A beautiful "breakup"

breakup, n. The period of early spring in which snow and ice are breaking apart and melting (Alaskan use)

It's so warm outside! Our highs for the foreseeable future are all in the 40s, the sky is clear and blue with blazing sun, and a curtain of waterdrops is falling steadily from the eaves. There are bare patches on the driveway where gravel is showing through the snow, and the stretches of road that get the most sun are a patchwork of dirt and slush. Spring is coming!

How I wish I was a little farther along in recovery and up for a walk in this beautiful weather, but I'm not quite there yet. Otter and I will have to get outside tomorrow for a little bit, at least, to watch the other kids as they run around. They had a blast on the deck this afternoon! We're at a funny point in breakup, since there's still snow piled higher than LB's head (and it's getting soft and punchy now with all the sun, so the kids sink in instead of running on top), but it's warm enough that they want to spend hours out playing in it. It's messy-boot-area season, or messier-than-usual, because the kids need breakup boots for town but snowboots for home and I can't quite reach the floor with Otter in my arms, so I have to keep reminding them to keep all their gear neatly organized themselves and somehow it all just spreads everywhere...

Matt is taking advantage of this warm weather to thoroughly break in his new grill; so far he's made bourbon chicken, moose burgers, grilled chicken to add to a Mediterranean pasta salad, and this evening he made a pork loin stuffed with apples and onions. And tomorrow there's lemon-basil chicken planned; hopefully I'll have it ready in the fridge marinating by midafternoon, so he can throw it on the grill when he gets home from work.

And we know it's sure not winter anymore when it's still broad daylight at 8:30 pm! I'm not sure exactly when the sun rose this morning, but it was some time between 4 and 6 am. We've already had the annual conversations about how "the sun has nothing to do with what time it is" (i.e. whether or not it's bedtime) enough times than Kit and LB believe us. Otter doesn't have any reason to associate light with waking/dark with sleeping, so I can't blame the sun for his keeping me up half the night either. :-) He's been awake for a couple of hours consecutively this evening, though, so maybe there's hope that he'll be tired and sleep most of the night tonight!

Has spring arrived where you live yet? It sure seems like most people are ready to be done with winter!

It's springtime somewhere

Okay, so in my opinion, it's springtime here. Matt feels strongly that it can't be "spring" until all the snow has melted, though, so... basically it won't be spring until some time in May? So we're compromising by using the Alaskan term—breakup—for the snow-is-melting messy season, and once most of the snow is gone and things are starting to green up we'll call it spring. Which is okay; before we married he was accustomed to determining when the seasons changed based on the calendar date, so living in a place where we calculate seasons purely based on climate has been enough of an adjustment... I can accept his definition of spring as being snowless. :-)

If you look at the weekly ads for the big chain stores, though, it's already grilling season... Clearly, they don't make separate ads for Alaska with our remaining 2.5+ feet of snow! (And as my father recently reminded us, it's not at all unheard of for us to get 15+ inches of snow in April. Though hopefully that doesn't happen this year!)

Matt's been looking at those ads and talking about a gas grill for a while now; we've had a charcoal grill for five or six years, and while we really like it, the time and effort involved in lighting charcoal and getting a good bed of coals has meant that we really only grill on summer weekends, and only those weekends that it's not raining or windy and we're able to dedicate a good block of time to pre-supper prep. And every fall, we wish that we had done a lot more grilling. It was time to find someone else who wanted a charcoal grill, and pick up a gas grill instead. 

When would you expect grills to go on sale? I said Memorial Day or Father's Day. Matt figured there would be some beginning-of-the-season sales, to which I said "yes, like Memorial Day..." Apparently he was right, though, because he just found the exact model he's been looking at for a deep discount. Thanks to the sale—and a new-baby gift that his coworkers would definitely approve of him using for a grill—Matt brought home a very early Fathers Day present this afternoon, and spent the next hour or so assembling it with LB and Kit.

And it wound up being the perfect day to try out a new grill, since our power was off and on for most of the afternoon and evening, so I wasn't able to cook supper as planned! It was a windy 39 degrees outside, definitely not the best charcoal weather, but the gas grill did just fine. And having a hot supper as opposed to whatever bits and bobs I could pull together without electricity? Delicious.

It felt pretty strange to be grilling with this much snow still on the ground! I'm hoping that we'll get a lot more use out of it, though, now that it's so much quicker to heat up the grill. Anyone have some favorite grilling recipes to share? I've gotten away with only having a couple of good ones up until this point, but I know that the family would appreciate some new ones to try!

Little ones

We've been seeing a lot of babies lately:

This cow and calf moose hung around the yard eating willows for a couple of days.

Here are two of the seven young ruffed grouse that have been strutting around our woods and yard. I have never seen seven grouse all together before!

I haven't been able to get a good photo of more than one at a time yet, but we have at least three juvenile American kestrels hanging out on our roof, deck, and treetops as they learn to fly. The kids and I have had a blast watching the kestrels' nesting box this summer, and now that the babies are out and flapping around, it seems like we're always running to a window to see them.

And... we're expecting a new little one of our own in the spring! Kit and Little Bear are so excited about their new sibling; they change their minds several times a day on whether they think they're getting a baby brother or sister. We'll see!

Sunrises

I've seen a lot of sunrises this past month or so. Kit's been waking up between 4:30 and 5:30, occasionally as late as 6, and in order to allow Matt and Little Bear to keep sleeping I have to scoop her up and trundle upstairs, where she'll sprawl on my lap and nurse and doze or bring me books to read to her until 7, when she goes running back downstairs to dance around singing, "It's seven o'clock! Get up, get up!" 

So I've been tired. Sometimes I can close my eyes when she naps, but more often I need to devote that precious hour to doing things with Little Bear or taking care of things around the house that can't be done with an active, noisy toddler climbing all over me. The week or so of consecutive four-something wake-ups did wonders for my perspective, though: this morning I was grateful to not be woken until 5:35, and Monday, when she didn't get up until 6, felt like I'd been allowed to sleep in.

It's been interesting to get a first-hand look at how quickly our daylight increases at this time of year; normally, by now we would just be accustomed to the fact that's it's always broad daylight by the time we get up, and not think about when the sun was rising. It was noticeable this morning, though, that because we didn't come upstairs until 5:35, we missed even the last of the bright orange-pinks that we've grown used to seeing.

Most mornings, Kit interrupts her monologue about wanting "milka" as soon as we reach the top of the stairs, exclaiming, "Ooh, sunrise!" and I'll mumble something less enthusiastic about it being beautiful. Because it is, but I'm still half-asleep, child. I didn't realize how much she appreciated the sunrises until a few days ago, though, when I finished helping her get dressed and told her she was beautiful, and she smiled, flung her arms open, and said with a twirl, "I more bootiful dan de sunrise!"

I would be so thankful if she would start consistently sleeping until 6, at least, but despite my being so tired constantly, there has been something valuable about these quiet early mornings. Time to think, to pray, to snuggle on the couch reading to Kit. And this morning, finally finding a bit of time to write. I've been needing to go to sleep early myself, since I know I'll be woken up early, so most evenings I've been trying to get to bed within an hour, hour and a half, of when the kids fall asleep, and that small block of kid-free time is usually spoken for by something that *needs* to be done, instead of being open for something I *want* to do. I'm glad that I found time this morning to write, though! I do miss it.

Watery week

So much water everywhere right now. It's still above 40 F at nine o'clock this evening, and the snowmelt is dripping from the roof like rain. Everything is getting so soft and punchy! The kids helped me make a snowman out of the sun-softened snow in the front yard today, to their delight. Little Bear was clambering along the piles of scraped-up hardpack along the sides of the road on our walk this afternoon, decided to step out onto the parallel snowdrift, and promptly sank in deep enough to lose a boot. Kit had fun sliding on her belly down the bank over and over ("swimming wike a turtle!") as I climbed to the top to "rescue" Little Bear and his boot.

I hadn't been in town since Tuesday, and was startled this morning to turn into the grocery store parking lot and be faced with a giant puddle. Our road is looking pretty muddy, and I'm so thankful that they removed the hardpack a couple of weeks ago—it would be beginning to resemble a bog if they hadn't! It's certainly that time of year again: breakup. ("Spring," as you call it in other parts of the country.)

I was at a farm in the hills this afternoon for a workshop on root cellars, and as everyone trickled in we were talking about the weather. It was so pleasant to be sitting in the sun in a hoody and breakup boots instead of a coat and snow boots! We sure have a lot of snow, though—it was still waist-deep on me a few days ago, when I foolishly decided to break a new trail pulling the kids in the sled—and with the sudden swing to high temperatures, we were speculating on the likelihood of some roads or small mountain highways washing out as it all melts at once. We're going to need to start chipping away at the hardpack on our own driveway really soon; it'll all run downhill away from the house, so we weren't too worried about it, but I'm starting to realize the mess we're likely to have at the bottom of the driveway if we let it all melt and run down as it wills.

And we've been making the poor water system repairman navigate our driveway all week; I'm sure he'd appreciate having a less-slippery slope to drive up when he comes back again next week. It's not really his fault he's had to keep coming back... We've been having trouble with our water turning yellow and smelling rusty/earthy, and I think, I hope, we've finally figured out what the problem is. Apparently our water softening system is supposed to be serviced every year, and we didn't know that so it didn't happen this past summer, and the water was slowly getting harder and harder. When we finally realized there was a problem and had a tech out to service it, the current theory is, it'd sat so long that sediment had built up in the bottom of the tank, and now each time the recharge cycle runs, that sediment gets stirred up and sent back into our pipes. So we'll shop vac out the whole thing, get rid of the mucky stuff, and see if that puts a stop to it.

It's not like the water is currently dangerous—we're using it to wash dishes and persons—but it's not so fun to drink, so we're revisiting our water-hauling days with a big blue jug of water perched on the kitchen counter for drinking and cooking. The kids, predictably, think it's great fun. It's not a huge headache for me, since Matt's the only one strong enough to carry the water jugs up into the kitchen, so he's definitely the one most looking forward to having clear water coming out of the taps again!

What does your spring weather look like right now? Having a bunch of snow still around in April is normal here, but I know that's not the case everywhere!

Seven Quick Takes

I

It's winter for real now: we woke up to a negative temperature for the first time this morning. Nothing too terrible—I think it got up to 3 or 4 above in the middle of the day—but tomorrow evening, we're going to start tumbling into the 20s below. Brr! It's certainly not early for this kind of cold to be moving in, but the first real thermal drop of the winter is painful no matter when it comes.

II

Had a couple of "we live in Alaska" moments today: As we were heading to Mass this noon, a moose was trotting down the driveway fifty yards in front of us. Since it was moving away in the direction I needed to go, I slowly followed, but halfway down the driveway I noticed the much larger moose bedded down in the snow off in the trees to the side. We were now between the cow moose and her calf, and she was definitely bigger than the jeep. Lots of Hail Marys were said the rest of the way out to the road, please let us get out on the road without the cow coming after us! She didn't get up, thankfully.

III

The other bit of stereotypical Alaskan life was much less adrenalin-boosting. On the way to pick Matt up from work this evening, we passed a dog team on the bike/foot/etc trail along the side of the road. I know that a lot of people throughout the valley we live in have sled dogs, but this was one of the first times I'd seen any. It was a small team, only five or six dogs, but they could have been just a part of a larger kennel out for a training run. Little Bear was pretty excited to see them.

IV

We have an amusing/frustrating history growing of Matt and my dad going out hunting but not catching sight of whatever they're after, and we at home seeing the same animal in the yard while they're gone. It happened during several moose and grouse hunting trips last year, and today would have been another instance: they were supposed to be out moose hunting today, but one of the snow machines was making a strange noise and they didn't quite trust it to take them all the way out and back. Hopefully the hunt won't close until they've had a chance to get out! The limit on this hunt is 30 moose and at least 8 have been taken so far; this cold will strengthen the ice on the rivers they have to cross to get to the hunt zone, but we hope it will also keep other potential hunters at home...

V

Our diving temperatures have reminded us of why we're having such a hard time finding a house—the place we're renting is kind of like Mary Poppins: practically perfect in every way, aside from the shared walls. An attached garage, high enough in the hills to get the inversion, a fireplace: I'm almost certain that so far this winter, our heat has not kicked on at all. Will that change once we hit -20 F on Sunday? Unfortunately, the bedroom baseboards probably will overnight... The bedrooms are both on the same zone, which we keep at 65 because of Kit (and Little Bear's continued refusal to sleep under blankets. Seriously, child, you live in Alaska. Let me put quilts on your bed.) A good fire in the evenings will definitely keep the thermostat for the rest of the house from turning on the heat overnight, though.

VI

No photos yet in this week's Takes... I was just flipping through my camera roll looking for photos of recent interesting things, and it appears that I haven't been taking many photos lately, but someone has. I give you, the last couple of weeks from Little Bear's angle:

Knuckles, her favorite food.

Special Car and Little Guy.

Daddy's ring.

VII

A lot of the time, he's just holding the button down to see the flash go off because he got ahold of my phone for 30 seconds—I deleted several hundred blurry photos just now—but some of the time, it sure looks like he's learning to actually take pictures more intentionally. All of the filters and cropping are his; I just watermarked and shrank them.

Here's the photographer himself, helping me prep a sweet dumpling squash for the oven this morning:

Have a good weekend! As always, lots more quick takes to check out over at This Ain't The Lyceum. 

Sun and light

Today is gloriously sunny, with clear blue skies and no more snow expected until tomorrow morning. I love how the sun turns the snow-covered branches pink when it's at just the right angle on its way over the horizon. That's one nice thing about the sun coming up later and later every morning: I get to see the sunrise every day! 

Speaking of cheerful things, the power stayed on all night! No oatmeal cooking in the fireplace this morning. It's stayed on long enough this time that we're optimistic that it's on for good. I appreciated seeing that we did fine without power, but it's pretty nice to be able to turn on the bathroom light or open the refrigerator. And I'm grateful to be able to finally make stock out of Tuesday's chicken, which had been keeping cold outside in the slow cooker; the house smells warm and wonderful with that cooking away this morning.

A pleasant end to the first adventure of the winter; we're supposed to have slightly warmer weather and rain by Friday afternoon and Saturday, so I'd better make sure Little Bear gets plenty of time out in the snow today!

Snow day

Cast iron cookware has vaulted to the top of my Christmas wish list, and wood heat—fireplace or wood stove—has been elevated from our househunting would-be-nice list to the not-buying-without list. I was so thankful for the fireplace today!

At 1:42 this morning, we (re)joined the ranks of the majority of people living outside of the city proper: the power went out. (As of noon today, at least 15,000 people were estimated to be without power.) Little Bear woke up twice, disoriented and upset because it was so dark, but we all stayed plenty warm through the night thanks to Matt's fire Tuesday evening. I got another fire started first thing this morning, and kept it burning until 3:30 or so this afternoon to keep the house warm as the walls slowly lost their retained heat; we lit another at bedtime tonight. It's only in the 30s outside, so it's not cooling down too quickly; we're sure thankful that's a positive 30 instead of a negative! All things considered, this definitely isn't the worst time to have lost power.

Work doesn't stop for a little thing like 12 to 15 inches of snow, so since the university is on its own power plant, Matt headed in to the office this morning. Thank goodness for a jeep with four-wheel drive! It really is beautiful outside, since someone else plows the driveway so I don't have to shovel. That's something else we will have to keep in mind, looking for a house: how long of a driveway are we (Matt + kids if I'm pregnant) willing to clear each time it snows?

So much snow. So so much snow. At least 12 inches fell here between Tuesday morning and first thing this morning, and it started up again later today... And we know other people who got more than we did, 16 inches or more in the same time frame!

The fireplace for heat, the sun for light; Matt went to the store on his lunch break today for extra batteries for flashlights, but it's bright enough in the daytime with the shades open. It's an odd thought that in situations like this, we're probably actually more comfortable than people whose lives are normally more convenient: we heat primarily with wood, so losing power doesn't affect that much at all; we aren't going to get too cold with three cords of split wood outside. We already haul our own drinking water, so we are okay on that, and we have quite the abundance of snow to melt and heat for washwater, flushing toilets, etc. I have found myself thinking wistfully of gas ranges and ovens, but I'm not incapable of making hot meals:

Chicken noodle soup for lunch today.

As exciting as cooking soup in the fireplace was, I'm suddenly developing a preference for wood stoves... it did work just fine, though. My parents' power came back on this afternoon, so we joined them for supper instead of trying something more ambitious in a skillet perched atop the coals, but if the power is out tomorrow morning I fully intend to make fireplace oatmeal. It might be a good idea to invest in a good unglazed cast iron Dutch oven that can sit right in the middle of the coals before the next big winter storm, just in case; that pot was big enough for soup for Little Bear and me, but it couldn't handle a full meal for the family.

Our power has been on and off since 5, on steadily since 9:30 or so; we'll pray that it stays that way now! It's been an exciting couple of days. If we lose power again by morning, though: oatmeal. We'll keep on making this an adventure.

A snowy Michaelmas

Happy Michaelmas! St Michael sure heard from me frequently today; it was a good day to be asking his intercession, asking him to "be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil," what with more than ten inches of snow fallen so far, four power outages, and one downed tree (and more leaning) in the yard. I was so glad to finally have Matt safely home tonight! This probably isn't what Michaelmas looks like in most places:

That's our road. It's currently only navigable by sled or on foot—thank goodness we have another driveway joining a different, larger road! Even just pulling the sled, I had to keep going off into the ditch to get around or under leaning trees on our way to the mailbox this afternoon. Little Bear loved our walk; he very quickly learned to listen right away when I told him to "duck and cover," and he kept pointing out the bent-over trees, laughing when I walked into them because I was looking back at him, and going on excitedly about our "adventure." Kit was less than thrilled, but I was carrying her instead of sticking her in the sled, so she just buried her face in my shoulder and grumbled occasionally.

Today was my first really intentional, planning-ahead celebration of Michaelmas. When the power came back on after the first outage of close to an hour this morning, I decided to put non-electricity-requiring tasks on hold until I finished making dinner. I felt a little silly roasting the evening's chicken and baking the squash before noon, but when the power went back out around 2 and stayed out until 5:30, I was sure glad I'd done it.

Our feast day dinner:

Roast chicken with apples and onions, the Michaelmas recipe from Feast! Real Food Reflections and Simple Living for the Christian Year, by Daniel and Haley Stewart; my mother's butternut squash bake; and a blackberry cobbler. I've definitely never cooked with blackberries before, and I'm not actually sure if I've ever eaten them cooked at all; they don't grow here, but I bought a bag of frozen ones yesterday so that I could tell Little Bear the story about them that goes with Michaelmas.

Apparently it was common, once upon a time in places where blackberries grow, to make sure you picked your blackberries before Michaelmas lest they turn bitter. Sour? Bitter? One of those. Anyway. They would turn bitter, so the story goes, because when St Michael cast the devil out of heaven, the devil landed in a blackberry patch, which hurt, and in anger he spat on the bushes. Little Bear thought it a great story; Matt did a passable job of hiding his amusement at my attempt to explain the battle in heaven at a three year old's level.

People here tell stories about the September of '92, which was the only year in many people's memory that we got more snow at once (let alone in September!) than we have so far this year; in '92, we got 24 inches over three days, and much of the area lost power. I remember that timespan from a kid's perspective: snow far above my waist, digging huge tunnels that lasted all winter, a huge kerosene heater in the living room... As an adult and parent this time, my reaction is a little less "yay, adventure!", but I'm working on being as excited about it as I can for Little Bear. I'm glad that it's happening today, of all days, as an extra thing to make our first Michaelmas memorable.

So far tonight our power is still on, but from what we've heard it is out all over the area, even places closer in to town than we are. Looking out the window this evening, we could see one tree resting on the power line coming to our house and another larger one leaning over the line, so we will see if the power stays on all night! It flickered again here just now; we might wind up having a more "adventurous" night after all. The snow is supposed to keep coming until 6 am.

Seven Quick Takes

I

Okay, so I said I'd tackle the encyclical Laudato Si this week and have thoughts today for you... Ha. Clearly, I hadn't attempted to read an encyclical since I was a college student. There is no such thing as "time to read a document requiring actual concentration" when I'm taking care of these munchkins all day every day. By the time they're both asleep for the night, there's usually something more time sensitive, like washing dishes or keeping the fire going, to drain the last remaining brain cells. So after two and a half days of picking it up whenever I had a spare minute, I've just now finished reading the introduction...

II

Keeping the fire going, time sensitive in September? 

Yes. That snow is to his knees, and it all fell today! I got stuck in the driveway this afternoon, arrogantly assuming that the jeep and I could easily handle 8-plus inches of snow despite not having the snow tires on yet... the undercarriage was plowing up snow, we slid into a trough when I tried to go from reverse to drive, and it took 4 Low just to get back into the garage. One of Matt's coworkers dropped him off at the end of the driveway, since I couldn't go get him from work; I guess we'll be taking turns with the snow shovel tomorrow. Hopefully the snow is done falling for a while! We've been waking up to low 20s outside, right around 65 inside as long as we had a decent fire going the night before. I'm pretty sure we've managed to keep the baseboards off so far, though I'll admit I bumped our bedroom thermostat down another notch this evening when it was getting too close. Matt had a fire going after supper, and I canned applesauce, so the apartment should be plenty warm.

III
Oops, rabbit trails. Very little brain. Back to the encyclical. My very first realization: this isn't new. So many of the people I've heard reacting, whether they agree or disagree, have been talking like Pope Francis is saying something radically new and different and no other pope ever has ever said anything ever about ecology, ever. The mainstream media, I can understand that from, but not educated Catholics; he begins by quoting four recent popes (Pope St John XXIII, Pope Paul VI, Pope St John Paul II, and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI) who all repeatedly expressed that humanity is failing at our responsibility to care for God's creation, and that serious changes need to be made in order to reverse the damage being done. Pope Francis is joining his voice with his predecessors; he's certainly not unique in expressing serious concern about the environment, humanity's role in shaping it, and the connection between our relationship with the earth and that with the poor, those most directly affected by negative environmental changes. I'll be interested to see if he continues quoting the other pontiffs.

IV
Matt was expecting to be out of town for work all weekend, but the trip got cancelled. I'm super grateful to have him at home, with the kids and the snow and what all. Everything goes so much more smoothly with him here. But there would have been one tiny thing that his trip would have made a little easier: making meatless suppers both Friday and Saturday. We always do meatless on Friday, but because we're in the fall ember days, I've added Wednesday and Saturday this week. And he doesn't not want me to cook meatless, exactly, but putting together good satisfying meals with what I have around the house, since it's the end of the month and I'd love to wait until October to go shopping again? Well, it's definitely doable, but making grilled cheese or peanut butter and jelly with Little Bear would be a lot easier. :-) So far it's been fine: cod, baked beans, and broccoli on Wednesday; a Dutch puffed pancake, scrambled eggs, and applesauce tonight... Tomorrow could get interesting, but the puffed pancake tonight was a gamble and they both wound up loving it, so hopefully I can come up with something that will be equally well received.

The fact that it looked rather like an octopus was trying to climb out of the pancake may have had something to do with its enthusiastic reception.

V

So distractible. Okay. So (still in the introduction), Pope Francis is listing off reasons why past efforts to find a solution haven't worked, and it's so easy to think that all of these other people have these problematic attitudes, but not me, and then boom, I'm reminded that yeah, he's talking to me too. He gives examples like powerful opposition, denial that there is a problem—I'm reminded of the 'Alaskans for Global Warming' bumper stickers you see around town—or indifference, resignation, "blind confidence" that technology will solve the problem. Wait. What? I had to read that last one over. What was wrong with looking for a technological solution? (I missed the "blind" the first few times, ironically). 

I grew up on Appleton's Tom Swift and the Asteroid Pirates, etc, Asimov's Foundation, watching Star Wars, Star Trek; in The Future (TM), technology can fix environmental problems, so what was wrong with looking for technological solutions to our present-day troubles?

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew had my answer, calling Christians to "look for solutions not only in technology but in a change of humanity; otherwise we would be dealing merely with symptoms. He asks us to replace consumption with sacrifice, greed with generosity, wastefulness with a spirit of sharing, 'learning to give, and not simply to give up.'" (Paragraph 9) Symptoms. That makes so much sense. You can't just ask "what is wrong?" without also asking "why?"; otherwise you aren't likely to find a real, permanent, working solution. I'm reminded of a photograph of an iceberg at my chiropractor's office: the part that you can see, the "symptoms," is only one small part of the whole chunk of ice. You can't get rid of an iceberg by chopping it off at the water line; the whole thing has to melt.

VI
Moose season closed in our area this past Sunday. Matt had Monday off work, so since there weren't going to be any other hunters out, he took Little Bear out grouse hunting for the first time. It seemed like a pretty good bet that the grouse would all still be keeping to cover after the last few weeks of moose hunters tromping around, so Matt emphasized the "adventure" part over the "hunting" part as they were getting ready; coming home empty handed is certainly a part of learning to hunt, but 3 is pretty young to get all excited about hunting and then have to deal with the disappointment of not even seeing anything.

That didn't wind up being a problem.

They spotted a nice spruce grouse before they'd even made it all the way to the spot Matt had planned to hike, so that just made the hike that much lower stakes; the daily bag limit for grouse is 15, so if they got another, great! But they already had one to bring home, so Matt got to enjoy teaching Little Bear about hiking without caring quite so much about keeping a close eye out for grouse. He guessed they went a little over a mile, and Little Bear did great.

When they got home, Matt had Little Bear stay outside with him to watch as he cleaned the grouse; we talked about how God gives us animals for food, and we thank God for giving us good meat to eat and show God that we're thankful by eating it all and not wasting any. The following night, the grouse became a lovely pie for supper.

VII
E is for... ember days. It worked out perfectly that Little Bear started working on the letter E this week, because I got to dovetail that lesson in nicely. E, 'eh,' egg; E, 'eh,' elephant; E, 'eh,' ember days.

Explaining ember days to the three year old was delightfully simple, and ridiculously complicated. "Ember days are for thanking God for the fall—"

"No, it's snowing. It's winter."

"You're right. Thanking God for the winter, and all of the good food He's given us to store up for the winter, and all of the other—"

"But not the grouse."

"Yes, God gave us the animals like grouse for food, remember? We show Him that we're thankful by not wasting any of the good meat."

"But we're not saving the grouse for winter. Because we eated it."

Have a good weekend. I'll keep working my way through Laudato Si, and most likely have more thoughts to share as I go. As always, you can find many more quick takes over at This Ain't The Lyceum; be sure to check out Kelly's rundown of the World Meeting of Families!

Seven Quick Takes

I

What is this strangeness? Tonight I had to turn the living room light on before 8 pm to be able to read. It still looked bright enough outside, and I could try to be optimistic and say that maybe, if it wasn't overcast, I could have held off another hour, but the dark is definitely coming. We kept the headlights on more often than not this past week! And some of that was from it being overcast and rainy most of the week, but still, there's no question that we are losing light. Also warmth—highs were in the 40s this past week, and will be in the 30s this coming week—but I expect the colder weather once we hit September. Somehow I always forget how early the darkness begins encroaching.

II

We made bright, colorful salsa this afternoon. It's so pretty! What kind is it?

Pink and orange and yellow and green... It looks like one of those peach or mango salsas that's popular these days, or a chutney, doesn't it? But it's actually not sweet at all; it's made from... green (unripe) tomatoes. No, really! 

I'll have the recipe up in the next couple of days, after we've properly tried it with a meal, but I just had to share a photo because I love how colorfully it turned out!

III

Somebody pointed out that one of the past couple of days was exactly 100 days before Christmas. I had a momentary burst of panic: Christmas is already close enough to be counting down?!?, followed by restoration of sanity: 100 is a really big number—that's more than a quarter of the year!, followed by annoyance: what happened to waiting until Black Friday to blast us with Christmas marketing? Part of me appreciates the reminder, though; if I want to have a peaceful Advent without my customary panic at the very end because I've been peaceful-ing my way through the last three weeks and having nothing actually finished, taking some time in the next month or two to make sure I have a handle on the gifts I want to make for people, at least, probably isn't an awful idea.

IV

Goodness, the three-year-old imagination sometimes...

"If you swing the [beanie] snake around very very fast, all of the beans will fly out into my mouth and eat me, and that will be disappointing."

"You can't tickle me! That will make me sleepy, and it's not bedtime yet."

And his chicken pot pie recipe, as explained at supper the other night: Three leaves of lettuce, seven pounds of chicken, three cups of sugar... and Piglet.

V

Much fun bread was eaten here this week. My next-younger sister was in town, and had somehow convinced my youngest three siblings that they like mushrooms. So she baked them a wonderful loaf of bread stuffed with mushrooms, caramelized onions, and mozzarella that was so gooey and delicious hot out of the oven... mmmm. She sent some home with us, and I gave her a chunk of my braided pesto cross. Because the pesto bread, while delicious, was not quite the thing for sandwiches, Little Bear and I later made a loaf of Oktoberfest bread:

You just mix together 3 cups flour, 3 teaspoons baking powder, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1/4 cup sugar in a bowl, then stir in 12 oz (1 bottle) room-temperature beer. Pour the soft dough into a well-greased loaf pan. Melt together 4 tablespoons butter and 1 tablespoon honey, and pour over top of the dough. Bake at 350 degrees F for an hour, and let the loaf cool in the pan for a while before trying to remove it. The butter and honey poured over top gives it a sweet, crunchy crust, but if you want a softer crust (or a dairy-free loaf), mix 1/4 cup of oil into the dough instead of pouring butter on top.

VI

Last night Kit and I slept over at my family's house, so that I could bridge the gap between my sister flying out in the middle of the night and my parents flying back in first thing in the morning. Kit slept pretty well, though it took longer than usual to get her to sleep; she pretty clearly knew that this was not her bed. Once she was asleep, though, she stayed that way for most of the night. From what Matt said, Little Bear was much the same way—he took a long time going to sleep because he knew Kit and I were over at Grandma's, but when he finally fell asleep, he was out. 

I'm so thankful for kids who sleep through the night! I've had trouble sleeping for years, and it seemed logical that it would get worse with another baby rather than better, but since Kit was born I've been getting the best nights' sleep I've had in a long time!

VII

Here's a happy baby photo, because it's late and I'm sleepy and can't think of anything else. Matt and Little Bear were entertaining her this evening as I finished cleaning up the kitchen after supper, and she was so smiley:

Check out more quick takes over at This Ain't The Lyceum!

Food for the winter: Dehydrating

The blog silence recently hasn't been intentional, but it's actually not the kids' fault either: it's the fall's. Or maybe more accurately, the coming winter's. I know it's still summer in most of the country, but out my window?

Yellow. Yellow everywhere, especially on the ground. The rest of those leaves are going to be down before we know it, and then comes the cold. This morning was actually on the warmer side—51 degrees F when we brought Matt to work—but still chilly enough to not let us forget that "winter is on its way," as Little Bear reminds us ten times a day.

Fresh produce in Alaska in the winter is, as a general rule, tasteless and exorbitantly expensive. And with several feet of snow on the ground, you know it's not coming from anywhere remotely local! So I've been working on preserving the produce that's abundant now, hoping to really cut down on the produce I have to buy this winter.

We're borrowing a dehydrator from a friend, and I have a new favorite appliance: slice up the food, lay it out on the dehydrator trays, plug it in, and walk away. So far I've dried peaches, apples, and oregano, and they've all come out perfectly. The peaches took eight and a half hours, the oregano twelve, and the apples—miniature apples from branches grafted onto crabapple trees—were done in about four hours. We were disappointed to discover that dehydrating the peaches didn't heat them enough to denature the proteins that keep Matt from being able to eat most fruits raw, so when he learned from a coworker with the same allergy about the local orchard whose apples they could eat, we picked some up from the farmers market.

The apples are good raw, a little tangier than normal apples, but they seem sweeter dehydrated. Matt can have regular apples if they're cooked, but not fresh or dried, so these are perfect for drying to save for snacks, muesli, oatmeal, etc for him all winter.

I don't see myself dehydrating anything other than fruit and herbs, so I haven't quite decided yet whether buying one would be a worthwhile investment. I've sure been enjoying using it, though.

31 August

At least there was no precipitation today! Thank heaven. I cannot believe that I already have all of the kids' winter gear pulled out, that I have to have their winter things out. It is still August. This is ridiculous.

Little Bear was pretty excited that we got to drive "through the clouds" this morning; thanks to the cold it was quite foggy in the valley on our way in to town.

While we were out running a million errands this morning, we stopped in Once Upon A Child. The only thing I managed to cross off my (very short) list for either kid was a red plaid shirt for Little Bear, which was only on there thanks to Sunday morning's minor meltdown when he realized that none of his plaid flannel shirts were red like Daddy's... The trials of an Alaskan three year old. But! I did find a midweight jacket for Little Bear and fleecy "snowsuit" for Kit, to bridge the gap between what they'd been wearing outside and their real cold-weather gear.

 

And I'd really like to actually get a month or two of use out of the lighter gear, so hopefully we don't go sliding into full-blown winter for a while yet! I just looked back, and last year I was complaining about the first snowfall happening on September 30; at this point, not getting snow until the end of September sounds unlikely and wonderful.

Coloring the sky

"If you took chalk and colored over the sky, this is what it'd look like." Matt, looking out the window this morning.

The smoke is heavy today, like squinting into a fogged-up mirror after a shower. Our air quality index jumped up to Hazardous, the highest designation on the scale, and we're definitely feeling it. I would have vastly preferred to keep everyone at home with the house closed up, but we had an important meeting in town this afternoon that couldn't be rescheduled, and had to take the kids with us; Matt carried Little Bear and I carried Kit, and we covered their faces and hurried between truck and buildings as quickly as possible. We put off all of our other errands, hoping that the smoke dissipates by tomorrow afternoon... They're saying it's possible. I find it hard to believe, looking out the window now, but most of the smoke blew in overnight so I suppose it could all leave overnight again. We can pray it does!

There are quite a few fires close enough to be sending smoke our way, though not nearly close enough for us to be concerned. With 3.1 million acres burned across the state so far this year, we're on track to tie or surpass our worst fire season on record: 6.6 million acres burned in 2004. We've already passed the 2009 record of 2.9 million acres, a fire season I vividly remember; several large  fires were close enough to town that we had duffles packed in case an evacuation order went out, and the smoke was so thick that our hands and faces were dirty after biking to or from work. We joked that we now lived in Mordor, but half the time it didn't really feel like we were joking. Hopefully we don't come to that this year!

Smoke

Well, the smoke did leave Monday afternoon, but by the time Matt and I were getting ready for bed that night it was back. We ran around and shut down the house, grateful that we'd at least gotten it a little cooler for the night, but it was still above 80 and stuffy by morning.

Yesterday, Matt did some research into air conditioners, fans and air filtration. At this point, A/C units seem like too inefficient an option; expensive to operate, only able to cool small areas, not really compatible with the arrangement of our apartment (an open floor plan and very few windows that actually open). Fans... work well enough for us to sleep, but with windows closed they are just circulating the hot air; we had fans running in both bedrooms last night, and both rooms held steady at 83 degrees all night.

One of the fires closest to town (although still more than an hour's drive away) grew by more than 14,000 acres yesterday, and that's just one of the more than 200 fires actively burning across the state right now; we're not likely to see an end to the smoke for a while, not without a whole lot of rain. Our Air Quality Index is now a solid Unhealthy, and I'm starting to feel it in the back of my throat, a dry scratchiness that has me being extra careful to keep Kit and Little Bear out of the smoke. 

Matt and Little Bear built two window air filters yesterday afternoon out of box fans and two layers of A/C filters, first a standard filter to block dust and large particulates, then a very fine filter for the smoke. They have been working pretty well, bringing in cooler air but keeping out the smoke. This morning the smoke outside is visibly heavier, and some is getting in around the edges... Running the air cleaner in the middle of the living room seems to be filtering out most of the smoke that's getting in, so I'm keeping Kit on the far side of the air cleaner.

The sheet hanging over the doorway, combined with the strong pull of the fan, works startlingly well to block the smoke.

This afternoon we'll put one fan/filter unit in Little Bear's bedroom window, move the air cleaner into the room, and then close the door and hope to get the room cool enough for him to sleep with the window closed tonight. It's unfortunate that we can't run the fan/filters at night, because the air is coolest then, but we live in Alaska—it's sunny all night! The window shades have to be closed.

Apparently there is a "dense smoke advisory" in effect until noon today, so hopefully it will lessen after noon?

Oh, one other fun wrench in everything: We learned yesterday that due to the extreme fire danger, the burn ban encompassing most of the state has been expanded to include charcoal grills, among other things. We'd intended to grill all week, to avoid heating up the house because we can't cool it back down! Sometime today we're going to run over to my parents' house so Matt can cook a bunch of chicken on their (gas) grill, and I'll work on finding cold chicken meal ideas. Suggestions would be welcome! So far all I can come up with is chicken salad.

There are possible thunderstorms in the forecast for tomorrow, and more over the weekend; pray that they bring lots of rain, and that lightening doesn't start any more fires!

Te Deum

Thank you, Lord! We can open the windows this evening.

We're forecast to stay in the 80s until Friday. Living in Alaska, we don't have air conditioning, so 85 outside means 85 inside. Being able to get a crossbreeze through in the evenings has been the one thing making bedtime bearable. This morning, we woke up to rust-tinted sunlight, a haze obscuring even the far side of the driveway, and one of my least-favorite scents of summer: smoke.

Summer is "fire season," but in our part of the state we really haven't seen any smoke or fires yet this year. Last night, though, a lot of smoke blew in from a wildfire about an hour and a half south of us. Our Air Quality Index this morning was moderate-to-unhealthy, and forecast to get worse in the evening. With Kit not even a week old, we couldn't risk bringing that smoke in by opening up the house like we usually do to cool everything down, and by midday everyone was hot and grumpy. Matt picked up three bags of ice from the gas station around 3, and we tested out the common suggestion of setting a bowl full of ice in front of a fan. It sort of worked... for ten minutes at a time, and then the bowl was full of water. We were not exactly optimistic about the coming night.

At 5, Matt went out to start the grill (no way are we turning on the stove/oven in this heat!) and quickly called me outside: the smoke was gone! The light is definite still filtering through smoke—the sky is still grey, and the light has a ruddy cast—but the smell of smoke is gone, and the haze is off toward the next hill rather than right across the driveway. We quickly opened doors and windows; the house will be cool enough for sleeping tonight! Thank you, Lord, for shifting the wind!

Crazy February weather

As I've been glorying in the beautiful warm weather we've been having recently, courtesy of the latest "polar vortex"—40 degrees by midday Saturday!—I conveniently forgot about one aspect of warmer places' winters that we don't like borrowing: ice storms.

It's 36 degrees right now. Freezing rain has been coming down since early this morning, and the roads are pretty much impassible. Our pastor had trouble making it five miles between the rectory and the church on flat city streets, in his built-for-off-roading jeep, so it would definitely be imprudent for us to attempt the drive in from where we live in the hills north of town. My parents live one hill closer to town than us, and had seen at least five cars in the ditch by 8:30 am.

This morning we lit a blessed candle while we read today's readings, along with the reflections from the Magnificat Lenten Companion and Fr. Robert Barron, since making in in to town for Mass wasn't possible. We're down to less than half a gallon of drinking water in the house, though... we'd planned to stop and fill the water jugs on our way home from Mass. Once the road crews get some sand down, we shouldn't have too much trouble making it to my parents' house, as long as we don't try to go down the other side of their hill, and we can fill the jugs there for this week.

Despite today's ice, the warm weather is still enjoyable. Yesterday Matt hauled wood—we're still lighting a fire in the evenings, although with the warm sunny days (and all the baking I've been doing) the house stays warm enough until then by itself. Five minutes after going outside, he stuck his head back in the door to let me know it that it was too warm for him to wear a coat. I dressed lightly myself, and put Little Bear in a lighter hat and mittens, but kept him in his winter coat and snowpants so he wouldn't get soaked playing in the snow.

We played outside for at least an hour, and Little Bear didn't want to come in!

I hope that whatever wintery weather you've wound up with, you're enjoying your weekend!

Valentines weekend

On Valentines Day evening, my true love gave to me... A caribou! 

Little Bear and I dropped Matt off to head out hunting with my dad and two other guys at early o'clock Saturday morning. Once they got into the hunting area, an hour down the trail by snowmachine, they spotted a group of caribou on a hillside across the river. According to the range finder they were almost 250 yards away. Matt was the first to take a shot, and he put his shot exactly where he intended. Later he said that if he'd had more time to think about how far away they were he might have tried to see if they could get closer, but his rifle was sighted in at 200 yards and he felt confident he could make the shot. And clearly he was right! 

I'm so happy for him! This was his was his first big game animal, and he was pretty excited. And we're so, so grateful for the meat; it's healthier than beef, and we like the taste much better, and it's definitely much less expensive than anything remotely comparable at the store: natural, organic, etc red meat with pretty much no fat in it at all? That's crazy expensive, easily around $11 a pound here, so we never buy it. 

We spent all yesterday afternoon cutting meat, working through both hind quarters, the backstrap, tenderloins, neck meat, etc; I just have the two front quarters to cut this afternoon, and hopefully I'll be able to grind everything we're setting aside for that tomorrow so that everything will be in the freezer.

This morning, I'm spending as much time off my feet as possible so that I'll be able to make it through cutting both front quarters this afternoon; after spending most of the afternoon standing yesterday, last night and this morning I can barely walk... yay, pregnancy sciatica. I put off this afternoon's chiropractor appointment for later this week, because we need to get the meat cut and frozen as quickly as possible. I'll be very happy when Thursday afternoon gets here, though!

Most of yesterday was spent in old clothes that we didn't mind getting caribou blood on, but before we headed out to Mass yesterday morning Matt offered to snap a photo so I could link up with What I Wore Sunday.

Shirt: Anticipation, Once Upon A Child

Skirt: Cali-Fashions San Francisco, a hand-me-down from my mom's teaching days

Shoes: Sarah-Jayne, garage sale find

Necklace: freshwater pearls from my mom

We're having lovely above-0 weather right now, perfect for a shorter skirt outfit yesterday. I don't think you can really tell in the photo, but the skirt is a forest green. I'm not sure how pink became a central element of my wardrobe—many of my college friends could tell you my less-than-positive feelings about pink—but I've been finding myself wearing it pretty frequently this last year or two, particularly paired with green or brown. Or denim. Or black. Okay, so pretty much everything.