widdawootie

The raw milk from the dairy tends to not last as long as pasteurized milk. Sometimes we have not consumed it all before it gets "blinky" as Karl puts it. So I looked for sour milk recipes online today and decided to try doughnuts. I am not one for frying stuff, and I actually have a doughnut baking tin that Grandma gave me years ago that I have never used. I made the dough and put it in the tin and baked it. The doughnuts were white--the same color as the dough, but baked like a biscuit. A nutmeg flavored biscuit. They weren't that great. By themselves. I have a feeling they would be great with coffee. So we've decided to call them "dunkers" and put them in Ziplocs in the freezer in packs of 8 or 9. Yum for breakfast.

The Daily News had a write up on my Kasigluk project in the paper today:

http://www.adn.com/opinion/view/story/587290.html

Here's one of the village I took from the plane window. The three turbines are in the foreground. The tank farms and power plant are the white blotches to the left. The school has the blue roof, and is the biggest building in town.


This is a nice photo that we have been using for marketing:

It's 28 and starting to snow. This makes it easy to do the grocery store errand on the lunch break and not worry about leaving the groceries in the car for the afternoon.....as long as there's no ice cream.

Also, I get my first CSA box today! Yay! I even downloaded a recipe for kale to try.

I signed up for the Full Circle Farms CSA today. A small box every other week. We'll see how it goes. http://www.fullcirclefarm.com/index.html

This CSA is quite popular in Anchorage. I realize I am paying a lot for shipping (and fossil fuel), but again, we'll see how it goes.... I like that there is no sign up fee, and it's just pay-per-box. And all the packaging (just the box itself) is returned and reused every week.

We'll get those dark leafy greens digested yet!

So I was at the doc yesterday for a checkup and the nurse was taking my blood pressure. She noticed the burn on my wrist and I explained that it was from canning applesauce. (I think I stated that it "blorped up out of the pot onto my wrist".)

She said "Wow! I didn't think anyone canned stuff anymore. My grandma canned stuff when I was little and boy there is nothing like the taste of home canned food. I just didn't think people did it anymore." I just didn't know what to say. I think I managed to say something like "well what else do you do with 30 gallons of apples that won't keep?"

I was just kind of astounded at myself in my little green urban homesteader farmers market-shopper bubble to realize that one's source of food just may not cross the average person's daily thoughts. It's not like this nurse was a 22-year-old self-absorbed weekend-pubgoer worried about the latest in shoe fashion. I could completely understand someone of that time in their life not paying attention to how much industrial corn is in their diet. This lady was in her later forties, and seemed pretty down to earth. Or so I thought.

I really wasn't passing judgment on her thoughts on canning because really, I am one of two or three people I know here who can or freeze my produce. There are several or lots of people here who can fish, however. (which I tried to do this year. I think I was successful.) I suppose those people would also say "what else do you do with 40 salmon??"

It just so much makes me wonder. When people think about food what do they think of? How does this translate to their actions about food? What about my own? When I read about cutting food costs, it always states coupon clipping as a major saver of $$$. When I look at coupons they are almost always for junk and preprocessed foods I seldom buy. So that one stumps me. How often do people go to the grocery store? I get annoyed at myself if I have to make a second trip in a week. My goal is every other week, and I sometimes make that.

There's likely a whole spectrum of attitudes out there, but I have a feeling that the majority of shoppers think little if at all about food sources beyond "hey I should probably buy some organic stuff because it's better for me". And I bet they go more than once per week, and buy more junk than they planned on. I like to read about and get some new ideas about preserving food and eating local or the farmers markets and recipes. But really, is it just a tiny elitist part of the general public who does this? Is it elitist because it takes more time to thoughtfully plan that way? Especially in Alaska, where "local produce" means an excess of greens and potatoes, but little else unless you want to pay $7 per pint for those strawberries? The farmers market might be cheaper than the store in suburban Portland, but here the store is way cheaper (except perhaps for those tons of greens). Seriously, if I bought my apples at the farmers market I would pay $4 or $5 per pound.

I don't know where I am going with this train of thought, but it was a train anyways....

apple picking last weekend





My hard cider brewing. Happy yeast bubbling away in the closet.



pints o' applesauce



the pretty mountain ash tree in the front yard

Well, I was quite surprised to hear McCain's announcement on Friday. "You're kidding me" was what I said. Then we went to the State Fair for the day, and there must have been a leak about it because there were already "McCain - Oldest President, Palin - Hottest Vice" buttons and T-shirts for sale. I didn't buy one.

Personally, I think Sarah Palin is a pretty cool lady. She's smart and beautiful and uses both to her advantage (she posed for Vogue last winter I think)-- and why not?? She is easy to talk to and listens to people-- she's a UI alum and we sat with her over cocktails one evening at an alumni event a couple years ago. She had just announced she was running for governor when we went to that event, and she did not talk about her candidacy at all, but asked questions about our jobs and what we felt were issues in rural Alaska. (We promoted renewable energy really hard.) She's pretty connected to the average American-- kids, mortgage, sports, commutes to work (she is the first governor to elect NOT to use the governor's mansion in Juneau, and instead lives in her hometown and commutes to an office in Anchorage; she also sold the State's jet and flies commercial). She doesn't have a family history of millionaires or politics, which I think so much disconnects many politicians from the rest of America. Perhaps as such, she doesn't have a pile of skeletons in her closet. I would go camping or go get a pedicure with her any day of the week because I think it would be a blast.

As governor of Alaska she can do some pretty good things, especially cut some unethical pork from state politics (which is really a problem here), and provide some new energy and get lots done while governor.

I am still not voting for her.

Her stances on certain issues at the state level are inconsequential, but could have huge effect at the national level.

She is anti-abortion. Not a big deal at the state level I guess, but a big deal in the White House. Hooray for her for having 5 kids, but CHOICE needs to be an option for some.

She is not very GREEN. She does not want polar bears and beluga whales listed as threatened or endangered because it hurts business in Alaska. I am not sure where she stands on global warming, but for pete's sake it's so obvious here she should be raising all kinds of red flags about it nationally. She is pro-oil and pro-mining--- I am not anti- either of those, but I like having strict rules about it.

She lacks national and international experience. Eight years ago she was mayor of Wasilla. She has been governor here for two years. Between and before being mayor I am not sure what she did. Definitely being a mom and raising kids was a full-time gig, but there was no profession or business in there, really. It raises the question: If they win, does McCain run again when he's 76 years old? Or does Palin end up as President? While it would be cool to say "I knew her when she was mayor..." I don't think she fills the bill.

There's also a tiny smidge of selfishness here, where I want her to finish her job as governor because it's going pretty well here. Now she's going to be all distracted campaigning and might flee to Washington and leave us with no governor, especially if the Lieutenant Governor wins his bid for Congress this fall...

Two asides: Having five kids while in the white house, one of which is tiny with special needs -- not a factor that would have bearing on my decision to vote for her or not. And, her daughter's pregnancy --- also not a factor. I suppose if the Palins had turned their backs on her I would take issue with that.

Another non-factor: Her husband works for BP. From what I understand, he's a blue collar, non-management person there, and is not in any way close to influencing policy from that avenue.

So I suppose if you are a pro-life, pro-big business and development type, and can get past the lack of experience, Sarah is your woman for the job. While it would be very cool to have a woman VP (and one that I've even met!), I can't vote for her. Nope, no way.

So it went down like a Shakespearian play. The last two bee hive checks I had done, the bees in the west hive had been making new queen cells. The east hive is fine. I was removing all of these larvae cells, and I did not know if they were getting ready to swarm, or what. A queen larvae takes about 10 days to hatch, so my weekly bee checks should have eliminated any chance of two queens. Well, the other night we checked them again. Lots of queen cells, which we removed most of them. No queen. The queens that were sent in April had a spot of red paint on the thorax so to easily find them. No queen to be found. We were about to close up the hive and leave the last untouched queen cell to mature and hatch, and then, just by chance, I saw a new queen! The old queen had a black abdomen, and this one's abdomen was golden, just like every other bee in the hive, and of course no paint spot. It was totally by chance that I saw her. So, the old queen must have been weak or they didn't like her for some reason, and they killed her and replaced her with a new one. I guess we will see next week if this new development results in no more new queen cells. I ran back to the house to get something to mark the new queen with. Thank goodness for the three-year-old, because I had a whole cupful of markers and stuff to choose from. Most of the water based markers did not work and you could not see the color over her black thorax, but the green glitter glue showed up nicely! And she looks all sparkly and royal, too.

Local art I have fallen in love with that I may purchase for my living/dining room. The prints are on canvas over wood so it stands out a couple inches from the wall. No other frame.

http://vraeart.com/collections/12142/?displayhorz=3

Well, I finally downloaded my camera, and here is a brief history of my brief beekeeping career.

Got the bees on a Thursday in April. Installed them in their hive five days later. The next weekend it snowed. A lot. The two hives are to the left of the greenhouse.



I was traumatized by the thought of shivering bees. Godforsaken snow finally melted. Herb the Bee Guy showed us how to check on the hives, which we do every 7 to 10 days. In between checks, they require no care at all. Some people would need to provide a water source for their bees, but we have Campbell Creek behind our yard.



Notice my bee partner Melissa, who wears only a mosquito shirt, veil, and gloves rather than the whole beekeeping suit. She is braver than I, is totally zen with the bees, and has not been stung yet. I have been stung once so far, on my finger through the glove. I wasn't so bad, mostly surprising, but my finger was swollen for a few days. I understand that if you are conditioned to receiving stings, then you have no reaction or swelling from them at all.



K took these photos. If I were really keen, I would take the camera and juggle it with my gloves and take some close up photos while fiddling with the frames. I will manage that one of these days.



The first brood box, shown in these photos, contains the bees, the queen, and all the larvae they are growing, as well as some pollen and honey. We now have a second brood box on top of the first. Next week or so we will set a queen excluder screen on the top of the second box and set a honey super box on top of that. This will prevent the queen from climbing into the super box and laying eggs. She is bigger than the rest of the bees, and they will still be able to get through the screen to store pollen and honey. By the end of the season, there will probably be a total of four or five boxes. That could get quite tall, so I will have to have K make me some shorter hive stands.