Veggies for the week

Here is my stash for the week:

Ayyy! Another celery! More rutabaga!

Here is Miss Millie B. Doofus, Supreme Ruler of the People's Independent Republic of Bunnistan, in a new napping permutaion:


And the dawgs:

Kesugi Ridge Report, part I

Over the long weekend, the girls and I took three days to hike the Kesugi Ridge Trail with several other members of the Fairbanks Area Hiking Club. And once again, I took way too many photos (111, whittled down to 46 for your viewing pleasure), and will post them gradually.

In looking over the photos, I've come to realize that all hikers and backpackers will skew their photo posting toward easier parts of a hike, because that is the only time they have the presence of mind to get out their cameras! No-one will pull out a camera while stumbling down a hillside or wading through boot-sucking mud! So photo journals are always biased toward the positive. Oh well; if it attracts more people to the outdoors, then so much the better! :)

We started the hike with a climb to the ridge. We climbed and climbed. And then climbed some more:


The fall colors were out in force:


We could see the glaciated peaks across the highway from us:


Autumn looking regal while taking a breather:


Dowgs!


Linden is remarkably photogenic and rarely looks as gooberdy in photos as she does in person:


A lake way down below:


We could see more of the glaciers as we climbed higher:


This pebble traversal was a pain in the arse:


Even the traversals weren't easy, requiring descent down to the many creeks and then reclimbing:

The upside is that there was fresh water aplenty from the sparkling clean, rain-and-snow-fed creeks, and it was nice to be able to pack very little water and travel relatively light. My water filter, for your reference, weighs um... well, something very little as it's all made of plastic!

The colors of the tundra were breathtakingly beautiful:


Finally, the we are done climbing and ready for the ridge traversal!


But then the rain came, so nothing is ever perfect. Here is a rainbow:


We could see the discrete spots of rain on the opposite ridge:


Another glowing tundra shot:


Another ravine we crossed:


Of course, the ridge that we were not on was bathed in sunlight, while we trudged along in our rain gear:


As we set up our first night's camp, Denali made a brief appearance:


And that's enough Kesugi Ridge reportage for today! Parts II and III are here and here, respectively.

Final installment of the report on the trip to Southerly Lands

Here is my final report from my Southerly Adventure.

The Northbound drive was as beautiful as the Southbound, with stunning views of Denali throughout:




I am not used to seeing the South side of Denali!


It has jagged peaks in front of it:


I caught a painter at work on a lovely painting. He was generous with his time and let me snap a photo:


I cannot imagine how much more beautiful the scene would have been had all this fireweed still been in bloom:


The Denali Park region was well into Fall, with the trees turning their Fall colors:


And the tundra brush turning red:


Femoose and hemoose!


The shemoose dunked her whole head into the water to eat!


And that concludes my report on Southerly Adventures.

The morning run, and migrating birds taking off

This is how most of my neighbors know me:

"Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! Hi-bye-haveagooddaaaaaaaayyyyy...!"

The cranes are taking off:




So are the geese, but I haven't gotten a photo.

Ickle me, Pickle me, Tickle me, too

Rosie Creek Farm's constant lobbing of ginormous vegetables has not defeated me yet! Last night, I got to pickling:


I don't have a pressure cooker, so for me, canning = pickling. For one batch, I pickled the purple beans (which turned green as I blanched them) with carrots, garlic, and sweet red and green peppers. Oh, how I adore pickled garlic! I don't like dill, so I made these slightly sweet and hot, with the addition of sugar and red pepper flakes. Then I got creative and added a cinnamon stick and a shake of cloves to the brine. We shall see how it turns out! It smelled fantastic!



I also did a batch of julienned rutabaga, beets, and onions. Because the onions were a fancy-pants sweet local Alaskan hybrid, I wanted their taste to shine and put nothing else in the brine besides salt. Pickled beets with rutabaga and onions sounds like something they'd have served in a Communist bloc orphanage before the fall of the Berlin wall, doesn't it? But I look forward to trying it!

Ickle me, Pickle me, Tickle me, too,
In Soviet Russia, beets pickle you!

The most beautiful place I've ever camped

Now back to reportage of our Southerly Adventure.

Here we have the beautiful Rocky Lake, in the community of Big Lake. M and I had decided that after being traumatized by Wasilla and Palmer, we would not rest well until they were in our rear-view mirror, so we consulted our Alaska atlas and chose a place to spend the night that was a bit outside of Palmer on our way home.

I could not believe how beautiful it was. The lake surface was like a mirror:






Our tents along the water reminded me of camping along the slough in Manley:


This fireweed caught the evening sun:


I couldn't decide which of these crops of this photo I liked better, so I'm sharing them both:


The water was crystal-clear:


Smoked salmon quesadillas!


The girls started to wander off, as huskies are wont to do, so they got tied to a tree:


Imagine our surprise to see the trash receptacle looking like this:

I asked the camp host, weren't they concerned about bears? He said no; that bears were afraid of people. That was a new one on me. We still cleaned our camp of food before we went to bed!

The next morning was chilly:


And mist covered the lake:




It burned off as the morning grew warmer:




Here are the dowgs staying nicely in camp:


And that concludes the Big Lake report. I still have one more report from the Southerly Adventure in my back pocket! Watch this space.

Edited to add: Giant pumpkins!