Week 9 ~ No More Babies in the H2O

Holy cow! It's been 9 weeks since I planted their little seeds. The one tomatoe plant seems to be doing so much better & now the other one is stunted. One of the cabbages is just growing like crazy. Another one is too, but I topped the flower & it's grown straight up since then. Another flower is growing, so I won't snip it & I'll see how it does. The two other cabbage are growing, but slower than the others. The lettuce hasn't died, it just hasn't grown hardly at all since that first salad. Perplexion has set in ... hhmmmm. Is perplexion even a word? It is now. And yes, these babies have been growing with a flouresent light only. (I've had issues with the HP & metal halide lights & the system I have.)

Visiting Quin. again

So, we had a long weekend for Easter. I decided to go down to Quinhagak for a spring visit. Christina & Jenny decided to join me. It was almost a perfect visit. I was able to see a lot of people. I maqik-ed (steamed) every night. One night the stove was So hot that the top of the stove was red! It had to be 300 in there. I visited the school & I was able to see most of the kids I taught. I even got to know some of the new teachers better. We were actually weathered in an extra night, which wasn't that bad.


Jenny, Justin & I went iceberg hopping down at the bay. The ice was still frozen out on the bay near a mile from shore. Then there were the icebergs. The day was just perfect!




By the way, the photos of Justin & myself were beautifully taken by Jenny. I took the one of her leaping. All rights reserved.

Crow's Pass & Juneau Countdown

So, I've decided to commit to hiking the 26 mile Crow Pass trail to Eagle River. It passes by a glacier & part of it is the Iditarod trail. I'll be joining my roomy, Christina, Richard, my Pops, old roomy, Sara, and Jenny. The plan is to start May 29th-?. Hopefully it will only take 3 days with our not so in shape crew.

Cool, mamma-cat, cool!

Check out the links:
http://www.trails.com/trail_reviews.asp?trailid=HGA003-025

http://www.thoughtsfromthetrail.com/2006/01/



Afterwards, I'm off to Juneau for a fabulous geology class about GPS's & a GIS mapping program. I'll be there June 4-17! My fingers are crossed for climbing up a glacier like they did last year.

www.traveljuneau.com

Week 6! ~ Hydroponics 101

The poor lettuce & tomatoes are struggling a little bit. Someone said they think I have spider mites. I hope now that I've changed the water completely & rearranged the plants to get more light they'll do better. They also said that tobacco water will kill the mites. Now I just need to find someone who smokes.





OK, I did bum a cigarete but I haven't used it. I cut off the bad leaves & sprayed them with a weak solution of distiled water, tea tree oil & lavendar essential oil. My fingers are crossed (X).

Tununak & Eskimo Dancing

It's about a mile's hike up to these stone pillars from the village at an elevation of about 900'. It took about 30 minutes to get to the top on the snowy & icey tundra. A hike much needed! I'm doing some research about the stories that surround these stone people.



Tununak is a village of about 300 people, 100 of which are students. On the other side of that pillar is of the bay, frozen & breaking up because the temps. are now just above freezing (aka it's hot at 35 degrees around here).








Wiinga in front of the bay.












I went to Tununak (on Nelson Island NW of Nunap. & Bethel) for an Eskimo dance festival, Kevgiq. Only the surrounding villages, Tooksook Bay & Nitemute, & Nunapitchuk dancers were able to make it. Our plane was the only one that landed & the others came by snow-machine.


I actually came seperate than the dance team, because they had another certified teacher with them. Let me back it up a little bit. Christina & I drove down to Bethel on the snow-machine after school on Friday. It was a B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L ride down! The sky was clear & sunny & the trail was well traveled. I seriously don't know how people navigate without a GPS for that 15 mile stretch between Atmauthluk & Bethel during a white-out, where you can only see 15 or so feet in front & snow drifts change your path or wipe away the trail! Riding by faith. So, I went to the aitport to learn that Tununak's airstrip wasn't landable for the evening except by the Twin Otter plane, which the Nunap. dancers were on. So, I stayed the night in Bethel & went on the 9:00 (aka the 9:40 or whenever) flight. It took about an hour to get there so it was probably 80ish miles NW from Bethel. It was clear most of the way there so I could see the hills & the bay clearly. Oh, I was able to see Muskox too. They were just kind of hanging out. Imagine buffallo on grassy plains, but smaller & on snowy hills. I saw a patch of 5. Then, we (the pilot, Keith, & I) saw around 20.

Once I got there I just walked the mile or less from the airport to the school. Well, I was intercepted close to the store by a woman selling 'crafts.' She was selling baskets. She took me to her house to look at these baskets she made. I bought one.

I *heart* Tununak.