Meanwhile, Back at the Farm...

When my Grandfather moved to Alaska in the 40s, he needed to find a house big enough to hold his wife and seven children, and pronto. The Matanuska Valley had been colonized in the 30s as part of the New Deal. My Grandfather bought a nice little Colony House on a hefty bit of acreage from a family that just wasn't able to cut it as colonists (nothing against that poor family, but winters in Alaska were probably a bit more than they had bargained for).

Then he set about expanding the house to make it big enough to fit his kids.



It turned out plenty big.





The picture above shows my Grandparents and mom with her brothers and sister. Notice the airplane out the window to the left. Grandpa was a dentist and he used that to commute to work in Anchorage. He would also fly out to the bush villages to treat the villagers, often for free.

The fireplace was built with river rocks. The second floor windows on either side of the chimney (below) were close enough to reach out and get a good toe hold on the chimney, yet far enough away that falling was a very real possibility. Of course, I know nothing of this because I would never consider sneaking out of the house.



The lower roof, right above the ground on the picture above, covered the cold room. Aside from being a dentist and a politician, my grandfather was also a very skillful butcher (that's how he worked his way through college.) We didn't just have a cooler for keeping meat, we had an entire 400+ square foot cold room. We didn't mess around when it came to meat.



In my mind, the crowing jewel of this home was the swing set.

It was the reason my friends came to play at my house. And on hot summer days, we would drag a water hose to the top of the slide and turn it in to a water slide.

(That's me in front with the braids)



My Dad took the following pictures from the top of the slide, then pasted them together. The two little buildings behind the van were very important as well. The white building was the chicken coop and the little log building beyond that was the pig pen.



I lived in that house for most of my childhood. It was a pain to clean, we lived in the delta between two glacier fed rivers so the fine dust of glacier silt was always passing through the walls. Vacuuming and dusting were never ending chores. As was mowing the lawn.

And lest you think it was a mansion of some kind, I want to be clear that the bedroom walls were plywood, and we woke up many times to find frost on the inside of our bedroom walls. Oh, and the roof leaked so much when it rained or the snow melted that walking down the hall was an obstacle course of buckets and drips. I miss that house.

My family sold the house a few years back and since then it has fallen into disrepair. It looks so sad now.


_________________________________________
This is my contribution to Candid Carrie's Friday Foto Finish Fiesta



Previous contributions include:

• On Alaska and Men
  
• Don't piss me off
• This Post Has Been Brought to You by the Number Four

_________________________________________

Subscribe to CoffeeJitters

On Alaska and Men

This is my husband when he visits Alaska.


And this is my husband when he's not in Alaska.


I guess "When in Rome...."

The men outnumber the women in Alaska by something like 2:1, so you'd think the odds of finding a good man were pretty good. I had to move to Washington to find a good man. Women in Alaska have a saying about finding a man: "The odds are good, but the goods are odd."

Am I biased against Alaskan men? No, some of my favorite men, including my 4 brothers, are from Alaska. But I will be the first to tell you that they are truly odd.


_________________________________________
This post is my contribution to Candid Carrie's Friday Foto Finish Fiesta


Previous CoffeeJitters contributions to Candid Carrie's Friday Foto Finish Fiesta.

• Don't piss me off
• This Post Has Been Brought to You by the Number Four
• High Maintenance

_________________________________________

Subscribe to CoffeeJitters

Shooting Dad

In the few short months between my trip to Alaska for a family reunion in August and my trip to Alaska for my father's funeral in October, I read Sarah Vowell's book Take the Cannoli. The book had been sitting on my shelf for nearly a year before I finally picked it up and started to read.


The first essay in the book was called "Shooting Dad," a coming of age story of sorts: a progressive minded young woman grew up in the middle of nowhere in a house full of republican gun fanatics, yet finds her way home to a reconciliation with her father during an outing that involves his cannon. Hmmm, could be the story of my life.



My dad was famous around town as the guy with the Moose Gooser - A cannon that he kept at the house and packed up to take to every home game and most away games of the Palmer High School football team, the Palmer Moose. He was obsessive about that cannon and spent hours loading the shells by hand before each game.

I went to one game with him to watch him fire the cannon. That was this August and it was his last game. I read Sarah Vowell's essay a month later and it was exactly what I needed to hear. No matter how extreme our political differences, he's still my dad. And I love him - and I miss him.

I found a version of the essay that Vowell had read on NPR. To hear the essay, select the link below. Vowell's essay on her relationship with her father starts at 4:30 (just fast forward right on through the first four and a half minutes) and lasts for about ten minutes.

The story is as funny as it is touching and well worth the time to listen to it.

shooting dad

Fog rising

Fog rising over the Bodenburg Butte at sunrise

Palmer, Alaska

Fog rising over Bodenburg Butte - 11/3/07, originally uploaded by coffeejitters.

my hillbilly husband

my hillbilly husband, originally uploaded by coffeejitters.

Heading down to the Kenai peninsula to visit my brother and do some fishin'

Middle of nowhere, Alaska

Beaver Dam

P1000572, originally uploaded by coffeejitters.

Hatchers Pass, Palmer, Alaska

Hatchers Pass

While we're really here to spend time with the family and as much time with Dad as we can, we took a time out today. We borrowed Dad's truck and drove up to Hatchers Pass to check out the old mines and maybe see some wildlife. It was a very cold, drizzly day but we managed to get some great pictures anyways.

What's in Your Backyard?

My dad just emailed me with a picture of the moose in their backyard.

Alaska

We just got home this morning from our trip to Alaska. Neither one of us really wanted to come back. Before we left, Mr. H was a little nervous about spending a week with the in-laws, but he really had a great time. It's so nice to spend time around people that really like you. We so often feel like we are entirely on our own here in Seattle. We really don't have any kind of support network around here. In Alaska, we didn't even have enough time to see everyone we wanted to see. We'll definitely have to go back soon. In the meantime, we've got to get caught up with all the homework we didn't do while we were up there.

Dee's wedding was gorgeous. I'm so happy for her.