Wabbit Huntin'

I LOVE the President's Day Holiday. I get the day off but the kids still have to go to school/daycare. It is a true holiday - no kids, no work. Ahhhhhhhhhh

Today in honor of Presidents Day I went rabbit hunting with 2 other dads 'home from work but without kid care issues'. It was raining at our house and looked dismal. But once we got out the road it was snowing. Then it stopped snowing and got glorious.

Why is it that rabbit hunting always conjures up images of Elmer Fudd? And we did have our Elmer Fudd moments. Rabbits running here there and everywhere and we just could not seem to get one. At one point Matt and I could see a rabbit just on the other side of a bush from Mike. We could not shoot for fear of hitting Mike ('Dick Cheneying' him) and he could not shoot it because the bush was in the way. This sort of thing happened a lot.

Still we did get 2 rabbits, and that is a meal. Mike will be cooking up his signature 'Nebraska rabbit recipe'.

Patrick

My New Tour of Anchorage Goal

In prior years I've made my goal for the Tour of Anchorage ski race a "time" goal. I always wanted to achieve it within 2:45. And then I never achieve it and I feel like the race defeated me somehow. Silly, I know.

So I'm changing tactics this year. This year my goal is to beat my stepdad, Mike. He is 71 years old and a good cross country skiier. He always beats me in the 25K classic ski race. I told Mike that my goal is to beat him (or come across the finish line at the same time) and the competition is on. We are having great fun with it. He doesn't want me to beat him, and I really want to beat him. It gives training for the race a fun edge...knowing that someone else is training with that purpose!

Today I called to talk to Mike and he was out skiing. Evidently he's even had a couple of cross country ski lessons lately...Hmm...this should be fun!

The race is in 2 weeks.

Zoya

The past several weeks the cross country skiing here has been bad. However, after a winter of gorgeous snow, I"m not allowed to complain. It has been the nicest winter I can ever remember (and I was born and raised here!).

Picture: taken of Buskin Lake today by Patrick when he went Ptarmigan hunting. Evidently there was good cross country skiing out the road. It was raining in town and I was doing cross training on treadmill and bike.

Re Visiting the Data

Christy and Molly map the rock pile.


Rock pile superimposed on top of postholes set into till. Rocks are blue and postholes pink.


Molly poses with the excavated rock pile.


Final view of the excavation showing all of the postholes set into the glacial till below the site.


View of the excavation as a whole - looking towards the distant sea.

Archaeology is all about figuring out what happened at the site you excavate and writing stories, and sometimes you discover clues long after you thought you had all the details. Such is the case with the rock pile we excavated last summer at the Amak Site (see posts from last August).
http://saltonstall.blogspot.com/2011/08/one-big-pile-of-rock-rain-and-bayonets.html
At the time we thought it was just a HUGE pile of rocks and not much else. We decided it might have been a hunting blind or a cover for a meat cache.

When we excavated the feature we did not find any obvious postholes, associated charcoal & artifacts, or obvious living surfaces. It did seem to have an 'empty' area in the middle that had rocks beneath it. So we just mapped and described it and chalked it up as a mystery.

Recently when I was looking back at photos of the excavation, I noticed that there was a ring of postholes set into the glacial till at the bottom of site directly below where the rock pile had been. I immediately wondered if they could they be related. So I took the map of the rock pile and superimposed it on the map of the postholes at the bottom of the site. They look like they match up pretty well. However, it still could also be a coincidence and the postholes might be related to an entirely different feature. In support of the 'unrelated' hypothesis we did not notice any postholes while we were excavating the rock pile (they are usually pretty obvious).

Nonetheless, I do believe that they are related, and I think the posts support the idea that the rock pile was an elaborate meat cache. What follows is my latest story made to fit the facts.

The hollow area in the middle is where the meat was and when they removed the meat they tumbled the rocks to the outside. I think they set poles over the rocks so that bears could not tumble the rocks away and get at the meat. They could also have used the poles as some sort of meat drying rack. Anyway, that's my story for now.

Now I need to come up with some additional evidence that confirms or disproves my latest story. And this may not happen. The rock pile might forever be a possible 'food cache'. However, I like to think that someday someone else will find a similar feature with a few more clues, and that eventually we will figure out what the rock pile represented.

Patrick

Stu Moves

Stuey has some wild dance moves. He makes me laugh....and I love that he enjoys music so much.
Heres a 30 second clip of Stuey movin' to the beat.

Zoya

Valentines Love and Hardship

Valentines Day was a bit crazy here on Cliffside Drive.

The craziness started the day before when Patrick and I noticed Roxy limping quite badly and then noticed blood dripping from her. When we investigated her neck, there was a large chunk of her fur missing...some animal had taken a large bite out of her. We believe it was the horse that is tied up across the street. So on Valentines morning, I took Roxy in to the vet, she underwent surgery.

I went and picked Roxy up after work, and I wasn't prepared for what she looked like. Frankensteins dog was what came to mind.

She has a large incision, with shaved area on her neck and a drain tube that goes from one side, under her skin and out the other. It really is medieval looking. I"m the trained medical professional and supposed to be the one with the solid stomach in these predicaments, but evidently not!

Tonight I had to do as instructed and apply a warm towel to the drain to keep it clear and I had to do some serious deep breaths and tell myself, "I can do this, I can do this" before putting the towel on her. It just looks so painful and horrible. But, I have to remind myself that it is less horrible than it would be if she hadn't had surgery. The vet said she was quite mangled by the horse.

When stuey saw Roxy after surgery, He commented, "Wow, mom. Thats cool! Did you do that?!", as if it were some work of art.
And Nora asked, "Mom, did they sew her up with a sewing machine?". At first I thought she was kidding, but then realized she wasn't. She was serious. She has never seen me sew anything by hand, evidently. Since I am a quilter she has only seen me sew with a machine. Pretty funny the questions kids come up with in such predicaments.

On a more positive valentines note, the kids were very into making hearts and all things lovey-dovey this year, so that was fun. Last night after bringing Roxy home, we trekked out in the sideways blowing slush to deliver rice krispie treats and brownies to the neighbors with a small note that said, "Happy Valentines Day from Cliffside Cupid."

The kids said their faces hurt from being pelted with the sideways slush, and I could hardly blame them. But it was well worth a walk down the road for a few houses.

And with the rain, and slush its been a great time to dance with Stuey and Nora. Stuey has some pretty crazy moves!

Zoya

Amak Site Artifacts

This is practically all of the artifacts we found last summer during the Alutiiq Museum's Community Archaeology at the Amak Site. I did not take pictures of the flakes, utilized flakes, a couple of ochre grinders and some worked slate but we did not find relatively many of these artifacts anyway. What we mostly found, relatively speaking, is pictured in the top 3 photos - bayonets and flensing knives (top), whetstones second, and pumice abraders. The bottom 3 photos show the bayonet preforms (unfinished bayonets), some odd pieces (lamp, lineweight for fishing, and a cobble scraper), and the chipped stone tools and one ulu (bottom). We found barely any of the objects in the bottom 3 photos (almost all the preforms were found in a single temporary structure).

The tools we find tell us what people were doing at the site, and judging by what we found it looks like they were doing a lot of hunting. The bayonets would have tipped lances used for killing some sort of sea mammal. The whetstones were probably used for sharpening the bayonets, while the abraders might have been for smoothing the lance shafts. And normally you do not find so many of the slate whetstones which would have been for putting on the final sharp edge to the bayonets.

Since the site would have been at the head of a bay near a salmon stream we did not expect to find so much hunting gear - we expected to find more fishing related gear (netsinkers, lineweights, ulus and cobble spalls). Nor does the site appear to have been a place where people spent much time. We did not find well built structures or much in the way of tools associated with more permanent camps like cobble spalls, u-shaped abraders, flakes, needle abraders, adzes, chipped knives, lamps, hammerstones etc.

Rarely do the tools from a site indicate so clear a story. Normally things are far more muddled with a mix of artifact types. But here at the Amak site it is pretty clear we excavated a temporary hunting camp. Patrick

Saturday night Whitney to Sunday morning Bagpipes...

This weekend was full of music! Last night I celebrated Marie's 30th birthday at an all-girls party. Around 30 women were in attendance at Sara L.'s house and there was an incredible spread of all types of cupcakes, brownies, cheesecake, ice cream...

We had so much fun talking and dancing later on into the night. I was the DJ for the evening and did the playlist, and made sure we had a Whitney Houston song on the list in memory of Whitney's passing. The gals went wild dancing to her. RIP Whitney Houston.

There were several girlfriends in attendance with whom I've never really danced with and boy was it fun to dance to all different types of music and learn new moves!

This morning around 9:30 I was laying on my bed listening to the kids play in the living room, trying to muster up energy to get the day going. All of a sudden I heard the faint sound of bagpipes. At first I thought I was imagining things, but then realized it was coming from our neighbors house.

Surely enough, our neighbor Matt was practicing his bagpipes on his porch. I looked out the window and there he was, bundled up in a big green sweatshirt walking around playing his bagpipes. What a beautiful sound to have bagpipe music reverberating through the neighborhood as the sun rose over the ocean. I consider ourselves lucky to have a neighbor is who is so talented as to play his bagpipes here on Cliffside Rd!

Zoya

Back to Crust Skiing

After bragging about overtaking Anchorage in the snow department Karma caught up with me. I just have to wonder, would it have rained for a week straight if I had not bragged on the blog? In any case, what's done is done and now we are back to a hard crust after a month of glorious powder.

Still, it is not all bad. Now I can go crust cruising on my skate skiis. These are some photos that I took today while cruising the flats above Buskin Lake. We still have 2 or 3 feet of snow up there (much more than in town). And it is so deep that I can even ski through alder thickets that are usually impassible. I had fun dodging through the alders at high speeds - I would have to react really quickly to each upcoming trunk, and there was really no planning ahead. It was hink and jink this way and that looking for holes, and I only wiped out twice! Patrick

Terror Lake, Labor Day 2001

A blast from the past - from the early days of digital cameras when I still used slide film. It was Labor Day weekend 2001, and a bunch of my friends took a floatplane across the Shelikof to climb Mount Douglas in Katmai National Park. I had a wedding to attend and could not go with them - hence I was feeling pangs of jealousy. I needed a cool trip to do locally - so that I could both assuage my jealousy and attend the wedding. Have my cake and eat it too.

So it was perfect when Paul Z invited John M and I to go on a boat ride to the head of Kizhuyak Bay and then bike to Terror Lake on the dam maintenance road. The dam was built back in the 1980's and supplies the City of Kodiak with power. The road winds 10 miles or so and climbs almost 2500 feet to Terror Lake.

2500 feet is A LOT of climbing, and we felt like we were in the Tour de France climbing the L'Alpe d'Huez. Lots of Lance Armstrong and Marcos Pantani jokes. I tried to do the climb in a low gear and not stop (very difficult without a regimen of HGH or EPO), and it was brutal. We climbed up on switchbacks by huge granite cliffs, and suddenly we topped out in the alpine. The rest of the bike ride was a jaunt in 'Sound of Music' land. Snow and wild flowers and green, green grass with a road winding down the middle. It felt very weird to be riding a mountain bike on Kodiak in such glorious scenery.

On the way home the descent back to the boat was much more terrifying than the climb up. I was convinced my brakes would burn out before I reached the bottom and that I would be left relying on 'Fred Flintstone' type brakes. All and all a great trip and I did not miss the wedding either.

Note that some of the photos are very poor quality - that's because Paul Z took them with a very early digital camera. Back then I was amazed by their quality, and it is funny realize that at one time a 1 mega pixel camera was state of the art! The other pictures are slides that I scanned. Patrick

Stuey on fire! Age Five.

Stuey's Birthday dinner request: Broccoli, rice, noodles
Wildest moment: parading in Noras dance tutu and birthday hat.
Cuddliest moment: on couch this evening telling me his favorite birthday party moments (blowing out candle, opening presents, eating cake).
Not-so-cuddliest moment: this morning when he wouldn't let Nora have the boxes that his birthday gifts came in. Ended up with both of them in time out for a few minutes.

Love my five year old!

Zoya

More Birds

Just a few more photos from yesterday. I took a bunch of photos really quickly while Zoya and the kids waited in the car. I am surprised so many 'worked'. I think I might go back to the Buskin sometime and take some more!

Right now it feels like everybody in the world but me is watching the Super Bowl. I'd forgotten that today was the big game and I was wondering why nobody was out and about while I was driving around town. And then I remembered - 'Oh yeah, everybody's watching the superbowl.' I only watch the game if a team I care about is playing in it. This has not happened in years. I think the last Super Bowl I watched was highlighted by Janet Jackson's 'wardrobe malfunction' - I actually caught that one.

In the meanwhile, every year on one Sunday afternoon in early February I enjoy weirdly deserted streets and trails. If there is something you don't usually do because of crowds - today's the day to do it! Patrick

Taking Flight

Today is a blustery, warmer day in kodiak. It was a perfect day for a new mom to take flight into motherhood and birds to take flight along the buskin.

The day started at 2AM for me when I was called to the hospital for my doula client in labor. By 11:30 this am, she gave birth to a baby girl with lots of dark hair. The delivery was with one of my favorite daytime nurses, Andi and our friend "Doctazee" was the attending Doctor (thats what he calls himself on our local snow report online forum). (...And Katelyn-you're my favorite night nurse.)

Being a doula at such a small facility is such a treat;knowing everyone and working with staff that is supportive of doulas. Witnessing and helping with birth is such a transcendental experience for women and for many ways, those with them. I am nearing 50 births as a doula and am continually awed by the process of labor and birth...and watching the strength of women in such a physically and emotionally tough time.

After the birth, I had an fabulous phone conversation with a close girl friend. New ideas and thoughts took flight for us in the 15 minutes we talked. I sat down by the harbor and watched dump trucks dump off loads of snow in the harbor. Truck after truck kept coming. When I was back in a "regular Zoya" mindset, I went home to the kids. I have to make sure I'm 100% "there" when I walk in the house after birth. I have to shift gears and be emotionally prepared for being needed by the kids; after just having given lots emotionally and physically at the hospital. Now that the kids are older, it is easier and less of a transition. Being at birth is an incredible, yet intense experience.

Patrick and I took the kids on a drive to the Buskin Beach, which was incredibly windy. Patrick raced out of the car, got some pictures. On the way out, the clouds parted and I told the kids the sun was like god coming down from the clouds.

Zoya

Snow Totals

I know it seems sort of petty, but Nora and I have been keeping track of snow totals in Anchorage vs Kodiak. Every morning when I check the weather Nora asks if Kodiak has more snow than Anchorage. Often she runs in and yells, 'how much snow does Anchorage have?''. And until today I always had to disappoint her with my answer - 'no, Anchorage still has more snow'. But Today we finally did surpass Anchorage in the snow total. According to the official airport tallies Kodiak stands at 97 inches of snow total for the season while Anchorage is at 94 inches.

Kodiak usually gets a lot of snow - a couple of years ago we got 150 inches of snow total for the winter. However, we also usually get a lot of rain and warmth too to knock back the snowpack depth in town. Up high this means we usually have obscene amounts of snow, but down low at sea level it is generally brown and snowless. But not this year! Right now we have 32 inches of snow on the ground at sea level (that's almost 3 feet of snow) - Anchorage is at 26 inches.

So yes, Nora, we do now have more snow than Anchorage.

Life is good, Patrick

"What The?"

The past week there was a funny moment when I volunteered in Nora's class.

I was helping a student with a math sheet and I told him an answer needed correcting. He responded to me, "What the?!", then paused and said, "Awkward!". It was a response which took me by surprise! Needless to say, I'm glad Nora hasn't responded with such words and I hope she never does. Especially at the young age of kindergarten.

On my recent trip to Anchorage, I got Nora Little House on the Prairie paper dolls, which she loves. Stuey proceeded to build himself a craft stick house at preschool and make paper dolls out of paper for his house. It was fun to watch him mimic Nora's toy.

Zoya