Da Bears...

*Warning - photos of dead animals follow this message!

About a week ago I found out due to budget constraints and "blah, blah, blah," I was going to lose my job.  (You don't really hear much after, "I'm sorry to have to inform you that you're going to lose your job..." right?!)

Luckily, though, I was able to transfer into another position fairly quickly within the association.  Emergency averted.

After I found out about the reduction-in-force layoffs for this year, I was a bit down.  So my pal sent for me.  We spent the weekend laying around on her couch, eating great food (sort of, I had the flu!) and talking about life, in general.  Which was exactly what I needed.

My "village"

My husband...well, when he is worried, or scared, or even if he's happy and calm and carefree, he goes hunting. 

He and a friend of his took off Saturday to camp up river, hoping for some caribou.  Since you can't fly and shoot in the same day, they set up camp and fiddled around with Kobuk the dog that night.  (No, we are NOT getting a new dog!)

"I fought the dog and the dog won..."

The next day, they saw nothing except a huge brown bear walking around their camp.  Bear is better than nothing right?  So my husband shot it. 

And now we have a huge mo-fo bear hide in the freezer waiting to be tanned, and I hate bear meat.  But apparently it was pretty big for a bear (nine foot three inches, something like that) and pretty old (23 or 24 years old) so it was a good catch. 

Plus it always makes him feel better to shoot something and bring it home.  He totally reminds me of a kid bringing home a new frog or puppy or something.  "Look what I brought home honey!!"  Oh joy.  Bear. 

Anyway, luckily some of his friends got a moose and gave us a front shoulder so he ground it up and made 30 bs of moose summer sausage (HOLY COW it is SO GOOD!).  Moose meat?  YES.  Bear meat?  No.  So I'm happy now.  Ground moose, ground caribou and a bear hide. 

I decided it would make a great garage door in the wintertime.  Either that or we will use it as a rug at camp this winter!  haha.

The joys of being an Eskimo.  Oh, and it snowed today too.

Have a great week.

P.S.  I didn't take these photos, either Dean or his friend Chad did.  :)  But they're pretty good!

Swollen

Is it possible to actually swell with pride?  Really, is it?  You know, the feeling that grows the lump in your throat.  Where you can't talk to someone asking you a simple question for fear you might just burst into tears.  Where you have to bear down and breathe before the tears fall.  Where you find yourself screaming MUCH too loud. 

If you know me, you know I live above the Arctic Circle.  We live in the tundra.  On a spit of land that's "almost an island."  Cross Country running is in mud, water, tundra, and willows.  It's extremely hard.  There is no hard packed trails to run on.  Literally just horribly wet mud.

My kids run cross country here.  The elementary kids run a 2K, middle school a 3K and high school a 5K. 

Kotzebue hosts an Invitational meet each year rain, snow or shine.  We've had such torrential rain this year the trail was a nasty muddy mess.  But the kids still ran.  Some kids lost a shoe early on.  They kept running.  Some kids lost BOTH shoes and kept running.  Because Eskimo kids are tough.  What's a little mud uphill going to do? 

 

My girl ran the 2K race this year.  Oh my gosh I was so choked up.  I was screaming much too loudly as she ran up the last hill.   I took photos as best as I could while yelling at all the kids.  The determination on their faces.  The shoeless runners giving it their all.  I can't even explain it. 

It was awesome. 

 

So, my heart is swollen with immense pride.  I don't even know what place she got.  Who cares, really.  She did well.  And she kept both shoes on!

 

P.S. I made her headband Husky Blue and Gold with a paw print, so I could find her in the willows and scream louder!  It worked.  It's made of fleece and velcro.