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PWS: 10 Days | 15 Kids | 40 Miles in a Kayak

9/2/2017

 
Jonathan, Laura, and Bryan are skilled navigators and adventurers. Guided by their careful planning, we headed into the
​brief-blue sky and waters of Prince William Sound. 
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Dropped at Point Nowell
Warm, pink glow settled on the mountains like silk.
I wrote: may we stay dry in the rain, joyful in our hearts, and generous in our actions.
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Ten Mornings

Xtra Tuffs, forgotten. Ten mornings to go.
Let us start with ten miles to Ewan Bay.
Passing Granite Bay and rocks that crowd Junction Island,
seals furtively eye us, and orange-footed Oyster Catchers
stay grounded while gulls erupt into flight and frantic shrieks.
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Zip, peal, zip: from dry suit to tent.
Storm teacher. We learn water below,
water above, water without, and water within.
At Bog Island, fingers are colorless, wrinkled fruit, and we
must think of wetness in layers.

Zip, stuff, zip: from tent to dry suit.
Bog Island becomes a convalescent home, made of polyester tarp.
To stay warm, Yoga in the rain. Two are napping.
While we rest, beached ice become snarling growlers,
I see and listen in the quiet way.
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Zip, stuff, zip: from tent to dry suit.
Before crossing Jackpot Bay, we visit a waterfall.
While we lurch to avoid bear scat, dark blurs leap into vertical flows.
Tonight, we tuck our tents under a canopy
of alders against a rock wall, slicked with falling water.

Zip, stuff, zip: from tent to dry suit.
Four days of dampness and heavy brows. The sky teases with streaks of blue
that enliven ice-green bergs. Suddenly, sun spills over clouds.
Wordless gasps and elation melt our moods.
Glacial air chases warm rocks. We race to dry our gear.
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Zip, stuff, zip: from tent to dry suit. Again Island found, in Gaanaak Cove.
Blueberries drip from the bushes like the rain of the past four days.
Yellow arnica stand like sunflowers, and I feel her here.
The commuting breeze sounds like morning traffic on the Glenn.
Chenega, that achy glacier, growls like a distant tarmac.
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This morning, rays of sunshine dance on my tent for a few seconds.
Zip, stuff, zip: from tent to dry suit.
We arrive to Nassau Fjord as unwelcome, party crashers
To hundreds of seals lounging on their icy chaises.
Don't Go, I think. We were uninvited.
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Zip, stuff, zip: from tent to dry suit.
Haibun, Didactic Cinquain, and Diamante:
These formulas are like the handrail method Jonathan teaches for reading a map.
Intentionally point off course to the stream that goes into the lake,
or veer to intersect the road to the parking lot.
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Zip, stuff, zip: from tent to dry suit.
At Dual Head, the tide is a mirror to itself.
The echoing waves, equal and opposite to my breath.
I relish the watercolor and poetry on the beach under our
first and only setting and then rising sunshine.

Zip, stuff, zip: from tent to dry suit.
Despite the small-craft advisory in Whittier yesterday,
We are delivered from the Sound on calm waters
​as we reunite with family and former self.
I believe I am more than I was.
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Erin Johnson | Thank you for being with us.                                    You will always be with us.

6/24/2017

 
Into the Darkness they Go, the Wise and the Lovely
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On Monday, my husband waits until I get home to say the words.

I go to unload the car and carry back tears.
Sitting, stirring, I begin to take out stitches on
a strayed shawl for the third time.

An artist and an adventurer, she sipped Dickle and ate meat
and raised chickens. She slept in a small house to live spaciously.
Erin was tall and never knowing of how she showed me to
express, explore, expand, to exist.

On a long ago Friday, with frayed Carhartt pants, we were
chatting about women, and their depictions in magazines,
Erin says,“Well, they’re not shaped like a real woman.”
For a lasting moment, I see from her wise and lovely eyes.

Erin is a stitch unlooped from our tight knit.
A drafty gratitude, a sudden shiver. She was here, with us, with the world.  
And now we are looping onto each other, tenaciously.
Even so, what are we to do with slipped stitches and this hole?

May we purl pain into artistry. All we have to do is add the t.  
So we will paint. And we will climb mountains.
We will tear and we will cry and live and bleed and die.
Until then, we have no other task than to knit ourselves together.

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Pepper Peak (ish)

6/19/2017

 
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Jessie and I met at the Eklutna Lake parking lot just after 11am. Our goal was to do a quick five mile hike on the Twin Peaks trail. I thought I’d be home around 3pm. As with all adventures truly great, it didn’t go as planned. It was one of those gorgeous Alaskan days. The colors cast by jewel blues and greens that relieve me.
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Our hike turned into a climb after the second bench, which is the end of the Twin Peaks trail. Jessie and I, not clear about where the twin peaks trail ended, debated whether to go left or right. At the fork in the road, we decided to go high. The climb towards Pepper Peak got confusing because it’s easy to take a game trail. We switch-backed and scrambled-up the spongy tundra until the rain clouds and distant thunder shooed us home.
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Taking the Waters
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I went to investigate a gently flowing stream
and discovered that it was
trickling up from the
 massive rock
we were climbing.


The water gurgled up and out,
then down onto smaller rocks
and then into finer rocks
that pooled the water so slightly.

Next, the history of “taking the waters”
trickled from the Romans
into my palms, and I 
splashed wellness on my face.

Eyes closed, coating my flaming cheeks,
the cold water squeezed a gasp from my lips.
I splashed again and gasped again,
and again, and again.


This, with such certainty, wells up in me now:
So much can be drawn from words.
​We go to the forest,
​for rest.

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Reflections on Summer

8/20/2016

 
Lessons I learned.
​

Write

Take a journal.

See

Look for beauty and love.
My sweet friend, Kasia got married. On the way to the church, we squeezed in a phone call to Anna who was watching her two boys nap in Ohio. Even though more than a decade has passed since we were all unmarried women working at ZAN and our lives today look little like they did back then, our friendship remains unchanged. 
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Congratulations to Kasia and Travis! You're one lucky guy. 
I was also thrilled to spend the morning with Bekah soon-to-be Arnold on her wedding day. Your friends and family are so amazing. Thank you for the challenge and gift of capturing a few moments. Here are some of my favorite shots.

Be

Like a lake, exist in many ways. 
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Blueberries and Baking

7/24/2016

 
The rain is here for a few days, and with it came a moment to pause, pick blueberries, bake, and spend time with family. I headed up to my parent's cabin in the woods, which is a 2.5 hour drive and completely removed from the pace of the city. It takes about 24 hours after I arrive, but then it happens: I sit on the front porch and am content to stare at the lake, passing the time without thought, except to notice the sun arch past the trees.
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The blueberries are in. Bright blue gems pop out against the green forest floor and stain our fingers. 
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Myron waits expectantly to share our harvest. 
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Once we rinsed the berries, we divided them up for two recipes. The first, a quick blueberry jam. The second, banana blueberry bread. 
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The blueberry jam was made with a bit of sugar, cinnamon, and lime juice. We cooked it down for close to 45 minutes until it became thick and condensed.

The banana bread came together quickly, and we gently folded in the blueberries before popping it into the oven. 
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Wild Alaskan Blueberry Jam
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Banana Blueberry Bread

Alaska Golf Life

7/24/2016

 
As I never expected, golfing in the land of the midnight sun is undeniably beautiful. 
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Whether we have to wait for a moose to cross the fairway, pause as we hear a bear rustling in the woods behind us on the tee box, or find ourselves quietly pleading that we'll be able to fish our ball out of the wildness that borders the greens, our Alaska golf life has been a really good time. 
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Oregon Coast

6/30/2016

 
We've been hearing about the coast for years. Starting in Portland, we traveled up and down the 101, had a few adventures, ate incredible seafood, and landed in Seattle for an-always-great time with Laura and Shane. 

My Portland

With Powell's Books and the Pearl District on my agenda, I landed 36 hours before Adam so that I could take my time in Portlandia. 

I was greeted on the drive into downtown with the bustling frenzy of the Starlight Parade preparations. 325,000 spectators were setting up their folding chairs as dodged my way to a parking garage. 

I pulled over at one point, seriously contemplating paying for another hotel to valet park the rental, just to hear that I was so close to the parking garage of my own hotel, just five left turns away. Once parked, I was pretty desperate for an oyster bar with a serious cocktail menu. This is exactly what I found at Southpark Seafood. Their version of a "French 75" took the edge off as I slurped down half a dozen oysters. Their oyster shooter choices were wide-ranging. I chose a quail-egg, uni, oyster shooter with asian flavors. Excellent.
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After a quick bite, I headed down to the waterfront. I wandered for a few hours through the carnival, downtown streets, past the parade, towards the setting sun.
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Our Portland

Newport, OR

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Local Oceans Restaurant
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The aquarium:
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We met the pacific ocean at Newport, which is about in the middle of the Oregon Coastline. Local Ocean Seafoods was the perfect place for dinner. The establishment operates as a fish market and restaurant, our kind of place. 
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Walking the docks after dinner
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The Best Coast

For the next several days, we drove up and down highway 101. We bought fresh almonds and cherries from a farmer in Florence. We drove, walked, and took in the beautiful west coast. 

Waves

Yachats
 This is one of my favorite memories from our trip. 
At the urging of a local, we found ourselves at this beautiful beach where
​we watched the waves come in for the better part of an hour.
Rising and falling scupltures of water exploded from the sea like fireworks. 

The road less traveled

We got off the 101 for a bit and took Oregon's 131. The rural towns were small and the wilderness big.
Quiet and wild, in a way, like home. 

Lighthouse

Cape Mears
The lighthouse was built in 1889 and sits 217 feet above the Pacific but is only 38 feet tall iteself.
 The Fresnel lens was shipped from Paris, hoisted up the 20 story cliff, and magnified five tiny flames that could be seen 21 nautical miles away. The lighthouse guided mariners for three generations.
 I couldn't stop taking pictures.

Astoria

On our way to Astoria, we passed by Tillamook to get some cheese. Then, it was onward to my favorite town of our trip. Astoria sits at the mouth of the Columbia river. The Maritime Museum gave us a glimpse at the epic feats of the earliest mariners to brave the Columbia River Bar.

I found myself sitting in this window seat more than once looking up marine traffic that was passing us by. Thinking of the people who canned fish in this very building 100 years ago.

We walked around town, ate great food, and flew through the air for over a mile of zip lining; it was all a total blast. 

​We will be back, Astoria. 

Minneapolis

11/20/2015

 
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For me, being in a city is always intimidating. I feel small and slow. I wonder if city dwellers might have a similar experience in the mountains.

Minneapolis is kind and sweet. I made friends with Konbo, an Ethiopian cap driver with eight children. He used to trade coffee beans and travel the world before immigrating to America. Now, his two oldest children are pursuing degrees in civil engineering and medicine, and he has big dreams for eight futures. 

The picture to the left is of a gated cafe out of service for the season. Winter dreams. 
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Each morning the sun crested over the horizon and ricocheted brilliantly off walls and windows. This got me thinking about how being in a metropolis creates a pin ball machine effect. Hard surfaces and straight lines bounce me and my ideas around, giving them shape but also boundaries. 
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Then there was the food. . . 

I ate at two notable places. The first was Heyday Eats Restaurant. 
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The second place was the single most memorable restaurant meal of my life. I only wish I had had Adam and some friends to share it with. Though, as it was, eating at Travail Kitchen and Amusements was like falling down the rabbit hole, in the most delightful way. ​
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They recommend a four course tasting menu, and I would too. I indulged in:
  • Chicken Liver Tart
  • Malt-Grilled Pork Ribeye
  • Roasted Squab with Kohlrabi Raviolo 
  • White Chocolate Caramel Olive Oil Cake with Tomato Granita 
The bartender custom made cocktails with less sugar/sweetness for me. The dessert was a revelation with the the tomato granita as the highlight of the dinner. 
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There were 19 courses, and I am rendered a bit speechless, even in reflection. Here, I'll let the pictures do more than I could say. The menu is below.
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Scenic City

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The city is a forest of windows. Strait lines and grids rebel agains the chaos of nature, but even still an irrepressible frenzy bubbles to the blue surface and echoes the tangled furry of a forest floor. 
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Early Winter

11/8/2015

 

Anchorage

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​So many personalities in the sky that night as
​we walked the coast. 

Eagle River
​Yurt times are good times

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​The light of the fire, aurora, and candles
danced and dazzled.  
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Morning

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Where's Jason?
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The dew droplets are frozen orbs, enlightened diamonds dangling in the heavy cold.

And cotton clouds glow peachy rose on a sky that is anything but blue this morning. A gradient of hues sweep from pale yellow and green to lilac, then--at the apex of this dome--a granite periwinkle. The sun is generous but furtive as it reaches and recedes behind a curtain of bedrock giants that give shape to the place I call home. 
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Stone Carvings

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The tendrils of winter kiss and crawl to form illuminated manuscripts on stone.
These elaborate designs are surely gone by now, but I saw them and held them and bring them back to you.

Some days require a campfire

10/31/2015

 
Some days require a campfire. I dragged the logs from the pile, split the wood, and poured breath into a fledgling flame. With hopeful glances, I furtively groomed the yard as the coals came to life, and words came slowly to the page.
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Right now nothing is on my mind.

I pet my dog, listening to the sizzling logs dry out
and the flames twist in the air like
an arrant flag contorting in the current. 

The chickens peck and flap and groom 

and tap dancing
leaves roll across our mossy roof.

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Fall 2015

10/3/2015

 
The pageantry of this season urges stillness like nothing else. There is a rhythm, and it goes like this: First, the sound of rain splashes broadly on surrendering trees, and then (in mid-morning) the water droplets form rock garden patterns in the bowled leaves that have come to rest on the deck—just briefly in this silence--before the chimes signal the winds.
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As they do, the cranberries soak the air, and—​for this season of endings—​our family has been met with sweet, sweet beginnings. 
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Congratulations, you two!
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Juniper and me
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Yes, there is the food . . .

Prince William Sound Shrimp
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Adam and I were delighted in the surprise delivery of these beautiful shrimp on one of the last days of the season. Thank you Jessie and Paul for sharing your bounty. 
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Jessie and Paul
Pizza Night to Celebrate an Engagement
                     Soups and stews to warm the 
                                                           bones before the frost coats
Beef Burgundy
Chicken Broth

Lastly, friendship




​


​Toes in the sand against the 
           backdrop of
​                   caramelized leaves
 Kasia, my friend, we'll sip wine and
       Fall 
       ​       
Fall  
                     Fall into a season.

and landscape

                                          and fall is done.

because to why

10/3/2015

 
There are those days that seem to take form from pure kinetic energy. The work you do, the plans you lay bring into motion a day, whole in rejuvenation.
It started with poetry from my favorite, E.E. Cummings. 
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​Blueberries, port like, summoned and satisfied; they burst into crimson stains in the snow beneath my footfalls, not to mention on my yearning palette. 
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Then, after a facial from Kelly Strong, I walked up the saddle in Eagle River. It was a silent and spacious hike, so I'm compelled to bring back scenes from the mountains. 
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Doesn't the soil seem richer in anticipation of the nutrient dense leaves? Decay and life are interwoven here, and the yellow will melt into the earth to return in the spring.  
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​Back from the mountain, Adam and I savored the vestiges of summer. Allie, my sweet friend, shared her father-in-law's tomato bounty with us, so Adam and I crafted the best recipe we know for fresh tomatoes: Caprese, and it was the finest version we have ever had. ​
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To close, E.E. Cummings

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An Alaskan Wedding

8/29/2015

 

Get Ready. . .

The house has never been more beautiful, and just days before the wedding a cadre of us were focused on getting the details just right. That meant setting the stage, delivering the beer, prepping the mac and cheese, tomato soup, wedding cake, and caesar dressing. The day before, Laura and Erin climbed the saddle and collected boutineer and boquet flowers. The trip was muddy but the result was the best beauty Alaska has to offer. 

Get Set. . .

The rehearsal was beautiful and just a few decisions had to be coordinated before the big day. When we returned, we had an amazing lasagna and finished prepping that last of the beef ribs and caesar salad.

With three generations in the house, it was impossible not to make the connection that we are right in the middle. Just 30 years ago, our parents and aunts and uncles were right where we are now, and we are just 30 years from helping Olive and her siblings and cousins celebrate their big day. It's an obvious realization, but one that I haven't really sat with before. It makes me thankful, quiet, and buzz with warmth. 

Go!

Here we are. . .Game day. . .5 years in the making. 
Everyone was calm, happy, and ready. The food came out without a glitch, the ceremony was sweet like honey, and the party lasted late late into the night. What a day. 

Soup, Friendship, and the Last Wedding

6/10/2015

 
Today I'm bringing Jessie a home-cooked meal (Vegetable Beef Soup) for us to enjoy after she gets off of work. At 9:30 this morning, I went down to Mike's Meats and got eight pounds of beef bones. Jose quartered them for me to make it easier to handle, roast, cook, and extract the delicious nutrients from. You can see what I did with all those bones here. This post is about friendship, three friendships. While cooking this soup for Jessie, I couldn't resist the poetry of seeing an ancient recipe (tell me what's older than meat and vegetable soup) as a symbol of our very long journey as friends. 
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Isis (left) and I on our first day of school at Homestead Elementary.
Actually, this picture (left) was taken on the exact same day we met. Despite the calm and confident swagger that is projected in this picture (check out those overall shorts), I recall a very turbulent first day of fourth grade. 

The moment that Mrs. Bradley directed her students to get ready to write, I was horrified by the fact that I forgot my pencils, binder, and lunch (I think I was distracted by my awesome pants). Scolded for not being prepared, I was relieved when Jessie let me borrow a pencil and later asked me to play with her on the playground at lunch. 
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In those early days we would write letters back and forth to each other (sending them in the mail). They read with the hilarity and sometimes, heavy drama of growing up, and I'm glad that I still have a few. 



What I couldn't possibly tell was that I was getting a package deal with Jessie. I was lucky enough to become close friends with her two amazing sisters. 

We girls grew and grew. We grew together and apart too many times to count. Somehow, by some magnetic pull, we never lost our bond.
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Poker and peppermint "cigars" sleep over. We were pretty BA.

A Short History of Friendship

10th Birthday
Yeah, I don't even know. I thought I was the yogi.
Pre selfie
I got you, babe.
6th Grade Camp
Eagle & Symphony Lake
Sisters
Not the "lot" anymore
Jessie and I have no recollection of this.
Basement talent shows. . .
10th Grade
17th birthday at Chuck E. Cheese
Fluffy bunny - I didn't stand a chance.
Teenagers
Senior year, Toby Keith concert
Jimmy Buffet, Margaritaville is at Cheri Lake.
Senior Year Homecoming
Happy Summer Solstice!
That's tabasco.... yikes.
Then we started getting careers. Erika goes to nursing school.
She was always more mature than the rest of us.
Hatchers Pass
Wedding bells! Jessie was the first to get hitched.
MAT Graduation
Wedding bells again!
Summer Hangouts
Wedding bells a third time
Laura graduates from the Nursing Program
Montague Island
Engaged!
The first one to become mommy
Olive, 1 year old
A timeless tradition
Just like a good home-made meal, the more time and love you put into a thing, the richer and more nutrituous it becomes. 
We are some damn lucky women to have each other, have this history.

And now, Laura, you're getting married to your best friend. 
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In the Land of the Midnight Salmon

6/3/2015

 
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Thank you, Paul. 

On the last day of school, we got an opportunity to pick up some Copper River King Salmon from the dock in Whittier. Jessie and Adam drove down Friday night and brought back some serious fish for family and friends. Adam cleaned and filleted the kings in our backyard until almost 2am. Eventually we were working by the light of the furtive sun, and so it follows that we kept company in the land of the midnight salmon. We would wait until the afternoon to eat our King Salmon three ways. 

Twister Creek IPA
Feeder
Jessie filleted her own.
Happy to have King.

Hard Time - The Chicken Series Gets Real

5/3/2015

 
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Brooding chickens are upon us. The girls are doing some hard time behind bars. 

These girls have been in their laying boxes for much of the week. Our egg production has gone from 5-6 a day to half that. Yesterday we attempted "the chicken shuffle" as a remedy. I was outside all day doing some spring cleaning and when a non-broody hen approached the egg box, I let her in and shooed off the broody girls. This worked for a time, but required constant attention. So this morning at 6am, Adam and I greeted the 29 degree pale-sunshine air with a plan, of sorts. After reading several other blogs about how to deal with this problem (Our go-to is the Chicken Chick, who has a fantastic blog), we decided to save the $300 that a rabbit hutch would cost and dug around in our shed to see what we could piece together. We found a dog kennel from when Wilson was a pup, some spare wood, and spare hardware cloth. 

Apparently, these brooding girls need to be eased out from their hormonal trance by separating them from the others and providing a boring, cool, light, and drafty. . . . what's the word. . . .prison. Thus, they are sentenced to a maximum security life for the next week or so until they stop growling. That's right, growling. They have gone from my sweet, sweetie-pie girls to nasty, growling, edgy crazies who have the single focus of hatching an egg. 

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Despite all the rage, I'm still just a chick in the cage.

Arizona Spring

3/29/2015

 
I saw the first bursts of spring hues in the Arizona desert this March. Arizonians tell me that this is nothing compared to the rich palette of colors that will paint the desert floor in April and May. But, I was astonished to watch the desert transform before my eyes from a seemingly monochromatic moonscape to a rich and dramatic beauty. This trip restored me in many, many ways. Thanks, Mom & Dad!

River Walk

3/29/2015

 
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North Fork, Eagle River

Arctic Desert

Winter Lights

3/9/2015

 
I liked playing with the light and crystal formations of these ice balloons. This was way back near the winter solstice. 

The Time Between

12/6/2014

 
Having spent the last 15 years at Amber Lake, the eerie and novel experience of the landscape without snow came as a weird surprise. It's the time between, when we couldn't boat across or snow machine, that the lake kept a secret. 

In the early evening, Mom and Dad rushed me out to the dock to hear the expansion of the ice. The lake acted like a drum and the result was an alien, whale-like resonance that immediately evokes the feeling of smallness. This, a sense of inadequacy and an instant admission of ignorance, left me feeling awe and humility. 

Then, the next morning I took pictures of the beautiful formations stuck in the ice. 

They were frozen in space and time, but still the lilly pads reached towards the surface 
and 
gas bubbles made a galactic sprint towards air.
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