Back from Afognak

We got back from Afognak Tuesday night and it's a good thing we did because it has been raining here in town ever since.  We went up for the Memorial Day weekend with my brother, Wendy, and cousins Leo and Zeke.  Lots of kayaking, teepee time, hot tubs, zip lining, hikes, and playing on the beach.  And, for the most part, the weather cooperated.  We never did get any continuous rain - mostly sunshine and a day of squalls interspersed with sun.  More to come, but I think my highlight was reading on the beach with Brewster (see immediately below).  I think the kids most enjoyed burying each other in the sand and the zip line.  Patrick

Launching from the Aleut Town beach in a squall

End of streak

Dismal last ski of the streak

My New Years resolution was to go skiing every day, and until today I have kept it.  But today it ends at 149 consecutive days because we are off to Afognak for Memorial Day weekend.  I'll be skiing on Pyramid for another month, at least, but no longer will I have to ski in the rain to maintain my New Year's resolution.  That said I think the streak was good for me - it provided focus and kept me in shape.  My consecutive ski days streak - 149 days, December 28, 2017 to May 25, 2018 RIP.  Patrick

Dog walk in the wet photo 

Puzzles, awards and greenberries

Puzzle all sorted by color and shapes - ready to go!

School's out for Summer.  Wednesday was the last day of school, and in the morning they had the awards ceremony after Mass. Nora got a 'blue' academic excellence award.  Basically she did excellent in all except one subject.  If she had aced all of them she would have gotten a gold award.  There was only one gold award awarded.

It has been raining all week.  A good week for indoor activities like puzzles.  This winter and spring we have been doing a lot of Liberty Puzzles.  We send them a photo and they make a puzzle out of it. The puzzle pieces are wood and shaped like various people, animals and objects.  The look at your photo and come up with a theme for the pieces.  Some of our snow pictures have been full of pieces shaped like skiers, people sledding, snowflakes etc.  The latest puzzle is full of camera and binocular toting hikers and lots of animals.  I'm thinking the theme is an old school visit to Yellowstone National Park.

Yesterday at the park I noticed that there are lots of baby blueberries on the blueberry bushes.  Er rather green berries.  Last year we did not have a blueberry crop.  But this year looks like a bumper crop.  I predict July 10th for the first ripe berry.  Patrick

Nora with the other award winners from her class

Greenberries - ought to turn into blueberries by mid July

Stuey's class and award winners

Nora's class and award winners

I love the people and animal shapes in the Liberty Puzzles

Wet Week

It's been a wet 2 weeks, but it seems it has been even worse in the last week.  Before it started to rain I needed to mow my lawn.  Now I REALLY need to mow my lawn, but I can't if it is wet.  Yesterday evening it actually cleared up for a few hours and dried off a bit.  I rushed out and mowed a part of my lawn at 7:30 PM - that's desperate.  And now this morning it is raining again.  Still I am hopeful I might get to do some more mowing this evening again.  Not that I like mowing the lawn or anything.

With this weather the best part of my day is walking the dogs in the park.  It is so green in there.  And it really does not matter what the weather is doing when we go for our walk.  Patrick

Leek Latkes

At our house we eat a lot of potatoes.  They do well in my garden and last year I harvested a couple hundred pounds or so of them.  So at our house breakfasts tend to be heavy on hash browns, and lots of mashed potatoes, home fries, baked potatoes, scalloped potatoes, and Shepards pies for dinner.  Consequently to keep things interesting  I've been on the lookout for new potato recipes.  A couple of weeks ago to great success I tried Spanish Tortillas, and then a couple of days ago I tried latkes.  Latkes are like the best hash browns ever!  They sort of remind me of Swiss Rosti I once had in Europe.  In fact I bet they are closely related.

Anyway, in this house latkes are going to become a part of the potato recipe stable.  A go to recipe.  Super simple and super good! I made mine with leeks instead of onions, and I think I might try shallots next. Here is how I did it:

I shredded a couple of potatoes on the coarse hole cheese grater and then soaked them in cold water for a few minutes.  I then put the shredded potatoes into a colander and pressed out all the water.  In the original bowl I whipped up 2 eggs with salt and pepper, added one finely sliced leek, and then the shredded potatoes.  I mixed it all up with 1/2 cup of corn meal (I used 'P.A.N.' by Goya foods).

I heated up a cast iron skillet and added a copious amount of corn oil.  Then I made little potato pancakes by hand and fried them maybe 5 minutes to a side - until they were crispy.  I think you want to try and make them flat so that they are easier to cook thoroughly and evenly.

Now to see how the kids like them!
Patrick

Winter in full retreat

It's been raining - It's been raining a lot.  And on the mountain the snow is rapidly receding to the higher elevations.  But once you are up there it is still winter.  There is still a deep snowpack and great downhill skiing.  Sometimes it even snows when it is raining down low.  But winter is most definitely in full retreat.

Pretty soon even on the mountain tops there will be flowers and green slopes.    So I am enjoying the last of winter knowing that pretty soon there will be a big gap of summer and fall before I can ski again.  Patrick

KambuCha

Oddly enough Stuey loves to drink kambucha.  Every time we go to Safeway he has been buying a few bottles.  The stuff is pretty pricy - like more expensive than beer - but hey it is also supposedly super good for you.  So it is behavior that I have encouraged.

And then I thought - why don't I make the stuff?  This could be fun!  And so I did. It turned out to be a long, and pretty involved process.  KambuCha is a fermented drink and you need to get the 'bacteria colony' or 'mother' going.  I had to start from scratch and it took a while to create a healthy 'mother' that could turn my sweet tea into tangy, fizzy kambucha.

I also experimented with various juices and in varying amounts to get the flavoring down.  The photo above is from yesterday, and I think I now got a handle on the whole process.  Starting this week I should be making 12 bottles a week.  And it really is good.  Just like the stuff from Safeway!  And best of all Stuey thought so too!
Patrick

Rainy Day Walks

Here on Kodiak it's been raining for week and is supposed to continue raining for another week.  Yuck.  Rainy weather equates to wet dogs with muddy bellies and paws.  I think the worst part about taking the dogs for walks in the rain is getting home.  I generally leave a towel by the door and there is a lot of commotion while I towel them off before letting them inside.  And inevitably there are still muddy tracks and wet spots on the floors and furniture.

But walks in the rain aren't all bad.  Abercrombie's old growth spruce forest is beautiful in the rain.  Misty fog and dripping moss.  It's a muffled silence with the occasional varied or hermit thrush song. And so so green.  I always come out of the woods calmer than when I went in.

The dogs don't mind the wet and neither do I.

Patrick

The hidden and the Obvious

Tonight I am giving a public lecture about petroglyphs at the Alutiiq Museum.  I've included 2 of the slides from the talk below to whet your appetite.  So if you want to learn about some recent Kodiak petroglyph research come to the museum tonight at 7PM and listen to my talk.
Patrick

Playing Hooky with Stuey

Yesterday I took Stuey out of school early to go skiing.  He got to play hooky with dad.  We had gone skiing all together with Nora over the weekend, but Stuey wanted to go skiing with just me.  And so we did.  Stuey had a great time.  He REALLY likes the downhill part.

And I must say, now that the kids can skin up on their own going skiing with them is fun!  No more hassle carrying stuff all the way up the mountain, and tired kids post holing in soft snow - filling their boots with snow.  Stuey just walked up the mountain on his skis.  Round trip from St Mary's to skiing and then home was 3 hours.  It has gotten easy to take the kids skiing.

Driving back to town after skiing Stuey said that he wants to do this every week.  He also said, 'that was fun - now I see why you want to go up there every day'.  Ah words to warm the heart.

Patrick

New vs Old Waterproof Camera

New Camera a couple of weeks ago

I took all these pictures a few weeks ago (April 24th or so), and looking back it is depressing how much snow we have lost.  And yet, not so much as one would expect at the very top.  Down at the bottom since I took these pictures we have lost ALL our snow.  You now have to hike up to 1200 feet or so before you can put on your skis (the parking lot is at 530 feet).  When I took the pictures I was still able to ski almost to the road.

Anyway, I took the pictures with my old point-and-shoot and with my new waterproof camera (new as of last August).  I wanted to see how the 2 compared.  At first glance the quality does not seem all that different, but a closer look shows that the colors and texture is FAR, FAR better with the new camera.  And that even on the snow with all the light in the world. The difference is clearly apparent when you open them up big and look at the detail.  You can not see much difference on a small screen.

I used to think my old point-and-shoot was as good as anything out there when there was a lot of light.  But clearly that is not true.  Also it is funny but both my cameras, the old and the new, take 16 mega pixel pictures.  It is just that the new camera has a full sensor - so the pixel quality is so much better.  They both have the same number of pixels or dots in each picture, but the new camera has better details in each pixel.  Better quality pixels so to speak.

In the pictures below the areas with no snow are black, grainy blobs in the pictures taken by the old camera while with the new camera you can see the colors and details much better.  Patrick

Old Camera

New camera - my tracks on the North Bowl Wall

Old Camera

North Bowl - new camera

The North Bowl is steep

Last of the Potatoes

Yesterday I took all of the remaining potatoes from the 2017 season out of storage in the barn.  I store them there in old cotton game bags - the bags I used to carry meat home when hunting (hence the word 'game').  The bags breath and keep light off of the potatoes and the technique seems to work well.  My barn or rather shed seems to stay at a pretty constant temperature in the upper 40s.

I picked out the best remaining potatoes and made one pile (above) and the rest I used as my seed crop for the 2018 season.  I planted them in pure beach peat and even had a bunch leftover that I just can't seem to throw away (see below).  We ate a LOT of potatoes this past Winter so it is kind of surprising that I still have so many leftover.

And now the garden is totally planted.  It is time to start mowing the lawn.  Next up weeding!
Patrick

Some of the potato beds with planted potatoes and beach peat and garlic