Finally A Bit of an Update

A Sketch I did of Lisa From a Picture Taken When She Was 2

Sorry again for the long period between posts. We ordered a new inverter and when it came it was defective and wouldn’t even come on so we have had very limited power supply therefore limited time on-line. Therefore I decided to start typing this post in MS Word so that I can latter cut and paste into the blog and hopefully add some pictures. For those who don’t know an inverter takes the power stored in the battery and allows you to use it for household aplications.


So lets see since last I posted:

Garden project: My garden project has been a successful failure lol. Most things sprouted and took off much better than I expected which is a good thing showing that my seads are still viable. The bad thing is that I didn’t plan well enough for such rapid growth and most died from being root bound before I could transplant them into larger contrainers. Not everything died however I do still have some little tomatoe plants doing very well. I found a resource that gives an idea of when and how to start certain plants. It didn’t have everything I want listed so some I am still experamenting with. The ones on the list I will follow as best I can. For those planning a garden here in interior Alaska I will show you the time line that I found.

March 26th – Seed start cucumbers and tomotoes intended for a greenhouse.

April 2nd – Seed start Pansies, petunias, and peppers

April 9th – Seed start dahlias, cosmos, calendula, and most herbs

April 16th – Seed start marigolds, head lettuce, and corn

April 23rd – Seed start cabbage, cauliflower, kale, and broccoli – Order AK certified seed potatoes

May 1st – Seed Start leaf lettuce, swiss chard, squash, sunflowers, sweet allysum, zucchini, and zinnia

May 7th – Put up greenhouse or a hoophouse.

May 14th – Rototill and mix in fertilizer to your garden as soon as snow melts and soil dries.

June 1st – Plant carrots, potatoes, radishes, spinish, turnips, peas, poppies, bachelor buttons, and nasturtiums directly in your garden.

June 4th – transplant your plants outdoors starting with your cool season vegetables first.

June 10th – transplant your warm season plants outside

July 10th – Add additional fertillizer if needed

August 1st – Harvest time. Time to start preservation.



There are a lot of materials available from the UAF COOP Extension that I would love to get at some point on gardening, preservation , wild harvest etc…. Go to http://www.uaf.edu/ces



I now have all my seeds sorted by month and will try to follow this time line and keep experamenting with the plants not listed on the timeline.



Music Lessons:



The school had some teachers come in to teach the students guitar and violin. Lisa had so much fun and got to check out a guitar to bring home and continue learning on. They had a performance were all the kids got to play and sing and then they did some square dancing. It was so much fun to watch and the kids had a blast. Lisa looked like a professional and had everyone talking about her proffesional pose. The guitar teacher was from the proffessional group Barefoot and the Violin teacher was from a Native group. If I can figure out how to do it at some point I’ll post the video.

Valentines Day:

Nothing too special I wrapped up a few pieces of left over Christmas candy into some paper with hearts on it and gave it to the kids they were thrilled. Ken gave me a new coffee cup with hearts on it just before he headed out early to go and drive the bus. Lisa made some valentine heart cards out of construction paper to take into her class the following Wednesday.



The Kids Birthdays:



The kids birthdays were a real simple affair this year. The Wednesday before we took Lisa in to school and brought cupcakes for the whole school and goodie bags for Lisa’s class, Lisa also passed out her Valentines. There are 12 kids in the entire school PreK-12 and three kids in the preschool class. All three kids in the preschool class turned 4 in February. On the boys birthday that Friday Ken was gone on the bus so we didn’t really do anything accept sing to them and talk to them a little about when they were babies. I still can’t believe they are already 2. All the kids started to show signes that they were getting sick. Saturday we had our friends/neighbors over and had hotdogs (a real treat for the kids) and cake and Icecream (a real treat for all of us ;). Then they opened their few gifts that mommy wrapped up in last months Bush Shopper mailing. They were happy with it, they got some new Veggie Tales videos, puzzles and toys. We gave our friends the gift of the Crud sickness that the kids had. On Sunday for Lisa’s birthday again not much we just sang talked about when she was little and had some leftover cake after dinner. This turned out to be a pretty wicked little bug that we all picked up running the boys up to 103 fevers. It hit me later and I am still fighting it and the caugh seems to be hanging on for Ken and the kids.

The Pancho was her Birthday Preasent From Mommy She Wanted One Like Mine So I Made her One.

What better gifts for boys than Hamers, Monster Trucks and Blocks of Wood.

As requested by Lisa a Dino Cake

Serum Run:



On Thursday 2/24 we went into Manley to check mail and run errands. At the post office we ran into some mushers taking part in the serum run from Nenana to Nome. They were passing through and decided to stay an extra night to give way to the Iron Dog snow machine race that would be coming through in the opposite direction. They said that the school kids were going to be going over to meet the dog teams so we headed over to the school. The mushers were all staying at the school. We walked with the other kids over to the staging area for the dog teams. They got to meet some of the dogs and the mushers and got to ask questions and learn some about the health of the dogs and the run. Lisa and Oak enjoyed petting the dogs Wyatt who is not into animals didn’t want anything to do with the dogs and had to be held the entire time. It was fun for all of us and a neat learning experience. It’s been so fun to learn about the different culture of this area. Things that are so everyday here but fascinating to new commers like us. There are so many things that are unique to Alaska and so many things unique to interior Alaska and to the Manley Hot Springs area in and of itself.

There have been a lot of goings on here behind the scenes that I will just have to tease you with since I can not go into anything in detail at this time, but I think we are in for many big changes over the next few months . I will try to post on these BIG changes as soon as they can become common knowledge and are set more in stone.

Blessings to all our friends, family and readers :)

Yes this is me bundled for outdoor play. I almost match my car lol..

Sarah Sue