I have family in Alaska. Mostly they live on the Kenai Peninsula – in or around Soldotna area. Each Christmas, I look forward to receiving an Alaska themed calendar from my cousin Michael and his wife Alison. I don’t know why I love it so much, I think it’s all the photos of the Aurora Borealis; they truly fascinate me. I’ve never seen them the couple of times I’ve been in the northern regions, but it’s one of my bucket list things. Anyway – this year’s calendar also includes the names of the months in different First Nations’ languages. January is Irallull’er, it translates to ‘the bad month’ in Yup’ik but only in the Bristol Bay region. I find it interesting that tribes in different areas can use the 
same name, with the same meaning, for differing months. It is completely dependent upon the weather; some months could come before others. I suppose, as we look at our weather this month – compared to others – this could be our Irallull’er. Or perhaps our month is more Kanruyauciq, meaning “frost”, like those of the Canineq area (lower coastal). No matter what its correct name is, we’ve been calling it “cold.” Continue reading
irallull’er
04 Friday Jan 2019
This morning, my folks walked into the house at the same time I walked out of my bedroom- that doesn’t generally happen when they visit; it was the morning they were planning to leave. Unfortunately, we woke up to another 3 inches of snow. Dad was a bit nervous about hitting the road during a pretty good snow storm, but we cleaned off my car and his truck and they followed me into town – at 25 mph. The roads were so icy. Mom and Dad had already elected to leave the 5th wheel with us and come back in the spring to tow it home. So glad they made that decision! Have you had enough of snow photos from us??? Too bad, we’re gonna show you some more. 
She has dropped her blanket of white over the hills and left her fleece behind in the draws where the sun never quite shows his face. Spent pomegranates hang from the trees like so many forgotten Christmas ornaments. The little dinos leave their tracks behind in the snow where only perspective can show how large or small the threat may be. Winter has come. 
It’s Wednesday, so we’re doing a quick post again. I tried to come up with some theme to bring everything together as a whole, but I couldn’t find something overarching – so we’re just going to do some bits and pieces. Well, if that’s the theme, i guess it brings everything together in some semblance of a whole. Hmmm. 
You know how your grandpa used to say he could feel the weather change in his bones? I always believed that, because I usually felt weather change in my head – but lately, my whole body gets in the act! We do have a storm coming in from the south and we can see it in the sky, hear it on the wind, and – yes – feel it in our bones. We’re just really hoping that the rain doesn’t pass us by. Supposedly heavy by Friday. We’ll let you know! 
The last few days we’ve been experiencing some of the wet, clear, cool stuff that falls down from the sky, i.e.: rain. We may have had more rain over the last few weeks than we had all Monsoon season. Please understand, I am not complaining. We will take the rain whenever we can get it. It saves on us watering, helps us to recharge the aquifer, and allows us to see how our rain catchments are working. It also helps to keep things a bit more green – even during the winter – and therefore, less of a fire hazard; however, it does make for more mowing/weed whacking work. 
It has been a wicked long week and we are so glad it’s finally Friday! It seems like Monday was about a month ago. Rather than pick one thing to write on, like I did earlier this week, I thought I’d do one of those general run down things that we sometimes do to catch you up on what’s been happening around the farm. Shall we get started then? 
The rain has come. It began as a mist coming over the mountains, then seemed to pick up in intensity during the morning hours; it has remained with us through out the day. There are long strings of minutes when it holds back, only to pour again as if making up for this lost time. I believe it has settled in and decided to stay the weekend. Monsoon season is over, now we must be into the fall rains. We always welcome the rain, but were hoping that it would have held off until tomorrow, or even just until later this evening, so that we could have had Tom come to help us right the RCW today. As it was, the day was too wet. 
