Norseman Festival

This weekend was the annual Norseman Festival in Red Lake. Kendall has fond childhood memories of this event. So we went and enjoyed the weekend. In the first photo we are enjoying, along with good ol' nachos and cheese, some Canadian fare: poutine, perogies, and Canadian Pepsi which the Hochstedlers say is way better than US Pepsi. Poutine is french fries with shredded cheese and brown gravy. (I think Duane is especially fond of poutine since he had the chance to try it up here.) The other photos are some that cracked us up last night. See if you can pick out the scary one where Eli obviously just jumped and his face needs to catch up with the rest of him. The little boy in the last photo belongs to Kendall's old friends and my new friends, Derek and Elise.

A Bit of Kendall's History

Friday night we went to the Norseman Festival for Family Night. At one amusing point in the evening I sat beside Kendall as two women argued over him. We were sitting and chatting with one when another one walked up and whacked him.
Woman 1: Don't hit my friend!
Woman 2: He's my friend too!
Woman 1: I knew him since he was a little boy!
Woman 2: So did I!
Woman 1: He was friends with my son!
Woman 2: He was my neighbor!
Then Woman 1 laughed about how they were fighting over him while I sat right there. Fun to be in a place where Kendall has history. He's even been cussed out a time or two by Woman 1 when would call for his friend and she'd answer the phone drunk. Sounds like an interesting history, huh?

My Helpers

The boys are good at helping me get ready for groups coming in. Eli's normal job is emptying all the trash cans and putting in new liners. If he's really lucky he gets to clean chairs with Windex. (???) Then they help to fluff the pillows with all their jumping.





These photos are taken in the guestrooms upstairs.

Eli Helps

Today after lunch I told Eli that he could watch a movie when I finished washing dishes. He laid on the couch for awhile asking too often how long until I was done. Finally, he had a brainstorm. He said, "I know what can make it go faster! I'll help you!" Now, I try to make a habit of having him help me with dishes, but, quite honestly, it goes so much faster when I do it alone. I was tired and just wanted to get the dishes washed. But how could I turn down such a gracious offer? Even if it did have some sweetly selfish motives? So Eli pulled up a chair and started rinsing. We stood there at the sink working together and then Eli, so innocent and childlike, said, "I knew you were wanting me to come help you." Not exactly how I would have explained the situation, but I definitely wanted him there with me after such sweetness!

Always Remember Repellent

The other night we went exploring in the bush. It had rained in the afternoon, so everything was wet and the bugs were thick. Our plan was to find a nice place to make a fire and make s'mores. It was a good plan. But we forgot insect repellent.
We took both vehicles down the highway to a side road that Kendall's family often went down for their outings and hunting and blueberry-picking. Then we all piled (yes, piled) into the Blue Weasel. We drove down the gravel road for awhile then turned off onto something that I'm not sure would even be called a road. More like a path. A very overgrown path. There were branches growing over the path, but Kendall's faithful truck lived up to the name which I bestowed upon it and weaseled it's way through. After awhile we stopped at a stream. It was beautiful. (Other than the bugs, against which we had little defence- Canadian spelling there.) You can see a rainbow in the photos, the boys checking out the water, and the blackflies flocking to Eli's sweatshirt.
Well, that was worth the drive, wouldn't you think? Wouldn't you think that maybe we should head back home now? I mean, we don't even have mosquito repellent. But Kendall is a curious guy. He wanted to see what else lay ahead in the dense jungle. So we all piled back in and the Blue Weasel continued on through the bush. And by bush, I mean the Indiana meaning, not the Canadian meaning. You know, as in, it was so thick it was like driving through a bush. A prickly bush. Anyway, we got far enough and Kendall agreed to turn around. Only, like I mentioned earlier, it had just rained that afternoon. A lot. And we were on a very narrow, overgrown path through a bush. So Kendall turned the truck around. Well, partway. Because then we were stuck. By then we were a several-hour walk from the main road and remember, we didn't have insect repellent. And the bugs were bad. But I actually kept my mouth shut as Kendall figured out what to do. Thankfully, my dad had broke a paddle (or oar- after 3 1/2 weeks I should know the difference, if there is one) when he was here and it was still on the back of Kendall's truck. So my trusty and resourceful woodsman used the broken...thing...and got us out of there after a bit of work. And then, in another anticlimactic moment, we drove back home. (Is my life full of anticlimactic moments? Or maybe I just see all of the more exciting things that could have happened.)
We did have one more beautiful moment on the way home that was not captured so well on film. The scond-to-last photo is one that Kendall took of some wild roses in the rain and the sun.
When we got back to our house we finally broke out the marshmallows and made s'mores at our fire place. (That's our house in the background.)

Sandflies/Blackflies: Bites Taken Out of Our Skin

This is a photo of little pookie's eye the other morning. It was a sandfly/blackfly bite. As a friend up here told us, "Mosquitoes stick their needle in you. Blackflies take a bite out of your skin." Yummy. They do make us bleed. It's not uncommon to be absent-mindedly scratching an itchy area and suddenly notice we have blood on our fingers. They really go for the back of the neck and behind the ears.
Oops... That's probably not helping me to convince people to visit us. Trust me, the good outweighs the bad. Vale la pena!

Strawberry-Picking

We went on a walk the other night and stopped to pick strawberries. As you can see, they are small, but fun to find hiding along the road.

Okay, I Admit It's Really Beautiful Here

My life in Red Lake, like life anywhere, is having its ups and downs. But I am loving our setting and everything that goes with it. Today is rainy, but, in general, the weather has gotten much warmer and sunnier. It is absolutely beautiful. We've gone to the beach quite a bit. Even though we are looking forward to having good friends, being new here means we have fewer friend, job, and church commitments. So we have lots of free time. In the evenings we will do things like go out on the boat fishing or go exploring in the bush.

The other night after picking some strawberries on a walk, I had a sudden realization: "It makes me sad to think of not being able to do this every summer." I voiced that revelation to Kendall. He rejoiced, of course. I told him to just wait until winter.

Overheard

Following is what I heard Friday evening in the chaos at my house. For a little background, this was a day things were busy at the guest house. Groups were coming in little by little from the reserves and there were approximately 78 people in my kitchen doing something or other along with thousands of other people sitting on my couches and in my yard. I was feeling very done with the hecticity and was trying to get out of there to go canoeing. What I heard made me laugh. (I’m not sure if it was a genuine laugh or a laugh of insanity.) There were 3 girls sitting on my loveseat in my living room. I heard the middle one say to the others, “I had lice this morning.”

Evan Makes Very Big Fountain

Evan: Me pee in here. (Pointing to minnow bucket.)

Me: No.

Evan: Minnows like pee.

I take Evan to a more appropriate place to pee outside by the house.

Evan: Me pee on house.

Me: No.

Evan: Me make very big fountain!

Different Doorknobs

Eli decided that it would be funny to lock his door and close it behind him, locking Evan inside. These doorknobs are different than what the boys are used to. I couldn’t explain to Evan how to unlock the door. Evan tried half-heartedly, saying, “Can’t!” Finally he threw something at the door, which didn’t impress me, but greatly impressed his brother. I had a little talk with Eli, who didn’t quite see the gravity of the situation. So I told him, “Okay. You go talk to Evan and tell him how to get out of there.” So Eli walked over to the door and yelled, “Throw something else at the door!” As I walked away, I muttered, “Great.” Kendall told Eli, “That’s not what Mom told you to do.” Eli replied, “She said, ‘Great!’” So Kendall took his turn at trying to talk Evan out of his room. Eli was helpful and pushed his toy gun under the door to entertain Evan while he waited. Finally, in a rather anticlimactic moment, Evan unlocked his door. That’s all.

Peaceful

Canoeing

You can guess what's going on here



I'm trying my hand at collecting firewood.



Tonight we left the brouhaha at the house and went canoeing. It was so beautiful and peaceful. Nights like tonight are what I've been waiting on for several months. We parked the truck and the car close to the road and put the canoe in. The water was so calm and the sun was shining. After awhile we stopped paddling and ate our sandwiches. Then we found a place to get out so I could practice starting a fire. We sat by our little fire and I felt very content. We didn't see any "exciting" animals although we did find moose poop where we stopped, which was an exciting event for the males in my family. We also saw a loon and beaver houses. As we were heading back, though, we heard something like I have not heard before. I am at a loss to describe how it sounded. Kendall says it was an "eerily cacophonous melody, curl-your-eyebrows, fear-inducing." He also described it as "a dozen babies crying" and "chainsaws." If it was babies crying, I picture grown men dressed in diapers crying loudly. It echoed through the... again, I'm at a loss for words so Kendall fills in for me..."through the boreal forest of the Canadian shield." (You can see why I'm the blogger here.) Anyway, I have never heard anything like this. It was creepy! I looked back at Kendall and he just mouthed, "Wolves." He hasn't yet admitted it, but I think he was freaked out too. I quietly said back to him, "I am NEVER going camping." The boys were oblivious to our quiet conversation. When the cacophony stopped, Eli simply said, "That was nice." Thankfully, he never really asked what it was. I don't know... This may take some time for me to get over... I think we'll try a campground for our first time out.

But it was still a gorgeous evening in spite of the ravenous wolves. When we made it back to where we parked the cars the mosquitoes were horrible. We quickly stashed the boys in the vehicles and loaded the 80 lb canoe onto Kendall's truck. I got into the car and waited for Kendall to pull out. He drove through a puddle that turned out to be especially deep. And got stuck. That canoe turned out to be just a little bit too much for the Blue Weasel. Kendall and I were both laughing and I even got out the video camera and recorded the event from the safety of the car. Kendall, who has a love-hate relationship with his truck, got out a shovel and before starting with the digging, gave the Blue Weasel a swift whack on the nose. He dug for awhile and laughed. Finally, he gave up and told me to pull the car up to try to tow him. He pulled out the tow strap that he wisely keeps in the truck at all times. At that very moment, what should pull off the road, but a very rugged-looking orange Hummer. They had pulled in just to turn around and it looked like they saw our predicament and were trying to quick get out of there before being roped into anything. However, my equally rugged husband flagged them down. They kindly pulled out the Weasel in no time flat. And we happily proceeded with our journey home.

Guest House

Right now I'm sitting in Kendra's apartment across the hall from ours. Evan is taking his nap in her guestroom so that he can sleep undisturbed. It is, once again, a time when we are hosting guests. A large group of teenagers is using the house today while they wait for the rest of their group to be flown in from several different reserves. They've been teaching VBS all week.

But this is nothing compared to last weekend. Oh, no.... Last weekend we were planning on having quite a few people in and out during the day on Friday and Saturday, but no overnight guests. But the weather didn't cooperate. It was too rainy to do much flying. I counted 115 people using these facilities over the weekend with lots of people sleeping here Saturday night. The number of people sleeping here was much larger than the number of beds. They graciously used the floor.

Because the weather was so rainy, we were on a pile inside. Kendall and I took the opportunity to take the boys out for lunch on Saturday and do some things like that. By Saturday evening, we didn't really have any place to go. Businesses close down early here. The group that was occupying our apartment offered to let us eat part of the meal they cooked. That was nice since they were using our kitchen and our table and our dishes and our oven. Then they sat in our living room for a Bible Study. Part of another group was upstairs. Kendra was gone, but a guest was staying in her apartment. A large group was in the mission office's basement, which is on this property. And it was raining. So I put on a raincoat and let the boys ride bikes in the rain for awhile. Finally we went into Kendra's apartment and played games with the boys. We went to bed with the loud sounds of a Star Wars movie on the other side of our bedroom wall. Thankfully it soon ended and all the moviegoers went to bed- in our extra bedroom and on our apartment floor.

By Sunday afternoon when the weather finally stayed clear enough for everyone to get out, I was singing hallelujah. Eli and Evan were disappointed. How boring to only have 4 people in our apartment!

Last night a small group of 9 came back from a reserve- a day earlier than originally planned. They were happy to see our family again after so much rainy bonding time last weekend. After overhearing comments about watching Star Wars in our living room again I decided to take action. At 10:30 I finally said, "Can I, in the most friendly way, kick you out of our apartment?" They graciously allowed me to kick their backsides up the stairs to their rooms. And even though I had to shoo them out, they really have been my favorite group so far.

July is the busiest month with groups. Assuming that everyone really will leave tonight as planned, we will have made it through the craziest 3 weekends. This has been a lot of work and has taken flexibility, but it has been good for us. I have met some interesting people and the group that is on our deck right now really bonded with Eli and Evan. (They were stranded with us 2 nights longer than planned.) It really was good for me to have loads and loads (10, to be exact) of laundry to wash and hang out my first Monday morning on my own in a new town. (By the way, my washing machine was in many pieces at the time, but Kendra was kind enough to let me use hers.) It was good for me to have this responsibility right away and, at the same time, it will be good for me when everyone (hopefully) gets on the bus and heads for home tonight.

What Bible School is All About

Eli has loved Vacation Bible School. Tonight was the last night. I helped and he was excited about me helping his class. It made me feel so special. :) I decided that I better be involved like this while it's welcomed. It won't be too long until he won't be so excited about me being in his class.

Eli has had a lot of fun and has really gotten into the contests. The three classes had yelling contests and there was another contest between the boys and the girls. As he emphatically explained to us tonight (regarding contests),"That's what Bible School is about!" One night he had to use the "washroom" during the final assembly. I waited outside the door. Upstairs I heard the first group yelling in their contest. All of the sudden Eli came tearing out of the bathroom and flew toward the stairway. He looked excitedly panicked. I wondered if he had psyched himself into thinking that a monster was chasing him out of the bathroom. I said, "What's going on?" As he shot past me, he yelled, "I have to help my team win!" It's been fun to watch Eli screaming like crazy to help his team win. He is, perhaps, more competitive than I realized.

And I will add to "what Bible School is all about." This week we had kids coming from some pretty different situations. At one extreme, you have Eli, who is perfectly behaved because he has perfect parents. (Except when he was crawling over chairs and making farting noises during the Bible lesson and running away from me in the sanctuary and picking his nose...) Okay, maybe I better delete the 2 occurrences of the word 'perfect' in that sentence. At any rate, we had kids coming from fairly stable and loving homes and also kids coming from pretty unstable situations. I was aware that even though kids were wiggly and hyper and distracted, they were hearing truth and they were around adults who respected and cared for them. As our?? (I guess he's my pastor now) pastor commented, "We're not just working with kids, we're working with future adults."

P.S.

I talked to my calm, laughing brother for awhile this afternoon and I am feeling a lot better right now.

Cloudy

So today hasn't been the best ever. After two weeks here, some of the excitement is wearing off and I'm probably feeling more of the lack of comfortable connections. It has been chilly and pretty rainy. Seriously, some days I've been walking around my house with long-johns under my jeans and a heavy sweatshirt on. Yes, in July. I wasn't prepared for that. According to weather.com, Red Lake's highs and lows since we've been here have been 81 and 43. So, there have been some warm days. The average temp for right now is 75 and it has mostly been below that. And somehow, our house stays especially chilly. So sunshine is much more precious than I expected.

This morning I woke up feeling crappy even though I could see the sky from my bed and it was bright blue. Before I ever got out of bed I decided that I would take the boys to the beach for a little bit this morning. I was craving just sitting in the warm sunshine. I took care of a few chores before we left and by the time we were driving out the lane, the sky was gray. I was ticked. I said outloud, "Crap. The sun's not shining." From the back seat my eldest angel piped up, "Don't worry, you can still have lots of fun playing with us. You love us more than the sun maybe." That's right. I assured him that I loved them way, way, way more than the sun. I told him I could live without the sun, but it would be horrible to live without him. So, even though I was still deeply disappointed, we went to the beach and I sat there in the cold breeze watching the boys play in the water. They were half-frozen, but they weren't the only kids in there. Apparently, you take any bit of summer you can get up here.

Two Lists

It has been interesting to walk through this transition with Eli and Evan. In general, they have both been very hyper. Most of the time they seem to be having fun, but Eli, especially, seems to have some underlying sadness some of the time. I heard him saying to Evan, "I wish we lived in Goshen. Do you feel sad?" About a little boy in his Sunday School class he said, "Logan's so lucky because his grandma is his Sunday School teacher." Friday we were with another group of moms and kids. He said he had fun, but both boys seems somewhat sad on the way home from that event. And when I referred to a boy there as Eli's friend, he corrected me, "He's not my friend." Yesterday his new church friends were not at church. After church Eli threw a huge fit about how I cheated racing in from the car. He punched me really hard. When I sent him to his room he was furious, slamming things around. When I went into his room to talk to him, I acknowledged that this church probably isn't as much fun for him as Siloam. As he cried, he said, "I miss my friends."

I have my own sadness and feelings of being somewhat lost to deal with, but I think it's good for me that I need to focus on Eli and Evan so much. I know I can't take away their sadness, even though I would love to. But I can try to help them deal with it and to find the happy things here. So this afternoon during Evan's nap, Eli and I sat down over "cappuccino" and made two lists. First we listed things Eli misses about living in Goshen. Here's what he came up with:

My buddies

Grandma & Grandpa and Nana & Papa

Our old house

Our downstairs

Dad's workshop

Our neighbors

 

This is the list we came up with of the good things in Canada:

Going fishing

That Grandma & Grandpa got to be here and that Nana & Papa get to come today

When my friends come and have sleep-overs with me. (I think a future hope)

The toy library

"That we bringed our tractors"

The yard- That it's bigger than our other yard

Living by Kendra (the other renter in this duplex. We love having her here.)

Caleb and his brothers (from church)

Vacation Bible School

That Mom stays home with him and goes to Bible School with him

The beach

Then he concluded his list by saying, "I like this little town- all of it that I sawn."

 

My personal lists would both be longer. Maybe I'll go into that sometime. And I feel hopeful that the second list will keep getting longer as time goes on.

Evan's first fish!

Wednesday night it finally warmed up enough that we could go out in the boat again. Eli, of course, caught the most fish. But he got bored and decided that he was done. Evan had only been using his fishing rod with a plastic fish on the end and had mostly been content with that. But since Eli's rod still had a minnow on the end, I gave it to Evan and let him cast with that for awhile. I was just letting him play around, since he doesn't have the patience to let the hook just sit close to the bottom- which is, according to my husband, the local expert, the "proper" way to catch a walleye up here. He is dangerous with that little hook. I, sitting the closest to him, nearly got hooked a few times myself. Anyway, Evan was casting and reeling it in. We weren't really paying attention to what he was doing. All of the sudden I saw a fish appear over the side of the boat! He had reeled in a little walleye without any of us knowing! Of course we all cheered and made a huge deal about it. And, of course, I hadn't brought the camera.

So these pictures come from later, after we got back to the house. In the first one he is actually holding his fish. Then he saw that there was blood on his hands and started freaking out: "Blood on my hands! Blood on my hands!" Maybe his conscience about fishing affects him differently than it does the rest of the family...

Our home

Here are a few photos of our new house. We are renting from Living Hope Native Ministries and living in their guesthouse. (Or, as people from my parents' generation may remember it, the Howie House.) The house is a duplex with large guestrooms upstairs. The duplex connects through an inside hallway. That hallway is also how you get up to the guestrooms. The mission has groups that come through (mostly during the summer) on their way out to a reserve to teach Bible School. Also, workers from reserves sometimes use the guesthouse when they are passing through. Part of the rental agreement is that we will be responsible for hosting the groups. That means cleaning and laundry and sometimes cooking.

The house is in a very nice setting. Lots of yard and trees. (Kendall and I mowed the lots of yard last week. It took us about 4 hours with a pushmower- supposedly self-propelled.) We are right up the hill from the grocery store. We have neighbors next door, but can't hardly see their house because of the trees between us. We cut across their back yard to walk to church. Then bank and another store are right below us. (And, more annoyingly, a fastfood-type restaurant that always smells so good.)

When you are looking at the house, we are living on the left side.

And since Kendall's lovely truck is included in the photo, I just have to also include this quote from my Mom: She was pointing out Kendall’s truck to some visitors here: “That’s Kendall’s truck, the blue one by the dumpster.” All that was left unsaid in that comment strikes me as so funny. I thought some of you might enjoy it too.

New Buds!

I am happy to announce that as of Sunday morning Eli officially has a friend. He had a hard time accepting that he had to say goodbye to his buddies in Goshen. He would say, “I’m gonna miss my buds.” I assured him that I would miss my friends too. I also reminded him how good he is at making new friends. We would try to guess what his Canadian friends’ names would be. Sometimes he was excited about that prospect. In his angrier moments he would defiantly declare that he would NOT make any friends up here. Anyway, all that to say that we had played up the new friends bit a lot. So, 24 hours into our new life in Canada Eli announced accusingly, “I haven’t made any friends yet!”

On Saturday we had a big group that included some kids at the guesthouse. I saw Eli following another boy around. He stayed about 10 feet behind this boy, waiting for the boy to notice him. He followed him around a group of people and to the entrance of a motor home. When the other boy disappeared inside the motor home, Eli stood outside waiting. I felt so sorry for him. He never did get to play with that boy, but there was still hope for Sunday at church.

Sure enough, by the time Sunday school was over, Eli was excitedly telling me that he had a new friend and already begging to sit with him during the service. After church Eli and Evan went outside with the other kids. And that evening we were so happy to be invited over to Eli’s new friends’ house to play (3 brothers with a baby sister). The boys had a blast. It was so good to see them with friends again.

"Fish poop spicy!" -Evan

At our first visit to the beach Evan and Eli decided that the lake water would be as fun to drink as bathwater. Here’s how the ensuing conversation went…

Karen: Gross! Don’t drink the water!

Kendall: It’s fine.

Karen: That’s disgusting! Fish pee and poop in there.

Kendall (to the boys): It’s fine to drink.

Karen (to the boys): If you like to drink fish pee and poop.

Kendall: It’s fine. (Then, as a bird flies over...) That seagull just pooped in the water.

Karen: You’re drinking fish pee!

Eli and Evan: Slurp! Slurp!

A few moments later…
Evan (as he finishes off a big gulp): Fish poop spicy!

As a note for those of you who are worried about the kids’ digestive systems… Apparently, Kendall grew up drinking lake water while camping. It really does seem to be fine unless you get something the locals call “beaver fever,” which comes from drinking water tainted with beaver pee. Seriously. (Kendall notes that this happens in small streams when it’s not diluted enough.) Hmmm....

"This is great!" -Eli

Thursday evening we went fishing with Mom and Dad. This time I caught the biggest walleye, but Eli caught the most (three), so he was still strutting around. For the most part, Evan is happy to cast out his little plastic fish and reel it back in again. But at one point we were all cheering him on as he reeled it in. Apparently, he thought he was reeling in the real thing because when he saw the little red fish at the end of his line, he slumped back in sullen disappointment. Kendall was a kind father and let Evan help him reel in a big stinky northern pike.

Later, we stopped at a little island with our fish and made a fire. Kendall cleaned the fish and Mom and Dad made bannock. It was a very good meal. The boys were so happy to explore and throw things in the water and help gather firewood. As Eli and Evan sat with their plates of fresh walleye and bannock with strawberry jam, Eli suddenly blurted out, “This is great! I want to do this all summer!” Something about the way he just blurted it out was so sincere and joyful and heartfelt. It was a warm fuzzy moment.

Breakfast

Kendall and Dave’s breakfast of walleye and eggs. They caught these by 6:30 am while the rest of us were fast asleep.

Fishing

So Wednesday night was our first time out on the boat. Kendall, birthday boy that he is, got to pull in the first walleye. Dad was next. Eli got a bite and got all excited, but it got away. Poor guy. He kept thinking that he had one. He sat very patiently for quite awhile. But then he started getting more impatient. Finally he said, “The fish don’t like me.” We told him that of course they don’t- he’s going to eat them. I was so hoping- even praying- that the forlorn little guy would catch a fish. Then Eli felt something on his line. We were all excited and he ended up pulling in the biggest one of the evening. He was so happy. He kept talking about it. His head was swelling bigger and bigger until I started wishing I could take back my prayers that he would catch one. At one point he even said, “I’ve never heard of a kid catching one that big.” Yes, Eli made history Wednesday night, even if it was only in the Hochstedler record books.

By the way, I finally caught a fish too. It was a weenie little one, but we kept it. At 11:30 that night we were eating a hefty bedtime snack of fresh walleye. It was so good.

Groceries

Wednesday morning Mom and I went grocery shopping. By the end of the outing, I was wiped out. It was the prices that did it.
Milk: $5.69/gallon
Tortillas: $3.29/dozen
Life Cereal: $5.69
Cheese: $8.99/620g (1.3669 lbs)

Mom was so wonderful and told me that this trip to the grocery store was on her. She could see how overwhelmed I was and banished me to some place far away from the "till" while they were ringing us up. I promise I wasn’t trying, but I heard the cashier say, “That will be $166- Oh, this too?”

All this has made me want to ration food. It has made me think about how we, as North Americans, have way more than our share of the world's food. Don't I have a right to get whatever kind of food I want and to have as much as I want? I demand lots of choices and cheap prices! Hmm... This year could be good for me to think about my right to the world's resources in a different light.

By the way, Evan has taken a liking to powdered milk. Kendall was mixing some for a group we hosted. He wasn't having the best of luck with it and was having problems with it being lumpy. Never fear, though, Evan was there to help. Kendall said that Evan was grabbing the gooey glops of milk and eating them. Now Evan begs for powdered milk.

Mosquitoes

The mosquitoes so far haven’t been the swarms that I remembered from earlier visits. But they are vicious. Within a few hours of being here, I was getting pretty good at killing mosquitoes mid-flight. I took the liberty of bragging about this new-found skill to Kendall. His response was, “Well, you get good when it’s a matter of life and death.”
After only a few days, it looks like Eli is sweeter than Evan. Or something. Eli has bites all over his head. In his hair. Poor guy. But even though he’s scratching a lot, he doesn’t complain much. I told Mom (who is very anti-buzz) that we need to buzz his hair so we can see where all the bites are. Three days in Eli finally had a realization. He told me a bit ago, “Mom, Canada has bad bugs.” Judging by the swarms that I remember, he hasn’t seen the half of it yet.

Evan is our little entomophobic. So he has not been too impressed with the small wildlife here. He has started being okay with smashing mosquitoes. That is until they land on him. He was sitting in his room yelling for me. There was a mosquito sitting on his leg enjoying the peace of not getting smashed by the leg’s owner. So I came in and took care of it for Evan. He was very concerned and said, “Bug eat my leg!” I decided it was time to break the truth to him. So I told him that yes, it would, but that it would only eat a little bit of his leg.

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” Lao-tzu

This journey so far has taken me one thousand and four miles from my hometown, but I’m having trouble putting my finger on the single step that began it all. Was it Monday afternoon at the border when they gave me my official document allowing me to pass? Was it Saturday morning when we started the car and drove out of Goshen in our funny little caravan? Was it in February when we came up to Red Lake for a job interview at the hospital? Was it two Christmases ago being up here with Kendall’s family and all of us rating our desire to live up here? (I can’t say my number on a scale of 1 – 100 was high, but it was the highest of all the in-laws, so I guess I’m the chosen one.) Was it three years ago almost to the day that Kendall first said, “What if we’d move up here?” (I tried to ignore that one for several months, thinking surely it would go away.) Or was it June 10, 2000 when I married Kendall and made some solemn promises before God and all these witnesses? Was it a night before Kendall and I were married when we talked about moving to Red Lake? (It was a far off and romantic possibility at that time.) Or was it living in and visiting different cultures at different times in my life? Could the first step have been when my parents brought me as a baby to this same area for a year of voluntary service? (Kendall wasn’t born yet, but I surely saw my future in-laws as they chatted with my parents from time to time.) What about when my dad lived on a nearby reserve for two years before he was married? Or when my mom visited this town with her family as a teenager? Or maybe it had something to do with choices my grandparents made? Or other ancestors further back?

At any rate, moving into this house where I slept for a few weeks as a baby and where my dad stayed as a teenager, has made me very aware of roots. And how they affect our lives and choices and passions.

I suspect there is no single step that began our move a thousand miles away from Indiana. It seems, rather, to be a coming together of so many different factors. (Not the least of which is marrying a man who has taken this land as a very part of his being. And for all the ways I can tease him and get annoyed at some of his woodsman ways, I really do mean that in a reverent and respectful way.)

So here we are, a thousand miles from nowhere. (Oops…I meant a thousand miles from Goshen.) I know that we safely made the journey here, but mostly our journey is just beginning. And mostly I’m excited.