Alaska, Day 2

Day 2: Still flying!

So after four flights to get us from Medford, OR, to King Salmon, AK, we got to sleep one night in King Salmon before taking a float plane to Brooks Camp to see the bears. Darcy got to be co-pilot and had a blast! Rain, which would follow us for most of our trip, didn't stop us from seeing the tundra on the flight. These float planes saw service in World War II, so they don't fly high or fast.

NaBloPoMo

Ah, November. The air gets cooler (and wetter, here). The days get shorter. And National Blog Posting Month once again rears its head. I had only the vaguest thought about doing this because, um, I'm starting a new job on Friday. "But," I thought to myself, "we DID just go to Alaska. If I posted a photo a day with a brief description, it wouldn't be THAT much work."

And then a friend asked me on Facebook and reminded me that I got her involved last year. 

So here I am. And here you are. Let's just do it, shall we?

Picture #1: One very happy Alaskan-born chicklet very, very early in the morning, waiting to board the first of four flights to get us from Medford, OR, to King Salmon, AK, on the first day of our Alaska adventure. As you can see, she is sporting an Alaska shirt for the journey.

Happy Birthday, Darcy Jo!

In honor of the end of Darcy's eighth trip around the sun, here are some pictures of Darcy for you to enjoy. Vaguely chronological, but fairly otherwise fairly random.

Ok. Now the computer made me do non-chronological, so you'll have to deal with it. Sorry. I've apparently broken it because it's being weird about letting me add even more photos of Darcy's first eight years. You might have to be satisfied with her first 3.5 years for tonight.

Hmmmm...What Was I Doing Eight Years Ago?

For those in the know, the answer might come quickly. At about this time eight years ago, I was being moved from the birthing center at our midwives' office to the hospital because our girl was being stubborn about coming into this world.

Can't blame her -- it was twenty or thirty below zero! Who would want to leave a private heated swimming pool for that kind of weather?

Darcy Jo is turning EIGHT tomorrow! Our girl is getting so big! Stay tuned for some pictures through the years.

Cranberry Curd -- Thinking Outside The Can!

I'm thinking outside the can with all my cranberries!

It's so fun to have lots of cranberries to play with. I'm going to do something savory with them tonight for dinner -- still in experimental stages -- but I also juiced a few cups this morning so I could try my hand at cranberry curd:

It's hard to tell in this picture, but the color is red, but not as vibrant as the berries or the juice because the color of the egg yolks is tempering it a bit. It is delicious and smooth as silk, though. Curd is supposed to freeze well, so one jar will be going in the freezer for Christmas, just because it's the right color. 

Addition: I got chastised for not including the recipe. I used this lemon curd recipe as the model, but switched the lemon juice for freshly-squeezed cranberry juice. I also added a pinch of salt because I thought I needed to add some pop to make up for the lack of zest.

Cranberries In Photos

I am a little sore and a little sunburned, but I'm ok with that because the cause was a glorious afternoon of cranberry picking! As I mentioned yesterday, the two Oregon counties to our north grow many delicious cranberries. We got to go pick the edge of a bog that is waiting its turn for a flood and harvest.

On our way to "our" bog, we got to see the tail end of the harvest of a flooded field. Such amazing colors!

It's hard to tell size from this picture, but the berries are HUGE compared to the tundra cranberries I picked in Alaska. But you CAN see how plentiful they are.

Picking into a white, slightly translucent bucket on a sunny day leads to the illusion that these are free cranberries, all huddled in a circle. They're not! This was my half-full bucket.

Our food crew, showing off our harvest. All told, the three of us picked about 29 pounds of cranberries in just over an hour.

I wasted no time. An hour after I got home with the berries, there was a cranberry crisp bubbling away in the stove, another assembled and frozen, and some sliced berries simmering in balsamic and sugar to go into a roasted beet salad.

Now I just need to finish cleaning and drying the rest and I can go to bed!

Cranberries!

Really, I should wait until tomorrow to post about this because I'll probably have pictures, but I'm excited, so I can't wait.

I didn't know this until we moved here, but the two Oregon coastal counties to our north produce about 5% of the national cranberry harvest. Because the growing season here is so long, the berries get to stay on the bush longer than in other cranberry-producing regions, so they get bigger and redder and sweeter.

And I get to pick some tomorrow!

A friend/colleague leads cranberry gleanings in bogs near Port Orford. Gleaners get to keep half (I think) of what they pick, with the other half going to support the Port Orford Co-op. I'm hoping my fingers remember their cranberry-picking lessons from Alaska so I can come home with lots of berries to play with.