Shipping Food & Fall Fun

Here is part of our fall order from Amazon on a pallet being delivered to our container.  I then unpacked it all and ran it inside to the pantry and any other open space to tuck it all away! Yes, of course, it was raining--August in Alaska is mostly about rain!

The question most asked when people find out we live just over 400 air miles from Anchorage (ANC) is "How do you get your food?"  Over our time here in rural Alaska, this has changed greatly!  We used to buy food at Sma's Club and pay them to ship it out to us.  Then this morphed to buying food from Costco and we packed and sent it all out to ourselves.  All of this no matter what takes a lot of time and costs a lot of $$$$!  We would haul our totes to and leave them in ANC at the motel or a friends, then shop and fill our rig to the gills, haul this back to friends or the motel and pack it up in our totes, haul the totes to the 24-hour airport post office and ship.  The Post Office has changed as well!  Once they had a bay area where you could drop off all your stuff as long as you had enough to make a pallet and this was wonderful!  That went away and then we had to go stand in line in the P.O. and we discover don't ever go when they are processing passports--UGH!!!!!!!!!  The whole ordeal was just that an ordeal and one had to have a good sense of humor and a lot of patience! 

Let's just add 2 dogs, a duffle bag or two full of cheese, dropping off our rig for winter storage and returning to the village as part of this shopping fun!

Fast forward to 2018!  On our way out of the village this spring at the last minute we said, "Ok let's try a grand experiment and not take out the totes and shop online instead!"  Over the years Amazon has become better and better at getting "stuff" out to rural Alaska, and has increased what they carry as we all know all too well!  This year we have been ordering what we would have bought in ANC online and it is GREAT!  No more packing, hauling, shipping hundreds of pounds of food!  It is saving us $$$ and saved us tons of time and running around!

FALL FUN!

I am always searching for a rich hot chocolate with ingredients I can pronounce, organic/non-GMO, and not a ton of sugars.  I have found a real treat!  If you haven't tried this hot chocolate give it a try yummy! After a bike ride in the rain, this is a great treat!

For those of you who follow the Iditarod or the Iknitarod this photo is to show you the checkpoint in the summer.  As you look down the slough here on the right where all the boats are located.  That area is basically the checkpoint.  In the slough to the left of those boats.

Biking!  On the way out to the village this August since we were not shopping, we bought Fat Tire Bikes!  YAHOO!  Our bikes will not be here until later in September.  Last weekend some friends and I were out riding under a rather nice sucker hole (Blue Sky clouds all around to suck you out!).

My old and I do mean old mountain bike on the left in the photo above in the back is looking like an anorexic bike compared to the rest of the Fat Bikes! I can not wait to be able to ride on the beach here, plus ride in the winter when I am not on skis.

The biking crew her in the village---nothing but fun and great energy!

Miss Sadie out on the tundra with me.  Fall colors are coming on and it really happens here overnight! The changes are dramatic int he northern latitudes!

Sadie cooling off in one of her favorite spots.  She knows where these are located on our tundra walks. She just lays down for a chilling soak to cool off!  She always smells so nice and her coat is like silk after tundra-bathing.

My work out girls in the waxroom.  Five days a week I am here at about 6:00 a.m. to do my PT for my knee, yoga, ski erg, and my situps.  "The Girls" tolerate this time with me and try their best to be on the yoga mat!

Closing with a nice cup of green tea from the CHAI Diaries.  Thanks for stopping by!

Tundra Times

I love this time of the year on the tundra!  Blueberries dot the ground cover and brilliant red cranberries are ripening.  The bugs are pretty active.  I always have to laugh about the BUGS!  We live in a pretty windy place. Until you want to pick berries, "What wind you will say?" as there is usually none this time of the year!  Like one elder told me years ago, "If you don't like the bugs just wait for winter!" Reassuring when you are swatting black flies and mosquitos and trying to pick berries.  Yesterday we were out picking berries in between all the small rain squalls that were blowing across the tundra.  All rather dramatic as you would be able to watch the squall build in the distance and then see it approach your spot on the tundra.  We would get a good healthy dose of rain.  The rain would move on and things would clear for a bit.

The tundra is green and lush as can be right now.  Fishing for silvers (salmon Coho)is supposed to be fantastic.  Early fall on the tundra is a time of abundance.  This morning the temperature at about 5:25 a.m. was +38ºF which is a wonderful sign of things to come.  The air is now cool and crisp just like it should be as fall starts to approach on the tundra. Changes happen fast and can be very dramatic in the northern latitudes.

Water just isn't always clear but with the help of a filter, it is drinkable.

Water is always a bit of an issue for us out here.  We are in a village which has water for the most part.  This time of the year with a lot of people coming through for sport-fishing, the cannery is up and running processing fish, and the school district has new teachers coming in for training.

All of this places extra demands on the village water system and supply.  Then there can be issues with old pipes, pumps, electricity.  Presently our water looks like this with a nice golden yellow hue.  This means we are on a boil notice and I am hauling water from a friends house that lives up the road who is on a well.  Yesterday as I was heading up the road I thought, "Well the winds are not blowing 40+mph, and it is not -20ºF or colder!"  I am grateful!

Looking south across the tundra to Nulato Hills.

End of summer Fire Weed gone to seed.

Return to My Beginnings

"Don't take life too seriously because you can't come out of it alive." A quote from Warren Miller which helps to keep life in perspective.  This year marks 23rd year in the classroom for me. This is my last year in the traditional American classroom.  Last week, I handed in my contract saying I am resigning.  It was a well thought out decision and one I don't have an ounce of regret over at all!  I feel so fantastic to be wrapping up my professional career.

The saying "Full Circle" is what I am laughing about!  Long ago I was a bit of a ski bum.  Coaching Nordic skiing, teaching beginner Alpine ski lessons, and waiting tables.  I wanted to travel and work with kids.  I got married and my husband and I became teachers.  We worked overseas for 11 years before returning to teach in rural Alaska.  Our lives overseas were pretty darn great.  We were able to travel and really did some wonderful trips in Oman, Sweden, Norway, Morocco, Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile, Argentina, and Canada.  While teaching in Peru we could return to Montana and ski every North American winter.  We kept getting jobs in the tropical region of the world but we missed winter.  We came home and landed jobs in Alaska.  School/job has been good.  The added plus of being here was we are able to ski.  I could coach cross-country skiing.  A bonus would be coaching the sport of ski biathlon!

Time has come to say goodbye to the classroom and return to my roots.  Spending more time outside, being fit, and just coaching!  Now as I say, "I am retiring from school but not from work!"  I will sub this coming year and coach the ski team. I will figure out how to make a living and just see what new opportunities present themselves or I can create.

I love returning to where I left off . . . no matter what returning to my beginnings feels magical!

Ms. Sadie and I on the night of the Super Moon.

First-grade skiers on a nice foggy frosty day!

My girl!

A tea break a must on our ski tours.

A chilly ski tour but under a huge blue tundra sky!

Water Water Water

Water is a rather big topic this last week in the village and will be for some time to come.  There are about 725 people who live here and for the most part, we have potable water year around.  We get our water north of the village from a creek called Powers Creek.  To the best of my knowledge, there is a tank up there and it fills with water and then the water comes to us through underground pipes.  How old are these pipes? Oh, good question. We have had on and off leakage and repairs at different times over our 12 years in the village.  Low water levels mean we conserve water or even go on boil notice if the water level is too low.  Sometimes pumps break or cause issues, sometimes it is the leaks that cause problems.  The village sits on a peninsula surrounded by water and you would think we would have water.  In August when the cannery is running, and the school district brings in all the new teachers often water level is low.  Winter brings along its own set of issues for the city workers who deal with the water problems.

This past week we have gone from conserving water as the levels were becoming low, to turning off the water overnight to help fill the tank, city workers trying to find leaks, bring in some outside help with equipment to help locate leaks, to a boil notice, to mostly no running water in the part of the village we live in, to watching the con-ex pump being hauled down to slough, to digging out in front of our place, to almost no water in the tank, and no answer to the leak(s) location(s), to hauling drinking water, and the weather has gone from +20s to minus teens making all of this water extra demanding!

If you are a weather person at all you will notice that clear crisp blue sky and think it is really cold up there and you would be right! It is in the negative teens.  The beginning of a big hole int he middle of the road in front of our place.

Yesterday after ski practice and grooming, Christian loads up the 4-wheeler to head up the road to friends who are on a well to get us drinking water. He will drop off trash and drive about 1.5 miles up the road.  He has already been out in -22ºF wind chill grooming.  Now he will drive up the road into a -22ºF on the 4-wheeler which means the wind chill is even colder to get us potable water!

Brrrr . . . Christian is off to run these tedious errands of hauling trash and filling up our water coolers in the bitter evening cold!

Pretty much the state of the road now.  I have not talked to anyone to see what they are hoping to find down there or what the next plan of attack will be with the water.

We are forever grateful to the village workers who are trying their best to solve the water issues.  They are working in really cold conditions with equipment that is cold metal, and not starting up easily.  Grateful to friends who are on wells, who open their homes to all of us and share their potable water.

Irigak: A book review

Purchase from Amazon

Irigak is an intriguing children's book about the mythical little people who live on the Alaskan tundra.  Amber Cunningham a local lady wrote this great fictional tale and recently self-published her work.

Review from Anchorage Daily News

I have always been interested in the tales of the Irigak from my early ski coaching days here in Unalakleet.  What are these creatures? Where do they live/hide?  Who sees them? When do people see the Irigaks?  What happens when you see them?  My skiers would fill me in on all kinds of rather gruesome details about the little people of the tundra.

My skin would crawl a bit about how Irigak's have spikes on their elbows to help them pull their bodies across the tundra as they chase you down, short legs, and big teeth. (It seems that different families would have their own variation of the gruesome Irigak.)  I can say when you are out skiing with the howling wind, the snow blasting pass you as you try to ski home in the fading light . . . you start to think of these little people believe me!

Deactivation! YES! Good Bye FACEBOOK see you in the fall!

Over the years, I have done a variety of things to stay off of facebook during the non-ski-season months. . . I believe this is the 3rd season of FB deactivation.  I have found deactivation is the best way to keep me off of the dreaded "wastebook." When I am done with skiing and all that skiing involves I deactivate FB pronto.  It feels great!  Deactivation forces me to do other things like blog, knit, read, spend more time outside with Christian and the dogs.

I am not better than other people because I deactivate FB.  I do know that I lived almost all of my life without FB. I hardly need it other than the ski season.  It is the best way to get info out to the village folks fast on cancellations and changes.   I often call it the village radio as that was the major form of communication out here in rural of Alaska for decades.

FB lets me share photos of the kids and helps to promote the sport I love. Like everything moderation and usage needs to be kept in check and deactivation is the best method for this for me.

I would encourage folks to take a step away from social media and relax a bit more with those you love and the things you enjoy!

The END of another Ski Season!

Most of our elementary skiers wrapping up another great year of skiing with kids!

Our ski season has come to an end . . . all the ski races for the kids are over.  Last weekend we hosted the elementary race with 3 visiting teams from our school district. We all had a blast and the slough stayed frozen with little water on top of it, which made crossing it safe and dry.  All our skiers did well on racing but the lack of skiable terrain is certainly causes us not to perform as well as the coach would like to see or hopeful.  That would be me!  We need a lot more distance work but there is next year!

Just a few photos:

Ski coach knitting on the way home from or ski race in Galena which is the off road state championships.

Skiers heading over to the race course and notice the lack of snow!

Skiers getting a ride across the slough and a bit of the water over the top of the ice.  We ski mostly on a snow fence. The fence is in the background and we call it the Dragon's Back.

Elementary Ski Race Friday April 7th, under a huge blue sky and sunshine!

Ski Fans!

Racers on course. 

Older skiers at Galena and it was dumping!  Snow falling straight down with trees around is just perfect in my books!  A treat for me as we usually have howling winds and snow. 

An up and coming star from Nome!  Not only is she a great skier/athlete but just the nicest kid ever!

Another wonderful skier and kid!  I really enjoy this young gal . . . another very special kiddo!

Yahoooo! it is Spring Break and I Have a Zillion Things on My TO DO LIST!

My last post was Jan. 17th., 2015.  Don't you just hate when bloggers don't keep their blog up to date.  I know I do!  Work started up after Christmas break and I am all consumed with teaching, trying to run a ski program for about 50 kids which entails 6 practices a week, knit, read, relax, be a wife, love my dogs and my wonderful husband.  I am rather busy! 

I had a  twitter account and I deleted that as I thought how much social media do I need in my life???  Not that much!  I like the blog for several reasons.  It forces me to write which isn't my strong suit in life and my family can see what I am doing.  I mostly just enjoy writing and sharing my world with others.  As being a teacher in rural Alaska is a bit of an adventure!  One I enjoy a lot but like everything in the world it comes with it plus and minuses.

Here I am on Spring Break!  I have a lot of knitting to get done---UFO need to get off my needles!  I did knit one Tomten for my grand niece since December. I have started the second Tomten in a wonderful green from Schoolhouse Press.  I have 4 Tomtens to knit!  I am working on a pair of socks, my Bláithín sweater, and a pair of long underwear which I am now calling Lon John after horse I used to ride.  Long John was a school horse, a thorough bred off the track and older than old.  He was a 17 hand chestnut who was as sweet as pie.

I have traveled to two ski races both of which are on the Iditarod Dog Sled Race trail.

Now here in Unalakleet we have almost no snow, the slough has been under overflow, and it is way to warm for this chica!  I am a snow person and I love weather but mostly I love weather at the right time of the year!  Winter should be winter and summer should be summer.  However, I will always take colder weather over warmer weather anytime.

I will get some photos posted and write a bit more over my break!  I promise!