Life is precious.
I happened upon this guy unexpectedly. Just behind our house. There is the noise of songbirds around our house, twenty-four hours a day.
Here's a view to show how the morning glories grew into the blinds. It was difficult to untangle them. I measured one plant everyday and graphed the progress with the children, but by the time the vine was six feet tall I couldn't even follow it anymore.
These are just a few of my students this year on the day of graduation/end of year celebration. They are reciting a poem about a caterpillar becoming a butterfly.
Hard for me to capture photographically, but here's the bounty of plants we grew in our classroom this spring. The peas and morning glories in the "window boxes" were planted at the tail end of February. The sunflowers were planted at the end of April. This photo was taken May 1. Note the hugeness of the plants and the snow outside. We start to get a lot of sun before we really get out of winter, so protected behind our Alaska windows, and situated above an overactive radiator, these flora were happy, happy.
We woke up on May Day to a blanket of new snow. Beautiful. But, snow? In May? That's sooooo last November.
Winter slipping off our roof, just didn't want to let go.
As if Spring Carnival doesn't bring enough excitement and late night shenanigans to Fort Yukon, a purported polar bear wandered close to town. Once spotted news spread like wildfire, but the kind of wildfire that no one actually believes exactly, or do they? Some local men bounded to the snowmachines rifles in hand. Zebedee brought back a honest-to-god polar bear. http://www.newsminer.com/news/2008/mar/28/polar-bear-killed-fort-yukon/ We, along with the rest of the town, paraded through his yard as he skinned out the small polar bear. I saw it, and I believe it. I'll include here only the tame photo of the bear's large paw. Because some folks may be offended at the blood...check the comments on the article on the newsminer website for more conversation along those lines.
If you go to where the polar bear lives, he might kill you. If he comes to where you live, you might kill him.
If you go to where the polar bear lives, he might kill you. If he comes to where you live, you might kill him.
Carmen sports her brand new indian dress put together by her mother and grandmother. Her mother is one of my co-workers at Head Start. I beaded the pink flowers on the dress. The whole outfit was made in five days. She won third place in the carnival baby contest.
This was the experience of a lifetime. Due to some generous and thoughtful friends, my name came up as a possible musher during our spring carnival race. The first day I visited Anthony's dog yard one of his buddies lifted me up and said to another musher "oh yeah, Ryan, she's gonna make up for that fancy light sled of yours, you better watch out." They were happy I'm somewhat slightly built. I watched a few races over the past few weeks, camping out with Keith at the bottom of the worst hill to study how to get down it without eating too much snow.
On the last day of my sister's visit we headed for the dog yard again. Anthony threw me behind six of his puppies and Julia and Anthony chased me around the 8 mile course. We posted our buddy Goose out at the bottom of the hill to catch anything that might come tumbling down.
Which turned out to not only be me, albeit still holding on to the sled and the dogs, but also part of the runner that I busted in the fall. But Goose helped me stop the dogs, we righted the sled, I jumped on and "Hai!" (Go) we were off again. Otherwise this practice run went very smoothly, and I loved. Julia and I shared a few whoops of exhilaration afterwards. Anthony seemed to think I passed the test and he promised to send me out with his fastest six dogs come race day.
Without any more practice, except some serious nocturnal visualization, nightmares? I headed to the shute on Sunday and took off fifth, the number I had drawn at the radio station the evening before. I had a good start, but a very rough run. My dogs were fast and I got tangled up passing the first team I came to, tangled up with the second team i came to, fell once, on the second fall I let go. Fortunately a much more experienced woman musher just behind me caught up to my dogs and held them for me a second and let me go. My dogs were super tangled, I was way out of breath, just holding o for dear life. A real professional musher had me stop along the trail and he untangled my dogs. Right before the finish line I took another spill and dragged my face through the snow before getting to my knees and finally jumping back on the runners in time to cross the finish line. A photo shows me kneeling right at the finish line, red and icy in the face. It captures accurately how difficult day one was for me. I was physically shaking for hours after the race finished. Not to mention a few tears, the swelling, bruising and raising of welts on my body. This was tough. And I was slated to go again the next day.
That night I woke up talking about mushing. I dreamed all night behind dogs. Despite my travails the previous day I had finished fifth out of nine. We go out at two minute intervals. Because we had been reordered somewhat according to speed I didn't end up needing to pass anyone on day two, and I had a much better run. Both days I got done the big hill fine....jamming on the "break" a sort of spring loaded lever with an arm with two screws mounted on it. I stepped on that with all my might with my left foot, leaned on my right foot and bounced down the hill. On the way back I would jump off the sled and holding on over my head run up the hill behind the dogs. of course this is where everyone snowmachines out to watch. Maybe it was the performance pressure that kept me from eating it at this part of the track.
I made up some time on day 2, finishing second for the day, and moving to third overall. I won a total of 525 dollars for my kennel owner, Anthony. My buddy the kindergarten teacher, who also raced with six of Anthony's dogs...his slower "B-team" had a great run the first day, and was on her way to really creaming us all until in a fluke accident the "hook" or anchor popped off the sled and broke both her tibia and fibia, leading to a medi-vac, four hours of surgery, one rod and four screws.
After finishing this race, and doing respectably for myself, I could have lifted the world from its axis. This is why I love this place. Thrilling brand new challenging spectacular experiences are always lurking.
I've got a standing invitation to mush Anthony's dogs anytime. I look forward to it.
On the last day of my sister's visit we headed for the dog yard again. Anthony threw me behind six of his puppies and Julia and Anthony chased me around the 8 mile course. We posted our buddy Goose out at the bottom of the hill to catch anything that might come tumbling down.
Which turned out to not only be me, albeit still holding on to the sled and the dogs, but also part of the runner that I busted in the fall. But Goose helped me stop the dogs, we righted the sled, I jumped on and "Hai!" (Go) we were off again. Otherwise this practice run went very smoothly, and I loved. Julia and I shared a few whoops of exhilaration afterwards. Anthony seemed to think I passed the test and he promised to send me out with his fastest six dogs come race day.
Without any more practice, except some serious nocturnal visualization, nightmares? I headed to the shute on Sunday and took off fifth, the number I had drawn at the radio station the evening before. I had a good start, but a very rough run. My dogs were fast and I got tangled up passing the first team I came to, tangled up with the second team i came to, fell once, on the second fall I let go. Fortunately a much more experienced woman musher just behind me caught up to my dogs and held them for me a second and let me go. My dogs were super tangled, I was way out of breath, just holding o for dear life. A real professional musher had me stop along the trail and he untangled my dogs. Right before the finish line I took another spill and dragged my face through the snow before getting to my knees and finally jumping back on the runners in time to cross the finish line. A photo shows me kneeling right at the finish line, red and icy in the face. It captures accurately how difficult day one was for me. I was physically shaking for hours after the race finished. Not to mention a few tears, the swelling, bruising and raising of welts on my body. This was tough. And I was slated to go again the next day.
That night I woke up talking about mushing. I dreamed all night behind dogs. Despite my travails the previous day I had finished fifth out of nine. We go out at two minute intervals. Because we had been reordered somewhat according to speed I didn't end up needing to pass anyone on day two, and I had a much better run. Both days I got done the big hill fine....jamming on the "break" a sort of spring loaded lever with an arm with two screws mounted on it. I stepped on that with all my might with my left foot, leaned on my right foot and bounced down the hill. On the way back I would jump off the sled and holding on over my head run up the hill behind the dogs. of course this is where everyone snowmachines out to watch. Maybe it was the performance pressure that kept me from eating it at this part of the track.
I made up some time on day 2, finishing second for the day, and moving to third overall. I won a total of 525 dollars for my kennel owner, Anthony. My buddy the kindergarten teacher, who also raced with six of Anthony's dogs...his slower "B-team" had a great run the first day, and was on her way to really creaming us all until in a fluke accident the "hook" or anchor popped off the sled and broke both her tibia and fibia, leading to a medi-vac, four hours of surgery, one rod and four screws.
After finishing this race, and doing respectably for myself, I could have lifted the world from its axis. This is why I love this place. Thrilling brand new challenging spectacular experiences are always lurking.
I've got a standing invitation to mush Anthony's dogs anytime. I look forward to it.
