Hearthside Books and Toys

Exciting news y'all! I got a job! Yep, you are looking at (or reading about as the case may be) Hearthside Books' newest employee.

The manager's Grandmother introduced Grandma and Grandpa, so you could say she's an old family friend. When I first got to Juneau Grandma called her and asked about job availability. She said that they didn't need anybody fight then, but I could go drop off a resume and she would keep me in mind when the schedules shifted for the Christmas rush. Last week she called and asked me to come in for an interview.

Today was my first day and I'm already regretting it. The only thing I did was organize, stock, and label toys and I've already found half a dozen things I can't live without! I couldn't be happier. I just hope I have enough restraint not to spend my whole paycheck. :)

Backyard Weenie Roast

On last Sunday afternoon Grandma and I came home from church hungry, as one often does on the first Sunday of the month. So we all stood around in the kitchen thinking about things to eat as Grandma opens the door to the freezer and spots a package of hot dogs.

"How about hot dogs?" she asks. Grandpa and I give each other funny looks. In my personal opinion hot dogs are only worth eating if cooked over a fire or on a grill. It's that little bit of charcoal that makes the whole dog. After politely expressing this sentiment Grandpa mentioned that he had some boards that he wanted to burn anyway.

So we gathered together the hot dogs, which we boiled to thaw - so we wouldn't have to burn the outside to get the inside hot. And the freezer burnt hot dog buns from the back of the freezer, which we thawed in the microwave. The condiments were piled into a bag with the slightly stale marshmallows, chocolate, and crackers (we didn't have ant graham crackers, so we made do with the least salty crackers we could find in the cupboard).

It was so much fun roasting hot dogs over the fire in the backyard in the dry rain (when it rains so lightly you don't get wet) with my eighty-year-old grandparents. The fire roasted flavor overpowered any freezer burn or staleness. It was a very enjoyable meal.

It just goes to show, you're never too old to enjoy a good weenie roast.


P.S. After typing this up I emailed it to my Mom before posting and she pointed out an interesting typo I made at the very end. I missed the 't' in the sentence "It was a very enjoyable meal." Mom and Grandma and I all got a good laugh out of my declaring myself an enjoyable meal. :)

Halloween Snow

In the beautiful, bright morning of All Hallows Eve the snow was falling in large, wet flakes. This was the view out my window of the first snow of the year spread thinly across the lawn.



By the middle of the day the snow had turned to rain and had melted or washed away.



But, because it is so strongly entrenched in my mind that snow means Christmas will soon be on its way, I find myself firmly immersed in an early bout of holiday spirit. I have barely refrained from belting out Christmas Carols at odd intervals. I think getting the itinerary for my flights back to Portland for the holiday probably cemented the feeling. The good thing about getting a jump start on the Christmas joy is that I've already started brainstorming gift ideas.







On Halloween afternoon Grandma and I went for a walk along the Mendenhall River with a local school teacher to discuss possibilities for children's book about trails and nature and science. (Grandma really is serious about this book writing thing.) We found some snow still hanging around in the more sheltered areas of the forest. Here is where Montana Creek meets the Mendenhall River. It was an interesting sight to watch the clear, golden-brown waters of the creek meet and disappear into the gray Mendenhall, whose waters are opaque with glacier silt.

Next to the trail some totemic fish have been carved into a tree. The Native art is always beautiful and interesting.

We also met some Eagle friends along the way. The one below is an adolescent, not yet sporting the tell tale white head and tail.

I has been a long tradition in the King family to visit Claudia and Bea on Halloween. Before she died a couple years ago Claudia would make Ginger cookies in Halloween shapes to share with the guests and any Trick-or-Treaters. Grandma dug out her recipe and made some cookies to take for tradition's sake, though they were not in fun shapes. Bea seemed happy to have us and told us all about all of the things she's up to, as we sat drinking orange juice and eating cookies in the red carpeted living room, which was filled with books and stuffed animals. She's awfully busy for a 90-year-old woman.

Claudia and Bea are two women who have lived in Juneau for many years and were involved in quite a lot of things. Claudia collected dolls, and every time we visited Juneau when I was young we would go to Claudia and Bea's to see the dolls and have a doll tea party. Since Claudia passed away Bea has worked hard to find a place for the doll collection, and next month Claudia's Doll Museum will open downtown above the book store.

The Outer Point and Rainforest Trail

A couple weeks ago, Grandma and I took our digital cameras for a walk around the Outer Point loop. We had a very enjoyable time wandering down the trail at a very slow pace and taking pictures of everything and anything that caught our interest. The sun blessed us with good lighting for picture taking, and we saw Outer Point at its best.

The bright yellow leaves of the Devil's Club are impossible to miss in the lush green of the Juneau rain forest. Though the leaves now droop and fall with the onset of winter, the vicious stalks stand tall, undaunted, and unrelenting to the quiet whisperings of approaching winter. One could almost mistake the proud branches for an unwavering hero, standing firm in the face of an unbeatable foe. That is until, of course, one gets too close and becomes aware of the long, thin, hard, barbed spikes that thickly cover the tall stalks. No, the Devil's Club will stand through the winter, nasty villain that it is, ready to send out new leaves next spring, and winter will find itself unvictorious.

This spruce grouse wandered up onto the trail right in front of us and stood still as stone for about a minute while we snapped pictures like unusually reverent paparazzi before it broke from its pose and leisurely wandered off.

After a lovely wander through the temperate rain forest we emerged from the tall spruce and hemlock trees to a pebble strewn beach (alright, I'll admit it, there might have been quite a few largish rocks thrown in there with those pebbles). The sun was out and the sky was clear - which is a strange sight in Juneau - only because the wind was blowing, keeping the clouds away and making waves break on the beach of the well protected channel.

This adorable little porcupine sat quite still for several minutes allowing for many adorable pictures. Perhaps it felt the need to upstage the grouse; if you ask me there's no competition - let's see...thoroughly cute mammal (as long as you don't try to pet it *ouch*) or funny looking bird?

Here we have the sun spitting its rays down on the lovely high tide line of seaweed.

It was a pretty low tide that day and we wandered down t0 peer into the tide pools. There were a lot of neat little anemones in fun colors. I liked this one's zebra outfit. Most of the anemones were about 1-2 inches in diameter.

Other exciting sea life we saw were the barnacles and blue muscles, which absolutely covered the rocks in places.

Here are some colorful beach pebbles.

That's Shaman Island framed there in the trees. And no, I don't know why it's called that.

After making our way up off the beach and through some trees we came out onto the Muskeg (bog). The trees are all stumpy because of something to do with clay and moisture and... stuff. The ground is covered in a thick carpet of moss in several shades from deep green to bright red to dull brown.

The walk through the bog is short and we were soon on our way back into the forest.

The three distinct habitats make this a uniquely interesting trail.

We went again on a cloudy day and it was no less spectacular. That day the water in the channel was calm and clear as glass.

Ever since this walk Grandma has had a bee in her bonnet buzzing about writing a children's book about the trail. When she first mentioned it I was entertained by the notion, but expected it to pass with little to show for it but a handful of photos and scribbled notes - like so many entertaining notions do.

But to my surprise this idea hasn't petered out. Grandma won't let it. We took some older elementary age girls on the walk and asked them about what they thought would be interesting in a book, and Grandma has talked to the geologist at the university about coming out with us to identify some of those pretty pebbles and answer questions. Grandma says that she figures that if she talks to enough people about it, it'll happen, and I don't see why not.

The biggest problem we're having with this new project is that we are having trouble reconciling ourselves to what kind of children's book we want. A story with scientific tidbits, or straight information with maybe a question and answer format, or something completely different? What age group do we want to aim for? Etc.

We'll just have to see what happens. And any ideas you might have would be appreciated. ;)

Sun and Rain

The weather this week has been gorgeous, even if it did freeze Sunday night. On Tuesday we went to enjoy the weather at Auke Lake with a picnic lunch. I took this picture from where we were sitting at the picnic table. Now can you understand why I love Juneau so much?


After lunch I took advantage of the sunshine by going up on the roof and scrubbing the moss off. The roof is grooved and if the moss grows in the grooves it can create puddles of rainwater that will eat through the roof. It was quite exciting way up there.

Today started out real nice, but it looks like the wind is blowing something in.

Yesterday was our break from the sunshine. It poured all day (I guess pouring for Juneau isn't all that hard, maybe like a heavy drizzle. Enough to get you pretty wet in about 5 minutes.).

Grandma and I went out in the rain to dig potatoes. The frost had caught her unprepared and the dahlias weren't doing very well. So she went out to label them while she could still sort of tell what color they were, so she would know when replanting them next year. When she came back in and decided that since she was already in her rain gear and dripping wet, she might as well get started on digging the potatoes to store for winter. So she recruited me to be the digger. She even let me wear one of her rain hats. I thought it was kinda fun. I've always liked the rain, and wet dirt is easy to dig.

Later that night I went off to institute early to meet with the girl I just happened to be sitting by in the Young Single Adult Branch when one of the Branch Presidency came up and asked us to teach Gospel Doctrine on the 11th. I'm actually kind of excited about it. My teaching partner is really fun, and by teaching the first week after General Conference, we get first pick of all the new scripture. :) I cannot wait for General Conference!

Jelly Joy

The day Grandma and I made jelly was a little dark and a lot of rainy. This is the view out the kitchen window. If you look closely you can see the raindrops distorting the view.


Here are the berries Grandma pulled out of the freezer, still congregating in their frozen lumps as they slowly heat up on the stove. Raspberries from the yard and blueberries from the ski slope.


After the berries are hot they go into the squisher - otherwise known as the cone shaped colander that aids in the separation of the berry juice from all the other berry bits. It is prudent to stand as far from the squisher as possible when pouring the hot berries in, as the splatter will stain, and red spots aren't all that fashionable nowadays.


We canned the Raspberry - Blueberry juice to make into jelly later, but that is not necessary. We could have just made it straight into jelly. Instead we made this Salmonberry - Rhubarb juice into jelly, cause we could cook the Jelly while the other berries were heating up.


The first step, after juicing, is to add pectin, which is what makes the juice thicken into jelly. Then you heat it to a boil, all the while stirring hard enough to make your arms sore so it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pot and burn.


Cups and cups of sugar are added into the hot juice. And the stirring continues. Never stop stirring!!! Nobody wants burnt jelly!


Before the jelly is put into the jars, the jars are heated in the oven and the lids boiled to sterilize them and help them seal.

Grandma turns the filled jars upside down for a couple of minutes to help with sealing.


After the jars are turned back over the next half an hour or so is interspersed with the soft metallic pops of sealing jars. A nice sweet melody accompanied by the symphony of raindrops on the roof. Sorry, didn't mean to wax metaphorical on you.

I think Jelly making is best on dark, rainy days. The kitchen feels so warm and cosy when you look out the window at the soft gray sky and the soggy fireweed fuzz.

___________________________

Later in the week we canned carrots, all of which came out of Grandma's garden. I spent several hours that day cutting up carrots at the table with Grandma. Just look at all of them. And carrots do not float!

The Birthday Song

So Grandma turned 80 the second week of September, and despite having 2 birthday celebrations (one on her birthday and one the day after) I never had to sing the Birthday song. Though I did make a banana cake that turned out pretty well if I do say so myself (I will refrain from commenting about the frosting).

My Aunt Sara and cousin Emily came in on the late flight the day of, so we had cake around 11:30, and then again the next day after the official birthday dinner.

Earlier in the day some of my Uncle James' kids called to wish Grandma a happy birthday, and since the phone had been on the fritz we didn't pick up. Grandma had been getting birthday calls all day, but the handheld hadn't been charging well and was often dead when you picked it up, so we listened to the King kids sing a very nice rendition of the birthday song, even if it was in several different keys.

When the time came for the customary chorus before the consumption of cake later that night, Grandpa went over to the answering machine and played the recording again, instead of asking us to sing. We heard the message again the next day before eating the other half of the cake. :)

Juneau Sunset

A picture is worth a thousand words...

P.S. I'll have you know I climbed up off my rear, slipped on my boots, and ran out to the back yard no less than 3 separate times to bring you all these lovely pictures of a single sunset up here in Alaska. (The silly thing kept changing!)

Dish Reflections

For those of you interested in what I'm actually doing with my life I will kindly inform you that I do not have a job, as of yet, but i have become the official dishwasher. (I'm quite good at it too, I'll have you know.)

Every evening after dinner I plug up the sink and let it fill with warm water. Filling in the space around the small stack of dishes already resting in its depths. Hot water is out of the question, I may have taken the time to train my tongue to withstand temperatures of near boiling while going through my hot apple cider craze, my poor delicate hands did not receive such training. Therefore certain concessions must be made.

As there are only three of us, I can usually wash all of the dishes from an entire day of meals in about half an hour, give or take. And while I may not have yet moved from warm water to hot i have become very adept at precariously piling the clean dishes in the drainer.

Standing there at the sink, gazing at the blackness out the window (as we tend to eat dinner rather late), I am reminded of a story my Mom told me about Grandma doing dishes and looking out that window. My Grandparents house is shaped like an L. The kitchen window on the ground floor on one side and my Mom's childhood bed room on the floor above across the way.

I apparently inherited my propensity to stay up late reading from my Mom. She would be up in her room with the lamp on when she should be sleeping, reading and listening frantically for footsteps across the floor to the base of the stairs. She was so careful to quickly turn out the light whenever she heard a hint of a footfall. Yet Grandma would still yell from the bottom of the stairs for her to turn her light off. Mom could not figure out how Grandma knew she had been reading when she had been sure to turn the light off before Grandma reached the base of the stairs where she could have seen it.

In actuality, Grandma had just seen the light through the window from the kitchen and walked over to the stairs so she wouldn't have to shout as loud. Mom says it took her quite a long time to figure out how Grandma always knew she was reading in bed.

The other day I was tempted to run upstairs in the middle of my dish washing and turn on the light in my Mom's old bedroom, just so I could see it from the kitchen window, but not quite tempted enough to dry off my sudsy hands and make the trip.

Grandma told me another funny thing about washing dishes a couple of days ago. She said that when they moved into that house they had fixed up the kitchen so that there was space for a dishwasher. They actually had to cut out part of the counter so one would fit. Grandma was adamant that she was not going to raise a household of kids without a dishwasher. As it turned out, Grandma and Grandpa didn't get their dishwasher until all of their kids had gone off and gotten married, and it's like pulling teeth to get Grandma to actually use it. (Not that she needs to, she has me now.)

I also find that all of these lovely dishes give me the wonderful opportunity to reflect on what to write about in my next blog post. So you can blame the dishes for my ramblings.

The English Language

Lately I have been contemplating the ridiculousness of the English language (which is something I find myself doing quite frequently). I recently tried to sign up for another class and was 'wait listed'. What a strange phrase. Obviously somebody got tired of saying 'put on the wait list' and decided to make up a verb for it.

At least our propensity to make up new words is better than our practice of adopting others' without changing the spelling or pronunciation to fit our system - not that we have a system. Words like buffet, quay, and rendezvous for example. It's no wonder we spend all of our grade school careers learning how to spell. Made up words like 'wait listed' are at least very straight forward in their meaning, if you know the meaning of the word or words it was built from.

Ah well. There are so many holes in the English language we need to bring in new words (or make them up) to fill in the gaps. One of my Ekins' side cousins actually lauded our language for not having a word for everything, therefore giving us the opportunity (and necessity) to lengthen our writing, reading, and speaking with wordy descriptions. I guess I can see his point, prose is often - arguably - more beautiful when the imagination is more strongly called upon. And, as you can tell I am prone to ramble and the need for description only feeds my urge to do so.

Honestly, I think the thing that really made me start this blog was a need for an outlet for my rambling. Yes, I have just called all of you an outlet, feel free to enjoy the title while it lasts, as I'm sure you will grow tired of my word stream and decide to forget this blog ever existed. You needn't worry about hurting my feelings, I'm trying not to hold any illusions about how interesting my droning may or may not be. (And if anyone says that sounds insecure, I fiercely deny any such implication.)

I'm sorry. You are all probably reading to hear about my life here in Juneau and see pretty pictures. Next post I'll try to be a little more informative and a little less rambley. (congratulations, Grandma Ekins, you have invented a new word, and I just used it, it'll be in the dictionary before we know it) Though you have hopefully noticed by now that I did name my blog The Long and Winding Road, not The Short and Direct Road. :)

Feel Free to Ignore

So I thought for my second entry I'd give you a purpose statement because I feel like I should have one. Honestly though, I'm coming up blank.

I think I can decisively say that I started this blog for my own amusement, and perhaps to distract myself from my fan fiction addiction (which I ashamedly admit to).

But really, what purpose does it serve to post my ramblings online and then torture others by expecting them to read it? If the sole purpose of this endeavor was simply for my amusement I'm sure I could fulfill that need without subjecting you to it.

But that is not the case, therefore a great deal of the amusement I seek must come from the fact that (hopefully) someone besides me will be witness to my ramblings and said ramblings will therefore be less useless then they would have been otherwise. ...though still useless.

Sorry. I'm just typing because I'm having trouble coming up with something better to do (that I actually feel like doing). So feel free to ignore all of the above.

Crazy's Middle Name

Yes, I'm starting a blog.

No, I'm not crazy.

Scratch that. I may have just, maybe, kinda introduced myself to crazy. 'Cause I honestly can't see myself writing a blog, and upon reflection, the only conclusion I can come to on the matter is that:
a.) I am more closely associated with crazy than I had previously hoped,
or
b.) I am blind. (which would be in no way a new development.)

In crazy's defense I did just relocate myself to Juneau, Alaska, which I must admit was crazy with a capitol Y. But I hope that the fact that I am at the moment deliriously happy about that decision downgrades its craziness.

Whether it does so or not I cannot help but make you all insanely jealous by saying that, at the moment, Juneau is the most idyllic place on Earth.

The weather is gorgeous.



The fireweed has turned white with fuzz.










And Grandma's dahlias are beyond compare.









I've even seen a bear in the 4 short days that I have been here. Uncle Terry was in town and Grandpa and I took him and his copilot to the glacier. (Because you cannot come to Juneau and not see the glacier.)

While we were walking the boardwalk above the salmon stream a scraggly little black bear made its way out of the bushes and meandered along under the walkway and off into the underbrush on the other side.

This is in no way an uncommon occurrence, as there is a community of bears that fish out of the salmon stream for the tourists' amusement. (Well perhaps not entirely for the tourists', but the bears don't seem to mind the attention.)

Yesterday we went blueberry picking up at Eagle Crest, the local ski slope. The weather was perfect and the berry picking phenomenal. We must have picked at least 10 pickers full of berries. (That's about 3 and a half gallon Ziploc bags full.)

We, of course had to wear our "Juneau tennies" (aka Xtra Tuff brand rubber boots). All of that lovely rain may make singular plants, but it also makes singular mud.

Blueberry picking is one of those addicting things where once you've started, you must pick the berries off of every good bush you come across until you've made it back to the car.

We were actually doing pretty good on our way down the road, but we were halted by a particularly good bush hanging right over the road. Grandma said that they were calling her name and she was going to listen!

Grandpa then said "In order to show moral support, I'm going to sit down." And so he did.

I am particularly fond of Alaska cotton. :)

The mark of a day well spent: blueberry-juice hands.

I was reflecting while uploading all of those pictures and have come to a conclusion of sorts. Blogging is not, in fact, the trigger of my new found craziness. It is merely a symptom. Therefore I must resign myself to being crazy's middle name.

I think that's good enough for a first entry. I have to hurry out and take a picture of the sunset.