First Day of Moose Season

This post is more of an introduction, or prologue, of the next blog entry. This will be a special guest entry, as it will be written by Ben. 

Thursday he begged to go on a hunting trip for the very first day of moose season. My only requirement was that he took pictures, and write about it on my blog. The trip is taking longer than anticipated and I'm beginning to wonder when my husband is coming home. He's out in the cold and rain now, sending me messages through a GPS texting device. No word of a bull moose as of yet... 

But here is a picture of him with a silver salmon for now (which he caught two weeks ago). That should get us excited.

But these three days of single parenting have not been bad. The best part was yesterday, when we spent time with the principal and her husband, and another new teacher. We pick blueberries for a happy two hours in the drizzle rain (that's pretty good with three children). Wolfe ate most of his but Ruby and I managed to pick enough for blueberry muffins. 

We will see who is the breadwinner this weekend- moose or muffin?

Ben let Wolfe drive! 

Our First Week Back

Hello again.
After four months of summer vacation we returned to our home in Alaska. This time as a family of five, and a family with (a little more) experience of living in the bush.

We found that some motion sickness can
be avoided if we have headphones on. 

And this time around, no one got sick on the bush flight.

The cool, wet weather greeted us as our plane landed on the pebble and dirt runway. Clay was there to load us and our thousand dollar grocery order in the school van. We didn't get far down the road when I asked Clay to stop the truck. I quickly hopped out with Dagny. It was windy, so I wrapped her blanket around her, set her on the ground beside the road, and rocked her body back and forth in the damp dirt. She squinted and Ben snapped a picture; then we scooped her back up and rode two miles to the village of New Stuyahok.

It is a tradition of our village, and other tiny villages around us, that once the mama returns from the hospital with her baby, the baby is to be rolled in the soil of her hometown. Although New Stuyahok isn't my hometown, it felt appropriate at that moment. (Sorry, Webster, NY). It reminds me of "from dust we were formed to dust we return" concept. Genesis 3, right?!

We have now been here for over a week. Some days are really interesting- last Monday I canned 10 pounds of carrots and froze 171 bananas. And some days are less than exciting (yesterday all I did was help Wolfe tape monster pictures on my walls and was Anna to Ruby's Elsa game.) However, each day is met with more of an optimistic view than last year. We know a little more about bush flights, we know a little more about ordering bulk groceries, a little more about the village culture...I could go on. But I won't. Because I can write a little more about it later.

This job is for the monkeys...

Blueberry picking 

Clay had a family addition too.
Harvey, the new puppy,  is on his far right