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.

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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. :)