An Alaska Thing??

We have done many things up here that we would never have dreamed of doing in Michigan. I'm not sure why that is....except that life is just a bit different up here even for all the ways that it is similar. Here are a few things that I wonder if they are "an Alaskan thing":

• Haircuts: This past weekend while visiting my aunt and uncle in Ninilchik something possessed me to ask if they had hair clippers and scissors. They did, so I got Denver on the chair and started shaving. I've shaved him bald before, but never actually tried to cut his hair with any style, but this time I did. I think it turned out pretty cute; Denver has mixed feelings about it. He even added a prayer when we said grace the next day that "Mom learns how to cut my hair better!" Aurora was next, which was pretty easy since I have trimmed her bangs before. I even went at it with the thinning shears and I think I went maybe a little overboard with them, but bangs are bangs and Aurora's not complaining. Amazingly, I got Doug in my chair! I'd been badgering him to get a haircut for weeks, but he rarely gets to Homer (even more rarely during the day when salons are open), and even he thought $30 was too much for a guy's haircut. So I revved up the razor and away I went. I didn't think it was too bad, but you notice I'm not putting a picture here. My aunt kept telling him to give me a couple times to get the hang of it. Anyways, I would never, ever have done this in Michigan.
• Since our car was in the shop yesterday, and I needed to get to Homer, Doug took the 4-wheeler to work. He strapped on his bag of school papers, popped the kids on back to take up to the bus stop, and then zoomed off. He was able to go about 15 mph faster on the 4-wheeler than in his vehicle. He said it sure didn't seem any faster.
• Our landlord's parents grow cows for a few people they know. They get the calves young and grow them all summer and butcher them in the fall. When we moved here someone mentioned it to us and we said yes, we would definately want a cow. A month or so ago they butchered our cow and took it down to McNeil Canyon Meats for us. We filled out a form telling them what cuts we wanted and how we wanted them, and a few days later our order was ready to be picked up--prefrozen and packaged. In addition to the 1/2 moose we got (which was free except for processing), we got 219 pounds of young cow, every cut plus burger and stewing meat, for basically less than $3/lb. I learned how to pressure cook stew meat (another story: we had to get a chisel to pry off the cover of the pressure cooker!) and I am learning to cook meat too. We are all becoming conniseurs of what type of cuts we like best (so far, all of them!!), and rubs, marinades, broiling, grilling and all sorts of other things are becoming household words and activities. I never would have dreamed I would become a meat-eater, but up here meat is the cheapest food if you hunt (or have someone who raises a cow for you!)
• Since the bus stop where the kids get dropped off is 1/2 mile from our house, they like it when I can walk up to the stop and meet them when I can. Well, what with all this snow, I decided to ski up there. The roads are all covered with snow so my skis wouldn't get scraped up. The kids thought it was kind of cool, but they wanted to be on skis themselves. Plus I ski a lot faster than they can walk, so they spent most of their time running to catch up with me! Maybe I'll snowshoe next time??!!