Category: Family

The potato crop was a success!

After last year’s semi-success at growing a potato crop, we made another go of it.  With a year of experience under his belt, Caleb planted a nice crop of organic robinta potatoes, running the rows in an east/west configuration. 

Potato Crop 2010

After more research, I talked him into actually letting the plants flower and die back – like they are supposed to do!  Keeping him from digging them before it was time was tricky.  He can be pretty sneaky.  So far, with about 1/3 of the crop left to harvest, we have gotten about 28 pounds of some of the most delicious potatoes I have ever tasted! 

They come in all sizes from enormous to cute, petite bites.

Several of them have been split – I guess growing too fast.  None of them have been rotten.  Yay!  They slice like butter, even with a dull knife.  And no matter how we cook them, we marvel at how good they taste. 

Olive oil, kosher salt, and thyme - then roast.

I think there is a possibility that next year we might try them outside the “greenhouse”.  

   Otherwise we will never be able to grow enough to suit our needs.

What happened to summer?

Having September open up like the summer we had been waiting for was odd, in itself.  Temperatures in the mid to upper 60’s was the best we’d had for the summer of 2010 and we were thrilled to be fishing for silver salmon in our shirt sleeves.   A bumper crop of salmonberries was the bonus for them being almost  a month late.  And we were fooled into thinking the blueberries would be just as late, but they were already ripe before the salmonberries were done.  And so were the mossberries and so were the cranberries.  And then the weather started turning, like hitting fast-forward while watching a movie.

My mamma picking berries surrounded by the changing colors of the tundra.

Now, mind you, I am not complaining about the weather!  That is against the values of the Unangax^.  I am just disconcerted with the unpredictability of our weather over the last several years.  I guess I have become complacent over the last 30 years, or so, in knowing what to expect and when to expect it.  I am all for a good storm.  I never sleep better than when the wind is blowing at least 50 miles per hour.  I just was taken unawares by the termination dust in September and the north wind sneaking into my berry patches.

Preparing grass…almost forgotten.

Just a quick note about basket weaving grass.  A longer post will be in the subsistence pages shortly.  Mom, Diane, and I are in the process of splitting the grass we picked in July.  We are looking for the inner blades to use in weaving Unangan baskets.  It is a long process from the picking to the splitting; and the splitting is pretty slimy and dirty!!  Just one more thing to do to keep us honest and out of trouble!! 

Gert and Diane getting ready to split the weavers out of the grass stalks.