Baby, it's cold outside...really freakin' cold.*

The fun part of living in Alaska is that it's basically living in your favorite fantasy books.  In the summer, I live on the edge of the Enchanted Forest.  In the fall, I live in Lothlorien.  Then, when the snow falls,  my backyard is Narnia, where it's always winter and never Christmas (until tomorrow, that is).

It's been in the negatives for a couple weeks now.  It was a bit of an abrupt drop, but it is stunningly gorgeous.  When it's so cold your first breath crackles a little, there's diamond dust in the air.  The trees glitter with hoarfrost.  The few hours of daylight are rosy twilight, with the sun skipping just high enough above the horizon that you're blinded and in pain whenever you drive south.  At night, sometimes, you get light pillars--when it's cold enough that the moisture in the air crystallizes, and reflects the lights up.

This isn't snow.

And it's really stinking cold, too.  So cold that the doorplate *inside my house* has a coating of frost tonight, and the inside of my screen door has iced over.  We tried taking the kids to Christmas in Ice, the annual ice-sculpture park that is set up by the Santa Claus House in North Pole every year.  Even with Claudia so layered up that she could only starfish, it was just too cold to stay longer than an hour, most of which was spent in the warm-up trailer where we could see our breath.

-22 tonight!

-10 at the park

I also love the snowflakes.  I've never seen them as big anywhere else. The other night I was out on my porch and the snowflakes were so big they looked fake.

But enough waxing poetic.  The snow isn't going anywhere until April, so there will be plenty of time to talk about it.

Thanksgiving was delightful.  The night before we had a pre-emptive pie night.  Because I am surrounded by unrepentant punners, we naturally had a chocolate moose pie.  The day of actual festivity, we had some friends over for games and ham.  It was a nice way to spend the evening.

Rick and I finally made it to an Ice Dogs hockey game.  We have two main teams up here--the UAF Nanooks and the Ice Dogs.  The Army and Air Force also play, but they're more of a specialty game.  Anyway, I was told that if I wanted to see proper, rule-based hockey, to watch the Nanooks--and if I wanted to watch real hockey, to go to the Ice Dogs.  My source wasn't kidding.  Even a couple of hockey-illiterates like ourselves could see the cheating.  There was hooking, sticking, multiple fist fights.  Even the goalie of the visiting team was sent sprawling, helmet flying, and took several minutes to pick himself off the ice.  The fans were brutal.

I can't wait to go again in January.

Then, on the 30th of November, we had the earthquake. We were in the middle of school when all of a  sudden I felt like the couch was rocking.  I thought I was just dehydrated or something, but then I saw the blinds swaying gently back and forth and promptly announced, mostly out of surprise, that we were having an earthquake.  The kids thought it was cool--the house gently wobbled, kind of like Jello, for roughly a minute.  Then we all took to Facebook to track the news.  Sure enough, there had been a 7.0 earthquake in Anchorage (tangent--it took about two minutes for the tremor to cover the 350 miles from Anchorage to Fairbanks).  Anchorage continued to be rattled by aftershocks for days. Main highways and roads were collapsed and blocked by landslides, houses and buildings cracked.  It could have been really bad.

Yet it wasn't.  First off, earthquakes aren't exactly new up here.  After the Good Friday earthquake in 1964, which leveled part of Anchorage, Alaskans started building structures that could handle the shaking.  According to an exhibit at UAF, Alaska averages an earthquake about every 15 minutes.  We have at least one magnitude 7 to 8 a year, an average of six 6.0-7.0 quakes, and countless smaller ones--the majority of earthquakes that occur in the U.S.--and 11% of all earthquakes recorded world-wide--actually take place in Alaska.

What's amazing, though, is what happened afterwards. There were no deaths.  There are no stories of looting, no cell phone videos of chaos and depraved humanity going viral, no runs on basic supplies like gas and bread.  Instead, there are pictures of shattered highways that are repaired less than a week later, stories of people going door to door to check on their neighbors and volunteering to go clean up grocery stores so they can reopen.  Anchorage is still rebuilding in parts, but it's pretty much just life as usual.  There wasn't even a hiccup in fuel or groceries in the Interior, despite the roads and train tracks being repaired.  Alaskans are incredible.

And, naturally, it spawned some hilarious memes.  Because that's naturally what you do when you get a day off from work because the road is broken.

We ventured out to the local production of the Nutcracker Suite in a naïve but well-intentioned attempt to expose our kids to culture.  The ballet was very nice--Leah and Aeryn in particular loved it--and the dancers are mind-boggling athletes, but I don't think ballet's my thing (especially with a toddler in tow).  Maybe if they had razor blades on their feet and the nutcracker went after the rats with a stick, I'd enjoy it more.  *shrug* Since Rick fell asleep in the second act, I think he'll be okay not going again.

It looks empty, but we were just early.  That auditorium was *packed*

We took a break from having fun to deal with a slightly unpleasant stomach bug.  By "slightly" I mean that I had two children who vomited every time they thought about food for three days and lived on my living room floor within spewing distance of a bucket, and a third who slept for a weekend and complained about nausea. Thank goodness for carpet cleaners and praise Thor's mighty abs that nobody else got sick.

The solstice was the 21st, and you can't mention winter in Alaska without mentioning the solstice. We had just under four hours of daylight (and I use that term loosely) that day.  I always love it, and I'm always a little sad in my vole heart when the solstice passes and the days start getting longer again.

Sunrise 10:58

Noon

Sunset 2:40

Christmas has happened in a rush.  Saturday, Santa came around the neighborhood on the firetruck, handing out candy canes to anyone who risked the cold to say hi.

The next day was the Christmas program at our church.  Rick narrated.  I love that man's voice.  Frankly, it's a crime that he wasn't alive during the golden age of radio.  Afterwards, we had dinner at our friends' house.  They have basically built a jungle gym in their living room, and Rick and the girls had a spectacular time playing on the gymnast rings, attempting the obstacle course, and hucking balls (and 25 pound bags of beans) at their friends.  Good times.  I'm pretty sure we outstayed our welcome, but it's pretty much the host's job to kick you out after 10 so I can't be held responsible.

Tonight (last night?) we had some other friends over for games and snacks.  I made a pavlova (a baked ring of meringue topped with whipped cream and fresh berries and pomegranate) and a buche de noel.  We played Jackbox games until one of our guests had to leave because they have a cat allergy and our house was literally killing them, no biggie.  We even got our annual Christmas moosen--a mama and her twinners strolled into our yard during dinner.

Once we chased the girls to bed, we finally loaded all the presents under the tree. I've been resisting Christmas because it's been hard enough trying to convince Claudia to keep the ornaments on the tree.  I certainly didn't want to be constantly rewrapping presents from Thanksgiving until tomorrow (today?  It's so darn late).  At any rate, I can muster a little Christmas spirit now that it's basically here.  Yes, those are even Christmas jammies.

That catches us up.  And now to bed.  It's going to be an early morning.

*Aside--I can't believe people are going nuts over that song.  Everyone needs to calm down a little bit.  Eat some pie.  Care about things that actually matter.  Maybe learn the context of the song.  And if you still don't like it, change the station.

Many Much Moosen

*WARNING--graphic pictures of butchering an animal are below.  You have been warned...though I realize that since the first picture is what pops up first, the warning is a little late and possibly unnecessary.*

A couple months ago, one of our friends invited us to help butcher a moose.  We felt pretty special to get to participate--I mean, how often to you get to help break down a moose?   Offered a share of the meat in return for our labor, we packed up some knives, grabbed a cooler, threw the kids in the bus and headed over.

Everybody knows a hunter, and a lot of people have butchered chicken or fish or rabbits or even a deer or pig, but a moose is in its own category.  For starters, a bull moose can stand up to 7 feet at the shoulder, weigh 1500 pounds, and have an antler spread of 5 feet.  In North America, only the bison and the occasional polar bear are bigger. The critter we helped with wasn't 1500 pounds, but it became clear pretty soon after we arrived that there was plenty much moosen to go around.

*Rick wants a reminder that this is only one leg of this animal. In addition to three other legs, there were also two bags of torso meat--making this Rick-size haunch only 1/6 of the meat that was processed that night.

As the sun set, we and seven other families--kids included--fell to work. That sounds like a lot of people to cut up a single critter, but remember--this wasn't some scrubby Arizona white-tail.  The moose was quartered and hung from a beam.  Four men cut the meat from the bones; the kids carried it to a nearby table, where some of the women cut off connective tissue, picked off leaves and hair, and cut it into more manageable portions.  From there it was carried, platter by platter (and tub by tub in some circumstances) to the house, where it was rinsed as necessary and further processed into either roasts, steaks, or ground into burger.

Because we're a little dark--and, frankly, because this was a golden opportunity--I and the other homeschool moms gave an impromptu anatomy lesson, pointing out muscle fibers, veins, and the difference between ligaments and tendons.  We also discussed responsible hunting practices, wildlife management, the life cycle, and the transfer of energy from producers to consumers.  Since several of the adults were also medical providers, trauma was discussed.  The older kids (who could mostly be trusted not to cut their fingers off) helped cut meat.  For the most part, the kids bore their forced education well.

I found the bullet.  In a thousand pounds of meat, it's the equivalent of getting the wishbone.

At the end of the night, we had several hundred pounds of meat, neatly labeled and mounded on table and counters.  Rick and I did the math; the 14 adults put in a cumulative total of 56 hours of work that evening. We all took a couple roasts and some ground moose.  The meat, though, wasn't my favorite part. 

I don't love hunting. I don't love blood. I don't love butchering animals or feeling meat-scum cake under my nails or the monotony of parceling and packaging meat--I don't even particularly love moose meat--and yet, in this circumstance, it was...fun.  Fulfilling.  Satisfying.  It was as if it appeased a deep, primal memory of a tribe coming together after a hunt, working together to ensure their survival.  Like that was how life was supposed to be.  Everyone had something to do.  Older children watched babies so parents could skin and carve and process meat, younger children filled and carried and emptied trays.  Nobody complained or slacked off.  People joked and laughed the entire time.  It was incredible to feel so strongly like we belonged, to be so in sync with our friends and neighbors and even a couple complete strangers.  It felt, for a few brief hours, like we were with our tribe--and it was amazing.

Moose still isn't my favorite, and I still don't love blood-crud under my nails, but I would do this again in a heartbeat.  I never imagined that this would be part of our Alaskan experience.

I'm so glad it was.

Telling Stories

Yesterday was Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead.  For those of you who aren't familiar with the holiday (or somehow inexplicably haven't seen either Coco or The Book of Life, both of which I recommend), the Day of the Dead is a mash-up of good old-time Aztec religion sieved through Catholicism.  Running from October 31 through November 2, the Day of the Dead is best known for the calaveras, the brilliantly decorated skulls that permeate the holiday.  It's a celebration of life and a reminder that death comes to us all.  More importantly, it's a time to remember family that have passed on, to remember their names and tell their stories.

I first observed the Day of the Dead on November 3, 2015, when my grandfather died at 91 years of age.  I heard about his death as we celebrated my daughter's birthday, which is only fitting as death is as much a part of life as birth.  There was no offrenda, no marigolds, no sugar skulls, but that night I began to tell them his stories.

Papi is in the middle.

My papi, George Ernest Shoberg, was the son of Delia Carrisoza and Victor Shoberg.  He lied about his age in order to enlist during World War II, and fought in Germany.   Once his platoon found a warehouse full of women's clothes in a town freshly liberated from the Nazis.  This was a big deal, since clothes were scarce in the war-torn countryside.  My grandfather tried to tell a local woman, but he didn't speak German very well and she didn't speak English.  Finally, terrified of the Americans, she tentatively followed him to the warehouse.  When she saw the mountains of clothes, my grandfather said she screamed and suddenly German women popped out of nowhere, putting on four or five bras each and layers and layers of socks.  Another story he liked to tell was how, near the end of the war, a German soldier crossed into their camp and he had to take him prisoner.  Papi would always shake his head at this point in the story and say, "He didn't want trouble.  He just wanted to go home." The soldier was put under guard while they decided what to do with him.  Papi learned his name, and that he lived in the next town.  Papi went to his home, where the German's mother and sisters were waiting, and let them know that their brother was safe, and asked for a blanket for him.  The man was released the next day, and Papi was part of the detail that made sure he went home.

These are the types of stories Papi told about the war.  He told us about dancing with French girls in the canteens, or fishing by throwing grenades in a lake.  The other stories, the darker stories, he kept to himself, or shared with fellow soldiers.  Even without them, though, I have so many stories to share with my girls--like how he once helped carry John Wayne out of a bar, or how he would take us down to a cheap local carnival when we'd visit.  I remember how he would buy old gingerbread cookies to feed the skunks in the backyard, and we'd watch them snuffle and eat through the sliding glass door.  He was a plumber and all around handy-man.  He raised three children, two of which weren't his own.  He walked every day.  Instead of swearing, he would call people "dirty birds." His home is fixed in my mind, with the bandoliers and sombreros on the brick wall, the shelves of black and white westerns, the pot of beans on the stove and the musky-leather of his cologne.  Papi always told me to "keep [my] honor bright." I've tried my best to do so.

A year later, the unexpected passing of my mother-in-law in November of 2016 gave us another set of stories to tell.  While some of my girls will have their own memories of their grandmother, others will only know her through the stories that we pass on.  They will know that Grandma Kathy was a gymnast, and taught all of her kids how to do cartwheels.  She loved cooking and was an intuitive, uncanny baker. She mothered everyone.  She was whip-smart, with an irreverent, often naughty sense of humor.  I remember how, when Rick and I had just started dating, my family was out of town and I was alone for Thanksgiving; Kathy found out, and promptly decreed that there would be neither turkey nor pie until I was at the table.  Nobody dared thwart her, and I had my first Bushman Thanksgiving.  She delighted over her children, welcomed their spouses, and celebrated every grandbaby.

We also share stories about Uncle Gregg.  My brother in law died shortly after his mother, and his passing was perhaps the hardest.  Unlike Papi or Kathy, most of whose stories are secondhand or my own time-blurred half-memories, I knew Gregg from the time he was 11 years old with a bowl-cut and a K.I.S.S. shirt.  I remember going to his football games, and playing psychotic D&D campaigns on Saturday nights. He was also a soldier, and fought in Afghanistan.  We were stationed together in Ft. Bragg, and Leah, only about 18 months old, adored him.  He always told her she was his favorite, and he was definitely her favorite uncle.  He had a knack for making things happen.  The first time he got out of the military, he decided that he wanted to be an actor.  Rick and I were dubious, but Gregg and his ever-patient wife sold almost everything they owned and moved to New York City in a matter of weeks.  The day after they arrived he walked into a modeling and acting agency and was signed.  Even though he never became crazy famous, he did make it onto IMDB.  Gregg was larger than life.

Sometimes I get angry that stories are all I have to share about these people who were so influential in my life.  Not so much for my grandfather as for Kathy and Gregg.  I get angry that most of my girls won't remember snuggling their grandmother, or hearing her call them "bunny," or her sneaking them popsicles when I wasn't looking.  I'm sad that they won't get to listen to Uncle Gregg riffing with their dad, and that Gregg's sons will have only other people's memories of their father.  The stories seem inadequate, pale reflections of the vibrant people I knew.  But the stories are what I have.  The stories are what I can give.  And so I will.

"We are all stories in the end.  Just make it a good one, eh?" 

--The 11th Doctor

Llamas and Tigers and Bears, oh my.

It's been a weird fall.  Temperatures have bobbed between properly freezing temps and the 50s.  The birch and fireweed have long since faded, but the snow hasn't come, which means that the ugliest part of the Alaskan year has stretched from a couple of grayish weeks to over a month.  The kids are actually hoping for snow...which will last for about a week after we finally get some stuff that sticks.

The frost is promising.

Our only snow so far.  It melted 12 hours later.

The temperature is finally falling, though, and we've got predicted highs in the 20s next week, so we (I) did our winter layout.  My storage closet vomited its summer contents all over my living room and we (I) spent an hour and a half pairing mittens and gloves, sizing snowpants, and digging hats out of pockets.  Somehow I'd acquired four extra pairs of boots over the winter; since the girls all wear boots at least one size too big, I kept one in-between pair and donated the others, along with some of the extra gloves and hats that apparently spawned during their summer in the closet.  We are ready whenever the cold decides to arrive.

Fall's busy. Of course, I'm starting to suspect that homeschooling six kids means my life's busy and will be for a while.  During the fall, though, we add four birthdays and three major holidays into the mix. Since Rick was gone on a job-mandated camping trip for a few weeks, we also made a couple trips down to Anchorage and Denali National Park.

Denali was the first.  For most of the year you can only go 15 miles into the park with your private vehicle; otherwise you have to take a bus or start walking.  Lots of people take either of those options, but with the aforementioned horde of children, I'm not hiking in bear-country and I'm certainly not sardining us onto a bus for a minimum of 6 hours with the requisite car seats.  However, after the summer season ends, the park road opens up for another 15 miles.  One perk of the mild weather was that I knew Bertha could make it out that far.  I packed us up and headed out.

It was beautiful.  Most of the wildlife know where the people will be and stay beyond the 30 mile line, but we did manage to surprise a caribou.  We also got our first taste of winter during a couple of snow flurries. We ended the day with the girls getting their Denali Jr. Ranger badges and some gourmet popcorn at one heck of a deal ($1 a bag instead of $8 because the guy was closing for the season and wanting to get home to Fairbanks a.s.a.p. because his wife was having a baby the next day).  It was delicious.  I may have eaten all of the Black Bear Crunch (caramel with dark chocolate drizzle) on the way home.

Anchorage was a much longer trip.  The afternoon before I had the feeling I needed to get my snow tires on, which was weird because it isn't consistently freezing or icy and the roads are clear.  I'm glad I did, though, because the roads iced over during the night and I was fishtailing all over the road on the hills outside Fairbanks. I can't even imagine how it would have been in my normal tires.  

In Anchorage, we went to the temple, which is always a good experience.  One of my favorite parts of the trip was getting to visit with some of my favorite people.  We took the kiddos to the pool on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson--which was luckily indoors, because even Alaskans don't think swimming outside is fun in 42 degree weather.  After the temple, the girls and I went to the Alaska Zoo.  It's a tiny zoo since it's limited to animals that can survive sub-freezing temperatures for a third of the year, but it was fun. There were a decent variety of critters, from your typical Alaskan animals like polar bears, moose, and foxen to yaks, tigers, and one very pissed looking llama. 

We also ventured out to a mall.  I remembered why I don't miss them. 

The drive home was incredible.  I love the shifting daylight up here.  Frankly, it's easier to appreciate a gorgeous sunrise at 8:30 than at 5.  I also love how the drive seems new every time I make it.  

For most of this trip home, we had a pretty good view of Denali and his wife (the Tanana native name for Mt. Foraker, the second highest peak in the Alaska range).  We even won the lottery and could see the peak of Denali.  This may not sound like anything special, but at 20,156 feet, Denali makes its own weather and you only have a 1 in 3 chance of seeing the whole mountain.

We made a side trip to Talkeetna.  It's a quirky little town about twenty minutes off the Parks Highway that serves as the base camp for the flight-tours of Denali.  I've wanted to go for a while--mostly because of the name, to be honest, but also because it is supposed to be beautiful and have the quintessentially offbeat Alaskan sense of humor.  I picked the wrong time of year to visit.  I'll have to try again next summer when everything isn't grey and dead, but the quirkiness was definitely there.

The best part of the trip was the BEARS.  The whole time we've been here, we've heard about bears but never seen them in the wild.  In all fairness, I don't exactly go looking for them, and we get more moose wandering around Fairbanks than bears--so seeing these guys, just 20 feet off the side of the highway outside the entrance to Denali, was amazing.  Totally worth almost hitting the guy ahead of me.  (I didn't see the bears at first, just the car ahead of me throwing on his brakes and giving me a heart-attack while I slammed on my brakes, 'cuz Bertha doesn't exactly stop on a dime.)  When I could think again I pulled off the road, clambered into Brenna's lap, and took several pictures from her window while the park ranger eyeballed me to make sure I didn't get out of the car.

Any way, that's been our fall so far.  With any luck, winter will get here soon, and the party can really get started.