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Category Archives: Family

Kayak Adventures

Thing 2 has been interested in kayaking for several years now. I bought him a starter kayak about 4 years ago I think. We don’t often use it but every once in a while a kayaking opportunity arises and we must go!

We’ve been kayaking to Cain’s Head out of Seward, across Kachemak Bay out of Homer and on Arc Lake and Stormy Lake. Once again we had the opportunity to kayak to Cain’s Head with IDEA for our beginning the year field trip.

We booked a cabin for the night before at Miller’s Landing. It’s a quaint little Alaska campground. It started out as a family homestead and the campsites are named after people. There’s a Wes and a Janet among others. I don’t recommend “Matt” as he’s a muddy mess with lots of tree roots!

Our cabin was a “tree” cabin, Alder, and sleeps 4. Me, my teens and one extra: Thing 2’s buddy, since it was his birthday trip and all. Trips like this are always the best because our friends are with us.

Staying over the night before is important, a 7:30am roll call on the beach with a two and half hour drive before isn’t very fun! So overnight it was.

We managed to get to the beach on time and started out paddling at 8 am.

Our crew on the beach.

The weather wasn’t awful but it wasn’t stellar either. Overcast and light to moderate rain all day. We had a brief moment of partly cloudy skies then the rain returned. But we managed to stay mostly dry with good rain gear. There is no bad weather, only bad clothing.~ old Norwegian saying.

Five miles out to the North Beach access. A nice uneventful paddle. Lots of birds and jumping silvers. We saw a jellyfish waiting to make our landing.

All that’s left of the Army’s dock at the North Beach site.

Then a two mile hike up to Fort McGilvray. An altitude gain of 650′, a “moderate” hike on the difficulty scale.

A scenic vantage point along the trail. The Seussical trees bordering a wetland.

We saw so many berries on our way up. Thing 1 was taking photos every other step. Moss, mushrooms, flowers, berries, her boyfriend, me…. Trees and rocks and … Everything.

Me and my girl on the Fort Trail.

We made it to the top and a quick walk through the Fort and then lunch break. Thing 2 discovered that he forgot to pack his lunch in so we all shared a bit of our lunches to help him out.

While eating lunch he spotted a porcupine up in the top of a tree above us. Strange creatures porcupines. Stellar Jays we’re fussing at us the whole time. We were in their space.

Then we started our descent. The trip back is always quicker. Too quick to pick all the berries I saw. I hate walking past berries and not picking them.

Safe to say that we’re all pretty tired at this point. Five miles kayaking, 4 miles hiking. Now another 5 miles back. Oy vey

Settled into our kayaks, ready as we’ll ever be.

All the muscles fussed at us on the way back. Even those we didn’t know we had. But by 3:03 pm we were back on the beach at Miller’s Landing.

These children decided they deserved ice cream after their efforts. We headed into Seward for ice cream and coffee for the Moms. There were still some congratulatory posters and banners up for Lydia Jacoby which was cool to experience.

Looking forward to the next kayaking adventure! But maybe not so far next time? Maybe.

#aklife

#kayaking

Sixteen

Sixteen years ago, on a hot humid Kansas day, in a pool full of warm water, a baby boy was born.

Isn’t he just the cutest??

Doesn’t seem possible that 16 years have passed. Now my “baby boy” is taller than I am.

He’s starting his sophomore year. He still likes LEGOs, some things never change! He has great taste in music and a wacky sense of humor. He’s a whiz at history, especially relating to WWII. And he likes to make goofy faces when I take his picture.

Goofy face number one.
Goofy face number two…
Number three…
Finally got a good pic of him!

He’s a handsome dude under the goofy faces.

Big fish = big smile

Happy birthday to my faithful Little Buddy.

Campfire with Friends~ night before our kayaking adventure out of Seward to Cain’s Head with our homeschool group.

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Campfire with Friends~ night before our kayaking adventure out of Seward to Cain’s Head with our homeschool group.

Abundance

We figured this year would be plentiful with the Sh’mita starting this fall but we didn’t know how plentiful!

Everyone helps, even the little guy!

So far, two of our family units have gotten their desired count of fish. Three more of us are closer. We’ve shared with two other families that could come down and get fish, and have another couple of families on standby. And we’ve helped a couple young fellas fishing on their own this year navigate the regs and when they needed an extra hand.

A nice little flounder.

It feels good to be able to share Alaska’s bounty with others. There’s been many years when we just got enough to feed our own households. Sharing is caring.

Neighbor “boys” fishing for the first time on their own. Last night they had a huge haul and were a little overwhelmed. These two young men were polite and appreciative of any help. It’s nice to have good fishing neighbors.

Salmon Love

Salmon is life.

Fresh catch, ready to snip tails, head and gut, then into the ice slurry.

A major part of our diet is salmon.

Mo’s salmon in jars ready to be processed.

Salmon burgers, salmon salad, salmon patties, salmon pasta, salmon noodle casserole, salmon enchiladas, smoked salmon on bagels with cream cheese, lazy sushi bowls with smoked salmon on top, salmon jerky, candied salmon…. You get the picture?

Are you hungry yet?

#aklife #lovealaska #salmon4life #livingofftheland

Fish On!

We started our Personal Use Fishing season with a bang. First tide out, three nets set and within 12 minutes we had fish in all three nets.

Net in the water.

We pulled 34 fish our first tide. Needless to say fishing has been good so far.

I’ll check in later, I’ve got fish to process.

#AKLife

#lovealaska

#subsistance

#salmon4life

#salmonlove

We’ve Been Busy.

Where has the time gone? Between working snow removal (Dean) and running the sawmill for a month we’ve kept busy. A month ago we were riding snow machines and wearing the warm clothes. Now we’re digging drainage ditches, jumping on the trampoline and wearing summer attire.

Training the new guy.
Feels like summer.

Also last month I started experimenting with oyster mushroom cultivation and started my first tote of substrate. I had started with a grow kit from Home Depot. I grew one out last year and we enjoyed the ‘shrooms so much I thought why not grow more?

Growing kit.

I pulled a bit of the grow block off and used it to innoculate some straw and coffee grounds. I let it sit and grow mycelium until today when I checked it and I had pinning!! Woo hoo!

Lil baby oyster mushrooms!!

Can’t wait to eat them in about 10 days or so.

The kiddos set up the trampoline today, with some difficulty. But it’s up and ready for high energy kids. While we were out a large flock of sandhill cranes flew over chattering steadily. We’ve seen several geese flocks over the last few days but these were the first cranes. Summer is here.

Teamwork makes the dream work.

Dean has been in the boat every available moment. He’s so excited about the prospect of halibut fishing at will. To be honest, so am I. But I still do have a house that needs finishing…

Future mushroom bed.

The kids helped me prep our wine cap mushroom bed today. We raked it out, layered cardboard first, then straw. We added our spawn and then top coated it with sawdust. Over that I put some wood mulch to keep the sawdust in place.

Straw layer with spawn scattered about.

Next on the list is an outdoor oyster mushroom bed. Maybe next weekend? And I’ve got to get another tote started indoors. I’ve got pearl and phoenix varieties for indoors.

The Oldest has plans for gardening this year, so a few more raised beds and updating our current hillside beds.

Back to work on the rec cabin build tomorrow. Another day another dollar.

Enclosing the gables.

#aklife

#aksummer

#winterisover

All New Adventure

My baby girl passed her provisional permit exam and will be driving the snowy roads of the Kenai Peninsula.

Her introduction to filling out govt forms, which require legible script.
All official with her document. She’s so cute.

It seems like only yesterday that she was my little Curly Girlie playing with her dolls.

My cutie patootie around 2-3 years old.

Whelp, before I turn into a sappy mess I’ll cut this short. I’ll save the really sappy post for her 18th birthday later this year.

#AKlife

#lovemyfamily

#studentdriver

#shellalwaysbemybaby

@thelowestpickle

Be My Valentine

Our Valentine’s Day was sweet. Dean went all out with flowers, steak dinner, cheesecake and chocolate covered strawberries for dessert. And a box of chocolates of course.

Green orchids. So lovely in full bloom.

Orchids surprisingly do quite well here. My Mother’s Day orchid from a few years ago is still happy in my downstairs bathroom window. I do enjoy them so.

#aklife

#flowersthatlast

#iloveyouday

Roses

A white rose for my Grandma and a pink rose for my Mama.

When I think of my Grandmother it’s always accompanied by roses. Beautiful red old fashioned trailing roses next to the house. Meticulously tooled leather roses on all of her things. Bouquets of fresh flowers with roses on her “bar”. In her middle name.

Grandma when she married Grandpa W., and the face I remember.

It’s been 16 years now since she entered her rest. She may be absent from this world, but she’s always there in the shadows of my mind. Some times she comes out of my mouth, with some little phrase. When I make potato salad. Sometimes it’s her picture I find while looking for something else. Other times it’s in the way Thing 1 looks when she holds her head a certain way. I see her in my Mom too.

Today I light a candle for Emma Rosetta Wadkins, of blessed memory.

The human soul is a light from God.

See also: https://alaskaonmymind.wordpress.com/2015/01/29/one-decade/