Picked a bouquet of the local flora: fireweed, wild geranium, dogwood, yarrow, reeds, and a freshwater clam shell makes a wonderful bouquet, which is good enough for a wedding, in my opinion.
There had always been a great supply of white gravel on the homestead, which my father made the home road from.
Looked at the Russian architecture in the old part of Kenai, which I saw often, as a child.
I'm going to list some Alaskan women's blogs on the side bar, separate from the US and overseas blogs, so if you want your blog there, please send it.
35 comments:
Welcome back! So glad you enjoyed your visit. There is nothing like remembering your childhood is there? Especially if was a happy one.
Glad you had a wonderful trip.
I would love to hear your thoughts on Sarah Palin, especially from your perspective as both an Alaskan and a conservative woman. If it is too political for this blog, I understand though.
~ Ann
The old Russian buildings are beautiful, much better than the big boxes we build now... I'm glad you had a good trip to the old home place, and happy voyage back to your current homestead.
I have received quite a few emails asking me to post about Sarah Palin. Alaskans are very proud of her. I will post more when I don't have Miss Pooh Bear here tugging at me to take her outside. The corn is on now, and it is so sweet, the children are eating it raw, from the garden. See you later, and be sure to email or post me your blog sites if you are in Alaska! I want to get that up as a separate category.
To give a politician response: some of my friends are for her.
Some of my friends are against her.
I'll just stick with my friends, for now.
And write about her later.
Lydia
Welcome back Lady Lydia! I'm glad you had an enjoyable time. Thanks for sharing your beautiful holiday snaps. Safe traveling!
~Lady Kalianne
Lady Lydia, I've had several relatives call me out of the blue these last few weeks and ask for me to opine on SP, too. Everything from her policy positions to her home life to her religious beliefs.
LOL. It's just so weird that suddenly she's interesting to people from outside. But understandable.
Welcome home! I hope the trip was every bit as wonderful as it looked!
Your pictures from your visit are absolutely beautiful! It seems like a wonderful place!
Very, very beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing it!
Elizabeth
I love the bouquet of flowers!
The church is beautiful! The only old Russian church I have been to is in Eklutna. It has a very interesting native cemetery there.
I would love to have a link to my blog on the Alaskan list. Thanks.
http://goldberrycottageak.blogspot.com/
Lady Lydia,
Greetings! I wanted to leave a comment here as I didn't see a way to leave a comment at the LAF site, and i know you are a bit part of that group, too. You don't need to post this here as it's not relevant to the post, but I still wanted to share my THANKS with you!
I was BEYOND relieved to see the LAF response to the Sarah Palin pick for VP and the issue of the election in general. Thank you SO much for not just being partisan republicans, which, sadly, I see so many in the North American Christian world being. I have seen so many people that I would have expected to stand up and point out the inconsistecy of a self-proclaimed bible-believing Christian woman abdicating her role as wife and mother (and with such small children at that!) in order to be governor and now to be VP. This even includes the likes of Phylis Schafly, and other women who I have known to speak for the traditional roles of women in the public sphere, but are blinded by partisan politics in their reaction to the Palin pick.
Also, thank you for being transparent and showing that Christian does not equal "republican" or bush-supporter. Thank you for being willing to show that conservative politicians can be hypocrites, too. And thanks for exploring the issue of whether "voting for a lesser of two evils" makes any sense. I can never find a candidate I want to vote for because I am all over the board politicaly; I am very conservative on what I would call moral and social issues, but I tend to be more of a fiscal progressive. In addition, I am not a fan of hawkish foreign policy. So you can see how I am at a total loss for picking a candidate! Haha.. so thanks for just exploring this issue and for staying true to the cause of championing biblical womanhood, even in the face of what many Christians are embracing as the "ideal" candidate.
God bless you and please pass this on to your sisters at LAF.
In Christ,
Nicole
Lady Lydia,
Thank you for the posts and photographs of your trip. I have enjoyed them and feel that I was "with" you on your trip back home. Alaska looks so wild and wonderful!
Prior to her death my dear sweet mother-in-law visited Alaska. It was her dream to visit there one day. Her photos are beautiful, too.
Have a blessed day.
Peace,
Lynne in NC
Welcome back!
I was intrigued by your flowers as we have fireweed over here also. Now you have me wondering where you are!
Blessings.
I love going to that church. I stop by it whenever I am in Kenai, which is about once a week. It is so beautiful in there... the chandelier and all. Thanks for all the pictures of the beautiful places that I often forget whilst living here! (the Kenai really is gorgeous.)
If it's not too much trouble, I'd like to have my link in the AK list.
http://willowcliffestudios.blogspot.com
-Laura
That is true-- Christianity getting its reputation tangled up in Republican party politics has done it no good that I can think of. Still, I like Sarah Palin, and can't help but be proud of an Alaskan woman doing so well on a big, often hostile, national stage... though I certainly understand the larger issues involved.
My baby was born just a week ahead of hers, and you could not pay me a million bucks to be vice president right now.
(anyway, LL, I don't want to turn this into an ugly political post, and if you don't want to publish this, I totally understand!)
I don't want to say anything bad about Sarah Palin. She is very pro-life and that is good, because your theology dictates your politics. To her credit, she has been married once, over 20 years and has several children. I think she has more credibilty than her running mate.
I am not going to vote for either of the "parties" but it doesnt' mean I don't like Sarah ==I am very proud of her and I thought she was a better candidate within those two parties.
But Lady Lydia... I have say I'm not sure where I see the "pride" in Mrs Palin coming from. Make no mistake, I don't mean to malign her, or defame her, but as a woman who has been so outspoken agains the negative affects of feminism in our society, and in particular the damage that is done when women abdicate their roles as mothers in the home in exchange for a "career", i am not quite sure where the "pride" comes from. I saw her on ABC saying there are no differences in the gendres. But isn't that precisely the kind of feminist thinking that you have been outspoken against? As much as I love the fact that she is outspokenly prolife, I cannot help but see her an exactly example of how the negative aspects of feminism have hurt even the most "conservative" and Christian of families.
In Christ,
Nicole
And another comment I would like to make, if I could, is how disappointed I was to see her demeanor at the convention. As Christian women, we are called to have a gentle and quiet spirit, and to have words of wisdom and respect coming from our lips, that God's word should not be defamed. I was tacked aback by Mrs Palins mocking, sarcastic tone.
I'm sorry to leave yet another comment, but I am just surprised to hear you say that you were proud of her, especially in lighof the the article I was reading on LAF.
Blessings again!
Nicole
I won't be voting for her. I am concerned about some of the things she said. I did appreciate the fact that she wasn't always talking about equal rights or about how bad things are, etc.
I had hoped the Sarah Palin remarks pro and con would stay over at LAF and not on this blog.
Also not all Christians think the same on all issues.
Thanks,
Dearest Lady Lydia,
Today while we were driving to town, I took note of the wild flowers growing in the fields, ditches, etc and instantly thought of you and your wild flower bluoquet. I wanted to take a few seconds and thank you for helping me to see them as "God's beautiful free bouquets" rather than "just ugly old weeds." :0)
Jimandi
Wow, how did I miss you! I live in Kenai! :) I recognized the church right away! Neato! how exciting for you.:)
I don't know! Carol Broussard had a tea party for me and wanted to find some people who wanted to come. We ended up with 4 friends, and more would have been welcome. Lydia
Debbie,
Where did you attend church on Sunday in Kenai, or Soldotna?
Welcome back, dear Lydia. How happy I am that you had a wonderful time.
Of course! You are in neighbours to me although I am in Canada ;)
Fireweed was the tip off for me!
Blessings.
Hi Lady Lydia,
Glad you are back safe and sound and it sounds like you had a great time.
I posted an ode to you on my blog, I hope you like it. You inspired me:)
Many Blessings :)
Ace
Welcome back!
I am so happy you had the opportunity to visit your old home. Thank you so much for keeping us updated and sharing the lovely photos.
You are also living proof that you can dress ladylike in the wilderness and still be very functional!
Take Care,
Trixie
I'm Orthodox (of the Russian variety), so I was delighted to come upon your post with the picture of the Kenai Orthodox Church. For those that are interested, here is a link to the church's listing on the website of the Orthodox Church in America (to which the Kenai parish belongs. The OCA has Russian roots, now mostly American folks, including lots of converts like myself).
http://www.oca.org/DIRlisting.asp?SID=9&KEY=OCA-AK-KENDVM
This has the history of the parish. It was founded in 1846.
I have so enjoyed your Alaska trip and photos. I FINALLY bought your book and have been absolutely taken with the precious memories, fabulous photos, and your parents' grand adventure! :-)
And yet, reading the book left me with questions about (and I hope this isn't too forward, if it is, I apologize!) the "rest of the story"...why your parents left, what happened to the cabin, etc.? Are you able to share about these events?
Marlaine,
What happened to the Big House is a big mystery. I last saw it in 1971 and walked inside of it, even though someone else owned the property. Every time we ask someone if they know what happened to the house, they change the subject. Someone said it burned down but the evidence on the property does not support that at all, because there is no damage to anything on the ground. All the pipes are still sticking out, with no fire damage, and there is not one bit of rubble indicated a fire. In fact, there is not one trace of the house there. The old barn, which was built similarly to the house, has been torn down, and there remains all kinds of evidence on the ground in the form of old pegs (which my father used to build the houses), logs, and pieces of the structure on the ground. On the area where the Big House once stood, is just the clean white gravel, natural to that area, where it once stood, and the pipes to the well, the septic, the root cellar, and other pipes wrapped in heat tape (a type of insulation tape containing wires, that kept the pipes from freezing) and the corner stones --with no evidence of any burn at all. After a burn, there is usually a lot of fire weed or old stumps with burn on them. My parents thought the house had been carefully taken apart and reconstructed somewhere else, but no one has been able to locate it and no one in the area has been able to tell us anything about it.
As for the reason for leaving the homestead, it is coming forth in "Better Than a Dream," with more memories and wonderful stories.
I will share that a few fellow homesteaders thought the book was written through rose-colored glasses. However, it could be that today's books are always peppered with unsettling information and disturbing events, so much so, that people's judgment of books has changed, and they do not view happiness as "real" and may even suspect that there is something the author is not telling. It is true we had a lot of hardship, but I did not feel it necessary to write descriptions of things that parents would not feel comfortable exposing children to, and I also have never appreciated getting really absorbed in a good book, only to have it lead me downhill into death and despair. In keeping with my parent's attitude, I had to end each story the way they would have viewed it, even if it was a dour experience at the time. If you read the book carefully, there WAS some pathos in it: the boy that nearly drowned, the roof that caught on fire, the dog that didn't come home, the cars that wouldn't go, and the breakdown in Soldotna. God took care of us through all this, and I felt obligated to show that. Also, it was a gift to my parents and I didn't want them to feel guilty that we had endured such a hard life, and wanted them to see that it was all for our good. Someone else also asked me if any of us ever thought our parents did not raise us right, and I have to say that none of us, despite the hardship, ever blamed our parents for anything. In fact, we learned that if we got into any kind of trouble, it was our own fault, for not listening to them. My mother often told us that if we walked down the homeroad without permission, by ourselves, and got hit by a car and killed, that she would SPANK us with the switch. We were more frightened of her switch than we were of the highway. It never occurred to us that if we got killed, we wouldn't feel the switching....
Lady Lydia,
I truly appreciate your response, and I deeply respect your reasons for writing the book the way you did.
Looking forward to "Better Than a Dream"! :-)
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