Things To Do Before We Leave

So, next week we are off to Wisconsin again for our yearly visit.  It seemed to come really fast this time.  I've been keeping a mental list in my head of everything that I've been wanting/needing to get done before we leave.  I haven't blogged in awhile cuz I don't have anything outside of humdrum going on right now.  So that means.....

#1  UPDATE MY BLOG

Between my blog posts, I take random pictures with my camera that I think might make a semi-interesting blog post, and then some time goes by, and by the time I blog again, I had forgotten what I had taken pictures of.  For example,  here is a picture of a big pile of moose poop that we found in our back yard.  So that's what Bossy was looking at outside our bedroom window in the middle of the night!  

I read from our local newspaper website that moose poop is good for gardens (depending on what they've been eating), so I grabbed the shovel and into the garden they went!  

Waste not, want not.

Then, a couple weeks ago me and Chuck went out for a walk, and I spontaneously decided to bring my camera along - in case we ran into something interesting - you never know, right?

(I hope I don't have you sitting on the edge your seat right now, cuz this won't be very exciting.)

Anyhoo, we have been curious for some time now about this trail that we have passed many times, so this time we decided to take a look.

Can you pronounce this?  

Once we got back in there, I really liked it!

I wanted to go on the wooden trail really bad, but Chuck said "no".

Gee, I felt like a little kid at that moment.

I made him promise me that we would walk that trail some day.

Unfortunately, "some day" is often a nice way of saying "never".

#2  MOVE ALL THE GARDEN BEDS

Supervisor

We decided that we would move all our garden beds and put them together in a group, in the part of our back yard that gets the most sun.  This will make it easier to water them all, but also we are sorta planning to put a fence around them to keep the moose out, but the fence may not happen until next year.  We'll see how things go this year.  

So we moved the bed frames, and then had to move all the piles of dirt into them.

But, before we moved the dirt, Chuck thought it would be a good idea to get the utility guys out there to mark where the power line was cuz if we put a fence up, we didn't want to end up having to move the beds again.  If we have to move them over, before to do it BEFORE we fill them up with dirt!

So we waited a couple days for that, and after learning that all was fine, we moved all the dirt back into the beds.

Done!

#3  GET ALL THE CHIVES OUT OF MY FLOWER BED

I love my chive plants, but when we bought them, I wish we would've been given a fair warning about how aggressive they are.  They spread like cancer and are very hard to control.  They were taking over my whole flower bed, making it look run over with weeds.

So I dug out my chive plants and put them in pots. 

Hopefully, this will solve the problem.

All these chive weeds are hard to pull out, and it's important to get the roots out, so I had to take a shovel and loosen them up one shovelful at a time.  It took a long time and I got a sore back out of it, but the weather was nice, so I didn't complain.  Just glad I got it all done. 

#4  FINISH PW'S QUILT

I really wanted to have that done before we left, and I did manage it.  Whew!

I still didn't put the label on it yet, but that part can wait.

#5  PUT IN ONE LAST ORDER FROM STAMPIN' UP!

Our current catalog is expiring at the end of this month, so if I wait 'til we get back from WI, it will be too late to order from it.  So that was another thing I wanted to do, and I can check that one off my list!!  So now I can start working on my Wish List from the new catalog, which my good friend Tammie already sent to me.  It's really tempting to dive into it Right Now, but I am forcing myself to wait until I get on the plane.  It'll give me something to do during the long flight.

#6  PREPARE FOR ONE LAST BIBLE CLASS

I teach class on Wednesday nights, and since we will be gone for the last two Wednesdays of this month, I have just one more to get prepared for.  We have been studying about King David for the past few weeks, so this lesson will be from 2 Samuel 7.  I already have an idea cooking up in my head for it, so it should be easy.  But after that class is done and out of my way, then I can focus on

#7  BAKING

I need to get some baking done and also need to make sure there's food in the house for the kids to eat while we're gone.

#8  MISCELLANEOUS

Cleaning, laundry, last-minute shopping, you know.......all those little things you have to do before you go on a trip.

So that is my world this week.

Wanna see an experiment that I'm working on?

Okay, this might be boring cuz it's connected with gardening.

And I hope it doesn't gross you out.

Anyhoo, every year I'm always wondering if I should start a compost bin.

Are they overhyped?  Are they really necessary?  Do I really wanna commit to maintaining one?  How much science is involved?  How bad will I screw up the balance of the micro-organisms? How much work do they entail? What do you with it during the winter? Do they attract flies?  

Do they stink?!  

I just don't know what I'm getting into with one of those.  So every year I put it off and look for alternative composting for the squeamish and the lazy.  That's me.

So here is what I am doing instead.  Just trying it for now.........

In my kitchen I keep two bins for kitchen scraps.

This "slop bucket" is about a gallon big, and this is where I throw things in there that don't really need boiling and breaking down.  I put coffee grounds in there, and also cut up the coffee filters into bite-size pieces, old lettuce and other forgotten rotting produce that I pull out of my fridge every now and then, crushed (boiled) egg shells, used paper towels get ripped up into pieces and thrown in there, and also some biodegradable type cardboard packaging that some foods come in.  Stuff like that.

In this smaller bin, I put things that I want to boil, just long enough to soften up so I can grind them up in the food processor, usually about half an hour is long enough.  I know I don't have to boil them and grind them, but this way they make nice a "slush" that's easy to spread over the dirt and rake in - plus it decomposes faster than big uncooked dry chunks.  So in this one, I put things in there like orange peels, lemon peels, banana peels, apple cores, raw egg shells, potato skins, you get the idea. (Anything but meat, dairy, or grease.)

 I put those in the smaller container cuz when it gets full, it's just the right amount that will fit in my pan without boiling over.  

Yummy!

And it gets full fast enough to where I don't have to keep it on my kitchen counter too long.  The first time doing this, I wondered if it would be my last - wasn't sure if it was gonna stink really bad.  But I was surprised - the first batch didn't smell at all.  And the next few batches actually smelled kinda good cuz they had the orange peels in them. So, after I boil them, I put it all in the food processor and grind it all down into a chunky sludge.  And then dump it into the bigger slop bucket along with the water that it was boiled in.  

And when the big slop bucket gets full, I take it outside.  So far I'm averaging about every 2-3 days.

If you keep a tight lid on these bins, there is really is NO smell.  

So here I have this batch all put together.  This one filled up a little faster cuz I added a whole watermelon rind (after boiling it and grinding it up). On the top I added the cut up stem of the carnation that they were giving away to all the mother's at church for Mother's Day yesterday.

In case you were wondering what those were...

They look like green onions, but they're not.......

My first couple batches were put into my raspberry bushes.

This one I fed to my rose bushes.

It looked like someone puked under my rose bush.

In case you're wondering, the slop does not stink!  I was surprised by this!

It actually kinda smells like coffee.

I used a garden fork to work it into the dirt with some dead leaves, and then gave the bushes a good watering.

They will love it!  - I hope.

So anyhoo, I've been doing this now for the past couple weeks, and so far, it's working for me pretty well.  Yes, it is extra work, but if it gives me better veggies, it'll be worth it.  When I was telling Chuck I needed to boil the scraps and put it in the food processor, he asked me "isn't that too much work?"  For some people, I suppose it might be.  But for me, it's really not that bad, and I think I like this better than the idea of a compost bin.

At least for now.

We'll see how long it takes for me to get sick of doing it.

Here are all my plants sunbathing, just waiting to be permanently planted into their new beds.

I hope PW remembers to do this for me while we're gone, so they will be "hardened" and ready to plant when we get back.

The weather has been so nice, it is really tempting to go ahead and start planting, but that usually ends up being a mistake this early.  

So they will wait 'til we get back from our trip.

So now that I got #1 on my list done, I can start thinking about #6.

I probably won't get back on here now until after our trip.

And hopefully I will have something worth blogging about.

Alaska State Lectureship 2017

"No soup for you!"

So this weekend our congregation had the honor and privilege of hosting the annual state lectureship.  It was a TON of work, but I enjoyed (almost) every minute of it.

We worked non-stop, from Friday noon to Sunday at 2:00 with very little sleep cuz we had to get there so early in the morning to prepare breakfast.  There's always the frustrations and uncertainties to get anxious about, but in the end, everything went pretty well.

Me and Chuck volunteered to keep the drinks going.  I thought this would be a breeze, since we do it every Sunday anyway.  Well, here is where my nightmare began.  

Bonnie supplied me with the tea that I was supposed to make, and (bless her heart), I know she was just trying to make things easy for me.  But I have found that doing the easy way, really does not work for some things.  It sometimes only makes things worse.  Instead of getting me normal tea that I'm used to making, she got me COLD BREW tea.  Even though the box says it only needs to steep for 3-5 minutes, it really needs to steep for 12-24 hours in order to get the full flavor out of it, and making it in bulk batches really changes things too.  First, I followed the directions on the box like Bonnie told me to do, and then I panicked when I realized the tea was NOT turning out!!!  It had pretty much NO FLAVOR!  So I doubled up the tea bags, but that only made it taste like disgusting pond water.  By this time I was already running out of the tea bags that she supplied, so I ended brewing some of my own tea that I normally use on Sundays in order to try and fix it.  

Then some of the tea bags broke and the tea had grounds in it!  

Well, we can't have that! So we had to filter it all out.

It still tasted like pond water, but I was running out of time, so I had to serve it like it was.

Bonnie thought it was fine, but she doesn't like sweetened tea, and therefore doesn't drink it, so she's not a good judge for that.  Diane told me that she tried some and threw it out cuz it tasted so bad.

I was mad and frustrated and embarrassed, and didn't want anyone to know who made that tea.

Of course there was still a lot left after the meal, so we saved it for the next day's dinner.  So on Saturday, I spent the whole entire afternoon trying to fix that tea, using my own hot brew kind of tea that I normally use on Sundays.  But since I was mixing it with leftover Friday's tea, the damage was done and I only got it up to 90% of my satisfaction, but at least it was better than it was.  Next time, I am going to absolutely insist on doing it MY way from the beginning.

So that was the worst part of it (for me).

Now that it's all over, I keep imagining what people must still be thinking while they're on their drive back home:  "did you taste the tea?  that was nasty........"

Anyhoo, the hot chocolate turned out really good!

So here is how full our auditorium was on Friday night.

I think Rocky said he counted about 240 people.

On Saturday morning, we had to be back at the building by 6:00 am in order to serve breakfast at 8:00.  After taste testing my pond water tea all Friday afternoon, I had consumed enough caffeine to keep me awake half the night, plus I kept thinking about that stupid tea and what I needed to do to fix it.   I spontaneously woke up at 2:45 and couldn't get back to sleep - just laid there thinking about that tea, and waited for the alarm to go off at 4:30.  So frustrating. 

While we were preparing food for breakfast, Robert came in and grabbed my camera and took some pictures for me:

While we were working, we were able to sorta watch and listen to the speakers a little bit from this little TV that they had in the kitchen for us.  I tried to watch what I could, but I only got a few snippets here and there.  From what I could tell, I knew I was missing out on some good speakers.

Here is how we had the fellowship hall set up.  The line was supposed to come to the table and split to both sides and move on out.

I don't know if that makes any sense to you, but it seemed to work very well to have two server lanes.

 Lots of people showed up for breakfast.

One mistake that Chuck and I kept making was underestimating how many people drink coffee.

We ran out of coffee a few times and felt bad when we had to tell people we were brewing some more and they would have to wait.

We did NOT serve lunch on Saturday, so that really helped us out a lot.  I used that lull time to try and fix that pond water tea, and believe me that took ALL afternoon.  Finally I realized I was hungry, so a few of us went outside to enjoy a sandwich.  It was a warm sunny day, and it felt so good just to sit down and feel the warm sun!  Even if it was short lived.

That big guy on the left - Gary - what a goofball!

Diane wanted me to pound my fists on her back so I obliged:

Sunday at last!  It was only one meal, but holy cow! what a crowd!

The auditorium was so full, some people had to sit and watch the TV screen in the fellowship hall.

Rocky said he counted 430-something.  We knew there was a lot of people cuz when we were serving breakfast, the line seemed to go on forever.  We thought we were gonna run out of food, but we had just enough.

After breakfast while we were busy cleaning up, we did get to take a little break when we stopped for the Lord's Supper.  I was so tired physically, and from lack of sleep, I felt like I had to keep moving in order to stay awake, so it was hard for me to be still during that time. And then while our cleaning was starting to wind down, we watched part of the last sermon done by Tony C. from Soldotna.  A very awesome speaker.

And of course, you can't have a lectureship without having some songs led by John T.  He is well-known state-wide for his dynamic song leading.  Every time he visits a congregation, he gets asked to lead singing.  I wonder why!!!!!!!

So, that was the lectureship from the point of view of a kitchen worker.  I did have a few moments of visiting with some friends that I hadn't seen in a long time, so that was fun.

Oh yeah, here is something weird.

A Korean lady brought this cake in, and we had no idea what we were supposed to do with it.

"My Barber Shop"???????

So anyhoo, that was my weekend.  Crazy busy, but fun.

Did I mention that I now have my own sink at the church building to make my drinks with?

Yee-HAW!

It's a little messy in this picture but that's because of the Lectureship.

I must say it is so NICE to finally have my own sink!!  It really does help a lot!

Now, if we could only do something about that traffic that keeps going through my area!

I am tempted to put up a big sign saying "GO AROUND!  STAY OUT!!  DO NOT ENTER!!"

But I suppose that wouldn't go over too well with some folks.  But hey, if they end up with a tea bath or a lemonade shower, it ain't gonna be my fault.

We had some fresh snow last week, and Beanie went outside to explore.

She got excessively coddled when she came back in to warm up.

But the temps have gone up and it really does feel like spring now.  Each day we are seeing more and more of the green grass, and my garden beds are now all exposed.

Here Weaners tries to help me work on PW's quilt again.

I don't know what her fascination is with it, but when she hears my sewing machine humming, she's gotta be right there!!

Here is a little "shower cap" cover that I made for my mixing bowl.  It helps keep kitty tongues out of the butter when I'm waiting for it to soften up to room temperature.  

So that's about it.  

Spring Is Here! Woo-HOO!

Melting snow!!

Today is the Equinox - the first day of Spring!!

Aren't you excited?

We still have a lot of snow of the ground, and will most likely get more before Spring is over, but that's okay.  Just knowing that it is officially Spring puts a spring in my step.  (boi-oi-oing!)

According to the "day and time" website, the sunrise in Anchorage this morning was at 7:59 am, and the sunset this evening will be 8:15 pm.  Today we gain 5 minutes and 44 seconds of daylight, giving us a total of 12 hours, 16 minutes, and 26 seconds!  We now have more daylight than darkness.  Yay!

So far, our signs of Spring have been almost non-existent, but we've had a few clues to let us know that Spring is on its way.  

For one thing, the cats sense it.

When the sun is shining warmly on the deck, the cats want to go out and feel it.

Unfortunately for Weaners, the snow stops her in her tracks from venturing off the deck.

This is frustrating for a cat who sees birdies out there to play with.

She is one of those kitties that doesn't really fancy the cold too much, so she was having a hard time deciding if she wanted to be in or out.  We got tired of opening the door for her every two minutes, so we just finally left it open a gap.  This made her very happy to get the best of both worlds.

I wanna be out!

No, I wanna be in!

A couple weeks ago, I saw a moose lying in my front yard.

She was just being real lazy.  I have no idea how long she was lying there before I saw her.

After awhile, she finally got up, nibbled on a few of my trees, and rambled off into the neighbor's yard.

Then on the SAME DAY!, I saw these two moose lying in my back yard!

Apparently, my yard was the moose motel that day.

These two moose were hanging around in our neighborhood for a whole week.

I haven't seen them for several days now, so they must've gone off to scope out a different neighborhood.  Maybe they would've stayed longer if I had offered free cable and a continental breakfast.

Another subtle sign that Spring is coming, is all the birds that come around the bird feeder.  You can't see the birds in this picture, but believe me - Bossy surely sees them!

So while I wait for Spring to spring, I've been trying to finish PW's quilt.

Since this picture was taken, I got the border on, got it all sandwiched and pin basted, it's now ready to quilt!

All I need now is a chunk of uninterrupted time.

With the border on, it turned out to be pretty big, about Queen size.

I wasn't too sure about the fabrics she picked, but now that's all together, I guess I like it okay.  It's nicer than it looks in the picture.  The pattern was super super super easy.

While I was sewing, Beanie was helping me keep my garbage strings organized.

She likes that job.

Let's see, what else is there for me to talk about?

Nothing much really.

Oh yeah, I planted my first garden seeds already.

Another sign of spring, yeah?

I wanted to try celery this year, and panicked when I found out it had to be started NOW.

So yesterday I had to go to the store and buy some potting soil.

It's kind of boring to stare at a pot of soil, but I know there's a seed in there and I wanna see it sprout!

Okay, I bid you adieu for now, and does Bossy.

Happy Equinox!