You would think that with the warmest late fall ever that I have been getting a lot done outside. Hahahaha! Not true sadly…I have been puttering about trying to keep on top of exciting chores like laundry and dishes. We had company on Saturday and enjoyed an amazing meal of roast chicken, roasted vegetables (brussels sprouts, white turnip, golden beet, carrot, and red potato) as well as a fresh salad of carrot, red, and green cabbage with lemon garlic mustard honey dressing. It was a harvest celebration with all the food (minus a few oils and spices) coming from the garden and a night of catching up with friends. After they left, I told Tim my cheeks hurt from smiling so much. There were many stories told with accompanying laughter. Our life has become so stressful, pulled in so many directions and with so many irons in the fire that it often feels like we are reacting to life instead of planning it out. To spend an evening with friends with nothing more than the goal to share delicious food and enjoy each others company was beyond delightful. I just wished I had remembered to take photos!

I started breaking down dried herbs for storage now that they have finished dehydrating. It is a tedious chore…

Sunday morning the kids and I learned how to play Mancala. Friends who bring us games to play are also high in our regard. Some friends dropped off a box of barely used games over the weekend and we are so excited to have these new ones to play. Mancala was easy to get the hang of in the beginning. I won the first five or so until my son picked up on the strategy. He is a LOT better at math than I am. So when he started winning I had him teach his sister how to play.

The rest of the week was time spent at the school. Tuesday I attended the 1st quarter Awards Assembly where my kids received their high honors certificates and my daughter was named Student of the Quarter. I am proud of the work these two put into their studies.

I also hauled home 3 round bales of rye straw for animal bedding. It was unexpected to find herbicide free local straw so I jumped on the chance to stock up. We often use subpar hay for bedding purposes but straw has a hollow stem that makes it a better insulator as well as a better material for compost (the straw holds oxygen in the pile).

Wednesday we decorated and set up for the Kenny Lake School Halloween Carnival and served a Baked Potato Bar to raise money for our nutrition program. It was a long day but the kids had a great time at the Carnival.

Today is All Hallows Eve and our kitty’s first birthday.

I feel like I have spent the week dinking around. I have been busy BUT nothing has been crossed off the list. There is much to do and I have not been getting it done. I don’t know if it is this grey weather or how everything seems to be broken at the moment or the bizarre fact that whenever I start to do a project something else comes up. Transition of the seasons. That is my story and I am sticking to it!

Somehow two weeks has gone by…and no blog post. I neglected to write anything last Thursday even though I did fire up the laptop and stare at it occasionally. While it does not matter in the whole scheme of things, it is the second time I have not followed through with my promise to myself to write once a week for 40 weeks (Spring equinox to Winter solstice) and I feel disappointed to have not followed through. It has just been one of those weeks (or two weeks…). This time of year is an upheaval. It is a transition between the summer and the winter season and a transition in family life and roles as my husband returns home after two and 1/2 months away at hunting camp. I was scrambling to get my garden put away for the winter before the ground froze. Everything was harvested, the garlic planted, and I had just started on weeding the small trees out of the beds when it began freezing over and not thawing during the day. I tried to get some seed starting soil made but other priority projects kept inserting themselves so I finally gave up when I was forced to chip my frozen materials out of the wheel barrow. October 17th and 18th had morning lows of 3°F. The lake was almost completely covered with ice the morning of the 18th. Only a small area directly around our dock and in a trail to the beaver lodge a few hundred feet down the shore to the west remained ice free where the muskrats and beavers are keeping the water open with their constant movement.

I wrote this October 20th when I thought I might get a post out just a few days late: This past week has been a blur. I hardly took any photos and I did not do any writing. With the busy season slowing down, my physical self let me know that I have been consuming far too much caffeine and it was time for a break. I agreed with my body but still…I have not enjoyed the headache that comes from letting go of coffee. When Thursday morning rolled around there was a lot of pressure from the to do list to get ready for our town trip. And on top of that the kids had a 5 day weekend and I just didn’t get any quiet time all day. Instead I am writing with my thumbs on the smart phone in a spare moment from supply shopping. It has been progressively getting colder this last week: 3 degrees F on Thursday morning. The garden soil has a frozen crust and the only dirt work being done anymore this fall is with equipment that will break through that crust. We hauled the 4 horses we had at home after camp into town on Friday. We dropped off Cassidy with his new owner and the other three we brought to the Brost farm at Point Mackensie. I had never been to that farm area of Alaska before. It was great to see all the fields and see where Alaska’s dairies used to be. After dropping off the horses we have been supply shopping for the past 24 hours. The truck is full of winter necessities from Costco, Lowes, Fred Meyers, Home Depot and the many other stores where we spent time (and $$$).

With the big trip to town past us, we have been attempting to manage a slew of first world problems. Our on demand hot water heater started leaking (small at first and then a river) in late September and we ordered a new, better model but collecting all the fittings we need to install it has proven to be a challenge. My GMC Yukon went into the shop for a tune up and came back with an estimate of $4000 of work needing done (we have since paired it down to about half that but still…) Being without my truck in good running order leaves me a bit panic struck. Everything is so spread out here and driving the old work/water truck for the school carpool with all of us stuck together like sardines in a can leaves a lot to be desired! We only sold one of the 3 horses we needed to sell and therefore have to feed those two through the winter before we try to sell them in the spring. The washing machine/dryer unit is acting up. The freezer we ordered has not come in yet and I am unable to finish processing turkeys and more veg under the house because we do not have the space (yet). And boy do I miss the long sunny days of summer when our solar panels provided us with more power that we could use (running the Honda 2000 is noisy).

But that is life, is it not? There will always be something unexpected or irritating to deal with. After a few grumpy days, I am reminding myself often to look at all the good things we have: an abundance of garden produce, a warm and dry home, education opportunities for our kids, books, enough projects to engage our brains for a lifetime, and lots of outdoor exercise. Life is good.

Conner and Tim went caribou hunting October 21 and 22 when the season reopened after the rut. The kids really look forward to hunting with their Dad for caribou as he is off guiding during moose and sheep season. The hunt prospects were pretty bad. The Nelchina herd of 50,000 animals had all (or almost all) passed through the federal lands where we can harvest animals. They hunted for two days and finally connected with a old bull. Caribou is not the tastiest meat especially when it is an old bull taken in the late season when the bulls have stopped eating and are spending all their time chasing after cows. But it is good lean protein and makes great burger. We will age the meat in our guest cabin for a while and then process it up. After all the fowl I have processed this summer, I am looking forward to meat quarters which are so much easier!

Speaking of processing fowl, I also butchered the 7 remaining birds in the laying flock yesterday. They will make good soup birds. Now I can move the new flock into the insulated coop where they will be warmer and better protected from all the birds of prey we have around. I still have the 2 turkeys to do, but they must wait until we get our new freezer.

I had finally adjusted to the season change to winter when the south wind started blowing Tuesday night. All day yesterday it was in the 40s with strong winds and the occasional splatter of rain. Then last night it started pouring. Every time I woke up the rain was pounding on the roof. Today is gray and windy but no rain. It is 38°F and the ice on the lake is starting to retreat from our shore. With a few more days of this warm up in the forecast, I might get some seed starting soil done after all.

The sun is trying to peek out of a thick layer of clouds and the wind is still blasting out house from the south west. It looks like it might be snowing in the mountains to the south. I think processing leeks while listening to an audio book is a good plan for the next few hours!

Till next week!