Fall Busy-ness

So, after we got home from Fairbanks last week, I had only a day or two to get ready for our midget guest again.  Here comes Dominic!

As usual, we had him for three nights and three days.  This time he slept a little better than usual.

But during the day was still a challenge.  To get him to take a good morning nap required a walk around the block in his stroller.  After getting back home, I just let him sleep in his stroller and he actually slept longer than the usual 20-minute nap.  But I wasn't so lucky with his afternoon naps, which meant he was crabby during the evening hours.  But at least that way he was tired enough to go right to sleep when we put him down for the night.

But he is such a good baby when he's had sufficient sleep.  

It's been kind of fun watching him every two months because I like seeing what new developmental changes he's made.  He crawls really fast now, pulls himself up on things, and a few times I caught him standing alone for a few seconds.  But when he realizes that no one is supporting him, he lets himself drop.  He has also discovered some consonant sounds which is really cute ("da-da", "ma-ma", "na-na", "ba-ba").

Anyhoo, those three days with him seemed to go a little faster this time.

We will have him again in November.

I got so used him clinging to me all the time, that after he left, at first I didn't know what to do with my arms.  They were FREE!  But it didn't take long for me to get my sewing machine out again.

I got this stack all done.  Now I have to cut them all in half.

I'm keeping the quilt update short because it's too boring.  Here is the next boring subject:

today we had a break from the rain, so after we got home from church we took down our greenhouse.  Kinda sad, but more of a relief because it's one less thing for me to tend to.

The back yard looks weird and empty now.

We moved the frame so Chuck could mow the long grass down.

Then we pulled everything out of the beds and collected some stray veggies that had gotten left behind.

And decided to just put all the buckets on top of the beds for the winter.

Then we emptied out the rain barrels.

I collected some of the dried out big stalks of corn because I might find a use for them for Halloween.

Which brings me to my next subject:  Halloween.

This year my theme is going to be.............(drum roll, please)

Actually, it'll be a combination of this story and a pumpkin theme.  I ordered the Kindle version of the book and have already read it twice to get some ideas.  I will probably keep reading it over and over for more ideas.  (it's a fairly short story)

In light of my theme, unfortunately, this is all the pumpkins I got from my garden this year.

Just two small pumpkins. They're not even big enough for a pie, unless I combine them.  I will probably just use them for my pumpkin spice lattes.  

BTW, see all the tomatoes we cleaned out of the greenhouse?  I tried making Fried Green Tomatoes with them last night.  They were good, but I don't understand the hype.

I'm getting off subject.

So, I have already been looking for ways to decorate my "Halloween room" with pumpkin vines going all over the place.  Too bad I didn't get more pumpkins from my garden cuz they are expensive to buy, and for this theme, the more the better, wouldn't you say?

So this is what I got so far, as far as creating pumpkin vines:

Green wire and fake leaves.  So far I only have one leaf attached because I did this when Dominic was here, just to test it and see how it would work out.  I bought a bag of fake leaves, and punched holes in all of them, now I want to attach them all to the wire.  I don't know how it's gonna look in the end, but I am still looking for other (cheap) ideas.  I was hoping to save my REAL pumpkin vines out of the garden, but they were starting to look like something that I wouldn't wanna put in my house. We threw them in the burn pile.

This is only the beginning stage where I get an idea and then work with it, not knowing for sure how I'm gonna make it happen, but somehow it all works out in the end.  My "restaurant" date is set for Oct 23.  Yikes, that's only 6 weeks away!

And this is where I start to panic.  

Time is never on my side, so it seems.

Stephanie's Moving Day-Weekend

Most of you know that my daughter Stephanie lives 6 hours north of us at Eielson AFB, but she and her hubby Isaac just bought their first house off-base in Fairbanks.  So we went up there over the weekend to help them move.  I was really glad to see Mica again (my "grand"kitty).  She is a really nice cat.  I would love to trade Kiska for her, but of course that's not gonna happen.

It didn't take very long for me to witness some sibling rivalry between Mica and Charlie:

Charlie likes to pick on her, but Mica has gotten used to it. (and Steph says it's good for her)                

We arrived there on Thursday night, and got busy right after breakfast on Friday, which BTW was my and Chuck's 28th wedding anniversary.  Steph felt bad about making us help them move on our anniversary, so she treated us out to breakfast.  Although, she didn't have to feel bad - she wasn't MAKING us help her (we wanted to).

Getting them moved really wasn't as big a job as I thought it would be.  I guess it makes a huge difference if there's no kids.  Plus, they've only been married for 5 years, which isn't a whole lot of time to accrue a bunch of stuff.  

Their house is really cute; a perfect starter home for them.  It's a small ranch style house with 3 bedrooms.  And the kitchen has a few upgrades in it, like a really nice stove and tiled walls, and she really loves her "island" counter.  Here is Steph cooking her first meal in her new kitchen - after we put enough things away to allow her to do that.  She was frying up some eggs with the zucchini and tomatoes that we gave her (yum!).

Lucky for her, they have in-floor heat so she can run around barefooted without freezing her feet off.  I don't have that luxury.

So Friday was basically moving stuff in there and unpacking, and putting stuff away - it took two trips, which wasn't too bad.  Although we did leave some unimportant things behind that they still need to go back and get.

For some reason they were having nicer weather than we were having here in Wasilla.  The temps were in the 60s there, and sunny.  Perfect for planting her rhubarb.  So on Saturday, we spent a lot of time outside.  Here is the rhubarb plant I gave her.  I hope it will be happy there.

Little did we know that there was another rhubarb plant hidden deeply in a patch of thick weeds and wild roses.  Steph and Chuck discovered it when they were looking around the yard.  So, after Chuck dug it up, Steph and I moved it out of there and planted it by the house.

There's no way to tell how long it was buried and forgotten in the weeds, but rhubarb plants are amazingly hardy plants. So I think once this thing gets a full dose of TLC, Steph will have another really nice rhubarb plant.

For their housewarming gift, Chuck insisted on buying them a new lawnmower.  But really, I think it was more for him than for them.  The lawn there was getting pretty long, and Chuck just cannot stand a neglected lawn.  It drives him crazy.  Even if it's not his lawn.  Steph and Isaac didn't own a lawnmower (they didn't need one on base), and Chuck couldn't bear the thought of that grass not getting mowed, so he bought them a lawnmower, and of course Chuck went to work mowing their lawn.....

...and Steph started digging around in her garden area in front of the house, getting the grass clumps and weeds out...

...while Charlie Doggins took a break from running around.

Charlie absolutely LOVES his new yard!  There is a lot of room for him to run around, which he did a lot of on his first day there.  He was SO EXCITED and he looks so cute when his ears are flopping up and down! When evening came, he was a very pooped pup and fell asleep on the living room floor.

Here is another small garden bed that is set away from the house, overrun with weeds of course.

I don't know what Steph will do with it, but I know they get a lot of moose in their area, so planting veggies is probably futile.  Unless she plants something that moose don't like.

Here is the back of their house:

They talked about expanding the back deck, but I'm sure that won't be anytime real soon.  The house has other minor issues that need to be addressed first.

I really like their yard.  They are surrounded by trees all around, so they have lots of privacy, and you feel like your "in the woods".

And another bonus is that their property (the back yard) goes right up next to the Little Chena River.

Steph has tons and tons of wild roses on her property, so I was kinda hoping to bring home some rose hips with me, but for some reason the rose hips were all kinda mushy, so I didn't bring any home.  But I don't know, maybe rose hips are supposed to be mushy?  I need to do more research...

So that was about it for that.  I'm sure as I type this, she is still trying to get settled in.  I look forward to seeing all the changes that she makes whenever we go up there again.

On our drive up there and back, I really enjoyed seeing all the fall colors.  We saw way better scenery than this picture, but Chuck doesn't like to stop to take pictures.  I only got this one cuz we had stopped to stretch our legs.  (Actually, I'm surprised that he even stopped just for that!)

Also, on way up there, passing through Denali Park, I happened to notice this little store tightly squeezed in the middle of a strip of other touristy stores.  I noticed two words as we whisked by:  "Fabrics" and "Scrapbooking".  All in the same store!  Yeah, that's my kind of store.  I knew I had to stop in there when we came through again on our way home.  And Chuck actually stopped for me!  Sometimes he's a pretty nice guy.........

Usually when we go through this part of the trip, these stores are all closed and dead because we always drive through out of tourist season.  But this time there were still lots of tourists in the area, so everything was open and the area was hustling and bustling with activity.  They did have some nice fabrics in there with moose and bears and things like that, but most of the fabrics were "batik" fabrics which I don't really wanna mess with cuz I hear that they bleed.  (why on earth would they sell mostly batiks?) They had some fat quarters for a pretty decent price that weren't batiks, and I kinda wish I had bought some, but I guess nothing stuck out and screamed "buy me!" As for scrap booking, they didn't have a whole lot, mostly bear paw stamps and some paper, and a few other odds and ends.  I ended up not buying anything, but it was fun to just look and see what they had.  At least now whenever we drive past it, I won't be longing to see what's in there.

Cuz now I know.

So what's next in my life?  Oh yeah, it's time to start thinking about taking down the greenhouse and putting it away, and then figuring out what to do with all those green tomatoes.  I think I might try "Fried Green Tomatoes".  I hear they are pretty good.  

I would love to let them sit on my counter and ripen, but we still have fruit flies all over the place.  And those things LOVE tomatoes, so I really don't want to have tomatoes sitting around all over, otherwise those pesky things will NEVER leave!  And they say not to keep your tomatoes in the fridge cuz they start to go "funny" sooner.  Plus, I don't think they would ripen in the fridge anyway, would they?

So, I'm sorta in a dilemma.

Maybe I'll try putting them in paper bags and sealing them up good?  But the flies might still find a way to get inside the bags.

I hate fruit flies.  I can't even make any bread anymore cuz they are attracted to the yeast when I'm letting my dough rise.  

Stupid fruit flies. 

They are infringing upon my constitutional right to pursue happiness and prosperity.

Maybe I need a lawyer.

okay, I'm getting dumb now

time for me to close this out

Old Salad is Good Enough for a Moose

In my last post I said that I wouldn't post again until after I got back from Fairbanks, unless something exciting happened like one of my cats doing cartwheels.  Well, neither of my cats did any cartwheels (that I know of), but something did happen today.  We got a moose visitor.  And what perfect timing!

I was washing dishes when I saw this outside my window:

We had fun watching it clean the leaves off the shrubs.  It was very interesting to watch.  She would clasp her jaws around a branch and then slide her mouth all the way down and off the end, scraping all the leaves off in one clean sweep.

After cleaning off several branches she meandered into my back yard and found (gasp!) she found MY GARDEN BEDS!!  If it was earlier in the season, I would've been mad, but it just so happens that I was pretty much done harvesting from those beds.  Lucky me!

"Aha!  JACKPOT!"

First she sniffed my frost-bitten acorn squash plants and said, "meh" and proceeded to the other things that looked lush and green.  She found my brussel sprout plant and went to work.  She chomped and chomped and chomped................

........took a little break when Bossy challenged her to a stare-down game................

........and finally said to Bossy "you win!" And continued chomping until there was nothing left of the brussel sprout plant except for the stem, which she chewed on for a long time.  She must really like brussel sprouts.

Um.  I was actually hoping to get more brussel sprouts off that plant yet.  All hopes for that is now lost.  I'm glad I picked some just a few days ago. Then she worked on the broccoli plant right next to it, which still had some little florets on it yet, which will never make it to my dinner table now.

After she cleaned off that part of the salad bar, she went off to the trees for awhile, and then came back for her dessert in the other salad bar - the old pea plants which were turning all yellow and brown.  I gave up on those peas long ago, so it was fine with me.  I was more than glad to see that the old salad was still useful for someone (or something).  Go ahead, eat all you want! No charge!

I'm just glad she politely waited to show up until harvest was over.

I have no more use for what's left in the garden beds and was in the process of getting them cleaned out anyhow, and actually she saved me some work.

What a nice moose.

So there was something exciting.  I guess.  Tomorrow we are taking off for Fairbanks.  While I'm there, I will try to find something interesting to post about.

Toodle-loo!

Alaska State Fair 2015, Plus other so-so happenings

So, this year we decided to hit the Alaska State Fair again.  We don't go every year cuz it's mostly just  ol' same ol' thing every year, with slight variations.  So every year we basically decide at the last minute whether or not we want to go, depending on if we have time to go, or if we are just plain in the mood for it.  This time we went because Chuck had the day off work and because the weather was nice.  But we could only stay for a few hours cuz Chuck had to go to a church budget meeting that evening.  So we got there when they opened at noon, and frankly, it was more than okay that we had to leave when we left because, by that time, we were pretty much ready to leave anyway, although there were a few shows that I wanted to see but didn't have time for.  We both regretted that we totally missed the rhubarb demonstration, but luckily the lady was still there when we got there, and we got to talk to her.  She was giving demonstrations on what to do with rhubarb besides making the usual pies and jams and she had some rhubarb pilaf made up, which was pretty good.  She asked me what I do with my rhubarb and I told her "the usual pie, jam, rhubarb crisp, and parfaits".  She never heard of rhubarb parfaits before, so she gave me her email address so I could send her the recipe.  Anyhoo, it was fun and interesting talking to her.

Anyhoo, after entering the gate, this is the first thing of interest I saw:

The Haunted House maze

It's nothing new; it's there every year (no, I have never been in there).  But I liked the skeleton.  Plus, I'm in "Halloween mode".

BTW, I forgot to bring my camera to the fair, so I had to make Chuck take this picture with his phone, as well as some others.  Since he sighs and snaps his tongue every time I ask him to take a picture of something, I didn't get very many pictures.

Then we walked past something new:

These kids were playing inside these huge balls over a pool of water.  It looked like a lot of fun. That would be a great fun way to burn a ton of calories!  Wish I had something like it at home!  I wonder if they got hot inside those balls?

Then of course, Chuck had to get some "joe" at the first coffee joint he found.  While we were waiting for his order, this "life form" appeared out of nowhere:

This picture doesn't do him justice, and we only got a picture from behind him because it would've been rude to take a picture of him if he saw us doing it.  But anyway, he was wearing a hat with big sheep horns on it, no shirt, and his "pants" were made by wrapping a fleece blanket around his legs.  And he was walking around with a cane/staff.  I shudder to think of what might (not) be under that blanket and hoped I wouldn't be around if it should slip and fall off.  As they say, for some reason, the Fair always brings the weirdest people out of the woodwork.  Some people seem to think the Fair is a free license to bring their weirdness out in public.  And anything goes.  But on the other hand, some people have another perspective, and that is that some people just like to have fun and try to make the Fair more interesting.

We saw plenty of "interesting" people, but I just tried to ignore them.  

One of the yearly variations is what they put in the Exhibition Hall.  This year they had reptiles.  I was interested to go in there, but I knew that reptile exhibitions ALWAYS come with spiders.  I don't know why.  Spiders are not reptiles so why do they always insist that they go together? Can't they ever just have a reptile exhibit, with just reptiles (for people like me)? So at the entrance, I asked the ladies if there were any big spiders in there, and she told me exactly where I could find them.  And we decided to forego the reptile exhibition. I don't wanna see the reptiles THAT bad.

In another building they had some exotic birds on display.  They had some pretty cool ones.  I was particularly interested in this vulture:

.......especially since I've entered the Halloween mode. He's beautiful and ugly at the same time.  I've never seen a vulture before, except for the ones in the Looney Tunes cartoons (does that even count?).  I really wish I could find some fake ones to use for Halloween, but I can never find any.  And I wish Stampin' Up! would come out with a vulture stamp!  (hint-hint for Tammie!)

Let's see, what else?  Oh yeah, Chuck wanted to see the antique tractor pull.

He was mostly interested in the Allis Chalmers tractor cuz that was the kind of tractor his dad had.  (Chuck's brother is currently refurbishing it and getting it running again.)

Then of course we went through the usual animal exhibits (cows, pigs, rabbits, chickens, turkeys) followed by the vegetable displays, where you would find the giant veggies.  Here is a giant cabbage weighing 107 pounds:

I was hoping to see some giant pumpkins, but typically people that enter their pumpkins wait until the last few days of the Fair to enter them, in hopes of their pumpkins gaining as much weight as possible.  Since we were there in the first week of the Fair, there weren't any pumpkins there yet.  :-(

Here is a picture of a big sasquatch carved out of wood.  I did not ask Chuck to take this picture.

Can you believe they were charging $1 just to stand next to it so someone can take your picture with it?  Sheesh.  Um, I think we'll just take a picture of it by itself.  For free. 

Not that $1 is a lot of money....

Another thing I like to do at the Fair is look at the quilts that people enter (saw some pretty neat Halloween ones!), but I didn't ask Chuck to get any pictures of those. It just wasn't worth enduring the sighing and tongue snapping. I also didn't get a picture of the food we chose to eat.  Normally we bring our own food, but this time we were too lazy to pack food, so we ended up buying something.  I had a reindeer hot dog, piled high with sauerkraut, onions, and peppers.  I felt like "blech" after I ate it.  I guess I'm just not used to eating that kind of food anymore.  And then we chowed down a whole bag of Kettle Korn.  Luckily we brought our own water, so that alone probably saved us about $4000 dollars.

Anyhoo, other than the Fair, just the same ol' boring stuff is going on.  We woke up to our first frost already a couple days ago, so I harvested the rest of my rhubarb.

After getting it all washed and cut, I had enough to make 4 pies, or 12 batches of parfaits (my new favorite).  Steph wants me to bring her some rhubarb, but I think I might be too selfish to give her any.  We are planning to go visit her next weekend, so I'll do better than bring her some rhubarb.  One of my rhubarb plants desperately needs to be thinned, so I'm going to bring her part of my rhubarb plant.  Then she can grow her own. Not only to help ME out, but to also present her with a housewarming gift (they are buying their first house and we are going to help them move in - that'll be another blog post for sure!)  Although, I SUPPOSE I might bring her enough to make at least one pie - to hold her over for this winter.  How generous of me!  :-)

So, now that my rhubarb is out of the way, I still need to pull all my carrots, even though they're  not finished yet - but I'll get SOMEthing out of them.  And I think I'll have to pull all my tomatoes, even though 80% of them are still green.  Sigh.......!

And then there's my corn, which also still needs more time.  I don't think I'm going to plant corn next year.

My acorn squash:

...is just now starting to get squashes on them.  Really?  Just now when the first frost is here?  See what the frost did to the leaves?

all wilted

I don't think I can count on those baby squashes growing into anything large and edible.  But I shouldn't be too disappointed.  After all, those plants were given to us second-hand, and they were obviously planted too late in the season by whoever started the seeds.  Yeah, I'm disappointed, but I really shouldn't be.  Maybe next year I can try planting some again.

Here is something else that happened this week:  an older retired couple from my hometown congregation (Marshfield, WI) were traveling up here, just as a fun trip, and they were coming through Wasilla, so we invited them over for lunch after worship services.  I have to admit that I didn't really know them very well.  We've briefly met them in the past, but when we went home last time, they weren't there, and I couldn't remember who they were when people were talking to us about them coming up here.  So when we heard that they were gonna meet us in church on Sunday, I had to call my mom and ask her "what do they look like"?  Anyhoo, we had them over and got re(acquainted) with them over lunch, and next time we go home, at least I'll know who they are.  After we ate, we took them to Hatcher Pass.

Here they are in Hatcher Pass with the Valley in the background:

Peggy and Ken

It felt very cold up there, as would be normal, since it was a high elevation.  But while we were up there, it actually started to SNOW!  Peggy was smart enough to bring her winter coat.

Here is a picture of me and Chuck.  I was freezing and silently anticipated hiking back to the car.

BTW, today is Chuck's birthday!  He is 48!

Happy Birthday, my love!

So this week I will be busy "wrapping up" my garden, and getting ready to go to Fairbanks.  I don't think I"ll have anything exciting to blog about until after we get back from that exciting trip.  Unless I catch one of my cats doing fancy cartwheels.....but I doubt that's gonna happen.

See ya next time!

Just a Conglomeration of Whatever

This is just going to be a rambling post, much ado about nothing that has been going on here.  If you get bored, feel free to click to me away.  First of all, last week we finally got a new sliding door installed.  Before, we had a French door that opened into our dining area.  It wasn't that bad, but I don't know why we didn't have a sliding door put in when the house was built.  I guess the French door was considered an "upgrade", but what good is an upgrade if the standard sliding door is more practical?

Last weekend we had another opportunity to go to the cabin, so this time we spent the night there.  I woefully regret that I didn't get a picture of that beautiful rainbow that we passed when we were on the 4-wheeler.  It was really bright and we had a full view of the whole arch.  It was so pretty, and I wish that I had taken the time to stop and take a picture of it.  But at the time, my camera was inaccessible, - I would've had to dig through several layers of bags in the bed of the 4-wheeler to get it out, and Chuck is never happy when I ask him to stop for such things.  Now I regret that I can't share it with you.

Anyhoo, last time we were at the cabin, Chuck took down these old birdhouses that have been there for years, put there by previous occupants.  The birdhouses were looking pretty beat up, so Chuck took them home, cleaned them up, primed them, and then we took them back to the cabin, and he set me to work to re-paint them.

They look so much better now, but they still weren't dry yet when we went home because the weather was damp.  So for now, they are sitting on the cabin porch.  Next time we go there, we should be able to hang them back in the trees.   I kinda wish that I was creative enough to decorate them more.  They look a lot nicer than before, but they still look kinda plain-jane.

While we were there, I took another peek at my blueberries, even though I knew not to expect any change from the previous week.  I did manage to pick a handful, but that's about it.

While walking around through the woods, I noticed lots of big patches of these plants:

all with these black spots on them.  For awhile I thought these were my blueberry plants, with a fungal disease, but upon closer inspection to my real blueberry plants, I realized these were not blueberry plants (thank goodness!)  I can't find these plants in my "Alaska Flower" book, I suppose because they don't produce flowers.  So I have no idea what those plants are.  I need to get me another Alaska plant book.

However, these are my blueberry plants:

all covered with these red spots, which I think is still some kind of fungus disease.  And there's nothing I can do about it.  So I don't know if I'll ever get a freezer full of blueberries again.  What a bummer.

After Chuck was done playing with his chainsaw, we took a joyride on the 4-wheeler, just driving down some trails that we've never been down before.  I was really interested in finding and identifying some new plants.  Here is a devil's club.  We passed through a whole patch of them.

In this area, there were some logs in the way, so Chuck got out of the 4-wheeler to move them.  Later he discovered that his phone was missing.  He figured it must've fell out of his pocket when he was moving those logs.  So we backtracked to the patch of these devil's clubs where he moved the logs, and thankfully he found his phone there.  That is the second time he lost his phone in those woods and found it again.

On Sunday (yesterday), we got to watch Dominic again for a couple hours so his parents could clean the church building.  

"This window is too clean.  Let me put my finger prints all over it!"

I just love him at this stage!  He is at the fun age where he is learning new things, and he's so fun to play with!

Then I had to make this week's oatmeal for Chuck.  A few years ago Chuck discovered "steel cut" oatmeal and fell in love with it.  He likes to make a 4-serving batch and then eat it all week.  He used to make it himself, until one time he didn't have time to make it, so I volunteered to make it for him.  Ever since then, it's been one of my Sunday chores.  I like to add extras to it, like flax seed, chopped almonds, raisins, zante currants, or blueberries (if I have any).  So I stick it in the fridge, and in the morning he cuts out a portion, wraps it up in plastic wrap, takes it to work, and eats it like a snack bar.  Cold.  With no added sugar or anything.  Yuck.

I prefer mine heated up with brown sugar, cinnamon, and almond milk.

Here is a question for you all:  does anyone out there ever get visited by fruit flies?  We get them every year about this time, and I HATE them!  I don't know if we bring them home from the commissary, or if they are just part of the normal cycle of seasonal pests (like mosquitoes and carpenter ants). They are SO ANNOYING!!!  Here is what I do:  

I put a little vinegar in a small bowl (this is apple cider vinegar, but I think any vinegar will do).  Gently whisk in a drop or two of dish soap, and just let it sit on the counter.  And viola!  you will have your own little growing collection of dead fruit flies.  The vinegar attracts them, and the soap traps them.  BWAAaahhhhahhahaaa-hahah!

It's not an instant fix and I don't think it gets ALL of the fruit flies, but it does help to control them somewhat.  I suppose the more bowls you set out, the more you will trap.  I like to set the bowls where I see the flies concentrated more, like in the corner where I store my bananas, and around the garbage pail.

Well, I just got a phone call requesting me to watch Dominic again for a couple hours this afternoon, so I must say good-bye for now.