Our Labor Day::Apple River Canyon & Raspberries

Oops. Labor Day was a few weeks back, wasn't it? Obviously I'm right on top of everything!

Ha!

We'd only been back a week from our great Alaskan journey when Labor Day made its annual appearance. It was a gorgeous day so we decided to pack a picnic and head to a place we've heard of and always driven past on our way to Chicago- Apple River Canyon State Park in northern Illinois.

Yup. There's a canyon in Illinois! And a very lovely one at that! So after a quick picnic lunch we checked out some of the easy hikes.
One of the hikes required us to wade through Apple River (we could have turned around but what's the fun in that?). Oh my. That was some chilly water!

On our way home we stopped at a roadside produce stand where we saw a flier for a local red raspberry farm...we called them up and sure enough they were open for business. Naturally, we don't pass up opportunities to go berry picking!

A friendly kitty....entertained the Girlies when they got bored picking berries.

Ummm...where are your berries Ava? I think they all landed in her mouth.

Annika is now a Junior Berry Picker...working on becoming an Official Berry Picker like her parents. :)

Lots and lots of ripe berries...just ready to be eaten! We turned most of our 14 lbs (I think that's how much we got in the end) into seedless raspberry freezer jam. Yum!
Last weekend Mark's parents came for a quick but very productive trip....just check out those pile-o-giant-logs that Mark and his Dad got! Thanks so much for your help! And thank you for coming!!!! (hopefully that wood will tide us over the winter...it seems that every winter we run out around February...even though we have more chopped wood at the beginning of the winter...the winters keep getting colder and colder).

Mark's parents also brought with them LOTS and LOTS of tomatoes from their (& Aunt Beth's) garden. I'm so excited! I turned them into lovely tomato sauce...and now I have ELEVEN pints of tomato sauce sitting in my pantry (okay...I have 17 pints total...since I had already canned 6 pints from purchased tomatoes).

Yippeeee!!!

Read more...

AK Trip: Alaska State Fair

We timed our Alaska trip just so that we could go to the Alaska State Fair in Palmer. We even did better than that...we managed to time our trip so that we were there on opening day when the entrance fee was only $3 per person. It would have cost us $26 to get in...but we only paid $12.

Woo Hoo!

And where did that extra $14 disappear to? Fear not, my friends! It didn't go to waste...although it did go to my waist! (har har har)

TREATS of course!

We got any treat that looked yummy...and by splitting it four-ways we could enjoy lots of treats! Let's see...there were cream puffs, pecan rolls, cheesecake-in-a-cone (think ice cream), hot apples with honey ice cream and I'm sure I'm forgetting others.

Check out my salmon kebab! Wish I'd gotten more of those. Waiting for Annika and Mark to finish the Ferris Wheel ride.

Ava loves the Merry-Go-Round. The Girlies loved doing the rides. But Mommy and Daddy were a little blown away by the ticket prices....so we didn't get to do all the rides we wanted.

The Girlies loved this ride. Ava says it was her favorite ride. Do you see they're in the Number 3 balloon? Oddly enough, Annika and Mark went on the Ferris Wheel earlier and they were also in the number 3 chair. Weird.Pretty mountains provide a gorgeous backdrop for the state fair.

Of course we visited the petting zoo. I loved the piglets but the piglets weren't too keen on people touching them. Oh. And of course we had to check out all the farm animals because we don't ever get to see them in living out here in farm country. Ha ha. I'm being completely sarcastic! (but I loved seeing the animals anyway)

That giant round thing with the purple ribbon is a Puffball Mushroom weighing over 12 pounds! Eeeep!

That is a very LARGE cabbage....can you guess how much it weighs?

How about 127 pounds!

Yikes! I bet they needed a tractor to lift it!

Girlies showing off their pouch purchases. They each got to pick one out...to store all those Alaskan treasures they found!
One of our beloved comic strips...Tundra

Bad Girls of the North booth.

Sorry Texas Lovers!

I guess we did do a lot on our trip to Alaska!

Just seeing these photos reminds me of the great time we had there. And that it went by too quickly. It also really reminded me that Anchorage (and Alaska in general) will always be my home. Now, don't get me wrong...I like living here in Wisconsin. But...you'll have to admit that Alaska is just a tad bit different. Especially from a cultural stand point! (it seems that just about all the nations & ethnic groups are represented there).

Anyhoo....

I'm not done yet with the Alaska trip photos. Nearly there...but not quite.

Read more...

Peanut Butter and Bacon cookies

Oh my!

Oh my, oh my!

Have you ever thought that bacon and peanut butter could go together?

I certainly never would have they'd go together.

Except today.

I made peanut butter and bacon cookies.

Odd but tasty!

And they're flourless!

I dare you to try them!

Read more...

AK Trip: Miners not Minors....

We spent one very cool & drizzly morning tempting our luck with some Gold Panning at Crow Creek Gold Mine.

Gold panning is just one of those activities that I've always wanted to try and never took the time for when we lived all those years in Alaska.

Read this sign (click to enlarge)---->

Crow Creek Gold Mine near Girdwood...

This would be Crow Creek. (makes sense, right?)

Mark trying his luck...Hooray we're rich!!!! Oh wait...never mind. Do you see that tiny speck of gold that Mark found? Okay...here's the sad thing. Annika- our Certified Treasure Hunter- was NOT, I repeat NOT, interested in this gold panning activity. Admittedly, gold panning is a long & tedious process with very few results. She's an Instant Gratification kinda girl. She mostly sat on a log and stewed while the rest of us kept trying. Well, you can't win them all. So...how does the gold panning thing work?

Well, the entry fee allows you use of a gold pan (saucer like plastic dish), a plastic container full of dirt that also contains specks of gold, and a shovel. They do a little demo on how it's done and then they send you off to the creek. First, we found the gold in our plastic containers. Then we tried our luck digging out dirt from the creek and swishing it around. It was calming to sit there and do that BUT I have absolutely no idea how people used to make a living doing that! Hard way to make a living.

Read more...

Big Pancakes and Big Lake and Big Grins

Ready for more Alaska photos?

Please say yes! I'm not sure I could handle a no.

How about some hubcap-sized pancakes with bacon to start your day???? Gwennies has been known to many an Alaskan visitor to provide such a "healthy start" to their day! Ooof. I can feel the cholestrol clogging my arteries as I'm typing this. Just kidding! But those are the BIGGEST pancakes I've ever seen!

Our hostess treated us to an outing on Big Lake- a favorite destination for Anchorage folks. It was such a beautiful sunny & calm day.

Captain Beverly...with a Very Happy Annika Interested in this fixer-upper?

Lively Loon....we could hear the loons but they kept their distance from us. I used Photoshop Elements to zoom up on this photo... Annika and Mark spent hours just casting and reeling. We were surprised by Annika's continuing interest in fishing.

Our WONDERFUL and very LOVELY and KIND hostess...Beverly!

THANK YOU BEVERLY!!!!!!!

The girls were highly amused by the tiny fish swimming close the dock. Mark caught a few and the girls got to watch them up close.

Oh, Beverly!!!

What do we do now????

We honestly weren't expecting to ACTUALLY catch a fish!

That, my friends, is a 30" long pike. Mark released it since we didn't have a fishing license- being the good people that we are. We should have sent this pike off to Fish Heaven as they're an invasive species (and will eat the good fish!). OOOOOPS! We'll do better next time....promise!

A rainbow ...as if to say good-bye to Big Lake!

Read more...

A Moose and a Poppy

Iceland Poppies:

aren't they just lovely?

A moose in the neighborhood. These suckers will devour all of your most precious plants and trees....

Okay....

I'm not done posting Alaska photos. I didn't realize it would take me so long to post them! I'm at least more than halfway done...whew!

So...in other news....Annika is in FIRST grade. Oh my, how did she come to be a first grader? Seems like she was just a toddler...right?

Annika says she wants to be a Scientist when she grows up. And live in an RV. Hmmmm....

Fall is approaching fast. Too fast. I still have a few hummingbirds hanging around but I expect them to leave any day now.

Garden Update:

The veggie garden was...ummmm....how do I put it kindly? Pathetic. That's it...pathetic. I think if I'd grown strictly cool weather veggies I would have been fine. I think we had the coolest July on record. The tomatoes started out beautiful and healthy but even by the time we left on our Alaska journey we only had green tomatoes. And that was mid-August. Mid-August is usually when my tomatoes are at their peak and producing red ripe tomatoes by the bucket load. Drat. It didn't help that they also got some sort of blight (cool and wet are not good combos for tomato plants). The good news is that I had ZERO tomato (or tobacco) hornworms this year. Last year, I had at least a dozen of them chowing down on my lovely plants. Home-grown tomatoes are about my favorite food so it's been a little disappointing. The peppers have picked up speed and look beautiful. Thanks to my sister-in-law's (Thanks Beth!) suggestion of placing grass clipping around the base of the plants. They went from scrawny plants to big and healthy. My pumpkins didn't fare well either but the butternut squash plants have taken over the garden. I *heart* butternut squash!

Anyway, it just goes to show that gardening will keep you humble!

Read more...

Alaska Trip: Hatcher Pass & Matanuska Glacier

More Alaska photos....these are from Hatcher Pass (Archangel Valley) and of the Matanuska Glacier which are both north of Anchorage (and close to Palmer).

By the way...you should be able to click on the photos to enlarge them (& get a better view).

Hatcher Pass::View of the dramatic Talkeetna Mountains (heading into Archangel Valley). OMG. Driving on that road made my knuckles white. I couldn't believe it was road. I'll show you what I mean in one of the next few photos.

Do you see what we were after??? They're blue, not black, and very tasty!
The fall reds of Alaska- bloomed out fireweed.

A Happy Girl. Picking blueberries. Or, more accurately, eating blueberries that Mommy & Daddy have picked.

Every once in a while we'd (okay, the adults) would do a bear check. I'm amazed we didn't see any animals grazing on the blueberries. It was a rainy sort of day...so glad we brought rain jackets!

Lots of lovely berries (dogwood & crowberries) along with lichen.

Token photo of me picking too! Berry picking is probably my most favorite activity in the whole wide world. Okay, that's probably not quite true but it is high up on my list of favorites!

See what I mean about the bumpy road? It seemed more like a dried up river bed with rocks and potholes to dodge around than a road. Mark says that this particular road has always been like this. I must have gone through amnesia at some point because I don't remember it at all!

Hatcher Pass Lodge

We've had many a fun visit to Hatcher Pass....one time we went with Mark's parents and his youngest sister Margaret. (was this before we were married? don't remember). We had a small campfire going but realized we didn't have any marshmallows to roast....BUT we did have cookies with giant holes. So why not roast cookies over a campfire????

The Matanuska Glacier

It was a very short walk to get on the glacier and yes, you can walk on it. Since the land surrounding the glacier is privately owned there is a whopping fee per person to get in....I can't remember exactly but I think it was $60 for the four of us to walk up on the glacier. However, I just had to do it! Sometimes it's just fun to do the tourist activities, you know?

Check out all the rocks left behind by the glacier.....

We never actually got to go up to what I consider to be the face of the glacier (the white & blue part). The trail ended here...it was difficult to tell that we were on the glacier as there was so much glacial silt and rocks on the glacier. Oh, and it was several degrees cooler on the glacier (as you'd expect!).
Getting a closer look at the ice under the dirt....

Yes! There is in fact a glacier (and clear ice) under our feet! This ice is several feet thick.
Fall was already spreading throughout the area (Matanuska glacier is north of Palmer). Just look at those bright yellow trees!

After our brief visit to the glacier we headed back to Anchorage. We were surprised that the Glacier was a three hour drive away! I think the Girlies fell asleep on the way back. The nice thing about Alaska is that it was still light out around 9pm....

Read more...