Nora's Birthday in Michigan

On the last day of our stay in Michigan, Nora celebrated her 5th birthday--with her cousins and aunts in uncles surrounding her. Her cousins and aunties showered her with cute girl gifts...a pink tutu, bracelets, necklace and pink bow headband. Nora was in girlie-girl heaven.

A month or so prior to her birthday, Nora asked me, "mom-what will I be able to do when I'm 5 that I can't do when I'm 4?". I told her that probably sometime when she is 5, she'd be able to do the monkey bars, as she was starting to hang off of one bar unassisted. Then, 1 day before her 5th birthday, Nora did the monkey bars all by herself in Michigan. I believe she thought that she needed to be able to do the monkey bars by the time she was 5! In any case, she had a blast doing the monkey bars several times in a row and watching other kids swing their bodies from bar to bar.

Zoya

Pushing Up Daisies II-Kodiak EcoChallenge 2010

This morning, my muscles are aching. Yesterday was the annual eco challenge race. I participated with 2 of the same team members as last year, and we had the same team name.

The race started in Chiniak at 8 AM and the first leg of the race was about an 8 mile bike ride, followed by rafting across Kalsin Bay. We got on our bikes again and biked to Middle Bay, at which point we rafted across Middle Bay. '

As we got into the raft, our team member, Tamara fell back wards in the water. She let out out a huge scream and we quickly pulled her back into the boat. After arriving on the other side of Middle Bay, two of the team biked and Chris and I ran to Cliff Point Road.

Somewhere along the bike ride, I got dirt into my eye, which caused painful tearing when I tried to open it. At one check point, the EMT guys tried flushing it, which didn't help a whole lot. At a subsequent check point, an EMT put a gauze patch on it, which helped tremendously as we started the hike up to Heitman Lake. Hiking felt really good after all the biking and rafting. After reaching the Heitman lake check point, we had to bush whack and trek down the other side of the mountain towards Womens Bay. The fog would move in and out and eventually we found a trail from the 50 people prior who had made their way down. There was lots of jokes and laughter going down the mountain, as we would fall and slide and fight with the alders. I made jokes about making up new yoga poses, such as a "full Alder" or "1/2 alder" pose, as we would fall and straddle alders. I am definitely NOT cut out for hunting or bushwhacking/hunting. Not fun.

With the patch on my eye, my team called me "Cyclops" (and one-eyed Willie from Goonies) and it did at times throw off my depth perception, especially going up and down the mountain. I think the patch looked much worse than I felt...The patch helped keep my eyelid shut, which felt great!

At the head of womens Bay, we got into our rafts and rafted the last leg to Nyman Peninsula on the Coast Gaurd Base where we participated in a paint gun activity--shooting at a target of a bear. That was fun-as I've never shot a paint ball gun before! (I didn't hit the bear. :( Sniffle, sniffle). Hitting the bear got time off of our score-I think one team member hit the bear.

The last 2 miles was walking to The Golden Anchor where we were greeted with a BBQ going and beers. Good finish point!

16 teams finished the race and we came in 13th. The race covered 37 miles and we did it in 9 hours. There were a few tiring moments in the race, but most of it was full of lots of laughter and joking. We all kept a VERY good sense of humor about the ordeal.

I"m already looking forward to next year...

Zoya

Summer Retrospective

Today Zoya is out racing in the Eco-Challenge and I'm at home watching the kids and editing photos. Yesterday I downloaded all of the photos from the panasonic camera Zoya bought while I was away doing archaeology on the far side of the Alaska Peninsula. It sort of became Stuey's camera and was mostly full of blurry and quite random pictures taken from Stuey's low level angle (lots of looking up at mugging adults, close ups of the floor and doggies, and blurry shots of nothing). But I did find some gems, and I also got a glimpse of what I missed on the home front while I was away doing archaeology. Sort of like looking in one of those mirrors they have in fairytales where you can get fuzzy glimpses of the past, present and future. I got a glimpse of Summer Past - a summertime retrospective so to speak.

I got to see how awesome Jenni F was with Stuey and Nora. She has gone off to college now, and we will certainly miss her. Looking through the photos I was impressed with all that she did with the kiddos. I glimpsed visits to the touch tank, lunches at parks, beaches - it was all there on the panasonic. And so were lots of pictures of Jenni. It seems Stuey liked to take pictures of Jenni. I also got to see Meghan and Bruce's wedding, and finally see Andrew playing train tracks with Stuey. Zoya told me about the extremely complicated track set up that they had built together when we talked on the SAT phone, but now I got to actually see it (bottom photo). Patrick

Cousin Camp 2010 in Michigan

Last night I returned from a family reunion in Traverse City Michigan. My family converged upon a house we rented and 20+ of us stayed under one roof on a house on Lake Michigan. We decided that without any weddings looming in the future, it was best to coordinate a reunion so we could all see each others children and catch up!The lake was very warm and there was a nice beach just a 1 minute walk down a little path. The cousins all played together so well...Nora took a special liking to my sister Annes daughter, Talia. They were little cousin camp buddies.

The 5 days flew by--spent with hours on the beach, sharing meals together and enjoying the evening sunsets on the back deck overlooking the lake. Stuey took a liking to playing with his little train set by himself. Occasionally he'd let another kid share and play with him, but I was struck by how solitary his play was. Stuey was a sand castle junkie, however. He would spend hours on the beach digging in the sand making castles.

More photos and stories to come later. Must go to bed now, as tomorrow is the Kodiak Eco challenge, which I am participating in. The race starts at 8 AM in Chiniak, so its off to get some zzz's....

Zoya

Nora is Five

Today Nora is five and flying home along with Zoya and Stuey. There will be a family reunion tonight here on Kodiak! Nora has REALLY been looking forward to her birthday, and I can only imagine the excitement of getting to fly on the same day too. And going from East to West is a little easier - no flying through the night and it seems quicker with the time change in one's favor. The doggies and I can't wait for the rest of the pack to get back! Patrick

Photo: Sunrise over MillBay at dawn this morning.

Teepee Time

On Saturday evening John S and I headed up in the wind and the rain to go hunting. Actually, it felt more like camping because it was so windy and foggy that I seriously doubted we had much of a chance on harvesting a deer. But I really wanted to try out my old Megalight Teepee tarp with a wood stove. This is an old tarp tent that I have had for years - it has been on survey to the Ayakulik River, Chirikof Island, and even up Shishaldin Volcano. I recently installed a stove boot in it so that I could put the woodstove inside (see earlier post about quesadillas on the stove). I did not dare to do this with a brand new tent.

Anyway, the wood stove and megalight worked great. John and I found some dry wood and lit the stove and life was good while the storm raged outside. And did it rage! The trees were roaring back and forth overhead, and it rained over an inch overnight. I was amazed at how the stove dried out our cloths and the inside of the teepee. The megalight and stove will work great on our elk hunt in October. That's the best thing about camping in bad weather near home - It gets me ready for elk hunting in October when the weather is far less friendly and you can't just quit and go home.

Best of all, while we did wake up to rain and fog, it cleared off, and John harvested a small forked deer. So despite the weather we brought back meat! Patrick

Deep In Midden

On Friday the Community Archaeology dig ended and to the best of my knowledge (and subjective memory) it is the first year ever that we did not miss a day due to weather. That said, yesterday it rained and misted pretty hard all day, but our field-hardened crew persevered and even thrived in the wet conditions. Everyone wanted to get to the bottom of their respective middens, and the midden is very deep at Mitksqaaq Angayuk!

Actually it is kind of amazing how deep it is in places. Back when we were excavating at the adjacent Zaimka Mound I always looked down over the Miktsqaaq Angayuk Mound and wondered where they quarried the sods to build the multiroom houses. I assumed that the whole mound was built up from weathered stacked sods. At Settlement Point, a late prehistoric site I excavated on Afognak, the houses were built on the beach with stacked sods quarried from the hillside behind it. So I always sort of assumed that the Miktsqaaq Angayuk mound was built up the same way. However, at Zaimka Mound we never found any evidence for sod quarrying. And now I know why - the Miktsqaaq Angayuk Mound is all midden! It is an enormous mound of trash - 3000 years worth of clam and fish dinners.

The mound is so big and there are so little evidence of sods and house building in the mound that I am wondering if Kachemak era peoples even built houses at Mitksqaaq Angayuk. There is a large Kachemak village around the corner at the other end of the beach and perhaps they lived there and did their fish processing at Miktsqaaq Angayuk? Despite the large multiroom houses, the Late Prehistoric Koniag occupation appears to have been brief and to have added very little material to the mound.

Molly and I also realized that together the adjacent Zaimka and Miktsqaaq Angayuk mounds seem to represent over 7000 years of pretty much continuous occupation. That is amazing! The only other place on the archipelago that even comes close to this is the mouth of the Karluk River or perhaps at Litnik. Hopefully, Molly will have food remains to analyze from the last 3000 years of that time period. So far all of the middens have been VERY different from each other. Some have been full of cod and shell, others full of halibut and salmon with little cod, and it will be interesting to tease out whether the differences are temporal or seasonal related. Did the people's diet and habits change with time or does the differences between the middens reflect different seasonal occupations? I think that we will find that it is a little bit of both. Molly has a lot of work to do, and I can't wait to hear the results of her analysis!

Photos: Top - Emily gets to the bottom of the 'late Prehistoric midden'. It was raining so hard that many of my photos were too blury to even bother with saving. In the second photo Jill and Kevin pick a screen. We screened all the excavated dirt and picked through it to gather all the artifacts, fish and animal bones, and shell. In the rain, it got a little mucky and hard to see stuff! Third photo is of Leslie near the bottom of the 'HP6 midden'. This is the 'house' that turned out to be a deep midden. Fourth photo is of Leslie and Jill excavating midden, and finally the bottom photo is of Leslie with another of her harpoons. We found some pretty cool artifacts in the middens. The shells in the midden raised the soil Ph and helped preserve bone tools.

Patrick

And They're Off

Zoya, Nora and Stuey left this evening for a family reunion in Michigan. I'm staying in town with Roxy and Jake to finish up the Community Archaeology dig. I said my goodbyes around 6:45 and then went to Molly Odell's lecture at the Alutiiq Museum. When I got back home at 8:30 it looked pretty foggy so I checked flight tracker and it looks like they left at 8:27 - a half hour late. It seems very quiet and sort of sad here all alone at home. They probably flew past the house as I drove home from the museum.

Anyhow, of late Nora and Stuey have been way into their fishing rods and have actually gotten pretty good at casting with them. We put on old lures that had lost their hooks and they cast around off of the porches at will. Stuey can already cast the lure up onto the roof of the house. I think it is good practice for the next time when we go fishing. We'll put on lures with actual hooks, put on the old safety glasses (they got these for the salmon derby), and hopefully catch a fish to eat! Patrick

One for two

When I last checked in we were wondering whether the house pits at Miktsqaaq Angayuk are historic or prehistoric. It turns out that 'housepit 8' is probably late prehistoric in age while 'housepit 6' seems to be a simple depression between houses - not a house at all! I was hoping it was a collapsed house that had been filled with late prehistoric shell midden. But instead we have been finding far older Kachemak style artifacts and none of the banya rock you would expect in a late prehistoric midden. Stratigraphically, a late prehistoric house should be filled with younger and NOT older midden - things should get younger not older towards the surface. And for this reason, I am pretty sure we are digging in a midden and not a house. Still there is great faunal preservation. Yesterday Molly found a harpoon barb (pictured) and the midden is full of periwinkles, and chitons and relatively few cod bones compared to what we found in the 'trench' midden.

In housepit 8 we did not find any artifacts at all, but it had a hearth. For this reason I am confident it was a house and that it is prehistoric in age (no metal or glass). So we dug outside the house and found another shell midden. And this time we found lots of banya rock in the midden - so it looks late prehistoric. Late prehistoric (Koniag era) sites on Kodiak are always full of fire-cracked banya rock. It's starting to look like Molly will have fauna from the Early Kachemak era, Late Kachemak, Koniag, and early Russian era to analyze. She will be able to say something about how Alutiiq people on Womens Bay used shellfish through time.

If you are interested in Molly's reasearch come to the Alutiiq Museum at 7 PM on Thursday night. Molly will be giving a lecture all about what she has learned so far. Patrick

Salmon Fever

We've been enjoying fresh salmon lately, thanks to our friend Mike who LOVES fishing. On Friday night, he brought over a small fresh king salmon which we cut up and ate raw dipped in soy sauce. It was absolutely delicious. Never frozen, completely smooth and light in flavor. Not at all grainy, which occurs when salmon is frozen.

Yesterday was the Kiwanis pink salmon derby on the Buskin River. There were oodles of kids with hooks being cast every which way. There weren't many fish in the river, but a good time was had. There was a $1 participant fee in the derby, and every participant got free safety goggles and a lure. The only thing Nora hooked was my hand.

The kiddies this morning wanted to join in on my brief yoga session. I try to do a few minutes every day lately and its fun when they do some of the poses!

Zoya

Field Dressing a Sitka Black-Tailed deer on Kodiak

This morning I got up at 4AM to hunt deer. The weather forecast is for rain tomorrow so I figured a quick surgical strike was in order. A dawn patrol so to speak. Good thing I did too because it is already raining, and I got a deer.

I love hiking up to the high country before dawn. Walking through the dark spruce forest with all the marbled murrelets whistling overhead as they fly from their nests to the sea. The birds are on their way to catch fish to feed their families. I was hiking through their nesting country to find a deer to bring back to feed my family.

Once I got to the high country I got a deer pretty quickly. I made a time lapse video of me butchering the deer that I hope to use in a video about where our family gets its food. I assumed that Zoya would think it gross, and I was VERY surprised that she actually liked it. She even helped me make a quicktime movie that we posted to youtube and that you can watch here. It is a 1 min 44 second condensed lapse video of a 45 minute process.

Zoya here....Patrick was going to title the video "Butchering a Black-Tail" and I quickly talked him out of it. I thought of the various facebook friends who may be even SLIGHTLY interested in watching the process and this title would have turned them completely away. There is something more "classy" about calling it "Field-Dressing". A title says a thousand words...

That said-INSERT DISCLAIMER--The video is graphic.


Patrick

Historic or prehistoric houses?

Yesterday we started to excavate into the large multiroom houses at Miktsqaaq Angayuk. The big question is are they from the early Russian era like last year's house or are they late prehistoric (occupied just before the Russians arrived on Kodiak)? We really want them to be prehistoric so that Molly will have shellfish to study from each of the main eras at Cliff Point over the past 3,000 or so years.

So far so good - Yesterday we opened up HP6 and HP8 at the site. Both are much larger and deeper than the one we excavated last year, and Historic Alutiiq houses tend to be smaller than late prehistoric houses. In the fourth photo Emily and Jill remove the 1912 Katmai ash in our test in HP8. It was VERY thick - the ash blew in into the deep pit and filled it up. They found the floor and a hearth surrounded by banya roick immediately below the ash. So the house had a thatch roof and no roof sods. They also did not find any historic artifacts - no metal, russian ceramics, glass etc. But they did not find any prehistoric artifacts either. They did not find a single artifact! However, I take this as evidence that the house is likely prehistoric - historic houses are generally full of metal and glass while prehistoric houses often contain very few artifacts.

In HP6 Shelley, Marnie and Deb (see third photo) removed the Katmai ash but did not find a house floor immediately under the ash. They actually found a midden with excellent faunal preservation. So what does this mean? It means HP 6 is either not a house or it has been filled up with late prehistoric midden. The determining test will be whether or not we find a floor under the midden. If there is a floor under the midden Molly will be very happy because she will likely have late prehistoric midden to analyze - midden that was dumped into the collapsed house pit.

Other photos: Top photo is of the site yesterday morning - if you look closely you can see our excavations in the other houses on the mound. Second photo is Stuey with my fishing rod. Yesterday Zoya and the kiddos brought me lunch from Java Flats and Stuey took a liking to my fishing rod. We almost caught a dolly while he was helping me fish. On the way home Zoya stopped in at Mack's and got Stuey a rod of his own. Bottom photo is of Katie digging into the midden. The midden continues to go and go, but we still have not found a diagnostic artifact to give us and idea of how old it is.

Patrick

On into the midden

Not only has Community Archaeology begun, but it is already 1/3 complete! This year, due to all the other Museum fieldwork commitments (Alitak and Penguk) the Community Archaeology dig is only 2 weeks long. So after just 3 days of digging we are already 1/3 of the way through the dig. Like last year we are excavating at the Miktsqaaq Angayuk site out on Cliff Point. Leisnoi Inc., the landowner, has kindly given us a special permit to work out there.

Last year we excavated an entire house from circa 1820, but with only a 2 week field season our goals for this year are much more contained. Rather than digging a whole house we are testing the other house pits in the area to see if they are also from the early Russian era, or if they are late prehistoric. We are also digging into the back of the mound looking for older midden deposits. Molly Odell is studying how people used shellfish through time at the site, and she already has analyzed the shellfish from the 1820 house and from the Late Kachemak midden (AD 1000). Now we want to find her some 3000 year old midden, and, hopefully, if the other houses turn out to be late prehistoric we will excavate a test in front of them to get some late prehistoric midden (AD 1600 or so). Then Molly would have samples from all the time periods to analyze.

So far so good, we have found a midden with excellent faunal preservation. Yesterday Leslie found a harpoon and I am hopeful that the midden is Early Kachemak. It was capped by a thick layer of rocks, gravel and charcoal stained soil and full of Kachemak style artifacts. Since the midden is below it - it is older. Now we got to find some charcoal to radiocarbon date or find an artifact diagnostic of the Early Kachemak era. As you can see from the bottom photo the faunal preservation is excellent. It is practically pure blue mussel shell.

Finally, we have just opened up one of our tests into the large housepits and have not yet found any historic artifacts. So I am hopeful that it is late prehistoric because last year we immediately found metal, glass and russian ceramics right on top of the floor of the house from 1820. I'm keeping my fingers crossed! Patrick

My Tenderhearted Guy

A DEEP END MOMENT
Stuey is such a little tenderhearted guy.

I just returned from the pool, and we hadn't been for several weeks because of schedule and pool repairs. The last time we were there, Stuey jumped off the diving board. Since it has been some time, Stuey was nervous. He would walk out the length of the diving board VERY slowly, get to the very end, then back off the board. Even with me swimming in the water encouraging him, he got a little too scared.

Today Stuey was on his 3rd or 4th attempt--walking out to the end and turning around. One of my favorite lifegaurds, Ashley, slowly walked out towards Stuey.
I asked her, "Should I go out and get him?".
She said, "I"ll get him". After she stepped out to get closer to him, little Stuey looked so sad and his he was saying something over and over.

"What is he saying?" I asked Ashley.

"Hes saying 'I'm a big boy'" over and over again" she replied. It was such a sweet moment. Stuey wanted so badly to be a "Big kid" by jumping off the board, but he was just a little scard. So Ashley lowered him down to me as I swam in the water underneath. When Stuey surfaced, he said, " I did it mamma! I want to jump off the side". From then on, he was perfectly content jumping off the side of the pool and kicking back to the side. He just had to show himself that he could do it--even if just once.

Another funny pool moment was there was a little group of young guys going off the diving board repeatedly. They were watching as Stuey did his "gangplank" walk.
One of the times I said, "Come on, Stuey--you can do it!". One of the boys said, "Stuey!!?? IS that his name?" I said "yeah, its Stuey". He laughed and said, "thats funny! Thats from the Family Guy". I have yet to see an episode of the family guy...and I remember my friend Mary Jane encouraging me not to call Stuart "Stuey" because of the TV show. But I must admit...Stuey fits his name perfectly.


TENDERHEARTED STUEY
Last night we had friends over to the house, as Patrick and Mike were canning a bunch of silver, king and pink salmon. Nora and one of her friends ran around the house and Nora was teasing Stuey a bit. Stuey retreated to behind my legs and started crying. It really surprised me how sensitive he was to Nora's teasing. I think I was expecting that he would lash back somehow more at Nora and her friend, but he just kept retreating to behind me and wanting me to hold him. It was so sweet and tenderhearted of him.

Today with one of my physical therapy clients, I brought this up, as we always have great conversations and she has 3 boys so I figured she might have some insight on Stuey's sensitive side.

"I'm worried that him going to pre-school 3 days a week will ruin or take away that tenderhearted side of him" I said. She was very re-assuring that boys are who they are...and her 3 boys were very different from eachother, some more sensitive or aggressive than others. And that the sensitive one remained sensitive with time and it wasn't something that was "shaken" out of him with his 2 more aggressive brothers. this was re-assuring for me to hear. As I really love the caring, more soft spoken side of Stuey and I don't want the group boy preschool behavior to impact him negatively.

ZOYA

PHoto: As we returned home tonight from swimming, we were greeted by a beautiful rainbow over mill bay!

Fogged Out

Community archaeology has begun (more on this in another post) and I was shut out on the opening day of deer season. Gregg and I climbed up into the mountains on Saturday night with high hopes. It was pretty clear and the weather looked good (bottom photo). Just has as we were picking a spot to camp a bear wandered by which was a little disconcerting. But he avoided us and we had our miso soup and went to bed. I woke up in the middle of the night and the stars were all out - all was looking good.

In the morning the mountain tops were socked in with fog. It cleared a bit and got our hopes up a few times (second photo). But for the most part it stayed fogged in. We sat in one place for 4 hours waiting for it to clear off (top photo). We even re set up our tarp tent and waited out some rain and had some more coffee. But no luck - it never really cleared off until pretty late by which time all the deer had bedded down. We got fogged out. The second opening day in a row too!

Weirdly enough we did see 6 bears - a sow and 2 cubs and 3 singles. The cubs heads barely stuck up above the brush. We saw more bears than bucks! We did see a spike, but we do have some standards. And we spent more time looking at the does we saw than the bears. We wanted them to sprout horns. Patrick

Susannah's Wedding

This has been a summer of beautiful weddings...today Nora and I attended the last one at the local Russian Orthodox Church.(the one with the big blue onion domes downtown).
Susannah, who works at the local Monks Rock Cafe, invited me to her wedding and I've been looking forward to going all year. Susannah and Innocent were engaged at the beginning of last summer and I have heard about the wedding plans since then. I know Susannah from going to Monks Rock, as she is always upbeat and fun to talk to. She manages the restaurant/icon shop. Over the past 2+ years, I've had the chance to get to know others in the local Russian Orthodox community, primarily through my birth work. Several moms and husbands have taken my classes and for 2 of the couples, I was their doula.

So today at the wedding service, I looked around and saw many faces I know in the crowd. Many wonderful, caring people all celebrating the wedding of Susannah and Innocent. The service was in the Russian Orthodox Church downtown and just about everyone stood, as is the Russian Orthodox tradition. There was beautiful singing, in fact, most of the service was done in song/verse which was goregous. There wasn't the traditional, "I take you to be my wedded..." parts to the service-rather there was candle and incense rituals as well as a crowning ritual where the bride and groom both wore classy crowns. At the very end after Susannah and Innocent were pronounced husband and wife, they went to the front of the church and everyone was cheering and singing and the church bells started ringing outside. Quite a beautiful moment. A goose bump moment.

Nora came with me to the service and did well. I thought the service was going to be 45 minutes, but it was an hour and a half and I was glad I brought her. She had her moments of "I want to go home now" but all in all she did great. I picked her up and held her so she could see things better for parts of it. THe last time I was in the Russian Orthodox church was about 25+ years ago. I vaguely remember going to a wedding there when I was 7 or 8.

Recently I"ve felt the need to "force" Nora a little bit with longer public services like this. Its good for kids to get practice with waiting, observing and being patient. A great feature about the service today was that there were lots of kids of all ages, and parents were taking them in/out as needed.

The reception was held at the Ft. Abercrombie recreation site, and St. Innocents Academy did a fabulous job with a castle theme at the site. Complete with fake stone walls, covered tables, an incredible buffet with crab dip, halibut, gorgeous cake. And live music--fiddle and violin to top it off. There was a sound system and music going the entire time.

Congrats to Susannah and Innocent on a beautiful wedding!

Zoya

Photos:
-Susannah and Innocent shortly after being pronounced husband and wife
-the bridemaids in their hand-sewn dresses! Several of them finished theirs up the night before.
-the "getaway" vehicle--complete with the local ice cream truck pulling it! They were driven from the church to Ft. Abercrombie in it!
-Overview of the Ft. Abercrombie Reception site
-THe gorgeous cake. I'm not sure who made it, but I believe someone in the Russian Orthodox community did.