Fall

I don't know exactly how many minutes of daylight we are losing each day right now, but it's enough of a difference from day to day to be noticeable. It seems like one day I was walking to work with morning sunlight; the next I was walking to work as the sun was rising; and the third I was walking in the dark. There will come a time when I am also walking home in the dark.

But that time has not yet come! For now, as our time allows, we are trying to enjoy the fall colors. Last Sunday, when we woke up to an unexpectedly rain-free morning, we took some time do a family photo shoot with my talented friend Jessica. Here are some of the pictures she took. 

 

Berries and birthdays

Since I started working full-time in August, and we moved to a new apartment near the beginning of September, we haven't had nearly as much time to enjoy Kodiak as we would like. We have, however, had a little time to celebrate two things: the autumn berry season, and Rainbow's second birthday.

This summer, I didn't pack away nearly as many salmonberries or high bush blueberries as I had hoped to. With the summer berries long gone, my last chance to stash some free fruit in the freezer came in September, when low bush blueberries and low bush cranberries (a.k.a. lingonberries) are usually at their best. We  were disappointed to find that this was a bad year for the blueberries, but we did manage to get a few cups of lingonberries while also enjoying the gorgeous views from the top of Pillar Mountain. 

September 6 marked Rainbow's second birthday. We celebrated the following weekend with a few of her friends. In true toddler fashion, she refused to eat cake when it was time to eat cake and showed no interest in opening presents until all but one guest had left. But what a joy it was to celebrate two years with this delightful person in my life!

My backpack

As I was driving this morning at the beginning of what was my first day of full-time employment since my daughter was born nearly two years ago, I looked over at my backpack in the passenger seat. I started thinking about all of the places that backpack has been. 

I don't know exactly when I bought the backpack, but I know it was when we lived in Wyoming (at least six years ago, but probably more.) I think my backpack would be very interesting from both an anthropological and a microbiological perspective because of everywhere it has been and because of all the things it has contained over the years. It has been in the dirt on countless mountains in Wyoming and Montana. It has sat on the floors of waiting areas and bathrooms in a dozen airports. It has been deposited on the "fragrant" ground in souks and marches in Morocco. It has gone sightseeing in Europe. It has contained bags of cheap, fresh produce in Morocco; textbooks in Kentucky; and my work computer and iPad in Alaska. 

My backpack is, I think, the only possession that I have made such consistent use of over so many years and in so many places. Germophobes reading this blog post are probably cringing at the thought of what must by growing in my backpack at this point. I used to be one of you. But now I just feel sort of...well, wistful thinking about all of the microbes my backpack has come in contact with. I feel like it has lived many lives, and that I have, too. Since getting married over 13 years ago, I have lived the lives of graduate student (twice!), hurricane evacuee, professional college teacher, world traveler, mother, and (now) speech therapist. The backpack hasn't been with me through all of this, but it's been there a good chunk of the time. 

I just can't help but wonder what its next adventure will be. 

Heitman Lake

Realizing we were stuck in a bit of a hiking rut, we decided to head somewhere new--Heitman Lake. The trail is a 10 or 15 minute drive out of town and heads partway up Heitman Mountain to Heitman Lake. (You can hike all the way to the top of the mountain if you don't need to get back home for your toddler's nap time.) 

The trail felt pretty steep to our out-of-shape bodies (and especially to T, who was carrying Rainbow in a backpack carrier), and our feet were soon covered in mud. It was also rather overgrown with various plants including salmonberry bushes and cow parsnip, a.k.a. pushki. I live in deathly fear of one of us touching pushki, as it contains chemicals which interact with sunlight to cause itchy, painful burns and blisters on the skin. I walked ahead of T shouting "pushki!" ever time I saw one of these plants, which are often big enough that they tower over my head, along the trail.

Luckily, we avoided the pushki and enjoyed the salmonberries. The weather was warm enough that Rainbow got to spend some time splashing around naked in the lake, and we had a picnic at the top of a ridge from which we had a lovely view of the lake on one side and the ocean on the other. 

Rainbow didn't eat much lunch but chowed down on unripe crowberries (a.k.a. mossberries). Not particularly tasty when ripe, they are pretty terrible unripe, in my opinion, but she insisted that she liked them.

 Now that we have flipped the page on the calendar to August, we are keenly aware of the approach of fall, and it was nice to have what felt like a real summer day.

Kodiak Camping

The approaching end of summer (yes, it's coming) and a lot of gloomy weather prompted us, when we saw the sun peeking out of the clouds, to go camping one night each weekend these past two weeks. Both times, we chose Fort Abercrombie State Park because of the relatively low risk of bear encounters (more on that below) and because of its proximity to home, in case things went awry (it's on the edge of town and less than a 10 minute drive from our house).

I have been there so many times that I sometimes forget that the place is spectacularly beautiful. The State Park is quite tiny but still boasts great diversity: tall seaside cliffs from which whales and puffins can be seen (although, sadly, not by me); beaches with tidepools filled with crabs, starfish, anemones, and urchins;  wildflower fields; mossy spruce forests; springs and a lovely calm lake and military bunkers so old and overgrown that they have become part of the landscape.

We went to the beach at low tide, allowing us to walk far out into a rocky area that is usually underwater and encounter these rocky "steps."

This is where we walked--a little tricky with a squirmy toddler on your back.

The only downfall of our trip was sharing a two-person tent with a toddler who hasn't (successfully) shared a bed with us in nearly a year. She loved being in the tent and fell asleep in it by herself quite nicely, but things went south once we crawled in there with her. It didn't help me to get sleep the second time we camped when a park ranger visited our campsite to warn us there was a young bear prowling around the area. We never saw or heard any sign of him, although since then I've seen multiple pictures of the bear on Facebook. 

Despite the lack of sleep, all three of us felt rejuvenated by our

quick 24-hour forays into the "wilderness." My child stuffed herself with salmonberries, we roasted marshmallows and cooked fish in a fire and made pancakes with a camping stove and sat lazily on the beach and rarely looked at our clocks. It was life as it should be.

And now, without further adieu, a ridiculous number of photos of my child:

If your kid sits in a puddle, just take off her pants. Who cares? You're camping! Oh, and she's pointing to a tuft of grass saying, "That's a sea anemone."

She kept asking, "Where's the other one glove?"

Taking the ferry (take 2)

About three weeks ago, we tried to combine business and pleasure by taking a trip to the mainland to take Rainbow to an allergy specialist in Anchorage and to visit T's parents in Anchor Point. This meant taking the ferry again, something I was not looking forward to. My already fairly strong sense of foreboding increased when, the day before we were scheduled to leave, I was struck by an illness so awful that I thought I must have The Flu. (I didn't. At times I thought I had something worse.)

However, thanks to frequent and generous doses of acetaminophen, calm seas, and a selfless husband (he shared a tiny bunk with Rainbow who was so excited to be sleeping "next to Dada! Next to Dada!" that it took over two hours of squirming, talking, and singing before she fell asleep), this ferry trip was much, much better than the last. Once she was asleep, Rainbow slept fairly well on the nighttime ferry to Homer, and she was in good spirits during the day time ferry on the way back to Kodiak at the end of our trip. We even saw a few sea otters and several humpback whales.

While I spent the first half of our vacation sick in bed, T and Rainbow got to spend some quality time with Grandma and "Paka." T went halibut fishing with his dad twice and, as a result, filled our freezer with fish.

Rainbow and Farley were fascinated by each other.

 Once I was better, we did a little exploring of the beach at Anchor Point and some of the sights in nearby Homer.

Beach view in Anchor Point

Rainbow posing with a life-sized sea lion statue at the Alaska Islands and Ocean Visitor Center in Homer

Walking through the Beluga Wetlands on the edge of Homer

Sandhill crane--a bird that links my home state, Nebraska, to my new state. We also saw several moose and a porcupine on the mainland--animals that we don't have in Kodiak.

While in Anchorage, we did two very important things--got some specialty medical services that we can't get in Kodiak (maybe that deserves its own blog post) and went shopping. We hate shopping, but the absence of sales tax combined with a large number of big stores (Super Wal-Mart! Target! And Cabela's! Oh, my!) compelled us to spend a chunk of our vacation pushing carts down aisles.

Sunset in Anchor Point

I love Kodiak and still think it's one of the the most beautiful places in the world, but it was nice to have a change of scenery for a while.  We're already discussing our next "escape." But every means of it--boat, kayak, ferry, plane, four-wheeler, etc.--costs money, something that has been in somewhat short supply for us these last few years (yes, because of choices we have made).   

T and I still don't know how we will handle the challenge of island life long term. A lot of people--even those who have money to get off-island regularly--can't handle it. But we remain determined to enjoy life in Alaska as fully as we can and hopeful that we can keep calling it home for quite a while. 

On eating things

One of the things I love about living in Alaska is the opportunity to gather foods from the wild, or to engage in "subsistence activities," the term used to describe various hunting and gathering activities of Native and rural Alaskans. I haven't gotten into it nearly as much as I've wanted to, although I was downright giddy last fall when we went berry picking. 

The breathtakingly beautiful Monashka Bay

Rainbow and her new favorite possession--a dessicated starfish

More recently, I became aware that fiddleheads, the curled up fronds of young spring plants, are edible. So a couple of weeks ago, on what was pretty much our first warm sunny day in Kodiak, I collected some fiddleheads during a hike at Monashka Bay. I had just enough for a side dish at dinner and yes, it was somewhat time-consuming to wash them, and no, my toddler didn't really eat any, but I felt very proud of myself for providing an interesting--and free!--component to the evening's meal.

I also have grand plans for harvesting seaweed and plan on some serious gathering of salmonberries, blueberries, cranberries, and maybe even mossberries (a.k.a. crowberries). 

More significantly, I have recently made the decision to eat fish. This is a big, big deal for me. I have been vegetarian since I was 12 years old. But I had a freezer filled with salmon and halibut caught my father-in-law in Alaska, a husband willing and able to catch more fish, and a toddler who demonstrated willingness to eat fish, and I had to make a decision. A couple of weeks ago, when we took a trip to the mainland, my husband caught three halibut, and I have to admit I am experiencing an intense sense of satisfaction at the thought that my freezer is full of sustainable, healthy, and hypoallergic (oh, yeah--we also discovered last week that Rainbow has a bunch of food allergies) protein. 

I've never lived any place before where sustainable gathering of wild foods was so possible and common. It was a bit of a surprise that I should come to Alaska--it's the land of igloos, and dog sleds, right? (ha, ha)--for that to happen.

Crab Fest

Every year on Memorial weekend, the good people of Kodiak, Alaska celebrate Crab Fest. It is, by far, the biggest event of the year, and there is an excitement surrounding it that certainly rivals the anticipation of much bigger events in much bigger places, like Mardi gras in New Orleans. 

If you are used to larger, more polished events in more metropolitan locations, you might not be impressed by our small town parade; our midway with modest tents and trailers selling food, drink, and souvenirs; or the relatively meager line up of rides and games. T and I were unimpressed last year. But this year, I got into it--and this even though my poor husband was bedridden with the flu and completely unable to join in the festivities.

Rainbow and I watched Saturday's parade with friends, and I loved seeing her enjoy it, collecting trinkets and books given to her by people in the parade and waving as they went by. Inspired by her enthusiasm for the parade, I did for her something I never thought I'd do--I stood in a line for at least half an hour so that I could pay $5 for her to ride a horse for about 45 seconds.  She loved it so much that she cried when she was taken off the horse.

On Saturday afternoon, Rainbow and I walked by all of the booths, watched people on the rides, and ate somewhat cold (because of the weather, ya know) fish and chips while listening to a brass band play. We didn't do everything there was to do, or see everything there was to see, but I felt somehow very present, and that was nice. 

On Sunday, I left Rainbow at home with T (still semi-bedridden) to watch our neighbors' marimba band perform at Kodiak's beautiful public library. There's something very satisfying about hearing a marimba band when it's 40 degrees and raining outside. If you're interested, here's a video with a few snippets of some of their songs. Our neighbors are the two blonds with the most interesting hair.

That point in our relationship

If Kodiak and I were dating, we'd be at that point in our relationship now where all of those personality quirks that you find adorable and endearing at the beginning start to lose their appeal or even become a little annoying. 

At the beginning of our relationship, I would have thought things like You only have one grocery store? That's so cute, or You only bring out the sun once every two weeks? I love how you do your own thing! or Your road system only has about 100 miles worth of roads to drive on? Oh, so daring!

Don't get me wrong; I still love Kodiak. I'm just starting to wonder a little bit about why. I keep trying to remind myself that a lot of this has to do with the time of year and the weather. I haven't seen the sun since last Tuesday (today is Wednesday). I've lived in places where the weather is glorious, sometimes even hot, in May. But Kodiak isn't the first place I've lived where I've wanted to punch Mother Nature in the face by the end of this month. (Powell, Wyoming, for example, was intolerably dreary in May every year that I lived there.)

For now, I'll try to focus on the fact that dreary weather doesn't mean I have nothing to look forward to. My last day of work before summer vacation is this Friday. Crab Fest, the biggest Kodiak event of the year, is this weekend. Next month, we'll go on a trip to the mainland to visit T's parents in Anchor Point and to go to Anchorage. I'm hoping that, by the time we get back to Kodiak in mid-June, it will feel a little more like summer here.

Spring

It's been a while since I've blogged. I have a lot of excuses, but none of them are particularly interesting. Suffice to say that it's been a long winter so far in 2015. 

Despite T.S. Eliot's claim that April is the cruelest month--and my general tendency to agree with him--I am feeling cautiously hopeful that things are taking a turn for the better. Our signs of spring here in Kodiak may be more subtle than in most other places where I've lived, but they are here. Temperatures are inching up above 40 degrees Fahrenheit/4.4 Celsius (yes, that's warm here). Crocuses and hyacinths are blooming, and tulips are coming up from their gentle beds in people's yards. Salmonberry bushes are sprouting green buds, and today I even saw a few bright pink salmonberry flowers.

Yesterday we had a brilliantly blue, cloudless sky all day (I can't remember the last time that happened), and while the sun made itself scarcer than that today, it wasn't raining, which in Kodiak officially makes it a good day for a hike.

We went to a place called Women's Bay, a few miles outside of town. It's a very calm bay near the Coast Guard base that's a great place for bird watching. The tide was low, and we were able to walk out on a small strip of rocky beach that's usually underwater, and up a gently sloping grass-covered hill with great views of the bay. We're hopeful that the weather will hold out tomorrow, which is Easter Sunday, so that we can go for another hike and watch for more signs of spring.

For several yards, there were dozens of walnuts lined up on the shore. I can't even come up with a theory about how or why this happened.

Ice on the beach

The Kodiak crud

If you've wondered why I haven't blogged lately, it's because I've been too busy having a significant Kodiak experience--the Kodiak Crud. Apparently, this is the name for all of the horrible viruses that make their rounds in the depth of winter. Between Rainbow and me, at least one of us (often two) has been ill since the first day of February. I honestly haven't been able to tell when one illness has ended and another begun. I have already had one round of antibiotics, and I hope we can make it through this without either of us having to do any more than that.

Since my daughter has recently started day care, and I've begun a job working in grade schools, we might be in for more fun before spring arrives.

But there is hope in the simple fact that spring will, indeed, arrive one of these days. In fact, there are already signs of spring on this cold Alaskan rock. Crocuses are showing their faces, and green buds are growing on the salmonberry bushes. The sun is up by the time T goes to work, and it's still up when we are eating dinner in the evening. I know t-shirt weather is a long way off (if it ever arrives at all), but these signs are comforting.

Now, I would write more, but it's time for me to crawl into bed and try to shake this crud.

Christmas Eve at Monk's Rock

Here in Kodiak, we really like our coffee. Off the top of my head, I can think of seven coffee shops and drive-thrus in Kodiak, and at least three of the places roast their own coffee. I think we actually have more coffee shops than bars!

One of our coffee shops, Monk's Rock, isn't just a coffee shop. It's also a restaurant, a bakery, a thrift store, and a souvenir/Russian Orthodox icon store, and, in a way, a charity. It is run by Saint Innocent's Academy, a program for at-risk young adults. These young adults bake the bread and bagels and staff the shop. They also make up the impressively talented St. Innocent's choir.

A friend suggested we go to Monk's Rock for lunch on Christmas Eve Day. When we got there, the choir was singing and performing music. We ordered our lunch, and when my mom went to pay, she was told by a young man in a red and white suit that he, Santa, was paying. He pulled out an oversized credit card, and that was that.

So we sat down to our free lunch and enjoyed at least an hour of music. As staff members of Monk's Rock walked by, they were sometimes pulled into the performance. A photographer for our local newspaper was sent home for his trumpet so he could jump in on some songs.

I was so glad my parents got to participate in such a unique experience. It highlighted some of the things I love most about Kodiak, like its cultural diversity and the warmth, openness, and generosity of the people. I can't think of a better way to have celebrated Christmas Eve.