The cold bright sun causes changes in the snow and ice. As the light and temperature changes, there are more photographic opportunities to capture Mother Nature’s art.
I love the interplay of the shadows and the sparkle of the snow as this wave is seemingly frozen in time.
Today is Sunday. The beginning of the week. Chore day.
Some of the chores we have to do are usual. Today is our scheduled day for laundry. The staff all have a schedule to follow in order to equitably share the washers and dryers. When I used to rent my home, I used to basket up my laundry and drive over to the laundromat. Here, the basketing-up is the same. It’s the short hike over to the classroom which houses my assigned washers and dryers which is different. In the fall, the walk was over sand. Some Sundays, my walk is fighting against wind and icy temperatures. Today, my path was elevated by a few feet of packed down snow. Besides the venue, the laundry is the same laundry chore.
Most Sundays, I bake. This weekend, I baked more than usual. I always bake one loaf of bread. This loaf is for sandwiches to take for lunch during school. With only a few months of school left, I looked over what is in our pantry. It’s time to start using things up. I found bags of craisins and a can of pureed pumpkin. The aroma of pumpkin-craisin bread is now filling the house. There is bread available at the store, but the prices keep me baking at home. I’ve also come to really enjoy this chore and can see always baking my own bread. This weekend, I also made pizza dough. Again, at over $10 per frozen pizza, it’s cheaper, and fun and easy to make our own.
Every six weeks or so, we have to fill our water tank. We have a 300 gallon water tank inside our front door. A really basic electric pump sits next to it and pumps water into the kitchen and the bathroom sinks. We are really conservative with our water use so that we don’t have to fill it so often. As soon as it gets down to about 60 gallons, it’s time to refill. We are lucky, in the sense that we live right across from the school. There is an industrial-style spigot on the school porch that we run a hose from. The hose is long enough to cross the road and then is threaded through a hole in the wall and into the tank. We’ve got the whole process down to about a half an hour. Other staff members have to take a portable 150 gallon tank and fill it at the school and then take it home and transfer the water into their home tanks using a pump. A few of the lucky staffers have homes with “city water” which means they don’t have to deal with hauling water at all.
Today, the spigot on the school porch was frozen. It’s been hovering from 0 to 9 degrees. What to do? Simple solution…a blow torch quickly thawed the situation and we were seemingly ready to go. All right, one end hooked to the school and the other threaded into the tank, water turned on…and no water. Seems the last person who used the hose didn’t take all the water out, so the hose was frozen. Bring the hose inside to let it thaw and move on to the next chore…
Trash. We’ve waited a long time to dump trash. The last time we did it, we used the school truck and drove out to the dump. Now, the school truck is buried under a few feet of snow and will remain in hibernation until the spring thaw. Our dumpster is full. Jack had to locate the school’s snowmobile and sled. Once it was located, Jack and our friend Brian loaded up the sled with our two dumpsters’ contents and snowmachined out to the dump where they will burn it all. So far, no hitches on this chore. I’ll see what happened when they get home. The dump is an interesting place…there might be scavengers there…birds, foxes, or even a polar bear!
It feels good to have everything clean and filled. It was a beautiful sunny day. The house smells like a bakery. Life is good.
Yesterday, it stormed so hard that school was closed. To put this into perspective, our school is never closed. One of the teachers told me throughout her past eight years she has been at Shishmaref School, there has only been one day closed for weather.
The wind is coming from the south, which means it’s warm. It’s bringing wet snow. The gusts strain to knock me over on my short commute to school.
No planes bring people in to town or take people away. No mail leaves or comes in. Everything stays still until the storm passes.
I remember snow days when I was in first and second grade. (This was in the state of New York) I remember excitedly listening to the radio and cheering when we didn’t have to go to school. It was bonus time. I don’t remember having to make up days to make sure we had the required number of school days. I was too young to notice. Maybe we did.
In Shishmaref, we make up the days. If we close school, then we make it up on the following Saturday. That sort of takes away the enchantment of snow days.
This kind of storm is dreary. It’s no fun to go out and walk. It’s no fun to look at the world through the veil of soggy falling snow.
So, I look at my photos of the beautiful fireweed from last summer. And I dream of the fireweed and chamomile I will harvest in the Kenai this coming summer. Maybe a cup of hot cocoa and a movie will help distract me from the soggy storm.
Have I said already that I am a big fan of Edwin’s work?
This piece is carved from reindeer antler. As I imagined, he saw the antler and immediately saw the shapes of the mother and child, and carved the antler to release their images. The small black dots are inlaid baleen. The decorative spray fan is also made from whale baleen. The faces of both mother and child are joyful and sweet which is a mark of Edwin’s work.
Alaska’s state flower is the forget-me-not. My choice for the state flower is fireweed. This magenta beauty thrives in open areas. Up close, it stands tall and proud. From a distance, it colors entire mountainsides. Magnificent.
I had never seen fireweed until our first venture into Alaska. When I look through my past photos, my love for this flower is obvious. I have shots of it alone, mixtures of fireweed blended with other wildflowers, and meadows and mountainsides blanketed by this beauty. There is something appealing about a flower that thrives in the aftermath of a possible disaster and is the beginning of new growth for a burned out area. It’s the picture of hope.
Since my introduction to the flower, I have learned this plant also has culinary benefits. Last summer, I tasted it in a natural plant stir fry. I also have tasted fireweed tea. The dried tea in a jar was beautiful, too. Next summer I plan to harvest some to work with in the winter and try it out for myself.
It was about 2 o’clock in the afternoon. The snow had stopped and the clouds broke. The slanted sun rays kissed the freshly fallen snow. The sky was painted with pinks and oranges. The sunshine looked…warm. But don’t let the sun rays fool you. The village thermometer read 12 degrees at the end of our walk. A couple of hours later, the village thermometer fallen to 6 degrees. I think I’m finally getting the winter weather I’ve been asking for.
We are always amazed by the skies up here. The combinations of the clouds, sky, and angle of the sun result in stunning views. The morning sky (dawn is about 10:30 a.m. now) is beautiful. The sun peeks over the horizon and paints the clouds with a mesmerizing orange and pink glow. As we head toward winter, the sun makes its way across the sky much closer to the horizon. This means the color and the warmth of light differs from what I’m used to. Most days there are some varieties of clouds in the sky which add to the picture. Sunset these days is around 8:30 at night. A friend took a picture of the most beautiful sunset I’ve ever seen. It will be posted soon.
Time has extended just past the last weekend of October. It is getting colder. There are enough cold days and nights to allow frost to cling to everything. The grasses by the ocean insist on standing tall in spite of the weight of the frost.
In the summer of 2009, we drove over 3200 miles to arrive in Valdez. We were hoping to make it in time for a half-marathon in Cordova, Alaska. It took us six days to drive from Sacramento, through Oregon, Washington, British Columbia, and Yukon Territory and finally through Alaska to Valdez. We drove hundreds of miles per day fueled by eagerness and the energy we absorbed from the incredibly beautiful drive and the daylight that lasted till late at night. The last leg of our journey was the 90 boat trip from Valdez to Cordova.
That sounds pretty doable, right? Never mind that we had just towed our boat behind our truck for all these miles. Never mind that our boat had only about 10 hours on the engine. 10 hours? Yes, Jack and I had taken the boat out of Bodega Bay into the great Pacific a sum total of two times.
We spent the night in the long term boat and trailer parking lot in Valdez. We had prepared the boat, the Gillie, for her journey. We filled her tanks. We scrubbed her down. We loaded her with all that we thought we would need to camp on her for a few days in Cordova. We woke early. She was launched pretty smoothly about 7 a.m. The water was flat. The weather calm and overcast. The further we were from Valdez, the more relaxed we became.
Being very new to boating with the Gillie, we constantly checked guages and our electronics to ensure that all was running smoothly. The main outboard engine was monitored to ensure that it was staying cool.
Ten miles away from Valdez, Jack noticed that the cooling stream from the outboard motor was slowing. It was not “pissing” as it should. Uh oh. We knew we had to shut off the engine and let it cool. Fortunately, we still had cell phone reception. I called the harbor master in Valdez to find out who could work on an outboard motor. Hmmm… no one. Yikes! Now what?
We have an 8 horsepower kicker that runs separately from the main outboard. We started that motor and limped back to Valdez to regroup.
Jack thought to call the motor shop in Sacramento to see if they had any advice. The guy who answered the phone suggested running something long and skinny up the exhaust to see if we could clear it. We found a long zip tie that fit perfectly. After a few pokes and a hard blow on the other end, small stones and dead bugs that had collected on the road spilled out. And then came the clear, strong flow of the cooling water. Thank you to Buck’s Outboard!
It was about noon at this time. The water was no longer flat. The wind had increased a few knots. Should we stay and miss the deadline? Should we go for it?
We went for it.
After we passed the place where we had turned back the first time out, we came to a finger of Prince William Sound which ran up as far as the Columbia Glacier. Someday I hope to see this glacier up close. Floating down from this finger where these beautiful sculptures of ice. The blues in the icebergs were amazing. They calmly floated away from the glacier carrying gulls and kittiwakes. The icebergs have these organic shapes that are captivating. The safe arrival in Cordova that evening should have been reward enough. The icebergs were the real reward.
An October snow blankets the beach on Sarichef Island. The sea is still open. For now.
I remember my family taking me to the beach when I was very young. I loved the feeling of the warm sand on my feet and the gentle, salt-scented breeze on my face. I especially loved the energy I felt from the crashing waves. Sometimes when we had to go home, when we had to leave the beach, I would cry. Now, my home is a two-minute walk from the beach. Even though we’re only 22 miles south of the Arctic Circle, in late summer the days were surprisingly warm. Temperature weren’t much different from those on beaches in Northern California or Oregon.
But that was two months ago. Soon, the sea will freeze. On our daily walks along the shore, we notice patches of ice on the sand, and the near-shore water where it is most shallow is slushy at times. Most of the shorebirds are gone now.
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