The Judys Move To Bethel: May 2017

May 15^th. I can’t remember what I was doing on May 15 last year. I imagine I was thinking about packing up our house while Alex and I binge watched Game of Thrones. This year, in addition to thinking about Elizabeth Neumann who is 10 today (how do they grow up so fast??), I had the pleasure of taking a hike in the tundra, seeing birds I had never seen before, reading a book on the deck in the warm sun, and generally being content. I’m not sure I could ask for anything else today.

We live in the Yukon Delta National Wildlife Refuge, which is home to many migratory birds. As I sit here and type, there are two male European Plovers vying for the attention of a female. The fly and swoop and try to scare the other away. It’s hard to tell if the female even cares or notices. Last week, Alex and I watched a pair of ducks mating. It was the strangest thing to see the male climb onto the back of the female and push her head under water. I haven't figured out if they have nested near the house, or just used the pond as a hook-up spot.

Why are there ducks out my window? Well the empty lot next door was sold to a developer and he had a construction crew come in and fill it. The lot was a natural drainage for the tundra and since it’s now full of slit and dirt, the water has nowhere to go. So it has backed up into a sizable puddle behind the house. I hope as it warms up and the tundra melts a little, the water will seep down into the earth. If not, we can put our boat in the puddle and pretend we’re on the great seas.

Since my last writing, I had the fortune to attend the Cama-I dance festival here in Bethel. People come from all over the state to perform their native dances. This year, a group of people from the Cree reservation in Canada came up too, so there were native Alaskan and Native American dancers. A lot of the dance movements are the same and the chanting is repetitive, but the dances tell a story. If I understood Yup’ik, I could tell you what they were about, but I can’t.

Brad survived wrestling. And he did pretty well for a kid who has never wrestled before. This was freestyle wrestling and is for any and all kids in the community. Some of the kids started wrestling when they were 4, so Brad had some serious competition. His first match he didn’t fare so well, but then he slowly improved. He may even want to wrestle in the fall, which would be good for him and bad for me—he’ll need new wrestling shoes because his feet grow really fast!

Brad also earned a new belt in Judo. He really wanted to test and he made flash cards with the things he needed to know and he even worked on the throws he needed to demonstrate. He did a really good job, and did it all on his own. I’m proud of that little kid.

We were invited to an Easter egg coloring party this year. It’s been a yearly thing for about 10 years. I think there were about 10 dozen eggs that got dyed and the kids did a good job. The parents may have had a little fun too! Easter isn’t Easter without lamb, and we thought for sure we’d have to have chicken or maybe tofu, but we found a leg of lamb at the grocery store. And it was boneless! And it was good! And it was CHEAP. Nothing is cheap here, but we got our lamb for $4.48 a pound. Alex thought it was priced wrong, but when we went back, there were more legs, and they were still the same price. We talked to the meat man and he said he was able to place a large order for lamb. We told him to keep on doing that. Our freezer is almost devoid of moose meat, but it has lamb shanks, 3 legs, and some stew meat. We’re set for several more Easters.

Brad has been invited to several birthday parties lately. I dropped him off on a sunny Saturday and the kids that were already there yelled to him that he had to climb into the window to get into the house. I am sure that the door worked just fine, but they wanted all guests to enter through the window. I was able to capture Brad climbing onto a parked 4-wheeler and then reach up and be pulled into the house. Where else does that happen?

I made two village trips in April. I went to Kwethluk, which is about 15 miles up the river and to Aniak, which is 150 miles up the river. Both were nice quite villages. Aniak has mountains that one can actually get to and Kwethluk is flat tundra. I stayed in a little house in Aniak with an Alaska State Trooper reportedly living in the house behind mine. I was impressed by the trees in Aniak and the fact that the airport is in the middle of the town. Big runway cutting the town in two. One can fly directly to Anchorage from Aniak on a daily basis without having to come to Bethel first; that’s a big advantage for the folks living there. We’re going to try to go up the river to Aniak this summer. We’ll need a lot of extra gas for the trip . . .

Taxi from the airport was a trailer pulled by a 4-wheeler. I got to sit with the groceries.

Sunrise

How the clinic folks get to work

How the sick folks get on the medivac plane

My ride home

The Kuskokwim on the way to Aniak

Aniak is the little blue dot

My humble abode

Trooper housing

What an awesome tree!

The general store

The plane stopped in Kalskag to drop off and pick up passengers on the way back to Bethel

Mr. Brad has 3 more days of school left for the year. He has learned a little bit and he has survived being the “new kid”. He has made a lot of friends and I think he has settled in well. He had good teachers and had some interesting tales to tell. And, he got to dress like a nerd.

I’ve said it before—Bethel is a lot like any other small town in America. But it differs in a lot of ways too. There are stray dogs all over the place (Apparently there is a gene that causes dwarfism in the dogs and doesn't allow for the growth of long bones. I thought there was a virile dachshund running around). Kids run free and wild at times with little parental supervision. It’s dirty and cluttered with trash. We saw three kids walking back to the neighborhood on the tundra yesterday and one was carrying an assault rifle. I thought it had to be fake, but Alex assured me it was real. The oldest kid was 13 if he was lucky and the other two were much younger. It was very unsettling watching him walk with no regard to gun safety and no adult was around. I can only hope the damn thing had a safely on it. After seeing that, I’m surprised I don't hear about more kids being shot.

The river has broken up. I was disappointed because there was no big rush of water, no crashing ice, no flooding. Alex was sure he was going to win the big money, but instead of being $12,500 richer, we’re $40 poorer. The day the ice went out, there were boats on the water. Bethel has a big party the day of the break up too. They serve hot dogs and have live music. The line for a free frankfurter was about 200 feet long. Brad got his free wiener and enjoyed every bite. I was scrolling through Facebook, and the Bethel police department posted pictures of a drunk man that jumped onto a floating piece of ice and had to be rescued.

Maybe he didn't get a free hot dog and was protesting

There were 8 health aides that graduated from the University of Alaska Fairbanks Kuskokwim Campus this year (only 6 attended the ceremony). They finished all the training we offer and each earned a Certificate in Community Health and have 34 college credits. Some go on to earn an Associate’s degree and some go to PA school. It’s a big honor for them and it’s a proud moment for us as the health aide teachers. Without the health aides in the remote villages, many people would not get the care they need.

One evening awhile back we let the dog out before bed only to notice a big fire truck in the middle of the street. We have no fire hydrants in the neighborhood because all of us have our water hauled. The neighbor two houses down was outside watching his steam house burn. The locals like to have a steam bath and that equates to a sauna. They make the steam houses out of a variety of things and it turns out the neighbor build his out of pallets. I was told by the kid that lives there that some wood was exposed on the inside and caught on fire. Not all was lost because Joe was out there fixing it up and it has been burning garbage again. What we were told too was that the fire truck almost caught on fire. When I took the picture, I just thought it was steam that was supposed to be there. Guess not!

I went to Anchorage last week for work. The leaves were already out on the trees and the weather was beautiful. The city is abutted by mountains to the east and they rise up all majestic and covered with snow. They are around 5000 feet (I think) but seem so much taller because they essentially run right up out of the ocean. I've said before how we bring totes with us to Anchorage so we can fill them up with Costco goods. Alex has a brain that never shuts off, so he came up with an idea to put removable wheels on the bottom of one tote so we can stack the others and move them with ease. I was able to put the idea to the test and I'm happy to say it worked. I had 3 totes, which translates to 150 pounds of stuff. I bought a lot more than that. I had to pay extra for a heavy tote AND I carried a 25 pound bag of flour in my backpack onto the plane. Life in the bush gets heavy sometimes. So why does the airline charge me for a plastic tote that weighs more than 50 pounds, but lets me carry on 50 pounds of stuff?

There was a run/walk last week in Bethel for suicide awareness. The suicide rates in rural Alaska are higher than other parts of the country and it's talked about a lot. Alex and I ran a 5K and for the first time in our life together, I beat him! After, there were free hot dogs. I guess free wienies are a big thing here. After we ran our hearts out, we stopped by the car wash the wrestling team was having for a fund raiser. I don't think the truck has been washed since we bought it almost a year ago. They even climbed into the bed of the truck with the pressure washer and hand dried it with towels. Best 20 bucks I've spent in a long time. We then decided to spend some time outside. Alex and I fixed the hole in the septic tank that was made during the winter to thaw the darn thing. He also put a pump into the "lake" behind the house and hooked up the hose. What I don't have a photo of is the septic pipe he fixed the following day. The connection somehow got separated (maybe when the house was leveled the last time) and for God knows how long the pipe has been leaking sewage onto the ground. Gross. But it's fixed now thanks to my handy-dandy hubby.

Replacing the foam inuslation

Moose bratwurst compliments of Brad's friend's dad

Since the sun sets around 11:30 pm, we have started to close the room darkening curtains. It makes it so much easier to sleep in on the weekends! The sunrises and sunsets are still spectacular and the tundra is slowly coming back to life. Add in the mating birds, and the quite beauty here is amazing.