Tag Archives: Alaska

Alaska Bread

28 Tuesday Oct 2014

Posted by in Alaska, Cooking & Baking

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

, , , ,

We made bread every Friday, each person or family proofing their own dough the night or morning before the bake; one person on oven duty stoking the fire all day; and then we’d come together in the late afternoon, and the soft, wet dough used to make snakes would be rolled out long and thin and go into the oven first, taking the hottest and fastest bake of all the breads.

We’d tear the snakes into pieces, dip them in balsamic vinegar and garlic olive oil, or spread herbed butter on the light crumb and devour the warm bread as the next batches went into the oven.  Mostly it was sourdough, with many variations: added honey, cornmeal, oatmeal, seeded crusts.  Then there were the cinnamon rolls, all puffed up and golden in their tray.  And after the baking, perhaps a chicken would roast in the heat that was left, or beans, or a moose stew would slow-cook overnight.  One bake would feed the whole farm bread for a week, sometimes more.

We took turns pulling loaves out of the oven, and as the snakes disappeared a mandolin and guitar might come out, the pedals of a spinning wheel would pat up and down to the beat, and the kids’ fingers would wind and tangle in cat’s cradle; some nights homemade ice cream balanced the heat of the fire; on the edges of the season, we’d eat inside where a wood stove warmed the house.

RWS_7345 RWS_7393 RWS_7400 RWS_7392 RWS_8358 RWS_7708 RWS_7677 RWS_9639We don’t have a wood-fired bread oven here on our farm in Vermont, yet.  It’s on the long list of building projects and won’t be built until next summer (I hope it gets built next summer!).  But I do have some whole wheat flour from a farm in Berlin, just a few miles on the other side of Montpelier, and I have this day to myself and a wood stove to crank up, and a bag of yeast in the freezer.

It’s been a long time since I made bread of my own; when Edge reluctantly admitted he had to go gluten-free for health reasons, the smell of fresh baked bread made me feel a little guilty.  He assures me now I should start again, the smell won’t hurt him, as enticing as it is.

And so here I go, warming the yurt, dusting the kneading board, baking bread.

 

{All this bread baking happened at Calypso Farm and Ecology Center, the farm where Edge and I met.}

Back to Alaska

14 Thursday Apr 2011

Posted by in Alaska, Travel, Wildness

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

“We’re taking a train to New Jersey, flying to Alaska from there, and then driving back to Vermont,” I told my friends.

Jordan paused for a moment and then asked, “Why?”

We all laughed at the blunt questioning in her voice.

“Well, Edge’s car and most of his stuff is still up there so we’re going to get it and visit everyone, too,” I answered.

But there’s more to it than that.  After a winter of renting a house and staying in one town, I am ready for a journey.  A week ago, as I was running in the spring afternoon, I thought about movement across the land, about travel and staying in one place.  My feet ran forward as fields melted and streams grew, and I remembered my nomadic ancestors–those perceptive, migrating people that we all come from.  What trace of them is left in me?  Is it their instincts that I feel telling me to walk, run, and to notice the world that keeps me alive?

It is a continual conflict within me: to stay in one place and know it deeply, or to travel and know the world as a great mosaic, all pieces making one place.  I like to believe that I can dig into a place even while traveling.  I like to feel that I can meet it full on, despite the brevity of time.

Terry Tempest Williams, in a talk she gave at the University of Fairbanks, said, “The most radical thing you can do is stay home.”  In this world of petroleum power, I believe this.  What do I love about staying?  Seeing the seasons through.  Working the land.  Growing my food.   The power of canning, freezing, pickling.

And this brings me back to the beginning of it all.

We have learned to celebrate agriculture and storage.

We have learned to reward ourselves with vacations.

There is a tension between these two things.

I am sitting in the Seattle Airport, waiting for a flight to Fairbanks.  In less than one day I am shooting across the country, and I will take just over two weeks to drive back.  So much oil.  And still I go.  It is a radical thing to stay home these days.  There is a lure to go far away, and since the advent of personal cars and cheap flights, we’ve all got the hook in our mouths.  There must have been a lure, too, for the nomads, to cultivate and rest through the seasons.  To stay in one place.

So I search for the convergence of these things, and I feel the churning within me as a river does when two tributaries come together.  I am going back to Alaska, back to the wild that forces you out of the car, the wild that asks your intention.  Is it to pass through, to get to the end?  Is it to discover?

I will dig into each place, meet it full on, despite the brevity of time.  My intention is to discover.

Alaska Wild

10 Sunday Oct 2010

Posted by in Alaska, Nature/Environment, Wildness

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

My summer of light is over.  The moon has returned to the northern sky.  In August I woke two nights in a row between 1:30 and 3:00 am and walked outside to darkness—or what darkness meant then, the deeper end of dusk—and looked up to see the moon shining like golden cream, my favorite light extending in a circle across the sky.  In my last days on the farm at the end of September, it was 9:30 pm and navy blue, it was 11:00 pm and black, it was nighttime and starry.

When school got back in session on August 18th, I started teaching classes in the garden.  One day while on a break, I heard a teacher in the faculty lounge say, “Fall is my favorite time of year because it’s dark enough to see the stars again and still warm enough to stay outside to look at them.”  All of my life I have loved summer nights for the stars and moon, and it still amazes me that people can live for months on end without this and see it as normal, but I did learn to love the unending light and all its energy.  Alaska’s nighttime has a way of breaking open, boldly renewing the world for the second time in twenty-four hours.

Now, after six months and with the return of night, I am driving home to Vermont with my friend Katie, who flew to Fairbanks to make the month-long journey back with me.  Throughout the summer I felt the pull towards the east, to know the soils, roots, rivers and mountains of my home more deeply, but Alaska draws me in now, quietly like the sway of wind in trees, like the slow then quick brilliant change from green to red in the tundra.  The wild here moves everyday across the land and sky; it knows its beauty and harshness and is calm in it.

When I first arrived in Alaska I wondered if the cities and people infringe upon or accentuate the wild, and what I have found is this: the wild is where the moose and lynx cross the paved road and keep going; it is where I take the road and then leave it.  Wild is found in the meetings of animals and people, and in the moments that hold stares without thoughts—that moment before you take out the camera and you watch, looking at each other with curiosity and wonder before going again on your own path.  Wild is everything and it is everywhere.  As I drive across the country now I see the wild extend through Canada, and down into Montana where I am now, and I know it keeps going, and I will follow it.

In the Middle

07 Wednesday Jul 2010

Posted by in Alaska, Farming

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I just passed the halfway mark of my six-month contract. One part of me is thinking, “I only have three months left?” and the other part says with relief, “I still have three months left!” The garden filled in so fast, from tiny transplants to strong vegetables ready to harvest, that I still feel like I just started. Really, though, the third and last session of student gardeners starts next Monday, and then August will be here, school will start again, and September will come and happen and end my time as a School Garden Supervisor for Calypso. But, I still have three months left, and here I am already getting ahead of myself.

The pace of gardening in Alaska is faster than in Vermont. Even though it may take a little longer for the ground to thaw in the spring, and the winter sets in sooner in October, once the temperature creeps up, the garden is off to a sprint. The farmers at Calypso often do late night planting, starting at 11:00 or midnight, and sometimes going until 2:00 a.m. because the weather is perfect and the light stretches out. At the school gardens it’s different, as we do most of the planting with the students who work from 3:00-6:00 p.m. My garden, at Hunter Elementary School, is hot. Surrounded by pavement and pebble-filled playgrounds and with no trees for shade, the heat radiates all around the garden and encourages the plants to grow fast, as if there was an individual sun over each vegetable. Some veggies want to bolt because of this, and part of everyday is just walking around the garden observing, snapping off flowers from the tatsoi and the beets, and deciding whether or not the broccoli can hold on for another day.

The students only work Monday-Thursday, so the rest of the week is my time to be at the garden alone. I am thankful to have a volunteer come on Sundays, so I do have one full day off, and lately the rains have set in on the weekends, giving me a break from watering, but I still like to spend time on Saturdays when the streets are a bit quieter, doing some work. Last weekend, a man walked up to the fence to compliment the garden and asked, “What are you doing here on a Saturday?”

“Oh, I’m just checking on everything—doing some weeding,” I replied. The garden doesn’t take a break on weekends like the students do; it grows through the constant sun, unfailing and steady. Even in the shock of transplant, which causes the outer squash leaves to yellow and wilt, the center continues to expand out and up, offering new green into the world.  I respond to the light, too, gaining energy by just being outside.  Unlike being at home in Vermont, I don’t know it’s late by looking at the sky, and instead I’ve learned to pay more attention to my body and stay in tune with how I’m feeling so I don’t overrun myself too much.  There have been weeks when I wake up early each day to run, then bike the ten miles to the garden and work before the students arrive, then spend three hours with them before biking home.  I always think it will be sustainable, but my energy wears out after four days of this schedule, and I remember there is a reason the plants go to seed so quickly here: even though the light gives energy, it can also stress and it signals the need to flower, reproduce, and cycle back into the soil, just as I crash and need to catch up on sleep once all my energy reserves have been spent.  When I think of home, what I miss most are the cool evenings fading into nights spent around campfires that light up the darkness.

This first half of my job has gone by quickly, and I know the second half will as well, and then I will make my way back to Vermont, if only for a short while.  I’m still on the no-plan plan, but as the time gets closer, I feel the pull for green mountains and family.  Until then, I will continue to follow the energy as it moves, and be here, thankful for the sunlight and all it grows.

School Gardens and Social Change

27 Sunday Jun 2010

Posted by in Alaska, Politics, Sustainable Agriculture

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Earlier this spring when I was doing outreach for the EATinG program, I found myself annoyed and disappointed with the language used to encourage students to volunteer.  In each classroom I visited, the main motivation used was the fact that volunteering can be used as a resume booster and a way to put you above others in the competitive world of college and job applications.  It seems as though it isn’t enough to say you can help your community, and as a result volunteering becomes an act only to propel oneself onto something better, rather than an act to better one’s community and environment.

On one hand I wonder, is it so bad to do a good thing for personal gain?  After all, creating a stronger, healthier community does have positive affects on the individual, and perhaps one will go on to enjoy volunteering for reasons other than resume building.  On the other hand I wonder, what it is that creates a society that so often views acts done without the motivation of personal gain as unusual or as something to be put off for when we have more time, which we never seem to have.

As I was growing up, my parents took my brother and I to nursing homes to pass out Christmas presents, involved us in “Green Up Day” every spring, and enrolled us in a school with classes that emphasized community service.  I learned through doing that interacting with my community in a positive way is fun, and a desire to help grew in me because of that.  Now I want to teach my students the importance of serving one’s community and environment, and the value of giving without the expectation of receiving.

On Monday I held a discussion with my student gardeners called “Charity versus Change,” a workshop from the Food Project’s Growing Together, by Greg Gale.  I wrote the words “charity” and “social change” on the blackboard and asked the students to call out words that come to mind for each category.  They had no problem with charity, shouting out things like helping, donating, sharing and giving.  When we switched to social change, they fell silent, with one girl throwing out the word donating again.  I helped them along by explaining how charity is an act done by a person of greater wealth for a person of lesser wealth, and is often a singular event that must be repeated in order to have a lasting effect, whereas social change is altering policies and laws in order to create a community that operates on equality, inclusion, and diversity.  It’s like the saying “give a person a fish and he/she will eat for one day, teach a person to fish and he/she will eat forever.”  Giving a fish is charity, and teaching to fish is change.

I knew this could be a difficult workshop for them—one girl is going into eighth grade while the other four are going into seventh, and I didn’t know what kind of community service experience they have had—but I wanted to challenge them to think about and understand the broad affects of this school garden and their work in it.  Since the garden started in 2009, vandalism at Hunter Elementary has sharply dropped.  Last summer there was only one instance of suspected vandalism, which turned out to be kids catching ladybugs in the garden late at night, and this summer there has been none.  As a result, the sense of community pride has soared.  Everyday passersby stop to compliment the garden, ask what’s growing, or just say hello, and our Thursday farm stand had people lining up before we opened for business this week.  Most importantly, though, this school garden has increased access to local, fresh food while teaching students the values and skills of organic growing, selling produce, and making community connections.

After we defined charity and social change, I asked each student write down their talents and passions and then identify ways they could use these things to create positive change.  As we went around the circle, the girls talked about using the internet to connect with others; drawing flyers to post around neighborhoods to create awareness about an event or issue; writing speeches, stories, or articles; teaching others how to rock climb and learn to interact with the environment in new ways, thus increasing an appreciation for the natural world.

We ended the discussion with a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr.: “Everybody can be great.  Because everybody can serve.  You don’t have to have a college degree to serve.  You don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve.  You don’t have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve.  You don’t have to know Einstein’s theory of relativity to serve.  You don’t have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve.  You only need a heart full of grace.  A soul generated by love.”

I told the students, “This garden is an incredible thing to have in the community, and you are making it grow.  You could be doing anything this summer, and maybe this is just a way for you to make some money, but despite the reason you chose to be a student gardener, the fact that you are working here is making a difference, and you can feel great about that.”

Maybe they will go on to volunteer later in the summer, after their four weeks of work are up.  Maybe they won’t.  But at least they have heard it from me: their work matters, the food they grow and eat and sell matters, and this small piece of land in Fairbanks has transformed from an unused lot to a place of learning and growing because of them and all the teachers, community members, and Calypso farmers who support it.

Maple Syrup Meditation

01 Saturday May 2010

Posted by in Alaska, Local Food, Travel

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The farther away from Vermont I get, the more maple syrup I consume, as if it might pump green mountains and maple trees through my body.  At home the syrup was a treat with occasional weekend brunches; during my four years at St. Lawrence University in Canton, NY, I was always stocked with a gallon jug, but still I never poured it onto food more than once a month or so; Now here in Alaska, maple syrup makes it way into my breakfast at least four times a week: in oatmeal, yogurt, on pancakes.  I’ve even put it in my morning chai.  When I first arrived in Ester, I held off on making pancakes until the package from my mom arrived with the quart of maple syrup made by my friend’s dad, Smitty.  When two big boxes showed up at Calypso Farm, I excitedly brought them home and cut them open.  Inside I found books, climbing gear, a daypack, peace flags and mail, but no syrup!  I could picture the exact spot in the kitchen where it sat in Vermont.  By that time I didn’t want to wait weeks for another package, so I broke down, went to the store, and bought the maple syrup at Fred Meyers (only, of course, because they carry Vermont maple syrup).  It cost $14.00 for twelve ounces of grade B.  I’m usually a grade A medium amber girl, but when in a place far away from maple trees and syrup production I’m not picky.

Smitty’s syrup arrived on Thursday, and it’s a good thing since I’m down to only a few more ounces of the store-bought stuff!  What do people in Alaska do without this sticky, thick golden sweetness?  Although there is the option of fake syrup with “maple” flavoring (many of these products don’t actually contain any real maple), some people tap birch trees.  Before coming here, the thought of birch syrup never crossed my mind—it takes 100 gallons of birch sap to make one gallon of syrup, as opposed to the maple ratio of 40:1—but with the plethora of birch trees, it only makes sense.

When Tom and Susan first bought the land that would become Calypso Farm and Ecology Center, they lived in a yurt without a large holding tank for water, and no driveway to drive five gallon jugs up, so in the spring when the sap started running, they tapped trees and had so much sap that they used it for drinking and cooking.  “I tried doing the dishes with it one time, but it didn’t quite do the trick!” Tom laughed.

Inspired by a birch tapping presentation we went to at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF), Colby set up a bucket on one of the trees in our backyard.  For the past week, the sap has been flowing and we’ve emptied the four-quart bucket four times; two of those days it was overflowing before we had the chance to empty it.  Since it requires so much sap to make birch syrup, and because it must be heated at a lower temperature for a longer amount of time than maple sap due to its lower sugar content, we aren’t going to attempt to make it.  Birch sap is a delicious drink with a subtle sweetness nonetheless.

As maple syrup continues to be a staple in my diet, we’ll see how long my supply lasts.  I admit that I hold Vermont’s syrup to be the absolute best, and am therefore reluctant to buy it from another state or from Canada, but it sure puts a kink in my effort to eat local (it is in fact possible to get all meat and most produce Alaska-grown).  There are always justifications for my indulgence—I ride my bike to work, I don’t have running water, I keep my house on the lowest possible heat setting, I grow most of my own food—so these must balance it all out, right?

It’s harder to look at what it will take to balance out the carbon emissions from the airplane I flew to get to Alaska, or the environmental costs of materials it took to make my car, computer, iPod and cell phone.  As I write this, I feel the need to say that I don’t have a television, as if this might convince me whole-fullness or neutrality.  What can I do to bring myself to a balance?  Or is there no action to take but noticing, living in awareness and allowing each moment to move as it does?

I can pour maple syrup on my oats and feel connected to Vermont, or I can run on gravel roads in Alaska and feel how my legs move the same here as they do anywhere.  I can hear birdcalls, smell pine needles soaking on the ground during spring thaw, lose my thoughts in the wind that pulls my ponytail and settle in the stillness that asks only for me to be present.

In this world with all of its intricacies and connections, all of its turbulence and calm, is it wrong to eat so much of one thing if it must be shipped so far?  All I can do to find the answer is listen to the energy that propels me to run, which also asks me to sit, be quiet, be open.

Growing in Alaska

24 Saturday Apr 2010

Posted by in Alaska, Farming, Travel

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Interior Alaska.  Many people have come up in search of gold or work on the oil pipeline.  I’ve come here to garden, and to teach students to do the same.  Before driving to Fairbanks, I spent four days in Anchorage and a night on the Elmendorf Air Force Base with my friend Rick and his wife Megan, neither of whom I’d seen since high school.  We reminisced and laughed over memories, they told me of their three years at a base in Italy, I told them of my travels to Northern Ireland and New Zealand.  When their friends came over, Rick introduced me and said, “She’s going to do some gardening thing in Fairbanks!”  General confusion and a look of slight bewilderment crossed each face at this statement.  Why would you come here to garden?  Do things even grow in Fairbanks?

As it is, things do grow here and all over Alaska.  Hardy greens like kale, and most other brassicas, thrive in Alaska’s planting zone of 2-3, and greenhouses help fruits and veggies that like warmer temperatures get a head start in the spring.  This spring has come early, and we may be able to get the first plantings in by mid-May.

On Friday I spent the morning at Hunter Elementary, where I am the School Garden Supervisor, mapping out rows and getting ideas for garden expansion.  Throughout the week I went into classrooms and started seeds with the kids.  Next week I’ll begin broadforking, loosening up the soil in order to plant potatoes with classes before school lets out for the summer.  I feel blessed to be working at Hunter where the teachers and administration are as excited about the garden as I am, maybe even more!

Each time I walk into the school I am welcomed like the first spring flowers that pop up from the ground.  Elementary students call me “Miss Katie” and give me hugs.  They see me in the garden and run to the fence, yelling, “Miss Katie!  Can we help!” when all I am doing is measuring bed feet and borders; I know that 10 children running in the garden will not help me with this but I say yes and they come sprinting in.  “Remember the number 127,” I tell them, and then ask, “Who wants to help me find my pencil?”  They scatter along the rows, eyes darting, racing to see who will find the pencil that fell out of my pocket.

This summer I’ll be working with students from 6th grade up through high school, teaching them how to seed, transplant, maintain, harvest and sell vegetables at a farm stand and through a CSA, but for now I’m still working on understanding how to plan for a CSA myself.  Susan, my boss at Calypso Farm and Ecology Center, has been trying to teach us the basics of garden planning, but total comprehension won’t come until we actually do it.  She smiles with enthusiasm when she says, “It’ll all fall into place once you get into the garden and start planting!”

I’m excited to start.  And I’m glad I came here to garden.  The earth fascinates me in its ability to give, especially in places one wouldn’t expect.  As the spring unfurls, the snow is transforming into water and the garden soils are thawing.  One of these days I’ll wake to see greenup—the sudden popping of tree buds that happens all at once, bringing a wave of green to the forests—and I’ll know the garden is ready to plant and ready to give once more.

Grapefruit Rocks and a Slice of Fatman

18 Sunday Apr 2010

Posted by in Alaska, Travel

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

After two weeks of being in Fairbanks I finally left the city area and drove north to go rock climbing.  It was the first warm and sunny weekend, with the temperature up in the 50s, and just feeling the sun was enough to make me smile.  I had been wanting to explore beyond the city limits, so when I heard Edge was going climbing, I asked to go along.

The hour drive brought us to an area called Grapefruit Rocks and the Twin Towers, which are large tors rising up from the side of mountains.  Along the way Edge pointed out farms tucked behind trees and hidden from the view of the road, and we shared stories of our travels, his to Mexico and mine to New Zealand.  “I found that I like slow travel best, and I like getting to really know a place instead of checking things off a list so I can say I saw it,” I said, and he agreed.  Edge is going into his fourth year living in Ester, and he said, “There are some places I haven’t climbed, but I really like the area we’re going to today, and I discover something new each time I go there.”  The value of a place is rarely found in a quick glance, but it is learned through observation, awareness, and the willingness to listen and sink into the land without the rush of time.

When we arrived at the first crag, I warmed up on an easy 30-foot route and free-climbed to the top.  I didn’t start out with the intention to go all the way up, but as my hands found holds, my shoes stuck to the rock, and my body remembered the way to move, I kept going.  When I got to the top I said, “That wasn’t as scary as I thought it’d be!”  Edge shouted up, “That’s the perfect answer!”  It felt like springtime all morning, with snow on the ground but sun in the sky, and we climbed at the Grapefruit rocks until they were covered in shade, then drove down the road to another pull-off and hiked up to the Twin Towers.  The steep walk up to the tors warmed us up again, and it felt like summer as we rolled up our pants and took off upper-layers to climb in t-shirts.  Surprisingly, we ran into two other climbing pairs, which Edge told me is rare up here, and I thought of climbing at the Gunks in New Paltz, NY, and how the rocks are swarmed each weekend there.  Alaska is so big, though, and being the only one at a climbing area is common up here.

For most of the day Edge practiced lead climbing and I followed to clean up the gear.  As we looked through guide book (which is only about 40 pages long) to decide which climb to do next, I noticed the ratings and said I’d try a 5.6 to 5.8, but I wasn’t sure how I’d do on a 5.9.  “We’ve been climbing 5.9s all day!” Edge said, and he assured me I could do some more.  I was surprised but said, “I guess when I just go for it and don’t think about the rating, than I don’t stop myself from doing it.  I think I like not knowing what the climb is rated!”

The clouds set in and the wind picked up for our last few climbs, and it felt like the season had shifted to fall.  When I checked the time as we cleaned up the gear from our last climb, I expected it to be around 5:30 based on the amount of light, but my watch read 8:30 pm.  That’s one of the things I love about climbing—time falls away and I am totally in the moment, body and mind in harmony with the rock.  As the days get longer, though, the amount of light makes me forget time all together, and I wonder how much sleep I’ll get this summer.

We stopped at a truck stop/restaurant on the way back and ordered slices of pie called the fatman: a pecan butter crust with a layer of cream cheese, then a chocolate cream filling, then an inch of whipped cream sprinkled with chocolate chips and drizzled chocolate sauce.  It was enormous.  It was delicious!  When I finally arrived back home around 10:30, dusk had really settled in, and I fell asleep tired and happy.

Outhouses and Northern Lights

10 Saturday Apr 2010

Posted by in Alaska, Travel

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , ,

Bread baking, card games, square dancing, seed starting, good conversations, outhouses and the northern lights.  These are the things making up my days and nights.

On Monday night Meredith came inside after using the outhouse and said the Northern Lights were out.  Tom had come over to fix our heater, which was emitting more diesel smell than heat, but when we heard the news we immediately jumped up and went outside to see the long stretch of green playing across the sky.  The auroras moved as if in a dance, two ends pulsing together, twisting and untwisting above our heads.  A simple scientific understanding of the phenomenon is that energy released from the sun eight minutes ago reacts with the ions in the earth’s atmosphere to create the lights, but as I stood below them I was filled with a sense of wonder rather than a need for explanation.

“This is why people have outhouses here,” Tom said as we watched the sky.  What else could compel people outside on a cold winter night?  But were you to stay inside, you would miss the quiet movement of the lights.  They remind me of the glowworm caves I saw in New Zealand—a light only visible in darkness—and I am thankful all over again for the setting sun.  I stay out for a long time, moving my eyes with the green, then white, then faint pink of the aurora borealis.

There is another reason people have outhouses here: indoor plumbing in winter temperatures that can reach forty below zero is often more problematic than convenient, and when the pipes freeze you better have a back-up plan.  The amount of people here that depend on running water is so small that there is a public fill-up station called the Water Wagon, and each time we go to refill our 5-gallon buckets we see trucks pull up with 100-gallon holding tanks in their bed; Calypso Farm has a 1000-gallon holding tank in their basement, which is attached to a hand pump in their kitchen sink.

Within a few days I became used to our haul and bucket system, though we had no way of bathing.  Susan told us of a few places in town that have public showers, but the Laundromat showers cost $4.50, and the University and the Rec Center charge an $8 fee for using all of the equipment and amenities.  Since we didn’t want to pay this much money, Colby and Meredith bought a solar shower and Colby hooked it up outside so the water could warm in the sun.  On days that are too cold to shower outside or when we haven’t left enough time for the water to heat up, we put the kettle on and wash our hair in a bowl.  It’s amazing how little water it takes to clean oneself.  Hauling water causes me to become aware of its use and importance, and with the effort of it all comes the understanding of how carelessly it is wasted in so many instances.  Now when I go into town and use a public toilet, a sink faucet with instant hot water seems a luxury to wash my hands under.

Despite this, I don’t feel I am living a rustic life.  I am close to a city, I own a car, my house is heated with diesel oil.  I have slowed down a bit, though, and because of that I savor the warmth of the sun on a cold morning, appreciate the ease of wifi in cafes and at the farm(we don’t have internet access at the house), laugh during the dance parties we have when we run out of oil and need to warm ourselves up, and sit with wonder under the sky when I head to the outhouse at night.

Vanishing Night

04 Sunday Apr 2010

Posted by in Alaska, Seasons, Travel

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Last night I saw the northern lights.  There won’t be many more nights that offer the chance to see their colors.  They were faint green, a long wisp across the sky just above the tree line, and another stretch in the middle of the night sky.  By the time I went inside and got Meredith, Colby and Kelsey back out to see them they were gone.

At 10:00 the sun still reaches up from the horizon to create dusk, and the light is lingering longer by 5 minutes or more each day.  As we drove home from Calypso the other night, we saw the last bright full moon, hanging low and big over the land, shining like new copper.  As the spring progresses the moon will show as a faded white in the sunny sky, and the stars will stay hidden in the light.  I’ve been told I’ll have a lot more energy because of the constant sun, but I wonder is it a worthy tradeoff?  For so many summers I’ve spent the nights following trails to campfires, finding my way by looking up through the trees at the moon, or laying in open fields beneath falling stars and millions of pinpricks of light splayed across a dark navy sky.  Is it possible to prepare myself for the ache I’ll feel when summer really starts?  Or is it too presumptuous to know how much I’ll miss Vermont and the summer camp I spent the last 14 years at?  I do not know what will come, and I am happy to be here in Ester.  But even as I live in the moment, there are times my mind wanders and worries, and I don’t know yet how to stop it from doing so.

On Friday Meredith and I went to a yoga class in town, and the instructor offered this intention for our practice: May I be willing to meet each moment of my life as it is.  To which I’ve added: May I be willing to accept my life with love and compassion.  When I am caught in moments of worry, I can remember this and know that exactly where I am is where I am meant to be.  It is okay if I miss Vermont, and it is okay to be happy and find home in another place.