Our Berries

I'm going berry crazy and I'm taking the kids along with me.

You can take the girl out of the berry patch, but you can't take the berry picker out of the girl, my friend told me the other day. I probably would not be so obsessed with berries had I not grown up picking tame organic blueberries in Minnesota for my modest college fund. I find myself now on maybe an acre of wild berries in Alaska, and I'm picking every chance I get. This is year three. Year one, the first year after the dead White Spruces were removed and the area was introduced to sunlight and the raspberries appeared, was not nearly as plentiful. However, I had a one-year old then and I have a one-year-old now and I do love that age. They will sit happily and feed themselves berries for quite a long time. Raspberries are our best crop and the only thing we've harvested (on our own land) until this year. I have so many I have friends come to pick.

This year, I have already frozen hoards of blueberries and raspberries and plan to preserve some high bush cranberries and rose hips as well. The raspberries and blueberries will be reserved for hot cereal topping and wine, and the roses and cranberries will make great jellies, syrups, and catsups. The University of Alaska Fairbanks Cooperative Extension publishes a book showcasing many recipes for every common berry in Alaska. And there are many.

Highbush Cranberries. Notice the maple-leave shape of all leaves but the top ones. They will turn more cherry-colored and more translucent throughout August and sweeten for best picking after the first frost. They grow on our land about the same height as raspberries and roses, from 1-4 feet. I will not confuse this with the poisonous baneberry (which I have yet to find on our land). The Baneberry is one of the few truly deadly plants in Alaska and has a similar-looking cluster of berries that are however opaque, without a pit, taste awful, and have a much different leaf.

Wild Roses. The hips (left, pink) in August or the pink flower pedals in June can be used in recipes. The hips are loaded with Vitamin C and are best picked when soft.

Bunch Berries. Some call these Dogwood. They are edible, but in the presence of other berries they aren't worth preserving not because of size or number but because they lack flavor. They are however a desirable ground-cover. They have a pretty white flower in early summer, a symmetric arrangement of six leaves, and a lovely clump of orange-red opaque berries in late summer.

Northern Commandra Timberberry. Even though we have plenty of these also, I had trouble finding these in my wild food books and on the internet so had to wander over to the neighbor who lived in the bush to get the name. It is edible also, but again does not have a great taste. It is about the same color as the bunch berry, but the berry is much larger, the leaves much smaller, and the plant has a more verticle look than the bunch berry, reaching up maybe a foot at most.

For now, we will have to wander off of our land to find other desirable wild Alaskan berries, like Blueberries, Crowberries, or Lowbush Cranberries (Lingonberries), Strawberries, and many others. And for now, there is more raspberry picking to be done so I better end this post.

Mother's Day

I know Mother's Day was more than a couple of months ago, but I am sorting through digital photos for hard copy order and ran across these three. They make me smile. It was toward the end of my last semester of school, and I was pretty tired of deadlines and bored with life. Inside the packaging from my four boys was an immersion blender. I like practical gifts. Thinking back ... my husband worked on Mother's Day, so I brought the boys out to eat lunch at our favorite kid-friendly restaurant, Taco King, and the guys there brought this flower to our table.

It's the small surprises that really makes the days wonderful, isn't it? Like walking out into the forest to pick blueberries with your children and finding two of your favorite mom friends and their children had the same idea, two days in a row? Or that day you just dread stopping at the grocery store for milk but run into an old friend and have a great time catching up in the check-out line? I just love it when without a plan you venture out on your own and surprise everything falls into place.

Almost every day is Mama's Day in my book.

Grandma Carol's

Boys,

I found myself giggling at you while we were at Grandma Carol's last night. I know what it's like to go to a grandparent's house. I relished the Sunday family visits at Grandma Bernice's after church and the evening stays and Grandma Mabel's when my parents went out for the evening. The attention a kid gets at a grandparent's house is like no other.

Grandma Carol has a fan on a stand. Baby, you are afraid of it, but, my older boy, you think that thing is an airplane with adjustable speeds. You say you are the pilot and driving us all to your grandpa and grandma's house in Minnesota. Last night, you even had Grandma Carol get you a pillow and a blanket so you could go "night night" on the plane just like you do in real life.

Your two other favorite things to do there (besides eat her never-ending supply of chocolate chip cookies) is to pretend that the adding machine is a credit card machine and to sharpen pencils in the automatic pencil sharpener. Baby, who's not a baby so much anymore, at almost 18 months, you like to sit in the chair at the big desk and take that big pile of sharpened pencils and put them one by one through the mesh holes in the back of the chair.

Playing with keys is another favorite at her place.

I forget already what you guys used to like to do over there. Stickers. Daddy and the house. Pretend the cow is a musical instrument. The memories leave so quickly.

Grandma Carol says one of her fondest memories of your Papa Bob is giving him a cup of cold coffee and a hard biscuit and watching him eat them on a hump in the back yard where he grew up in downtown Fairbanks. That is what the gold-miners did and so he was pretending he was one of the guys. She thinks he was about 3, your age, and possibly explains his addiction to coffee now.

Salad Spinning

My garden grew significantly while we were in Minnesota and even since this picture was taken a week ago. Look how dry it was in May when things were just starting to sprout. Between the worms from the vericompost doing their thing, a bit of organic fertilizer, and some moisture my garden was much more productive this year than the last two years. Here it is after being thinned once. I have thinned it probably 5 times. My method of planting close together for weed reduction and water retention has seemed to work well.

I always like to talk about my best purchases, things I have or will use time and time again and save me a lot of trouble . . . like a Sportbrella to cut back on sunblock and UV rays for the beach, a Klean Kanteen insulated mug for my coffee and ice water, Baby Bjorn molded plastic bibs to significantly cut down on toddler meal cleanup, and of course the Deuter Kid Backpack back-saver which I was so lucky to borrow for a bit from a friend. The list of things I have that are really life-changing is not long, but it includes the OXO Salad Spinner. I have used that thing every day and question why I didn't get one years ago. Boy, oh boy, have we been enjoying a lot of green protein and the best part is my boy here loves to do the spinning for me.

Looking for the Light

My first amateur photo session couldn't have turned out more perfectly. I knew Birch Hill would be a great location, but I was stunned when Mount Aurora presented a rainbow the entire hour shot. My beautiful friend, expecting in one week, was a joy to photograph.

This evening, we weren't waiting for the light, but we simply went looking for it and it was exactly where I thought it might be. I chose Mount Aurora not only because you can get above the tree-line without much walking but also because of the slight breeze it receives almost all of the time. If you're not from here, that means there aren't any mosquitoes up there, an important detail. Sometimes, everything works out just wonderfully.

Candid Captures

Back in Minnesota, the guys cut a bunch of wood and then wondered what to do with it all. Not nearly all of the wood, a culmination of many days and many locations, is pictured.

The "big field" which was picked and plowed by my great-grandpa Joseph was reclaimed (by chainsaw from tree invasion near the rock piles that surround it) and fenced for horses. It was a huge job, but haying it each year is a huge job also and this will cut down on that.

Each day, after getting dirty, it was time for a bath and a tick check.

We took some time to rent a pontoon and catch some pan fish.

The cousins chilled at the cabin . . .

and worked hard . . .

moving wood for the bonfire

We spent a hot day at the zoo with friends.

We made music with family.

Everyone enjoyed a train ride and one of us even took a nap.

 

The boys got a little wild playing horse with grandpa.

With grandma things were a little more calm . . .

well . . .

maybe not. I'm not sure what they were imagining this time or what shenanigans those two got into in the basement but I know they had fun.

We ate 3 meals a day most days out on the deck.

Although the boys had a pretty great time (especially playing alone together in their bedroom at nap and night times), they did fight over the rocker.

The last day we all worked together in the blueberries, preparing for their ripening in late July by weeding, pruning, and spreading chips . . . a work-in-progress.

That's the last post on June in Minnesota. What a fantastic time we had!

Playful Portraits

Feeling Blue?

Working June Vacation

The neighbors had some potential saw-logs near their house and barn that my dad and husband collected. When I say neighbors, there really is only one neighbor, one couple. They live to the west of my parents, but own(ed) the land on both the east and west, the two directions with road access. With two tractors and two chain saws, my dad and husband are quite efficient. The day before this, they collected saw logs and fire wood at my parents' cabin (to the north). So, there is not any shortage of wood.

The next-door neighbors, ages 86 and 86, recently donated their 800+ acres to the Department of Natural Resources to be used as wildlife refuge. The state land surrounds my parents'. This is the barn that still stands on that land about a mile east of my parents place. When my dad and I used to make square bales, we'd take them over here to store in this barn. We drove over there on the 4-wheelers and the guys collected the old fence-posts so that they can be reused.

One day we prepped the horse barn for stain, by removing nests and pounding nails in that had popped out a bit. Staining it with a sprayer was messy, but it saved a lot of time and worked fine for the barn. My dad built the barn in summer 2007 after he returned from Alaska. I think he said that helping us build our house gave him the itch to use his pile of sawed lumber. The first winter, the barn was used to cook sap for maple syrup and the next fall, 2008, they purchased two horses.

As soon as we arrived in Minnesota, we fell into our usual roles. My husband went behind the garage to split the wood he didn't get around to splitting the last time we were here, last November, and to make room for the new harvest. I jumped on the lawnmower and snapped photos of our boys finishing the vegetable garden planting with my mom and dad.

My Farm Favorites

Our sons are 5th generation on this farm.

Our sons with cousin Jennie on my aunt Janet's horse, Josie

My uncle Ron and my aunt Laurie, my mom, and our very exhausted son, just before sundown

The others are over at the bonfire. Jennie surprised us by riding out on a saddled horse

These are some of my favorite people, the night of a family get-together at my parents' farm

Our son with uncle Ron and aunt Janet

A bit earlier in the evening just before sunset, my dad and our son, the first to board the second hay ride

The Farmall H. It has lived up to its name.

From Cold to Hot and Back Again

One day it's in the 90s, the next in the 50s. Good ol' Minnesota! It keeps things interesting.

We had our first Minnesota playdate yesterday. My husband had to run to a town to get some plumbing parts because he was replacing my parents' water pressure tank, so we quickly called up the local cousins Jennie, Chrissy, and Beth (Aric's wife) and everyone showed up atthe playground with their kids: baby Riley, the youngest, only one-month old. My son and his older cousin Hailey have become quite fond of each other. I think it's because they have the same attitude. Just look at their faces. So far, the playgrounds we've visited have been quite impressive with very fast slides, tall tree forts, and other interesting gadgets. Even though the boy climbed the rock wall a few times, he mostly stuck here with the three excavators. Little boys.

His little brother on the other hand was quite fond of the steep ladders, tunnels, and swift slides. Moose Lake, the name of the town, is in the background. It has a Dairy Queen, which we all, kids and adults, thoroughly enjoyed afterward even though it was a cool day.

Going back in time a week or so, here's Grandpa Greg and his right-hand-man digging up some rose bushes that had been growing in the field for five years. They brought them to my cousin Jennie's because she has a new place with lots of space in need of vertical vegetation. You can't tell by how they're dressed, but this day was very, very hot. This is just one example of many, many outdoor projects that have been completed already.

The next day was cool again, but that didn't stop the kids from playing in the pool for as long as we allowed them. My son assumed the role of water monster, which the other kids happily played into. My dad also took everyone on a hay ride and all who didn't have little kids stayed late for a bonfire. The kids (almost half of whom are pictured) enjoyed chasing the chickens and playing other yard games. The blueberries, in the background have massive amounts of blossoms; it's going to be a big year. We only invited a couple of families to this party for my graduation/my husband's birthday/our anniversary, but with all of the marriages and kids that have sprung from my generation on my maternal side, it was quite a large group.