Exploring on the 4 wheeler

     This was the view when I opened the door to our little house this morning. New snow was still coming down and you can see in the background the warm lights of the nearby school house. It was 8:30 a.m. and still pitch black!                                                                                                          I don't usually go over until after 10:00 when the online classes have finished, but we are currently experiencing an oatmeal crisis, sort of... The school receives regular food shipments and over the past year has acquired an over-abundance of oatmeal - an abundance of probably twenty to thirty containers of oatmeal. They have not touched this year's oatmeal allotment and probably won't polish off the supply from last year that is currently close to expiration. This morning when Matt & Doug asked who'd had breakfast today, not a single child raised their hand. My duties now include being the morning oatmeal maker.

Note added Feb 1:   Over the course of our 3 week gig, I fixed an oatmeal breakfast 5 times (with lots of help from Doug.) We'd scavenge whatever fruit was left from the previous day's lunch and use it to "decorate" our breakfast. Never thought I'd put fruit cocktail in my oatmeal, but it really wasn't too bad. A dollop of peanut butter was also a favorite for many of the crew!

After school, the snow had stopped and the sun was shining so Doug & I jumped on the 4 wheeler to take an up close and personal look at some of the neighborhood attractions for the newly arrived "lower forty-eighters." 

Mount Chiginagak

The clouds parted and for the first time we were able to get a good look at the volcano behind the school. Somehow I felt a bit safer when I COULDN'T see the volcano behind the school. It looked pretty non-threatening today, though you can still see where part of the top blew off a few years ago. Matt says it "burps" out some black smoke every once in a while, but other than shutting down the runway due to poor visibility caused by the smoke, it is really nothing to worry about. Uh, ok... Please do not be burping on Jan 31 when we are planning to head south.

Whale skull

We than rode past the abandoned salmon cannery where someone had propped a whale's skull against the side of one of the buildings. Now that's something we don't see down home too often. Uh, guess that would be never.

Village incinerator

 And for the grand finale, Doug drove me out to the dump. What a romantic fool he is! Actually I truly did want to see the incinerator. When I had asked where the recycling bins were at school, the kids looked at me like I had 2 heads. It was almost as if they'd never heard of such a thing. I guess if you have to pay to ship everything in or out, no one's going to spend money to haul out plastic bottles and aluminum cans. Everything (and I mean everything-paper, cans, plastic, food waste, old furniture, bicycles-everything) goes out to the dump where most of it is fed once a week into a big incinerator and burned.
 Lucky us-today there was smoke pouring out-we were here for the burning!

 There were big signs at the gate warning us that only authorized personnel could enter.  Both sets of gates were wide open and there was not a soul in sight. I'm not sure who the authorized personnel might be, but was pretty sure it wasn't us. Anyway, rule-followers that we are, we kept our distance. Actually, I insisted that we keep our distance. Doug was all for getting off the 4 wheeler and climbing the hill to see if he could get a better volcano shot, or if he was lucky, maybe get to see any of the wolves that people have been hearing howl at night. It's common knowledge that wolves & bears ("Oh, Judy, don't be silly! Bears are hibernating right now.")
like to visit the dump in search of food scraps. Not wanting to experience first hand what a food scrap might feel like, I was VERY insistent that he turn around NOW and head back toward town. Could a wolf outrun a 4 wheeler? Might these unseasonably warm temps have confused a bear's sleeping schedule? What exactly was just over that slight hill by the gate? These are all questions to which I did not want the answers. We headed home.

On a related somber note: I had earlier asked Matt about special education services in the school district. He informed me that they had itinerant LD teachers who fly into a village, spend a day or two at the school and then fly on to the next remote village in the district.
"But," he said, "We lost one a couple years ago."
"Oh," I said, "She got another job?"
"Nope, she liked to go jogging. One evening she went out for her regular evening run and she didn't come back.  Wolves" 

Seriously. Yikes!