Not always easy. Not always convenient. Homeschooling in bush Alaska is challenging but provides the ultimate in extraordinaire. I have a confession. I did not want to homeschool my kids. When they were infants, then toddlers, I dreamed of them going off to kindergarten at the local school, me kissing them lightly on their cheeks and patting them on their tiny backs as they waltzed into a cute, vibrantly color-filled classroom. Then I would go off to work! When my daughter reached second grade, it became evident changes were needed. I began to get daily gnawing’s in my gut and “knowing’s” from ..read more

Willow, our golden retriever, has a fresh new litter of puppies. What a joy they are providing along with ample laughter as they learn to walk, play and puppy bark. Willow is now 5 years old, and this will be her final litter. All the more that we are enjoying this batch of pups. She seems to be too- she is spending more time with this litter then her previous litters and is an incredibly attentive mother-playing, feeding, cleaning and watching over them. Willow is a dark golden and comes from a hunting line of retrievers that specializes in waterfowl and upland game bird retrieving. She loves ..read more

It’s not every day you come across two bald eagles next to a road gripped to each other with deadlocked talons. This spring we received a call from a friend who exclaimed, “Hey, there’s two bald eagles next to the road trying to kill each other!”. As biologists who are trained in handling animals, we’ve gotten some interesting calls in the past related to injured animals, but this was a new one. Josh and I suited up, grabbed some gloves and bags and headed down the road. We arrived at the scene a few minutes later. Two bald eagles were indeed next to the road and laying lifeless in a waterlog ..read more

If you just finished reading my blog post, “Spring break up- Part I”, you’ll be wondering what happened with the flood! Well, let me tell you, it was a scary thing to watch the river ice jam up by McGrath on May 10th and then the water level in the river rose and rose and rose. And then the water came for us. With nowhere else to go, it seeped over the riverbanks and began creeping closer and closer to houses, buildings, and properties in downtown McGrath. At times the seeping and creeping was more like gushing and flowing rivers around McGrath. On the evening of May 10th, we cruised around to ..read more

The Kuskokwim River ice is super close to breaking up. Migratory birds are flying around everywhere. Open water is iminent! Juncos, thrushes, seagulls, geese (Canada, snow and white-fronted aka speckle bellies), swans (mostly trumpeter but also some tundra), northern shovelers, northern pintails, mallards, green winged teal, greater yellowlegs, and the list goes on. I saw my first pair of sandhill cranes yesterday. As the ice melts, rots and begins pulling away from the riverbank edges, more and more water is appearing. The river level is rising, and we are again ranked in the “moderate to hi ..read more

It started out as an innocent 3rd grade science fair project. New to homeschooling, I was clearly unaware of the fact that no science fair project should ever be described as “innocent”. My son, Benjamin and I discovered the project on a cool looking geology rock website. The neatly arranged photos explaining how to make the 3 main rock types with crayons, plus short, easy-to-do descriptions appeared harmless to the unknowing eye. Together, we decided this was the fair project for him. Who wouldn’t want to grate, melt and reform crayons while learning about rock cycles………right? One food proces ..read more

Although spring officially began on the calendar on March 20th, it takes about another month for things to start warming up and thawing in McGrath. That time has come. The drip…. drip…. drips cascading off the roof are such a welcomed sound! And it’s finally happening after six months of winter. Icicles are developing. Windows are thawing. Check out this ice build-up on the windowpane photo below. That is some serious frost! It accumulates on our bedroom window at around -35 F. When it thaws, it’s time to grab the rags and mop up the puddle that forms on the windowsill. Frost build-up on our b ..read more

In the early morning hours yesterday, the final Iditarod musher crossed the finish line to end the 50th running of what many call, “The Last Great Race” also known as the Iditarod Sled Dog Race. This 1,049 mile dog sled race runs from Willow to Nome, Alaska and crosses notoriously rugged country including the Alaska Range, the Farewell burn, the Yukon River and Norton Sound. The race began on March 6th and the final musher crossed the finish line on March 20th. The first musher into McGrath this year was Aaron Burmeister who arrived on March 8th, two days into the race. He came in second in la ..read more

He’s not an old, crusty Alaskan bushwhacker, gold miner, or trapper. But he is crusty, and he is old. His name? Sourdough Sam! What is he? He’s an Alaska sourdough starter. With each passing month this winter we are learning more and more about him. As the most recent addition to our family, he is getting ample attention: we feed him (flour and water once per week) we keep his home clean (once a month we take him out of his jar, clean it and put him back in) we work him out and exercise him (stir him up with flour and water and bake with him) we let him rest (when he’s fed, exercised and clea ..read more

Some dreams are soon in coming. For others we have to wait a long, long time before they come to pass. When they do, it is a moment in time of unsurpassed marvel. I stood in the kitchen of the country club breakfast room, a young teen and at one of the first jobs I ever held. It was 5:00 AM, bright and early. The first tee off time for golfing began in 30 minutes and anxious, pushy customers wanted their breakfast, and they wanted it now. Various brands of high powered, freshly applied cologne wafted around the breakfast room while I bustled about taking orders and feeding eager, hungry, deman ..read more