I Love Lucy!

So, I did a thing!

Monday morning, I drove in to Anchorage and boarded a plane bound for Billings Montana. I arrived later that evening and checked in to the Northern Hotel. The next morning found me waiting in the lobby for a very special package.

I got a new kitten!!!!! Her name is Lucy, and she is just the cutest little thing EVER! 

The breeder brought her to the hotel in a little carrier, then transferred her over to the one I had with me. She then gave us both a ride back to the airport, where Lucy and I sat for over 4 hours waiting for our return flight home.

Lucy did very well traveling. She was scared but calmed right down when I sang to her. The carrier I had was honestly just a tad too small, so Lucy had to spend the entire time laying down – but I unzipped the top periodically and let her stand up to stretch as often as I could.

We are both home now, and she is exploring her new environment. Naldo is less than enthusiastic about the new kitten. She made her opinion known unequivocally by actually pooping in Bryan’s pants the first night, so that when he went to get dressed the next morning, he had a very nasty surprise!

They are both adjusting well, however, and I am hopeful that soon enough they will be fast friends.

Painting with Sisters

For Kelly’s birthday this year I got her a gift certificate for The Art Café here in town. I told her to pick out a class, and I would hopefully be able to take it with her. We then had the great idea of inviting Noel along as well, making it another Sisters Outing!

We had fun with acrylic paints, creating our vase of flowers. As I knew would happen, both Noel and Kelly are such awesome painters – theirs turned out to be quite beautiful. I am so completely NOT a painter, but I had fun anyway. For me, it was more about the company than the activity.

More Experiments in the Kitchen

My sister-in-law has a strawberry patch in her back yard, and she invited me to pick them a few weekends ago. She was planning on being out of town and knew they needed to be picked before they all over-ripened.

I happily went out to her house with numerous buckets, planning to pick not only her strawberries, but her rhubarb and honey berries as well. Unfortunately, there were not nearly as many berries as I had hoped for. I had planned on making juice from her rhubarb & strawberries – but you kind of need more than 12 tiny strawberries for that.

So, I went to the grocery store and actually bought strawberries (gasp!). Darn it, I wanted Rhubarb-Strawberry Juice - or, as I call it, Strawbarb Juice!

Since I had all those strawberries, I decided to try making some syrup from the tops I cut off before juicing them. I had never made syrup before, so was just kind of making it up as I went. I have to say, it turned out pretty well – although, I would have preferred it to be a little thicker. It sure is tasty!

And, while the juicing and syruping was going on, I went ahead and cut up some lemons to dehydrate. My plan for that was to make a lemon powder, thinking it could be used to make Lemonade. I don’t think that will work exactly, but it can be used for cooking – so it’s not waisted, at least.

Hiking with Noel

Went on a couple nice hikes a few weeks ago. I had invited the family as usual but only Noel was able to make both of them. I’m happy to get out and about, regardless of how many can join me.

Reflections Lake is a nice little loop of a trail on the way out to Anchorage. Noel had her pups with her, as usual, and they enjoyed the outing as well.

Meadow Loop Trail is up in Hatcher Pass at Skeetawk (the ski lodge). It’s a very short little loop that actually took longer to get to, but it was still good to get out. We even ran into some friends of ours!

M.O.P.P.

I got to attend a Paper Making class the other day and had such good fun. It’s something I’ve been interested in doing for quite a while now, so I was very happy when I found that our local Art Café was going to offer up a class. The class was small enough that we all got some one-on-one time with the instructor, and each of us got to make several sheets of paper together.

The instructor was very good at explaining all of the steps, even though we didn’t have time to actually do them in the classroom. It’s a 2- or 3-day process, so she had all the steps made ahead of time, letting us do the work, then set aside our results in order to continue on with her steps as if we had waited the time required. She even had some botanicals that we could sprinkle into our papers: I chose to work with some lavender, some tea, and clover leaves. I’m quite pleased with the results and think perhaps I can do something with them in my card making efforts.

A couple of days after my class, I was at work talking to my supervisor about this & that while waiting for some tourists to decide if they wanted a tour or not, when suddenly, I had an idea! I could make paper out of MUSK OX POOP!

Dani was excited about the idea, so once I got home, I started doing some research to see what I’d need in order to give it a try. All of the articles I found said that poop from any herbivore could be used, so why not!

First, I made a list of the tools I’d need:

• A big tub for water
• A pot to boil things in
• Some pillowcases to filter the fiber out of the poop
• A blender
• The frames, sponges, and felt pieces to make the paper
• Botanicals to add in for color
• Towels to dry the paper on

I’ve been gathering flowers and dehydrating them to use as a splash of color:

• Chives gave me a soft purple
• Vetch gave me a pretty blue
• Rose petals gave me a nice deep red

I have plans to pick some dandelions for yellow and will use some of their leaves for green. I’m having some difficulty finding dandelions, however – everyone keeps mowing their lawns and cutting them all down before I can harvest any!

I went to Bishop’s Attic and Facebook Marketplace to get most of the other items I need. My partner sacrificed one of his totes for me and swears that he doesn’t mind if I boil musk ox poop in one of our kitchen pans (I’m hesitant about that one) so I think I’m ready to begin my experiment. I even came up for a name for my end product: M.O.P.P. (Musk Ox Poop Paper) !!

I’ll let you know how it goes!

Hiking the Muktuk Marston Trail Again

Last year I had the opportunity to join a group of ladies on a 5-hour hike along the Muktuk Marston Trail up at the Arctic Valley Ski Area near Anchorage. At that time, we got dropped off at the parking lot and picked up at the other end, at the South Fork Eagle River Trailhead.

It was a spectacular hike with a million wildflowers and amazing views. Truly a beautiful trail, and I loved it so much. The group I was with were all about the same level of fitness, so no one felt like they were slowing anybody down. We all packed our lunches and ate together at the midway point, up in Hunter Pass.

I have been wanting to get my family up there ever since but really couldn’t figure out the logistics of it. Who would drop us off and/or pick us up? How would we shuffle cars with a minimal amount of driving?

Just the other day I found out that the ski lodge at the trailhead offers their ski lift to hikers occasionally and I thought maybe that would be an equivalent option to hiking without needing to shuffle cars around. So, I put the call out to my family to see who would join me!

The plan was to either meet at my house to carpool (sister Noel chose that option) or meet at the parking lot (niece Katy chose that option) to begin our adventure. We would take the ski lift up to the top of the mountain (the blue line). Then take the Rendezvous Ridge trail along the top until it meets up with the Muktuk Marston trail at Hunter Pass and head on back down to the parking lot (the red line) – a total of roughly 6 miles.

Unfortunately, the ski lift doesn’t run in the rain, and it was pouring down rain when we all got there. So, we opted for Plan B: hike up the Muktuk Marston trail until we got tired, then turn around and head back to the car.

Even sopping wet, the trail was truly spectacular. So many wildflowers everywhere we looked! We had fun trying to identify them all, only occasionally having to look them up on the picture we had taken of the signage at the beginning of the trail that had most of them listed.

When we stopped for lunch, we laughed because each of us had packed PPJs to snack on. They’re easy, nutritious, and give a quick punch of energy to continue hiking - so yay for PBJs!

By the time we made it back to our cars, we were thoroughly wet but super pleased with our hike. We had such a great time together – although I really do want to take that ski lift someday. I plan to keep that one on the back burner for a while to try again on a later date.

The drive back down the hill to the highway brought us alongside this handsome fellow: look at that belly! He’s HUGE!

And a little further down, we came across this little lady and her cub! I was a little concerned at how scrawny she is – but then I remembered that she only just came out of hibernation. She’ll fatten up as summer progresses, never fear. Her cub was very healthy and energetic, so she’s doing just fine.

Putting Mother to Rest

We put mother’s ashes to rest last month. She is in the wall along with Stewart now. We are working on getting an engraved plaque for her that will look very similar to Stewart’s, but that will take some time. Everyone was there, and we all talked a bit afterwards, telling stories and remembering her.

A few weeks later, I had everyone over to go through her jewelry. She had a lot of jewelry: I laid it all out on the bed in the guest room so we could all see it and sort through it. Some of it was really nice pieces of turquoise & silver – some was just junk costume stuff. We made sure everyone got something of hers to remember her by, and what was left was donated to the Bishop’s Attic, mother’s favorite second-hand store.

Family Hikes

My niece Laurel asked me to organize some Family Hikes this summer, so I have been putting together various hikes each weekend. People can join in or not, as their schedule allows. This gets me out on the trails again after a long hiatus (I didn’t hike at all while taking care of mother for 7 years), so I am happy regardless. And I get to see my family on a regular basis!

A humorous side note: the one who asked me to organize all these hikes has not gone on a single one yet!

We started the season off with a nice stroll along the Matanuska Lake Trail System. We went at a 2-year old’s pace, with lots of sticks and rock throwing along the way.

We followed that with a hike along the Matanuska River Walk Trail, an easy stroll with fantastic views of the river peeking periodically through the trees.

The next week, Kelly and I walked the old railroad trail from Moose Creek back towards Palmer. You can’t go the whole way any more as the river has eaten away the middle section of the trail. But the portion that is left is still a beautiful walk.

I did the same trail the following day with Katy, but this time we did it from Palmer walking towards Sutton. Henry had fun with his new binoculars and hiking pack – adventuring in the tall grass.

Eklutna Lake was scheduled for the following weekend, and again Kelly was able to join me. She is a fast walker, just like I am, so we really traveled going much farther along the path than I’d ever been before. We treated ourselves to some ice cream on the way home.

The Crevasse-Moraine trail system is not my favorite, by any means, but it is nearby and convenient. We all had other obligations that day, so our hike was a brief one. But we were together, we were outside, and we were moving. That’s a win in my book!

Our most recent hike was just this past Tuesday. Bryan was out of coffee, so Noel and I used that as an excuse to take a little road trip out to Girdwood (about 1.5 hours south) to get some from his favorite little coffee shop. And while we were there, we went ahead and hiked up to Virgin Falls to stretch our legs and give the pups a break from the car. Such a gorgeous hike, with a spectacular waterfall at the end!