Whale bones scavenged from up the coast a few miles.Cemetery with a view. Mountains are about 17 miles away.
Silver salmon drying.

FOOD!!

Our food came today. 50-70 pound boxes. My back is okay. Old favorites, old friends they are all. side note: Like the paint job? Art work is coming soon. I will update.

Spaghetti cubboard...yum...sidenote: close the Parmesan lid before shaking and it makes a good movie snack. Cover two holes and shake into mouth.

24 cans of olives, 12 boxes of cheeseburger macaroni hamburger helper, 12 boxes of granola bars, 11 instant chocolate puddings (3 years old, terrible with powder milk)
Chili cupboard, and Ramen snacks for Steph - are we still in college?
There's more, like 24 boxes of Stovetop stuffing, and 2 dozen cans of pineapple and chicken soup. Other things include 900 rolls of toilet paper. side note: Honeybuckets don't plug up, good thing for me, huh Mom and Dad. Get that toilet fixed.

So in Review: whole family room full of groceries and nothing to snack on.

Ocean gathering

Steph and I took the 4-wheeler we recently bought and took a trip up the beach that is about a mile from our house. We drove until the Arolik river where you can't cross and then came home. We stopped and picked some blueberries, honest to goodness blueberries, like the ones in stores. There are also real raspberries around here, but we didn't find any of those. It was a nice little trip and I tell you what, it is sure nice to get out and do something. That is one thing we really like about Quinhagak.

Life is Good

Dying Chum SalmonSilver Salmon - good eating
Silver Salmon
Once school settles down, I hope to get back on here - probably when the fishing lets up too. lol

So about a week and half ago, we showed up to school like any other day. Ready to educate and inspire. :) Unknown to us, Elsie one of the nicest ladies in the school and my classroomate, had a surprise for Steph. She gave Steph one of her Yupik Parkas, saying, "None one else was using it". That's it, see Elsie is pretty straight shootin' and she must have thought Steph was cold.

Last Year, when I moved to 4th grade, Elsie asked me if she could station her desk in my room and I agreed. Elsie teaches Yupik to the K-8 kiddos and has the amazing ability to control even the toughest class. One second I am struggling to keep control, keep students in the desks. The next moment Elsie walks in the door and silence. Chaos - Silence. Seriously, so frustrating sometimes.

Elsie and myself last May - She is standing on a chair :)

We have forged a great relationship and spend many Fridays just talking. Afternoons are a work time for teachers and we usually just sit and talk about anything and everything. She is a local expert and very wise on the old ways of life. Much of my Yupik knowledge comes from her. We have plans to put together an Elder photo wall in the school, with all black and white photos. While she doesn't consider herself an elder, maybe I can sneak a picture of her up on the wall. I keep you posted with pictures.

Anyway, that coat is an incredible gift and has many folks jealous. Steph was speechless.

Time and temperature

Time: 10:18pm
Temperature: 60

We can't get the temperature in the house above that 60 degree mark. Thus, hat and sweatshirt wearing we will go. It's good sleeping weather, but bad tv watching weather.

Tomorrow the guys will have to take a look at the boiler. Fix the dinosaur, hopefully.

Last night I was browsing the internet and clicked on the Northern Lights link. I notice that we were experiencing an active night and that the short term forecast was also active. After checking the KP strength, I saw that it was peaking at that very moment at about 4.6. I quick got dressed and grabbed the camera and ran. Ran to the weather cone on the outside of town, far enough to get past the bright lights of a big town like Kipnuk. I set up the tri-pod and then realized that I didn't have the camera set up properly on the right settings. So I had to take off my gloves and try to figure it out in the dark. It probably took about 30-60 seconds to set up, but my hands started burning. My skin felt like rope when its frozen. It was stiff and hard to move. This may be the coldest my hands have ever felt, so cold that strangely they didn't hurt. Flash frozen, maybe? Like in the "Day After Tomorrow" when the Arctic air froze and killed everyone in New York. Anyway, once it was ready to go, I took one picture after another for about 10 minutes. The sky was moving. The camera was freezing. I had chills. It was cold.

This display was much better than the last time. It wasn't as large and bright, but it was moving like crazy and even had a different color in spots. Pretty cool, cold. But, 10 minutes was all my camera could take and it flashed no battery on a full charge. Anyway, I was cold and was having trouble getting my left eyelid to open up after a picture. I guess my breath moving up the camera was freezing my eyelids together. enjoy. jb

P.S. the Super Bowl is strange on a 20 inch TV at 2:30 in the afternoon, eating $7 dollar Doritos.

So mark your calendars. February, 2, 2008 the first time yours truly had to chip ice. We have been existing on water from the fall and two freak rain storms late into November and December. Maybe it was water gathering experience, maybe luck, but being February and chipping ice for the first time has been nice! It takes about hour and a half to chip and usually I go southwest of town to a couple of small lakes. Luckily yesterday, I followed a guy out to his spot. Usually, I just drive the snowmachine around until I happen chance on a spot. There are many holes like this out on the tundra. They have to be outside the flood plan, so that the water is fresher. Hopefully fresher. Once we melt the ice, Steph and I distill the water to make it safe. Hopefully, that makes it safe. We haven't gotten sick yet! In ice chipping there are two rules. #1 Don't hit your foot. #2 Don't hit your forehead.

So during supper tonight, Steph asked where we got the pizza from. She said, "How did we get delivery?" I said "No silly, It's not delivery, it's Digiorno's " Plus, for only $16.14 it was a steal. I also noticed 2 dozen eggs were $7.64, and the Peanut Butter I bought was $5.86. The sign on the eggs mentioned they were only one day old, fresh from the farm down the road, right next to the Pizza Hut, so that price is justified I guess. As the kids say "I joke". The prices are real though!

In other food news, we just bought 700 bucks worth of groceries. Hopefully that will last a while. Better. We bought $115 dollars worth of Parmesan cheese, because for some reason Kipnuk just makes us eat lots of cheese. In fact, we ordered three different kinds of cheese. Sharp Cheddar, Mozzarella, and 6 lbs of Parmesan. Watching TV tonight? How about some Parmesan.

The weather...

When there is not much to do, one seems to pay attention to the weather. Especially when the house is shaking. Like today, when Bethel set record highs with a balmy 42 degrees. One asks the question: What is going on? Last week, it was -29 below, with -52 below wind chills in Bethel. Today, 65 mph wind and rain, rain! What is going on? In our three years in Kipnuk, this is the strangest weather we have had. Twice this winter season (since snow fell) we have had south winds and rain, with lots of snow melt off. Before Christmas, the ground had about 1/2 inch of snow. It looked like spring! I have not chipped ice for water yet and it is January 19. Crazy, just crazy.

To make it all much worse, the satellite is shaking like a leaf. No TV, errrr

Happy Holidays Y'all

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everyone! Hope your year was as blessed as ours. It has been a great year! Later, Jim and Steph

Finally...

Last night it finally happened. Finally got my first look at the northern lights. Finally (Have I said that). These pictures were taken at Midnight and we (Mr. Broz) stayed until 2:00am. Needless to say, I was a zombie today and will be tomorrow, because the sky is clear and the forecast is for more action. Later jb

Look What the Tide Brought In...

So... We woke up Monday morning and had icebergs in the yard. Strange. The night before the wind came up real strong and when that happens sometimes the tide comes in real high. Around midnight, Steph woke up and thought someone was trying to break in. In reality it was just huge chunks of ice beating our porch silly. I guess town was all under water. I cannot say though because I was sleeping. Like a baby. Anyway, it stunk really bad. Like salt, fish and honey bucket. Yum!

These pictures are from today. The picture of the sun was taken at 2:00 PM. That is how high the sun gets these days. Many people ask about the darkness, so I took a picture. The actual time it came up was 10:43 AM and will set at 4:52 PM. We lost 2 minutes and 13 secs from yesterday. We'll lose another 1 1/2 hours before we start gaining again. The other photos were just some closeups of tundra grass and ice frost. enjoy, jb

26 year old dog learned a new trick.

So I learned how to crop... A now I probably ruined some otherwise good pictures.

Click on each picture for a larger, hopefully better view. Good NightOOOoooo.....

Grill'n and Chill'n

Steak, Chicken, Salmon anyone? Thanks to the Walmart 17.99 camp grill Steph and myself are living in style. Beats the heck out of the George Forman. Do you like the preparation table. I got it at target on sale, it's real nice.

Anyway, about time Huskers

Ice cube anyone?

These pictures are from a couple of weeks ago, before the snow started flying. Brought that baby inside to melt and drink. Just another fun aspect of drinking water from your gutters. Warm soda anyone?

Saturday, Steph, my parents, and I took a boat trip out to the Bearing Sea. Willie our guide took us out in his 16 ft. Lund boat with a 30 horse motor. It was 50 degrees out, does it look 50? We made a couple of stops and then Willie said he was taking us to the sand bar. I have been out to the ocean many times by now and have never been to the so called sand bar. In my ocean travels I have seen mud upon mud, but never any sand. Willie however proved me wrong.



The sand bar turned out to be one of the coolest things that I have seen since arriving in Kipnuk. There was in fact sand on this little sliver of an island, about 1 mile out into the ocean. The island is long maybe 4-5 miles, but only about 100 yards wide. Waves were breaking offshore and making their way to the island. There was nothing really on the island except for a birds and about 10 million starfish. They just lined the beach. It was really incredible to see. In the water was about 10 million little jellyfish. Once again, incredible to see. On a side note, once we got out of the boat Willie couldn't help himself and popped off a couple of shots at a few ducks floating offshore. Then while we were exploring, he jumped into the boat and disappeared. When we came back we couldn't see him for the longest time. Inside my inner Surviorman came out. I immediately thought about Les Stroud and Bear Gryles and what they would do in this situation. My next thought was, "Are Starfish edible?"


Finally, a parting shot once the family was back on squishy, wet ground. Note: The camera does not add 10 pounds. It was 50 degrees, excessive clothing was necessary.

Tundra Walking

Mom and Dad are here! They got here Thursday and will be staying until Monday.

My Dad took this video today as we were out picking Black Berries.

jb