Postings up to 21 August 2010

Galena Agriculture Fair

      Isa did a great job (along with many others) putting together the Galena Ag Fair. I really should have taken lots of photos of her on stage when they handed out the door prizes and so forth. She looked good. The day started with a fun walk and run. I walked (third place, 3 miles in 42 minutes) and Joe ran (don't know his time, but it was respectable). He's shown here running across the finish line and later hanging with friends. The photo on the right is Isa at the entrance to the fair along with the grand prize, which comprised veggies from our garden and many others around town.

      From left to right: Isa's quilt, which she's been working on for the past few months; two of my blue ribbons for sweet peppers and daikon radish; and the grand prize winner, my eggplant, the Orient Express variety, from
Johnny Seeds (which later on that evening was turned into very tasty eggplant parmesan).

      Canoe races on Alexander Lake. Joe and I came in third out of six in our run around the bouy. Everyone had lots of fun; no dunking this time around. For the first time in weeks we had nice, sunny weather, too, which was really appreciated by everyone there.

      From left to right: Tim sizes up the weight a giant cabbage; Isa shows off the Galena Ag Fair t-shirt; Albert Beaver, one of the dorm staff, holds up one of our greenhouse cucumbers.

      Isa's flower bouquet, which should have won the grand prize ribbon but inexplicably did not. I mean, look at that adenophora. Lovely. What were they thinking? LOL The other photo is the backside of the elephant ear, which grew to five feet with huge leaves in the greenhouse, after several years of just poking about. I guess I just had to wait.

Trip to the Yuki River

      We traveled up the Yuki River in our new boat on 31 July. It was a beautiful day, with temperatures in the low 80s (about 25 degrees Celsius) - and, as it ended up, one of the few days like that before or after, so it was great that we got out. The river was high and filled with floating logs, which made the travel a little treacherous, but we got through without losing a prop. The photo at left is the Yuki River.

      Some scenes from the river. The right photo is looking north up the Yukon River.

Isabella's birthday - 25 July 2010

      We had a nice barbecue for Isabella on her birthday. I wanted to get her an IPod4 for her birthday, but she put the kibosh on that idea, telling me that it would be hard to get coverage. (I'll try later.) Instead she got an electric griddle, which is SO domestic. A few dozen people came to our house and enjoyed steak, ribs, garden-fresh salad, and lots of good desserts. Joe baked the cake and brownies!

      Lots of good times were had by everyone. Some of Isa's friends are March Runner (top left), Ben Koontz (top center), and Karen Bodony and her daughter Ida (top right). Joe comes down the stairs with the cake along with his friend Robert; Li-chen shows off the bok choy from our garden, our gift to her. Isa loved the card showing the statue in front of the EiffelTower with the caption, "For your birthday you'll have a photo of man with rock-hard buns."

Garden scenics - 20 July 2010

      This has been a great garden year so far... many thanks to Isabella for caring for the garden while I was out in Colorado and down in Florida. For the first year, I'm growing pumpkins! The petunia is one of the Thompson and Morgan varieties. The pepper varieties are Italia (green) and Gypsy (yellow).

Joe at Disney World and Mom's birthday

      This Christmas I decided that I would spoil my kid, so his present consisted of a promise to take him anywhere on Earth for one week with me. A father-son sort of deal. I've observered that being 12 years old is a critical moment in everyone's life - it is the first time you can think about things as an adult, but the last time you are still seeing the world as a child. He chose Disney World. I was a little worried that Joe would pick Tibet or Antarctica, but it worked out (financially).

      In the middle of the vacation, Mom had her birthday. Keeping with the Disney theme, we took her for a grand dinner at Citrico's Restaurant at the Grand Floridian, where we had special menus just for the occasion, fancy dinnerware, a waiter for every course - and, of course, a cake and the staff singing "Happy Birthday." It was great.

      During our trip, we listened to Glenn Beck in our little rental car, who was ranting about fatherhood.gov, a government- sponsored website telling men how to be better fathers. Apparently the website is filled with stupid bromides about recycling and using low-energy lightbulbs. Beck asked, "What about humility? Loving and respecting your wife? How about gratitude?" This led Joe and I into an interesting discussion on those things. On his final day, we said a little prayer thanking God for being able to go to Disney World and having the time and money to do so - in other words, being grateful. That was the best moment for me during the whole vacation.

Top row: Mom enjoys herself at Disney's Animal Kingdom; Joe shows off on a Star Wars skycycle. Middle row: Fireworks at Epcot; Joe taking one of his dozen or so rides on the Space Mountain ride. Bottom row: Joe holds up the world; Joe meets the Valkyries at the Norway exhibit at Epcot.

Gardening begins in early June

      The summer started off with the construction of several new raised beds, using the windows gathered from the old dorms torn down at the boarding school. By good fortune, we were able to get the old 2-by-12 support beams ready for the landfill to use as the sides of the raised beds, too.

      Gardening in Alaska has its challenges, though. As you can see in these photos, we wanted to get the starts planted out on June 1. The snow came down heavy on the afternoon of June 1, and then it frosted that evening. No plants out until June 3!

Top left photo: The greenhouse showing the bottles which hold the heat. Top right and bottom left photos: The new raised beds with the windows from the dorms. Bottom left: Snow on the flowering highbush cranberries in the woods near the greenhouse.