When it's worth the risk!

When two days later Mirek was getting ready to go fishing, I was still a bit concerned and reminded him to take his hiking knife so that he had a weapon to fight those hungry cougars off.

"If you are not back by 9 am," I told him,"I'll start getting worried, thinking that you are bleeding to death somewhere between the stones," we couldn't help ourselves and laughed together.
The second time he went fishing, he took Ivana with him. Overtime, we got used to the dangers all around us and started enjoying a beautiful environment we were in.

"Aren't you afraid to sleep on the open porch, Anore?" I asked her after hearing the story how Keith had killed five mountain lions over the time that they have been living on the ranch.

"The potential danger is there, I guess," Anore started with a smile."But I don't worry about it. Falling asleep looking up at the stars and waking up to sun rays stroking my cheeks is so worth the risk! Ideally, it would be nice to have a tarp hanging above so that we wouldn't have to get up in the middle of a night when it starts raining," she added.
Keith and Anore will have been living on the ranch as caretakers for 24 years next month.

Almost every evening we were watching a slide show about Alaska, and listening to great stories about the times when they lived there. A soft cover book with stories and black and white photographs about life in Alaskan "bush", published by National Geographic, has been Keith's and Anore's "scrap book" of over 20 years of their life with the Eskimos. And when the old time habits set in, they stay for good. It was amazing to watch Keith "work" the bones from a cooked goat spine to a complete bareness. I can totally relate to having nothing go to waste. And then one day we had a special treat for dinner, a cow's tongue, a nostalgic reminder of special days of my childhood.
Since there was really no garden to take care of, we had other projects to contribute on the ranch. Mirek built a rain shelter for the goats, and I and the kids cooked white peach jam and apple butter.

Everybody wanted to help and we managed to process a big bucket full of freshly picked white peaches in no time.
Couple hours later Anore put away a few jars of white peach jam with ginger, cinnamon and rhubarb.

And then everybody off to swimming in the afternoon!