About Me

I grew up in Oregon, spent several years in California and Florida, and now reside in Georgia with my dear husband and our dogs and fish, and an assortment of seasonal mockingbirds, cardinals, squirrels, brown threshers, chickadees, wrens, garter snakes, and other critters that take up residence in our yard. I work for PINES / Georgia Public Library Service, and spend my free time beading, crafting, painting, cooking, thrifting, gardening, and gradually fixing up our comfortable old 1956 brick ranch.

Influences

Nature, forests, leaves, gnarled wood, the beautiful Oregon coast and mountains where I grew up, the woods in Georgia where I live now, tide pools, seaweed, babbling brooks, pebbles, rusty iron, peeling paint, fantasy and science fiction, and crows.

The Site's Name

I've given this site my great-great-grandmother's name (now more commonly spelled as Kayakiak), in honor of my Yup'ik Eskimo ancestry, and in honor of all of my grandmothers before and since.

My Great-Great-Grandmother, Kaiaghok (also spelled as Kayakiak).

My Grandma Daisy, two of her sisters, and her brother as children in Alaska in 1930
with their parents, "Reindeer Jack" Sheward and Philomena Manchean.