Boreal Witch

For the last few years, I've been making more of an effort to forage for food, mostly for blueberries and raspberries. My past Augusts have been very, very busy for the most part. Imagine my surprise when I saw ripe raspberries the other day.

Could it already be time? I wondered. And the blueberries? Are they ready, too?

While Balin took his morning nap, Arthur and I biked to a cluster of raspberries in our neighborhood and took a look. We brought a bucket just in case. We weren't disappointed: raspberries galore and plenty more that weren't quite ready yet! We picked for about a half hour and then rode back home.

We also went picking at a neighbor's house, promising her jam if she let us pick there (she didn't refuse). We took our second batch of picked berries home, added them with our first batch, measured them out, and then made some jam.

Now these boys like - no, love - jam. We made 17 half-pints last August and they were gone by January. It didn't help that Arthur ate several half-pints of jam by himself (by the spoonful) before winter even began. His jam-eating habits only rival my sister Becky's. She was known to spread cupfuls of jam on one slice of bread. The real magic of that feat was that somehow the bread never seemed to get soggy and the jam never fell off.

This year I'm hoping that I will be able to can at least 25 jars of jam. This is in addition to the 10 bags of blueberries I hope to pick and 100 lbs of potatoes I hope to preserve. Oh, yes, and the rhubarb. And there might be halibut fishing. Now I just need to send the boys out to wrestle that moose that's always in our yard and we'll be set!

Blessed be.

I had pulled out my old library discard Circle Round: Raising Children in the Goddess Tradition. It had been a while since I had opened it. It had been a while since I've celebrated a Wiccan holiday (I even missed Summer Solstice this year. It's been a busy summer) and I wanted to start accumulating ideas for Lammas, a holiday we've never celebrated.

Robinson saw me flipping through the book and asked what I was doing. I explained that I was looking for ideas for Lammas, which falls on August 1st.

Then we got into a rather lengthy discussion about our children and religion.

It's not like we don't talk about religion in our house. Most of the time we simply live our day-to-day life without the need for it. We don't go to church. We don't pray before meals. We don't encourage (or discourage) our children to believe in a God, Gods, or a Goddess. We don't have weekly Bible study. Perhaps some of you feel that we are doing our children a disservice.

But I don't think so.

I have many problems with the Bible. Chalk up my unbelief to: numerous inherent contradictions, misogamy, culturally inappropriate to modern day, and (my personal favorite) a God who acts like a 2 year old. I cannot worship a deity who throws tantrums when his followers misbehave. 

Don't get me wrong. There is something to be said about having faith. Faith can get you through hard times and challenging events. Faith can cement relationships and build new ones. But it's not an end-all. There are certain things that faith simply cannot do. I fear the people who exist on blind faith the most.

In the meantime, our discussion made me realize that I should be making more of an effort to celebrate the Wiccan holidays with my family. I enjoy watching Arthur get so excited about Yule and would like him to have that feeling throughout the year, not just during Yule.

Blessed be.

Arthur went to camp last week. A whole three hours for a whole week. I was excited, but truth be told, I was also a little nervous. He has a tendency to be highly emotional and I was worried he would cry - no wail, scream - as I left. But he didn't. His friend Jade showed up as I was leaving and, in the words of Jade's mom, "they started making out." They were hugging and kissing each other for comfort because the both of them were nervous about being there.

By the end of the week, Arthur was a bit more comfortable being left at camp, but he still wasn't very social. It seemed as though he didn't really interact with the other kids or the counselors. It took us an hour each day to try and get him to tell us about all of the camp activities he did. He won the "Camp Listener" award at the after-camp party.

All in all, it seems like he had a pretty good time. He says he doesn't want to go back next year.

He told us on the last day that he cried because he didn't want to put on more bug dope (in his defense, he did wake up at 5:00am and pretty strung out by the time camp even started).

Sometimes I'm upset because he isn't more social. I worry about him getting bullied. I get sad when he doesn't play with his friends, but begs me to play with him. Then I remember that he's not me. He may have come from me and there is a part of me in him, but he's not me. He's not outgoing. He's not an extrovert. He's not me. He's his own person. He has his own special qualities. He's exceptionally bright. He's creative. He's a builder. He loves to cook. His mind is like a steel trap. His memory and recollection of facts is incredible. He's interested in science and math. The other day he did two pages of first grade math. I wouldn't be at all surprised if he becomes an engineer. I suspect he's gifted. But he's hypersensitive.

Apparently hypersensitivity is pretty normal for gifted kids. And it doesn't go away, they just become more skilled at coping with their emotions. Maybe someday he'll be able to calm himself down instead of throwing a screaming, crying fit. We're still working on it. I find myself at times frustrated by his uncontrollable emotions. I wonder if this is how my own parents felt with me and how Robinson's parents felt with him. The both of us were very bright kids and often displayed over-the-top dramatics. As with anything in life, we take the good with the bad.

Our experiences shape us and lead us to be the person we are. I may have a hard time with Arthur's emotions but I need to be there for him because who else is going to teach him how to act appropriately? He will never be able to reach his full potential unless I help him develop some coping strategies.

I'm not sure how to do it. But I need to try.

Blessed be.

Flying from Anchorage to Fairbanks is surprisingly expensive and it can be dangerous to drive that route in the winter; therefore, I don't usually see my family until the late spring or early summer.

And then they tend to come in back-to-back-to-back-to-back visits. 

Blythe and Dustun visited us first. (My nephew, Josh, usually comes to visit as well, but he was in Wisconsin with my dad. He was a little bit sad that he couldn't join us, especially since we went to the Salmon Bake. Twice.)

We had an awesome time with everyone. Blythe trained with us, which was great. She's been training down in Anchorage with our younger sister, Becky, who really wanted to go on the trip with us, but was unable because she couldn't find anyone to watch her kids while she was gone. She's hoping to make it next year for the Crow Pass hike.

Becky and her family came the same day that Blythe and Dustun left. They actually met on the road and stopped to have lunch together. 

Arthur was really excited to see his cousin Molly. They play together so well. I'm not sure if that's because Arthur can usually convince Molly to do what he wants (unlike his other friends who just do what they want and ignore his demands) or if it's because they don't see each other very often (since they always have good memories of their time together, there's positive rapport).

In any case, I enlisted the two of them to help me pick some rhubarb for Blythe and Becky. They eagerly obliged and were more than happy to run back and forth throwing the rhubarb leaves in the sunken field next to our house. They even helped cut those leaves off and put the stalks in plastic bags. Too bad Molly won't be around when we process potatoes!

Blessed be.

Last year my friend Amanda said she wanted to hike the Chilkoot Trail. She had just had her son in January, didn't realize she needed permits, and hadn't trained beyond our walks at the Big Dipper. Needless to say, she wasn't ready.

So, we waited. We gathered together a few other gals, made arrangements, trained, and prepared for the hike in July. It's been fun carrying 30 pound packs and having some small adventures around Fairbanks. I'd never been to Wickersham Dome before and it's a beautiful sight when you get past the mud and mosquitoes. It was so nice at the top that Loda and I took a nap. I'd love to take the family later in the summer for a family trip. I think Arthur and Balin would love running around the rocks.

We also hiked the full Angel Rocks Loop with Blythe, Dustun, and Loda. We hiked up to Angel Rocks last year with Robinson's dad, but didn't complete the full loop. After we reached the top, a freak storm began pelting us with chilly rain. The wind picked up. Arthur began screaming, which caused Balin to begin to cry, too. Loda found a small "cave" nearby and we raced in. We fed the boys some snacks to calm them down and waited for the storm to pass.

A short while later, the rain stopped, but so did Arthur's drive to finish the trail. He and Robinson turned back while the rest of us climbed higher. An hour later, we reached the parking lot where we found Arthur and Robinson running around. Arthur seemed to have forgotten the inclement weather. He had eaten the Luna Bar Loda had given him. He was fine.

If you'd like to keep up with our adventures on the Chilkoot (and other places), you can visit our blog here.

Blessed be.

We have very little time left before we hit the Chilkoot Trail. I'm very excited to be sans family for about a week and a half. Don't get me wrong, I will miss them, but the lure of Girl Time and the outdoors is just too great. I've been craving any sort of excuse to get away (though I suppose it is my fault for not taking advantage of a babysitter or living closer to family).

Anyway. My friend Amanda has written up a hiking schedule for us. We're meeting twice a week until T-Day ("Trail Day"). So far we've been on a couple of hikes, both up on Murphy Dome. Sunday we climbed up a ginormous hill (about 400 feet change in elevation, according to Loda's GPS) with our packs. I don't know exactly how much my pack weighs because we don't have a bathroom scale at home, but I am certain that it weighs more than Balin, who is about 21 pounds.

The hill was a killer. We stopped to rest for short periods of time during our ascent, with one long break near the top. It was good practice, though, for the Golden Staircase, which is supposed to be one of the hardest parts of the trail.

Look at those flushed, red faces. I wish I could blame the heat for that color.

Even though I still feel mildly out of shape, I'm glad that I actually did some training this winter. Granted, walking at the Big Dipper isn't the best training for the Chilkoot, but I was carrying a substitute pack on my back (a 20-lb baby) and I was walking at a good pace for an hour (about 2.5-3 miles) for two days a week. In addition to any other exercise I happened to get when the weather was nice (which wasn't much).

I hope to lose the rest of my baby weight by the end of this summer. I've been doing a pretty good job watching what I eat, but being active has always been more of a challenge for me. I never played sports in high school or college and I probably would never exercise unless I was with other people. So, here's hoping, folks.

Blessed be.

Yesterday there was a partial solar eclipse. Robinson sent me a link about it Friday and I was so excited about it that Arthur and I made a pinpoint camera that very afternoon. I never had the delight of making one before because I lived so far north and I was a little worried about messing up. Thankfully, it was an incredibly simple (and painless) process that I needn't have worried! For the next two days, Arthur was wondering when he was going to get to use it.

On Sunday we started raking up the leaves and dead grass and getting the greenhouses set up. We paused work to grab the pinpoint camera and view the beginning of the eclipse. Although Arthur is only 4 and doesn't always understand things as fully as an older child, he seems to grasp scientific concepts about the natural world fairly easily. For instance, he's explained to us in detail why it rains and how his pumpkin plant germinated. It's awesome.

Anyway, we continued our work but took breaks every 20 minutes or so in order to check up on how much of the sun the moon had "eaten." The moon had almost devoured half of the sun before some dark clouds rolled in and covered everything up. After the clouds hid our view, we went inside and had some watermelon and made some dinner.

I'm not sure if Arthur will remember these little family activities but I certainly hope so. Maybe someday he'll be able to do things like this with his own children (provided he decides to have them).

Blessed be.