Shucks ... still not done.

The room still isn't cleaned. :( Monday? Let's hope. I'll have to share a few other things I found in there. I knew they were there ... just had a chance to treasure them all over again.

Bronte called as I was leaving work on Friday. He's here for the weekend. Warning: don't show up at my house when I'm on a mission to accomplish something. He, in shorts and shiny white tennis shoes, helped pick the rest of the currants I needed. This time I mixed a bit of left over blueberries in there, left over raspberries, some very juicy watermelon berries ... and currants. Got the jelly done Friday evening!

Got to talk to Jenny for quite a while on Friday evening as well. Time zones and busy lives make some connecting incredibly hard to do. That was super fun. Got some good calorie burning laughing out that one! Blayde even got a haircut while I chatted. :)

Saturday a trip to Palmer. Mind you ... that's big. Haha. The usual. Bank, library, post office (skipped that one tho'). Found several books on tape to listen to while I clean. Makes cleaning so much more fun and it flies by. Then home to do some putting up of food. Amber spent the afternoon over here with Nolan and brought me her jar picker upper for removing jars from the boiling water. You should see how creative I was before that contraption!

First time for peach canning!

Then on to pulla for Jari. I've been making braided pulla for quite a while. Decided that if I was going to make pulla on my day off ... was going to do it the fast way. Then I ran out of baking paper and I don't like to clean brown sugar off of cookie sheets. Alyx picked up some the other day to do cookies ... so I made the yummy pullas!

Also needed baking paper for this bugger. I bought my dehydrator at a yard sale and it didn't come with the trays. Can't manage to find them to fit this bugger so I cut baking paper. Kids absolutely love apple leather ... so once in a while I make them this treat! 10 or 12 hours later ... they chew it down quite quickly.

Many visits to the porch to enjoy the flowers ... or whatever else it is that I do out there.

Peas are still climbing and blooming. Even Nolan likes the peas picked straight from the plant. I've not harvested any of these to save for winter. They don't last. I actually went and bought 10 pounds of shelled peas for the freezer last weekend. These we just enjoy like candy.

What more does one need on a sunny day? A rest with your drink and pulla. Nolan helped me pick green beans in the green house ... and they went into the freezer. We pulled out the peppers that looked like they were aphid infested. Moved one tomato plant outside because it isn't doing anything fruit wise and looks like a bit bug eaten. Will see if it does anything outside or not. The other tomatoes are finally filling up with fruit ... slowly!!

Do you think I lost it by the end of the evening. Had a thumping headache and was a bit tired so took a wee 30 minute nap. Must have woken up energized, 'cuz someone got this picture of me. Not sure if Nolan thought I was nuts or what ... probably was!

Not too nuts tho'. We hooted 'til 1 a.m. after playing Settlers. Which I won. Just in case you wanted to know. We kept playing after I won ... and found that you can actually hit 18 points in that game!

Friday ... aaah!

• All the kids are registered for school
• Long johns are in the bottom drawer
• Have to figure out where I saw a dry cleaner ... haven't used one since I moved here ... have a few things that could stand a visit
• Silver polish is added to the list
• Walking around the house looking for a place to hang white plates and can't find a wall I like
• Should I paint a wall?
• Do I put them in a box and send them to the basement?
• No rain this morning but it sure is humid
• Tonight/tomorrow I'm spending time with canning jars again
• House was sparkling clean when I got home from work yesterday :)
• It also smelled like delicious peanut butter cookies
• Alyx goes back to work today
• Anna & Tia are off to Anchorage shopping for the day ... always fun to see what they come home with ... hmmmm
• Brock is doing some work today as well
• Those tomato plants surprised me last evening ... found a few more tomatoes on them
• Will probably have to put a heater going in there sometime soon
• Is it worth canning 2 jars of pickles to see if they turn out?
• Some kind of bug has decided that it really likes my green beans outside
• Dear hubby is off in Dillingham working for a bit .. no cell phone service ... no internet
• I do get to call HIM tho' ... we have a planned phone date every other evening :)
• By the end of this evening I am going to be finished with my room
• ... and on to the next one!

Have a great Friday!

Spring?!?

I'm feeling like spring cleaning ... otherwise known as Winter's Coming Want to Nest Syndrome.
I started yesterday. Set the timer for 30 minutes and started on the laundry room. Timer rang and I was done in there for the day. Figured it might be a way to get some things accomplished without it being too incredibly painful. 30 minutes at least 4 days a week.

Tonight I started on my bedroom. Oh. My. Goodness. How does it happen that one ends up with an entire dresser drawer being a "junk drawer". The BIG drawer. Not a little one. Undeveloped film. Film? Heaven only knows where that came from. Tarnished silver jewelry. Receipts from Lowe's. Tia's picture frames. A tea set? A traveling iron. I'm telling you ... it is a plain ol' disaster. I wouldn't dare take a picture of the room in its current state. It looks like I'm moving or something. Pitch. Pitch. Pitch. Our bedroom is small. The closet is nice size, but there is no room for a dresser. Hence ... the dresser moved into the closet ... and the bottom drawer probably still held all the things I parked in it when we moved up here. Do I really need 4 winter coats/jackets hanging in a closet that is too small to begin with? Not. I'm On Call tomorrow evening so I may or may not have time to putter in there. Hopefully by Saturday evening I'll be done. Everything will have a place. The donation box will be overflowing. Jari won't find a thing when he comes home. :) Bad, hey? I have to clean that junk drawer out. You see .. he has so many long johns that they won't fit in a small drawer ... and that season is on the way.

Probably a good thing he isn't home right now. He'd never find his side of the bed if he was. 'Cuz this spring cleaning is in full swing!

Fireweed Jelly

This is a fireweed plant that is nearly done blooming. The jelly is made from the blossoms. We did pick a bunch of blossoms on Saturday and had some nice plants to pick from.

I'm quickly learning that this is all an experiment. Try once. Try again.

Test #1 gave us a good tasting jelly that is difficult to describe. It was just a bit on the jellied side. Nearly impossible to spread ... more like glob it on your bread.

So tonite (after working a full day and finishing up the broccoli) I tried again.

Test #2 so far looks like it isn't going to gel at all. Argh. Maybe by morning it will miraculously do something in the jars that are sitting on the counter.

If not ... then I'll do what I remember doing with failed chokecherry jelly many years ago. It made the best ice cream topping ever!

Need to stop and get some more sugar for the next experiment!

Today I took the camera along

when we went on a 4-wheel ride with Amber, Ryan & Nolan. Took the trail around Eklutna Lake and it was absolutely gorgeous. The weather couldn't have been better. The trail didn't have many folks on it when we went in ... plenty on the way out.

Our fun rides. I thought of Jeff & Mona many times today as we were meandering.

Serenity Falls

Jari and Nolan investigating what was under the bridge.

This is actually the river. Looks like a mud bog that I wouldn't want to be swept away in at all. Was moving at quite a clip.

Alongside the raging beast of nature ... the beauty of Fireweed.

We found a hint of color on our way. Must mean that quilting and scrapbooking are around the corner.

And today I thought of Mummu and her favorite trees. Seeing them made me want to just grab a couple of chunks and make some candle holders for her.

What a fun time!

Wow ... what a day!

I did get to the farm yesterday. http://www.pppfarm.net Pyrah's Pioneer Peak Farm is where I went for the first time last year ... and now that I have the lovely internet site ... can see what is ready to pick. Going back for raspberries around the 10th. Tia was the only willing soul to crawl out of bed yesterday morning. We really didn't need much more help than that. As it is ... I think we managed to do some bang up business. We picked 33.99 pounds of broccoli and picked up 11 pounds of zucchini. Do you have any idea how much broccoli that is??!! I think we bit off a bit too much. May need another freezer to store broccoli in. Yesterday I put almost half of it in the freezer! Clean the vegie a wee bit more ... blanch it ... individually freeze it ... and then bag it. Still don't have a vacuum sealer so Ziploc and I are good buds.

Came home from picking broccoli and my plan was to put a batch of green vegie freezing and then run a few errands in town ... and head out for blueberries. We got to the errand part ... even picked up 10 pounds of shelled peas on our jaunt ... and dear hubby rang. Emergency dip netting opening at Fish Creek with anticipted huge numbers of fish coming up the creek. Hmmm. This creek hasn't been open for 10 years for dip netting. Really don't use a lot of blueberries. We eat a LOT of fish. I've never been dip netting. Fish Creek is relatively close by. Off we went. The kids were more than happy to exchange blueberry picking for fishing. I didn't take the camera along. I have this nice new phone that I think takes pretty good pictures. I took plenty of them. We didn't catch not one fish. Not even a teeny tiny dolly varden. Nothing. I saw maybe 3 fish caught out of the seemingly 100 people around us. But we had a blast. And all those pictures are still on my phone. My wonderful phone won't let me send them out of the phone. It is rather possessive. I hope I can figure this out sometime soon ... would love to share them with you. We spent about 5 hours out there enjoying the sunshine and gorgeous day. So we came home with no fish ... but we came home with Fireweed blossoms. Quite a few of those buggers!

Got home after 7 pm and the fun began in earnest. Bless her heart. Tia peeled 11 pounds of zucchini and, along with my small garden crop, we froze 40 cups of grated zucchini. Put up another 10 cups of rhubarb, 10 pounds of peas, more broccoli ... and I made fireweed jelly! I really need to quit taste testing on a spoon. Need to taste test that one on a piece of toast and see what it tastes like. Not nearly as tart as the currants. Those make my toes pucker! Not sweet like my favorite strawberry freezer jam either. I'll certainly vote for easy to make tho'! I have enough blossoms sitting here to do at least another batch. If they haven't walked away, or been carried away by bugs and bees, by Monday ... maybe I'll make another batch. :)

I should be sleeping in but my phone rang at 6:30 this morning. Jari and I are off to do a bit of 4-wheeling today. Date Day. I'll bring a camera along for sure this time!

Saturday morning

... why am I on the computer?? Just taking a look see to check out what is happening hither and yon. And get ready for a busy day ... one that my kids are just going to love. I'm taking them to the farm today to pick broccoli. Looks like the zucchini is ready to pick this weekend as well. If so ...we're coming home with some of that too.

The sun is shining and the skies (for the moment) are beautiful blue. So after the trip to the farm .. blueberry picking at Hatchers. Many hands makes light work, right? Shouldn't take too long to get a winters supply of blueberries. We'll eat a lot more broccoli this winter than blueberries.

After the blueberries ... I think they should pick me some more currants. I probably won't be able to eat the currant jelly I made. It is much too tart for my taste, but I'm going to try mixing it with some other berries and see how it goes. :) If you're going to eat around here ... today you're going to help.

Silver salmon were supposedly in at Jim's Creek last night ... but they really weren't. Pays to wait and see what folks say after they tromp out there. Get the fruits/vegies in the freezer this weekend and maybe next weekend we can be out snagging some salmon again. I already know that Christmas baking will not fit in the freezer by the time we're done. Not a bad problem hey? I'm really keeping my fingers crossed for some big four legged critters this fall. Mmmmm.

I think that fall is here or coming soon. The flowers on the stairs outside have pretty much expired. It was quite a shock one day to notice that. Certainly isn't water that drowned them, even if we did have a lot of rain. Water drains out the bottom of the pots nonstop. Must be a sign of autumn. While the flowers are starting to dwindle, I feel like I'm coming back to life. It has been a very busy summer. Super fun. Lots of running. Loved the visitors ... who are still coming in August. In the last several days my thoughts have been moving to home projects again. "How can I move things around in the laundry room?" "Need to start digital scrapbooking and getting them printed again." Those kinds of thoughts. Winter thoughts. Time to nest in for the winter. I'm a nester. I'm a very satisfied person when I'm nesting. Wierd, huh? Baffles me as well, but I think I need the quiet of the winter after the busy time of summer. I'm starting to crave it.

Time to run the dishwasher and a load of laundry ... and then wake my sleeping cherubs.