It is so quiet at 5:45 AM that all I can hear is the gentle hum of our inverter power system and the chewing of hay in the guinea pig cage. It is the second morning in a row where the ground is not covered in icy frost. We had 20°F for four mornings this past week. It rained yesterday on and off and when I saw stars this morning I thought for sure that it would be frozen solid out, a wet saturated icy mess. I have 15 gallon plant pots full of soil, tubs and totes, cleaning tables and tools, potato box pieces and buckets scattered in the yard. As much as I would like to clean and organize these items, it is a low priority project as I scurry to get as much food out of the garden as possible before the voles eat it or winter closes in. It is not frozen out though this morning, unexpectedly. Instead it is 45° and damp. Another fall day, thankfully not yet winter. There is so much to do.

Our household routine these past two weeks has been to get up and start classes by 9. While assisting/monitoring that, I process food in the kitchen which warms up the house and makes use of the hours waiting for the frost to melt off.

Once school is done for the day, or the kids can work independently, I go out to the garden to harvest more. We brought in the squash harvest after the first night that was cold enough to nip the plants under plastic tunnels, Sept 6th.

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I built two 8 foot by 3 foot cleaning tables to use to wash the harvest (as well as hold trays of garden starts in the spring). I have been meaning to do this for a few months and finally got to it when the carrot harvest started in earnest.

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It took longer than I would have liked to get the carrots out of the ground. I always over estimate what I am capable of accomplishing in a day, or a week. But finally I did get the last of them out of the ground on the 14th and with very little vole damage. The carrots were a little funny this year with perfectly normal carrots growing next to stunted runts. But the overall harvest was decent.

I came home from delivering carrots in McCarthy last Saturday evening and brought the greenhouse harvest and all the plants in pots into the house. I was out of the 22 inch length greenhouse wood and while I could have used the shorter house wood, we are low on that too. We moved our shed this spring and have yet to build the new wood shed that attaches to the front of the storage shed. We did not cut our usual four cords of wood last spring either because we were thinking ahead so that we would not have to move it twice or because with covid and schooling at home it just did not happen. I am not the biggest fan of going into the winter without our stockpile of wood split and stacked but at least the kids will get PE credit helping us get wood in late fall/early winter. When I get up at 2 AM to stoke the greenhouse fire, I often can not fall back asleep. These days with the kids schooling at home, I need all the patience I can get. Better sleep outweighed keeping the cucumbers and tomatoes going a little longer and so, the greenhouse was shut down for the year. There is some arugula and radish seeded in there which may or may not do anything depending on how cold October is this year. So now in addition to trays of drying onions and bundles of herbs and flowers, we have pots of peppers and trays of tomatoes finishing ripening. My peppers did badly this year after what looked like a beautiful start this spring. The slugs, regardless of picking them off every day or so, did a number on them. I diced all the small green peppers and froze them. I mourned the lack of jalapeños (slug favorite). And I have resigned myself to sharing our limited space with 5 big pots of ripening cayenne and Hungarian wax peppers.

We have taken a few breaks from school and the farm, for our sanity. I have learned this fall that having a weekend, or at least one day a week, without any school work is necessary for me. I need the break from organizing and overseeing. We drove to Thompson pass on the 6th and picked blueberries for a few hours. The leaves were just coming into peak colors and the drive towards Valdez was spectacular. We did not get more than 3/4 gallon of berries but there was much gallivanting around on the open hillsides. It is good to get away sometimes.

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Last Saturday we hit the road again to deliver 160 pounds of carrots to McCarthy locals. After all the carrots were all picked up we spent the afternoon at the toe of the Kennicott Glacier with friends, listening to rocks slide off the ice to crash into the water, throwing rocks in ourselves, and scrambling up at least one hill on the moraine. I don’t spend much time in McCarthy anymore but it was my first home when I moved to Alaska. The day could not have been better. The warm sun shone down on us and the bugs were few and far between. We hardly saw another soul, a rarity in the now extremely popular town. The aspen and willow and birch were at peak color and this year there was a lot of gorgeous orange-red in addition to the many hues of gold in the leaves.

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I bought myself a present on Amazon this month. I have been struggling with carrying heavy totes of harvest repeatedly down my long garden rows. When I saw this garden cart in the back of my friend’s pickup in August, I knew I had to have one too. I know it is ecologically unsustainable to use Amazon but still, it feels like a miracle when something you need is delivered to the Post Office and I only have to drive 13 miles, instead of 250 to get it. This gorilla cart measures 22 inches from the outer wheels so theoretically fits down my 24 inch paths. It can hold up to 600 pounds and is not nearly as tippy as my wheelbarrow. I put it together yesterday as soon as we got home from the post office and even though it was time to start dinner, I took it for a test drive and harvested two crates of potatoes. I am in love (and my back is very thankful too).

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I have been chipping away at the potato harvest. The voles are hitting it hard and I spent several hours yesterday morning experimenting with processing potatoes to freeze to make use of the pounds of potatoes that are nibbled on one end but still good on the other. I made hash browns by shredding potatoes, blanching them in boiling water for three minutes and then transferring them to ice water. After draining and pressing on a cookie sheet with a dish towel to remove excess water, I divided them into portions and put in the freezer. I also steamed potato chunks for ten to twelve minutes before dunking in ice water and then twirling in the salad spinner for freezer home fries and roasted potatoes. I want to make some frozen steak fries too when I harvest the German Butterball and remaining Kennebec. The potatoes too far gone to use are boiled for the pigs. The good harvest is drying/curing in the back room for a day or so and then will be stored under the house. It is an abundant harvest this year and I hope to have it completely out of the ground this weekend so I can start to work on garden clean up before everything freezes.

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The sun is up now and it is time to really start the day. I feel pretty darn lucky to be able to look up from the keyboard and out the window to see the sun striking the mountains.

Best wishes from my farm to yours.

25°F this morning. A flock of ducks heading south just flew over the lake through the mist that is beginning to lighten as the sun comes up and warms it. The duck water was frozen and I used my heel to open it this morning.

I borrowed a small shovelful of glowing coals from the greenhouse wood stove to jump start a fire in the chilly house. As I drink my scalding hot coffee, I am wondering if the tunnels had enough protection or if I have lost my winter squash harvest. Summer is over and fall is here for a few weeks and then it will be the long winter.

While I am a huge proponent of the idea that life is all about the journey and not the destination, Alaska’s summer are so short and so intense that this time of year I find myself looking back and wondering when I stopped to reflect and just be, or enjoy being. I last wrote a blog post on August 6, one month ago. My computer was being used for 9th grade online classes and homework and I was too busy, too scattered, to sit down and write anyway. I put my head down and worked. And worked. The problem is that when there is so much to do, you will inevitably fail crossing off all the items on the to do lists. I have piles of them on my desk, each day making a plan that was scrapped when something needing immediate attention took precedence. Last week my 13 year old son and I got in an argument about schedules and being organized, prioritizing tasks, and working in a timely manner. Partway through the heated argument (the 13 year old does not want to make a schedule), I realized I could use my own advice. I wrote this August 29 when I had a crazy busy day where I did not accomplish the one goal I had set in the morning. The day was so ridiculous I had to write it down.

August 29, 2020. Todays plan: process previously harvested vegetables that are in totes under the house. I get a text at 8:30 AM: ATV tires are ready. Drive down the road and pick up ATV tires, put them on the atvs, put away all tools, test drive atvs. Put away atvs. Open greenhouse and consider that the slugs are out of control in the greenhouse and perennial garden and think about how the ducks are over due to be moved up here. Ducks have not been let out yet so instead I catch the ducks, stuff them into a cat carrier, bring to perennial garden and fill their water dish. While the irrigation pump is on to fill the duck water and there is plenty of sun on the solar panels it makes sense to quickly water all the outside flower pots. While doing this, I notice that I need to collect seed from the bachelor button, violas, and nasturtium. I proceed to do that. Next, back to processing. There is no room in the freezer behind the shed for more vegetables but it does not make sense to put another freezer back there as the shed is supposed to be painted soon. I put a newly cleaned freezer behind the house and go to fire up the backhoe to use it to scoot the big freezer on pallets away from the shed so I can paint soon and put all the freezers back there. (Because at the time it seems faster to use the backhoe than to empty the freezer to move it. Not so in reality.) The duck house needs to be moved too so I can cross off two chores with one tool. Backhoe needs two tires aired up so I start the generator and hook up the air compressor. Then the battery needs a jump so I use the water truck to do that. Once the hoe is going, I ratchet strap the duck house onto the backhoe bucket and move that up to the perennial garden behind the greenhouse. After the freezer is slid out of the way, it is obvious that the water line running under the shed needs to be moved and there is debris that needs to be scraped away before the pallets will fit behind the shed. It makes sense to do that while the back hoe is already going. I have to get a torch to soften the waterline but it finally comes apart at the now badly placed (due to shed placement when we relocated it this past spring) valve that needs to be replaced with a splice later. I scrape away the debris and then decide to turn the compost while the hoe is still running as that is way over due on the chore list too. Compost gets turned after moving the bear fence that surrounds the old compost, the new compost, and the pig pen. Backhoe is now parked back behind the shed so debris can be shoveled into the bucket. Go inside and check time…6 PM and the kids are hungry. Meatloaf goes in the oven and peeled potatoes in the pot at a slow boil. Conner and I make the final adjustments to the duck house placement, shovel debris into the backhoe bucket and rake the freezer area, and shovel and rake around the compost pile until the meatloaf is ready alarm goes off on my phone. Eat dinner at 8:30 PM.

Not a single vegetable was processed that day.

August in review: I was also too busy in August to jot down my daily few sentences in my journal so the month is a little hazy. My son started his online homeschool classes. We had a few big wind and rain storms. I spent a lot of time working on mechanical items that broke: ATVs, my truck, the irrigation pump. Weeds started to get out of control with all the rain and with my time now divided by harvest for sales and harvest and processing for us (as well as housework, homeschooling, hauling water etc…). Survival mode is the best way to describe August. Do what you can.

A bear came in the night of the 15/16th and pulled grain bags out of the conex.

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It took me a while to locate bear slugs for my shotgun and round up bear spray for the kids to carry while they played in the yard. I had gotten lax. We can have bears come through at any time of the spring, summer, and fall but they most often move through our area when traveling from the mountains to the river in the spring and back again in the fall. Somehow I was not on the ball with the fall migration back to the mountains. The next night when the conex door was securely locked (as it had not been the night before), the bear ripped the weather stripping off the doors and then found the compost pile. To keep dogs out, I have an old heavy duty steel homemade hay bale ring with garden fencing tie wired onto it that I fill with plants, salmon carcasses, and bedding. The bear flipped the compost ring up on end and dug through the compost pile which is 15 feet from the pig pen. I am not sure if the pigs were frozen in terror or just slept peacefully through the night but the bear did not discover them. Day 2 of the bear became all about the bear. I moved the electric fence charger down to the pig pen and strung 4 rounds of wire tape around the pig and compost area.

Then I finished attaching electrical fence caps on the garden fence and strung 2 inch wire tape around the top of the garden. (This was a partially started project that was supposed to be finished eons ago to keep out moose and bear).

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I finished in the waning light by atv headlight in the rain looking over my shoulder for a bear the entire time. Perhaps it was the paranoia and desire to be safe and warm in the house but somehow I forgot to switch the two game cams on. The bear came in again for a third night during the rain storm and hit the electrical fence by the compost and had a very negative reaction to it. It pestered the neighbors the next night and then moved on. I am very grateful I did not have to shoot it but very irritated that I did not get a picture of it!!!! I do not even know if it was a black bear or a grizzly. We have bear spray on the atvs and in the garden mailbox. The kids have pocket ones that are with them when they are outside. My 44 is always with me and the kids and I went through shotgun safety and have it loaded with bear slugs for a worst case scenario. We got lucky this time and are now well prepared for another encounter. The bear did very little damage, no people or animals were hurt, and we are all, now, on our toes.

Otherwise life is spot weeding, harvesting, and processing the harvest. The garlic was harvested August 9. It is now finishing drying on racks.

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We have almost 6 gallons of raspberries in the freezer. And many went right into our bellies.

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There are more black currants than we have time to pick.

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And many more vegetables have come out of the garden. The beautiful romanesco, cheddar cauliflower, and regular cauliflower did not get their photos taken in the August rush. They are now in residence in the freezer for delicious winter meals.

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The sun is up and it is a toasty 45°F outside. Time to go inspect the frost damage.