A bunch of little stuff has happened here on the homestead, not enough to fill full posts, so: here’s some random news items, and photos of the moon!
A week ago Saturday, one of the Rainbow Glacier Adventures (RGA) guides who lives and works mostly in Skagway, came over to train with Aly for some specialty tours. Since I consider Rachel, the young woman, a “daughter of the homestead,” I recommended that she come spend the night here, as she’d need to overnight in Haines anyway. While here, she took a couple shots of that night’s full moon.
Rachel is one of RGA’s photo guides, and her photos are awesome! I’ve said it before: it’s one thing to love our homestead, but to see it through other’s eyes (and lenses, as the case may be) is even better!
But, as I said, news:
Full moon in the homestead view (Photo: Rachel Deehan).
This year we’re seeing more “megaships” from down south, extra-large cruise ships. We’ve always suffered a loss of internet connectivity in the summers due to cruise ships, but this year has been far worse than before (see The Mysteries of Cellular Internet Explained). We have virtually no connection about 4 days or more out of each week. I’m trying to make sure this doesn’t effect the blog, or filling orders, but it’s a struggle, one we may not always win. Please be patient if you’re waiting to hear from us!
We made good progress toward finally installing a sink over at the cottage. I ran a diversion down the hill from the summer water line three years ago (see Diversions), but we have yet to set it up in a basin. We let Aly take the lead on that, which she did recently. We helped with suggestions and muscle, and got a space cleared for installing a sink that can be used in the summer. That’ll change things for the better, I think.
Rachel’s was the first of several visits from special young women. We had lunch in town on Sunday with a young lady we’ve known since she was a toddler. She refers to us as her “second family,” and we consider her a second daughter, as well as another of our “daughters of the homestead”. She came up over the weekend from Juneau to judge beer at the local, annual BrewFest. We also had a drop-in dinner date with Regi, one of Aly’s good friends from town, and a daughter of the homestead as well. She may finally be convinced that we’re here whenever she needs us!
A moose has begun raiding the homestead in the wee hours. It ate one of our cherry trees down to the fence surround, and ate one of the dandelions we maintain for food (see Dandelions).
Perhaps the most momentous news for us: our friend and neighbor, musician Burl Sheldon (paid link), has generously granted us permission to edit his song, Another Fine Day (paid link) into an intro and outro for our “podcast” A Place at the Table for upper-tier Patreon Patrons! If you’ve spent much time on the blog, you know we love this song particularly among his two CDs-worth of original music, because it speaks specifically to life here on “The Far Side,” his term for this side of the Mud Bay Peninsula. We’ve referenced it often, most notably in the post Attuning to Natural Rhythms: “Livin’ By the Moon and Tide”, which I improved for inclusion in my book Sacred Coffee: A “Homesteader’s” Paradigm. Heck, I even took a stab at singing a few bars of the song myself in the audiobook version of Sacred Coffee. Using Burl’s song as our theme music is a natural choice, one that I thought of immediately upon coming up with the whole A Place at the Table concept.
Finally, although I’ve mentioned it in a few places recently, it bears repeating that my dad, Bill Zeiger, and his twin brother, Ed, turned 90 years old May 20th! That’s a pretty big deal to make it so far. There was a big joint party/family reunion in Leavenworth, Washington last weekend. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to attend, but it looked like fun.
Another “moon shot,” if you will, from the homestead veranda (Photo: Rachel Deehan).