Christmas Calf!

I took Isadore around while delivering Christmas cards with my friend and her ponies. Don't they make excellent Christmas Critters?!

I opened the door to the barn and saw...

A peacock! Er...because as you all know, we have loads of peacocks just moseying around this wind-blasted island in the north of Scotland. In the middle of winter.

None of us has any idea were Sir Peacock has come from...but personally, I hope he sticks around!!
(Update: Peahen. PeaHEN... turns out Sir Peackock was Madame Peahen and wowza she could chase those cows around the pens! We might hire Peahen to help us with shifting our herds and flocks around the fields...)

Old Home Ec Cooking Terms Video - Fantastic!

These videos are stubborn - sometimes you have to push the play button twice *and* sometimes the video will be jerky the first time it plays! It's always fine on the second play though. Enjoy!

Thanksgiving Alaska Style - from Shannon in AK

“Thanksgiving Day comes, by statute, once a year; to the honest man it comes as frequently as the heart of gratitude will allow.”~Edward Sandford Martin

Thanksgiving Alaska Style
















Most people here in Alaska celebrate Thanksgiving in the traditional way, with family gathered round the table at home. My husband and I, along with a group of friends, do it a little differently.

Our friends own a remote cabin just south of Denali State park, in an area known as Trappers Creek. It’s an old mining area, so there are a few roads winding through the hills and valleys. These roads aren’t maintained, which means that in the winter they are left to be drowned in snow, and all of the many marshes, rivers and creeks freeze, creating a vast network of ‘roads’ for those of us with snowmachines. People in other parts of the world call them snow-mobiles or sno-go’s…but in Alaska it’s snowmachine, or sometimes just ‘sled’.

This year I’m bringing the stuffing and the rolls for the Thanksgiving dinner. My challenge is how to prepare these foods for the 40 minute snowmachine ride – and to be ready to cook right when we get to the cabin. Oh how envious I am of the girl who gets to bring the turkey! She just drops the frozen bird in the bottom of the sled and is done worrying about it!!

For the stuffing I prepare it all ahead of time, cooking the sausage and mixing up all the ingredients in two huge bowls. Then I pack it all into ziplock bags, which I then wrap up in a clean plastic garbage bags. Snowmachines use two cycle oil, and when they are starting up or idling they emit a pretty strong fuel smell…which I don’t want to get into our food. So that’s why I double wrap EVERYTHING. I make refrigerator roll dough ahead of time at home, and then double wrap it in the pan with saran wrap and then foil and then more saran wrap. This year the temperatures are mild, so the dough is in no danger of freezing solid. In the past the temperatures have been below zero…and the dough freezes solid. Not good for the yeast! If you’d like to try out my stuffing I’ve included the recipe at the end of this post. Transporting them by snowmachine is entirely optional for you though!




















I think this is the most beautiful outhouse!

Trappers Creek is really the foothills of the Alaska Range, so it’s mostly rolling hills with spectacular views of Denali and the multitude of other mountains in the range. Our friends host Thanksgiving at their little cabin every year. There are no direct roads to their cabin, the only way to get there is by snowmachine. We have to bring all our supplies for the four day weekend by sled. From kerosene lamps to sleeping bags to breakfast we need to bring it in. Each year four or five couples head out by snowmachine to come together and have a thankful meal in one of the most beautiful spots on earth.















The main cabin as you drive up on your snowmachine.















The Trappers Cabin - made with local logs in the old fashioned way - each log was fit to match the one above it. No fancy millwork to make the logs all the same size.




















This is the view from the front porch of the main cabin:







The cabin itself is pretty fancy by Alaskan standards. It has a generator and propane tanks, so wood isn’t necessary to heat or cook with. Honestly, having cooked and heated with wood in the past…it ain’t that great. It’s a lot of work and you have to watch it like a hawk to avoid burning or undercooking. The generator means that we can have standard lights after the dark falls (around 4:30 or 5:00 in the evening). This is wonderful if you’re playing cards, as kerosene lamps don’t put out a whole lot of light. The property has a crystal clear natural spring, which has the best water I’ve ever tasted. When you’re standing at the spring house filling up your five gallon jugs, you have an awesome view of Denali if the day is clear. Can’t get much more ‘pure’ than that for water!



















The spring, being flowing water, doesn't freeze - here you can see it peeking through the new snow! The small green shed houses a gathering cistern, and is where we gathered the water. Denali was blocked by the clouds this day.

Next to the cabin is the older, much more rustic ‘trappers cabin.’ This is where my husband and I usually sleep and it is heated by wood. So we mosey down to it about an hour before bedtime and light up a roaring fire. By the time we head back for bed the fire has burned down and is ready to be banked for the night. It’s always chilly in the morning when you wake up (unless you wake up and add more wood at 2-3 AM…which I never can do!) but that’s part of the fun. Perfect snuggling temperature.

Over the Thanksgiving weekend we usually play all sorts of card games and lay around being lazy. Big events include getting water, skiing excursions, and of course, snowmachining. Usually this time of year is a mix of cloudy skies and brilliant blue skies pierced by the snowcapped mountains. I love being able to go for a quick cross country ski out the cabin front door and down onto the wide frozen river. If the snow is good there are many valleys full of fresh powder that are flat, wide and easy to zoom through. It really does feel like you are gliding on top of air if you hit the powder just right. If you hit it just wrong you sink…and then you dig yourself out. I am very proficient at digging myself out now!

So we’ll be leaving tomorrow for our Alaskan Thanksgiving – we wish everyone reading this a warm, safe, and happy day of giving thanks!
Shannon

Traditional Alaskan Family Stuffing (handed down from my great, great grandmother)
2 lbs pork sausage
2 loaves cheap, cheap white bread (good thick bread doesn’t get mushy enough, so if in doubt – go cheaper or make a light and airy loaf at home)
2 tbsp fresh sage (2 tsp dried), coarsely chopped
1 bunch celery, finely chopped
3 medium onions, finely chopped
½ cup butter, melted
Salt to taste

Two days before Thanksgiving slash open the bread bags and allow the bread to go stale.

On T-day (or the day before if you’ll be travelling) cook the pork sausage on the stove top. DO NOT drain grease. Grease is tasty! Near the end of the cooking add the fresh sage. Allow sausage to cool. Mix sausage, onions and celery in a large bowl. Set to the side. Cut the stale bread into one inch cubes. My family traditionally cuts off the crusts – and the kids steal the crusts as a snack…but I think it’s pretty wasteful, so I chop them up and add them to the mix too! Add the bread cubes to the sausage mixture. Toss. Slowly add melted butter as you toss. The stuffing is now ready for the bird.

To stuff the bird, fill the neck cavity first, pin the skin over the stuffing to hold in place. Next stuff the cavity with as much as you can cram in there, because we all know that the stuffing from the bird tastes the best! Two notes – never stuff the bird ahead of time. Only stuff right before it goes into the oven. Bacteria can grow in there over a few hours. Also, stuffing should be 150 degrees Fahrenheit before you can eat it safely. Use your thermometer!

You’ll have extra stuffing, as the bird can only hold so much…so grease a 9x9 or 9x13 pan (whatever fits) with butter, and pour in the remaining stuffing. Dot the top with butter, cover with foil and cook for 30 minutes. Remove foil and let top brown for 15 minutes. I always cook it with the turkey and put it in during the last 45 minutes. Serves 6-8 theoretically, but if you have stuffing lovers, and want lots of leftovers, double this recipe!

The Barley is being harvested...

The crop isn't exactly ripe in these photos but you get the gist: this is one of our barley fields.

This is a photo of Erlend "bruising barley." The cattle can't digest whole barley grains so they have to be smooshed flat. My husband looks like a duck...
Smooshed barley hehehe! God's bounty sown, grown, harvested and smooshed! The cattle eat this stuff like candy!

Lambs sent to market

Today was a sad day because we sent our first batch of lambs to the market. There were twin weathers (castrated males) who had become incredibly tame because their mother is Mathilda. They were like two wooly puppies that would follow me about and beg for pats and scratches. I felt dreadful as I patted them goodbye before they were sent off. But, alas! This is a farm and this is the reality of raising beef cattle and sheep.

Have a lovely day! God bless!

Home-grown broccoli!

NOTHING beats home-grown broccoli!!

One of our tattie patches - in the Walled Garden

  
 Here in Scotland they call potatoes "tatties" and this is one of our tattie patches in the walled garden. 

Strange clouds tonight!

I caught sight of these clouds while walking past the silage pit after checking on the sheep. A lamb got loose and it sure was a rodeo trying to catch him and put him back in! Anyhoo, here are some pictures of the clouds. They remind me of deer or hounds racing across the sky! (The middle picture is of different clouds seen from the front of the hoose.)

Silage season is upon us!

Oh what a bonnie day it is today! The sheep are grazing (I can hear the sheep bells tinkling in the near distance...) the cows are all out basking in the sun and the farmers are scrambling like mad to mow and harvest their June crop of grass! They'll take this grass and dump it in the big silage pits so that it ferments and can be used all winter long for cattle and sheep feed.(Silage: think along the lines of sauerkraut...)

In this photo Erlend is driving the tractor up and down the heap of freshly mown-and-dumped grass in the silage pit. If you look at the back of the tractor you see the "buck rake" that he uses to move grass from down bottom to up top. When the silage harvest is over we then cover the pit with that black plastic and weigh it all down with zillions of old tires. And then the grass spends until about October fermenting away!

Bluebells in May

Of lanolin and wool...

I just came in from feeding my four remaining Wooly Ladies out in the Long Field. They are as affectionate as dogs - did you know that when sheep are happy they wag their tails??

Here are some of the Wooly Ladies outside with their adorable wee lambs.

The digital camera is starting to fail and seems to hate white objects. So I added the cartoon effect to help deal with the over-brightness.

Another shot of the flock before most of the Wooly Ladies were put up at the other farm.

A typical curious wee lamb!

This is Elsie, one of our pure Texel ewes.

A lovely spring day full of flowers and sheep!

I bought a new vinyl (sp?) table cloth and WOW did it brighten up the kitchen! (Even the clutter got brighter...)

The Wooly Ladies meet me at the gate with all sorts of happy beys!

And now they are leading me to the trough in the hopes that a bucket of grain will materialize!

Spring has sprung! This is the upper half of our lawn - lush, green and full of flowers! There are no barefoot strolls through the grass though! Think of the song, "Thistle of Scotland"!!! (I found that flip-flops are risky too. Shucks! I miss bare feet and grass...)

Even the mint has come to life! I know it looks innocent...but it is plotting to take over the world...

Aroond and aboot the fairm

"Aroond and aboot the fairm" in February:

Here are some of the older calves in the byre saying hello as I pass through.

The daffodils are beginning to show!


Here are some bonnie Snow Drop flowers.

Erlend has been busy putting up wall-to-wall shelving in our middle bedroom. This will help me to organize the house and keep it tidy!

Here is Erlend hard at work fixing the roof so that it does not leak into the sheep pen.

The sheep are out of the fields and in the barns for lambing season.

Erlend built a lovely pen for our flock of sheep and now they are indoors until they lamb. Here are some pictures!

This smaller pen is for the ram, the two male lambs and the two yows (ewes) that are only having single lambs. This keeps the yows from over-eating and having big fat lambs.

Here is the rest of the flock in the main pen. 17 of them are having twins and 3 of them are having triplets.

Erlend built a little corral so that the sheep can enjoy fresh air and sunshine! They can freely access the outdoor pen from the main pen.

Here is how the sheep eat their silage: through a feed fence designed in such a way that they cannot use the "deflate and slither" method of escape! (They won't slither *over* a board unless in danger.)

Photos of our farmhoose

Some folk have been asking about our farmhoose so before I take off I'll post some photos and give you all a rundown on this awesome house I've moved into.

This hoose was built in 1922 in the classic Scottish style. We have a fireplace in the livingroom and that really cool old-fashioned stove in the kitchen. It is an oil stove and has two huge and one small hot plates on top and an oven for baking.

Our house is solid stone but Erlend had three sides of the house faced with this plaster stuff with wee bits of quartz blown on to help make the house more weather proof. We have a beautiful Welsh slate roof - with the original slates still in action!

The walls are two feet thick on the sides and three feet thick on the ends so we have these lovely deep windows!!

The inside dementions are approx 15' by 30'. We have two stories and three bedrooms upstairs. The middle bedroom is being turned into our library. (Don't we sound posh??)

On the back of the house is a small extention (built in 1922 along with the rest of the house) which we call the "Mudroom." There's a small bathroom so we don't have to take off our farm clothes, Erlend's narrow office, an small attic over his office, a utility sink and our washer and dryer.

In front of the house we have a long narrow lawn and of course...the walled garden to the left of the house. To the right of the house is the "old dairy" where we have our fridge, freezer and our winter supply of potatoes.

Here is a picture tour:

The fireplace in the livingroom

Our bright sunny kitchen!

The only time I can get a good photo of the walled garden is in winter when all of the greenery has died down. This is only half of the garden - it's bigger then the hoose!

Our lovely front yard that overlooks several of our pastures. In the background you can see the end of one of our cattle barns.

This is the rear of the house - where we have our main entry. Note the extention where our mudroom etc is located! The farmstead is directly behind the house. Erlend literally walks out of the door and onto the farm!

Here is the hoose in summer.