Caribou Skull

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Arctic Bees

Bees are always busy, but they have to be especially busy during the short summer season here in the arctic.




I have seen them visit many different kinds of flowers but today the arctic daisies seemed quite popular.




I hate hornets and wasps but these honeybees are quite harmless. They are far to preoccupied with their work to pay attention to me.




They were all over this yellow stuff too.



Speaking of busy bees, it looks like these two bees are...ummmm....getting busy.

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Holy Crap!

The anuk has hit the fan. I leave the state for a little trip, all hell breaks loose back home and I have to read about it on the series of tubes. There goes all our pork.


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Squirreltail Grass

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Cotton Grass

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Headed to PDX

Tomorrow morning I head to Portland, Oregon on a work trip and I won't be back until Saturday 8/2. I will have intermittent access to the internet so I might not be able to post while I am gone. I will be taking a bunch of photos this evening and scheduling some posts to pop up during the week so that there will be stuff to look at while I am gone. If I can't respond to comments and emails while I am gone I will get to them as soon as I can when I get back.

What's For Dinner

For dinner I made baked salmon with sour cream and dill and I'm gonna show you how to make it.



First take one whole salmon fillet and place it is a 13x9 inch pan. Use whatever salmon you can get. This happens to be a Kotzebue Sound Chum salmon. Chum is usually considered a junk salmon by many fish snobs, but that is because they have never had chum from north of 66 degrees latitude. These fish are fat and firm fleshed and quite tasty.




Here's what you will need. Sour cream, dill, an onion, lemon juice and Mrs. Dash seasoning. I forget to put the Mrs. Dash in the picture. If you live in a place where you can buy fresh lemon without going broke by all means go ahead and do so, but I use the stuff that somes in the snazzy plastic lemon shaped bottle.




You will need to chop your onions up small. 1/4 to 1/2 cup is plenty, I usually use about 1/2 cup. Accidentally burning your cutting board on a hot stove top is optional.



Sprinkle the salmon fillet with Mrs. Dash and lemon juice.




Spread on the onions and place into an oven preheated to approx 370 F degrees.




Depending on the size, thickness and fat content of your salmon fillet you will cook it from 20 to 30 minutes. If you stick a fork into it and pull a piece of fish out and it looks done, then it's done. If you don't know if fish is done you can look at it and ask yourself a simple question "Does it look like I wanna eat that?". If your answer is yes, then it is probably done.




So, after determining that the fillet is indeed "done" you will now glop entirely too much sour cream onto the fish. Spread the sour cream all over the fish, just like frosting a cake. Add as much dried dill as you like over the sour cream then put the fish back into the oven for 5 minutes.




Here is the finished product. A fine example of Alaskan cuisine. It is quite yummy especially when served with instant mashed potatoes, canned peas and sailor boy pilot crackers spread with mayo. Hey, I said it was YUMMY, not HEALTHY.

You Decide

Either the city of Kotzebue won a federal grant to apply abstract art to 3rd Ave or someone in the public works department was sipping more than Folgers on their coffee break.

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There's No Place Like Nome?

And now for something completely different....here are a few aerial shots of Nome on my way to Anchorage the other day.

You People are Crazy!

You are, you really are! Never would I have thought that my life would ever be interesting enough for people to want to read about it once, much less come back day after day....but you do! Today I hit 20,000 page loads. Yeah I know that there are some websites that get 20,000 page loads in a day but this is me we're talking about.

So in honor of my 20,000 I went back and read all 268 posts that I have made in the last 489 days. I was amazed at how long it took. I can hardly believe how much stuff there is. This was probably my 10th attempt at a journal (paper or otherwise) over the years and my 1st attempt at a blog. I think what has kept me going is all of you. knowing that people come here looking for content makes me produce.

This blog started as a way to show pictures to my friends and family far away and let them know what was going on in life. Strange this is, over time new people showed up from all over the world and I have gotten to know some very interesting people. I even have a friend that I made through this blog that is coming to visit me at the end of August (even though her daughter is not convinced that I am not an internet weirdo). If it wasn't for people coming every day to look at this place I would probably have lost interest long ago.

So now I have a little favor for those of you who have made it through this post. I want to know "Who are you?". "How did you find me?", and "Why do you come back?". Come on fess up all you lurkers and newcomers alike! I am curious about you. You all are the reason I do this. You in Denver, and you in Bloomington, and you in Finland...and Spokane, and Boston, and San Diego, and Germany, and everywhere. Please satisfy my curiosity!

Wordless (almost) Wednesday- I Got Yer Pistil Right Here

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Bird on a Wire

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Beautiful Babies

Here's something I forgot to include earlier this month. Part of the 4th of July celebration here in Kotzebue is the Beautiful Baby Contest. Here are a few of the entries....





























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Iris

FYI- I will be in Anchorage until tuesday morning so the regular blog posts will be interupted. Instead I will schedule ahead a few posts to pop up while I am gone. See you later.

The iris is my favorite flower and there are plenty of them to keep me amused this time of year. Here are a few photos.















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No ESPY for Mackey

There is no ESPY award for Mackey AGAIN this year. Scott Smiley, an Army captain blinded in Iraq who later went on to climb Mt. Ranier won the outdoor category. While there is no ESPY for Lance, there may be a Mackey movie in the future. Warner Bros and Disney have both expressed interest in his story.



(Photo by Associated Press/Al Grillo)


Read the full adn article HERE


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Photo Friday- Flight

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Summer

People ask me if the lack of light in the winter bothers me. By the time you get sick of it being dark out the days start getting longer again. So no, the dark doesn't bother me, but in summer the light will drive you mad. All you want to do is go, go, go, and there are not enough hours in the day.




I have been busy lately. Busy working. Busy boating. Busy going to camp. Busy visiting old friends. Soon I will be fishing for salmon. This is a photo of Hugo Mountain on the Noatak River.




Here are some trees along the Little Noatak River. Trees are something we don't have in Kotzebue but we have in abundance along the river.




I have been busy enjoying the outdoors and taking pictures. Mostly of flowers lately.




Theses are what we call wild onion, but I guess they are actually some kind of chive. They are quite tasty.




These are arctic daisies. They love gravely soil and grow in clumps.




More bluebells.




Ummm....I'm not sure what this yellow stuff is.




And here is the ubiquitous fireweed. This stuff should have been the Alaska state flower instead of the forget-me-not. I love fireweed but it's coming is bitter sweet. It marks the beginning of the end of summer.

Wordless (almost) Wednesday- Bug Off!

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Wolfsbane

Monkshood, also known as Wolfsbane, is a flowering plant belonging to the buttercup family. It is a tall spiked cluster of hooded flowers deep blue to purple in color and green spiky leaves.




They grow in well drained yet moist areas near my camp on the Noatak River. All part of Monkshood, especially the root, are very, very toxic.