PLAYPLAYPlay Play Play play play play pl-zz.zzz...zzzz.

This morning, Tilly had a play-date with our neighbors dog, Sandy. Although Sandy is about 12, she kept up with Tily just fine. John and Fay said they had a dog and cat and three sons, clearly a puppy would be fine running lose in the house. I gave up and let Sandy babysit while I sipped coffee and toured their beautiful home. This is the closest Tilly has ever been to being lose and unsupervised, and our first time in someone else's house, though I trusted Sandy to take good care of my puppy. Amazingly, after two hours of hard playing inside and out, Tilly had still managed to avoid going potty on their nice floors. I started seeing warning signs around when we were all ready to get going with our days, so I scooped up the little one and headed back home. While we were visiting, I told John and Fay about the dead deer Tilly helped Tim and I find in the bushes last night.

After days of wondering what the increasingly horrible smell around our house was coming from and assuming there probably wasn't an invisible stream of spawned out salmon running down our driveway, Tim and I set out looking for the source. After opening the front door of the house, Tim was pretty convinced something had died under our porch. I assured him this was just a distant whiff and it got worse closer to the street and mail boxes. Tim didn't hesitate to crawl through the stinky bushes at dusk. After a few minutes of looking on in horror, Tim suggested I bring Tilly in to sniff it out. Reluctantly, I followed her eager tugs, then stopped and scooped her up while I tried to make out a shape on the ground. As my eyes adjusted, it looked more and more like a dead deer, and Tim confirmed that it looked like a little black tailed doe.

So, after telling Fay about the stinky problem on our property, she dialed up the number she thought was right for the people who come and deal with such things. They said they'd come on Monday. Oh the perks of living in this civilized lower-48 where there are people to deal with rotting carcasses in your bushes! Will Department of Fish and Game do that in Juneau, or are Alaskans on their own for such things?

Back at home, the floor guys were finishing rolling on a second coat of floor, and I am happy to say Tilly passed out behind the couch for most of the rest of the day so I could get some schoolwork done. I think she had dreams about playing with Sandy. She needs a play-date every morning!

(Picture from yesterday at Greenbank farm. Sandy is a giant white dog, more than all three of those little things put together.)

Horseradish

Last night we met a new friend named Maggie who lives in town. She mentioned the garden of her new house is over-run with horseradish, and if I want I can come collect it. I've been doing some research to see if I can really put up several pounds of horseradish root. Here's what I've been learning:

• Late fall is a great time to break out the shovel and start digging up those big roots. 
• The whole root, washed and packed in wet sand in zip-locks, should store in the fridge for a few months.
• Skinned and chopped or grated root can be food processed with enough water to help it blend without getting watery, then stabilized with a little vinegar and salt to be refrigerated for a few weeks or frozen for a few months. 
• Wear goggles - it's like onion but much, much worse. Maybe do it outside too. Maybe get a gas mask...
• The longer you wait before adding the vinegar, the hotter the sauce will be. Blend together right away for more mild, or stick it in the fridge for 30 minutes before adding the vinegar for extra hot. 
• For canned horseradish, use 2 parts grated horseradish to 1 part vinegar and a little salt. Use a hot water bath for 10 minutes to seal in jars, then store in the fridge to keep the nice white color.
• Mixing the horseradish puree with some mustard and mayo, sour cream, cream cheese, or buttermilk with optional red pepper, beets, or lemon juice makes a pretty awesome cream sauce. 

My super-secret sources:

http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/how_to_prepare_horseradish/

http://extension.usu.edu/files/publications/publication/HG_Garden_2006-07.pdf

http://www.aces.edu/dept/extcomm/specialty/horseradish01.html

http://low-cholesterol.food.com/recipe/horseradish-canned-30959

http://www.hillbillyhousewife.com/horseradish.htm

I think this is my favorite. Good canning description and excellent pain-in-the-eyeballs description. She uses the horseradish to make a sort of crazy-hot bloody mary she calls a Snackin' Cezar or Canadian Cinco De Mayo:

http://www.gastronomicalsovereignty.com/2013/06/canned-horseradish-root-aka-death-by.html

Happy Halloween!

The weather here has been oscillating between that wonderful Halloween-fall air filled with the smell of dried leaves and a stiff cool wind swirling through the trees, and being back to summer, stripping us down to t-shirts to lay around in the sunny grass. Life is tough on the island! So many wonderful ways to be.

The dust is settling and our health is perking up again, meaning Tim is getting back to work on his dad's boat and leaving me home to get finished with my Masters coursework while Tilly practices being a big girl and giving me a few hours of alone time.

I'm working on my Alaska studies course, which is drawing me back to all the things I love about Alaska - I wrote a paper about the stability imparted by the wisely invested Permanent fund of over $48 Billion, and now I'm orienting my second paper around the newly sprouted Farmers Markets of Juneau. The star of Juneau agriculture in my eyes is our one and only WWOOF farm run by my life-long friend, Rick. I found a three-year old article in the Capital City Weekly written about him and his awesome organic farm out on Shelter Island. A part of me says, "See? Look how awesome Juneau could have been for farming!" but the rest of my brain has stayed sane and laughs, looking out at my chicken coop ready for a couple dozen birds and our orchard resetting itself for another year of producing apples and cherries; this is a good spot to be. We're starting to get to know a few neighbors, including the previous owners of our house who saw me walking down the street yesterday and invited Tim and I over this morning to pick up a couch.

Launi gave us a tour of their new house around the corner from ours and blew me away when we stepped onto the back porch to look out over the garden. "When we moved in, there wasn't even grass." she said of the flourishing gardens and beautiful landscaping. "We didn't really plan it out before we started putting in beds, but there was just exactly the right amount of room left for our greenhouse over there." They have only been in their new house for five years and they have already transformed the landscape into something both picturesque and productive. As we lifted the couch out of the garage and into our truck, we stepped around buckets of freshly pulled garlic from her gardens. Hopefully in a couple years, our yard will also be producing a bounty of wonders. It's hard to be patient and take things one at a time, but for now, my coursework has to take priority over clearing branches into the chipper pile and finishing up the compost bin, and with an exhausting puppy, there's only so much productive time in the day. In the next few days, our new blades will come for the lawn tractor for better leaf-and-grass-sucking action and I will get out there and do my own yard work while Tim manages the tractor-beast and the puppy takes a long nap. Until then, it's time to focus!

Inspired

The weather here has been oscillating between that wonderful Halloween-fall air filled with the smell of dried leaves and a stiff cool wind swirling through the trees, and being back to summer, stripping us down to t-shirts to lay around in the sunny grass. Life is tough on the island! So many wonderful ways to be.

The dust is settling and our health is perking up again, meaning Tim is getting back to work on his dad's boat and leaving me home to get finished with my Masters coursework while Tilly practices being a big girl and giving me a few hours of alone time.

I'm working on my Alaska studies course, which is drawing me back to all the things I love about Alaska - I wrote a paper about the stability imparted by the wisely invested Permanent fund of over $48 Billion, and now I'm orienting my second paper around the newly sprouted Farmers Markets of Juneau. The star of Juneau agriculture in my eyes is our one and only WWOOF farm run by my life-long friend, Rick. I found a three-year old article in the Capital City Weekly written about him and his awesome organic farm out on Shelter Island. A part of me says, "See? Look how awesome Juneau could have been for farming!" but the rest of my brain has stayed sane and laughs, looking out at my chicken coop ready for a couple dozen birds and our orchard resetting itself for another year of producing apples and cherries; this is a good spot to be. We're starting to get to know a few neighbors, including the previous owners of our house who saw me walking down the street yesterday and invited Tim and I over this morning to pick up a couch.

Launi gave us a tour of their new house around the corner from ours and blew me away when we stepped onto the back porch to look out over the garden. "When we moved in, there wasn't even grass." she said of the flourishing gardens and beautiful landscaping. "We didn't really plan it out before we started putting in beds, but there was just exactly the right amount of room left for our greenhouse over there." They have only been in their new house for five years and they have already transformed the landscape into something both picturesque and productive. As we lifted the couch out of the garage and into our truck, we stepped around buckets of freshly pulled garlic from her gardens. Hopefully in a couple years, our yard will also be producing a bounty of wonders. It's hard to be patient and take things one at a time, but for now, my coursework has to take priority over clearing branches into the chipper pile and finishing up the compost bin, and with an exhausting puppy, there's only so much productive time in the day. In the next few days, our new blades will come for the lawn tractor for better leaf-and-grass-sucking action and I will get out there and do my own yard work while Tim manages the tractor-beast and the puppy takes a long nap. Until then, it's time to focus!

Oh my head.

How can our heads hurt so much?! How can we still be sick!? All the dust really can't be helping. But in a few more days, we should be moving into a nice, clean, sealed, painted, dust free, mold free, pollen free, dirt free, rodent free, spider free... space. The crew came today - about four guys, who got busy cleaning all the floors down there, covering the walls, and sealing the concrete. By early afternoon they were packing up and heading home. They'll come back on Thrusday and check on things. If all looks good, they'll put in the micro-topping (to make it all pretty) then, and we should be moving in to our new home soon! I hate to say it, because things tend to be delayed, but right now it looks like we will have plenty of time to spare (like a whole week!) before Grandpa arrives. Between naps for us sick ones and walks for that little dog of ours, we started replacing the furnature back into the rooms where they belong today. Yesterday, I got down on hands and knees with a sponge and scrubbed the tape residue from the edges of the floors in the bedrooms and hallways and vacuumed those spaces repeatedly. Today was some mattress moving and things like night stands, lamps, and artwork. In a couple weeks, we'll have this place looking even better than when Mom, Dad, Grandpa, and the uncles left.

In other news, we stopped by the pet store to grab a new, extra large yak cheese dog chew for our ever-growing puppy. These are great treats as they seem even harder than the smoked hoof or deer antler we have for her, they don't smell nearly as bad as the hoof, and she loves them. Unfortunately, the ones we got for her a month ago when she was but a wee thing, now are so small they get lost in her mouth and are no fun to chew. The girl at the counter heard my woes and said they key is to put the small pieces in the microwave for about 45 seconds and they puff up into something new and delicious. Skeptically, we tried this, and sure enough, something wonderful was born. Tilly threw the thing into the air and chased it about for quite a while before they had to be separated for puppy nap time and so I could eat my dinner in peace.

Speaking of puppy nap time, I think it's Ariel nap time with this terrible headache. Tim seems to have perked up from his sickliness earlier today, so his turn with the puppy for the rest of the night. I would say the chance of pictures in the next couple days is not looking great. I got some homework done, but most of our cleaning is going to wait a few more days for the floors to be finished and The Great Move-In. If I find that cord, I will remotovate myself to take pictures. There will definitely be pictures of the new floor, one way or another! Oh, I know why I don't have a cord anymore! A certain puppy chewed straight through it when we were not watching closely enough and mistakenly assumed she was being good and chewing her toys. Woops! I guess it will be a replacement then.

Tilly Tilly Tilly... oh, and the house I suppose.

I think I was extra tired last night, not that I am not also very tired tonight, but I said very little last night. A little more on yesterday; I took Tilly to Greenbank farm where we came across a collection of corgis with not-so-chatty-towards-us owners, though the heard of hounds were pretty laid back, so we superstitiously scooted closer and worked on "sit", "down", scoot, scoot, scoot, "sit", "down", scoot, scoot scoot. Tilly did shockingly well at this activity and even got to the level of subtly sniffing noses with the nearest cool and collected corgi. We then upped the game by following a pair of havanese and a standard poodle into an art gallery. I figured dogs who go to galleries must be well cared for and well mannered, with the exception of us of course. Again, Tilly seemed shocked by the other dogs and did pretty well staying manageable as we moved from gallery to gallery with the pack. This was a daring maneuver, but we started with a gallery who's owner we had visited with before and been warmly greeted by who also has a dog. His wife was their in lieu and dogless, but we were welcomed regardless. The owners of this mix of dogs and the gallery ladies were all kind and friendly, which was precisely what we hoped to find by venturing forth to the Greenbank Farm.

Later in the evening, we ran into our good friends and neighbors again with their tolerant elderly dog. Our neighbors make a point of waiving at every car that passes and picking up litter as they walk. They like Star Trek, moved here about a year ago, and have a live-in son turning 24 this week whom Tim is particularly eager to meet.

Today, our branching out into the world of dog socialization continued as we came across the 12-year-old Airedale and other-terrier-dog we hadn't seen since the first day Tilly was home. They live precisely two doors down from Nancy and Butch's new house and Tilly LOVED playing with the other Airedale, who tolerated the tyrant puppy astonishingly. Yes, for the first time in her little puppy life with us, I dropped the leash and let my little girl run in circles around another dog and its understanding owner on a deserted street at the back side of the lake. I think she was ready to explode if she didn't get to play one of these days - having to live with boring humans all the time. Soon she will have puppy class to delight in, and after that she will be finished with the shot series and a tough enough for one of the many glorious dog parks on the island.

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I know all you really want to hear about is our terribly adorable and terribly toothy puppy, but I figure I should give a little update on the rest of our life, namely Tim's pursuit of a career and the ever-constructing house project. 

On the Tim front, he got all snazzed up this morning and stopped by Nichols Bros. He met a few other electrical workers who seemed to be out on break, and talked to a lady in the office who said the are waiting on the start of a new project and it will probably be a few weeks before they start making calls for new-hires.  

It was a good plan to stop by the perspective employers early in the day as the rest of the day was filled with demolition in the shop. The painters stopped by briefly in the morning, then were kicked out as the floor-finishing crew made their appearance. A guy from eastern Washington made the long drive here with his 12-diamond floor grinder and got busy leveling out our concrete. Tim and I relocated a 16-foot workbench made of 2x12 boards to outside through a deceptively narrow doorway and smashed a set of shop shelves to get them out of the way for sanding. The guy managed to finish the whole downstairs today, so tomorrow they will be ready to start the sealing process with something we were told was used on the gaits of the Panama Canal to help hold the water back. 

I must confess, through a combination of not charging my phone last night, only taking a couple pictures and nothing too impressive, and not having the connecting cable in my obvious and immediate vicinity, I'm skipping out on pictures again today, but I did write considerably more tonight than last night, so if a picture is worth 783 words, I think we're good for tonight. 

Sick and clean

Despite our duling colds, Tim and I managed to clear out the downstairs of all doors, dust, driers, and other random "bonus items" found down in the shop. We are all ready for floors to start tomorrow and excited to see the final transformation!