'Alaska' Category
The Garden
I feel badly about skipping posts here and yammering on about berries and the garden, rather than embroidery and literacy, but the new website and blog are not online yet, and this is my life at the moment. I am a bit more than a recreational gardener: my goal is to grow much of the [...]
Blueberry Adventures
It’s been more than a week since I baked anything with blueberries, and I have yet to make the Blueberry Pandowdy. That doesn’t mean we’re not eating blueberries, though. We have blueberry smoothies with frozen bananas, strawberries, yogurt, and maybe some cheerios or almonds or rhubarb or something else. Or how about some blueberry ice [...]
The Giant Strawberry
Side view. Bottom view. It weighed in at 1.5 ounces, three times the weight of a normal, good-sized berry. I’m picking strawberries daily, anywhere from two cups to two quarts. Even the 500 transplants are occasionally putting out berries now. Raspberries are another story. A sad story. I don’t think we can blame a lack [...]
Blueberry Adventures
I’m certain you’re dying to know how the adventure is progressing, so I shan’t keep you waiting. Thursday, I made coriander bread. After reading recipes for Blueberry Betty, I had a feeling this was the perfect bread for the job. The bread was oh-so-yummy, and there was plenty for the Betty and for just plain [...]
Blueberry Adventures
Well, I have failed to use all the 2009 blueberries before harvesting 2010 blueberries. We will not discuss the extent of my failure. They’re ripe. I have 2 1/2 gallons of 2010 blueberries in the freezer and, at the moment, zero 2009 blueberry desserts in the house. Last weekend’s blueberry Betty didn’t pan out. It [...]
Blueberry Adventures Continue
It started with Blueberry Clafouti. Not my favorite, but who knows; maybe the eggy pancake theme will grow on me. Blueberry Crumble followed. The surprisingly chewy and ample topping was a hit. A tried and true Blueberry Buckle was shipped out at the beginning of the week and received well at its destination. A Blueberry [...]
G(l)imps(e) of Nature
This morning, Mama moose and Baby browsed in the yard for some time. Baby ended up at the back door, searching (not very hard) for a way up the hill. I couldn’t miss Baby’s gimpy front leg. Long-term, short-term, injury, birth defect…beats me. I just know the calf is limping. Bummer. It reminds me of [...]
Blueberry Adventures
Thanks to our cool, rainy summer, it looks as though we’re going to have a banner blueberry season. The bushes around the house are loaded with fat green berries. I am on a mission to use the remaining 2009 blueberries in the freezer–a surprisingly large quantity, imagine that–to justify hours and hours of picking next [...]
Strawberries
You might recall last summer’s efforts to build new strawberry beds after having some dirt work done. Back in May/June this year, I finished putting shale on the paths and transplanted 500 of these little babies from the overcrowded original beds. They haven’t grown much in size, but they have taken root and are putting [...]
Lines We Love
This is an ad I got in the mail from the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, reminding me to get my fishing license and go fishing. That line, “Parents don’t frame pictures of their kid playing video games” struck me the way a great line, phrase, or passage in a book does. It’s true. [...]
, by Ellen Ruppel Shell
, by Elizabeth Strout.
