alaska

You are currently browsing the archive for the alaska category.

herbert glacier trail

September 21, 2010 in alaska, family, hiking, weekends, wildlife | 9 comments

It’s been sunny and warm here for so many days now that I can’t remember the last time it rained. It’s very, very unusual for September to be this nice here in our rainy town. Very unusual. Brian and I were talking about how wonderful it is–but at the same time, I’m reading all these articles about the climate in Fairbanks changing drastically over the next decades and the arctic sea ice melting, forcing all the walrus to come ashore by the tens of thousands… makes me wonder. I am trying to put my ponderings aside though and enjoy it for what it is: a blissful, colorful, normal fall (anywhere but here).

On Saturday, we took a bike ride on an incredible trail out-the-road. The Herbert Glacier Trail runs four miles along the Herbert River until you come to a wide, sandy valley surrounded by bright cottonwoods, their frisky yellow leaves glittering in the wind. Then there was the glacier. Sigh… I love living in a place where you can walk into the wilderness along a river and come face-to-face with an ancient glacier in a beautiful valley. It was so perfectly autumn-y that I could almost smell cinnamon wafting in the air.

The only other time I had done this trail was in the winter, through deep snow. We turned around before we got to the glacier because it was too cold and treacherous. The trail was easily conquered this time, with Brian pulling Mighty in the bike trailer, Bird riding in the child seat on my bike, and J riding solo.

We had much fun lounging on the giant glacier-worn rocks along the river. The afternoon shadows became our entertainment and we added to the collection of rock cairns that line the riverbanks.

The evidence of big bears was all around us. We found a lot of scat, most of it laden with highbush cranberries (hey, I was happy to see that they’d prefer berries over me). I can’t believe I’m posting a picture, but it’s kind of interesting… right?

Since I can’t leave you with a photo of bear poop, here’s a trippy shot that Brian took of me and the littles when we were downtown Friday evening. Tomorrow is my birthday! I’m mostly just looking forward to the cake.

just another day in paradise

September 12, 2010 in alaska, exploring nature, weekends | 6 comments

Had to share the sunset I watched from our beach last night. I was coming home from Safeway when I saw the most amazing orange glow. I ran inside, grabbed the camera and ran down to the beach to catch the last rays. And yes, I feel super, crazy lucky to be able to walk out my front door and cross the street to see this.

We had a wonderful weekend here, except that it went too fast and that Brian and the two littles have the back-to-school crud. J and I did the West Glacier Trail today, though we didn’t make it to the ice caves before we had to turn around. What a beautiful trail at this time of year; the cottonwoods are aglow in their fall colors and the leaves are drifting softly down through the forest.

Looks like we’re in for an Indian Summer this week! Today was absolutely stellar and the forecast through next weekend looks like smooth sailing with lots of orange glow!

PS–Has anyone else in Juneau noticed how high the tide has been this week? Insane! I thought we would get carried away at the beach a few times.

hello rainbow

August 22, 2010 in alaska, weekends | 4 comments

As if I didn’t see enough beauty on our evening walk yesterday (glaciers, waterfalls, wildflowers, smiling babies, swimming puppies, bald eagles and barn swallows… the list goes on), this beauty appeared out of the looming black clouds on our drive home in a downpour.

My very own double complete rainbow! And it was a giant: stretching from one end of the Mendenhall Valley to the other. It’s as if the universe knew how much I would appreciate this sight. I know Yosemite Bear would have been loving this up right along with me. Can you dig it?

And the splendor continues… this is what I woke up to this morning when I walked into the living room:

My mom and dad are coming to town today! I hope the skies continue to show their glory.

Photo props to Brian for the first two photos.

some folks never see a bear at all

August 5, 2010 in alaska, exploring nature, wildlife | 13 comments

I haven’t been around my usual haunts lately (flickr, here). Aside from my trip to Seattle, I’ve really just been hanging out with the family, leaving the camera behind and enjoying things at face value. I get way too caught up in taking pictures sometimes so I’m taking a little breather.

My solo trip to Seattle was very restful and mostly pleasant. I got to meet Lecia (finally! hi Lecia), went to the Seattle Art Museum, saw a great old friend and her new beautiful home, and did lots of eating, shopping and walking. The reason for my trip was a totally out-of-the-blue medical scare that could not be dealt with in our small town. Luckily, all has turned out fine, but was completely frightening in the throes of it all. I’m breathing a big sigh of relief and counting my blessings now.

I did manage to sneak in a few shots (though really terrible as the light was fading fast) of a young black bear we saw about 10 feet from us at the Mendenhall Glacier a few nights ago.  The sockeye salmon are in the creek there now so it’s bear heaven. We watched this guy (girl?) with about 40 other people so we didn’t feel too threatened that he’d turn on us and mistake us for food. It was the kids’ first real bear encounter and they were thrilled! I do worry now that they will think all bears are this chill and not use as much caution as they should. We’ve been talking a lot about this.

This bear really didn’t give a lick that there was a crowd of people surrounding him just a few feet away. We were more or less standing over him on a platform so that gave us a (completely false) sense of security. However, it was just a little unnerving when he’d look you straight in the eyes. Fun to see regardless. When he would finish his catch, he’d walk down to the creek, grab another fish, and bring it right back to his cushy spot in the grass for us all to watch.

So there’s my bird’s eye view of our new little friend. Brian managed to get these next two, which are not so sharp but much lighter than mine. Isn’t he a beauty?

Ever since our fairy tale encounter with the bear in the woods, I have had Lyle Lovett’s Bears song on repeat in my head. And each time I go for a walk at the harbor, I have to sing to myself, “If I had a boat, I’d go out on the ocean. And if I had a pony, I’d ride him on my boat.” It’s like Lyle wrote the soundtrack to my life. Some days that seems really awesome… and some days that makes me feel extremely boring! For the record, Lyle, Texas didn’t want me (or so the stars have shown). Maybe I should be looking for some new theme songs. Ideas? I’m thinking I need to liven things up a bit.

blueberry season

July 9, 2010 in alaska, recipes | 5 comments

I felt like a total whiner making that last post, but now I’m so happy I did! Thank you all for sharing your comments and support. It’s enlightening to be real and I’m going to do it more here. But, I do love using this space to reflect on happy, pretty things. The truth is, I do see a lot of beauty around me! And it’s equally real as the bad. Obviously, that balance goes one way or the other on any given day. Especially with three kids. It’s amazing the power they have to swing the pendulum. They inspire and they make me want to pull my eye lashes out all at once.

It’s a tricky thing–this whole world wide web. I sometimes get depressed that I’m not SouleMama. There, I said it. And I’m totally laughing at how ridiculous that sounds. Life is good when it comes down to the heart.

So anyway, I’m not good with the deep stuff, so I’ll just talk about blueberries.

Blueberries!

Aren’t they splendid? And we have some growing around here these days. Lots, as a matter of fact. Some of them have worms (isn’t that a life metaphor for this post?). The first time I made pancakes with the wild blueberries, they were crawling with worms. I think that was just a bad worm year. We picked quite a bunch this morning and a small sampling didn’t turn up a single creepy crawly. Awesome.

Don’t you want to make muffins now?

Here’s our favorite blueberry muffin recipe. I’m not sure where I got it. It’s one of those dirty old printed sheets that I’ve had for years; probably since the great worm bake of ’98, as it now goes down in history.

Health Nut Blueberry Muffins

3/4 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup oat bran
1/4 cup quick cooking oats
1/4 cup wheat germ
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup blueberries
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1 banana, mashed
1 cup buttermilk
1 egg
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350°. Prepare muffin cups.

In a large bowl, stir together the two flours, sugar, oat bran, oats, wheat germ, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Gently stir in the blueberries and walnuts. In a separate bowl, mix together the mashed banana, buttermilk, egg, oil and vanilla. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry, and mix just until blended. Spoon into muffin cups, filling all the way to the top.

Bake for 15 to 18 minutes, or until the tops of the muffins spring back when lightly touched.

**the first photo above is from the A Child’s Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson.  This version has the most gorgeous turn-of-the-century illustrations and it’s definitely one of my favorite books to read to my babies (after we’ve read the Very Hungry Caterpillar 26 times).

friday at the glacier

June 29, 2010 in alaska, exploring nature, hiking | 1 comment

Moraine Ecology Trail at the Mendenhall Glacier

We were on the lookout for beavers, bears and porcupines… and only came home with visions of swooping barn swallows nesting in the pavilion eaves (and lots of tourists–wow, it’s crowded out there during the summer!).

tidepooling

May 24, 2010 in alaska, exploring nature, tidepooling | No comments

I took the kids tidepooling with J’s class last week. I have to admit, I have always been really interested in the land up here; from the trees and flowers to the birds and bears, but I know so little about the small creatures of the sea. This was my first real experience venturing out into the tide pools with people who could teach us all about what we were finding. It was incredible! The kids were utterly fascinated by all the foreign critters we found, and I have a new obsession. Between this trip and our last field trip to the NOAA facility, I have learned so much.

Did you know that most sea stars extend their stomach outside their bodies to soak up all the food around them?  News to me!  They eat closed mussels by prying open the shell with their bellies and ingesting the meaty inside. Talk about strong abs. This explains why there are so few mussels covering the rocks below the tideline. The mussels above the tide survive because the sea stars can’t live out of water long enough to eat them up. I always noticed the absence of mussels below the water but never really thought of why. Pretty little starfish are crazy talented predators, as it turns out.

Of all the strange things we saw, the chiton freaked me out the most. They just look like little spiny monsters, all tucked away, ready to jump out and bite your finger when you poke it. Seriously, doesn’t it look like a curled up backbone? My kids’ imaginations are getting to me.

We saw a lot of eels, which are wriggly and slimy just like snakes and evoked the same light-headed, oh-my-goodness-I’m-gonna-pass-out-if-I-look fear in me… but I got over it. Kind of. Here’s another creepy little monster:

I don’t know what it was, but it was definitely alive.

The thing that struck me the most during this exploring was how many times I had wandered the beaches up here, never bothering to take a really good look, flip rocks over and get down on ground-level to notice the tiny things.  Most of the creatures we found were no bigger than a fingernail, but they were exquisitely beautiful and intriguing. Exploring with kids is so wonderful for so many reasons, but I am most thankful for their curious bright eyes, pointing out the details that I would so often overlook.

All of this and we are just beginning to scratch the surface. I need to find a good tidepooling in Alaska book, if anyone has any suggestions. I would really like to know what that little balloon-like orange thing is? Some of the kids were calling them sea weenies, but it’s possible they were just trying to embarrass the adults. I’m afraid to google that one.

juneau at its best

May 19, 2010 in alaska, weekends | 10 comments

The weather here has been outstanding. Warm, sunny…. not terribly buggy yet. I have taken so many pictures over the last week that I want to post a play-by-play of my hours spent outside… but I’ll spare you. I picked out just a few shots from over the weekend for ya instead.

The friday night lighting at the Mendenhall Glacier was powerful. The clouds were just beginning to clear for our glorious stretch of sun, and there were lots of small icebergs out in the lake. Brian took the last shot of me and Bird and here’s another really neat one.

My boy is becoming quite the fisherman! He is raring to go as soon as he gets out of bed these days. This Dolly Varden was entirely his catch: from the lure selection to the landing. He’s going to be feeding us all before too long.

It’s nearly impossible to keep these kiddoes out of the water. I thought they’d outgrow it when we left the warm waters of Texas.  Um, no. Bone-chilling or not, the clothes eventually become soaked and the mom gives up trying to keep them out. But trust me, the water is Cold. With a capital C. They swam with icebergs, at dusk, in the glacier-fed lake (see above pictures). **Shiver!** I just realized I should keep two or three sets of clothes in the car for all three kids, and not just the potty training toddler.

There’s our weekend for you. Now that I finally got around to posting it on a Wednesday night. I’m putting this sunburnt body to bed now. Nighty night!

spruce tip jelly

May 13, 2010 in alaska, canning, recipes | 24 comments

I have been really anxious to start harvesting edibles from the forest this spring! I read up on what’s available at this time of year and the thing that jumped out at me was spruce tips. Back during the Alaskan gold rush, homesteaders used spruce tips in jellies and teas as a source of vitamin C to prevent scurvy. As it turns out vitamin C is my favorite vitamin (growing up on a citrus orchard and all). So off I went to harvest some tender young spruce tips to make a batch of jelly.

It was a nice day so I didn’t wear long sleeves, or gloves. Big mistake. By the time I was done, I was poked something awful and had a momentary reaction in which my arms swelled up and it looked like I had the measles. Does this make me allergic to spruce? Not to be deterred, I continued on with my mission.

Spruce tips are only available during a short window in the spring. Apparently, once the tips grow into branches, they are not quite as tasty. And much more dangerous as the needles turn from soft feathery edibles into mean razor blades.

I have never made spruce tip anything before–I didn’t know what to expect from the jelly taste at all. Alaskan’s Winter Ale is made with spruce tips and I’m a big fan so I figured the jelly must be good. And guess what? It’s divine! Nearly perfect, in my humble opinion. It’s herbal, it’s acidic, it’s sweet. It’s definitely worth the skin piercings and heavy doses of benedryl (ok, I’m being a little dramatic. Next time, I’ll just wear long sleeves and gloves). In fact, I am going to be heading right out during this short window to pick buckets more to make some home brew. I’m sure I can enlist Brian’s help in that endeavor.

Spruce Tip Jelly

I based mine on this recipe, but I didn’t really want to make a giant batch so I halved it. Mine could be more gelatinous but the flavor is really good. I imagine it would be awesome mixed with some kind of fruit. I think I’ll make a batch of tea to freeze and mix with salmonberries when they ripen. I used Sitka Spruce tips because that’s what we have in our yard, but you can use any spruce, pine or fir tips. Makes eight 8 ounce jelly jars.

Pick roundabout four cups of spruce tips–just after the brown papery covering has fallen off and before they get too mature. Rinse in cold water and give a light chopping. Cover the tips with water and simmer for 10 minutes. Let stand overnight, strain with cheesecloth.

3 1/2 cups spruce tip juice
1/2 cup lemon juice
1 package fruit pectin (I used Sure-Jell)
5 cups sugar

Mix juice with lemon juice and pectin, stir until dissolved. Bring to a full rolling boil for 2 minutes and don’t let it boil over (it was a giant mess to clean up). Pour into jars and place in a boiling water bath* for 10 minutes.

*I don’t have any fancy canning products.  I just use a big pot with a small towel in the bottom instead of a rack (to cushion the glass jars and keep them from banging together and breaking during the boiling). Here is a good website to read more about canning.  It always seemed so intimidating to me before I started doing it… but I haven’t had a bust yet.  So give it a shot!

Check out this website for more recipes with spruce tips–and please, if you have an ice cream maker, try this so you can tell me about it.  Why don’t I have an ice cream maker?

climbing mountains, catching fish

May 10, 2010 in alaska, parenting, weekends | 3 comments

Mother’s Day weekend was just about as perfect as perfect can get. For one, it was gloriously sunny here–and warm. I wore sandals for the first time! Our sunny weekend also coincided with Juneau Appreciation Day so we were able to get out and play tourists for the day on Saturday. We took the tram up Mt. Roberts to do some hiking but were kind of sidelined by all the snow that was still up there! So we had snowball fights in our short sleeves and bare feet, and a nice picnic overlooking downtown. Not a bad alternative.

Not only did I get oatmeal pancakes for breakfast Sunday, I got my truck washed, lunch out, and my dinner caught for me by my two strapping boys and their patient dad. It was our first catch of the year! And J’s first Dolly Varden. Delicious!

As I meticulously picked all the bones out of the kids’ fish before I served it to them, I thought about how special it is for them to have the experience of catching their own food. I really hope that by being witness to the cycle of life, they grow to respect both the earth and themselves more. Food awareness has always been crucial in our parenting, but up until this point, the extent of how we subsisted had been primarily of the gathering/gardening sort (aside from our grocery shopping, of course). In our years away from Alaska, we had done little to maintain the hunting aspect of feeding ourselves. J didn’t even like the fish, but he ate it anyway because we talked a lot about how the fish gave its life for our nourishment, and I think he understood. Mighty, however, was not about to try it. Here I go sounding all cheesy on you again, but I’ve really been noticing how our way of life up here is just different. In a really good way.

While Brian and the kids cleaned the car outside Sunday morning, I relaxed in the house watching Bruce Springsteen videos on YouTube (is it cool to admit that?) and listening to the Joy Division Pandora station while I did the dishes. If I can hang out with people I love, eat good food, and listen to good music, I’m a happy mama.

« Older entries § Newer entries »