An Annual Tradition~Grinding the Meats

Burger Grinding-in Moments

The meat starts off slightly frozen and is cubed up for processing. Some batches have store bought fat added to them, some don't. Mike measured out spices in large quantities to add to the sausage; coriander, fennel, caraway seeds, hot pepper flakes, pepper, salt, sugar and water....The spice coffee grinder was put to good use. The same tried and true recipe is used annually for the proportions.

The meat is pushed through the industrial grinder into large bins. All types of meat are ground; elk, deer, sheep. Scoops of meat are put on saran wrap, then paper wrapped.

For the first time this year, Nora and Stuey helped write the packages. In years past, Lisa McCormick does exotic animal pictures and this year the kids did their renditions of animals. Nora wrote out the words "elk burger". We all really enjoyed having the kids finally being able to help. Gregg always brings fresh home made bread for us to enjoy and Lisa brings a killer dish of halibut enchiladas. Burger grinding is a wonderful annual winter tradition in our family.

Zoya

Sleep

As of late, Nora and Stuey each have their own little challenges with sleep.

Stuey goes to sleep right away in his own room, but then comes into our room at 1 or 2 AM and climbs into our bed. I had been going along with this for many, many months until I realized that it was making me tired.

So I made up a little bed at the foot of our bed, so when he comes in, we have him go to sleep there. Sometimes he cries and says, "Mommy-I want to sleep next to mommy"...which of course tugs at my heart strings and I let him sleep on the side of me. So then I'm sandwiched between streched out Stuey and warm-blooded Patrick...I end up being squished and over heated (and we always keep the thermostat on OFF in our bedroom and most of the house at night!).
All of a sudden I'm realizing that he is nearly 5-and doesn't necessarily HAVE to be coming to our room or our bed. I suppose I"m a softie.

With Nora, she has a hard time getting to sleep. She is a night owl and it takes her a good 1+ hour to wind down. We do the bath, reading routine and I give her books on tape to listen to but she still requires serious down time to fall asleep. For several months, I got frusturated with her difficulty going to sleep. This is mainly because I was thinking she was trying to work the system and stay up. Plus, the hour or two after the kids are in bed are so precious to Patrick and I; a few hours to do our reading, writing, etc without kids interrupting. Then I came to the realization that she doesn't enjoy being up and is frusturated by not sleeping.
A few weeks ago, I changed the approach. I told her to not feel rushed to go to sleep at all and take her time. Since she sleeps in later than Stuey, I expect that she will go to sleep way later than Stuey. This has made a difference, as well as me laying with her for a few minutes. I lay in her bed and she tells me what her favorite parts of her day are. As I lay there and brush the hair off her face in a calming sweeping motion, she starts yawning, rubbing her eyes and getting more tired.

I thought that once Nora and Stuey weren't babies or toddlers, that the sleep difficulties would disappear. Its so much better than it used to be; our friend Mark who is here reminds us of the days when Nora would cry for a solid hour at bed time...despite me trying everything under the sun to get her to sleep....

Zoya

Counting Birds

Today Mark, Matt and I participated in the Audubon Christmas bird count. We were one of the Kodiak ptarmigan SWAT teams, and it was our job to find a ptarmigan or bust. Ptarmigan are an alpine species and for the Xmas bird count teams need to climb up the mountains to find them and so add them onto the total species count. The Kodiak count generally totals around 80 species of birds total and the ptarmigan is an important addition.

We decided that we would use guns and collect the ptarmigan in hand sample so that we could see if they were rock or willow ptarmigan - for species identification purposes. Actually to be totally honest we wanted ptarmigan for dinner. And so, soon after dawn we headed up the mountain. It was brutal - a total blizzard.

We reached the alpine in a whiteout and right away saw 2 ptarmigan. I waited until the 2 were lined up so I could get 2 with one shot and then promptly shot low. They flew away unharmed and we did not see another ptarmigan. We wandered around in a total whiteout and got blown down by severe gusts. I am sure that all the ptarmigan had burrowed down into the snow to avoid the storm.

Three hours later, back at the car it was raining and we were totally soaked. Once home I took a half hour hot shower - ahhhhhh. But we did get the ptarmigan for the count. Our total was 12 Pine Grosbeaks and 2 Rock Ptarmigan and not another bird seen at all. Patrick

Jesus's Birthday Party

Yesterday our family had two end of school Christmas parties to attend at the same time. So Zoya went to Nora's party at Saint Mary's while I attended Stuey's party at the Kodiak Baptist Mission. When I arrived from work Santa Claus was there and he gave each child a present (second and bottom photos). All the parents arrived and watched as the children lit Jesus's Birthday cake and sang the Happy Birthday song to Jesus (listen and watch on linked video bottom). The children joined their parents to eat the cake and various other foods like jello, fruit and cupcakes (this is Stuey's kind of food). Then came my favorite part - all the parents remained seated while the children cleaned up. We need to get this lesson transferred to the home front!

Once the tables were cleared the parents all sat and stood in a semi circle at the back while the kids put on their Christmas show - amazingly well choreographed Christmas Carols (see video linked below). The kids all seemed quite excited to perform, and it made my day. I returned to work full of Christmas spirit. Patrick

Saint Mary's Winter Production

Last night was Nora's first St. Mary's Christmas Production. I was looking forward to it; to sitting in the gym with other parents, to seeing Nora sing with her friends. It was tough to fully appreciate the show, as I had to help rein Stuey in from a very tired evening.

The play ran around 45 minutes and by the end, Stuey and I stood up on the side with the other parents who had misbehaving kids. I did something I never do-gave him my iphone to play the 1 game I have on it. I just didn't want to have to walk out with Stuey.

I was impressed by how the kindergarteners stood for 45 minutes in one spot with minimal fidgeting and no misbehaving-I think weekly catholic church mass has them well trained. We're really liking having Nora at St. Mary's. (And it will be good for Stuey to be there next year to learn the art of standing patiently for 45 minutes as well!!)

Zoya

Deer Ceviche

Deer Ceviche

One of our local restaurants serves up an appetizer that I really like that they call ‘beef tartar’. It is strips of seared but basically raw meat ‘cooked’ by the acid in lemon juice and is served with onions and slices of kiwi. For a Christmas dinner party we attended I thought I’d try something new and attempted to ‘back engineer’ their recipe. It came out GREAT and was completely gobbled up. Here is my recipe.

Ingredients needed (I do not measure things per se, but just add pinches and splashes – so be aware that all of the amounts specified are my best guess). You may need to adjust accordingly to suit your own taste!

1 Deer backstrap or tenderloin (I used tenderloin and I do think that the meat chosen should be a tender cut)
3 large pinches of kosher salt (maybe a tablespoon or 2 – enough to coat the meat used)
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon grated ginger divided
1 cup lemon juice
3 tablespoons soy sauce
1 ½ tablespoons of sugar
2 teaspoons of nori komi furikake rice seasoning (I was looking for the Aki Nori seasoning I’ve used in the past for seaweed salad but all I could find was some stuff I’d bought for seasoning sushi rice – it contains sesame seeds, salt, sugar and seaweed)
1 teaspoon of sesame seeds.
1 small onion VERY thinly sliced
1 peeled kiwi (optional) (I did not have a kiwi to use but I think I’ll add some as garnish at the end the next time I make this)

Steps:
1) Coat the deer meat in salt and sear in the sesame oil in a cast iron skillet that is almost smoking hot. I added some grated ginger to the pan just before I added the meat. I seared the meat very quickly – just long enough to create a brown crust. Maybe 30 seconds a side.
2) Remove meat and set aside on plate to cool. At this point I coated the meat with rice seasoning (nori komi furikake).
3) In a bowl mix up the lemon juice, soy sauce and sugar. I also added extra grated ginger and sesame seeds.
4) Slice onion as thinly as possible and add to marinade in bowl.
5) By this time the meat has cooled and I sliced it as thinly as I could and added it to the marinade (I tried to keep it all together as a piece of meat for appearances sake later). Make sure the marinade covers onions and meat completely. You may need to add extra lemon juice or rice vinegar.
6) Cover and leave in the fridge so that the meat and onions can ‘cook’ in the acidic marinade. I left it in there for 8 hours.
7) Plate the dish and add kiwis if you want. Since I had kept the meat all together it was easy to put all the strips onto the plate in their original order.
8) Enjoy! Some of the people at the party ate the meat and onions on crackers but I just wrapped the meat around a few onions at a time and ate them.

Patrick

PS This is Zoya now...I can vouch for the DELICIOUS-NESS of this recipe. It was amazing. Couldn't believe how good it turned out!!

Dinner with friends and our wedding officiant

Last week we were lucky to enjoy a meal with Matt J.~the man who married Patrick and I 8 years ago here in Kodiak.
He also married my dad and step mom in the 80's as well as our local friends Matt and Katie. Matt J. and his wife, Chris, moved to Seattle about 2 years ago from Kodiak, so we see him less frequently now. It is always good to see him, as he is always full of good spirit and cooks incredible food as well.

Matt J. prepared a phenomenal meal of seafood risotto complete with shrimp and scallops for the group. The best part was he had the kids help! He had them pluck the stems from mushrooms and other such tasks.

The kids played for 3+ hours with little screaming, which was fun.

Zoya

Photos courteousy of Matt S.J.

Mark's Killer Banya's

In the past 2 1/2 years, since we've owned and rented out the house next door, we've been taking lots of banya's. A Banya is a steam room, similar to a sauna. It is a small enclosure with a woodstove and rocks piled on the woodstove. Once the rocks are heated up and the room is to temperature, you splash (or sprinkle) water on the rocks which creates steam. This causes a surge of warm air to the room.

Our friend, Mark, makes the most killer banyas.

Mark R. is a nearly permanent fixture here at the Saltonstall household. He typically spends anywhere from 1-2 months a year here in Kodiak, doing archaeology work (and hunting!) with Patrick. He comes up from California and has been coming to Kodiak since 1993 and staying at our house since 2001.
Mark makes banyas HOT. He doesn't mess around. He typically fires it up after dinner, and it takes 1+ hours to get it heated. Then we have the ladies go in first and men after us for the banya. And in typical banya fashion, nude. Swimsuits feel icky and sticky.

When I first started taking the banya's 130 deg or 140 would feel hot. Now, that is cool to me. Mark has toughened up my banya taking abilities. Now I prefer short bursts of heat in the 160-170 degree range-I know its warm enough when we're inching into the "red" zone on the banya thermometer. This means you stay in for a few minutes, step outside to cool off, then go back in. And repeat over and over again. This is supposed to be the way to really cleanse your system--several cycles of hot, then cold.

Winter is my favorite time for Banyas; the cold air is such a great contrast with the strong heat. There are occasionally days in the Alaksan winter when no matter what I do to warm up (tea, warm socks, etc...), it just isn't quite enough. And thats where the banya comes in.

Mark is here for 2 weeks and is firing up the banya tonight. Looking forward to sweating out some toxins in the heat!

Zoya

You know you're getting old when. .. .

You know you're getting old when you have a hard time buying the same old disposable razor cartridge that you've always used. This is true.

A childhood memory that sticks out is being in my grandfather's bathroom and checking out his old razor. He had a little bowl and brush and a razor that looked the one pictured in the patent diagram above. At the time I remember thinking, 'Wow! my grandfather must be old because that thing looks ancient'. And now I find I am in the same boat as my grandfather. My good old razor has become obsolete.

I looked up my grandfather's razor and I think it is the one pictured above. I gather it was the first safety razor and was developed by Gillette for the US troops in Europe during WWI. My grandfather was born in the 19th century and did serve during WWI so it makes sense that this might have been the razor he chose. I was born in the 1960s and first starting shaving in the 1980s, and the razor in vogue at that time was the one pictured on the left.

I remember that I used 'bic' disposable razors for a while and then opted for the razor on the left which was rather cheap as part of a package deal. I gather the razor blade companies sell the handle cheap to draw you in and then make their money selling you new razor cartridges. Anyway, I bought new blades for the thing for over 20 years - no problem. And then suddenly no more blades made by Gillette. Just the generic ones pictured above.

And then the moment that makes me feel old. Last time I went looking for cartridges I could not find any. Gulp, my razor has become obsolete! So I picked out the fancy dancy five bladed thing pictured on the upper right. But sadly enough - while slick looking - it actually does not work as well as my old razor. The 5 blades make it so fat that I have a hard time shaving my upper lip close to my nose. So I plan on going back to Safeway and looking really hard for the generic twin blades. Then I am going to seriously stock up. I wonder if my grandfather ever had to do this?

I also wonder if people (no grand kids yet) have been looking at my old razor and thinking, 'man that thing looks ancient'.

Patrick

Archaeology in the old days

This morning I was bored and decided to look through my old photos. I ended up in my old pictures from Baffin Island where I did archaeology for 3 summers between 1991 and 1993. Wow! I'd forgotten how hard core it is in the Canadian East Arctic. Sea ice, polar bears, and amazing archaeology right there on the surface.

We were located in outer Frobisher Bay on the southeast corner of Baffin Island, and in the summer the bay often did not thaw out. One summer the nearby community of Iqaluit had to call an icebreaker in to break a path into their harbor. But even that did not work as all the leads closed up after the icebreaker had passed. A warm day was when the temperature broke 40 degrees fahrenheit. And by the time we left in late August the sea would be freezing back up, and every morning we had to break ice a couple of inches thick off of our water bucket.

The archaeology was amazing. You could see the old tent rings and houses right on the surface. I've shown 2 views of the same 600 or 700 year old Dorset house - one how it looked on the surface and the other after we had completed excavation. This is one of the youngest Dorset houses ever excavated. Soon after the Dorset people either went extinct, or assimilated with the Thule peoples who were migrating into the East Arctic at that time - archaeologists are still undecided on the answer to that question.

Another cool aspect of the archaeology in the East Arctic was the wood and bone preservation and the very finely made tools. Our boss is holding up a hafted tool in the top photo. Usually archaeologists only find the stone parts of tools when they excavate, or, if they are lucky, the bone tools. Everything else has usually rotted away. But on Baffin Island the cool and damp temperatures and frozen ground meant that everything was preserved. I once even found what I thought was musk ox hair in a site - years later I found out that it might have been wool traded or raided from the Vikings!

And finally, there was the polar bears. Polar bears make the bears in Alaska seem very tame. In fact, for archaeological surveys on Kodiak we forego the guns and just carry pepper spray. But on Baffin the polar bears actually sought you out and guns were a very necessary piece of gear. I had a polar bear try to get into my tent twice. Once I was in it and managed to pepper spray the bear in the face, and he ran off. The other time I was not in there to defend it and he destroyed my tent. That bear went on a tirade through camp demolishing 3 tents and we ended up having to shoot him (bottom photo). This sort of stuff does not happen on Kodiak. Needless to say, but it was years before I was comfortable sleeping in a tent alone.

Still, I'd give my eye teeth to get back to the East Arctic for some archaeology. I miss it. Patrick

Power Outage Walkabout

Today the power went out while I was at work. Marnie and I were identifying various wood artifacts from the Karluk One collection when all of a sudden it went dark. Marnie said an expletive and mourned the loss of all the work we had already completed. She had not saved the updated excel file. Oh well.

With the power out it was dark in the museum but outside it was a spectacular day. Marnie and I decided to go for a walk to the harbor with our cameras while we waited for the power to come back on. It felt like one of those photo classes where everyone is trying to take photos of the same things. Marnie and I would both focus in on the same images. We both thought the 'photography class' analogy was pretty funny. At one point we both beelined onto some buoys on the back of a fishing boat. I opted for the reflection photo (fourth photo down) while I do believe Marnie went for the ultra-color-full above water close up.

Anyway, these are the photos I came up with. Top three are of boats in the harbor. One is a close up panoramic while the other is a far away pan. In the top photo I tried to make Barometer Mountain loom over the fishing boats by using max zoom. Then there is the reflection of the buoys photo. And finally, the bottom photo is of a seagull that I took with my camera on 'speed' priority with the 'paparazzi' click, click, click feature on my camera.

Patrick

Christmas Tree & Stuey-Photo-Hog

Several days ago we put up our Christmas tree. Patrick cut one off the cliff on ocean side of house. The kids did most of putting on the ornaments. Stuey has developed this horrible habit of being a photo hog...He plants himself in every photo and gets angry if he isn't front and center. It has made picture taking less fun lately. There ends up being several photos where his face is pink with frusturation and he is pushing Nora aside. We remind ourselves that this "photo Hog" stage shall pass.

With the Christmast ornaments, my favorites always to put on are the ones I made in the first few years Patrick and I were together. For 3 or 4 years in the beginning of our relationship, I went to the painting ceramic shop and would make 1 ornament for the tree which would have wording on it of things that occured during that year in our life. In the photo I'm holding up one that says,
2003 Don Mark Ayakulik (Don Clark and Mark Rusk and Ayakulik Archaeology Trip)
Welcome Roxy (we got Roxy Dog as a puppy that year)
Wedding August 30th Z & P

Sometime after our wedding (or maybe after kids) I discontinued making the ornaments...primarily because I knew that we would have years and years of ornaments for the kids on the tree. It will be fun to someday explain the ceramic ones to the kids when they are old enough to have interest in them.


Zoya

1st Cesarean Recovery Class

Tonight I hosted the first Cesarean Recovery class through A Balanced Approach. 6 moms were in attendance, all of whom had undergone a cesarean birth in the past year. I decided to start offering this class when I heard story after story of women who were at a loss on how to help their scar from surgery heal, how to help get their abdominals back into shape, etc. Also, I believe it is important to get women together who had been through a similar birth experience and let them converse with one another-to reflect and process.

I work a lot with women 1:1 after cesarean birth in physical therapy and through doula work. This was the first time of doing health outreach for post-partum cesarean care in a group setting. Going into tonight's session, I hoped that I had enough information for an 1.5 hour class. This ended up not being a problem. There was lots of great questions and I was able to look at almost everyone's scars to see how well they were moving/healing. After surgery, women are often afraid to touch their scar at all, which can impact how well it heals. Scar work can help promote nerve growth, capillary growth and keep it from getting painful or adhered with time.

There was lots of camaraderie and laughter amongst the ladies, which was an important part. It is important for them to hear each others stories, to learn and listen. At the end, everyone gave feedback that the evening of information was helpful and I should do it again on a more regular basis. After seeing the positive feedback, I think I will start hosting it every 2 or 3 months. My passion is womens health, and its great to see a need in the community and help fill it.

For "payment" for the class tonight, I asked the participants to bring a donation for the Womens Resource Crisis Center, so this week I"ll bring the basket of clothes, money and diapers to the center. Looking forward to making that holiday donation to a very important local center.

Zoya

Picture:
Class tonight. The class was held at the finished "satellite" studio of A Balanced Approach (refurbished garage). Where the wall and window are used to be a garage door....
Leona painted the tree last weekend...loving the energy the mural brings to the space.

Businesss Changes

At A Balanced Approach, I"m undergoing a huge business change. I"ve decided to have clients submit their own bills to insurance for re-imbursement, as opposed to Winona (my office manager), submit all claims to insurance.

Lots of small physical therapy clinics are shifting to this model of care; having clients submit their own claims to carriers. Insurance companies take anywhere from 3 weeks to 6 months to re-imburse a provider, but will send a check to clients (from what I've heard) in several weeks. Insurance Carriers want to keep their customers happy and cut checks faster to them and with less hassle than to providers.

OLD WAY: Client gives me their insurance card. I submit their bill to insurance for re-imbursement. It takes anywhere from 3 weeks to 1 year to get money back from insurance. I submit the remaining balance to the client for payment.

NEW WAY: I give the client a Super Bill that has my Physical therapy provider identification Number, and the services provided. The clients pay me directly for the physical therapy. They send in their Super Bill to Insurance. The insurance company sends the client reimbursement for physical therapy services directly.

I started seriously thinking about making this change last fall. I took a womens health class in Seattle last fall from a lady who owns a very successful PT clinic in Massachusetts and this is the re-imbursement model she uses. She guides people on how to find out about physical therapy coverage for their policy, then gives them the sheet of paper they need to send in to their insurance company for re-imbursement. A friend in Anchorage also runs her clinic this way, and has been successful with it for years. And she says people have no problems submitting the "Super Bill" to insurance for re-imbursement.

A Balanced Approach will be the first PT clinic in town shifting to this model. Part of me is nervous about the change, only because I hope that I still get business. I think/hope I will. I'm typically a 3 week wait for new clients, and hopefully this won't deter people from coming to A Balanced Approach. I"m excited to have my office manager Winona free from spending hours calling on various claims...1-800 #'s, on hold, finding out that more information is needed for processing.

I believe for small PT clinics, this is the current shift and trend in health care. We'll see how it goes. I"ll still be billing Tricare (the coast guard government insurance) and Medicaid, as with those insurances people will not be able to submit their own claims for re-imbursement.

Today was my first day. I have to remember that my clinic has always run a bit differently than others. I"m the only physical therapy provider, there is lots of 1:1 attention and this billing system will be also unique to my clinic. I also emphasize on my intro paperwork that I am willing to work with people on payment plans that work for them and provide pro bono care as necessary.

I'll post more with how the transition goes in the months to come.

Zoya

...and tomorrow evening I"m excited to host the first "Cesarean Recovery Class" for 10 women who have undergone cesarean birth in the past year. They are going to learn all about how to help heal best from cesarean surgery. I"ll go over abdominal health, scar healing and care, back health, etc. Excited to finally offer it in Kodiak! More to come after the class runs.

Mainland Skiing

This weekend was a great trip to the Mainland without kids. We landed in Anchorage and met cross country ski instructor, Lili at Kincaid park for a classic ski lesson. She worked with me on continued form pointers and gave Patrick lots of helpful advice with his form as well. Patrick was amazed by how much he learned from her during the 1/2 hour! It was fun to watch him ski after and see the changes to his form. The biggest tip she gave him was helping him refine his arm movements, and to decrease arm "flailing". For myself, Lili worked on continued weight shifting, and double poling technique which helped a lot. I'm realizing this is the winter to practice lots of double poling to help improve my efficiency.

Skiing in Girdwood the following day was equally fun. There are groomed trails there with hardly anyone on them. To find the trails is a bit of a wild goose chase; we were told the trail started behind the Catholic Church which was near Aleyska resort. After several wrong turns, we finally found it, and this catholic church had the most incredible view ever-overlooking mountains and the valley!

One thing that Patrick and I noticed was the dramatic difference in light between Anchorage and Kodiak. On the mainland, the sun rises at 10 AM and sets at 3:30ish. Here in Kodiak, it is closer to 9:30 and 4:30. It is about an hour of difference and seemed significantly darker. When we drove home from the airport tonight in Kodiak, it was 4:00 and still light out. We remarked how in Anchorage it would have been dark.

Returning home to the kids and Leona was so smooth. Leona said the kids were good during the weekend, which made me so happy. Leona did a lot of baking, snowflake making, airplane making with them....Nora said, "Leona made that fast paper airplane from directions on You Tube". Too fun! As Leona boarded the plane we arrived on to return to Fairbanks, I told her heartedly how it meant the world to me that she took such great care of the kids. Its nice to return home to a clean house and happy kids...

Zoya

Pictures
-Patrick with the Catholic Church and Ski trailhead behind him. Amazing view from the church, eh?!
-Skiing in Girdwood
-Patrick and Lili
-10 AM in Girdwood with lights of Aleyska in back ground

Getaway to Mainland

This weekend Patrick and I head over to Anchorage/Girdwood for a weekend getaway. Last spring we left for Anchorage one night sans kiddos and decided then to do it more often. Now our kids are old enough to leave without much emotional hardship. Our friend and mommy helper, Leona, is here from Fairbanks to be with the kids. She also painted a mural of a tree in the birth class space next door (picture to come next week.)
She is quite the artist and I've always appreciated the art projects she engages the kids in.

Nora and Stuey are quite excited for a Leona weekend! And we're excited for cross country skiing in Kincaid Park and downhill skiing in Girdwood. We'll have lots of ski tubes...bringing all of our skis from home so we'll be heavy with carry on luggage.

Zoya