Big Jim's Visit, Part 4: Progress Days Parade

This is going to be a photo-intensive post. Brace yourselves.

Saturday morning started off with Canadian bacon from my favorite local meat market, garlic / white cheddar cheese, local tomatoes and fried eggs served on English muffins. Jim had to work again in the morning, and James was scheduled to work at 8:00 a.m., so as soon as I could, I got Big Jim out the door with me to see the Progress Days Parade. I admit that what I wanted most to see was Wienees On Parade - dozens of dachshunds strolling down the street sounded too adorable to miss. There were supposed to be Wiener Dog Races, too, but one of the dachsie owners told me they'd been cancelled. Bummer.

I also admit that I can get bored really easily with big flashy parades, but this small-town stuff is simply precious. You don't get this kind of entertainment and community togetherness just anyplace anymore. The parade route was packed with locals, and nearly every kid in the crowd had a grocery bag or a pillow case for carrying home the candy the parade entrants were throwing. Not just Smarties and bubble gum, either. They were throwing the good stuff, and lots of it. Balloon vendors and cotton candy vendors walked up and down the street and the ice cream truck sold goodies in the feed store parking lot. 

The parade began with this flag-filled truck:

This train is awesome. American Legionnaires, you know how to trick out a truck! You can't see it in this photo, but the trailer they're pulling is mocked up to look like a caboose.

Parades need an appearance by the fire department. I couldn't get a pic of Smokey facing me, though.

This guy was really popular. He had a 49-star flag. Every few feet, he'd stop, show the crowd the flag, point out the number of stars, and finish up his short speech by reminding everyone that the country's motto is "In God We Trust." He got lots of applause.

Wienies On Parade!! Big Jim stopped counting them at 63. We assume that, with so many dachsies in the parade, not to mention the number of floats and entries that had the owners' dogs in them and the dogs who were watching the parade, we probably saw 100 dogs that afternoon. Alaska loves dogs.

You've just GOT to have some amazing wheels in a parade, and there were some sweet rides here. The Corvettes were in a show after the parade.

1960. < drool >

I have no idea why an older lady dressed like a cat was sitting on the back of a '68 Plymouth Fury, shooting bubbles out of a gun, but she was. [shrugs] Oh well, you don't have to completely understand something to enjoy it.

Aaaaaaaaw. The little old lady in the passenger seat seemed to be having a grand ol' time.

The Dairy Queen race car was followed by a couple of ice cream cones.

A Delorean. Say it with me and let the word roll off your tongue: 

Deeeee looooooh reeeee annnn. 

The breast cancer awareness group had some fashionably dressed golf carts.

Must... hug... tiny... tractor!!!

This guy had a penny-farthing bicycle! How awesome! Every little ways, he'd stop and get off and walk the bike around so that the crowd could see it better.

How on earth does he get up there?

The theme for the parade is Past, Present, Future. The trappers were a good reminder of the area's history.

And they weren't the only animals in the parade. There were horses from the rodeo and riding clubs, too. I'm sorry I didn't get a picture of the dejected-looking young girl, maybe ten years old, walking behind all the horses pulling a garden cart and a shovel.

Check out this girly-girl pony (which, by the way, is a boy):

< squeal! > Want the tiny llama! WANT!!

The floats for the local businesses were several different flavors of awesome. I didn't get pictures of all of them, or all of the church floats, and didn't bother taking any pictures of the many political candidates  marching for voters. These floats, however, were some of my favorites:

There's a person in the inflatable Shriner, waving the arms.

This cutie patootie was in a florists' truck:

The Fat Tires mountain biking club. I'd never seen a bike trailer that had pedals on it so that the kid in it could help, and I think that's a great idea.

The giant prospector was part of the float for a bank!

And because every parade needs a giant salmon and a Bait Bot, right?

Yes indeed, small-town adorableness abounded. Stay tuned to find out what we did Saturday evening!

Big Jim's Visit, Part 3: Going Fishing

Friday morning. Sourdough pancakes made from a 50-year-old Alaskan starter, with store-bought maple syrup, birch syrup made by my friend Patty, four homemade jams, and peanut butter.

James had to work today, as did Jim, so shortly after James left for work, Big Jim headed out to see Soldotna. He stopped at the tackle store and got himself all decked out for wading in the Kenai River, and after stopping to get a sandwich at Jersey Subs where James works, Big Jim got to do some fishing. Unfortunately, the fish he caught were snagged, which made them illegal to keep, and he had to throw them back. Only salmon hooked in the mouth are legal to keep. He was given two nice salmon by the family he was fishing next to, though.

Meanwhile, I took Moya to the woods next to our house and "we" picked nearly two pounds of wild strawberries and rhubarb, and made pie.

By the time Big Jim and James both got home, it was too late at night to filet and cook the fish, so we had blue cheese burgers followed by strawberry-rhubarb pie and ice cream.

We didn't get any other pictures from today. But I *know* we'll get pictures tomorrow! Stay tuned!

Big Jim's Visit, Part 2: Skyline Trail

Thursday morning. Scrambled quail eggs with sauteed mushrooms and Italian cheese blend, and toast with three kinds of homemade jam.

James traded days off this week so that he could have Thursday off to go hiking. We're so glad it was a pretty day and the rain held off until late. While I headed to Sterling to pick up Moya and go to the Alaska Horn and Antler store, the three guys and Belle were also headed to Sterling to hike Skyline Trail.

Skyline Trail is located in the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge, and the hike is rated from "Difficult" to "Strenuous" depending on which guide you're reading. The trail gains 1800 feet in 3/4 of a mile, putting hikers above the treeline and looking down across the mountains and waterways well before the end of the one-mile-long trail.

Here's James and Big Jim, headed up the trail:

Jean Lake is visible behind James and Big Jim. You can get an idea of how far they've traveled upwards.

The effort has warranted Big Jim's shedding of his wool shirt. And you really should enlarge this photo to see the lake below them. No, that's not a camera trick. The water really is that jewel-y color.

The clouds are rolling in - below where the guys are standing.

Big Jim looks like he's riding an invisible bicycle on the top of the trail:

Down again at the trailhead, Jim and James look pleased with themselves.

As do Big Jim and Belle. She did a good job for an eleven-year-old!

Back home that evening, we put huge steaks and asparagus on the grill, with sauteed green peppers and onions and salad to go with it. Big Jim treated us to ice cream and fresh fruit for dessert. It was a good sort of day to start off our visit! 

Big Jim's Visit, Part 1: Going to Anchorage

We're feeling nicely prepared for Jim's dad to come stay with us for a few days, now that we've got the guest room finished. Jim, James and myself had planned a day in Anchorage doing some shopping while waiting for Big Jim's flight to come in on Wednesday evening, but an unexpected change in James' work schedule prevented him from making the trip to town with us. So Jim and I dropped Moya off at the kennel on our way into Anchorage Wednesday morning, leaving the two older dogs here for James to take care of when he got off work. The drive was pretty and free of rain, which was a very nice change from the drizzly days we'd been having. We stopped at several stores, including the Tandy Leather store for some suede for slippers to sell this fall, and Michael's for some soap molds. With our shopping done and still time to spare, we stopped at the Welcome To Anchorage sign to take some pictures of  their flowers. So pretty. The pictures don't do them justice.

Anchorage welcomes you, and so do I:

Big Jim's flight came in at 7:00 p.m., which for him was 10:00 at night. With a three and a half hour drive ahead of us, we left Anchorage right away and headed home. We hope Big Jim has a nice time while he's here!

The guest room is ready!

Jim's been hard at work, not just building the chicken coop (which is coming along nicely, thanks for asking, and is nearly done) but also on remodeling the guest room. 

Here's what it looked like in there before we moved in: a long skinny 8x13' room with baby blue paint and spotty-patterned blue and beige berber carpet on the floor. 

The new carpet throughout the walkout basement gave us a good excuse to spruce up the guest room and we decided to give it a new coat of paint.  Yep, a new coat of paint, and one leisurely weekend. That's all it needs. New paint. So the guys took down the built-in shelves on one wall of the room so that when we moved the bed back in, it would fit better. That messed up some of the texture on the wall.  Hm. That, in turn, meant it needed to be sanded down, but that's okay, we're going to paint anyway. The bed looks so much better on the wall where the shelves once were that it will be worth sanding down that wall. But that made the wall too smooth and it's going to need some new texture. Drat. Okay, new texture and then new paint. 

But y'know, with the bed on that wall where the shelves were, now there isn't much room to open the closet doors. How about just taking out the closet doors? They don't work that well anyway. Yep, that's a good idea. So: new paint, new texture, closet doors out.

But that looks stupid over there, with no closet doors. Just a gaping hole with a clothes rod inside it. The room would look ten thousand times bigger if we just took out the closet door framing, wouldn't it? Yes, indeed. Too bad that also means re-sheet rocking the ceiling AND the three closet walls. That brings us to new paint, new texture, closet completely gone, new sheet rock, new ceiling.

Having taken out the old sheet rock inside the exterior wall, it makes more sense now why that room always seemed a little chilly. There's supposed to be insulation in there. In the whole wall, not just part of it. New paint, new texture, new sheet rock, new ceiling, new insulation.

Without the closet there, the former closet light fixture makes no sense where it is, and there needs to be a better place for the closet light switch, and why is that phone jack in that awkward spot on the wall where there's no place to set a phone? Um, where are we? Oh yeah - new paint, new texture, new sheet rock, new ceiling, new insulation and we should replace the light fixture with track lighting, move the light switch AND the electrical outlet since we're re-rocking anyway, and move the phone jack to the other side of the room. 

Shouldn't new paint and new carpet deserve a new quilt for the bed? Naturally. After all, Jim says, it's what Alaskan women DO. They QUILT. Okey dokey. We bought fabric for a new quilt. And once Jim and James got all the sheet rock replaced and textured, now there's the glaring problem of that bent old breaker box panel and phone cable panel. What to do, what to do? The quilt will have a lot of pattern in it so we don't want artwork or the room might look too busy. The panel is too big for readily-available mirrors to cover. And we're used to the midnight sun, but we can't assume our summer guests will have an easy time with it, hence we need to make some blackout curtains to go over the window in there, since I'm already going to be sitting at the sewing machine working on the quilt, right? So let's review the list, shall we? New paint, new texture, new sheet rock, new ceiling, new insulation, replace the light fixture with track lighting, move the light switch and the electrical outlet, move the phone jack to the other side of the room, make a new quilt for the bed, somehow hide the electrical panels and sew up some curtains.

Nooooooo problem.

Fast-forward two months.

The paint is a shade of green that reminds us of the Kenai River water on our first trip to Alaska in 2001, and the blackout curtain is the same color. The carpet is a cushy brown plush. The phone jack is near the bed and the track lighting accentuates the word "Relax" over the baker's racks that are filling the space where a dresser or wardrobe will eventually go. The light also accentuates the first three rows of the quilt that will, someday, be finished and go on the bed. In the meantime, it's a wall hanging that covers the electrical panels.

There now, see what a difference a little fresh paint can make?

A Whole Year!

Today marks the first anniversary of our arrival as permanent residents in Alaska. My, how time has flown. My, how our lives have changed.

While there are things we miss about living in The Contiguous States, like inexpensive fresh produce and toasty summer days, there are things we wouldn't have experienced anyplace else but here. Honestly, a year and a half ago, this was the last place on earth I wanted to be, but now I wonder if I could go back without experiencing a bit of culture shock already. I think we've adapted to our new environment quite well, and it feels so natural. As if we were headed here our whole lives and just didn't know it yet.

So, here I am, surrounded by my dogs, my men busy at work, the windows and door open to the sunshine and the sparkly lake beyond, the smell of wildflowers wafting in, yesterday's batch of soap waiting to be cut into bars, and I feel content.

Hello. My name is Deanna. And I'm an Alaskan.

My Hoosier cabinet

Now that we've been here juuuuuuuust aaallllmmmmost a year, I've decided it's time to put my own style on the interior of this house, which will involve a whole lot fewer kitschy moose knicknacks than were here when we bought the place. When the new carpet went into the walk-out basement, all the furniture down there had to come out, and that seemed like a good time to rearrange some stuff. One of the things I really like about this house is that all those antiques and vintage oddities we've had forever look like they were meant to be here. It's not uncommon to walk into an Alaskan kitchen (or other parts of the house) and see vintage items still in regular use, and I've tried to copy that way of thinking and use my old things where I can. If they're still good, still useable, and still safe, what am I saving them for? 

First up: The Bar. This was my mom's BFF's kitchen cabinet back in the day, and when her husband made her some built-ins, my mom was pretty keen on having her old Hoosier cabinet. I'm not totally sure why we grew up calling it "The Bar," but we did, and it stuck. That poor cabinet has a lot of miles on it by now, having been dragged from Kansas to Texas to Alaska and a bunch of stops in-between. Now, here it is, living in a log cabin in rural Alaska, and it feels like it was born to be here. I actually have a friend up the road who uses her Hoosier cabinet largely the way it was intended - in her kitchen, as part of her cabinetry. I've used mine in the past as a display case, but I can't remember actually putting my kitchen stuff in it, ever.  

Until now.

It's not technically IN my kitchen, but it's just on the other side of the house (which really is only a few feet) from the kitchen. My dear brother sent me boxfuls of fabulous antique goodies that I've heavily mixed into my own vintage goodness and am having fun making displays of them. Now that I think I've got this batch the way I want them, I took a picture and am calling it done. The picture was taken from the bottom of the stairs that lead up to the master bedroom on the top floor. To the right of The Bar is Moya's favorite window that looks out over the chicken coop and the woodsy lot next to us. To the left of The Bar is the sliding door that opens onto the balcony that overlooks the lake. I keep my mixing bowls and some serveware in the skinny door on the hutch part, restaurant-sized rolls of plastic wrap and foil are in the roll-top part, and non-everyday kitchen utensils are in the drawers, including the electric knives and ice cream scoops and whatnot. The green scale is accurate and I do use it. In the jar are some of Jim's quail egg shells that we emptied and kept, just for fun. 

I'm so entertained by the number of these products that are still available today. I use a lot of them regularly. Well, their modern counterparts, anyway. Remember that clicking on the photos will enlarge them. 

The basket of chicken egg shells came from the hatchery where Jim got most of his birds, but our birds didn't lay these. Jim's aricaunas will lay blue and green eggs like them this fall, though. The mini cookie press was a thrift store find this week. I'm gathering up enough vintage cookie presses that I may "need" to make a display of them by themselves someday. The Miracle Filters Filt-R-Fat, but those aren't ones I use. I filter my bacon grease through modern coffee filters, which are pretty much exactly what the Miracle Filters are.

Now, if you turn away from The Bar and face the staircase, you'll see my wallflowers. There's a gap in the wood trim there, and I don't remember why I stuck a stem of silk sunflowers in the hole, but I did, and there these flowers have remained. They make me smile.

To the right of the wallflowers is a shelf that's even with the floor of the master bedroom. Here it is:

This is part of my wind-up toy army, with which I shall one day take over and rule the world. Fear the tiny whirring sound! Fear it!!

[ahem]

Too much caffeine. I should go get on the treadmill and try to work some of that off. See you later!