Halloween!

Giant beard? Check. Red checkered shirt? Check. Big ax? We can make that. Blue ox costume? Umm....

None the less, for your and everyone in Soldotna Alaska's viewing pleasure, I present, Paul Bunyan and Babe the blue ox!

Don't be too alarmed. And if you are, don't worry, so was everyone else who saw me. Especially the little kids. Oy. However, to my credit, we did put this together in one hour! Ha.

cute feet!

However, as scary as I looked, I'm nothing if not stuborn, and I'll be damned if I'm going to make a costume as awesome as a giant blue ox and not go through with wearing it! So we went out with Oliver's neices and nephew, and followed them around gathering candy, confusing little kids and getting "oooos" and "ahhhs" from adults who know their midwestern folklore. To those people, thank you.

The little punkin heads: Alexis: Hannah Montana, Keegan: Thomas the Train, and McKenzie: SuperGirl (who says the belt goes on your waist, it fits much better as a crown)

`Danielle

Care Package!

What makes coming back to the real world much much better? Mail! I got a letter from Brooke, and card from Mom and a care package from James! I feel like the richest person alive. I love you all so much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Amongst many many neat and flavorful things in the package, we found gummi domo teeth. Here we are modeling them. I think this is the most attractive photo I've ever had taken. You should all be so lucky I actually went through with posting it.

RAWR!

`Danielle

The Last Day

One more morning at the lodge, not so ready to leave and make it back to civilization. Despite sunrise being pretty late this time of year, this is officially the first sunrise we were awake to watch!

We are getting on the plane in a few more hours, after closing up shop here, and then it is back to the real world. And all the questions the real world poses for us. Drat and double drat.

`Danielle

It's Bat Boy!

Pumpkin carving is a fun activity. This is made somewhat more difficult if there is only one pumpkin, to be shared. I generally choose happy or silly faces, while Oliver prefers the angry scary pumpkins. Somehow, between the two of us, we came up with....

Bat Boy! (the pumpkin)

He's silly, he's also scary.... he's also 3-D!

`Danielle

PS we roasted his innards and they were lovely

Scenery

I had some pretty pictures of the scenery here, so I thought I'd just post some all in one place.

22 ft tide. It makes it seem like we live right on the ocean!

Another big tide, with the sun going down

As we get closer and closer to the date we leave (the 29th) things seem even more beautiful than they have before, making our departer all that more bittersweet. *sigh* Back to civilization, kicking and screaming.

`Danielle

Bread and Walnuts

Today, Oliver thought he would try his hand at making bread. He also thought he would forgo the recipe nonesense. So off he went to create a one of a kind dough. This involved throwing a large amount of water and yeast into the mixer, followed by an even larger amount of flour. And some honey. Why not.

Here he is, proud of his stretchy creation

Pretty rising loaves

By the time he got the dough molded into the pans, (including one heart-shaped loaf for me, aww) I was pretty jealous. If you remember, my own bread making was lacking half the water, and thus was lumpy and not so pretty.

The finished (gigantic) loaf

However, things were not exactly as they seemed. The loaves grew enormously in the oven, and when they emerged, althought they looked lovely to behold, their insides were quite raw. Also, because of the extra flour, they had very little taste. The honey seems to have had no effect either way. So, between the two of us, we could have had very nice bread. However, we ended up with mine being ulgy but ok to eat, and his being gorgeous, but not the yummiest thing you could imagine.

While all this bread experimentation went on, I decided to go with a proven winner: Candied walnuts!

The spread

Oh delicious goodness!

`Danielle

Fall Feast!

Today, to celebrate the coming of the pumpkin (thanks David, $10 well spent) we decided to have a fall feast. I decorated the table with branches and pinecones and candles, and we cooked steak with blue cheese and sauted mushrooms, cauliflower with cheese sauce, garlic hand-mashed potatoes, spinach salad with roasted pine nuts and feta and fresh tomatoes, and a nice glass of wine straight from the box.




Doesn't it look good? Aren't you jealous? To make it all better, we ate it after a lovely fall walk out on the beach.

Food always tastes better after being outside for awhile!

`Danielle

Milk

Here in the wilds of Alaska, we take our milk the way we take our whiskey- straight up.

`Danielle

Biscuits

So, all I want to do this morning is make some biscuits. I go to the pantry to find some quick and delicious bisquick. Then I remember: the baker, Andrew, had a misguided hatred for the stuff and never ordered any. ARG! Next I look online, and discover biscuits are not the quick easy project I thought they would be. Then the propane on the stove went out....

I JUST WANT SOME FREAKIN BISCUITS MAN!!!!!

The moral of the story; go out right now in your cars that you get to drive whenever you want, toodle down to the nearest grocery store where, hell, you could probably just buy some biscuits if you really needed some fast, and purchase some Bisquick. Because you can. Because you should.

`Danielle

PS. Hell, go buy some milk and some fresh produce while you're at it!

Pie

Today was a really bad day. What better way to fix a bad day than to make pie?

We found 5 old red apples at the back of the pantry. No good for eating, but plenty fine for pie! Thus, Oliver and I had our first experience making apple pie.

Oliver crimping the edges

What a mighty fine pie!

The finished slice!

Thanks to mother's recipe, and our crust making finese, those 5 apples gave their wasted lives to a good cause. It was a very yummy pie.

Even though the power went out and we ate it in the dark!

`Danielle

Stoat video!

Here is a clip of the stoats tunneling in the snow next to the wood pile.

PS This took almost 40 min to upload for you, so you better love it!!!

`Danielle

Stoats Playing in the Snow

During a trip to the wood pile today we heard some scuffling amongst the logs and hurried to take a closer look. It was the stoats! A big one and a smaller one, and they were having a blast in the snow.

The little stoat peeking out from the logs

It was a little dark for taking pictures, and the little buggers are so fast! But Oliver was able to take some cool photos of them fighting. Here are some of his:

Snow on the nose after a dive

Teeth!

They are so vicious, but were really just playing

Here the big one is actually dangling the other by his face!

I think I've said it before that these little creatures are my favorite things about Alaska, but just in case, I'll say it again. I love the stoats!!!!

`Danielle

Snow Days

Everything is more fun with a good layer of snow on the ground.

Bringing wood in for the fire (I feel like Laura Ingalls!)

We decide to make a "trek" to the shack in the back to gather the last of our things and move them inside.

Snowy path to the shack

Oliver looks like a traveling musician carrying all his guitars back!

Frozen Lake Canoe Trip

Since we have been cooped up either in the house or the yard for so long, we decided to take a walk to the lake and go canoeing. However, we did not expect to find that the lake was indeed frozen.

Being the people that we are, we decided not to let this discourage us, and, with me at the front chopping a path and Oliver at the rear providing sheer strength, we forged our way out into the lake.

Here I am with my paddle stuck in the ice

Eventually the ice was too thick to paddle through any longer, but we did not turn back until we had seen the trumpeter swans! We guessed there were about 45 swimming out in the deep part of the lake (that of course we couldn't get to) making a huge racket and preparing to continue their migration.

We paddled back through our trail in the ice, then made a little hike around this peninsula to get a closer look at the swans.

See those little white dots in the distance? Swans. Oh yeah! But really, they were neat, and we could see and hear them well despite being so far away. Hurray for frozen canoe trips!

`Danielle

What I've been baking

As I have had some free time on my hands, I decided to try my hand at some baking.

Behold, my first ever attempt at bread!





Ok, so maybe between mother and I we got the recipe a little off and left out half the water... just because they are a tad dense and a little misshapen doesn't mean they don't taste good!

An easier task for sure was creme brulee, since I have made it before. However, since I also had a half gallon of cream at my disposal, I was able to do some tweaking to my recipe until I finally created the perfect ratio of cream, vanilla, and egg yolk. The consistency is PERFECT. The crust is a thing of beauty. Bow down to your master!

Close up of the carmelized goodness on top

Yum! Needless to say, we have been eating a lot of creme brulee and bread.

`Danielle