This time of year, the inordinate amount of darkness during the course of a regular day covers your soul like a heavy blanket, in a good way. You know that safe and content feeling you get when you wake in the dark and realize you still have hours before the alarm goes off and you sleepily snuggle under the heavy wool and down blankets and slide back to sleep? (Or is that just me who loves lots of heavy blankets?) Ordinary chores that are generally completed in the summer as an afterthought after 12 hours outside, take all day to accomplish. Sometimes two days. Knitting a sock feels like the most important thing in the world while snuggled up to the cosy wood stove radiating dry heat and waiting for the sun to rise.
The problem with socks is that when you have finally finished one, you still have to make another one. And identically!
Often times the days are gray so it is a murky light, a half light but this week I have been treated to clear and mild weather. Usually if it is clear it is very cold and when it warms up, it is cloudy. But it has been in the teens and single digits but not below zero, so pretty mild. Right now it is 2:45 in the afternoon, the sun is already done for the day, not set but well behind the Chugach mountains and the temperature is a mild 18° F. We have 5 hours and 29 minutes of the sun above the horizon today. Much of that time is behind mountains. This week we have multiple sunrises/sunsets as the sun goes behind mountain peaks and reappears.
The chickadees consumed their suet block so I made three more with some old rendered pork fat I meant to make into soap last winter but didn’t when it got lost in the depths of the freezer.
These are fun and easy to make (Add fat to sunflower seeds in old yogurt containers, poke twine in, let cool, then freeze and hang outside). I really enjoy watching the birds through my south facing windows and hearing their songs when I step outside. We put a line way up in two trees to keep Eve from being able to sneak up on the birds while they are eating. It works really well but I have to use a step ladder to refill the feeder.
I just got back from hauling water from the creek and I am pumping the water into the tank under the house, cubes of frozen dall sheep meat are thawing in the fry pan to be added to caribou bone broth for a vegetable meat soup tonight, and I am in between projects so a good time to write. With the husband in town working the past few days and the kids away all day at school, I have spent the past few days in the house, with Tater and Eve sleeping nearby, working on putting together some items to sell at the local craft bazaar coming up this Saturday. I want to make a run to town myself to pick up some Christmas items and materials for some fur sewing projects and need to make a little money to fund the trip. I have carrots in cold storage to sell and I still need to bag up dried herbs. Tomorrow will be a busy day!
I sewed 10 fur balls stuffed with catnip grown on the farm out of lynx, coyote, and wolf fur scraps. These scraps were leftover from garment projects. Have trouble accepting fur as a garment material? Hear me out before you start shouting at me about animal cruelty. Fur is not a fashion statement the way we use it. It is survival. There is no better material to keep you warm in subzero temperatures. It is a sustainable and renewable resource. The trappers I know have intimate knowledge of the life cycles of the animals they attempt to capture (it takes skill and time to be successful). If an animal cycle is in a low, they are not trapped. If you catch too many females, you stop trapping. It is the taking of life but in accord with the ancient rhythms of protecting yourself from the elements. Humans have clothed themselves with hides and furs for thousands of years. Living here in rural Alaska where we harvest our food from our gardens, from the wild lands, and from the rivers, it makes sense to harvest (some of) our clothing too. Environmentally, what is worse? Synthetic microfibers that pollute our water and land? Cotton monoculture doused in pesticides? Cheap clothing from child labor in Asia? Or harvesting the best, the warmest, the most sustainable product from our wild backyard with respect and reverence for the lives taken? I understand if you don’t get it. I could not imagine wearing fur before living in Alaska. Now I can not imagine living here without it. I don’t want to waste any of it, it is a precious resource after all, and as Eve loves the fur scraps and I had a large bag of dried catnip in the cupboard from the garden, I thought I would make cat toys to sell with the bits that are too small for anything else.
The sun is well gone now and the beautiful full moon should be rising soon. Last night it bathed the snow covered ground in the bright but cold, blueish, reflected, moonlight that makes Alaskan winters so spectacular. My son and I sat in the window in the moonlight last night soaking it in.
It has been a beautiful week.
Wood Frog Farm: A Boreal Forest Family Adventure 