Time Marches On

It has been a couple of days since we last posted. Time is marching on with school coming closer and we have been running around trying to get ready for it. With education, the more you learn, the more you realize that you don't know... it seems like planning has been like that. The more we plan, the more we realize how much we have to do. Both Myra and I look forward to the possibility of working and living in a place where we don't need to reinvent the wheel every year and will hopefully be able to begin perfecting lessons rather than making new ones all of the time... it is nice to have only three classes to prepare for and expect to teach the same ones next year.

We have also been getting things done around here to prepare for the changing season. Alaska is all about getting ready. Problem is that in most years we are getting ready for the season that has already passed. The Honda is ready for winter and now we need to get the snow machine and go-cart to that point. Traps need to be boiled, rifles sited in, duck blinds built, pilings put in for next years building project. Thankfully, these are all jobs that are fun to take care of (well, maybe not the pilings). We are almost done with the initial tree cutting on the lot and will only need to take out the few trees that later get in the way while we are building and putting in water and electricity. The wood pile is beginning to look better and better as we have two pallets stacked over six feet tall with mostly birch.

Kemper got a chance to have his first bear and moose encounters. We went for a long ride (run for Kemper) out past the Galena dump. On our way back, there was a decent sized black bear checking out the buffet. Kemper was too busy smelling all of the bushes and looking for rabbits amongst the brush to notice a bear that was a little over a 100 yards away. Myra called him to heel and then pointed out what must have appeared to Kemper as a large fuzzy dog. Kemp took off to go visit and made it about 20 yards before being called back. The bear was apparently not as excited as Kemper to make friends and looked warily in the direction of the silly looking, spastic, crying yellow lab. Kemp came back to heel only to take off toward the bear again with the same results. We left the bear to his meal and headed back toward town.

We ran into a cow moose in one of the roadside ponds and again Kemper wanted to go and make friends with this strange looking, long-legged, big eared dog. He took off into the pond that was full of tall grass. It was cartoon-esque to see no dog, but be able to follow his progress by the sound of splashing and the parting of grass as he hopped and cried his way toward the cow. A calf stood up and so we called Kemper back to avoid the mess that would have taken place between an over-protective mother and a well-meaning, curious lab. Quick pause in the cartoon grass path, u-turn and a quick retreat back to the bank.

Still no word on our camera, but we will try to continue posting photos through various methods. God bless.