Reorganizing Our House

A lot going on here at the Beaver House. I thought I’d give you a brief update on everything, giving you Before/After shots of each room being worked on.

Bryan’s Office is looking really good. He still has some organizational stuff to do in there, but for the most part he’s up & running.

Before

After

My new Library is taking shape. I got myself a new chair and some black out curtains. I am bringing down some of my things from up in the craft room that I think will go better down here with my books. All in all, I think I like it! He still needs to patch up a few holes in the walls, but other than that it’s looking good!

Before

After

The Guest Room is looking much better now and is ready to welcome guests into our home! We got a new bed from my brother (it used to be his daughter’s crib, believe it or not). We cleaned out a lot of Mother’s stuff, decluttering it significantly. We even rehung a few pictures in there, to make things look homier.

Before

After

Betty, Bryan’s granddaughter, comes over to visit often enough to warrant having her own corner in the house, filled with all her toys, books, stuffies, and whatnot. We cleaned out a corner shelf unit, dedicating it to little Betty. Sometime this winter, we’ll actually resurface and paint/stain the shelving unit – but for now, it’s good enough.

Before

After

 

Just Do It

Once again, the world has shown me that whatever it is you’re dreaming of doing, you really should just do it. You simply never know what’s around the corner at any given time. So go on that trip. Write that book. Learn that new skill. Take that jump off the cliff tied only to a bungee cord. Seriously, now is the perfect time!

You may recall that last month I finally went on a hike that I’d been wanting to go on for years. It wasn’t that difficult; I just always had an excuse not to go. When I finally got to do it, I found it to be truly an amazing experience, and I was so happy to be there.

Well, just last week I read in the papers that the Matanuska River nearby had eaten away a portion of the trail, making it completely impassible now. As in, whole chunks of the bank (and trail) fell off into the raging waters.

Not a huge surprise in retrospect, seeing as how the river has eaten whole houses and entire neighborhoods in the past. It changes its course with great regularity, so what was a “safe distance” yesterday might not be today! It’s very had to predict where the river will go from one year to the next.

What was a surprise was the borough’s decision to declare the trail as permanently closed. You can hike in from either direction, but you can no longer go through from one end to the other. They installed guard rails across the trail and issued warnings to all the hikers who regularly walk the trail, highly recommending they NOT go around the barriers. You can still go about a mile in from the Palmer side, and it’s still a beautiful little walk. You just have to turn around a lot sooner than most people typically did before the closure.

I just keep thinking to myself “I am so glad I finally did the whole thing before it closed down!!”

So, yeah… just go do it!

My Good Friend Marina

One of the best side effects of volunteering with Earthwatch is that you make connections around the globe with such wonderful people. People you would never have known about otherwise, and who enrich your life so much. It’s probably my second favorite thing about Earthwatch!

Marina is one such person. She is from Argentina, but I met her in Arizona while on the Forest Owl expedition back in 2018. We were assigned roommates in one of the bunk rooms and instantly became fast friends, despite the potential language barrier. Thankfully, her English is way better than my Spanish – although, I did make an effort to at least try to speak to her in her own tongue.

Fast forward six or seven years, and we’re still friends. I even got to go down to Buenos Aires to visit her on my way to the expedition in Patagonia a couple years ago! We text each via WhatsApp other almost daily and do the whole Facetime thing every other month or so, just to catch up on each other’s news.

The coolest thing about Marina is that she sends me pictures all the time. Just odd little snapshots of her day, as she finds them. She and I share a love of nature, and each picture sparks a whole new conversation.

I have decided to share a few of her pictures with you: you can see that she also has quite the artistic eye.

Lane Basin Hike

I attempted another group hike last week. I have to admit, I was a bit overly confident about my abilities on this one. As in, I was not able to complete the hike! I had to call it about half-way through the evening. But the part that I did do was, as always, just stunningly gorgeous – and I’m really happy that I got out and attempted to hike that night. So all in all, I count it as a win.

The group met at the parking lot about 2 miles in on the Archangel Road up in Hatcher Pass, where we had a brief safety moment and went over the planned hike. Then we started on up the hill. That was my undoing. I do not go uphill very well, and this one was a good 2 miles long! But the group was very understanding and did not make me feel too bad for ruining everyone’s hike – they just took each stop as an opportunity to snack and/or take in the views.

I am thinking I might ask my partner to take me back there one day so that he and I can attempt it together. I really would like to go all the way to the end and back, and maybe with him I won’t feel so self-conscious about having to stop all the time. Also, his truck can get us quite a bit closer to the actual trailhead, thereby deleting over half of the incline hiking!

The Alaskan Botanical Gardens

Just for fun a few weeks ago, I organized a family outing at the Alaska Botanical Gardens in Anchorage. Such a cool place to wander the trails and look at all the plants and sculptures and whatnot.

It’s quite the place, consisting of 110 acres of Boreal Forest, eight acres of cultivated gardens, and interconnected nature trails. The Garden houses over 1,100 varieties and over 150 distinct species of plants hardy to the region. There’s a Perennial Garden, an Herb Garden, a Rock Garden, a Subalpine Rockery, outdoor classrooms, and usually even a plant sale at the entrance where you can purchase some of their plants to bring home with you.

One of my favorite things to see is the glacier erratic that was pushed down from the Chugach Mountains by a long-retreated glacier. The big boulder wears a coat of mosses and lichens in a myriad of colors. It even has a tree growing out of it! Another favorite is the Herb Garden that showcases a variety of annual and perennial culinary and medicinal herbs..

If you haven’t been – you really should go!

Visiting Mother

Mother is doing well in the Pioneer Home. She seems quite happy each time we go to visit and really loves having company. She is still confused and doesn’t really know where she is or how she got there. But the people at the home take good care of her, and she has quite a few friends who stop by on a regular basis to check in on her. Sometimes she doesn’t know who I am specifically but always knows I’m family and that I love her, so that is good enough for me.

I stopped by the other day, along with Kelly, Katy, Henry and Eloise. She had been sitting out in the hallway, so I just pulled up some chairs and joined her there. She likes to survey all the goings-on from the windows in front of her room: they are replacing the roof on the building, so there are construction workers crawling all over the place. It keeps her very busy supervising the whole project!

I try to bring her a few items to decorate her room with each time I go, as she does love to decorate and also loves “stuff”. It not only gives her something to do, but also I think reminds her of “home” and helps her to feel safer and more comfortable. I am heading back there on Wednesday this week to have dinner with her – I will have to think of something I can bring her this week.

Hard Apple Cider

We’re trying a new thing this year: making our own Hard Apple Cider!

As you know, each year we get boxes of apples from a local orchard that my sister knows, and each year we make applesauce, apple pie filling, apple juice, and pretty much anything else we can think of in order to preserve all those sweet little things.

A few months ago, my partner bought everything you need to have to make wine, cider, and/or beer from his massage therapist (who just happens to be the sister of my best friend Kat and is the one who sold us our pool table). He bought a few books about it, talked to a few other people who dabble in this hobby, and finally felt comfortable giving it a try.

We knew we were going to be making this at some point in our future, so we have a good 2 or 3 dozen jars of juice in our pantry just waiting for us. This first time, though, we’re just going to make a small batch, just to see how it goes. Once we get the hang of it, we’ll make bigger batches and might someday even use up all the jars we have waiting for us!

It’s not done yet, but I have to say it’s working so far. The jars on our counter are happily bubbling away and are – I must admit – quite smelly. It’s not really a pleasant aroma, either. Hopefully the end product will make up for it.

Sister’s Train Ride to Seward

Losing my brother to cancer back in 2017 has made me realize just how important family is, and how much I appreciate the siblings I have left to me. I am doing everything I can to bring us all closer together so that we can cherish each moment we have all that much more.

One way I do that is to have what I call Sister’s Dinner once each month! We meet up at a different restaurant once a month, just to chat about whatever is going on with us at the moment. No agenda, no stress, just sisters enjoying each other’s company.

For the month of July, I decided to up my game a little bit – and organized a day trip out to the little fishing town of Seward by train! My partner drove us in to Anchorage where he dropped us off at the train depot at 5:30 in the morning. We boarded the train at 6:30 – got into Seward around 11:30 – got back on the trail around 6:00 and were back to Anchorage at 10:15 to find Noel’s husband Hank waiting to take us home.

It’s a long day, for sure – but we had a great time together. Laughing, talking, window shopping, eating, drinking, the whole bit. We even had time to visit the Seward Sea Life Center!