Mt. Redoubt

"No sooner had Redoubt volcano quieted down from a morning of unrest and commercial airline activity start to resemble normal when the volcano erupted again late this afternoon, the Alaska Volcano Observatory reported." -Anchorage Daily News

In Kotzebue we're waiting for regular mail and bypass mail which includes groceries like meat and produce. The airport delays have slowed deliveries, but some stuff is still trickling in. We did receive our shipment of organic produce from Washington yesterday. Eva ate two clementines and the whole container of strawberries within five minutes of opening the box. She said, "I love oranges...I love strawberries!" Austin dropped a gallon of Eva's milk this morning, spilling it on the floor, and we immediately rushed to the store to make sure we had some in the fridge. She typically goes through a gallon every other day (that is $10/gallon...you do the math). Fortunately she tolerates canned and boxed milk but sometimes the store runs low even on those items. It’s not much different than having the bad weather which we've had for the past several weeks. Sometimes we didn’t have planes for two days so we are kind of used to it.

I am also getting better at preparing the foods we keep in the freezer for just such an occasion. We have about 15 red salmon from this summer's Kenai trip, some whitefish from Kotzebue sound, and Aaron got half the meat from three caribou he and another guy shot last year. I made a pretty good pot of caribou chili and some caribou and mushroom risotto. The fish tacos were also a hit!

I'm just glad my doctor's appointment in Anchorage isn't until next week....I hope things have calmed by then.