AUGUST 1, 2024

 Hello again.

It is August.

Our rainy season begins.  Summer is over.  Harvest begins.

This is what I harvested today:

Raspberries are ripening so we are picking a bowlful of those pretty much every day now.  We are gonna get a lot of them this year.

Lemon verbena, lemon balm, and "kitty nip"

All of these will be dried to make tea.

Basil, sage, oregano.

Chamomile flowers for tea.

Strawberries, raspberries, and radishes.

I picked the rest of the radishes because they were bolting.  If these aren't too woody I'll probably just snack on them.

As I said in my last post, we took a trip to Fairbanks over the weekend.

Tried to get pictures of the doggies cuddling with their new quilts that I made for them.  They wouldn't cooperate very well, so this is the best I could do.

On Saturday we went to Fort Knox where Kristian works.  They were having a Family Day and giving people a small tour to show us what they do there.  They had different booths set up and giving away some goodies and answering questions you might have.  It was cold and rainy so luckily we brought our raincoats, but we had a hard time keeping our hands warm.

One booth had a gold bar that they let you hold. It was heavy (about 13-1/2 pounds).

Who would've thought I would ever be holding $520K in my hands?

Kristian is a security guard there, so he showed us the truck he drives.

This is the kind of truck he drove when he was a hauler.  It's really big.

They also had other big monstrous trucks there for us to see.

Then we took a little guided tour to see the haul roads that lead to the pit.

Everyone had to wear a yellow vest and a hard hat and get on a school bus.  Boy, getting on that school bus really took me back to my school days!

It was kinda foggy out, but these are haul roads that lead to the pit where they dig for gold.  They didn't let us see the pit.  Hauling rocks on these roads is what Kristian used to do before he became a security guard.  We stood out there for about 10 or 15 minutes.  I was glad to get back on the bus cuz it was "freezing" outside.  The weather was rainy and windy.

Then we got another bus where they took us to the "mill" where they process all the rocks to get the gold out.  It was indoors, so much more comfortable.  However, they provided ear plugs for everyone because the machinery was very loud.

They have a big giant "drum" in there that turns like a ferris wheel.  They were explaining that this is how they get the rocks smaller and smaller and smaller.

It was all very interesting, but I didn't understand it all.

On our way back, Kristian showed us the building where his office is, but we couldn't go in there.

They were also serving catered food like hot dogs and hamburgers and pulled pork sandwiches and beans and so forth, but by the time we got there, it was slim pickings and they were out of plasticware.  For this reason I only made a pulled pork sandwich - this was all they had left for meat, and I think we used up the last of what buns they had left.  Chuck took some beans but I don't know how he ate them without a fork.  I think he threw them away after realizing no one was gonna put any more forks out.

Anyhoo, it was fun and interesting, despite the weather.

On Sunday we went to church, and in the afternoon we had good weather, so we went for a walk to the boat launching pad at the Chena River.

Then we saw this really old building.  A remnant of a strip of buildings that used to be there on the riverfront.  There's a sign on the building, but I don't remember what it said.  They are trying to preserve it, but I don't know what they plan to do with it.

The only occupant in that building now is Mr. Squirrel.  He was just sitting up there under the roof watching us.

So that was pretty much our weekend in Fairbanks.

After I got home, I resumed my effort to work on that FPP pumpkin.  After much weeping and gnashing of teeth, and using my seam ripper, this is how it ended up:

It looks "okay", but (of course) I ended with a mistake.  The right side and the left side got mixed up.  This is why the teeth don't look right.   This is the problem with FPP.  It is way too easy to get things wrong.  After suffering through getting Section A together, I pretty much felt like "I HATE FPP"!  I even got so frustrated enough to give up and I actually threw the pattern in the garbage.  But after awhile I fished it back out with a new determination to make myself learn how to do it.  So I kept working on it, watched more YouTube videos, and cherry picked my favorite ways of doing it.  After awhile I came up with my own method, and by the time I got through Section D, I felt like I was getting the hang of it.  My feeling of "hate" was gradually transforming into "not liking".  I was still making mistakes, but fewer of them, only to finish with a bang and make this mistake at the very end and sew the wrong sections together.  How typical of me to make mistakes along the whole way, and then end with one final last mistake that I'm not in the mood to rip out.  Maybe I should name him "Jack the Ripper" cuz he's seen a lot of my ripper.  Oh well, live and keep on learning.  Now I'm trying to decide if I want to try making another one.  If I keep practicing, maybe I can go from "not liking" to a neutral "meh".   But at this point, I don't see myself liking it and doing it on a regular basis.  But never say never, right?   Anyhoo, now that I'm sorta getting the hang of it, I think I want to try again, and hopefully the next one won't need any dental work.

I just have to let all my frustrations with this one pass before I start again.

Putting this one together almost felt like punishment.