The Judys Move To Bethel: October 2016

Fall is upon us. We didn’t get to see the pretty colors of all the hardwood trees, but the tundra changed in its own beautiful way. The sun comes up later and later each day and in the past week we have lost over 40 minutes in daylight. It’s dark until about 9:30, but I am able to watch the sunrise out of the 2^nd floor classroom. It’s always pretty. We lose light before 8:00 in the evening. It hasn’t been cold though. We only had one morning of frost and it’s typically in the low 40’s when Brad and I leave and may get into the 60’s during the day. Only one morning that was below freezing so far (that I'm aware of).

We were fortunate to obtain some free moose. One of the hunting outfitters gives away the meat the hunters don’t want, and there is a lot of meat! It costs $20,500 to go with a guide to hunt a moose and from what I saw, the only thing that was desirable to take home was a large rack of antlers (the biggest one they showed me had a 69 inch spread). I went to the hanger on a sunny Friday afternoon and picked up about 100 pounds of meat. We had a kitchen full of kids (ok, only 4) and 3 of them were eager to cut meat and Brad played on the ipad. The bad thing was that most of the meat was spoiled—it stunk. We were cutting and cutting and neither Alex nor I knew for sure if it was worth keeping. We asked the neighbor who was born and raised in Bethel to come smell it (who asks a neighbor that?) and he told us not to eat it. The big leg we got smelled not so good too, but after Alex trimmed off the outside, the stuff underneath was pretty good. We ended up with about 38 pounds of steak, stew meat, and burger for us and 10 pounds for the dog. I told Alex that I never thought I’d be standing in a garage cutting up moose on a Sunday afternoon. He laughed. And I never thought my husband would cook burger in a big kettle on our wood stove. I’ll attach pictures, but any vegetarians out there should be forewarned.

My days of running are few and far between now. I can’t blame it on the weather, but I do blame it on the bad roads and awful traffic. The trucks kick up so much dust that I’m afraid I’ll get lung cancer and no one seems to slow down for those on foot. We do walk out in the tundra now and then and it’s always pretty.

On the election, all I will say is that I really don’t think a woman-groping, teen beauty pageant oogling, non-tax paying, pompas ass with a narcissistic personality should be in the white house. I’m not sure the other one is ideal, but I think she’s a little better. Can we re-elect Jimmy Carter?

Did I mention that we had to replace the garage door? The old one was electric and had something wrong that made it hard to open and it was really loud. Alex ordered a door from Anchorage and it was promptly delivered. It took us a little longer to put it up, but we were successful.

And it's up!

Brad has started judo and I think he may end up being pretty good, if he pays attention. He was the only kid without a gi the first day, but he has one now. He’s pretty good at the falling and rolling. The sensei is phenomenal and has been teaching for a long time. We are now members of the Yukon Kuskokwim Fitness Center and will be using the great pool whenever we can. I swam for the first time in about 6 months and it was very hard.

October is usually a great time of the year. Nice weather, pretty skis and the changing of color. Not so for the October of 2015. We had a horrific 3 weeks last year when we thought Brad was sick. He had a strange growth on his eye and a lymph node that we thought was suspicious. After 3 eye doctors and ENT evaluation, he had a surgical biopsy to rule out cancer. The thought of a sick child made our life pretty much stop. I don’t know how parents handle the illness of a child and we were so fortunate to have a negative result. We kept that mostly to ourselves because what could we say? We think our kid has cancer? The relief of knowing my little boy was ok is something that is indescribable. I’m so thankful that he’s here on this earth, and I can only hope he is able to continue to grow up safe and happy.

There aren’t any beauty shops in bethel. There are a few places where one can get a haircut, but no “spa”. Brad gave me a pedicure one lazy Saturday. He laid out a hairbrush and comb and he had an old bottle of makeup. He combed my hair and put the old make up on my face (did you know all that was a part of a pedicure now?) Then he put socks on my feet that were in a bowl of ice. He thought that was great.

My ceramics class is over and most of my pieces turned out. One kiln didn’t get hot enough, so 3 pieces need to be re-fired. I now have 2 crocks for spoons and such, a small bowl for who knows what, and a plate. I’m anxiously waiting for the other items to be fired. There was a class on qaspeq (kus-puck) sewing last weekend, but I didn’t sign up for it. According to the Alaska Dispatch News, the qaspeq is the “original hoodie” and is traditional Alaskan clothing. When the traders brought flour and sugar to trade with the native Alaskans, the women used the lighter fabric to make clothing. I guess the fur and intestine qaspeqs were a little on the warm side. Personally, I’d prefer the cotton too—can you imagine how bad the other ones must have smelled??

We haven’t been on the river much lately. The last trip we took was down river and we ended up in Napakiak. It’s about 10 miles south of Bethel and there are about 300 people living there. We landed the boat and walked around town. The airport was a gravel strip with no real hanger. The store was pretty well stocked and we picked up a bag of chex mix, some candy, and a splitting maul. Alex left his maul in storage and now that we have a house with a wood stove, we need one. It seems like every time we are out on the river there is a rainbow. It rains a lot here, but the drops are sporadic and it can rain heavily just a few miles away and be sunny where we are.

Napakiak airport

A load of wood was delivered to our front yard. We got two sled loads—I guess the concept of cords isn’t something that works here. The wood is all pine and came from up river. And it cost $600. I may need to buy a snow machine and get a second job collecting wood. Alex cut it up and we will now work on splitting and stacking it. The “we” of that is Alex cuts and I stack. The neighbor kids came over to help because Alex said he’d pay them! I guess you can take the girl and guy out of Michigan, but can’t take the Michigan out of us.

Yes, that is a boat trailer and yes, the wood was delivered on it

I have been teaching a new group of Community Health Aides. This group is Session I and they spent 4 weeks here in Bethel learning a lot of good stuff so they can take care of their patients in the villages. They have 4 weeks of didactic and 1 week of clinicals and then they are on their own to take care of the 4-wheeler accidents, overdoses, pre-term deliveries, asthma attacks, and whatever else may come through the door. It’s amazing that they are able to do such a good job with so little training. I am very impressed with this group of students.