Neko the Great

Because we are not busy enough, we decided to get a puppy.

We welcomed home the latest member of the Liepa household: Neko — named after the veritable Neko Case, the southern alt-country goddess: http://www.nekocase.com

(FYI: If you do not have her album Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, it was one of the best albums of the year a couple of years ago. It just so happens we’ve been listening to this album nonstop the last few months, and the name could go both ways.)

We picked Neko up last week on a trip to Iowa, when we were retrieving our other dog, Otto from my dad’s place, who was watching him while we were out East. We were only going to look at puppies, possibly getting one in October, but ended up taking one home with us. How can you say no to puppies?

(Crystal’s sister, Mariah, posing with the slippery new pup.)

Neko was so distraught on the way home when we picked him up, he puked on the floor between Crystal’s feet two times. All we could do was laugh and then clean it up again. Which begs the question: Is this what having babies is going to be like?

He’s getting the hang of things around the house, and he loves to chase moths on walks in the park. Neko is deathly afraid of the ceiling fan in the living room and the large blue garbage can, which I’m sure are like monsters in his mind, but he’s getting less anxious by the day.

I got him a pumpkin chew toy and he and Otto have learned to play keep-away with it.

He is a joy to have.

Keji and Prince Edward

We’re back. Whew. After driving out through French speaking Canada, we came back through the good ol’ US of A — the border patrol dude in Maine barely even looked up at us before saying, “Welcome back.”

Here are some shots from the rest of our trip, which included stops in Kejimkujik National Park and Prince Edward Island:

On the second day of our canoe adventure, we could see a pretty good rainstorm blowing in, so we hightailed it out of the backcountry, canoeing two day’s distance in one, then driving to New Brunswick so we’d be close to Prince Edward Island for a last couple days.

Merry Merry Maritimes

We’ve had quite a trip out here to Atlantic Canada. Some details below…

Getting there:

Atlantic Salmon fishing on the Miramichi River

We stayed in a cabin on the Miramichi River, and our guide friend, Kenny showed us the ropes on how you are supposed to catch a salmon. (But we didn’t catch any.)

Backpacking in Cape Breton Highlands National Park

Crystal’s first time backcountry camping — we hiked in 7 km to a coastal camp site.

Wine along the coast was our reward.

We are in Halifax now and in anticipation for the next backpacking/canoe trip. Today has been a day of espresso, reading in a laundromat, and biking to the harbor. We have limited time and could not share all our photos today, but more to come…

Peace out,

Dain and Crystal Liepa

R&R

A weekend at the cabin was just what we needed after the festivities and ceremony of the past weekend. As anyone who has traveled with us knows, we usually need a vacation from our vacations, but this time it was all about rest and restoring mental health.

Crystal and I drove up to one of our favorite-est places anywhere — our friend Susan’s cabin, near Danbury Wisconsin. — for a 4-day weekend. I made a veggie lasagna, Susan made her world famous grilled cheese sandwiches, and we had heirloom seedless watermelon with almost every meal. We had great weather for canoeing and lounging on the Namekagon River.

Here are a few shots of our time there:

Tying the Knot

 

Well, we did it, and on bikes no less. Thanks to all who traveled to be part of the ceremony and festivities, and to the countless ways that people pitched in to make everything such a success. We could not have done it without you (unless we eloped).

I’m not sure if I had more fun the night of the rehearsal dinner, when we got to just hang out in a casual way and meet everyone, or the wedding proper. Either way, it was a unique, beautiful day that captured a sense of who we are as a couple.

A top ten of memorable moments from the (extended) wedding weekend:

10. Kids playing on our roof.

9. Riding by another wedding ceremony on our bikes, with bells chiming, and seeing everyone’s stare as the spectacle of our bike train passed.

8. Aunt Vicki coming over two days before the wedding to help mulch the garden and wash windows. Thanks to my dad, too, who came up for two weeks to help refinish the wood floors in the kitchen, and our friend Trisha who helped us do some painting. To many good conversations under the guise of getting work done.

7. The food at the reception. (Wow, it was good. Thanks Il Vesco Vino!)

6. Satako’s ubiquitous presence and help — there she is doing last minute wardrobe stuff for the bride, there she is arranging flowers, now she’s making fun of Albert, there’s no stopping her, my other mom.

5. Stopping for iced green tea at Nina’s Cafe en route to the reception.

4. Ted, our officiating pastor, almost skipping the musicians who sang Tom Wait’s “The Long Way Home” in the service. It all worked out.

3. A late night trip to Micky’s Diner.

2. Beautiful St. Paul, where we fell in love.

1. Feeling the love and support from each other, and all of you who have been a part of our lives. Thank you!

oh my god were getting married

The most amazing day of this year is approaching soon, so I thought I would pump everyone up by posting some of our fun and crazy engagement photos. A friend of ours, Philip, did an amazing job accommodating all the props that Dain and I brought.  I am forgetting Philip’s website at the moment, but I will post contact information for him soon.

We will post more. I hope everyone enjoys them.

Crystal

Poetry in Canada

Think of the stack of photos as a visual poem, each image being a verse, from our cold yet wonderful time camping at Lake Pakwash and Rushing River. In the poem you’ll find an abandoned chair in a golden field. A 5lb walleye I couldn’t bear to hook. A fire and sunset on a sandy beach. A less-than-enlightened fantasy of a woman-deer. And a meditative rock.

I got the idea of a visual poem from Alec Soth, a Minnesota photographer, Dain and I both admire. Check out his blog and version of a visual poem here.

 

In The Cellar of my Grandparent’s Farms

The next day was spent hitting up the sites in Riga, including the Museum of the Occupation and Peter’s Church, a HUGE structure right in the heart of Old Riga.

But the best part of my time in Latvia had to be when I met up with my family to tour the old farmsteads where my grandparents lived.

I rode with cousin Ilze, my sister Emilie, and her son, James and we had a great time together. I had never met Ilze before this trip, but we really hit it off. I could not help but think that, had she grown up in the states, my other cousin Torey and I all would have been great friends, probably getting into all kinds of trouble together. She was truly a kindred spirit, and it felt like we had already known each other for years.

Our first stop was the old house my grandmother used to live in, now occupied by a Russian speaking couple. They were glad to let us poke around the grounds. I was most fascinated by an old stone barn, or what was left of it. One item caught my attention, an old wooden sled right out of Citizen Kane. It was cool and I wanted it, thinking it had maybe belonged to my grandmother in her youth.

I asked Ilze to help me ask for it, hoping she could ship it to me back in the states. We went to the house and asked, only to find out it did not belong to my grandmother’s family at all. (He said I could have it though.) And then he asked us to wait a second, while he went upstairs to find something he did think was from my grandmother’s family. A few minutes later he returned with an old wooden spinning wheel that he handed me. I was blown away, it was really cool. He grabbed a small broom and we took it outside to dust it off.

I took it apart back at our flat and was able to fit it into my luggage — an amazing souvenir, an unexpected family heirloom, just for asking.

I should mention that my dad was in heaven the whole time we were in Latvia. I haven’t seen him so happy in a long time, and I know it was a deeply satisfying trip for him. He was profoundly moved by touring the old farmsteads, and pocketed a rock from the old foundation of a building his father had built.

He’s in Belarus right now, trying for a capercayllie himself, and I wish him luck.

Tanks and Potatoes

My trip to Latvia and Belarus was amazing! Here are a few details from my travels.

Getting There

Just getting there was an adventure. My gun was briefly confiscated by the Riga police when a customs worker did not believe me that, in the states, one does not need a national permit for a shotgun used for hunting. She looked at me with narrowed eyes and pronounced me a liar, claiming she had seen otherwise in movies. It wasn’t looking good.

Luckily, as I was being escorted away to the police building, I spotted my cousin, who quickly came to my rescue. Thanks Ilze!

Belarus

When I made it Belarus the next day I was pretty well exhausted, but I couldn’t pass up the chance to have a couple of shots of vodka with my hosts and interpreter, Ksenja. I was so relieved to be done with airports and people who wanted to frisk me!

In many places in Belarus there are leftover remnants from Soviet times all around, including jeeps, trucks, motorcycles and yes, even tanks!

The landscape itself is beautiful and somber, richly forested and hilly in the northern part of the country, with peat bogs and marshes in the southern half.

The Ghost of my Grandfather

At 4:30 am the next day I was tromping through the woods with a man who, in my bleary-eyed state of mind, had actually become my grandfather.

Michael was soft spoken, and in his green wool mackinaw and matching woodsman’s cap, was the spitting image of my grandfather as I knew him as a child. He smelled of aftershave and had a ruddy face. We did a three-step dance-like march in time with the singing bird, stopping in absolute stillness while waiting for the bird to go back to its singing, when it was safe for us to take three more steps. At times we had to hold our frozen pose for 10-15 minutes before we could move.

All of a sudden, Michael stopped and gestured to a clump in the top of a tree. It did not seem possible the sound of the bird was coming from this clump (among many in the top of the tree), and I paused for some time, not knowing what to do. He seemed to indicate I should shoot, and by now my heart was pounding so loud he actually told me afterwards he could hear it. I finally guessed on the clump and shot, and the bird flew away unscathed. Michael just shrugged his shoulders.

We tried to get close to another bird that morning, but it flew away just as we were getting close. Then it was too light to hunt any more.

I was heartbroken, tired and angry with myself for blowing it, and I slept the sleep of the dead.

Day 2

My last chance. I was mentally prepared and ready to go at 3:30 AM when Michael met us at the hunting lodge. A cold front had blown in during the night and the temperature was a good 20 degrees colder. But more importantly, it was windy, and as we set off into the woods, I did not hear any birds, capercayllie or otherwise. I was pretty sure I had blown my chance.

We searched for hours, and it was beginning to get light. The wind showed no sign of letting up and still no sign of the capercayllie.

Michael had me wait at the junction of a logging road and he vanished into the night air.

Fifteen minutes later he returned with an excited look. He led me back to the woods and before too long I heard the unmistakable clucks and whirring noise this bird makes. Everything is history from here. I made a good shot on the bird and Michael pulled a sprig from a fir tree and put it in my own wool cap.

This was the most amazing bird I have every seen. I had mixed feelings about shooting such a beautiful bird, as I always have when it comes to hunting. But the forestry minister (who accompanied me on the hunt) assured me they had to prove the hunting grounds had at least 8 mature birds in the area before they issued any permits. As an aside, they have 15 hunting regions in Belarus, and they only issue 4 permits maximum, per region. So the number of capercayllie shot will not exceed 60 birds in any year for the entire country.

I will post more about Belarus and Latvia soon.

Photography

Here are photos from my photography journal. I’m sure you have noticed that Dain contributes to our blog more frequently than I. Well, my excuse is a fun one: I am shooting film and digital daily, posting my pictures, and discussing other photographers work on my personal blog when I have the time between classes, work, domestic life, and romantic adventures with Dain. If anyone is interested you can see the above photos and more at www.cryshabermel.wordpress.com. I have been dabbling in different photo-technology like medium format film, polaroids, and digital. I use this technology to create little imaginative worlds that vegetables with human-like qualities inhabit. As seen above I hope it appears that I have anthropomorphized the parsnip into a voluptuous woman and the rutabaga into a little non-sensical creature. In my time apart from the obscure and irrational images, I have been pursuing fashion photography (the type of free-lance work that will provide some sort of income.)

I would love it if any of you bloggers and visitors would join in on the discussion by leaving comments on my blog. Albert has taken initiative and posted a question about one of my photos.

Dain made it safely to Latvia and has hopefully begun his hunting adventure in Belarus. He told me he had to leave his computer behind so that nobody would suspect he is a spy. He is my Hemingway without the drugs and bigotry.