No WAY!!

My reaction when I checked my plants today:  NO WAY!!

But that was a positive thrilled smiley mouth-agape wide-eyed kind of "no way!",  as in total surprise. I was so surprised to see my cucumbers emerging from the dirt already.  I only planted them three days ago and wasn't expecting to see anything for at least a week.  That's a good sign.  At least I know I'm doing something right.

These are my lettuce plants.

And it looks like the broccoli wanted to join the land of the living as well.

I don't know about y'all, but I get so excited when I see a little speck of green coming out of a seed that I planted. Woo-HOO!  Maybe it's a "no confidence in myself thing" where I think the plants have a pre-determined will to not grow for me.  It's just so amazing to me that there is LIFE inside those tiny little dormant seeds that don't look like they can possibly amount to anything.  Science calls it "botany", but I call it a "germ within God's hand" and there is no science that can explain how this works.  I really like that all I have to do is plant the seed and let God give the increase.  So easy.  Well, at first anyway.  The tricky part is  yet to come.  Oh, how I wish it was the end of May.  I know, I know, we're not supposed to wish our life away, even if it's fast-forwarding only two months.  Now I'm kinda wondering what I will do if these plants get too big before the garden is ready.  Buy a whole bunch of small pots?  I guess I better cross that bridge when I get to it.  After all, I am the queen of plant killers, so who knows if they will even survive that long?

AAAAAaaaaahhhh, Spring!!!

I love Spring.  Because of our long winters up here, this is often the hardest part of the year for me.  I am so ready for winter to be over, that I try to "force" Spring to come.  Of course, that never works.  March and April are the months that I grow very impatient. (I guess it's cabin fever).  I just want to go outside and do "summer things".  But there's still snow on the ground, and just because the calendar says it's technically Spring, that really doesn't mean much for us Alaskans.  We can pretty much expect to get 3 or 4 more snow storms.  This past week we have been getting super nice warm and sunny days, but we know better than to let that fool us.  But we enjoy these "false Springs" as much as we can anyway.

Even the kitty cats crawled out of the woodwork to enjoy the warm sunshine today.

So now that Spring is "sorta" here, I got excited about my new adventure project for this summer.
A vegetable garden!  A real one!  No more trying to grow a head of lettuce in my flower bed!  My loving hubby is finally going to build me some raised garden beds so I can get serious about growing my own veggies.  Pictures will come later.  It is still "winter" here so he is only at the stage of looking for the lumber right now.  But, I couldn't wait any longer.

I finally received the seeds that I ordered from an Alaska Seed place, so decided to get them started.  I am going to try:  broccoli, carrots, beets, peas (lots and lots of peas!!), lettuce, sugar pumpkins, dill, cucumbers, parsley, radishes, and cabbage.  I don't have a greenhouse (not yet anyway), so I know I'm probably wasting my time with the cucumbers and pumpkins, but I want them so bad that I'm going to give them a shot anyway.  I want to make homemade pickles with the dill and cucumbers (got the recipe from my mother--in-law so I know Chuck likes them), and the pumpkins I want because they are so hard to find in the stores when they come out in the Fall.  (they always sell out the same day they put them out) The pumpkins are VERY tricky to grow in Alaska, so I really don't expect them to work, especially without a greenhouse, but at least I can say I tried.  Last year I tried to grow a pumpkin plant with my flowers and they died right after I transplanted them.  This year I will try one in a big pot, and another one in a raised garden bed in a warm spot next to the deck (to see if one does better than the other), so that means they might last for one week after I transplant them.  But hey, that would be one step closer to success!  This is how they are doing right now.

Exciting, ain't it? The seeds are planted in black pots on the window sill where it gets tons of sunshine.  They will have a good head start, but I really expect to kill them after I get them outside.  I have a big windowsill here with big huge windows where the sun shines in really strong, so I asked Chuck if I could just grow a pumpkin on my window sill.  I don't understand why he objects............

The other seeds I have started in those Jiffy things.

Kinda looks like a pan of brownies, don't it?  Yum.  These are the ones that were optional to start indoors.  They could be planted directly in the garden, but I am impatient and want to give them a head start.  I'm thinking I should've ordered more seeds cuz Chuck is going to build me more gardening space than I have seeds for.  But that's okay cuz this year is an experiment.  Next year I'll have a better idea what and how much to order.  Plus next year I hope to have a greenhouse to boot!!

Stay tuned for the veggie drama.  Which ones will live, and which ones will die? 

These flower pots are impatiently waiting for Spring, just like me. When REAL Spring gets here, we'll get some flowers, but there's really not much of a story there.  I can't believe we still have two months before we can dig around in the dirt.  How can that be?!

Retreat

Finally spent another weekend at the cabin.  We would like to go there more often then we do, but it seems there's always something going on.  During the springtime, we pretty much give up on going because, during the thaw, there's not enough snow to ride the snow machines, but at the same time, too much snow for the 4-wheeler. So we wait for spring to get over with when we know we can get there by 4-wheeler.  Since we had pretty much no snow left in our backyard on Friday, we weren't sure what the snow situation would be like once we got up there, but we took our chances.  Luckily there was a lot more snow there than here, and the ride on the snow machine was exactly what it was supposed to be. Usually we each ride our own, but this time I piggybacked.

Sometimes it's hard to get away and go there when there are always so many things to do here at home.  But that is the reason for going to the cabin.  To get away and take a break from everything.  Sometimes you just gotta force yourself to do that. As usual it was so peaceful there, and it felt "warm", (temps were in the 30s).  So Chuck decided to sit out on the front porch in a lawn chair.  The silence was deafening.

After we got the wood stove going, we went trekking around in our snowshoes while letting the wood stove do it's work.  By the time we got back, the cabin was pretty toasty.  And that was pretty nice compared to last time when it was -10 degrees out and it was a whole 24 hours before I even took off my coat!  (yes I even slept in my coat!)  But this time the cabin got up to 80 degrees inside and we were sweating.

Anyhoo, we had a very relaxing evening there.  Played some cards and then sat in front of the wood stove reading until we got tired enough to go to bed.  In the morning, Chuck usually cooks a hearty breakfast of eggs, bacon, and hash browns on the propane gas stove.  But this time I brought along some boiled eggs (because of my stomach issues), and I wanted some dry toast to go with it.  So how do I make toast without a toaster?  

Just lay a piece of bread in the pan and set it on top of the wood stove.  Turned out good! This was more evenly browned than the toast from my toaster. Then I thought, "why not heat up the water that way too?"  I don't know why I never thought of that before.  After all, heat is heat, right?  Why not save a little propane gas and use the heat from the wood stove?  Chuck still cooked his bacon and hash browns on the stove though, cuz that just made more sense.  (we don't want egg splashes on the wood stove!  Then the cabin would smell like burnt eggs.)  

Usually when we go there, Chuck works on a project, like putting up shelves, or stuffing insulation into the walls, or during the summer he is taking down dead trees and chopping them up.  And he likes being there at the cabin so much that it is hard for him to want to go back home.  But this time he didn't work on anything, so I think he got bored.  That is the only reason that I can think of as to why he was willing to go home a lot earlier than usual this time. 

I don't know if we'll make it there again before it starts thawing.  If not, it'll be the end of May before we can go there again.  And then he'll bring his chainsaw.

Chicken Stock, chapter 2

So I tried my culinary experiments once again on this chicken stock.  This time I got this much:

Not as much as last time, but that's okay cuz I really don't wanna have TOO much.  I want to be able to stock about as much as I use.  Otherwise I will have a freezer full of this stuff and that's not what I want.  I noticed it turned out darker this time, and I don't know if that's a good thing or not.  I did a couple things different.  This time I added a few scraps of leftover vegetables that I had been saving in my freezer specifically for this purpose (mostly celery).  I also started the crockpot on High, and after it got to boiling, I turned it down to Low.  It was in the crockpot a total of 24 1/2 hours.  After keeping it in the fridge for another 24 hours, this is what the consistency ended up like:

Pretty much the same as last time - like runny jello.  So I guess extra long hours of simmering doesn't make a difference.  UNLESS!!!!  Maybe I shouldn't have brought it to a boil????????????  Hmmmmm, ........something different to try next time.  But again, I really don't see how the gel texture can really make or break a good chicken stock cuz either way, it tastes way better than the canned stuff, and after you heat it up it's all a thin liquid anyway.  I am going to use this tonight with my acorn squash and Arborio rice.  Oh yum.

Stomach Woes

I didn't want this much time to pass between posts, but I couldn't think of anything to write about.  I have been preoccupied with several things though.  With Spring (sorta) on it's way, I'm already thinking about my vegetable garden, and have been spending much time on the computer looking for advice from other Alaskan growers, but I'll save that for a future post.  Then my hubby bought us a new computer, and you know how the ol' saying goes:  "just when I learned all the answers, they changed all the questions".  Exactly.  So I had to relearn everything that I already knew how to do.  And I'm still trying to figure things out, while my hubby grows increasingly impatient with me.  Then we bought a new TV and rearranged the furniture to accommodate this huge 70" monster.  (I almost wished my daughter was ready to move out so we could give her a couch.)  But I have mostly been preoccupied with finding a cure for yet another stomach woe.  In the past, my stomach woes have been chronic gastritis with the occasional flare-up.  For those who don't know, gastritis is NOT a gas problem!!  Okay?  It is inflamed stomach lining which makes it very uncomfortable to eat food.  But the last couple times I've had stomach woes, the pain more resembled the activities of an ulcer, which I should've expected, since gastritis is often a pre-cursor to ulcers.  So here I am with another ulcer, or at least I'm pretty sure that's what it is.  Last time I had this, I wasn't quite sure if that's what it was, so I just watched what I ate, and it went away.  Or did it?  I'm thinking that maybe it didn't quite go away, and I probably irritated it and flared it up. (I'm not looking for sympathy here, I'm just looking for a cure.)  So I spent the entire week on the internet looking for a home remedy.  I don't want to go to the doctor cuz all they do is throw antacids at you, and, having learned from past experiences, this is not the route I wanna take.

                                          So where's Granny Clampett when you need her?

This is what I am trying.  Aloe Vera juice, Black licorice root, Slippery Elm tea, Cabbage juice, and Carrot juice.  There's a lot of other things I could've tried, but the weird hocus-pocus stuff gets expensive.  The Aloe Vera juice is something I've been taking for a long time now.  Initially, I started taking it for stomach reasons, but I recently found out by accident just how bad my joint pain really is if I quit taking it, so now I take it for joint pain more than for my stomach.  I was skeptical of the Slippery elm, but I was surprised that it really does work.  It claims to help heal the gut lining, and I don't know how much of that is true, but it does help my stomach be pain-free.  And it even tastes good.  Well, actually, it really doesn't have much of a flavor, and your "tea" just looks like a cup of hot water, but it makes the water feel very "smooth" going down your throat, so it's a very soothing drink, and even helps me sleep better through the night.  I researched this weird stuff on the internet, and found out it's used for lots of other things besides ulcers, including inducing sleep, so there ya go.  This is a good thing to always have in your medicine cabinet.  The cabbage juice is something that is ranted and raved about all over the internet in regards to healing ulcers, so I thought I would give it a shot.  The problem is that most websites say to make it with a juicer.  Well, I don't have a juicer, so I had to look harder and longer for a website that explained how to make it with a blender.  It's extremely easy to make, but the first batch takes three days of sitting on your counter before it's ready, which means your husband will complain about the house smelling like sauerkraut and you might not want to have any company over.  But after the first batch is made, if you put a little bit of that already fermented stuff in your new batch, then it only takes one day.  It tastes pretty nasty by itself, which is where the carrot juice comes in.  I mix my cabbage juice with an equal amount of carrot juice, and then it's actually not too bad.  So I'm going to try this for 10-14 days and see if it actually works.  It's a little early to tell at this point, but I'd like to truthfully say that I think all of these things put together are already helping me feel better - as long as I don't do something stupid like eat a ginormous slice of pizza dripping with gooey greasy cheese topped high with sausage and pepperoni.  For now I'm sticking with baked potatoes, rice, yogurt w/banana, and salad.  If there's anything good about stomach woes, they force you to eat right!!  At least temporarily............