• Jan. 18, 2008 - Snow (Updated with pictures)

We had a large dumping of snow on Wednesday night. It was great, you probably think it is funny that I say that but Fairbanks in not known for large snowfalls. Sure we have snow on the ground from October- April but the quantites are usually small, it just stays put because of our cold temperatures. Have you also noticed that I have never posted a picture of my blessings making snowmen? We have a dry snow here and it does not compact into snowballs at all. You pick it up and it falls out of your hand like granulated sugar. Why? we live in a dry climate, that is one of the reasons why I always say 0 degrees isn't that bad, because it isn't that bad! This man's article is a good read to learn a little more about Alaska and our snow fall amounts. I tried to find some technical explanation for our dry snow but I will have to keep looking. I do not have a picture uploaded right now but I will work on it this weekend to get some deep snow pictures on here to add to this post. My to-do list is calling my name. Here is our deep snow. January2008016.jpg picture by kaysmarmey This is what I call a table top green house made by my sweetheart. We can grow two or three tomato plants in here in the summer. January2008017.jpg picture by kaysmarmey This is my new little shrubby tree that I bought at Lowe's this fall, it is supposed to survive -50 degree temps. but now it is a little more insulated against the colder temperatures that will come later in Jan. and Feb. January2008019.jpg picture by kaysmarmey This is our lone black spruce tree in our yard. Here is a picture and article of a large black spruce tree. January2008015.jpg picture by kaysmarmey This site has some Alaska pictures that look really cool. (Oh, Jenn you will love this site!)

Name and sandwich

What Melissa Means

You are confident, self assured, and capable. You are not easily intimidated. You master any and all skills easily. You don't have to work hard for what you want. You make your life out to be exactly how you want it. And you'll knock down anyone who gets in your way! You are friendly, charming, and warm. You get along with almost everyone. You work hard not to rock the boat. Your easy going attitude brings people together. At times, you can be a little flaky and irresponsible. But for the important things, you pull it together. You are relaxed, chill, and very likely to go with the flow. You are light hearted and accepting. You don't get worked up easily. Well adjusted and incredibly happy, many people wonder what your secret to life is. You tend to be pretty tightly wound. It's easy to get you excited... which can be a good or bad thing. You have a lot of enthusiasm, but it fades rather quickly. You don't stick with any one thing for very long. You have the drive to accomplish a lot in a short amount of time. Your biggest problem is making sure you finish the projects you start. You are the total package - suave, smart, and strong. You have the whole world under your spell, and you can influence almost everyone you know. You don't always resist your urges to crush the weak. Just remember, they don't have as much going for them as you do. You are usually the best at everything ... you strive for perfection. You are confident, authoritative, and aggressive. You have the classic "Type A" personality.

You Are a Grilled Cheese Sandwich

You are a traditional person with very simple tastes. In your opinion, the best things in life are free, easy, and fun. You totally go with the flow. And you enjoy every minute of it! Your best friend: The Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich Your mortal enemy: The Ham Sandwich

May the Lord find us faithful.

• Jan. 17, 2008 - Bunny Trail!

We do not see any snowshoe (or varying) hares in our yard, nor do we see their tracks in our yard (that might have something to do with the chocolate lab that patrols our yard keeping out all small and sometimes larger animals(she ran a cow and a calf moose off the other day) )but they live and eat on the vacant lot that ajoins our property.

Here is a picture of a well used trail. I apologize if you cannot see it very well, it was a gray day yesterday. Plus, it is difficult to see snow pictures on grey days.

January2008013.jpg picture by kaysmarmey

Here are hare prints:

January2008010.jpg image by kaysmarmey January2008014.jpg image by kaysmarmey

Here is a sky picture, we have big sky here:

January2008005.jpg picture by kaysmarmey



We had a very welcome dumping of snow last night, after lunch the blessings are heading out to enjoy. Tomorrow I will share a little about our Alaska snow

Doctor

Updated:

I took blessing #2 to the DR. she does have pink eye and drops have started, groceries have been picked up and we will watch and see who, if anyone else, comes down with pink eye.

I truly try to take care of most health issues naturally to the best of my knowledge and use the knowledge of the owner of the local health food store as much as possible. But, we are heading out to the doctor in a few minutes as blessing #2 woke up with goopy, stuck together eyes. Yuck!!

May the Lord find us faithful.

Here we go round the mulberry bush! Not really.

Happy Monday,

Just filling you all in on a little thing I am trying with my family. I got two glass(peanut butter jars). On one I wrote: kind, loving words; first time obedience; love you neighbor; initiative,thus, pleasing God. On the second I wrote: unkind words; disobedience; selfish behavior; lazy, slothful, thus, pleasing self. Each time someone is pleasing God I will put change in that jar. Everytime some one is pleasing self, I put a plastic chip in the pleasing self jar. You see, the money is worth something is likened to laying up treasure in heaven; the plastic chip is worthless and is laying up earthly treasure. Now, my plan was to take the full jar of money and doing something as a family together, but one of my blessings suggested that we give it to the missions offering at church, even better and truly laying up treasure in heaven. We will see how it goes as the day and week progresses. I needed something concrete that my blessings could see their behavior in a real way. I will update and let you know how we all respond. (I am keeping myself accountable with this method as well.)

 

 

May the Lord find us faithful.

Revisiting the crock pot

I have posted about my love of my favorite kitchen servant, the crock pot before. Right now I have ground meat and onion cooking in the crock pot, when the meat is thoroughly cooked I will add the rest of the ingredients for

Southwest meat and potato stew

2 lbs. ground beef(moose in my case)

1 large onion chopped

1 cup water, divided

1 can (28oz) diced tomatoes

1 bag (16 oz) frozen corn

3 medium potatoes, peeled and cubed

1 cup salsa

1 tsp. each salt and cumin

1/2 tsp each garlic powder and pepper

2 Tbsp. flour

In dutch oven, brown beef and onion, drain(I do not have to drain moose, we grind ourselves and do not add any fat, moose is not a fatty meat like beef). Add 3/4 cup water and all else except flour and extra water. Bring to a boil and reduce heat. Cover and simmer for 1 1/2 hours. Combine flour and remaining water. Stir into stew. Cook until slightly thickened. ( I have often skipped the flour part and it is just as good with out)

I am adapting this recipe to my crock pot. My crock pot gets very hot on high, so after the kitchen was cleaned up from brunch I pulled out old faithful and tossed in the meat and chopped an onion and threw it in. My meat will not be dark brown but it will be cooked thoroughly. (One of my beefs with the crock pot is all the pre browning,etc. often required. When looking for a crock pot recipe I  look for that. ) Here I go with parenthetical thoughts. Once that is accomplished I will add the remaining ingredients and go about my day regaining some sort of control over this house before plunging into next week.

Speaking of crockpots, one of my favorite blogs to read is  Clark Chatter ,. she just started a Crock pot blog that I have been reading. Stop in and see what she is cooking up. I have not tried any of the recipes but they all look yummy and very practical.

When you plan your menu for this week (you do make a menu, don't you?) Plan at least one crock pot meal, you will not be disappointed. Let your kitchen servants do the work for you while you spend time with your blessings.

May the Lord find us faithful.

Friday

I started my day with a quick trip to town. I had to get some supplies to make science, Bible and Composer/Artist/Hymn/Folksong Notebooks, plus a few other necessities to get through the weekend. I headed home to an empty house as sweetheart and the blessings were out on snowmachines. When they returned, I made lunch and hot chocolate to warm them up. (We are heading into a cold snap here) I have been very lax in getting everything accomplished with all the sicknesses that have plagued our home since Dec. 26th, with a little lazy thrown in there. I started clearing off the desk, always messy. Then I moved to the rest of the dining room, which is now clean. I have cleared the clutter off of the kitchen counters while I cleaned up from dinner. I will finish the kitchen/entry tomorrow. Question? Does any one else out there take Super Mom vitamins? I have them but they seem to drag me down instead of aid in the energy department. I took them last week and had a horrible day. Any imput? Thank you in advance. Oh, yeah, some where in my day  I made two loaves of bread and three pizza crusts as well. We will definitely be having pizza leftovers for lunch tomorrow. I made this bread recipe using the hand method (I used the kitchen aide), from the taste we took it seems like it will be good bread. I am looking forward to getting to know how to make good bread using the freshly ground flour.

 May the Lord find us faithful.

So many thoughts

There are so many thoughts running through my head, so many posts running through as well. There they sit as I cannot get them to come out.

 I do have to send you over to the Alaska blog to see what you can learn and what fun you can have in January. I am looking forward to Jan. 18, A.A. Milne's birthday and Winnie the Pooh day. Oh, what fun I plan on that day. We will have some honey but I will pass on the condensed milk.

January 13th a banner day. Masterpiece Theatre is going to begin showing 6 Jane Austen books turned to movies for the next 6 weeks. I am really looking forward to this one. Now, if we can get home from church that early. I hope so.

I know there isn't much here today but with all that stuff running around in my head it is difficult to think about my blogging.

May the Lord find us faithful.

• Jan. 12, 2008 - Well, it did not take much to get me here!

I toyed about an Alaska Nature blog for a little while now. I mentioned it to Jenn tonight and she voted yes, so here I am! Doesn't take much to get me to do something. Over the next weeks and months I will make this little corner of the blog world my own via a personalized template and the nature in my back yard, Alaska. I will be back next week to give our nature report and give some weather statistics.

Dogaversary?

Today I made this to celebrate the second anniversary of adopting our chocolate lab, Emmy.

Since she should not have chocolate, she got this: a special treat, moist and meaty

Here is picture from two years ago, boy how my blessings have grown in two years. And boy, how we have gotten attached to this silly dog.

I am here, I had a head cold the end of last week and was spending time doing only what was necessary and resting the rest of the time. I feel much better now but am now playing catch up.

May the Lord find us faithful.