Index - updated 17 January 2011

"Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against - then you'll know that this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We're after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you'd better get wise to it. There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted - and you create a nation of law-breakers - and then you cash in on guilt. Now, that's the system, Mr. Rearden, that's the game and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."

Ayn Rand
Atlas Shrugged

"Deepen [and] exacerbate existing problems, crises, [and] differences, and if they don't exist, create them or convincingly claim that they exist... and profit [politically, ideologically and even financially] the most from them in any way you can, and, in the resulting chaos, blame our enemies for the whole thing."

Vladimir Ilich Ulianov (Lenin)

"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free."

President Ronald Reagan

"At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child - miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless. Liberalism is a philosphy of sniveling brats."

P.J. O'Rourke

"I knew that after fourteen I'd have to earn my own living, but I was willing to do that... I've always been a little sorry for pampered people, and of course, they're very sorry for me."

Barbara Stanwyck

Winter 2011

Thursday 5 January 2012

We has a wonderful Christmas vacation at home. It was relaxing, and cold outside - in fact, the temperatures went down to -53 degrees F for one day - so we stayed inside. I worked on my Mom's photos and my own gardening pages, enjoyed Christmas presents (both giving and receiving), and cleaned up here and there, which was very satisfying. The photo below of the sunset (taken on Dec. 30 at 3:15 p.m. along the road to the dump, in which I nearly froze my fingers off) was shown on the KTUU weather on the evening news of Dec. 31. There's also some Joe photos showing him with his presents.

Sunday 18 Dec 2011

A wonderful Christmas holiday weekend as the Bronco meet the Patriots at Mile High Stadium while Joe and I watch the game. We have written the annual Christmas blab letter, which is available here for your reading pleasure. I've also been working to update the family photo pages - I should be done updating in a few days and then I'll start on Mom's photos and my own from the past several years.

The annual Christmas blab letter!

Friday 25 Nov 2011

A very nice Thanksgiving. Isa did very good work preparing the turkey, and a lot of the dinner came from the garden in the back yard. We had some students over at the house, who hung out or played computer games with Joe. A nice relaxing day.

I'm going to spend today catching up with beautifying the web pages - I need to get Mom's photos scanned and organized, as well as straightening out the mess that is the family picture pages. That'll be my cold weather project until gardening starts.

Saturday 12 Nov 2011

The snow has come fast and furious this winter, with a massive blizzard a few days ago that even caught the attention of the national news. The coast had its worst storm since 1974 - a blizzard that would have been called a category 3 hurricane if it had occurred in the Lower 48. The most interesting thing about the storm was the use of new technology from people in those villages affected along the coast, who sent in hours of tape and thousands of still photos to the news outlets in Anchorage. As one of the reporters said at Channel 2, the technology is so cheap and ubiquitous that even those places which were once the most isolated on Earth now have instant connections to the rest of the world.

Well, almonst instant. Channel 2 interviewed this one guy from a village who said it took him two hours to upload a 39-second clip of waves crashing into his village. So we're still remote, relatively speaking. And another storm is headed for us tonight. We have almost two feet on the ground already.

Junior high basketball tournament



	Joe playing with his team at the junior high tournament here at Galena. Teams from Huslia, Nulato, and Kaltag came to play. There were four Galena teams and Joe was in the first tier. The Galena one team really did a job on the other kids, which was too bad in a way - one game was 56-8, I think. The Galena players have the advantage of a great idea from the coaches here who put on a nightly clinic for all players - which means that my eighth-grade son gets to practice every day against varsity high schoolers. Compared to that, another junior kid is small potatoes. In any case, he looked good out there.

Saturday 29 October 2011

The snow arrived in mid-October, most of the birds have flown off, and the garden produce sits in the root cellar, ready for the winter. The weeks leading up to the snow were sweet, with slowly lowering temperatures and cool afternoons. It has to be the nicest fall I've seen in these parts in many years. The new high tunnel has also been a real treat - although I'm still very nervous having had "borrowed" the money from the government to build the thing. That contract with the tiny print still spooks me. In any case, the snow is cleanly sloughing off the plastic just fine and it looks like it will stay up throughout the winter. Next on the list: getting the snowmachine ready to go!

In any case, it's good to be back at the website. Barry Lopez was correct in Arctic Dreams - the pace of the Arctic is annual, not daily as it is further south. Each portion of the year is taken up with tasks and obligations that literally can't be accomplished at any other time, causing Isa and I to live our lives in sudden bursts of energy, followed by pleasant lulls (such as late October). In other words, you can't dwaddle for moose season or putting in the potatoes or catching fish. So I'm going through the web page and making it pretty again. This winter's job is cleaning up the family photos, which haven't been updated in three years, and getting ready for Mom's 80th birthday. I'm going to put on a slide show with her photos, which should be fun to create and show. I'll add pages on here to further honor her and the family with old photos from long ago. How cool is that?

Joe at basketball and wrestling



Joe playing town league basketball and winning wrestling matches at the tournament in Nome. Junior high tournament is next week - more photos to come.

More garden and fall scenics



Top row: On left, the view from the bridge across Alexander Lake on the way to new town. On the right, the road out to the landfill. I especially liked the contrast between the light and the dark clouds. Bottom row: Isa holds one of the Eder variety of kohlrabi, which were beautiful and symmetrical, with fine leaves. The flowers are called Tidy Tips, which were, indeed, quite tidy. Photos taken 4 September, except for the flowers, which were taken on 9 September 2011.


Top row: Tomatoes on the left. This year's harvest wasn't as good as previous years, but they were still pretty good. The garlic are the first three cloves I managed to grow in Galena; hopefully, next year we'll have a whole sack of them. Bottom row: A pea flower under the high tunnel on right; Isa holding up some nice Yukon Golds on left. Photos taken on 10 September 2011.

	Top row: On the left, a moonflower that I gave to Keith Ramos, one of the better growers in the town. Mine died a lingering death from spider mites, but his grew merrily in his house and provided blooms every night, as advertised. Isa holds up one of the Dark Red Norland potatoes from the UAF experimental garden on the right. Huge, huge tuberosity. Bottom row: This strange and interesting radish showed up in the row of Omny Hybrids; whatever it is, it isn't one of those. Have to contact Kitazawa and find out what it is. Photos taken 10 September 2011.

Raspberries

	Isa's brilliant idea for saving berries is to put them on a cookie sheet and freeze them, then pack them into freezer bags. We have them every Sunday with pancakes. Photo taken 28 August 2011.

Galena Agriculture Fair

	On left, Joe comes across the finish line during the Ag Fair five kilometer run. He came in second in his age group. In the below photos, one of the big surprises was that my leeks got the grand prize at the fair - second year in a row for the grand prize! (Last year it was for the eggplants.) My cabbage, here shown off with Sandy's daughter, came in second for the giant cabbage contest. Lots of seconds there! It was a great day for everyone, and the sun obliged by coming out for a few hours.

Garden scenics and berry picking from the end of August



Top row: One of the dahlias from Swallowtail Gardens of Santa Rosa, Calif., one of the seed companies whose stuff is simply gorgeous; brocolli from the row ready to harvest. Bottom row: One of the Barbados variety of lettuce. This variety was planted in early July and was just coming along toward harvest despite the heavy rain and clouds. On right, Green Wave mustard greens (spicy!) and hybrid joi choi from Kitazawa. We picked these regularly right up through early October. Photos taken 20 August 2011.


Top row: The beets before the great Raised Bed Massacre of 2011, in which a young moose roamed about the garden, pulling here and nibbling there, slaughtering root crops in their sleep. On right, Isa shows off some of the Arcadia brocolli from Johnny's Seeds of Winslow, Maine. Bottom row: Berries along the path; Isa shows off a handful of low bush cranberries, which were rich this year. Photos taken 20 August 2011.

On left, the mountains wrapped in clouds, emblematic of the summer of 2011. On the right, a highbush cranberry in fall foliage. Photos taken 20 August 2011.

First potato harvest

The first harvest of the Hippie variety of potato, which I named since it is an experimental variety from the University of Alaska Fairbanks. No doubt they have better names than "Hippie," which came to mind when I looked at the psychedelic swirls of white amid the red. In any case, really great mashing potatoes, with a wonderful yellow color. Harvested on 17 August 2011.