Oh, how I wish, in my madly frantic rush to get out the door on time (didn't happen) this morning; that I had had enough foresight to pull out the salmon or the halibut filets that are in the freezer. CSA share is coming home courtesy of my lovely mother tonight, and having already read the farm newsletter that arrived in my email; I'm sure that the 'bunched greens' and the turnips would be divine with some fish... The halibut's smaller, maybe I can thaw it out in water real quick?
I had been hoping for young beets, or even beet greens (which is still a possibility, as they can be bunched!) because I have sour cream in the fridge and a hankering for borscht.
Maybe the flower shares will start this week?
14 Mile Farm & Studio : love of life off the grid in Alaska
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Another reason it's called "fireweed"
Fireweed is one of the first plants to come back after a forest fire, and when it blooms, it turns whole feilds a flaming fuschia. As you can see here, it is growing out of the ashes of the firepit in the backyard.
The whole plant is edible (as I'm sure you've gathered from my earlier posts on it), but the leaves become bitter after the plant has flowered. Apparently, the leaves were a favored food staple for the early French explorers.
One of these years I'm going to make Fireweed Flower Wine, maybe next year, as I'm not sure either Darlin' Man or Breda Mine would really support the decision to move with multiple containers of fermenting wine.... So perhaps, this winter we'll just enjoy floral teas and dried fireweed flowers on salads and things? I've already blanched and frozen a quart of new shoots. We'll see how they hold up being frozen, maybe next year we'll put up more...
Meet Lucy
Lucy is my mother's new pup. She's an English Shepherd, the breed that Border Collies were derived from. English Shepherds, historically, were the most popular farm dog breed on small family farms. They will both herd and protect various livestock (sheep, cattle, chickens and ducks, pigs, and even goats), as well as serve as watch dogs, companions, "babysitters," and even hunting dogs. I've heard that the real-life stories that inspired the movie "Lassie" were about English Shepherds.
She is a joy, a bundle of mischief and energy, and faithfully trots along next to you from room to room and house to yard and back. We're thinking that maybe, in a few years, Bunchberry will be home to her future boyfriend...
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Alpine spring
We shot some footage for a music video darlin' man and his friend are making at the top of Angel Rocks a few weekends ago. It were loverly: camping on a sand bar, bonfire, and puppy so happy to splash in the river and hike a trail.
We started the hike around 1 or so in the morning, and arrived at the top to a summer sunrise: light spilling golden pink over the hills. I twirled and danced and stared soulfully into the light with a camera focused on my eyeball. Then we (leisurely) hiked back down, getting back to camp by 5 am.
The hike was long and reminded me how out of hiking shape I am, my knee hurt, and I was middle-of-the-night-grumpy. But the memory of it is transcendant. Not only was I reminded how much I love getting out on a trail, and having that solitudinous, passing through eternity experience of nature - so different from the productive gardening relationship, or the integrative living-in-a-place relationship with nature that I recently tend to focus on. All are equally important to one's humanity and spirit, I believe.
Nearing the summit of Angel Rocks, passing through the angelic boulders, we encountered a fairy land. Or so I would have seen it as a child. Out of the shallow dirt edging the path and the boulders, springing above the tundra (the moss and lichen and alpine-stunted low bush blue berries and lingonberries, and the like) were clumps of delicate white star shaped flowers, and brilliantly, almost florescently yellow alpine poppies. There were bright yellow asters growing out of crevices in the boulders, and near-to-blooming buds of other flowers, they looked like more poppies.
It was so beautiful, and so visibly effervescent: a fleeting, passing show of joy and glory.
The wild roses were blooming too, the briars and the flowers, writ on a smaller scale in the harsher environment, yet seeming to vibrate with life. Watching the blueberry flowers, little white bells on their green legs, grow smaller and smaller, the membranes somehow more delicate and yet more sturdy the higher we climbed.
I felt blessed to see that window of (near-) alpine blooming.
We started the hike around 1 or so in the morning, and arrived at the top to a summer sunrise: light spilling golden pink over the hills. I twirled and danced and stared soulfully into the light with a camera focused on my eyeball. Then we (leisurely) hiked back down, getting back to camp by 5 am.
The hike was long and reminded me how out of hiking shape I am, my knee hurt, and I was middle-of-the-night-grumpy. But the memory of it is transcendant. Not only was I reminded how much I love getting out on a trail, and having that solitudinous, passing through eternity experience of nature - so different from the productive gardening relationship, or the integrative living-in-a-place relationship with nature that I recently tend to focus on. All are equally important to one's humanity and spirit, I believe.
Nearing the summit of Angel Rocks, passing through the angelic boulders, we encountered a fairy land. Or so I would have seen it as a child. Out of the shallow dirt edging the path and the boulders, springing above the tundra (the moss and lichen and alpine-stunted low bush blue berries and lingonberries, and the like) were clumps of delicate white star shaped flowers, and brilliantly, almost florescently yellow alpine poppies. There were bright yellow asters growing out of crevices in the boulders, and near-to-blooming buds of other flowers, they looked like more poppies.
It was so beautiful, and so visibly effervescent: a fleeting, passing show of joy and glory.
The wild roses were blooming too, the briars and the flowers, writ on a smaller scale in the harsher environment, yet seeming to vibrate with life. Watching the blueberry flowers, little white bells on their green legs, grow smaller and smaller, the membranes somehow more delicate and yet more sturdy the higher we climbed.
I felt blessed to see that window of (near-) alpine blooming.
Monday, May 30, 2011
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Perspective
Today I found 14 dozen canning jars at the transfer site!
All in their original packaging, though obviously having been in a damp basement or something. They'll need to be washed well, and most of the lids and rings won't be worth much... But you don't need rings on the jars while they're on the shelf - only for processing and then after you open them. And lids are only really good for a year anyway, though that is one I still struggle with- it seems so wasteful to toss out what appear to be perfectly good tops. I mean I use used tops for things like the jar of a weeks worth of salad dressing in the fridge, or a jar of soup to take to work; but you're not supposed to CAN with used lids. And those bacteria are not ones I want to take chances with...
My other beautiful news of the day is that I went back to the cabin to get pots for planting starts tomorrow; and found that in the perennial bed I worked on the past two years, there are lillies, poppies, daisies, chives, and rhubarb coming back. Wheeee! I hope the tenants enjoy them. It was really nice, going back there on a gorgeous sunny day with a little bit of distance and seeing how much I really did accomplish on that little piece of muskeg. I'm not as ineffectual as I sometimes think i am. It gives me perspective for this upcoming move... The past week or so I've been itching to be working in the dirt and railing against the time line I'm stuck with, wanting to dig in asparagus, and break ground for perennial beds, decide on where to plant the lilacs and chokecherries and apples and what should be garden and what should be pasture; but knowing that all those decisions, realistically, will be next years'. Oh, and the wedded tree came back strong and healthy. Darlin' man is going to hate me when I tell him I want to dig it up, drive it 20'miles, and then replant it at the homestead...
All things in good time. This is what I need to keep in mind. And in the meantime, wild herbs can be gathered, mountains hiked, rivers canoed, and herbs and flowers grown in pots.
All in their original packaging, though obviously having been in a damp basement or something. They'll need to be washed well, and most of the lids and rings won't be worth much... But you don't need rings on the jars while they're on the shelf - only for processing and then after you open them. And lids are only really good for a year anyway, though that is one I still struggle with- it seems so wasteful to toss out what appear to be perfectly good tops. I mean I use used tops for things like the jar of a weeks worth of salad dressing in the fridge, or a jar of soup to take to work; but you're not supposed to CAN with used lids. And those bacteria are not ones I want to take chances with...
My other beautiful news of the day is that I went back to the cabin to get pots for planting starts tomorrow; and found that in the perennial bed I worked on the past two years, there are lillies, poppies, daisies, chives, and rhubarb coming back. Wheeee! I hope the tenants enjoy them. It was really nice, going back there on a gorgeous sunny day with a little bit of distance and seeing how much I really did accomplish on that little piece of muskeg. I'm not as ineffectual as I sometimes think i am. It gives me perspective for this upcoming move... The past week or so I've been itching to be working in the dirt and railing against the time line I'm stuck with, wanting to dig in asparagus, and break ground for perennial beds, decide on where to plant the lilacs and chokecherries and apples and what should be garden and what should be pasture; but knowing that all those decisions, realistically, will be next years'. Oh, and the wedded tree came back strong and healthy. Darlin' man is going to hate me when I tell him I want to dig it up, drive it 20'miles, and then replant it at the homestead...
All things in good time. This is what I need to keep in mind. And in the meantime, wild herbs can be gathered, mountains hiked, rivers canoed, and herbs and flowers grown in pots.
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