Journey of a Thousand Miles

Monday, December 15, 2008

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

We're headed out to Stormer Lake tomorrow. The people who live there wanted to go to Winnipeg for a few days and needed someone to tend the camp. The place runs on woodfire and generators, so it can't be left to freeze. (And it would surely freeze in this nippy weather.)

Also, during most of the year, people stay at the camp on their way in and out from a couple reserves. So someone needs to be there for that. They're not getting many guests right now since the lakes are frozen, but not enough for the winter road. But some are going in and out by snowmobile.

Anyway, so that's where we'll be until Sunday morning. Kendall picked up an extra shift tonight, then we'll leave when he gets home in the morning. We're looking forward to a few days of quiet, nature and family time. And Kendall needs some time away from work.

P.S. My thermometer says -8 F.

Winter Fun (and Frozen-ness)

Before and After

Before. (It's the one in the center of the photo.)

After.

Choosing a Christmas Tree Off the Lot

We have a Christmas tree straight from the bush. We drove along a back road looking and looking. Unfortunately, when trees grow in their natural environment and aren't groomed to be Christmas trees, they're...well....imperfect. (And maybe that's just fine.)

Anyway, we saw lots of trees that would fit in our living room, but even though we were surrounded by thousands of Christmas trees, we couldn't find the right one for us. (Picky, picky.)

Then we saw it. It was beautiful and filled out and it stood out above the rest. (Literally.) Okay, it was 40 feet high. This posed a problem as our living room ceiling is not 40 feet high. And bearing it home just might have brought the real, final end to the blue weasel.

But, no problem, Kendall has experience in this very predicament. Chop down the tree and take the top 8 feet.

So here he goes with his collapsible saw.

Victory! Would you look at those muscles! That's what you get when you're a real live bushman.

Posing on the stump.

See what I mean? He can just drag a tree through the boreal forest!

And our faithful, undying blue weasel does it again.

And Again

Evan still has not mastered the skill of waving instead of pointing a finger gun and saying, "Boom!" It continues to be a frequent happening at the supper table. I think it is habit as much as stinkeriness. (But there is definitely stinkeriness involved.)

He still gets in trouble for it, so he has had to think fast. The last two nights he has tried to reason with Kendall: "I'm not shooting unless I pull the trigger!"

Hmm...You would think that if it didn't work the first night, it wouldn't work the second night either. Either Evan's being a slow learner or he's working on his stinker skills.

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Oh, Evan....Again

While I'm on the subject of Evan, he has come up with another clever strategy to explain himself. Two nights at supper he randomly pointed his finger at Eli and said "Boom!" (We're trying to crack down on shooting each other.) Both nights Kendall reprimanded Evan and both times Evan tried the same excuse, "That's how you say Hi!"

We're working on waving instead.

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

July 1, 2008
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 his parents as they chatted with mine 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 farther 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.