Boreal Life

Cool damp air has seeped in. The breeze sometimes feels crisp and smells of autumn. The nights are surprisingly chilly. On the 24th & 25th we had a threat of frost with the temperature dropping to 33° on both nights. We thank our lucky stars that we didn't get a killing frost. Our garden isn't ready. I'm not ready. So many green tomatoes. We had so much hope for this year's garden, but it has been a bit of a let-down. We made some mistakes and a cold, wet spring didn't help anything. I'm crossing my fingers that we'll get a long warm spell, a prolonged summer. The appearance of the leaves on the trees aren't giving me much hope though. They're losing their luster, almost like they're rusting. Some have begun their transformation to bronze, yellow, orange, red.

I think that Josh and the dogs are excited for the cooler weather. Yesterday he hooked up the dogs for their first scooter run of the season. This morning they went running again. It's the beginning of the end of summer.

I love that we can walk out the front door, down a short wooded path, and hop into a canoe whenever we feel like going for a short paddle around the pond.

 The pond is currently at the lowest level I think I've ever seen. There was such a contrast between today and the beginning of spring. Today it seemed so much smaller and quieter. I commented to Josh that it was like all of the summer tourists had left - just like in town. In the spring the pond seems large and deep, full of life. Ducks, songbirds, amphibians, all sorts of insects. Today it was so shallow and calm, preparing for it's winter's rest I suppose.

I also love that if I feel like making a pie we can walk out the front door, down a short wooded path, and pick as many raspberries as we'd like. 

Lesson learned again about bringing Vistonic berry picking. He was a crazy little raspberry-chowing bulldozer.

In the early 1900′s household refrigerators were invented. Flash forward one hundred years and we finally have refrigeration at Bugwayji!!!

Yesterday Nikki, Kristie, and I (the three ladies of our tiny new neighborhood) finally got together to go foraging! Getting together has to be planned out ahead since Nikki & Kristie don’t get cell service out here, Kristie doesn’t have text at all on her phone, my texting only service is poor, and communicating through FB Messenger can be hit or miss because I don’t have internet access unless if I’m in town connected to a WiFi signal… Nikki & Kristie came over to my place since we have a trail right to a enormous raspberry patch. Picking was pretty normal & easygoing until we started to literally stumble upon a brush pile. And my goodness, I’ve never seen wild raspberries this big before! 

(Kristie w/a pinkie-sized berry. She later found a thumb-sized one!)

The burned brush pile that we were climbing, tripping, & falling on must’ve given the raspberries an extra nutrient boost because they were thimbleberry-sized (or larger!) mutants! I wish I had audio recorded from our pick. It was full of laughter, us falling over, almost spilling our buckets of berries, and just being so darn excited and amazed at the berries in front of us. We could’ve fallen, gotten hurt, and not care that much about being hurt because we were in berry heaven. 

It was a hot sweaty day too, but we just couldn’t leave the berries until our buckets were full. 

(Each of us picked about one gallon of delicious berries!)

That night we got most of our little neighborhood together to sit around a fire. We listed the things that we’re thankful for and what we love about where we live.

By some miracle the heat wave broke and today was in the 70's! It was so refreshing to open the door, walk outside, and not feel like I was walking into an oven! The perfect day to spend outside picking blueberries. Josh wasn't home to go with me, so I brought Vistonic along for company and to alert me of any bears. It's amazing how quickly the landscape can change & how fast plants grow up in just one year. I didn't find our secret patch right away. When I did I wasn't even sure that I was heading in the right direction at first. It seemed like an entirely new place. That's the thing about blueberry picking - your favorite blueberry patches don't stay the same. The forest grows up around them until they're shaded out and are no longer a good spot to pick. Vistonic & I got out of the car & spotted plenty of blue right away. I sprayed us down with insect repellent and got down to the business of picking. It didn't take long for Vistonic to catch on and start picking and eating berries himself. The advantage to taking him along for company is that he can't tell anyone the location of our berry patch. The downside is that he likes to eat berries just as much as we do. Little booger. He spent his time eating berries, exploring a little, taking shade & bug breaks at the car, & checking on me.

I’m used to it. Dog hair on my clothes, on the furniture, mixed in with my own hair….everywhere. But enough is enough. I’ve never had dogs that shed like this before. Oh the life of an Alaskan Husky owner. I had just sat down to read a book on the dog hair-covered couch when I noticed a ping pong ball sized piece of fur fall off of Typhoon. Time for a brushing I guess. Both Typhoon and Vistonic are currently “blowing their coats”.  A biannual event that I didn’t know about until we got huskies. Typhoon, the fluffier of the two was the main contributor to this pile of fur.