Beauty of Yukon

We took a nice hike last Saturday.  Enjoy the photos!

The Latest Projects

Here's an apron Julie designed for her business.  It is a "picture" of her little shed that she is turning into a crafting business.

Laughing Water crocheted this little acorn hat for a baby.

 And a strawberry hat....

 Then Julie found some woven mats at a yard sale and we started playing around with them.  They were the perfect size to turn into two hot pads and some coasters.  Laughing Water made cherries.

 Julie made some creatures of the north...

 I tried my hand at fruit...  This was my first serious attempt at learning to applique.

-Nanette

Dyea

Before our trip to Skagway, Alaska, goes to far back in memory, I wanted to post about Dyea.  Dyea is not longer a town, but in the days of the Klondike gold rush, it was a key spot.  Dyea is just a few miles from Skagway and was the starting point of the Chilkoot Trail.  Ships would come up the inlet and drop the people off with their massive grubstakes.  (Each person was required to carry a year's worth of food and other provisions over the Chilkoot or the RCMP would not allow them to continue.)

 Thousands of men and quite a few women crossed the Chilkoot Pass.  This actually meant that they had to climb the famous ice staircase many times in order to get their stuff across.

 Tragically, on Aprill 3, 1898, an avalanche swept down on the sojourners and killed many.  I think it was over 70.  The natives and the RCMP had warned them not to travel that day, but gold fever had clouded their judgement.

 A somber cemetary is most of what remains at Dyea now.  A reminder of the frailty of human ambition.

-Nanette

Market Time

The latest thing we are having fun with is selling banana ice cream waffle bowls.  It is simply frozen bananas run through a Champion Juicer.  After placing it in a waffle bowl, we add fresh strawberries, candied peanuts and chocolate sauce.  We sold out last week and made sure we would have enough this time!

 I've also been playing around with cinnamon swirl bread.  We sold out of this, too.  This week, I've made small loaves which are quite cute.  I don't have a picture of those.

 Last week, we had some leftover sourdough bread, so we bartered for some fresh salad green and some kettle corn. 

 Here's Julie, manning the ice cream station.  We're hoping for warm weather tomorrow!  Ice cream doesn't sell so well when everyone is shivering.

 Here's the new basket of pita bread ready to go.  It smells sooo good!

 JM made a good batch of cookies to sell for a little pocket cash.  Mr. Blueberry Eyes already bought one from him!

 This is the hit of the day, though, really.  This is white grape juice with lemon, strawberries and basil.  It is SO refreshing.  We keep going back to it to make sure it is still as good as we remember!  I'm thinking this will make some sales tomorrow.

 Here's another item that will make its debut tomorrow.  It is dried apricots dipped in white chocolate.  It is a perfect couple in the flavor department.

 Not a lot of sewing has happened this week.  But here is the start of an awfully cute set of coasters.

 And I just had to add this.  The Wood Artist and I had our 16th Wedding Anniversary last Saturday.  Since we were a couple of thousand miles apart, Julie laughingly said she'd take me to dinner in honor of it.  We went to a super yummy East Indian restaurant.  When we got there, these were waiting for me with a note that said, "Happy Sweet 16!  Love,  The Wood Artist", loosely quoted.

Something tells me that more quite a few people had their hand in this surprise!  The filler is foxtail that Mr. Blueberry Eyes found.  We thought it worked quite well.  - Nanette

Fabulous Food and Friends

I'm tired tonight.  It is well after midnight.  I should be in bed, but The Wood Artist will have computer access tomorrow and I want him to see a little of what we've been up to. 

I've been in Whitehorse for 2 1/2 weeks now and I already see a difference in the daylight.  I arrived just after summer solstice and had quite a time adjusting to not seeing darkness at all.  Now, at 12:30 a.m., there is a deep dusk outside.  It is still way too much fun to sit up in the night and talk, hash out issues and make plans with Julie. (Right now we are talking illustrations for a children's book I wrote and haven't had the courage to submit.  If she illustrates it, I think there is a much better chance for it to get published.) So, here I sit.

 We've been in crazy creative mode which means little planning in other areas of life.  Our kids have been running and playing like wild hooligans, making the best of memories.  When they get hungry, they come in and scavange for food.  Today the popular food was banana dogs.  You spread a piece of sandwich bread with peanut butter.  Add a 1/2 banana (whole - no slicing).  Add chocolate sauce.  I don't even want to think about how many of these they consumed today.  We've also been working with all five kids on beefing up their times tables.  One of the games gets the reward of a carob chips for each fact correct past a certain point.  I saw some of the chips making it into the banana dogs, too.

 But we do try to sit down to at least one formal meal each day and we have had some great food!  Here is a curry dish that Julie made.  We ate it with quinoa.

 Here is another fun one we saw on the internet.  Julie put the spaghetti through 1 inch lengths of vegetarian hot dogs.  Then she cooked them and covered them with a vegan cheese sauce.  What kid wouldn't eat this?!

Tomorrow is market day and I've been baking all day.  We had a big disaster this evening, though.  I had made a huge pan and a small pan of sweet rolls.  They were still rising when CM needed to get to his bike club.  I said I would take him and left the rolls in charge of Julie.  Then, Julie had to go to a meeting and left the timer for someone else, who shall remain nameless :).  Somehow the timer wasn't heard....They are a total loss.  But, thankfully, we have a lot of other yummy food ready to go.  We're hoping for a warm, sunny market day.  - Nanette

Independence Day in Skagway, Alaska, III

These pictures even passed the inspection of Mr. Blueberry Eyes.  I guess he thought they were cool enough that he agreed that I could share them!

 There were street entertainers.

 Then there was the egg toss.  Last year they broke a world record for the most people participating in the egg toss.  I love this action shot of Mr. Blueberry Eyes catching the egg that CM tossed to him.

 After several rounds, they had the contestants that were left turn lengthwise on the street.

 A team of girls won the championship.

 Then there was the tug-o-war.  Our kids, with a few more tossed in, formed one team.  They kept progressing through the play-offs until they actually won the championship! They were pretty proud of themselves.

 Julie and I didn't fair so well with our team.  We were soundly whipped!

- Nanette

Independence Day in Skagway, Alaska, II

                                   Then we met Pop Rod.  He stood there with his mountain man knives and our boys were drawn like magnets.  He seemed glad to share his knowledge and stories.  I'm always drawn to storytellers.  Everyone does it differently and every storyteller has something for us to learn.  We loved it.  So did he.

 He invited us into his antique car.  It was a gorgeous eggplant color.

 Then he had us pose by the hood.  We were having so much fun it caused a scene and strangers stopped to take pictures.

 Here's some more scenes around Skagway.

 Here's a great new way to grow carrots.

Then we spread our lunch on a picnic table - potato salad, tofu sandwiches, grape juice, chips and crackers, vegies. It was chilly, but dry. - Nanette