Low Tide at Totem Bight

What the duck?!?!

             

                

                    Can you guess what we're thinking about?

We decided today to start raising our own backyard egg-layers. We had to choose between ducks and chicks and then decide how many we should start with.  YIKES!  We've been talking about starting a farm for so many years, this would be the first (second if you count the month of goats) step towards that goal.  We need to begin to learn the skills now so that when we do settle on a farm someday we'll at least know a little about what we're doing! 

We all sat down together to deliberate.  There was much discussion and much excitement. Both kids have strong opinions about what we should do. (Luke=chicks, Laurel=ducks) After many impassioned pleas we chose to start with ducks.  The word on the street (or the pond?) is that ducks are hardier and messier.  So here's my thinking...hardier means harder to kill (great for a family starting out) and messier means that anything else will seem easy after this.  So once we get used to the ducks, we'll add some chicks.  That sounds reasonable, right?  I almost went for both, but then I thought better of it.  We'll break ourselves in a bit.  Hopefully Roger won't mind them...he never did like those goats. 

Our eggs go in the incubator this weekend, so in a month we will have our own fluffballs. Stay tuned!

My Beautiful Alaska

Confidentially, if you asked me about Alaska in about 6 months, beautiful is not the adjective I'd use.

But today...today was a different story.  The sun shone so bright it made the ocean glitter outside of our windows this morning.  I spent my morning in a church of rainbow colors, the sun shining so bright the stained glass window behind us turned our skin and hair different colors.  Luke and I took turns grabbing handfuls of color and throwing them at each other.

This afternoon we spent five hours playing, climbing, fishing and hiking and Ward Lake.  So many other people we knew had the same idea because it seems we ran into a million people we knew.  (in a town of 8,000 running into a million people might not be possible...)

Meeting a Rockstar!

Despite living in a relatively small island community, we have a surprising amount of cultural activities.  And since it IS a small community there is a lot more interaction between the local artists and the people.  Ray Troll happens to be this families' favorite local artist..truly if you picked any one for my kids to be excited about meeting it would probably be Ray Troll. 

Leaping Salmon Sharks

 

Today at one of our museums there was a "lunch with the artists" event, with a bunch of the local artists who have pieces on display at the current Reflections exhibit. (My favorite exhibit over there so far.) 

They've already had two homeschool events in the new exhibit, giving kids a chance to learn about our local salmon fishery, see some new art and try their hand at their own projects.  While we were there I saw the ad for the lunch with the artists, and that Ray Troll would be there.  My kids LOVE LOVE LOVE his work.  His bold colors and imaginative scenes make for some great (and fun!) art.  I think it really speaks to the flavor of Ketchikan...in part because his work is all over town, from our city buses to the local shops.

When Ray Troll got up to speak about his work Laurel gasped in excitement.  She hung on every word he said, posed for a picture and asked a few questions.  As a side benefit she also got to have lunch with her dad and just chill out.  (Luke was disappointed to miss it, he's actually an even bigger fan of Mr. Troll's work)

It's good to be a homeschooler.  And it's good to live in a place with a feeling of true community spirit.