Alaska Fall

First official day of FROST!

As you would imagine Fall starts well before the Fall Equinox here in Alaska.  When you live this far north life is on a different time scale.  Right now it is moose season and most the natives in the village are out hunting a moose.  This makes for a quieter village which I do enjoy.  Fishing for salmon has mellowed out as well and berry picking is slowing down unless you are after cranberries.  The cranberries this year are bountiful, huge, and every where on the tundra.  We have had a frost but only one and the temps are mostly 40ºF at night and still hitting the 50ºF during the day.  We have not taken the full plunge to a serious fall yet.  The tundra is a glow in its fall blanket of yellows, oranges, reds all heading to browns and greys soon.  The fall is fast and quick here as the changes just jump out at you from day to day.

Shopping

Every year before we return to village life and work we have to shop in Anchorage.  This event is not one of my favorite things to do but it is a must!  We have two small stores in the village.  I have to admit they carry a reasonable variety of foods.  No matter what  it is still nice to have a larger selection of food for the year.  We head to Costco and buy a lot of food to ship up north for the school year.

Now that we don't eat wheat we are buying less process foods like cereal, snacks, and what not.  This certainly helps, but no matter what we spend about $2,000 on this shopping trip.  Once all items are bought we then take them back to the motel, pack the goods into totes, zip tie them.  The final stop is the airport post office to mail our food to ourselves.

We do buy cheese and salami meats but those are frozen and we carry them in our bags that will fly with us.  Some salamis don't need to be cool until you open them which is great as they go in the totes.

All I can say is thank you Christian a million times over for being such a great packer/organizer.  I totally fail in this department!

Yarn

Once back in the village my first package was yarn that the Knit 'N Needle  sent up to me from Montana.  I love Harrisville Design yarn it is one of my favorite 100% wool yarns.  They have rich colors and the yarn is full of life!

This yarn will be used with some quivit that I have been given.  This Berroco Ultra Alpaca.

Malabrigo most likely for a hat or felted baby booties.

Blue Sky Suri for linings in mittens, hats, or cuffs.

Once back in the village there have been a few changes.  The radio station now has a fun bright mural on the little addition they built.

We now have these huge rocks lining the beach road to help protect the shore line from erosion from our fall storms.

Work, yeap I am here to work.  August inservice with a bit of knitting, lots of tea, while learning the ins and outs of our new math program.

Tundra mushrooms which have been plentiful this year.  I am not picking these mushrooms.  I just enjoy seeing them popping up through the tundra ground cover.

When we return tot he village the Fireweed is in full bloom and coming to the end of summer.  When the Fireweed reaches the top of the stalk with blooms then summer will be coming to end.

Cotton grass which is always fun to see.  It reminds me of snow and a Jan Brett's book: Trouble With Trolls.

Tundra berries: top photo we have cranberries, the middle photo you can see blueberries, and a pale salmon berry also known as cloud berries in Sweden.  Salmon berries are not my favorite berries.  Finally having a nice hot tea break on the tundra in the rain!  Thus the reason rain gear was made . . . I am not one to wait for a nice day every day is a nice day as long as I can get out!

PDS DK yarn left over from some other projects.  I am knitting up a pair of opposite socks as best I can . . . I know I am going to run out but that was the point.

A Great Raining Day Ride! 

My friend Robin called one morning wanting to know if I would like to ride up to North River Bridge, and then shuttle her dog Kuvi back home.  Well of course I would!  Robin has a packraft and she hauled that up on her back.  This is the point of the packraft it is design for being hauled over the place and when needed you inflate it and paddle.  It is a really cool thing!

Mud---yeap it was muddy and wet ride!

Old cabin for a dry out, tea break, and raft inflating.

This huge bladder is used to inflate the raft really in minutes!

Packraft ready to go!

Where all the trees are in the distance is the river that we left Robin.  Kuvi and I are riding home and the fall colors are just beginning to change.

Tundra and landscape . . . I just love it!

Windmills which help cut electrical costs to the villagers.

Lets say enough!  I agree, Tally! I am caught up with the blog.  I feel like I can now work on my new goal!  Stay off of Facebook and use the nice old fashion blog which is a bit out of style but so am I!

September 27, 2014 First Frost! & No Bad Weather (NBW) Fall Knit Along (KAL)

The first sign that winter is truly on its way!

There is nothing like waking up early, to some late for me 6:30, on a Saturday morning to sky full of stars, and crisp fall air.   What?  Is that ice on the puddle?  I tentatively stick the toe of my Bean boot into the puddle hoping, wishing to hear the wonderful sound of ice cracking and what do I hear? Yes, ice cracking under the toe of my boot!  Northern Lights dancing in the sky, plus the lights of a barge in Norton Sound heading south before things really start to freeze up for winter.

One of the many joys of living in rural Alaska are the body parts your dogs get to either find and hope to bring into the house or the parts they love to roll on/in.  Tally was so thrilled with this wonderful find the other morning!  Nope---we are not keeping it!  It will be heading back to the beach where I am sure it came from today. 

The tundra is actually fading now to just browns and muted green lichen.  Fall has come and now we move into the rather dullness of browns and grays until winter arrives to blanket my world in white.  This tundra plant I love!  It is such a rich red and it really does look this red!

Tally enjoying an after school romp on the tundra in earlier September. 

 

My girl Sadie!

 

 

 

A recent batch of smoked salmon. Smoked with cherry and spicy seasoning added.

 

 

 

   

    

No Bad Weather (NBW) Fall Knit Along (KAL)

I have been working on my NBW KAL with the ladies from the Knit 'N Needle in Whitefish, Montana online through Ravelry.  This is a wonderful design and the yarn from the shoppe is great!  PDS worsted yarn is just full of life, with rich robust colors which is becoming a favorite of many knitters!

Like all projects I seem to always have to start the body about 3 times until I seem to work out some issues.  I have pretty much resigned myself to this knitting fact.  I casted-on a sleeve and knitted that up just fine.  The color is rich and deep which I really like in my yarn.  I casted-on for the body using a long tail cast-on and with two colors.  I decided instead of a ribbing I would do a knitted hem.  This is why I like to cast-on with 2 colors as I can pick up sts. easily having a contrasting color. 

That green purl like bump is where I will be picking up sts. to knit the hem which will be knit in a PDS sport weight yarn.  The lighter yarn will add less bulk and pull in the bottom just a bit.  This will be done later.

I thought, I would do a bit of added color work in the lower section.  I picked a design that I thought would be perfect.  It would have what I thought would be snow and hearts.  This would have made the statement that I love bad weather.  Well . . . it make the statement that this is way to much color work and your hem will be HUGE!  I decided to frog this section . . . oops forgot to mention: I had already frogged once before as I had twisted my yarn when joining the first round!

The reason for the color work is to have a nice line to sew the knitted hem to when I cast-off the hem on the inside.

Back to the drawing board.  I picked a much smaller simpler design of color work which would represent hills, drifts, and snow.  I knitted this color work only to realize that . . . Do you see those 2 ^%^%$%^*^* sts  there . . . yes 2 red sts side by side!!!!!!  Yes in the first round close to the beginning!  &*)(*&%$#$%%^

I was able to get this frogged again, and knitted yet again.  Now on a positive note look at how great that PDS worsted weight yarn is holding up to 3 froggings.  I will admit  I wanted to toss the whole thing into the trash!  However, I nicely reminded myself this is not the first time nor the last time knitting will humble me!  I took a few deep breathes, swore a bit and like E.Z. would say "Knit On!"

I have been knitting for over 20 years and yes even those who have been knitting for years (decades) still makes mistakes and still find new ways of making mistakes.  To new knitters out there just try and relax it is fine to make mistakes, learn how to frog, laugh a bit at yourself and then KNIT ON!

Smoking Salmon & Tundra Walk

Fall has certainly arrived here in Unalakleet.  When you live this far north (63.8789° N, 160.7897° W) seasons are all just off a bit.  In late August, the tundra starts to change colors ever so slightly.  Then all of a sudden the final burst of colors arrive before we move onto the the browns and then the world of white. Just a few more photos of fall.

Yesterday in between smoking salmon we were able to get out for a nice walk on the tundra.

Salmon getting ready to head into the smoker.  This batch was smoked with cherry wood, and then a Fiery Chile Fusion from The Spice Hunter. 

We use a Bradley Smoker for our salmon. We have also smoked cheese which has come out wonderful.

Colors from the tundra:

The village of Unalakleet sits on Norton Sound.  It is a large village of about 725 people.  Which may seem small to the outside world, but this is a good size rural Alaska village.

Sadie enjoying her tundra run looking east into the hills.

"The Girls" and I on the tundra we love so much!

Fall on the Tundra

Winter is my favorite season with fall a very close second in the season line up.  I love the cool crisp air, the deep blue sky, and here in Alaska the changing colors on the tundra.  After living overseas for many years, all I wanted was to be back with FOUR real seasons.  I longed to see the trees change colors!  Once in Alaska, I realized fall is a completely different beast.  The trees turn color but the real colors are on the tundra.  We live pretty far north which means fall is happening now!

Blueberries!  This year the berries have been fabulous!  This photo is from a week ago while things were still green.

Looking down at Unalakleet, Norton Sound, and the Unalakleet River.  The hills are staring to turn yellowish-gold to brown.

This is fall on the tundra!  Look at these colors! Berries and plants changing colors that rival any maple in my books!

I am not sure what this red plant is called.  I really need to learn its name!  Lichen in the back ground with a bit of Ayu.