Boreal Witch

We try very hard to make at least one trip to Anchorage every summer. This year, however, we got to make two! Arthur was in heaven. He loves getting spoiled by his Nana and playing with his cousins. Well, mostly Molly, since Josh barely tolerates him and Ella is too young to be bossed around.

I know I've mentioned this in past posts, but Molly and Arthur get along very well, which is kind of surprising since he doesn't always get along with his other friends. I remember playing with my two cousins in the summers when we visited family. Both were very close in age to me and my sisters and we tended to get along nicely as well.

This was Balin's fourth trip to Anchorage. He was a dream. He loved following Nana's cat around and would look for her every time he came upstairs. He played well with Ella and Molly. He even let Mom and Blythe babysit him while Arthur, Becky, Molly, Ella, and I attended a birthday party for one of Molly's friends. Blythe admitted to stealing him when my back was turned.

The best part of the trip for Arthur was not getting spoiled or eating at restaurants, or even playing with Molly. No, the best part of the trip by far was that we flew home on an airplane. (You see, Robinson was on-call the weekend we planned to come back. He managed to get us some very reasonable tickets with miles.) It's amazing how something as mundane as going on an airplane is so exciting to a four-year-old. Balin, who had never been on a plane before, was very good. I was relieved and pleased.

Blessed be.

The Duffy's love fish.

But they can't fish. It's the Duffy Curse.

Robinson tells me stories of camping with his family in which they would bring tarter sauce, cheese, and rice. They always intended to catch fish for supper...but they never did. They could spend hours upon hours, cast upon cast, but never get a single bite. Fate constantly toyed with them and even Aaron, who was the family's "woodsman," was no match for her antics.

The year or so after Robinson arrived in Alaska, he caught a pink in Valdez. Finally, it seemed, his luck had turned. He was a real fisherman now.

Oh, Fate, you naughty girl.

Dustun's family owns a bit of property in Sterling and they invited us to fish with them this weekend. We arrived Saturday morning, pumped and ready to fish.

I really won't go into many details, except to say that Robinson and I worked that river for a good portion of the day and didn't get a single bite.

To make matters worse, Dustun's half brother Adam was catching things left and right.

To rub salt in the gaping wound, right after we left, EVERY SINGLE PERSON THERE caught a fish. 

Luckily, we are members of a lovely family who share what they have and Robinson managed to drive back to Anchorage to fill our freezer full of fish. So, thank you, everyone!

All humor aside, it was a great trip. Arthur and Robinson rode on Dustun's 4-wheeler (or a "Scrambler" according to Arthur). Note the HUGE smile on Arthur's face. I even got to drive it.

The kids had fun playing together. Arthur practiced casting with his new fishing pole. He even tried casting in the water. He was so excited about it that I think we're going to have to take him fishing again soon.

Arthur wasn't the only one who was excited about fishing. Josh borrowed Robinson's pole and was soon begging for one for Christmas.

Maybe his luck will be better than Robinson's!

Blessed be.

These boys love oatmeal, but they don't love leftover oatmeal.

Who does?

What was a grand, healthy, and filling breakfast the day before is an unappetizing mass of grey, lumpy stuff that looks (maybe I shouldn't go there) a little like vomit. I never eat leftover oatmeal. I just can't.

Robinson made a ginormous pot of oatmeal one morning and unfortunately...there were leftovers. What was I going to do with 2 cups of cooked oatmeal?

Certainly not eat it...

MUFFINS TO THE RESCUE!!!

Fortunately, these boys also love muffins. Granted, they aren't the most healthy food item in the world (being a sugary baked good and all), but they are generally super yummy. I made these muffins to use up some expired yogurt as well as take care of the oatmeal. I tried to maintain a certain level of healthy, but eat at your own risk. (And I bet you can't eat just one!)



On the Menu: Kitchen Sink Leftover Oatmeal Muffins
Makes 12

1 cup leftover oatmeal
1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. sea salt
1 tsp. cinnamon or ginger
1 egg
1/3 - 1/2 cup brown sugar (sweeten to your preference)
1 8oz container greek yogurt (any flavor*)
1/3 cup coconut oil, melted

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place all ingredients in a mixer or large bowl. Mix until just combined. Grease muffin tin or line with paper cups. Divide mixture evenly between muffin tins. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the muffin comes out clean.

* I have made these muffins with pineapple yogurt, 1 tsp. ginger, and 1/4 cup unsweetened coconut as well as blueberry yogurt and 1/2 a banana. I thought the blueberry muffins were much better than the pineapple ones. Feel free to mix it up, think outside the box, and be creative!

Blessed be.

It's been about a week since I've been back from the Chilkoot. I was gone for 9 heavenly days. It's taken me that long to get adjusted to "normal life" again.

As soon as I am able (meaning whenever I have tons and tons of time on my hands), I will be posting details and pictures about our trip here. There's so much to say about it that I could never really do it justice in a single blog entry.

What I will say here is that I met so many wonderful and fascinating people on the trip. I learned so much about the history of the Chilkoot (it's an archaeologist's dream - there's so much stuff laying on the trail). I now know a few tips about hiking and backpacking. But most of all, (as cliche as it sounds) I now know a little bit about myself.

I know for a fact that time spent alone is an absolute luxury. It's marvelous to be able to sit by yourself, studying the world around you, and not having to take care of anyone but yourself. It's amazing. I've been home a week and I already miss it. Don't get me wrong; I love my family. There's just something so wonderfully simple about not having to put anyone's needs before your own. My first Chilkoot Resolution, therefore, is to make more time for myself.

My second Chilkoot Resolution is to get plenty of exercise and drink more water. My body and mind really responded to being outdoors and hiking for 4-hour stretches. I felt confident and capable. It was an awesome feeling.

My last Chilkoot Resolution is to take it one step at a time. I won't lie. While the Chilkoot was fun, there were times that were absolutely miserable. The last mile into Sheep Camp and making it over the Summit are two that spring to mind. There wasn't a chance to give up. We had to push through because the parks service staff were not going to let us camp next to the trail. These two events will be a constant reminder of being consistent: get comfortable, set your pace, then keep going. 

All of these resolutions seem rather silly - and they are. These are things that I should have been doing all along, but because I was caught up in living life, they weren't. I am now on a quest to make them happen. It's not going to be easy (but when is life ever easy?), but if I continue to stick with it, I'm confident that I'll be a little happier in the end.

Blessed be.

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.