnap me and take me home to their houses.  In all the time I spent sunning in the windows I never saw any other kitties, so I bet critters of the feline persuasion and pretty valuable in the village.  I was allowed to venture out onto the deck and enjoy the outdoors from there, but it's very hard to stalk and catch a bird in such a small space with no cover - for the record they have some very large birds that looked very tasty, but I'll never know as my hunting grounds were so unfairly limited.  I did discover the village has some very tasty fish!  I have become a connoisseur of fish preferring my salmon raw and at room temperature and expecting it on demand.  Halibut, though, is not so tasty which is a pity considering their huge size.  While my parents wouldn't let me go visit the neighbors, I did have one neighbor who would come to the house just to see me.  Miss Carol would keep me company when my family was gone, play with me, brings me presents.  She loves me very much and just might be my very best friend.

Now it's summer, though, and it was time to head back to Missouri.  I must confess I think my family had this a little backwards going to Alaska for the winter and returning to Missouri for the summer.  Kitties get cold very easily and require sunbeams for proper napping and those are in very short supply in Alaskan winters.  At least I got to ride in first class on the way home.  Well, it was coach for people, but until the people at the airlines learn to appreciate and recognize pets as the members of the family that they are, coach for people is first class for critters.  Otherwise you're stuck between some smelly, slobbery dog and someone's luggage full of stinky shoes and dirty laundry in the cargo area.  So I rode home in class and have been working diligently to get everything at home situated and comfortable, but there is one major problem . . . I am going bald!!  Ever since I've gotten home my hair is falling out everywhere.  Mommy insists I'm just shedding, but I don't think she is taking this problem nearly as seriously as she should.  She is also not providing me salmon on demand any more . . . I may need to find the number for the humane society to report neglect . . . and learn how to dial the phone with my nose.

Trip Pictures

Caribou - Her rack has seen better days, but she's still a cutie

This time we were on the death side of the Lake of Death

The Lake of Death's view from the truck - eek!!

 Baby elk

Stone Sheep

Home!!

We are home!!  It only took 11 days to get here, but we're here.  We had to make a pit stop in Salt Lake City for a couple days to attend my dad's wedding.  I suppose everything in the universe must balance out eventually, so our relatively snag free trip seems to have been made up for in their wedding plans.  When we arrived in Salt Lake City on Tuesday we expected to attend their wedding on Saturday.  They had made arrangements to have the ceremony at a friend's house and had every detail figured out and in the works except one . . . a preacher.  Wendy spent most of the next two days calling trying to find someone who could officiate the ceremony, but none were able to.  Thursday she called the courthouse to see about getting married by a justice of the peace, but all of their appointments were booked already.  Fortunately, the nice lady on the phone did say they could do a walk in ceremony that would be held in the hallway outside the office that issues the marriage licenses (which, interestingly, also happens to be across the hall from the bathrooms) so Friday Mike and I went to be witnesses to their marriage.  They still had the party on Saturday and did a little commitment ceremony so the rest of the family could witness their union so, despite the stress, all ended well.

We packed some of Wendy's things in our trailer and were on the road for home Sunday morning.  This time we had three drivers to share the load which proved very helpful  given it's a very long trip to make in two days.  I would say all went well, but no one thought to mention that this road had it's own cliffs of death that I, of course, was so lucky to be driving through.  Okay, so they had guard rails, but how much security can those things really offer?  I want five foot concrete walls.

Despite the death traps along the way, we were able to arrive safely and will be posting pictures very soon.

Back in the U.S.A.

We are back in the lower 48 and finally have internet access.  While we've had a couple minor snags, the trip has gone very well so far and we've had no major complications.  Camping in the trailer has been lots of fun and I must admit that I'll miss it a little as I sleep in a hotel room, but I very much enjoyed the shower.  The critters have been on the move and I will be posting pictures when I have my camera and computer in the same place and also have internet access.  We've seen a very large rabbit, moose, caribou, swans (one was nesting - so cool!), stone sheep, geese, what was either a goat or a sheep but was too far to be able to tell the difference, white tail deer, mule deer, antelope, and 1 suicidal but unsuccessful squirrel.  I wasn't able to get to the internet each day, but did make an entry for each day and posted them tonight.  The post dates won't match the entries, but I titled them according to the day to avoid any confusion.

Monday

This morning I could definitely feel one effect of living in Alaska for the past year.  Having seen so little sunshine, I very much enjoyed cooking breakfast on the tailgate of the truck in those yellow rays of happiness.  That said, it took about five minutes of that happiness to decide that, at 63 degrees, I was going to have to change into shorts before were were on our way.  I also decided two days in a row of dry shampoo was more than my scalp really cared for.  Since living in a fly-in village encourages hoarding, I had lots of empty orange juice bottles that I had filled with water for the trip but didn't think to bring a tub of any kind to hold that water so that I could wash anything.  I did have a shoebox and a trash bag and they worked just as well.

With only three hours of sleep Friday, I slept a good portion of the first day and I guess I slept through most of the scary places I remember from last summer.  We are no longer on the ALCAN and I've not seen half of the places that encourage getting one's heart right with Jesus.  While the roads are rough and filled with death traps, distances between any sign of human kind are vast, and prices are high (we paid $8 a gallon for fuel - I don't know what fuel prices are like back home, but we won't be complaining) there are some things about it I'll miss.  Miles without man also means miles of untouched and unmessed with nature to enjoy.  The roads may be rougher and only have two lanes, but they also have less traffic.  You can go for many many miles before seeing another vehicle.  Living in the village has made me an impatient driver and I'm missing not having to wait on other cars to do what I want and not getting stuck behind the world's slowest drivers.  Mostly, though, I'm missing the road stops.  They are pretty frequently found along the ALCAN and all come fully equipped with trash bins and bathrooms.  Now they come much less frequently and rarely seem to have a bathroom.  This is very high on the priority list when sleeping in a trailer on the side of the road.  It's interesting how one's circumstances can change what's important.  Happiness is having my honey beside me (that never changes), a place to do my business that does not involve bushes, and a shoe box to shampoo my head in.

Sunday

We spent our first night in the trailer last night and all went relatively well.  We had to rearrange the tubs a little to make room for the mattress which required a littler coercion, but it all worked out.  We found a nice little rest area with a bathroom (no business in the bushes - yay!) in a beautiful valley next to an icy lake that quite possibly may be the windiest location in North America.  Several times in the night I woke up wondering if the wind was going to tear the trailer apart and leave us lying on our happy little air mattress looking up at the stars.  Despite the powerful winds and gradual sliding to one side of the mattress due to the unlevel ground of the rest area, we slept well and were fully rested come morning.  A baby wipe bath, dry shampoo, and quick bite to eat and we were on our way.

Much of the road on this portion of the ALCAN interfered with making impressive time.  The permafrost under the road melts and refreezes (making me think we should change the name to something like flexifrost) creating frost heaves that give the road a bit of a roller coaster feel at times.  There are also multiple sections of the road unpaved as construction workers repair the damage of harsh winters.  The places that have good pavement and few frost heaves are usually too curvy to go very fast, but that also seems to be where all the good critter spotting is so we're not complaining.  We're in no hurry anyway.

Saturday

We survived the cliff of death today.  Since we were on the death side of the steep cliff with soft shoulders and no guard rails I had talked of being in the back seat behind Mike with my seat belt off and the door unlocked in case I needed to bail out quickly.  I am proud to say, however, I made it through the entire grueling 1.7 miles of terror without having the door unlocked.  I was still in the back seat behind Mike with the seat belt off and ducked down so I couldn't see the impending doom while having a very serious talk with Jesus so I'm not sure how much of a victory over fear that was.

We also made it through the border without any problems.  We had our firearms paperwork in order and an itemized list in triplicate of our things in the trailer so we were ready to go.  I was definitely sure, though, that the wrong person was in the driver's seat when customs started asking questions.  "What kind of bow do you have?"  The answer in my brain: "The kind you shoot animals with."  I decided it was better to appear stupid than remove all doubt and relayed the questions to Mike.  Upon hearing Mike's response to "How many rounds of ammo do you have?"  (I again kept my response of "A whole bunch" silent) I am beginning to think my husband's addiction to firearms may be reaching the point of needing intervention.  If the United States is ever attacked, the U.S. military just may be coming to our house for supplies.

Heading Out

We left the village yesterday and, much like the trip up here, it has already been filled with the unexpected.  We were scheduled for the 3:30 flights out, but were afraid all of our luggage wouldn't fit so we took some down at noon to get on the return flight of the mail run.  The pilot warned us a weather front was moving in quickly and that one of us should get on his flight and the rest of us should get on the return flight of Port Graham's mail run because they didn't figure there would be any more flights.  We hurried through our check out list, said our goodbyes to some of the best people we'll ever know (and I'm not just saying that because they took care of the final details of check out for us - I say it because it's true), and headed out a little earlier than expected.

Mom and I took off to the airport at 3:00 this morning to be sure we would be there when the ticket counter opened at 4:00 so we could get Little Miss Sunshine and two of Mike's firearms checked without any problems for mom's 6:00 flight (after the mess with Canada last summer we decided restricted weapons was more hassle than it was worth).  I remember last summer saying it was easier to get firearms on a plane than through Canada.  After this morning I now know it is also easier than getting a kitty on a plane.  No one batted an eye at an assault rifle, but the kitty took an hour - and an additional $200 - to get straightened out.  By now she and my mom should both be in the air on their way to Minneapolis and should be happy and home by around 10:00 tonight.  We'll wrap things up in Anchorage this morning and get on the road.  After paying $150 to $200 a night for very not nice hotel rooms we've decided we'll be camping this time around.  We'll be cooking on the roadside, sleeping in the trailer, and hopefully not doing our business in the bushes along the way.  I'm thinking this all the ingredients for a very good adventure and lots of stories.  We'll be blogging as best we can along the way, but that will all depend on easy access to wifi in the wilderness. 

Note:  Today we'll be facing lakes of death and even scarier cliffs of death so anyone who wishes to join me in some conversations with Jesus is more than welcome.

Babies, Babies, Babies!

Baby fish trap

Spring is definitely here!  The temperatures have been in the 50s and the sun is out and about ready to stay.  Everything is starting to bud out and we're seeing little baby leaves on the alders.  The blueberry bushes are blooming so hopefully we'll be seeing baby blueberries soon.  My tulips will probably be blooming around Sunday - we'll be heading back on Friday, though, and will miss it.  We thought we saw a couple eagles fighting and I was disappointed that I didn't have my camera to check the action.  A few days later someone explained what they were really doing and I'm not glad I did not photograph that action.  Fish and Game have fish traps up in the creek catching all of the baby salmon coming down stream so they can count them and get an idea on how many should be returning to spawn in a few years.  Baby leaves, baby eagles in the making, baby fish - apparently everything is drinking from the holy water.  At this rate, I think I'll avoid walking by the stream just in case any might splash on me.

Blueberry blooms

Moss covers everything in the forest and has to come in
at least 20 varieties

More moss

Skunk Cabbage sprouting

Magpie

The sky line at midnight - it's daylight by 4:00 in the morning now.
It won't be long until there is no darkness at night

The lagoon from the trail

School Pictures

Melted crayon art

Tetrahedrons!

Hanging out in the classroom

On the playground

Today the school held its end of the year awards assembly and, as always, our community had very good attendance.  I would have appreciated their interest and support a little more had I had the time to remember to change pants when I was home for lunch.  As it was I hurried through lunch and did not get my pants changed so I got to present the awards for the middle school and high school wearing pants with a light coat of mud from the dump.  The village works hard to keep the dump clean and neat, but our windy days encourage some of the garbage to stray away from home in search of new residences.  Thus, at the beginning of each summer, the borough has the area surrounding the dump cleaned and this year the students were able to do it to raise funds for the athletic programs.  Since Mike has been sick and absent all week, I got to help chaperon the kids with the basketball coach and had muddy pants to prove it.  Fortunately I did remember to grab my shoes on my way out the door so I wasn't wearing yucky mud boots for the awards assembly.

I always enjoy the awards assemblies, mostly to watch the members of the community and the kids.  With everyone in the village being related, the community is very close knit.  On top of blood relation, everyone also has godparents who take their responsibilities very seriously so people not closely related by blood spend a lot of time together and are very close.  It's nice to watch the community members interact and listen to all of the parents applaud and cheer for all of the students when they receive their awards.

Eclipse

We were very thankful the weather proved cooperative this week while Tonya and Anita were here, but I'm beginning to wonder if they brought the sunshine.  Now that they're gone we've had nothing but clouds, fog, and rain.  My mom made it in yesterday morning and she spent much of the day recovering from her trip and we relaxed indoors as being outside would only mean dampness.  We had hoped to take mom adventuring today despite the cold and damp, but Mike is feeling under the weather (sorry - I couldn't resist) so we again stayed indoors.  I had completely forgotten the eclipse when mom mentioned so we peeked out the window, expecting very little given we had no clue when the eclipse was supposed to happen and clouds covered the sky.  Fortunately for us, the cloud layer was just thin enough over the sun and our timing was just right that we were at the very beginning of the moon's journey in front of the moon.  We snapped a few pictures despite all the warnings, but the clouds came and covered it up again.  We waited patiently and eventually the sun and moon again peeked from behind the clouds to show we had missed the "Ring of Fire" part of the eclipse and the moon was now moving past the sun.  Since I very nearly missed the entire thing altogether, though, I won't be too fussy and am very happy with my pictures - and hoping I won't suffer any permanent eye damage.

Culture Differences

Alaska really is an entirely different world from the rest of the United States.  I had always thought back woods was back woods and there would be little variation, but that is not the case here.  I've mentioned before how it sometimes feels more sophisticated than what I'm accustomed too, but it's also much more laid back.  It is, if nothing else, a culture driven by practicality, something I can appreciate very much. Back home camping is an adventure (and an activity I enjoy very much), but here camping is more a necessity. Everything is so remote and roads are so few that it's the only option if you want to get out and explore. It's not the adventure, but simply a means to the adventure.  I see the same approach in attire as well.  I doubt there are many, if any, women in Alaska who choose looks over function and comfort when it comes to shoes.  During the fall and winter, everyone wears mudboots.  They're not cute, but fancy shoes won't be either after one trip anyway, so why bother.  I'm not saying that people don't make an effort to look nice, because they do.  They just have a much simpler, less prissy version of nice.  I've met very few people who would consider putting the time into primping in the morning that I know is standard for many back home (and am relatively certain you will not find a male who owns or uses a hair straightener or curling iron - that would be simply ridiculous).  Adventures are waiting and they have more important things to spend their time on than simply being seen by others.  Life here is more about who you are and what you do with your time than how you look while doing it - another trait I appreciate very much.

The focus seems much less on impressing others and much more on contenting one's self.  I often felt back home a secret motivation to many decisions was more about the opinion of others than anything else.  Perhaps I'm misinterpreting, but I feel a lot of people often don't do some things, not because they don't like it or don't want to, but because they fear they'll look silly because no one else does it that way.  Here that is not the case.  If someone thinks it's pretty and wants to decorate their kitchen with Christmas lights all year round, they do it and love it (it really is quite pretty).  They find so much more beauty in what they can create from ordinary things than people in other places seem to.  Rather than looking for hours or days or years for that perfect item they can purchase, they just make something with what they have and make it work.  This approach makes it feel far more personal and I find it more beautiful than the fancier things one can buy.  I'm sure much of this comes from the fact it's much easier here to create than purchase while back home the opposite is true, but I still appreciate the simplicity.

Same Conversation . . . Almost

"Please, God, don't let my friends die today."  This was my conversation with Jesus as Tonya and Anita took off the runway today.  We had such a good time we hated for it to end!  We went up the trails and visited the lakes, hunted for sea glass and enjoyed a baby bonfire on the beach last night, and James took them out on the ocean today.  We had hoped to get a chance to go halibut fishing, but the weather didn't seem to know what it wanted to do and being stuck on the open ocean in skiff during a storm was not something any of us wanted to add to our list of adventures.  We did, however, have time to snack on a traditional native Alaskan dish, akutaq.  This is often called Eskimo ice cream and I just happened to have a recipe because Anita made me up a cook book before we came that was filled with recipes for Alaska (one that still makes me giggle is "Tasty Beaver Meat").  Traditionally agutaq is made with animal fat that is whipped up until it's fluffy and berries and seal oil is added over it and often includes fish.  We used Crisco, left out the fish (mostly because I forgot about it and didn't have any thawed out), and refused to include seal oil.  I must admit it was actually kind of good.  It tasted a lot like icing, which makes sense when you think about the ingredients.  People in the village have their own version of agutak, which they do not refer to as Eskimo ice cream.  It has a mashed potato base instead of fat, and includes fermented fish eggs and seal oil.  I'm not sure what all else gets put in it because I knew I wasn't interested in it after hearing about the eggs and oil.  I'm usually willing to try anything once, but haven't been knocking on any doors for this dish.  Anita and Tonya both tried the "Eskimo ice cream version" with me and agreed it wasn't bad, but we were not able to convince Mike to give it a try - he has no sense of culinary adventure.  Hopefully they enjoyed the trip as much as we enjoyed having them and hope they enjoy their trip back.  Now I'm praying they miss all the troopers and have moose catchers who don't drive too slowly.

Visiters

We've been anxiously waiting for our friends, Tonya and Anita, to make it to the village to visit us and I think some of our friends were as anxious as we were.  Each time we went into the office yesterday afternoon Carol gave us the countdown to their arrival.  I enter the office: "You've got one hour and twenty minutes until they get here!" (spoken with a grin that would compete with any child waiting for their birthday party).  Mike enters the office:  "Aren't you excited?!  You've got one hour and eighteen minutes until they're here!"  Everyone at Smokey Bay Air could tell we were anxious as well by the multiple phone calls checking to see if they had arrived yet.  Their trip here, like all related to Alaska, sounded to be an adventure in itself.  They experienced a near miss with a deer and almost got run off the road on their way to catch their first plane.  But they made it there in one piece, survived their several flights (and the temporary loss of hearing that came with the flights), managed to avoid any run-ins with moose on the road from Anchorage, and had an excellent flight in the small plane from Homer despite the high winds - once they got to the right airport.  They'll only be here for a few days so Mike and I took the day off to enjoy our time together and are very much looking forward to it!

Weather Confusion

I'm not sure which is more confused, me or the weather, but one of us definitely doesn't know what's going on.  The weather seems as indecisive as I am trying to decide which picture of Baby Gabe is the cutest (no simple feat when looking at the cutest and sweetest baby ever).  One thing is for sure, if you aren't happy with the weather conditions, just wait a while.  They are bound to change.  Today started with what I've been told was heavy snow (I wouldn't know from personal experience as I slept in this morning).  This was followed by lots of rain which took a break just long enough for us to think it was safe to go bail the water out of James's boat for his Name's Day.  We hadn't made it back to the house from that escapade before it started raining again and within a few minutes of being inside it was again snowing heavily.  After a few more spells of the weather fluctuating from rain to nothing, we ended the day with blue skies and sunshine.  Given that it is now the middle of May, I would have thought the snow would be over and spring would be in full swing.  Swallows have traditionally been the official announcers to the end of winter in the village.  When the elders were young, they were not allowed to take any "toys" outside until the swallows came.  (I use the word toy here a bit loosely because they really had very few toys growing up.  Many of the women played with rocks for dolls as little girls).  Once the swallows were here winter was officially over and it was believed that taking your toys out before they arrived would prolong the winter.  The swallows are here, and flying around ever so cutely among the falling snowflakes.  I wonder if they're as confused as I am.

Bear

Today Mike got a bear!!!  We've been waiting quite impatiently for the last couple months for them to finally wake up and start adventuring out, but they've all taken their precious, sweet time.  Yesterday at our Sea Week community pot luck, one of the parents approached Mike to let him know how much his work in the classroom was appreciated and offered to take him by boat around the corner and beyond Port Graham, our neighboring village.  There's a little area back there where the bears are known to frequent and he was pretty certain Mike would be able to find one and bring it home.  The original plan was to head out tomorrow morning, but the weather forecast changed their minds so Mike was boating out of the lagoon at 6:00am today in search of our elusive little critters.  I swallowed my pride and respected the local tradition that does not allow women to hunt and stayed warm, cozy, and asleep in my bed.

 The bears are finally waking up and venturing out so Mike was able to see three and one finally gave him an opportunity to shoot it.  Mike had been a little nervous when he realized we had barged all of our extra ammunition already and he was only left with 5 shells for that gun, but I knew he was a good shot and would have no problem taking it down with one so that wasn't a problem (He did shoot an extra time just for good measure, though.  It's better to use an extra bullet and lose some meat than face an injured and angry bear.)  They brought the bear back and we spent the afternoon skinning, gutting, and quartering it up with the help of James's and Carol's son, Christopher.  We'll let the meat soak in ice water overnight before finishing the processing.  There are several traditions surrounding hunting (besides no girls allowed) the community observes which we will be trying to follow.  Whenever members of the community kill anything, their first must be divided up and given to the elders.  The hunter won't actually keep anything from his first animal.  Since we aren't residents until we've lived here a full year, we only get one bear so no one will expect us to observe that tradition.  A portion of each kill after the first is given to the first chief, which we intend to do.  They also return the remains of the animal to the location where it is shot, remove the head, and face it to the east.  I'm not sure about the details on this tradition, but it has something to do with the spirit of the animal.  We'll return the carcass, but the head is a very necessary part of the rug we will be hanging on our living room wall so it will have to stay behind.  Hopefully that won't interfere with the bear's spirit returning to it's home, but he'll have some deer friends on the opposite wall to visit with if it does.

End of Sea Week

Sea Week officially ended today.  Yesterday we picked up trash around the village to help clean up the community.  One of the elders in the village killed a sea lion for the students to do a biomass study on so part of class was on the beach - I could get used to that.  Today ended with the kids giving presentations to the community and a pot luck.  Our class prepared mussels we picked from the end of the runway this morning and peroskies (like fried pies, but with fish and rice instead of fruit).  That was a bit of an adventure as I've never worked with sticky rice and no one here seems to know how to cook rice without a special rice steamer pot.  It's a bit fun to see the shock on their faces when they find out that we do not have one of those fancy little contraptions.  I had to remind them that we do not eat rice with nearly every meal, but instead eat potatoes like any good Southerner. 

Summer is well on its way with the sun rising at 5:30 and setting at 10:30 giving us nearly 19 hours of visible light.  With the temperatures only in the 40s, though, I'm still waiting for some warmth to come with the sunshine.  Our kitty is trying to enjoy the sunshine by venturing out onto the porch, but the crows keep chasing her back inside.  Sometimes I wonder if I own the only cat in the world who is apparently afraid of birds.

Seaweed Stinks!

Places like this are very slippery!

Today's focus for Sea Week was seaweed, something I knew very little about going into lesson planning.  I knew some of it was edible because I've eaten some in a soup once and enjoyed it very much, but apparently it's pretty much all edible.  Some is dried and crumbled to use as a seasoning, some is fried up, some can even be pickled like cucumbers.  Our kids went out on the reef this morning (I'll attach pictures to the post later) to gather all the different types of seaweed we could find and brought it all back into the classroom.  They then had to identify each type of kelp and get samples for slides to examine through the microscopes - tons of fun for a nerd like me!

Miss Ann gathered a large amount of a couple different types and cleaned them up with the 3-5 class to cook and share (they also cooked up some snails, but I did not sample).  I must admit the seaweed they sauted up in butter was quite tasty, but what isn't yummy when cooked in butter?  I learned something else - seaweed is also quite stinky!  I remember Misti Redus looking at a picture of the village and saying "I hope you get pregnant with triplets," and can't help but think this would be the worst place in the world to have an extreme sensitivity to odors.  The school is frequently filled with the smell of some sort of fish, seaweed, other tiny sea critters, or seal (a smell which almost makes me toss my cookies without any extra food sensitivities, I know everyone here loves it, but I can't get past the smell).  Then we'll take the kids to elder's tea where they always have lots of local tasty tidbits like muqtuq (if I spelled that correctly), also known as whale blubber, more seal or seal oil to pour over everything should the seal be absent from the party, and all other sorts of strong smelling sea sensations.  I'm sure the community potlock that will close out Sea Week will also be filled with many familiar smells as well.

Black Kelp

Sea Squirts - there's a picture of one of the kids squeezing
these appropriately named pieces of fun

So I forgot what these are called, but the ones that look like
this are pretty tasty, eventually the ends get bigger and
fill up with water

Ribbon Kelp

Sea Lettuce (the green stuff) - very pretty and very strong
flavor, they dry it and use it as a seasoning

A piece of the base of bull kelp - these are supposed to be
good pickled

Sea pen

New lesson learned: It can (and apparently will) snow in the village as late as May 9th.  Tonya and Anita may need to bring their snowshoes next week.

Back to the Reef

Today we headed back out to the reef to adventure, but this time we got to go as part of our work day.  This week is sea week so each day our classes are centering our lesson plans around the local environment and culture.  Today we examined the different types of life that can be found in the different tidal zones, tomorrow we'll have a scavenger hunt to see who can find the most organisms and will be doing some studies on those various little critters.  This week is especially good for these studies because the water level at low tide is 5 feet below sea level right now.  There are only a few days a month the tide gets below sea level so sea week has to be scheduled around that.  Being that we're experiencing especially low tides, we enjoyed the company of several other members of the village who were gathering some tasty tidbits (and of course a few of their canine friends since everyone has a dog here).  With Mike and I and 14 students looking for critters, we were able to see a lot more cool stuff than we did when we went out on our own last summer.

One of the 3-5 students pulling on a section of bull kelp,
about half of its length shows up in the picture

Ordinarily we would have a about 30 students, but we're missing several of our high schoolers.  The school district hosts a vocational academy for 2 weeks in a neighboring fly-in town which enables the students to get a semester's worth of credit in a vocational class so about half of our students were gone to that.  Then around half of the remaining students went to Tatitlek for cultural activities.  They'll rejoin us next week so we'll have more than a couple students in class.

Sponge peeking out from under ribbon kelp - I hear ribbon
kelp is tasty, but I haven't tried it

Star fish and a little crab

This lovely little lady is related to the bidarkis everyone
loves to eat, but is much more colorful.  I think it's
called a lady's slipper, but I'm not sure.

Baby octopus - he should be glad he's little because we
saw two big ones going home with someone to be supper

A pink sea anenome peeking out from a rock

The kids take some part off of the seaweek that's full of water
and squeeze them so the water squirts everywhere - fun!

Baby eel

Very pretty snail - you don't see a lot of these around here

I don't think I'll ever get tired of looking at Bede

Yesterday may have been the first time I did not begin a flight with "Please God, don't let me die today."  I realized as we began our ascent that I didn't have that quick moment of panic I usually have on take-off and didn't begin my flight the usual way.  I immediately thought of the blog and my many comments about my conversations with Jesus and knew I would be posting this new step in my life.  That thought, of course, made me immediately nervous (perhaps there is a little superstition in me) so I ended up having the usual plea for a safe trip less than 60 seconds after take-off, but I suppose that's an improvement.  It's only taken me around 10 months and countless flights to get to a point where I do not immediately begin the flight with that plea.

We've been enjoying much warmer weather lately, but winter insisted on reminding us that it is slow to leave this place and greeted us with some snow yesterday morning.  It ended quickly and would have been missed entirely had we slept in late, but it's still crazy to me that it's May and it can still spit snow at us.  We still have spots of snow on the ground in the village and the  mountains are still covered, but the trail to the lakes is beginning to clear up.  I had assumed the snow would all be melted by the time school got out - it will be the end of May for goodness sake - but now I'm beginning to wonder.