fireweed jelly

The other day, I made fireweed jelly. Fireweed runs rampant around southcentral Alaska, and we have lots of it on our property. Since last summer, I have wanted to make jelly with it, and I finally got around to it. Ryan and I picked two shopping bags full of fireweed blossom ends, which left no noticeable dent in our fireweed population. Then we picked all the blossoms off the stems:

Then rinsed them, put them in a pot with some water, and heated them until the blossoms lost their color, which only took a few minutes. Then strained the water, which then was actually fireweed juice. The fireweed juice was an ugly light yellowish brown, not at all what I expected.

To the fireweed juice, I added sugar and a little lemon juice. As soon as I added the lemon juice, the mixture turned a beautiful pinkish-purplish color, the color of the blossoms. Very interesting chemical reaction, I thought.

I then brought the mixture to a boil, added pectin, boiled for another minute, and poured into jars. Sealed the jars, and voila! fireweed jelly, 28 1/2 pint jars. This isn't the greatest picture, but the jelly is a beautiful rich clear pink color. And delicious!

I really enjoyed this experiment, because I was able to harvest something that grows wild and abundantly on my property, and turn it into something delicious for my family.

alaska's in the top 10! Whoohoo!

Except it's not something to be excited about:

Budget Nightmare: 10 Most Broke States

Basically, the Alaska state government gets close to 90% of its revenue from oil royalties and taxes. Not only is production decreasing steadily, but now the price of oil is much lower than it was last year.

Problem was, budget people forgot that even if the longterm trend in price of a commodity is up, it can always have dips, and if you make a budget without taking that into account, it will hurt.

If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

Spring has sprung...

Well, it's been over a month since I posted here. My apologies, everyone. Life has just been incredibly busy between work and family. However, I have good news.... it is spring in Alaska.

I have noticed before that season change happens suddenly in Alaska. Two weeks ago, it was still winter, and there was still snow on the ground. I was feeling like it would NEVER be spring again. And here it is. Last summer was terrible. It was cloudy and chilly all summer long. But we have had more sunny, warm days so far this spring than we had all summer last year. It is looking good so far....

eruption

(Photo courtesy of Trisha Sadler and the Alaska Volcano Observatory). Mt. Redoubt erupted four or five times yesterday, sending ash all over the place. Since I am in Fairbanks until Tuesday, I am sort of waiting to see if it continues. If there is ashfall in the area I need to drive through, I will have to delay coming home. I heard from my family that there was some ashfall at our place yesterday, but I wasn't there to see it.

acclimation

I grew up in Maryland, the southernmost Northern state. In climate, it's pretty much a southern state. We did get snow occassionally, but it never lasted long. Big snow falls were the stuff of legends. I still remember the huge snowfall the winter of 1976, when the Chesapeake Bay froze. But when I learned to drive, I never really had to drive in the snow, except maybe once or twice a year. And when I did, it was just a matter of crossing my fingers.

Then I moved to Colorado, and later Utah. It snowed a little more often, but generally melted off the road within a day or two, usually helped by vast quantities of salt. The other consideration is that even in winter, the sun shone for many hours a day, and was still relatively direct and strong. I hated driving in snow, and did the slow, white knuckle, creepy-crawl every time I had to drive in it. The idea of going down even a small hill would make me nervous.

But in 2004, I moved to Alaska. I specifically decided to move Labor Day weekend because I thought we would be less likely to encounter snow in the Yukon early in September. We did get snowed on, but nothing major, and none while we were in the mountains, for which I was grateful, as I was pulling a heavy trailer with my truck.

So, we got to Alaska just in time for winter. Imagine my shock when I discovered that the snow didn't melt. It started snowing in October, and that first winter, the roads never cleared until March. Because the sunlight is not direct enough, strong enough, or long enough to melt anything, and it stayed cold, the snow on the roads simply compacted down into ice. Everything was covered in ice, several inches thick. And to compound the issue, I got a job in January requiring lots of driving all over town. To make a long story short, I learned to drive on ice and snow. By the end of the winter, I wasn't as frightened of driving on it. By the end of my second winter, I had slid off the road twice, and I learned from it. Fast forward to now, and I find myself today driving 300 miles to Fairbanks on roads like you see above in about five and a half hours, including a couple of potty breaks. Note that the trip from where I live to Fairbanks involves a fair amount of hilly terrain. No major mountain passes, but lots of hills and winding around the bases of mountains. Before living in Alaska, I would have said, NO WAY. But today, it was a nice drive, with no white knuckle moments. I will head home on Tuesday, assuming that Mt. Redoubt doesn't spew ash all over the place, making driving truly hazardous (It's very slippery, and it ruins your engine).

I guess my point is, people acclimate. When they have to, or choose to, people can adapt relatively well to changing circumstances. And circumstances are changing. Resource depletion, global warming, etc. will all affect us, and change our lives. There are plenty of predictions of chaos and collapse. But, if we are careful, we can adapt as things change. Hopefully, we will.

snow dogs...

The Iditarod started last Saturday. It starts in Anchorage, and they run to Eagle River, about 15 miles. They then restart the next day in Willow. The reason they do this is that the Knik Arm doesn't freeze all the way across anymore, so they let the mushers bypass that crossing.

A friend of mine has a cabin on Long Lake, a mile or so from where the restart is, and we went out to her cabin last Sunday to watch. The dog teams run right down the lake. We stood outside and watched about half of the teams go by, then went inside by the fire to watch the rest, while my friend's husband took our kids snowmachining. This is Becky with him in the pic. The kids loved the snow machines. I tried it out too, but it felt a little unstable on the back. I think I would have liked it more if I had been the one driving, because I would have felt more in control.

It was really fun; we all had a great time. Thanks for inviting us, Christine!

March

(No, this is not my cabin.) Somewhat of a crappy picture, but I forgot to take one while it was still light. Then, I only had my cell phone with me, instead of my camera, so that makes it even worse. But I think the picture is clear enough to get my point across.

Snow. Lots of snow. We got a foot and a half this past weekend. Then another couple inches today. The first winter I was here, it was trending warmer and starting to melt by the first weekend in March. Clearly not this year. There are big huge piles of snow surrounding every parking lot in the state, I think. And the other morning it was -10 when I left for work. Breakup is looking like it will be a bit late this year.

Good thing I like snow. And also a good thing we still have plenty of wood left for the wood stove. But hey, all this snow will be great for the Iditarod.

Mt. Redoubt

We have a volcano acting up a few miles away:

This is Mt. Redoubt, located just across Cook Inlet from Anchorage. The last time it erupted was during a 4 month eruptive period from Dec. 89 to April 90, during which it erupted several times. In the last week or so, it has suddenly gotten active again, and there is a likelihood that it will erupt sometime soon.

Depending on which way the wind is blowing when it happens to erupt, the ashfall may happen over Anchorage and Wasilla. So all the stores are selling out of dust masks and vehicle air filters, just in case. We cover our computers with plastic bags when we leave for the night, as volcanic ash is extremely abrasive and damaging to electronics, and gets into everything.

Updates on the volcano are available here: http://www.avo.alaska.edu/activity/Redoubt.php

Brrr...

I know the picture is a little blurry, but it says -29 degrees Farenheit. It's a little cold out tonight in Alaska. If I were in Fairbanks, as my husband and 13 year old son are tonight, I would be even colder... it is -38 there. And it's not even the coldest part of the night yet.

What does this mean for us, who do not have central heating run on natural gas and/or electricity, seeing as how we have neither in our cabin? Lots of wood. We heat with a wood stove, and it has been going literally all day. Normally, I get it going real good before I go to bed, then start it again for a few hours in the morning, but not tonight. Tonight, I must set my alarm to go off every 2 or 3 hours so that I can get up and add wood to the fire.

Last night, it was -10 or -15, and I let the fire die out overnight. When I woke up this morning, it was about 50 degrees in the house. Not cold enough to be dangerous, but chilly enough that I was reluctant to get out from underneath my warm down comforter to start the fire again. But it is much colder tonight, cold enough to require vigilance. So I will be getting up during the night.

It is interesting, living with a heat system that we must constantly regulate. This is the first winter I have not lived in a house that just automatically stayed at the temperature I chose, without me doing anything, or noticing at all for the most part. It means that in very cold weather like this, I am tied to the house. I cannot be gone too long if I don't want to have to start another fire when I return. It is much easier to keep the fire fed than to start a new one.

In addition, I had, without thinking, planned for the entire family to go to Fairbanks these last few days, to visit my oldest daughter. Then I remembered what all of us being gone for 4 days would mean. The house would get cold. I have pets that would not be terribly comfortable if the house got cold, and we certainly have things in the house that should not freeze. So then, a friend volunteered to come over to the house once a day to light a fire, to keep the house at least above freezing. But luckily I looked at the weather reports and realized that it would be getting this cold. One fire a day just would not be enough. So, I stayed.

I am not complaining. I would have liked to have seen Meghan, but it doesn't really bother me to stay home. I am just fascinated by how differently we think about things when we have to directly manage our needs, as opposed to setting the thermostat at 55 and leaving for 4 days, knowing what temperature the house would be on our return.

I wonder how different our society would be if all of us had to have this level of consciousness of all of our daily needs? If all of us had to bake our bread each week and know how much wood had to be hauled in the house each day, and so on. It seems to me that there would be much less importance placed on status and more on practicality. For example, we have about 950 square feet of living space. We would be cutting, chopping, stacking, hauling, and burning much more wood if we had twice the space. While there is a part of me that would love to be living in a fancier house, most of me is glad we built small. Especially when it is cold outside.