Doesn’t feel like Christmas.

We’re in the midst of one of those awful winter thaws, with temperatures in the low to mid-30s and even some rain at times. Blech. I hate these things because of how slippery the roads and sidewalks get. Thank goodness for my Icebugs; haven’t had a fall yet despite surfaces that my late dad inelegantly described as “slicker than snot on a doorknob.” (As an Amazon affiliate, I may receive a small fee for items bought through my links.)

Lousy weather + seasonal affective disorder are probably two of the reasons why I haven’t set up my small tree. It just doesn’t feel like Christmas this year. Yet gray skies aren’t totally to blame: Post-election anxiety has been kicking my butt.

How in the world did this guy get elected again? Every time he opens his mouth, I flinch and wonder what fresh hell will emerge. Don’t get me started on the folks who work with him.

I may lose readers for making these statements. But it’s how I feel about this con man.

Back to Christmas, though: DF has been practicing holiday carols on the piano, to prepare for an extended family get-together. Hearing songs like “The First Noel,” “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” and “Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isabella” do make me smile.

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I’m officially old.

Today is my birthday and I am officially old. Not because of my new age, but because of how I spent my day. Some highlights:

  • Ran errands
  • Dozed briefly in a comfortable chair
  • Paid a bill
  • Hand-washed my support hose
  • Made a plan to go to bed early (we’ll see how that pans out)

Relax: My day sounds a lot worse than it actually was. In fact, it’s been pretty great. For starters, there’s the obvious reason: I’m still on the right side of the grass.

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Harvest home.

For the past few weeks DF has been practicing the music for an ecumenical service that will take place near Thanksgiving. The song that sticks in my head most is “Harvest Home,” an 1844 hymn*. This quatrain in particular applies:

Come, ye thankful people, come

Raise the song of harvest home;

All is safely gathered in,

Ere the winter storms begin.

No storms yet, but it was 29 degrees when I got up the other day. We are thankful that all is safely gathered in.

It was a somewhat dismal summer for the second year in a row, and gardens were more than a month late in ripening. Some things didn’t produce well, or at all; for example, a local tree expert posted on Facebook that he didn’t get a single cherry from his five trees.

We didn’t get that many cherries ourselves: 28, to be exact. Then again, this is only the second year the tree’s been in the ground. Popular fruit-tree wisdom holds that “the first year it sleeps, the second year it creeps and the third year it leaps.” However, I can’t hope for too much in 2025 because a moose got into the yard last week. It harried all three of our fruit trees before DF could scare it off the property by banging a hammer on a shovel.

This isn’t the moose that got into the yard, but I bet he knows the one who did.

Fortunately, we’d already harvested the apples the previous week. Moose can be real jerks.

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Strawberries are in season.

Let me be clear: In no universe would I mix tomato paste with strawberries. I’m simply using the can to illustrate the size of some of this year’s fruit. Aren’t they lovely?

How I wish blogs could share aromas, because our house smells marvelous right now. We are eating all the strawberries we want – and we want a lot of them – yet still have leftovers. The question was, “How can we preserve them without freezing it or turning it into jam?” The answer was, “Dehydrate them.”

Thus far we’ve dried a quart of these little beauties (see below), which means we sliced and dried about four quarts. That sounds onerous, but it really wasn’t. DF and I sit across from each other at the table, slicing and chatting, until the dehydrator is full or until we run out of berries, whichever comes first. Some people sit around watching TV or playing board games. We slice berries.

Why do this? Because we want every berry to have had a reason to ripen. I have never tasted berries like these before, either in New Jersey (where we picked them ourselves) or from Seattle farm markets. They’re as sweet and tender as the memory of first love and, as DF’s younger son marveled, “They’re red all the way through!

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Frühjahrsmüdigkeit.

The German language has the best words. Kummerspeck (“grief bacon,” or the weight you put on from eating your feelings). Sehnsucht, or the deep and emotional craving for something far away or unattainable. And frühjahrsmüdigkeit, which I’ve been experiencing lately.

Frühjahrsmüdigkeit is translated as “spring lethargy,” the fatigue that some people feel in the springtime, particularly after a hard winter.

We’ve had two particularly crummy winters in a row, and a lousy spring/summer in 2023. For the most part, spring 2024 has been cold and cloudy.

Sure, we’ve had a few spectacularly sunny days – the kind that make me think, “I can live here despite the winters.” Mostly it’s been…frühjahrsmüdigkeit.

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The winter tomato.

DF tried to winter over a trio of tomato plants last fall. He pruned them back severely and put them under a grow light in the basement, figuring the cool temperature would keep them from sprouting too much new growth.

The no-grow tactic worked a little too well. by winter solstice, one of the plants looked extremely sad and the others were bordering on despair. So he brought the best-looking one upstairs, along with the light, and set it next to our kitchen table.

The plan was to coax it back to life, not to create food just yet. That way he’d have a nice big plant to put in the greenhouse in late May to encourage the seedlings he’ll be starting this week. Meanwhile, the green encouraged us during this particularly snowy and cold winter.

When the plant showed signs of survival, we rejoiced; when it started putting out flowers, we laughed and pinched them off. No chance we were going to pollinate those blooms. The focus was surviving, not thriving. And survive it has, putting out loads of new growth and so many blossoms that we gave up pinching. It could bloom all it wanted, but we weren’t going to hand-pollinate any of them.

A week or so ago during dinner, DF did a double-take. “There’s a tomato,” he said.

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Reading the Bible in Yup’ik.

Yet another reason to be delighted by my partner: He reads the Bible in Yup’ik, the language spoken by indigenous folks in western and southwestern Alaska (and the Russian Far East). That’s because DF has been doing home visits for his church, and one of the parishioners is an elderly woman who is much more … Read more

Giveaway: Artisanal chocolate from Alaska.

Not everyone gets a Valentine’s Day treat from a loved one. In fact, some of us don’t particularly want them. Still, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to feel a little bit special, so I’m having another Chugach Chocolates giveaway. If you didn’t get a Valentine, then treat yourself (or someone else) to this one.

Chugach Chocolates is a “bear-to-bar” that creates delicious (and sometimes scary-sounding) items here in Anchorage. Right down the street from us, in fact, which is particularly dangerous since they’ve opened a nice little coffee shop/retail space.

Since DF’s doctor wants him to eat an ounce of dark chocolate per day, we decided to support the local economy and buy solely from Chugach Chocolates. Happily, they offer a volume discount so we’ve taken to buying a dozen bars at a clip. It’s a health issue, you see.

About the “scary-sounding” chocolates: We’ve found that you don’t need to be afraid of confections such as Alaskan Kelp and Cayenne or Mat-Su Valley Potato Chip chocolate bars. They’re all good. Well, except for the Espresso Beans bars – I’ve never been a coffee fan. DF loves them, though.

The winner of this giveaway gets to choose from among: 

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Giveaway: Alaskan art jewelry (Valentine’s Day, anyone?).

Welcome to the first giveaway of the year! This time around, it’s jewelry that I sure hope the U.S. mail can deliver in time for Valentine’s Day. Three winners will have a shot at three pendants made by my friend Linda B.

Her jewelry is always a hit, and for good reason: It has style, energy and personality. If I wore jewelry, I’d definitely be wearing hers.

This is also part of my ongoing “support the local economy” efforts. Sure, I give away a lot of gift cards, because they’re useful to readers. But I also like to focus on local artists and retailers. (Watch this space for an upcoming Chugach Chocolates giveaway.)

Valentine’s Day will be here in a month, and these pieces would make great gifts. Each one is unique, i.e., she has never made and will never make another one exactly like it. 

Or the winner might choose to keep the prize, in order to brighten up their winter doldrums. I chose fun, specific designs rather than abstract ones. Here’s what’s up for grabs:

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We ring in the new year, cautiously.

Some believe that whatever you do at the start of the new year, you’ll repeat all year long. DF and I made sure to ring in the new year with moderation and frugality. This wasn’t exactly a stretch, since we tend to live moderately and frugally all year long. We aren’t particularly superstitious people anyway.

Still: Why take chances?

It started the morning of Dec. 31, when he dumped the boiling bag in the slow cooker along with some vegetable cooking water from the freezer. By midday he had a very savory-smelling broth cooling outdoors. In the evening he put some black-eyed peas to soak overnight.

This morning, he caramelized onions and some garlic scapes from our garden (which made the house smell divine), then dumped them into the slow cooker along with yesterday’s  broth, sliced carrots, dehydrated celery leaves* (also from our garden), frozen green tomatoes (from a not-successful-enough** foray into frying) and some ham chunks. That’s because DF’s mom was born in Texas, where hoppin’ john is a New Year’s tradition alleged to bring prosperity for the coming year.

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