Charlie's raven show; Margie returns to Alaska; Thomas and the boys; biker in the rain; sky warrior remembered

I had to go to town to pick Margie up from the airport. I had not yet had a chance to see Charlie's raven show, so, an hour before Margie's flight was scheduled to arrive, I picked Charlie and Melanie up and we headed over to the Midnight Sun Brewery to take a look and have dinner.

I remain amazed at what Charlie has done with his raven photos. Everybody who reads this blog regularly knows that I photograph ravens when I happen upon them, but Charlie has gone beyond that. Some time ago, he gave himself a mission: to photograph a raven and a stranger every day.

He has done good.

Charlie had a little placard up and in it he gave me the credit for inspiring him to take up a camera and do what he has done. That was nice. He and Melanie should now be driving south, towards Homer, where they are going to join Rex and Cortney on a boat ride to Halibut Cove and then camp out in a cabin for the rest of the week. I hope they catch lots of fish and share with us.

Rex made a kayak and they are taking it, too.

I have written a few times before about how desperate Margie gets for Arizona during the winter, how badly she wants to go back. As always, when I picked her up at the airport, she was happy - no, thrilled - to be back in Alaska.

Of course, winter is over. The sun shines. She would soon greet her grandsons.

Big Thomas was on the go.

The sun does shine - today. But not yesterday, not when I drove to town to see Charlie's ravens and pick Margie up.

Yesterday, it rained.

Dad, top row, third from left, who died on Memorial Day five years ago. May you, your fellow B-24 crew and all the others who fought alongside you for this nation, in this war and others, so many to die in the fight, never be forgotten.

We bury our little Pistol-Yero, then celebrate Mother's Day

Readers who were with me then will recall that my ornery, sweet, loving, little buddy, Pistol-Yero, died unexpectedly while I was in Jaipur, Rajasthan, India. I had wanted to bury him after I returned, but the snow was so deep, the ground so frozen and Melanie was working up north, would not be home for a month and it seemed that everybody should be here.

The snow is melted now. Melanie is back and everyone was coming out to the house Sunday. There is still a lot of frost in the upper layers of ground, but Rex is strong and so, using picaxe and shovel, he punched through it.

Muzzy and Akiak engaged in a long running contest to see who could keep the stick the longest.

In respect for the Navajo beliefs of their mother, Jobe, Kalib and Lynxton could not come near the body of Pistol-Yero and would have to stay inside for the funeral and burial.

It may be a small hole, but given the conditions of the earth here, it took a long time to dig - probably close to an hour. Charlie arrived and spelled Rex for bit. Akiak seemed to dominate the stick game.

I unwrapped Pistol-Yero, put him on a blanket that he had enjoyed in life and brushed his fur. Lisa came out as I finished and wanted to see him.

I then carried him to the back. Except for Lavina and the boys, everybody gathered around for the viewing and final pets.

Margie came out a little late, as she had been helping Lavina with the boys.

Then we headed toward the far reaches of the backyard, where, in the course of 30 years, we have buried a good many of our fur-clad family members - because that's what they are - family members.

Everyone told a favorite story about Pistol-Yero. Margie is talking here. She is saying how she always wanted to keep him off the bed and especially the pillows, but he always got on the bed and pillows anyway and she came to know that he really liked to have a nice, neat, clean bed and pillow to lie on. She also noted how Pistol had usually stayed away from her, because he always liked to hang with me and she would do things like chase him off of beds and pillows, but there were a few times when she had been sitting on the couch and he came to her and sat on her lap and let her pet him as he purred and that was special.

Melanie took her turn filling in the hole - first we did it by hand, then by shovel.

And finally, covered it with stones. Rex and Charlie had dug up this boulder during one of my forays into the house. Caleb placed it on the grave and we piled the smaller stones around it.

Lisa disappeared and then reappeared, carrying three blossoms from a Mother's Day bouquet Melanie had bought for her mom.

Rest in peace, sweet little Pistol-Yero... life is not the same around here without you. You would probably be sitting between me and my computer screen, right now, as I made a regular post about Mother's Day.

We then headed back up to the house. The boys came out and set a tire to rolling.

Kalib set the tire to rolling again as Lavina cooked. He scored a direct hit and knocked Rex down.

Kalib was very pleased, so he rolled the tire back up to the porch to see if he could down Uncle Rex again. He would succeed.

Jobe raked the house.

Corn, mushrooms and peppers were added to the grill. Soon, we would feast in celebration of Margie and Lavina; in celebration of mothers.

I break away from my India coverage just long enough to go meet Margie, Lavina and Lynxton and spend a few brief moments with my family

On my way to Ted Stevens International Airport in Anchorage, I found myself behind this fellow on Fifth Avenue. It was one of those situations when I sorely wanted to remove the dirty, cracked, windshield in front of me so I could take a crystal-clear picture. But sometimes, you either get the shot through a dirty, cracked, windshield or you don't get it at all.

I was on my way to meet Margie, Lavina and Lynxton when they got off the final flight bringing them home from Phoenix.

I had wanted to meet them as they came out from the secure area, but I didn't make it in time. Jacob, Kalib and Jobe did, though.

And here they are, all of them getting off the elevator near the baggage claim area.

And here came Melanie, who had just arrived home from Kuparak on the Arctic Slope, very near to Prudhoe Bay. Lynxton was overjoyed to see her.

"How does the cool air feel?" I asked Margie. On their last day in the Phoenix area, the temperature had reached 107 degrees (42 C).

"Good!" she answered.

"How does the warm air feel feel?" I asked Melanie. During her stay at Kuparuk, temperatures had ranged from -25 (-32 C) to a warm 10 (-12 C) at the end.

"Good!" she answered.

Here, the temperature was about 50 (10 C) - just about as pleasant as it could be.

The youngest boy: Lynxton, in his Aunt Melanie's arms.

The second youngest boy: Jobe, in the arms of his mother, whom he has not seen for a week.

The oldest boy: Kalib, in no one's arms, walking about on his own two feet.

Lavina had brought Margie to Phoenix with her so that she could babysit Lynxton while Lavina attended her workshop. Now that they were home, Margie would need to spend the rest of the week, at least through Thursday, babysitting the boys in Anchorage.

So the plan was for me to drive home and spend the rest of the week alone, just as I had the previous week, and the week before that, etc.

But instead, I brought Margie home, then got up early in this morning and drove her back to town. Then I drove back alone.

Tomorrow, I will return this blog to India. Some very neat things happened between the time we got off the train in Pune and the wedding functions began, but I really need to get Sujitha and Manoj married, so I will jump ahead, straight into wedding related functions.

Master Chef Nephi Craig, part 1: Introduction - for the first time in her life, Margie eats her own Apache acorn stew and bone marrow (I do too) in a restaurant, cooked to perfection

This is Master Chef Nephi Craig in the kitchen at the Sunrise Park Resort hotel, where he supervises an all-Apache kitchen staff of 28 - 14 line cooks, and 14 on the wait staff - those who serve the customers. In my last post, I informed readers that it did not look like I would be able to conduct a phone interview with him until Tuesday, and so I would postpone his story and go ahead and start my India coverage.

Much has happened since then - first, I spent somewhere close to ten hours making a preliminary thumbnail skim of my entire India take, stopping occassionally, almost at random, to blow one up for a close look - and I realized I have huge, huge, task ahead of me and it won't hurt at all to take another day or two to begin to absord it - and Nephi called Monday afternoon and we did the interview.

So I decided to return to my original plan and post my Nephi story first. It is a story that will have more than the average number of pictures and more words than usual, too. So, rather than rush through it tonight, I decided to introduce Nephi in this post and then to publish the main story tomorrow.

Nephi's story is important to me for a couple of reasons. He is the second of the three sons of Vincent Craig, my best friend from Arizona and as good a friend as a man could have in this world, who died in May of 2010 in the evening of the very same day that I traveled to Arizona to see him for the last time.

I loved Vincent and I love his children and grandchildren and so I love Nephi.

Even if this were not the case, I believe that what he is doing is important, innovative, interesting, and a good story. After exploring the world of French and other "high-class cooking" and mastering the skills necessary to work in any fine restaurant in the world, he came to understand that there is no higher class cuisine than the traditional food that has sustained his own Apache and Navajo people since time immemorial.

He decided that Apache, and other Native American food would be the cuisine he would highlight and he would do so at an Apache-owned restaurant.

He gave me a good story, so please come back tomorrow and I will share it with you. Then I will take this blog back to India.

Shortly after I joined Margie in Arizona, we drove up to the tribal-owned Sunrise Ski Resort and I took the picture of Nephi that stands atop this page. Afterwards, we made the short drive to the ski area itself. We did not stay long and I took no great pictures. The sun was high and hard and I had only one short lens with me, no skis, no boots, so I took this picture, just so I could show you something about the background against which Nephi works.

In the evening, we returned to the restaurant, where Nephi treated us to a ten-course, "Chef's Table" meal that included three sister items (corn, beans and squash)  an indigenous power salad from Meso-America, Pacific salmon and, among many other savory items, Apache acorn stew and bone marrow.

When we were young and Margie first brought me to the reservation, she was a little hesitant to feed me acorn stew - just like the Iñupiat of the Arctic Slope are often a little hesitant to feed their whale, seal, walrus and such to non-Natives whom they do not know.

It is not unusual for non-Natives to turn their noses away from acorn stew, or to shudder when they take their first bite and then refuse to take a second.

Admittedly, when I first tasted acorn stew, it struck me as bitter, but I did not turn my nose or shudder. I ate it. And as I ate, my palate began to adjust to the new taste sensation it had not experienced before. My second bowl tasted okay and my third - delicious.

That's how it generally works when you give food that has long sustained and pleasured other peoples, but is new to you, a chance.

On this night, acorn stew and beef bone marrow was the eighth of our ten courses. It was the first time either of us had been served acorn stew or bone marrow in a restaurant. As you can see, Margie slipped into culinary heaven as she ate it. I did too. I savored the entire meal. 

It was exquisite, beginning to end.

I had originally thought that there was no way I could eat ten courses, but Nephi knows how to portion the servings so that they do not stuff diners and make them uncomfortable. Instead, they satisfy. The ninth course was hangar steak, prepared from Apache beef, made savory by salt from the reservatio salt banks in Salt River Canyon.

Man... so good! I don't think I ever tasted better steak in a restaurant. It was every bit as good as the steak Margie's mom cooks over an open fire, up in Carrizo Canyon.

There is no higher compliment I could give a chef than this.

Two nights later, I would return to follow Nephi as he and his staff prepared a Chef's Table for four visitors from the San Carlos reservation, even as they fed a full house of skiers and other visitors to the resort. That visit is what I will feature in my next post, when I tell Nephi's cooking story.

Train on the floor, Super Cub over head, bunny rabbits and moose at the window, dog in car, young writer turns 21, boys leaving

Kalib and Jobe have been staying with us for a few days, because their dad was suffering some minor pain that could be major if they jumped on him. Last night, Lavina and Lynxton joined them here, allegedly to give dad even a little more space, but I suspect Mom got pretty homesick to see her two older boys.

This morning, I came out of my office and found them all intently watching something. What could it be?

I was going to run around and take a picture from the other side so that you could see their eyes all focused on Thomas as he rolled 'round his track, but when I tried, Kalib came, too, and took the controls. Then Jobe started to come. Kalib was wary, because Jobe can go into Jobezilla mode at any time and wreck Thomas and his tracks.

It worked out okay, though. Jobezilla did not wreck Thomas. Jobe brought another Thomas onto the scene.

After that, I went for a walk. Soon, I heard pistons pumping and a prop beating the air, the volume and pitch rising. I knew it was an airplane, flying low, coming towards me. I looked and sure enough, it was this Super Cub. I wanted to be up there, not down here, but I was down here.

Two ravens held a discussion in the lower reaches of the sky.

Further on, a pickup stopped beside me. The driver wanted to introduce to his new dog, Juneau. This is Juneau. Sadly, his old dog got sick and died. I have a number of photos of that dog, too, whose name slips me - but it is recorded in my old blog, Wasilla, Alaska by 300 and Then Some.

As I neared my house, I saw Dan walking. Dan lives on the corner of Sarah's Way and Seldon, where the domestic bunny rabbits that proliferated in the neighborhood last summer tended to bunk down. By the end of summer, there were many rabbits. I asked Dan if any had survived the winter. Three had, he told me, and now there was one more, so there were four.

Not long after I returned home, two of the bunny rabbits made an appearance in our driveway.

Lynxton made his appearance inside.

I stopped by Metro Cafe at the usual time. Carmen informed that today was the 21st birthday of the young writer, Shoshana. Twenty-one is still young. She will be a young writer for some time to come yet.

As I drove home, I saw this boy running alongside a hill.

Not long after I returned home, two yearling moose calves took the place of the bunny rabbits in our driveway. One of them had a stare-down with Kalib. Neither frightened the other.

Lavina and the boys had planned to stay one more night and leave tomorrow, but Kalib got lonesome for his dad, so his mom decided to take them home tonight. Caleb said goodbye to Lynxton.

The boys got buckled in...

...and then Lavina drove off with them. I do not remember precisely what the time was, but I believe it was a bit after 8:00 PM. Before I left home, Alaska still had the shortest days of anyone in the country. Now Alaska has the longest - growing steadily longer the further north you go.

India and Arizona never get really long days - although this time of year Arizona gets a longer day than India does. Still, compared to Alaska, Arizona's spring and summer days are short. Even though I have been home for a week now, come night, I am still a bit overwhelmed by the lingering light.

It doesn't help solve this persistent jet lag problem, though. If anything, it just makes me feel sleepier. And I forgot to buy Melatonin today. So I guess I will go to bed pretty soon, then sleep for two or three hours again, then wake up, groggy again, not able to sleep or fully function.

Still, I functioned better today than I did yesterday. Today was the first day that I made what felt like some significant accomplishments. So maybe, despite how I feel right now, I am making progress.