Bells of the North Homestead

The past couple of weeks have been interesting to say the least.  Our temperatures here in Interior Alaska have gone from positive temperatures in the teens to lows of -40.  While the house is hanging in there, of course, no surprise there. This place was built to last, we have lost a couple of animals and now as of today, the 5th of January, we are housing three chickens in our garage.  Unfortunately two of these girls had the bad luck to start molting late Autumn.  Little Ms. Toriel started molting first in late November.  Chloe came right behind her in mid December.  By the morning of Christmas Eve it became apparent, we had to house poor little Toriel in the garage as first and foremost she had very little feathers on her poor body.  She's also lower in the pecking order which means others are picking on her and she is not allowed to share their heat.  As my husband brought her in to show me it was apparent, she was on deaths doorstep. Her eye...

Six more weeks till Winter. Or so the story goes told by Alaskan Natives and sourdoughs alike.   When the fireweed has bloomed all the way to the top, we have six more weeks till the snow flies.   So far this break up and then into summer, we’ve had some successes….and some failures.    That’s pretty typical though.   The garden is doing well but could be doing better thanks to the late start because of our vacation in the lower 48.   That is a killer here since our growing season is so short.    We got to harvest a large bunch of garlic scapes earlier this week.   Yes indeed, garlic scapes.   SUCCESS! The garlic survived the winter! We’ll have garlic later this summer to harvest.   We’re about 2 days away from harvesting our first zucchini and summer squash of the season.   Our kale and broccoli rabe this year barely sprouted due to the fact that we got a late start on it.   We should have ...