Arrival

Mary & Julia arrived on the 21st. A "finger on the desk tapping" Dave waited until 5:20 before they cleared the passes and landed safe and sound.

Julia slept the entire flight.

The school here in Sleetmute has its own greenhouse and yes, to answer the question forming in your head, we do make pickles.

In a normal school setting you would never give out sharp cutting knives to a collection of students but honestly you can't slice with a butter knife. Some students thought it would be better to slice their cucumber Led Zeppelin style.

We'll give our jars a good month of setting before opening them up.

Autumn is quickly getting the better of the situation right now in Sleetmute. While Mary & Julia were busy visiting Dave's relatives in the Mount Vernon area, Dave was cleaning the house. This proved to be an impossible task as the landlord needed to get to the crawlspace to make some repairs but to do that he needed to walk through the house and you can forget about wiping the boots of mud.

The village was out picking the last of the cranberries and the pilots were making the most of the clear skies. If you haven't heard, Anchorage has been having some dreadful fog which has kept a lot of the pilots grounded.

Getting Things Ready

So here is the start.

What will this blog be documenting? A glimpse of our lives past Holden? First year of being parents? Julia growing up? Or will it end up being something else? Surely it will be all of the above and, yes, even more.

The past five weeks Mary & Julia have been finishing up their time in the Midwest, seeing relatives and will soon make the crazy exodus on Alaska Airlines before heading out to Sleetmute.

Dave has been teaching a splendid group of seven kids. Yes, it's a 180* compared to the students in Holden but the challenge is worth it. Cranberries have been picked, pike caught, chalk wiped from fingers and a new desk has coffee stains.