And a mid-winter kayak update.

The coaming, in all of its epoxy-d glory, is done and done.

I have to say, it's very shiny.  Very.

Shiny and ready to be sewn into the skin.  Except, of course, the skin is a bitch to sew on.  Yep.  Excuse the language, but for the love.  I have sewn and re-sewn, my fingers and knuckles kind of hurt, and I still don't know if it's at an acceptable place.  The problem is in the tension and in the puckering that is occurring across the decks.  Grr.

But some pretty pictures:

 

Kaya thinks this is all very boring.  But Ben is working on not only her jumping skills, but also her show dog potential.  Look at her, sittin' pretty.  She loves it.  Really.

Miscellaneous in January

I think that could be the theme for this month: miscellaneous.

It's been a little difficult to settle back into the working world of a desk-job.  I think that my father has helped ruin me in that respect, further maintained by years of field work and grad school.  I have never really had to go and sit and be at a computer for 40 hours every week, from now until....it's a good job, with wonderful people, and a good mission.  And you have to get paid, right?  Right?  (I'm just not entirely convinced that there is one way to skin that [proverbial] cat)

Anyways...some pictures (I apologize - they're grossly dog-centric):

Happy Solstice morning! 

Me, catching up on the waaaaay backlogged amount of data entry that had to be done at work.  Data entry can be so painful (post-it notes from 2006 have a way of making tears come to your eyes) 

Can you see the bag of flour in the middle of the floor?  LE had some "issues" with grains, etc. this winter.

 

Ben, trying to get Kaya to jump jump

in vain.

Ice in the Harbor in Homer......

  And the dogs before Pemba decided to go swimming in diesel fuel. 

Juneau Lake Cabin trip

After starting my new job in November, I learned that I would have nearly two weeks off over the holidays!  That sure isn't grad school (where no one really misses you for 6+ weeks at a go), but a 2 week paid vacation is nothing to shrug off.  That being said, the timing was such that a trip to New England was not going to be affordable on any front (though really, when is it ever?), and I wasn't so much in the mood to drop so much cash.  So what's a girl to do with her free time in the dead of an Alaskan winter?

I somehow managed, finding myself some activities to pass the time including a three day trip up to the Chugach mountains on the Resurrection Trail with Kaya, Ben, and Pemba in between Christmas and New Years.

I hadn't fully appreciated the fact that indeed, southcentral Alaska does experience low temperatures.  Somehow being in Homer and having -5 be a chilly mercury reading made me a little complacent.  At the trail head in Cooper Landing (a little over 2 hour drive north/northeast from Homer) it was somewhere in the -20 range.  Though I realize it was easily -50 in Fairbanks over this time period, let's go back to the fact that I'm now living in Homer.  For better or for worse, -5 = cold.  -20?  Not terrible but I regretted a few things, mainly the paucity of chocolate, the lack of food readily accessible, my frozen-solid camelback...We started at the trailhead at around 1pm, ready for a 9.5 mile ski in to Juneau Lake Cabin, one of the public use cabins the Forest Service maintains. 

  

The dogs were *so* ready by the time we got started, as were we.  Thinking about how great Kaya's been in some past sledding-adventures (White Mountain trip awhile back, Thanskgiving with the wine), I hooked her up to her sled with my pack strapped safely in.

d.i.s.a.s.t.e.r.

At the get-go, Ben was fairly well distracted (I thinK) by getting himself ready.  So he may have missed the absolute ridiculous beginnings of what proved to be a failed endeavor.  Long blue sled, half a dozen ropes everywhere, incredibly excited husky, freezing cold, me with mittens, ski gloves, and dressed warmly enough to feel a little less than graceful in my outfit.  The trail proved to be too narrow and too winding for the intrepid team of Kaya and I.  I let her go free, and I was stuck pulling the sled.

What a mess..

After our trip to Emerald Lake this summer, where Kaya managed to free herself of a very expensive and on-loan dog pack somewhere deep in the woods, she wasn't allowed to carry anything.   And this led to the ridiculousness of Kaya the sled dog running wild and free, and Pemba, the miniature-sized black lab, carrying all of the dog food and who-knows-what-else-Ben-stuffed-in-there in her bright orange pack. 

We made it out to the cabin with just enough light to spare, and no skin irreparably frozen.  So many thanks to the folks who came before us, whoever they were, for leaving some firewood chopped and ready in the cabin.  We were sufficiently chilled that gathering would have been a chore - warming up and eating were the top priorities to be attended to. 

Dinner of tortellini's & sauce, bread, butter, and veggies (in butter - they were wonderful despite Ben's reticence) was phenomenal.  Boxed wine complemented the whole thing nicely.

The dogs were toasted.  Pemba fell asleep on Ben's boots and didn't twitch for a good long time.

And Kaya curled into her tight husky-ball and paid us all no attention

The next day we geared up with some coffee, burned up the rest of the firewood that had been left for us toasting bagels, and went off to collect more warmth.  This involved using the variety of tools provided to us by the Forest Service and cutting down a dead tree, bucking it into "carry-able" lengths, hauling it to the cabin, and further sawing & chopping pieces to go in the wee-but-efficient woodstove to keep us warm (/alive). 

Let it be known that Ben does not take pictures, and as such you all will just have to imagine me, burly and strong, hauling down equally-sized logs.  It's true.  I did.  Just sayin' is all.  I also learned how to chop wood!  I'm a little ashamed, but only once before had I ever tried (when Emily briefly showed me and I managed to not injure anyone). 

 

 

We skied for a bit after wood-gathering and after lunch, and by the end of the day we were thankful for a warm cabin, beautiful sunrises/sunsets (they happen so closely to one another these days...), happy & tired dogs, and good food.....

Ben was verklempt at the beauty of our sausage dinner

The next morning we gathered our things, made sure plenty of food was readily available for eating, melted a bunch of snow for water, put on our skis and headed back out to the trailhead.

 

A past-due Thanksgiving update!

I'll be fairly brief on some catch-up posts ... it's been so long since I've posted anything on here, but I'm going to go back quickly to Thanksgiving.  Justine flew over to Homer from Juneau - it had been nearly a year since I had saw her, one of my most favorite people who I miss dearly.

For Thanksgiving day our household joined Ben's household for a big shin-dig.  Megan, Justine, and I cooked and cooked - our house brought two pumpkin pies, one apple pie, a green bean casserole, and biscuits.  Regular and cheese.  Woah - the cheese biscuits were amazing.  (I can't believe I can call up our Tday dishes this far past...)  Ben hosted dinner with 16 guests and an absolutely phenomenal amount of food.  It was incredible - after everyone had two- to three-helpings, you almost couldn't tell the food had been touched. 

So what to do but sled all leftovers to a cabin a little ways out of town?  Dogs, food, and wine were packed up and a handful of us went out the next day for a ski/dinner/sauna.

 

The truck got stuck, we were about a mile short of the cabin, and we all decided to not push our luck too hard.  Kaya earned her keep - I strapped her to her sled and she pulled in all of the wine.  Good dog.

Shoveling out the front of the cabin...

And hands down one of the best snowmen I've seen.