Ayah!

So I have a cold, which is quite astonishing to me because I only rarely get colds. Chalk it up to an out-of-practice immune system used to living in a low-germ-density area suddenly being exposed to an "aluminum germ tube" as BT puts it.

I've been drinking lots of hot water with honey and various vitamin C sources, which are abundant around here this time of year.

Fireweed blossoms, rose hips, and a slice of lemon:


Sweetened with honey... mmmm... very soothing on the throat:


Acidic hot water takes the color right out of fireweed, which is why folks make beautiful fireweed jelly.


I love fireweed, but mine is out of control, up to my chest, in impenetrable thickets:


The other afternoon, I got my neighbor to come over and advise me on it. She told me to pull it all out, stem by stem; it would grow back no matter what. "We all love fireweed, but that's too much fireweed." The roots are so straight and shallow, and the ground is so soft and moist, that it was an easy job.

Before:


After:


Oh, here is another 'before' shot, where a certain Mademoiselle Moose had been bedding down for the night:


I found a 'shroom grown around one of them, haha:


Pretty impressive piles, no?




Here is a photo of Miss Millie enjoying some bolted arugula:


I made pesto out of the salvageable leaves and brought some back to my neighbors from whom the arugula had come. The wife wasn't in, and the husband, an Inupiat with little background in Italian food, said, "It's what what?"

Me: "Arugula pesto"

Him: "What pesto?"

Me: "Arugula. Er... Your arugula."

So now I know who manages the garden in that house! :)