Somewhere along the way he has lost his little baby face and looks like a growing boy.
Such a cutie pie.
But one thing has stayed the same, there’s always food all over that sweet face when it’s dinner time.
He has sprouted up this summer and is getting taller, soon he’ll pass Lil Bit by. He’s been learning to ride his four-wheeler, and after an initial oops moment, he’s been doing pretty good.
Helmet, check ✅
Alaska boy 💯, winter attire doesn’t require shirts or coats.
This dog tho. These two are quite the pair. There’s no stopping them when they are on a mission. Panda Bear is such the perfect dog for our family and she loves her boy as much as he lives his doggo.
What’s an Alaska summer without some mud, eh?
They may be fewer and farther between but there’s still time for snuggles with Mom. Melts my heart ❤️
Sweet snuggles.
I’m a lucky Mom, two birthday boys in the same month. Party is tomorrow so more pics to come. Happy birthday boys!!
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.
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!
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!!!
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.
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.
Alaska on my mind... 