| Wed February 26 Greetings and peace to all of you all over, Here's news from our side of the world: A couple weekends ago a local guy asked if I would go hunting seal for his family meals. I said sure. I was not sure what this would involve, but I went along for the adventure. We rode his boat down river into the delta, towards the ocean. There are often seals congregating in the area there and this afternoon was no exception. The way seals are hunted here is that one person (him) drives the boat while the other person (me) hunts the seal. You have to wait to shoot until they just pop their heads up for air. As we would get close enough the seals would swim away - smart. So my buddy had a keen idea - put me on an anchored stump while he drives the seals towards me and the 20-gauge gun he let me use. So there I am, in the middle of the open water, sitting on a stump as big as my rump, trying to figure out what I would do if he didn't bring the boat back to me. Eh, it would have been only about a half-mile swim in glacier water. He came back and we went home seal-less. "Oh well," he says, "guess it's Ramen noodles again tonight." Kristin, Nicole, Nicole's teacher (Lil) and I went hiking down to an abandoned homestead last weekend. About 120 years ago a European family homesteaded in Kingcome Inlet. They lived about 2-3 miles from the village for generations until the early 80's. They left the house stand with everything in it - making it look like it was a fast getaway. It's free for the rummaging, so we took our turn. There was a tool shed with rusted tools, gears, refrigerators, and enough gear, as Nicole puts it, "to build our own car." Not far from the truth, really. We made the move successfully to the other side of our duplex. It's exactly the same as our previous, only mirror-imaged. The wood stove works great (as we're discovering our other one did not work very well) and there is no mold on this side. Remember Rocksie, our new cat? We thought it was a girl, that's what we were told. Nope it's a boy. Definitely. Always good to look under the hood. He eats our leftovers and uses river sand for litter. We are raising an environment-friendly feline recycler - hey, why not? If you're around our house, you'll often here, "Rocksie, get outta the refrigerator!" When Nicole came here, she was working on simple adding in math in school - now she's doing perimeter. What's up with that? The other morning, someone spotted a large wolf in a neighbor's yard. Wanna visit? We'll camp in our yard! Speaking of visiting, we're starting to develop a schedule for visitors. We are having visitors the last week of March and some days around Easter (in April). Other than that, we're free for this school year - make your reservations quick for the Kingcome Tour '02. Bring your bear-proof sleeping bags. Speaking of schedule, we will be heading out of Kingcome Mar 15 or so for 1 week because of Spring Break. We are going to visit the computer teacher who has been coming here and then we're off to our MCC Retreat east of Vancouver. Oh by the way, no snow here. Clear skies, 30 F at the coldest, usually been warmer lately. I have been able to pick up radio clearly from San Francisco - more than 900 miles away. I just find that amazing. Kristin wanted me to include these recipes (indicative either of our life here or what life here has done to us...I mean, her.): DEODORANT: 1.5 T Beeswax, 0.5 T Cocoa Butter, 1 T Cocoa Oil, 3 drops Castor Oil, Essential Oils; Melt beeswax; Add Cocoa Butter and melt; Add oils; Stir; Pour into container and let cool. TOOTHPASTE: 6 t Baking Soda, 1/3 t Salt, 4 t glycerin, peppermint extract to taste; mix and store. By the way, I had to fire someone this week. We watched the Grammy's at Nicole's teacher's house and, thus, here is Nicole on Eminem's (M&M's she calls him) performance on the Grammy's: "Why does M&M's keep grabbing his privates? Is he afraid a soccer ball is gonna come flying at him or what?" Boy, this was a long one. We miss you all very much. With love, JohnKristinNicole |