ze' Park: first two weeks in photos

The laptop dilemma got solved. Yippee-ai-oh. Onward with documentation! I guess I haven't explained our current situation very well yet: we're renting a little efficiency apartment in the employee housing complex of Glacier National Park, where Jason is working for the summer as a fire ecologist. Glacier is about 40 minutes from my hometown of Whitefish, so we go home on the weekends to spend time with family and do in-town chores. Jason currently works ten hours a day, four days a week. I currently work zero hours at a real job but many hours doing sewing/photo/reading/baby-preparation projects, keeping house, making meals, laundering clothes, and generally learning how to be a domestic goddess. Here is Baggie-Washing Day (and one pair of fire pants that needed hemming).

Each morning, Jason gets up around 6 and makes stovetop espresso and steel-cut oats for his breakfast. I get up soon thereafter and make a sack lunch, then quickly find my pillow again. I'll soon be organized enough to make sack lunches the night before. Jason rides his bike three minutes to work, as the sun is just peeking over the Belton Hills by our place. Some days he then drives and hikes out to remote lookout towers or weather stations to fix equipment; some days he is getting refresher training on things like helicopter long-line hookups. Once was an all-day bear training that I snuck into with him by throwing around a few names and some Parkie lingo. That's not true; all I did was walk in, and no one cared. Still, I'm sure it was sneaky and dangerous, an experience that a housewife needs every now and again. Ha ha ha. I say that after two weeks. Anyhow, that was a super informative training and got me in the mood for some bear encounters! With my pepper spray quite handy, of course. And camera.

All of this until fire season starts, at which point Jason'll be involved in trying to squelch little fires that occur by lightening strikes. Meanwhile, In the evenings after dinner, we hike or bike in the Park. Here are some photos of neat scenes and items we've run across during those excursions.

textbook example of deer hair caught on a stick

just after a snow storm

the same scene at Lake McDonald several days later

Does cloud imitate tree, or does tree imitate cloud?

finally, our little Stoffer kidlet, starting to be obviously present

Ggghaaarrrr...

Welp, we've been at the Park for a week and a half, and I have been so anxious to post pictures. In fact, this morning I was set to ride my bike down here to the internet place to do so when my laptop went wacky. Laptops are the bane of humanity's existence, I declare. If anybody knows what do to when it suddenly out of the clear blue makes you give it a password to sign in as the Administrator (for Microsoft), when you've never ever done that before, by all means let me know!

Meanwhile, since I'm paying one US dollar for every five minutes I'm using their computer and not my own, I'll make this snappy. We're doing great! The pregnancy's going fine. Jason's job involves the most random things, which I'll expand upon later. We've gotten into our little routines here, and things are good.

Take care, and I'll post pics soon...as soon as I get the nearest free help for the computer.

The Facebook Generation

I ain't been a-bloggin.' Here's somebody else's.

Well! There has been way lots going on with us'ns, so much so that I haven't taken the time to blog in weeks. I really do hope to get pictures posted soon of various things, like highlights of our last few months in Alaska, our recent weekend in Portland with my sister and her fiance, Cameron, and some of our endeavors here at home in Montana, like our first real garden!

For now, since it's summer and people are most readily in the mode of doing things/taking steps/being active, I thought I'd post a link to a friend of a friend's blog entry about affecting climate change, and his thoughts on little steps versus big. From his blog, there are links to several other interesting articles. I especially like his toilet suggestion, and you will too. That's a teaser. http://athada.blogspot.com/2008/05/steps-toward-sustainability-11-frugal.html

the most important sound heard in the last century

Jason and I had a meet n' greet session with a midwife today, and at the end of it, she put onto my belly a microphone which connected by cord to a scratchy portable speaker, something that looked like it may have been rigged together with scraps of metal. It was rad. First we heard my heart beat: thud....thud....thud....thud. That was nothing. She moved the mic around a bit and we heard - - more scratching. That was nothing too. BUT THEN, into focus came a flutter, a tiny whisper of whiikwhiikwhiikwhiikwhiik. And THAT was the sound of our baby's heart! The midwife said, "We can hear you! We know you're in there!" I thought of Horton Hears A Who.

So, this is the first technological proof that there is indeed a tiny somebody inside of me with a heart or heart-like assemblage. I'm telling you what. That quick, simple rhythm has been echoing in my head all day. It was just beautiful.

halfway plus

a few things we've beheld:

• porcupines, porcupines, porcupines all through the Yukon
• 2 grazing black bears / one was so close to the road we could hear its deep breath
• all manner of birds: geese, ducks, seagulls, ptarmigan, a yellow finchy fellow that kept hopping on and around the pickup at a pullout spot
• caribou, a coyote, stone sheep, mountain goats, and elk
• a dear Australian family trying to push their rented Vanagon from a messy bog (which had seemed a fine camping spot moments before)
• a herd of bison at the road’s edge in the dead of night / then we beheld all of our possessions at our feet, the result of my brake slam
• a young sheep with two blades of spring grass in his mouth running down a winding hill toward us, a semi-truck close on his tail - he veered into our lane then off the road completely just in time. His expression and that of his mother, who had stood by watching the whole thing, were hilariously blank.
• conversation overheard at a restaurant:
  10-year old girl on a field trip with her class: I HATE the news. They lie.
  Teacher: Shhhhhh! Talk like that’ll get you into trouble.
  Me, turning to the girl: What the devil? Don’t listen to her, little miss. You go right ahead and question the news all you want. And while you’re at it, question most of the wholesale information you’re being fed. [Then, tipping my hat:] Good day to you all.
  
  [okay, so maybe the last part happened only in my head]
  

leaving Alaska

We left Anchorage Saturday night to a low orange sun that made the mountains and fields reds and purples, and we listened to the song, "Gold," by Interference, thinking of Alaska and of leaving her:

And I love her so

I wouldn't trade her for gold

I'm walking on moon beams

I was born with a silver spoon

And I'm gonna be free

I'm gonna be free

I'm walking on moon beams

and staring out to sea

And if a door close

Then a road for home start building

And tear your curtains down

For sunlight is like gold

And you better be you

And do what you can do

When you're walking on moon beams

Staring out to sea

Cause if your skin was soil

How long do you think before they start digging

And if your life was gold

How long would you think you'd stay livin'?

And I love her so

I wouldn't trade her for gold

Thank you, friends, for sending us off with hugs, laughter, bread, cookies, tears, good books, magnetic poetry, and prayers. We love you so much.

r

We made it only as far as Wasilla Saturday, one hour north, since we got such a late start, and stayed there with Jess and Tara for the night. Going to coffee the next morning with them, then picking up a new pump fitting for our camp stove (so as to be able to make coffee along the route), and stopping to download a couple "This American Life" episodes meant we finally pulled out at 2:00 pm yesterday. I’ve said it before: we ain’t too swift leaving places. We’ve got packing possessions down to an art but can’t seem to break free of communion. At 2:00 am this morning we camped off the road on a gravel section of the old Alcan. The winds and skylight were almost too plentiful to sleep. I write now from a rad little coffee shop in Whitehorse that we discovered last time. I hear multiple languages and see such a variety of people. Onward ho! today, with hopes of making it to Liard River.

three up, three down

I have a chance to briefly check in with ye olde world wide web at the library, so here goes a rundown of the major stuff: Jason and I and our now grape-sized baby plan to leave Anchorage toward the end of this week to drive back to Montana, where we'll set up a real, bonified home! It'll be one in which we can unpack momentos, hang pictures and magazine clippings on the walls, and keep a bulk-sized bag of beans in the closet. Well, that will happen sometime this year, perhaps.

Immediately, we'll be at my folks' house for a month, then probably living at Glacier Park, where Jason will work for the summer, then hopefully our own temporary place while we try to track down a hunk of land for homesteading. The last month, we have broken into the chorus of this John Prine song more than ever before, what with the apparent collapse of our economy and society:

Blow up your T.V.

Throw away your paper

Go to the country

Build you a home

Plant a little garden

Eat a lot of peaches

Try and find Jesus

On your own

YES! How is that not a perfect manifesto for life, with the possible tweaking of a theological point or two? Like, finding Jesus not on our own but with a bunch of friends who are also living on the land nearby. Also, this song doesn't make mention of having horses and buggies instead of vehicles, which seems to be the route Jason is heading.

So, three of us will head back down the Alcan soon...three instead of four, because on a snowy day last week, we had to let Beth go. The doc said she had bone cancer and was in lots of pain, so we swallowed hard and did it. We knew it was her time. We had already made and cancelled two preceding appointments for having her put down, based on hopeful but fleeting signs of improvement. She was a doll through the whole experience, which didn't much make it easy, but which was a testament to her sweet spirit and loyalty. She completely trusted us, right up to the end. Damn. A dog's entire lifespan have Jason and I been through together, from 6 weeks old until her death eleven and a half years later. We think that's something. And now, a new chapter of our family's story is unfolding, so we're happy and we're hopeful. But boy do we miss Beth.

The Sunday before, we had brought her to church, and it just so happened that most of her favorite Alaska people were there, kids and adults who had loved her for the bulk of her life. It was such a joyful event! Everyone took turns petting her, and she pranced around the parking lot soaking in the attention.

Good girl, Beth. Good girl.

and no,

the last two posts are not related to one another. Thank you.

new beginnings

Without further ado, I present to the online world the surprise news that a bean-sized human being is using his purported sproutings of fingers and toes to happily set up camp within the depths of my belly.

More details and plans to follow. . .