Summer 2010 on the Nushagak River

Well, I'm not in Togiak anymore. Away from the bay, up the Nushagak river about 70 miles there is a quiet little cabin, a workshop and several outhouses where the fun never ends. Long summer days and endless fish, who could ask for more?

This is what I get to look at every day... The Nushagak River.

Here's the main cabin!

Here's our windowed in porch, built in little gardening spot with a beautiful view!

Here's a nice chromer king salmon, 20 pounds!



Obedia got caught up in the net.. brings new meaning to catching a dog fish!Got the recliner in the boat... life is good!

This is my first King Salmon ever!
Between throwing the stick for Obie, we're hauling wood, water and supplies. We're processing fish for preservation. We're growing a garden. Busy people!

Hope you're all doing good too!

Yes, I'm still alive

You've probably stopped checking, long ago coming to the conclusion that I wanted to see how a sign post tastes at -15 degrees, or maybe I swam away, eager to see what life would be like as an ice cube.

But if you are one of the few that has not yet given up hope, that somewhere out there Tara is still keeping it real in Togiak, you will be rewarded with some random pictures.

I know what you're thinking. "Totally righteous dude!" Yep, I can read minds, long distance, through the internet. Next time you check my blog, I will be a millionaire, but it will take me 6 months to post about it.

Let's see... since October... I've taught a lot of math in the village, met and fallen for an awesome guy, went on a ridiculous vacation, and taught some more math.

And now, the pictures.

This is a really big puzzle that KC, Robin, and I did.. it took a lot of time...

This is the view out of the airplane between Togiak and Dillingham... I started flying a lot to see my boyfriend.

This is an aerial of Togiak

another

This is at a basketball game, cute shy little Joel and Andrea

This is Gala at the grocery store after choir practice, love her!

This is near Talkeetna, where I went during my vacation

Mt. McKinley, biggest mountain in North America. Talkeetna, Alaska, about 3 hours north of Anchorage. Awesome!

The outhouse at OC's cabin... For those of you that have a fascination with outhouses... you can admit it here, this is a safe zone.

OC's cabin. We stayed in a little cabin nearby for 3 days.

The view from the kitchen window at OC's... Mt. McKinley! Sweet!

Dusk in Togiak....

During my Christmas vacation I also went skiing in Anchorage... didn't take any pictures of that though... sorry!

Hope you're doing good! Life is good here. My roommate is the best, my job is fun (don't tell anyone though), and I'm feeling good!

I'll try to get to the library more to update more often. I'll just be chillin here in the mean time!

As of lately

Hey everybody, I thought it was about time for another update... I guess it's probably a little over due. Well, here you go!

A sweet picture of the mudflats and the bay today... just another beautiful day...


Everybody loves rocks... or is it just me?

Caribou skull... just chillin.

Up close on the caribou skull.

This is Teddy's drying shed, where he is drying a whole bunch of red salmon

Me and the fishies

I have a strange fascination with drying fish...

This is the backyard of Jeremiah Steck, his neighbors have a lot of old equipment.

Here's a picture of the mudflats outside my apartment today, we had some pretty impressive wind and waves a couple days ago, so the mud is especially awesome looking.

A cake that I helped Michelle make for Andrea's sister, brother in-law and nephew. It was awesome having visitors from the outside!

Here's some pictures from a long time ago... Lida visited and we all camped out at second creek. We set up our tents and cooked dinner over a fire. Fun!

Night time is coming. Camping on the beach, another beautiful night. Check out the size of the moon!


Some bear prints that we found on the beach the morning after camping....

When Lida visited we climbed two hill for some serious berry picking.

Here's Andrea, resting after our intense climb!

And me, enjoying the beauty of Alaska.

Things are going pretty good. School is pretty awesome, I love my job. Home is great, friends are super, and everything is just good. I hope you are all doing good. I miss you all...

Ohh Togiak... How I love Thee.

So, I haven't posted any pictures yet this year and I figured you guys were due for some updated photos. So here you go, in no particular order.

We went out net fishing in the river, that's our net out in the water, catching delicious silver salmon


Andrea and I have been doing lots of berry picking. This one is taken on the top of Two Hill, there were lots of big blue berries :)

When I went up river with Lenny we saw 4 grizzley bears!! Thankfully we were in the boat and they were on land! This is one of the smaller ones we saw.

Here's the counselor Robin, with her prized catch from the day we went up river with Lenny.

This is Lenny, he's awesome. He took a couple of us up the river in his boat for fishing and stuff.


Here's me and my first silver salmon of the season. I was very excited!

This is what it looks like up river. There are mountains and stuff too. It's really beautiful.

Ahh fishing... very fun!!

This is what I see when I look out of my window in my house. It's the bay!

This is my house and my 4-wheeler. Not too shabby.


This is a picture of some houses in the village. Pretty nice truck eh?

This was taken when we went out to second creek, that's Andrea and Michelle chillin by the creek. We picked lots of berries that day.

That's the end of my picture reel for now. School is awesome, life is good, and I'm happy to be alive. I hope all of you are good as well!

Back in Togiak!

Ok, I don't want to jinx myself, but so far, this year is amazing. I'm not kidding. I feel like a new person. I have a new place to live, I have a new job, new principal, 6 new staff members, and so far everyone has been great! Here's some stuff that's making me feel great:

• Today I walked on the beach, watching seagulls hang out. It's sunny and warm with big puffy clouds.
  
• Today I gave an older gentleman a ride from the village up the hill, he spoke no english, but was able to use his hands to gesture his great appreciation.
• This week, 95% of my high school math students turned in quality homework everyday.
• This week I heard students say "wow, I'm actually learning something!" and "math is actually kind of fun" and "this is going to be a great year!" and "your class always goes by so fast!"
• This week students actively engaged in discussion about how math problems can be solved.
• Yesterday, my new principal told me that I'm doing a good job.
• Yesterday I hiked to the top of 2 hill with some friends, picked blue berries and admired the view.
  

If things keep up, my blog could get pretty boring because I'll just brag about how happy I am all the time. That is a risk I am willing to take. By the way, my summer was freaking awesome, thanks to all the great people I saw. You should call me and tell me how you're doing.

Last week in Togiak

I'm Done!!!!! I'm on my way out of Alaska as I type this. The last week of school was great, I got my room all cleaned out and stuff. Thanks to Justin, I got to go out on the boat and see big gray whales!

Here's Captain Justin

Here's Dennis and Michelle out on the boat!

We also saw Summit Island, Crooked Island, Round Island, and Black Rock. Also, herring fishing season is about to begin so we got to see lots of huge fishing boats.Here's a boat called the Maverick, I guess it's been on Deadliest Catch. The Time Bandit is also in our bay.

The Bering Sea... and some islands and stuff out there.

Michelle took some pictures of the whales, those may come later.

After the boat ride, Jon and I finished up our painting project. Andrea and Justin thought it would be nice if we painted their son's room for next year. So we painted Joel's room, he is 2, so we thought we'd decorate with some animals and an arctic water theme. Here's Jon Sharp, painting some geese

Here's a Walrus that I painted and a puffin

And here's Jon's whale. I hope Joel enjoys his new room!

Now that I am leaving I know I will miss Togiak. I already can't wait to see all of my friends I've met there again next year. I think about my students and hope that they don't forget everything they learned this year. I'm sad that some of my favorite people are not returning next year. I'm also excited about all the changes next year, new apartment, no roommate, teaching math instead of science, a bunch of new teachers, new principal, new teacher steam house (called a maki) and new adventures lay await.

Now I'm heading back to Michigan. This summer I will visit many places, among them, North Carolina, Nebraska, Montana and Colorado.

I hope everyone has a great summer!!