Fall, Kind Of

With the rainy season comes lots of rainbows,
apparently there's not enough room for them all.

It's sort of fall now.  The weather has been warmer than usual for this time of year.  Our high for today was 51 and, while our lows have gotten into the 30s, we haven't had a frost on the ground yet.  Bede just got it's first dusting of snow Monday - I will take a picture as soon as I can catch it not hiding behind a shroud of clouds.  Six years ago, we had our first snow on the ground, not just in the mountains, by Halloween.  We only have a few days left to see if this year will follow the pattern.  The rainy season has arrived, but it was late to the party as well.  We now have more rainy days than dry ones, but it took a while for that to happen. 

Fall in Alaska is definitely different from fall in Missouri.  We don't have deciduous trees in the village to enjoy the changing of the colors, but there are some aspens and birches outside of the village that are pretty - for a two week window.  If you don't get out of the village in that window, you miss seeing the leaves change color.  There isn't as much variety in the colors that we have in Missouri, either.  On a really good year, Missouri will have bright reds and yellows, and brown leaves.  Here, all of the large plants turn yellow, with only a few little plants turning the pretty reds.  Then, they lose their leaves very quickly and now it is just wet and gray and will stay that way until May.  

But wait, there's more.  It doesn't show up well in the picture,
but there's actually a fourth rainbow coming up to make two
V rainbows sets.  Does that make it a double double?

 

Fall berries.  I forget what they're called.  According to the
internet they're edible, but I haven't been brave enough to try.

We get some pretty spectacular sunsets
when the rain stops enough for the sun
to shine.

 

A little bit of fall color, but not much.  The red plants are only
a few inches tall.

 

Seagull swarm!  Anytime the seagulls are around, I always
ask them not to poop on me.  I'm pretty the risk of that
happening was very high on this day.

More seagulls swarming.  There are only
a few left in the village now.  Most have
already moved on for the winter.

 

 

 

Alaxsxa

Last week we had a theater group present for the school and community.  They weren’t able to do the full show because of time restraints (the flew over, set up, performed, tore down, and flew out in one day) and the issues that come with having to bring anything you want to use for the performance on a plane.  Instead, they performed select sections, showed recordings of previously performed portions, and gave brief descriptions of omitted segments.  Sometimes, you have to get creative to make things work out here.  The play was titled Alaxsxa after the name the native Alaskans gave the land before Russians came.  The play was an intermingling of Alaskan history and the personal stories of two of the actors, an army brat coming to Alaska and an Alaskan native from the same community.  As they went through the stories they were able to share the different perspectives and discuss some difficult topics and issues within Alaska.  At the end of the play, they had an open forum discussion with the community and then our seal dancers performed a seal dance, a sea-gull dance and another super cool dance that I don’t know what it’s called.  We really enjoyed watching the dancers and Mike looked like he enjoyed joining then when one of our middle school students pulled him up to join the group.  Unfortunately, my camera and I are having some conflict about how it’s handling what it thinks are low light situations so I don’t have any good pictures of that part of the dance.

PFDs

Thursday PFDs began direct depositing into accounts of Alaskan residents.  You are probably asking yourself "What the heck are PFDs?"  Well, you may have heard people say things like "They pay you to live in Alaska."  While that's not really accurate, PFDs are the source of that common misconception.  When Alaska discovered oil, they came into a nice chunk of change and the problem of what to do with it.  The state decided to use part of the funds for state improvement projects like roads and decided to set aside a portion of the proceeds to invest.  The Permanent Fund was created to manage that process.  They began investing in various things (stocks, real estate, etc) and actually invested so well that there have been years the state has generated more income from the Permanent Fund than from oil production.  By 1980, they had done well enough to decide to give some of the proceeds from those investments back to Alaska's residents.  Thus begun a tradition that is probably bigger than Black Friday.


Every October, Alaskan residents receive their PFDs and have to decide what to do with that extra money.  Dividends typically range between $1000 and $2000 per resident, and children count.  So if you are a married couple with four kiddos, you are looking at getting somewhere between $8000 and $12,000.  We will not qualify for permanent funds for another two years.  You have to be a resident for a full calendar year, beginning January 1st, before you can apply the following year.  If you move here January 2nd, you gotta wait.  You also cannot receive dividends if you were incarcerated during the year either.  I guess the state can't be sure you would have remained a resident had you had a say in where you lived.


Since the dividends bring a large sum of money to Alaskan families the same time every year, there are PFD sales and promotions everywhere!  I would venture to say these PFD sales generate more income for Alaskan businesses than Black Friday sales.  The grocery stores are crazy busy, included the village grocery store.  (Have I mentioned lately how much I already dislike shopping?)  The village runway was busy all day Friday with people leaving the village to go shopping, mostly taking trips to Anchorage.  Attendance at school will probably be lower next week because those families will still be out taking care of their errands.  PFDs are such a big deal in Alaska, they are actually the number one issue in the gubernatorial election this fall.  Now, if I could just get voter registration to realize my polling place is in the wrong fly-in village and that fly-in village is around  250 miles away from mine as the crow flies, I might be able to get to vote in that election.

One of many magazines and fliers advertising
PFD sales.  Totally bigger than Black Friday!

Strange Mathematics

In math class we learn that you can't add apples and oranges.  They are two different things, thus unlike terms.  Alaska would like to challenge this mathematical theory.  Here fish = bears.  Since the fish are beginning to die in pretty big numbers, the bears are coming down to the creek to feast on their finned friends.  Mike has set his game camera out and checks it regularly.  He's trying to stay on a weekly schedule, but has found himself battling with the desire to check after only a couple of days.

The bears have brought with them a few "only in Alaska" moments.  I have the bears to thank for the best tardy excuse I will probably hear in my career.  We had a parent call to say their kids would be late for school because a bear was in the yard so they couldn't leave the house.  We have also had to have an announcement at the end of the day to warn the kids to be careful on the way home because they had seen a bear on the north end of town.  We seem to have a mamma bear who has gotten lost.  Instead of hanging out by the creek to eat fish, she is hanging out by the dump to eat trash.  She has two cubs with her so the community doesn't want to put her down if they can avoid it.  We are hoping when they hibernate this winter, they will forget their source of tasty tidbits.

Hey!  What's this think doing on my tree?

"Who's a pretty bird?  I'm a pretty bird!  Oh, I'm sorry.
Were you expecting a bear picture?"
The seagulls have replaced the squirrels from back home for
triggering the game camera.

Fishy, Fishy!

Mike with a Silver salmon at First Hole

Every year, the salmon begin making their way back to the streams of their birth.  They will fight the good fight to get up that stream, regardless of the obstacles, so that they can spawn and bring new little salmon into the world.  As this process begins, their bodies also begin to change.  Their bodies will start to change color with the meat getting softer with the color progression.  When they have spawned, they die.  It's not a quick death, though.  They really start to decay before they die.  I've seen salmon that were completely white with flesh soft enough it looks ready to start falling off the bone and still very slowly swimming around.  It seems like a very sad, cruel circle of life.

Me holding one fillet from that salmon

The salmon typically begin coming up the creek in June and will continue through October.  The creeks have been very full of salmon for a while and they are now starting to die in pretty big numbers.  Their smell makes trips up the valley a little less pleasant this time of year, but the bears seem to like it anyway.  With there only being the two if us, it didn't take a lot of fishing to get our winter's worth of fish for the freezer.  The fact that they will die pretty quickly anyway does make me feel a little better about taking them out of that cruel circle of life, but not enough to keep me from making an idiot out of myself.  We were down at the lagoon on low tide when I saw a beautiful male red salmon struggling to get upstream in water that was only a couple inches deep.  He didn't appreciate my efforts to help and fought me the entire way, but I scooped him up and carried him across a good sized stretch of dry land to get to a deeper fork in the stream.  I then held him upright in the water until he regained the energy to keep himself straight in the stream.  I'm sure the local guys fishing out of their canoes in the lagoon were shaking their heads at what they saw, but that's okay.  That fish may only have a few days left in him, but I did what I could to make them the best they could be.  Mike is still trying to decide whether or not he should claim me.

Salmon swimming upstream

They just keep coming

Stepping Out

All work and no play makes for . . . a very tired person.  We've both been so busy with work that we haven't had much time to do anything else.  Eventually, though, every girl has got to get out.  I'm not a normal girl, though, so you're not going to see me begging for a fancy dinner or movie.  If I'm stepping out, I want to go out, like literally - outside.  We were finally able to find a little time to run up to First Hole and up to Christopher's cabin.  We haven't been able to spend a whole lot of time up there, but it's been nice to get outside and enjoy the beauty God has created for us.  I was able to snap a few pictures and we were able to put a little food in the freezer with our trips.  Mike caught some salmon and I picked some blueberries.  The bears are being little pigs, though, so they didn't leave a lot of berries behind.  It's like they're trying to put on weight or something.  It won't be long, though, and they'll be heading down to the creek to get some dying salmon.  So, before we were done, we also put out a game camera.  Hopefully we'll have some pictures of bears to show soon!

One tasty tidbit missed by the bears!

My bowlful of berries - it's not much but I can make
some muffins and pancakes.

Moss in the sunshine.

Watermelon berries!  They don't really taste like watermelon.

Various seaweeds and kelp washed up on the beach.

The lagoon at high tide.

We've had beautiful weather for the past
several weeks!!

First Day Blessing

Being from the south, I'm very accustomed to religious beliefs finding their way in the school one way or the other.  Up until a few years ago, our school year officially began with prayer before the back to school staff breakfast.  We've also always had a group of strong Christian leaders in our student body to share their faith in the school.  I am very much missing the daily morning announcement "FCA would like to invite everyone to join them for prayer in the Senior hallway." I don't miss feeling the need hurry to get in and out of the staff bathroom before they prayed (I always felt like I was disrespecting their prayer time), but I do miss that being a part of my school's daily routine.

The community here would fit well in the Bible Belt with their own faith practices.  Attendance is typically lowest for the school during the week before and the week after Easter because so many students are in church.  I think that's a pretty nice problem to have.  So, of course, they are going to start the school year out ensuring they have God's blessing, figuratively and literally.  A community member prayed with our students before the school day began.  Then Father surprised us with a visit to bless the school building itself, one room at a time.  Then students and teachers who wished to be blessed lined up so that he could sprinkle holy water on them and bless them each individually.  With that start, I'm pretty sure it's going to be a good year.