Occasionally I get the chance to scoot out of Alaska and spend some time away from the daily chores of rural Alaska. In a whirlwind week of activity, my family and I are visiting the Maine seacoast where I grew up, touring the re-creation of Plimoth Plantation (site of the first Thanksgiving) in Plimoth, Massachusetts, walking the Freedom trail (a revolutionary war tour) in Boston Massachusetts, and sharing a Thanksgiving harvest meal with my folks. But of course my favorite part of visiting my first home is eating lobster!

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Of course I was really interested in the gardens at Plimoth Plantation. They were raised beds made with granite rocks. Many of the beds still had root crops in the ground though winter would have set in earlier in the 1620s and vegetables would normally have already been stored in the house loft space. The houses all had herbs and onions hanging from the rafters. Not too different from us!

There were also heirloom livestock. They only have written record of two working dogs making the Mayflower journey. Other livestock came over on ships over the next few years.

The re-creation of the native village of the Pokanoket band was pretty spectacular as well. There were quail smoking/roasting on a spit, a mishoon (one tree dugout canoe) that was in the process of being burned out, a summer house and a winter house. The houses were amazing. I would like to have one myself! They are water tight, warm, and completely biodegradable when at the end of their life.

In Boston the kids learned about the birthplace of the American Revolution. We had studied ahead of time and it was great to share so many historic places with them in person as we walked the Freedom Trail with a fantastic guide.

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Of course I try to get my fill of the Atlantic ocean while home by walking along the seashore even if gale winds are blowing.

And now to share a Thanksgiving dinner with family we love with hearts full of gratitude for our health, our life opportunities, and each other.

Fun fact: we can not grow gourds in Alaska because they not only are long season (110 days plus) but need night time pollinators. It is too cold for gourd flowers to open at night and we do not have the right pollinators.

From our family to yours, we wish you a very Happy Thanksgiving!

If I didn’t know better, I would think I had relocated to the temperate rainforest of southeast AK. My spirits had lifted with the steady mild cold and a few inches of the white stuff on the ground but the weather warmed again this week. We had a huge weather advisory on the horizon and it was unclear with whether it would be a snow storm or a rain storm.

It rained.

It rained a steady, pounding downpour that melted all our snow and pooled in the low spot of the perennial garden. The wind lashed the windows and howled and when we woke up the next day the lake was covered in water. Again. The rain turned our highways to ice and school was cancelled. The lake had been on the verge of being safe enough to play and travel on and now…not.

This is not ideal weather for the things I usually like to do this time of year such as cross country skiing, walking on the lake, getting out the snow machines (know to others as snowmobiles). In fact, due to the icy conditions, I have felt terribly housebound. After a summer season where I am outside 12 to 16 hours a day easily, being housebound is rough. I have been walking a couple of road miles each day for some mental clarity (with ice cleats).

I have been working on some of the mind numbing chores that have been sitting on the back burner. Thank goodness for audiobooks.

In the summer when I have overexerted my physical self, I think with longing about idle winter days. But it is a case of too much of a good thing. Too much physical work in the summer and too much still indoor time right now. It is overstated that Alaska is a land of extremes but well, it is true. The drastic difference in sunlight and darkness, temperature, and weather between June and December create an interesting challenge to those of us who live here year round.

I am good at staying busy if not as physically active as I would like. I pickled beets, made rhubarb jam, lingonberry rhubarb jam, and highbush cranberry jelly from berries and vegetables stored or frozen this past fall. And that processing made more room in our tightly packed freezers.

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I also processed our frozen dall sheep quarters and caribou back straps into dinner sized portions.

Additionally this week our new 15 cubic foot freezer finally arrived at Lowes and after a quick 400 mile roundtrip on super icy roads (glad I was not the one on the trip), we now have more than enough freezer space. Which is a very good thing because our unfinished root cellar will not keep everything above freezing all winter and some of that food will need to be transferred to the new freezer. So, if the lousy weather keeps up I will not lack for things to do.

Yesterday I dragged the kids out of the house and made them stack firewood while I split it with the wood splitter. There was a fair amount of complaining but with engine going and ear protection on I really could not hear it. We got the 2 spruce trees split and stacked and the 2 poplars split and in a tarped pile. They are still green and will need to go into next years wood shed after they have dried for a year. Now we have room to get some more and with the snow gone, I have my eye on a few other trees in the horse pen that fell over this year.

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Till next week!