Yoga in The Park

I start my day off with Yoga in The Park by Shanti Yoga Studio.  The sunshine was a little intense out there under our Montana Big Sky.  The energy was great!  I bet they had well over 60 people practicing yoga this morning.

Shanti Yoga Studio celebrated their 11th year this morning with Yoga in The Park.

Mats were out and about as we gathered for an hour of yoga this morning.

As I was walking home after yoga this morning . . . I often find myself thinking this . . . Yes, this is really my home! I get to live in this vibrant small Montana town.  I can walk to a wide variety of stores compared to our Alaska village life.  I enjoy both places I get to call home . . . but Whitefish is softer, easier, gentler than my northern home.  The pace is slow and restful down here in a different way than in the north.  Healthy lifestyles are everywhere here. I draw great inspiration from all the positive examples of healthy choices that surround me down south.

Weather, Dinner, & Yarn

Rain, sprinkles (a new weather term like chocolate or colored ones that would go on ice cream . . . this is a meteorological term?), wet stuff--nope it is still called rain no matter what!  June in northwest Montana can be a very wet 30 days.  From all my years here summer often just arrives on July 4th.  There have been some years it just plain old rains all summer long!  Snow in June or July in lower elevations has happened and it is not that rare.

In fact one 4th of July, we ate grilled smoked turkey in my friend's garage. We were all decked out in various winter gear hats, gloves, mittens, sweaters, gore-tex rain jackets, pants NOT shorts having our dinner.  The garage door was open as we all sat at a picnic table watching it SNOW! While the New Zealand guest asked, "So is this how you Americans always have a picnic in snow?"

I will say last night we managed to have a large enough sucker hole that lasted for some time and we could grill and eat outside!  Ah, a sucker hole is a common NW Montan term meaning a big blue sky that sucks one outside and then once out and far enough from home it rains!

Grilled steaks and roasted veggies--basically our summertime menu.

The spread for Father's Day.

The perfect host first to sit down to eat! Eeeeheeee--I just don't get people who don't jump in to fill a plate . . . let's EAT!

My FIL who at 81 is still building, never sits around, skis, hikes, rides hit trail bike, and just gets up and keeps moving no matter what!

Huckleberry Pie that my FIL makes and is rather famous for and Haskap Crisp which I made from our Haskap berries all of course served with vanilla ice cream!

Huckleberry Pie

Grand niece who is visiting and is always a treat!

Ooops, I forgot the yarn and will just write another post on that later.  My local yarn shop had their anniversary sale on Saturday. I did get a bit of yarn for some future projects!

Summer Goal: YOGA!

Summer Goal: YOGA!  All school year I would head either to my ski room or my classroom to do my routine of yoga, sit-ups and some kind of upper body work out on the Ski Erg.  I never had been to a formal yoga class, but have been trying to learn a bit on my own. This summer one of my goals was to get to a yoga studio and to learn more about the art of yoga. I want to be able to do more challenging yoga DVDs once back up north but I want to make sure I am doing things correctly.

Yesterday, I signed up online for a 1.5-hour class at the Shanti Yoga Studio in downtown Whitefish.  I loved it!  My instructor was Ingrid and the class was hatha yoga foundations---I loved it!  Ingrid corrected me and showed me how to do moves properly---this is just what I wanted.  Ingrid was very patient and clear. Of course, I have a lot to learn. I liked that many of the yoga moves I have been doing from my two DVDs were used in this class so I didn't feel totally out to lunch.  

The Shanti Studio is small but with great light, everyone was very pleasant upbeat and welcoming.  Another added bonus is the walk is about 2 blocks max from my back door.  This morning I am heading over to another class which will be vinyasa flow.  All the classes I will go to will be for all levels.  There were folks there who were advanced and have been doing yoga for years I am sure.  I would say everyone enjoyed the class and left with huge smiles on their faces. 

I am thrilled to have found such a nice yoga studio close to my house that offers a wide variety of classes to help push me to learn more about yoga! 

 

How to keep an ice pack on a dog?

Our Sadie recently just had surgery to remove a huge mass in her chest. We have been watching this mass develop over the years and have had it tested as well.  She has/had a fat deposit just like people and dogs can develop. The time finally arrived when all parties involved thought that this mass needs to be removed.  Sadie had her surgery. We needed to ice this area to reduce swelling. Over our dog years in rural Alaska where there is no vet at all, we have learned some great little tricks in mending our dogs.

Usually, we use the Ruffwear Cloud Chaser Jacket to help keep her from licking any injury.  We have these jackets for our dogs in Alaska but not here in Montana.  I wanted her to have the ice pack on her incision with our me following her around.  I ran over to Tail Waggers to see if they had any of the Cloud Chaser Jackets on sale or something to help hold the ice/gel pack over Sadie's incision.  No Cloud Chaser but they had another jacket/sweater (it appears they are no longer making this sweater) there and it was even on sale!  SCORE!

I bought a gel pack that is soft, this sweater, and placed the pack in the chest area.  The sweater holds the gel pack in place and helps to reduce the swelling.  Sadie is pretty good about putting up with the ice on and off routine.

Sadie also was attacked by a sled dog years ago and had a hole in her side. We used a Kotex pad stuck to the inside of the jacket and this allowed the injury to drain, not making a mess, and to heal with no licking!

Sadie a bit shaky after surgery.

Sadie in her sweater with the gel pack held into place on her chest by the sweater.

Gel pack

Sadie resting with her dear pal Tally by the stove on a typical Whitefish June day.  Think gray, drizzle, damp, chilly all of which is perfect in front of the gas stove!

Travels

I recently was over in Washington and was visiting family.  I had a wonderful little visit with my niece and her family.  They have been living off the grid and recently moved into a local fun, cool, and groovy community.  The visit was just perfect as I was able to see all their efforts in action.

I loved being surrounded by huge trees and the various shades of GREEN!  I miss trees during our school year in the north.

Foxglove is such a pretty flower and the colors are brilliant!

Sweater girls---These are my very knit worthy grand nieces.  They live in their knitted items and I love to knit for them.

I was able to enjoy some great violin music.  My niece and her husband make sure their girls are exposed to a wide variety of activities in the both the arts and outdoor skills.

From trees and foothills too . . .

the beach. We all had fun exploring . . . 

More violin tunes . . .

and yet more . . .

This wonderful person is back in Montana for another summer of fun and R & R. Part of the reason I was in WA was to retrieve her some Montana time with her Aunt and Uncle.

For those of us who live in Alaska and order a lot of "things" from Amazon here is the black hole of mail: Federal Way!  UGH!  How I always dread when I track packages and find it sitting in Federal Way.  Packages get stuck in Federal Way for what seems like decades at times.  I never knew it was an actual town.  I just figured it was some black hole in the shipping world and its main goal was to make people in rural Alaska suffer ridiculous wait times for their packages!

Knitting Travels

I am so grateful for this wonderful friendship I have with Lynn.  We meet in AK years ago when we taught in the same rural school.  This was summer knitting visit #6.   

Traditions are a wonderful thing!  Lynn and I agreed years ago we would get together every summer once she left Alaska.  This year, I traveled to Seattle.  Lynn and I traveled on to Birch Bay.  We were able to knit and chat endlessly over tea, coffee or Golden Milk.  

Who doesn't love joining up with a great friend and it feels like you were never ever apart?  What a major score in Lynn!   

On the ferry to Bainbridge Island.  I just love ferry travel on peaceful waters.  I must say I felt like the country mouse as I negotiated light rail, walking city streets to the ferry, and getting to the island. 

Looking back to Seattle.

Jenny and I enjoying a Birch Bay beach walk.

Mount Baker

The wood pile . . . I loved that both Lynn and I know how to stack wood properly with corners and all.  Jenny was the quality control supervisor.

One of Lynn's masterpieces. Her Norwegians as we call them are stellar! The traditional design elements Lynn adds to her knits are spot on stunning!

We had a wonderful day with drizzly rain.  We holed up in front of the fireplace and knitted the day away.

Carraig-Fhada vest a #KateDavies design made some great progress while in Birch Bay.

Not our best photo . . . just great knitting!

Jenny making sure we are getting from point A to point B as only a McNab dog can do!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BLOG you are now over 4 YEARS OLD!

I am sure this is just an age thing but I have very mixed feelings about social media.  I even get caught up in all the buzz. I find myself just wasting time looking at various "things" realizing I am just wasting my precious time on earth.

Don't get me wrong sites like Pinterest are a life saver for classroom teachers! I love Pinterest.  Need an art idea within seconds you have great ideas on any topic out there.  I am totally blown away by the creativity people have and how willing people are to share their great ideas.

Ravelry is basically FaceBook for knitters!  I love the forums, access to patterns, yarn, help, you name it you have all of this and more on Ravelry. I do have to watch my time as you can really go down some serious rabbit holes.

For awhile, I was using Twitter which I will say I like far more than Facebook.  The best thing about Twitter was that I only had 1-3 people I actually knew in real life.  I was able to get ski racing results instantly which was great if you are a Nordic/Biathlon skier/coach and no one hardly covers your sports. I also found some killer sites and people who are just rocking the athlete outside world: climbers, hikers, runners, paddlers, endurance folks just people who don't have to use a ball to have a sport. One great find was the Women's Outdoor Alliance.  Once again, I was using Twitter too much for my liking.  I still do find Twitter motivational as I followed various athletes that do things I feel are important and worthwhile.  I am deactivating Twitter and just saying goodbye to my account there.  I was using Twitter too much!

Facebook  . . . just don't get me started as I have to use it for skiing . . . but it is a serious love/hate relationship.  I do sign off after the ski season and I return to it once I am back up north.  I find it to be the village radio which is a helpful tool.  I have to really monitor myself on the ol'FB!

Then there is the blog which I truly like the most!  I have for years been looking at changing over to Wordpress and even had a site set up thinking I would move over to it at some point.  This morning I deleted that site.  Once again BLOGGER will keep me!  I like the simple format and I find BlOGGER really has all the bells and whistles I need to blog.  I blog mostly for myself and enjoy the challenge of forcing myself to write. I love that people stop by to look at photos and to read a bit about my world.  I really enjoy comments . . . I mean who doesn't!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, 

BLOG 

you are now over 

4 YEARS OLD!

YES! Done! Flowers are in place!

One of the great things about coming south for the summer is arriving into a lush green colorful world of plants.  Fresh green life bursting out all around us is just heaven for my eyes.  I look forward to getting all the flower pots filled with color each year.  We always buy our flowers from Columbia Falls Nursery.

The next thing this year will be to get the flower boxes made and in place. The goal is to have standing flower boxes in front of the porch and north side of the porch.  These will be permanent but not attached to the porch in any way.  I just hope they don't become feeding troughs for the deer.

The Migration South

The reverse migration happened once again. It went as smooth as could be and took 8 days to migrate from Alaska to Montana.  The driving was long and slow.  The camping was relaxing.  "The Girls" did great as we headed to warmer buggy weather.  BC and the Yukon were just glorious with lots of snow up high and rivers still rising to the top of their banks. Home is perfect and was well loved over the year. I love being back in the neighborhood and nestled in my beloved Whitefish even with the changes and upgrades within the community.  The Farmers Market was nothing but full of wonderful organic produce on Tuesday night.  I am now in the throws of planting my flower pots.

This huge tree had a good size ravens nest up near the top.  What a raucous these birds create.  We camped near this tree last year in the Yukon.  By the sound of things, the ravens have another healthy family.  

Breakfast on the road . . . oh, how I love fresh raspberries!

The joys of a campfire lightening up the night!

Miss Sadie enjoying the green lush grass. We don't have grass like this in the village. June 1st (today) is Miss Sadie's Birthday.  She is 9 years old.  Sadie came to us as a rescue 7 years ago! 

As I call Powder King: "My Retirement Community."  I have yet to ski here but I know I would love the place.

Oh, where does the bear crap?  Any place the bear wants!

Boy and his dog.

Girl and her dog. Birthday Girl---my Sadie!

I would say a nice small black bear.

You should be able to see the rear print here.

Mount Robson, is such a stunning peak! 

Camp at Mount Robson.

Our new Mountain Hardware tent, that sleeps two people and two dogs comfortably.

Our Camp Kitchen

Jiffy Pop Popcorn on the fire . . . the secret is vice grips and a leather glove!

Both BC and the Yukon have the greatest picnic tables.  The Yukon tables are a sheet of plywood which makes them HUGE!

Miss Tally who doesn't like bugs!

We camped at the Icefields tent only campground. This place has a lot of fond memories from my mountaineering days.

Coffee a must no matter what! I am always the first one up and the coffee is my job.

I just love evergreen trees. I especially love pines against a high alpine sky with fresh snow on them.

Panorama of our Icefields camp.

Early morning with the Columbia Icefields in the background.