It's been busy since my last post. I've travelled back to Iowa for a short visit with family, up to Fairbanks for work and then lots of projects around the house. New and challenging activities have consisted of planting three new trees in our front yard on Saturday by myself. I planted a white spruce and two State Fair apple trees (in the background of the second picture you can see a landscaping project I did earlier this summer. Landscaping is WAY different than gardening, but that's an entirely different post).
I've also been smoking salmon. Zach went dipnetting on Thursday and Friday while I stayed home and played dog whisperer to Honey (she's not been herself lately, but I'm not sure who she's trying to be). Unfortunately, he had to head to Fairbanks on Sunday which left him just enough time to clean and fillet the fish, so that left the smoking part to me. Last night I smoked two batches using alder chips and the charcoal grill. Tonight I have two more batches to do.
I am happy to report, I've grown something in our garden that we can eat. Peas! That is quite the accomplishment since these plants were started from seed, which I hadn't done before and especially not in Alaska.
I think the greatest challenge lately has been not to take on anything else. There's already plenty in motion, but then I get a whim and we end up with three new trees in the yard and half a day is shot. At least for the remainder of the week the goal is to keep my head down and work on things that are already underway. To help me keep focused I've made a future projects idea list that I'm keeping in case I ever finish what I've already started. I must admit that list already has about 10 items on it and I've only been keeping it for a couple of days. Yikes! At least there's never a dull moment around here.
