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. ;)