Cocoon mode* - day 4: The firewood twins, bike at the Little Su, an old van at Metro Cafe

This was actually yesterday, when I came home from my coffee break and found these two identical guys throwing split birch into our yard. It was a big surprise to me because I had not yet ordered any and I was wondering how, at $200 a cord, I was going to pay for it.

Turned out Jacob, Lavina, Caleb, and Melanie bought four cords for us. It usually takes about five - six cords to get us through the winter, but since this is going to be an El Niño winter, and the north is growing warmer, anyway, maybe four will do it.

We used to gather all of our own wood and saw it up and split it. It was great fun, but those days are gone. I had told myself that this year I would get all of our wood in June, but I didn't.

Before I got to work today, I took my bike out for a ride. I went down to the Little Su the long way, about five or six miles. I wanted to try to pedal across the Little Su through a shallow stretch, but I have never succeeded in the past and I did not want to soak my shoes, so this is as far as I went.

Margie, Lavina and Kalib all accompanied me on my coffee break. We went through the drive through at the new Metro Cafe. That is Carmen, the owner, waving. Remember the cute car and van?

Just today, this old van showed up, too. They bought it somewhere down in the Lower 48. They plan to fix it up nice, like the others. They plan to park a fleet of such vehicles.

*Cocoon mode: Until I finish up a big project that I am working on, I am keeping this blog at bare-minimum simple. I anticipate about one month.

The last wild berry of summer - blog goes into cocoon mode

With summer on the wane, Jacob, Kalib and Muzzy walked back into the marsh and I decided to follow, for just a little ways and then to leave them behind, because I needed to move fast and stretch my muscles.

We had not gone far before Kalib insisted on walking himself. Shortly after he was put upon the ground, he darted off the trail and into the bushes. He wanted to find berries.

Dad looked around and did not see a berry. "Looks like the berries have all been picked, Shiyashi," he lamented. But then they found a blueberry, big, plump and juicy. Was it the last berry of summer?

As Kalib chomps on the blueberry, Jake searches to see if he can find one more. He did, but no more after that.

Blog now goes into cocoon mode: While I have never been able to devote the time and energy to this blog that will be required to make it into what I want it to be, I am at a point with my big project that I simply cannot afford to devote anything but the very smallest amounts of my time and mental energies toward any other tasks - including this blog.

In contemplating how to handle this, I have debated just signing off the blog for a month or so, but even though I have not given it what I want to, I have still worked too hard to do that.

So I have decided instead to put the blog into "cocoon mode," meaning that on the outside not much will happen but on the inside, things will be churning and developing as I finish my project. Hopefully, when I am done, this blog will emerge into something brighter and better, something that will take me closer to my blog goals.

This is the way it will work:

I will still keep a camera with me at all times, will continue to shoot whatever catches my eye as I move through the day and will post something, every single day that I have an internet connection, but I will limit myself to one or two pictures, from the present or past, and will give myself five minutes max to write the text.

Maybe some days I might cheat just a little bit, but not many and not much.

I am kind of sad to have to do this. After struggling with this thing seemingly in vain for a full year this past Monday, my readership remains miniscule, but keeps steadily, steadily, growing. On the average day, it is now nearly ten times what it was at the beginning of June. That is growth enough to give me some hope.

Now that the blog is in cocoon mode, my readership will certainly fall back to its earlier numbers.

For awhile, anyway. Once I finish this project and rip my way out of this cocoon, I will see what I can do with it then. In the meantime, please keep coming back to see my one or two pictures per day.

Kalib at the Fair, Part 3: He charms two hot church-group chics, who then battle for his affections

Yes, Kalib saw many, many wondrous and strange sights at the fair, but the very most wondrous and strange of them all...

...was a bunch of people twirling hoola hoops about their hips. And standing out above all the rest were these two sisters, Sandy, left, and Steffers, chaperones with a church group that had driven out from Anchorage.

Kalib took note of them, all right, but, even more importantly, they took note of Kalib.

The moment the hoop fell from her hips and hit the ground, Steffers dashed out of the hoola ring and snatched Kalib off the ground, hoping to kiss him.

Kalib fought off her advance and in panic reached out for his dad.

Sandy observed this and determined that although Steffers had struck swifter, she would strike smarter. Before Steffers could even know that she was gone, Sandy dashed off, bought a new black "Big Dipper Mining Company" t-shirt and put it on over her red one.

She was certain that little Kalib would be entranced by that black "Big Dipper Mining Company" t-shirt. What little kid could possibly resist a kiss from a beauty wearing such a t-shirt?

Thus attired, Sandy advances quickly, going for the kiss. Kalib fends her off.

Oh, my goodness! Steffers, too, has run off and purchased such a shirt. She taps Kalib, who is still hiding from the first kiss attempt.

"Hey, good looking," she coos, "pucker up. I've got something special for you."

Steffers goes for the kiss and plants one right on Kalib's cheek before he can resist. Kalib likes it!

"Not fair!" Sandy squeals. "I'm the one for you, Kalib - not my sister. Let me try again."

Kalib is not quite so resistant now. The idea of a kiss from Sandy even causes him to smile bashfully.

Sandy plants her kiss. Oh, my goodness! Kalib likes it!

Kalib had been a bit leery about the idea of taking a ride on the ferris wheel, but the attentions of the two sisters so overwhelmed him that he fled, grabbed his parents hands and led them straight to the wheel. They boarded and I hopped on with them.

Here, in his mother's arms, looking down upon the world as he had never before seen it, Kalib felt safe and secure. No hot church group chicks would smother him with kisses here.

Kalib switches from his mother to his father and then looks out upon the world below with great excitement. And then... he sees something... something that he did not expect to see...

"Grandpa...?" his eyes look at me in disbelief, saying the words that his mouth cannot yet form, "could it be true? Did I just see who I think I saw?"

Yes, he did. It's them! Way down below on the ground! Steffers and Sandy, and their cousin, Jessie, who, judging by the way she is dressed, must also want to get in on this toddler cheek-kissing action.

Kalib waves at the two sisters and their cousin. "Can't catch me!" his little hand seems to say.

But then he is on the ground and it seems that Steffers can catch him. "Come to me, my little sweetheart," she coos. "You're all mine."

Sandy objects, so the sisters decide to stage a contest. They will line up, with their cousin, all dressed in their black t-shirts and see who Kalib chooses.

What they don't know is that Lavina has run to the Big Dipper booth and now wears such a t-shirt herself. Lavina will put herself in that line and then see who Kalib chooses.

Kalib places his hands on the beauty of his choice - Mom!

And it is Mom who tucks him into his car seat and takes him home for the night. "No church girl chaperones for you, Shiyazhi!" she soothes. "You're all mine, Shiyazhi!" Shiyazhi is the Navajo word a mom uses for her baby.

Kalib isn't a baby any more, but still, he is her baby. And he always will be.

Kalib at the Fair, Part 2: Kalib is frightened by a horse, dines on nutritious fair food and sees wondrous sights

Kalib and his dad went down the big slide. 

Kalib spotted a little girl riding a horse. He decided that he wanted to ride one, too.

It was a tiny, tiny, horse, a Shetland pony, but once Kalib was placed in the saddle, he suddenly perceived it as a gigantic monster. He wanted off.

His dad convinced him to try a couple of go arounds. After all, both Navajos and Apaches are known for their natural horsemanship abilities and since Kalib is both, that ought to make him twice as good.

So off he went, clinging to his blankie and his dad.

But then he just got terrified.

So the horse lady helped him off and handed him back to dad, even as the horses and their riders continued to go round and round. 

Lavina bought corn for herself, Jacob, Kalib and me, too. Or did I buy it?

I don't remember. We kind of mixed the buying. They would buy a treat, I would buy a treat.

Kalib loved his corn.

And he saw many wondrous sights that seemed new to him.

Next up in part 3: Two hot church group chicks battle for Kalib's affections.

Kalib at the Fair, Part 1: He visits the animals; we bump into Taktuk

We had to park far, far, away from the entrance. And there, in the makeshift grass parking lot, which I suspect was originally a hay field, Kalib got his first amusement ride.

As for me, I had a big debate this day - whether to bring my big pro digitial single-lens reflex camera and two or three lenses or my pocket camera. The argument for the pro camera was that it would give me a lot more versatility and I would get many more good pictures. I would be able to count on the camera to shoot the instant I pushed the shutter (you just never know with the pocket camera) and I could knock off a dozen frames or so all at once if I wanted to catch a sequence of events.

The technical quality of the images would be considerably better than those I could produce with the pocket camera.

The argument against the DSLR was that it would be big and heavy and bulky and when it was all over, I would have many more photos to edit and so it would have to spend more time doing so.

The pocket camera had one thing going for it. It would be light and easy to carry.

I chose the pocket camera, even though I knew it would cost me some pictures. And it did. It cost me plenty and it put limitations on those that I did get, but, oh well.

It made the fair experience more pleasant.

We had to stand in line for a very long time, but afterward Kalib saw some goats. I am not quite certain what he thought of them.

A goat sticks its head through the rails of its pen to get a better look at Kalib.

Kalib turned to his dad for protection against the frightening goat.

Donkeys are very special to Lavina. When she was a small girl on the Navajo Reservation, her grandmother had one and Lavina used to ride it.

It wasn't easy, because the donkey was stubborn. She would climb on and it would just sit there. Only a whip, repeatedly applied, could get that donkey to go.

She liked it anyway. "Donkeys are so cute," she explained.

When she saw this little tiny donkey, she was quite thrilled and took Kalib straight to it. He placed his hand upon it.

Kalib fed some tiny goats. I wonder who the goats will feed?

Kalib learned something about birds, big, birds, Thanksgiving turkey birds.

Kalib also learned about bees - busy, buzzing, honey- making bees. Sadly, the bees here have but one season of life, because they cannot make it through the winter and so they must be replaced each spring with new shipments from the Lower 48.

However, somebody had made a super-insulated, heated, big bee house where people can bring their hives, so they are going to experiment and see if they can get these Wasilla bees through the winter.

I hope they succeed.

Every year when we got to the fair, I see someone from the Arctic Slope. This year, it was Taktuk,  Roberta Ahmaogak of Wainwright, part of Iceberg 14 - the whaling crew and family that took me in and made Wainwright home to me - with her children. Roberta is studying at the University of Alaska, Anchorage. You can find Taktuk and daughter Kara dancing at February's Kivgiq in Barrow right here.

Next up in part 2: Kalib gets frightened by a horse, he zips down a slide and dines on nutritious fair food.