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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.

A Story Of Locs and Things

Last January (2020) my Loc Lady was back home for a visit (she moved out of state a while back) and I happily made the trip up to Eagle River to meet her for maintenance. Mo rode with me and we had a good time on the drive up. It’s quite the drive, about 3 1/2 hours.

Since COVID hit my Loc Lady hasn’t been able to come back and we’re not sure when she’ll be able to. So I’m stuck with unruly, messy locs that I keep covered up for the most part. A year and a half is way to long to go between maintenance me thinks!

Fast forward to a friend of a friend knowing a gal that does Loc maintenance in Wasilla. So I’ve got an appointment for maintenance, day after tomorrow, and decided that I needed to do a deep clean. Gosh it’s been too long since I did the last one. 🤔 Even though I wash my hair weekly, I’m not exactly sure when that last deep clean was to tell the truth.

So I settled into my shower basin and started soaking my locs in a baking soda solution, (for those curious creatures), for about 15 minutes

Then I rinsed with an ACV solution.

Then a good rinse with fresh water and finally a lemon juice-essential oil rinse.

It will take a day for these babies to dry thoroughly. However, I feel better already.

Now I’m all ready for my new Loc Lady to work her magic! Can’t wait for beautiful locs that I don’t have to cover up.

Thing 1 is riding up with me this time. We had planned this road trip for her birthday but we had to reschedule. We’re looking forward to the mother/daughter time and I have a special surprise for her birthday!! Shhhh, don’t tell!!!

Expect pics to follow!

#aklife #dreadlocks #locs #dreadhead #reallife #thisisme

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

Winter Time Fun

The kids have been enjoying their new sleds at home. The driveway is well packed down and they can get a pretty good run going.

Little Mister has been learning to ride Lil’ Bit’s snow machine. He’s doing pretty good. Takes it nice and easy so far. His Dad packed down a trail around the cabin so he could get some practice laps in. Then he took him out on the trail for a longer ride.

Nontraditional Turkey Dinner

The high was a balmy 29° F today so we decided it was a great day to smoke a turkey.

Dean got the grill going with an indirect heat set-up. I spatchcocked our little turkey. Oiled it up and put on a a Spice Island turkey rub. And then we smoked it for 4 hours.

Naked and oily.

After four hours I put it in a moderate oven for about 45 mins while I finished the sides.

Smoked spiced turkey.

I made a potato salad reminiscent of Grandma’s but not quite as much mustard and not totally mashed. Then I worked super hard to open the can of Bush’s baked beans to round out the meal. BBQ sauce and an olive/pickle tray and bam, dinner’s ready!

#AKstylebbq

#familyaroundthetable

#itssogoodimfullbutkeepeating

Bathroom Remodel, Part 1

We’ve been working on our upstairs bathroom. It’s been partially out of service (the toilet) since early March when we had a smallish fire in the bathroom trash. Thank goodness for keeping fire extinguishers in our home! And for being home due to covid-19 shutdown!

Trashcan fire damage.

We had some drywall repair to do and let’s face it, neither one of us likes to do drywall. So it has been waiting on us to finish it. And finally we’re back to it. I’m tired of only one toilet in the house with 6 people!!

The meantime I’ve been sourcing materials as they go on sale or clearance. So when we were ready we could do the reno for less $$.

Beginning the drywall repairs.

Dean started sanding & applying more mud while I started to strip down the map decoupaged vanity top. I scored the surface and used some fabric softener mixed with water to loosen the paper. Most of it scraped right off after soaking for a while. The rest got a light sanding and then I wiped down the surface with a damp rag.

Next was fitting the tile to the vanity top. I rough cut the tile to fit, now I need to trim the edge pieces to fit the tile into place. I had intended to use penny tile, since it would be easy to fit and no cutting needed. The colors Home Depot had just weren’t right though, and this hex tile was perfect. Plus it was on clearance so I got a bargain deal on all the tile for about $13. Now I’ll be learning a new skill, cutting tile! Yippee!??!?

Rough fit tile.

Dean never has been fond of the dark taupe colored walls so we opted for a sage green color. With accents of beige tile, sable grout (bought on clearance for 10¢ a box!!) and one wood accent wall we hope to add interest to this unusually long, narrow, odd shaped bathroom.

#renonation

#updatedbathroom

#diyAK49

Did you?

I did.

#election2020

#vote

#quietrevolution

Make home schooling work for you!

Thing 1 is a junior this year and we decided to try something a little different for her Language Arts. Instead of some boring composition program she wanted to try blogging. This way she gets to do a lot of composing and writing practice.

Plus she shares her creativity in art and her budding culinary skills. Go over and check in on her at Sketchbooks & Dandelion Jam.

#alaskalife

#homeschooling