FIRST Snow 2022

 I was driving with Allie and we noted a few flakes between here and town. Stacia was a bit bummed everyone was checking in from Eagle River with reports of snow and we didn't have any. I told her it was coming. Sure enough...First snow - Oct 10th!

It just a dusting and it should be gone by tomorrow morning....but it's snow. 

Look how big our two little evergreens are getting. 

More significant than the snow is that this is the first good frost....and it's sure to continue. 

The Leaves are Gone

 The colors this year have been great! FALL is beautiful.  However, for the past two days the wind has been blowing hard and steady. We can see snow coming down the mountain...it's now at tree line. 

This little ridge we see from our windows is always the last to get any snow...and it has snow down the face of the side now. 

The leaves have all blown away. In the past years we've noted a big wind storm which blows away the leaves and the first snow a day or two afterwards. This seems EARLY...but it does seem to be following the pattern. The leaves are all gone.  We predict the first snow/frost in the upcoming week. We are hoping it comes and leaves for a few weeks yet. This is fall in Alaska. 

The Saga of our Stove

 Stacia and I had two weeks of Bible study to do this Friday morning. We are currently talking through the story of Joseph. I'm always amazed at the insights each time through this story. I'm not sure one could ever mine all the truths in the story. 

We had to run some errands, pick up meds and when we came home THIS was the state of the kitchen. 

We have been without an oven for a year. We spent months going back and forth with our appliance repairman trying various parts to fix it. Nothing worked. That ended with us having a stove top - but no digital igniter etc....so for the past 6 months we've lit the stovetop with a lighter and used the oven downstairs.  Besides being inconvenient that oven is not dependable...and it sets off the smoke detectors.  

The repairman finally told us there really was nothing any of us could do because we bought a Kenmore brand, but it was made by some other company - whirlpool, maybe.  Kenmore's repair department went out of business during COVID. Whirlpool won't give the info to those who call in for parts numbers for the off shoots of their brand....and so...we are guessing at parts. 

We like to shop local. In March we went to a local store. We ordered a new stove/oven. We paid to have it delivered and installed. We were told it would take 6 -8 weeks. The general impression is it would be 6 weeks. We never heard. Michael contacted the salesman in July. "Not our fault, the manufacturer....it will be here by the end of July." 

It wasn't here. We didn't get a call. We called again in August.  It will be here in 4 weeks - the manufacturer you know. 

We got an email...it should be here in September. "Do you want to pay for it to be delivered?" 

Michael explained delivery was already paid. The invoice SAID they would deliver it and showed the tow away and recycle fee.  BUT it didn't specifically show a delivery fee of $80 and so he insisted we had to pay that fee - again.  Michael told him we had paid it, the invoice mentions delievery....not budging. Something they told us would arrive in 6 - 8 weeks was now at 6 months, still wasn't in Alaska...and they want to quibble over their invoice. Things got heated. 

Michael went down in person the day after a heated conversation. He apologized for it getting heated and said, "I'm just going to give you one more chance to make this right." The man said no. For $80 they lost a $4000+ sale.  The stove was still not in the state, they wouldn't guarantee when it WOULD ship from the lower 48. They were lousy at customer service. We cancelled. 

Michael called Best Buy. He bought a new stove/oven fancier than I imagined, $1000 less, and they GUARANTEED they would deliver it on Oct. 7th. Michael asked, "How firm is that delivery date?" "Totally guaranteed delivery." O.K. We went with the big box over the local shop. Obviously, the supply isn't the problem, the bigger store ships more and it shipped sooner. We would have worked with the local if they'd simply been honest about the delay, kept us in the loop, and not called us liars about the fee/invoice. 

Michael wrote a letter and sent it to the manager of the store in Wasilla, and the better business bureau in Anchorage and Wasilla. He shared the whole thing, showed copies of the invoice and how we desired to shop local but will not be giving any business to this local business in the future. This is sad as it is the only one of its kind in the valley and I don't want to drive to Anchorage to shop - but I will. 

The store manager contacted Michael immediately. She APOLOGIZED. She said he was RIGHT; their invoice DID make it look like it was to be delivered...she said there was no way to make it up to us as we had ordered a new stove already. Quite honestly, they could have made a good faith offer of say "10% off your next purchase under $200"...but anyway...customer service is not king at this retail outlet. 

AND we had a new stove/oven delivered....Michael studied it....

It was not a perfect fit. The sizes were just a bit different than the other one...I heard things like 1/32nd of an inch. I left with saws and sanders in my kitchen. 

I came home and found things still in disarray and a mallet was now out too. It appears the size thing has been dealt with, but the gas line is in a different spot on the new stove. It's a different design from the last one.  Our son in law, Luke, is going to take a look at it on Monday and see what he thinks.  He is a plumber/ HVac guy. He knows what he's doing. 

Saturday Michael got the display on! Look at it. The burners light without a match. It even promises to give me a Sabbath. I have no clue how the wifi and such work or WHY it is giving me wifi/bluetooth/sabbath options.... More? Maybe it will mop the floors?  I have a bit of reading to do. 

Michael moved it back until it bumps against the gas fitting...so this is now the look of my kitchen this Sunday morning. 

I am thankful to have the stove. I can see the benefits of two ovens - I can also see potential challenges...but I am THRILLED with this thing. AND it has SIX burners!!!!

It's going to be SO much easier to entertain going forward - well - once it's slid back into place. Next up - the kitchen sink and counters. 

A Fun Gathering

We were promised a picture to take home which we would love. 

About every 6 -8 weeks our local women's ministry - Gather - gathers for a fun event. Jennifer does a great job planning these. We were all surprised when we had 33 RSVP's for this evening. Wow. 

 Our teacher taught art for 30 years. She was wonderful. She made several comments about our group being the most talkative group she's taught. Um.  Jackie showed us the process step by step....and our paint brush was little 1 in pieces of cardboard. It's amazing how well some of them turned out. 

Personally, I was happy to have daughters in the mix and having fun. Our events are for youth ladies and above....we were happy to have several mother/daughter teams enjoying the outing together. 

Stacia and Allie 

Bre and Stacy (not a daughter but loved)

Lindsey, Sydney and Harper volunteered to help us with kids. This allowed Yadira and Bre an outing with grown girls. 

It was a great evening to gather at MAG.  

About that promise? Most were happy. I was told my style is abstract. I can live with that. Call me Lady Picasso. 

A Beautiful Day

Michael's progress on our fall list came to a screeching halt. He has strep. I knew he didn't feel well so Allie and I waited so I could get GG up, get him through the morning routine and settled with breakfast, coffee and a paper. Stacia stayed with him while we headed out. I had a pretty clear day after breakfast study with Allie.  I took care of some ministry paperwork and tackled the second of our inside freezers. The chickens were happy with my efforts. Much more freezer in this freezer than the others.  

GG took a nap at the same time that Stacia finished school. She and I went outside to see how much we could get done.  It was 64* at our place! Beautiful!  I want to get the garden beds covered and so we harvested the last crop in the beds - the carrots! Harvesting root crops is always like digging for treasure. One never knows what they will unearth. 

What manner of craziness be this? 

The rain has not been good for much of the garden - but this is my best carrot year. We haven't bought carrots in months, and we've been EATING from the garden.  In year's past most my carrots have been in the "baby" category. 

Due to the moose's repeated visits, we found we needed to sort of sift the dirt. We found lots of carrots under the ground with no tops left. 

Here is a Scarlet Nantes cop 

...And the Kuroda carrot crop. 

I have some Kuroda seed left and will probably plant mostly Kuroda next year. The Nantes is supposed to mature a bit faster. The Kuroda were bigger, oranger and sweeter. 

The girls like all variety of tops - they aren't picky. A few carrots had gotten GINORMOUS and split open - we gave those to Dash the rabbit. 

Nolan came home from work and suggested a "sibling outing"....Stacia went in to clean up so they could head to town. I continued to putter in the garden. I heard a noise in the woods. That is fairly common and didn't alarm me. 

Then, I remembered, the grizzly was spotted nearby. 

I looked up and saw brown. 

My adrenaline kicked in. I held my ground and looked again - ah - a moose's rump.  I made noises thinking he'd saunter off - he wasn't interested in leaving the area. 

I was by the blue tub. This is the closest I've been to a bull. He was plump. I realized I'd better vacate the area. 

Oh, yeah, he's coming into the garden. I backed off, got the wire hooked back up, went to the house and plugged the fence in and then came back to take pictures. 

About the time I took this one I realized the wire wouldn't stop him. He could get shocked and keep coming and he'd be mad. I left the carrots in the garden and came inside. I had alarmed the kids. 

Michael removed the plastic from the hoop house yesterday. Stacia and I cleared beds and covered them with plastic throughout the garden. 

I also pulled the sunflowers. I threw them into the woods. I'd love some volunteer sunflowers next year. When I pulled the sunflowers, I could see the Dahlia's under them. It's time for me to research how to winter the bulbs. 

The kids got back. 

GG was stirring. 

It was time for me to go pick up Arielle and move on to the day's next adventure. The Bella sale. Arielle had early-bird tickets. Krista and Larissa drove out and we met at the sale at 4:30. One thing led to another, and I got home at 8:21 p.m. No, we didn't shop ALL that time...but we did shop 3/4 of that time. LOL  It was nice knowing the 4 gherkins would take care of GG and Michael while I escaped with these gherkins. 

Larissa looks pregnant now - such a cute little baby bump. She was able to find many of the things on her wish list at 50-80% off. Yay, thrifting.  Arielle found Christmas gifts from her wish list at 80% off, clothes for the boys, a new wardrobe the next size up for Benny and a new bike for Benny. This is where she does most her shopping. I bought a few Christmas surprises and some clothes for baby Noah. So actually, I had a large garbage bag full of things. Arielle had 2 bags and a bike. This is Larissa's haul. So exciting...it all becomes real when you begin to buy the baby things! 

We zipped out for dinner before we parted ways. I couldn't resist. Krista has been traveling a lot with work (Guam and Hawaii last month). She'll be traveling the next two weeks, then she and Luke are going on a vacation. Larissa is about to go down to Texas for a month. It was our chance to connect with them before they travel. 

It turned out to be a full day for a day with very little on the calendar. 

Playing with the Grands

It makes my heart happy to be greeted by two nearly two-year-old boys and a nearly five-year-old boy each Tuesday morning. Such exuberance! The boys are on the tail end of their colds, as am I. Arielle determined we could play this week. I'm not sure when she took this photo, but I'm glad she did. 

📷by Arielle

 She went off to her meeting and the boys and I read, had snacks, built towers of blocks, had snacks, picked up toys, had snacks... Little Buddy is much more interested in knocking towers over than he is in building towers. Benny has learned to protect his towers. 

BreZaak's crew are learning about Vikings. This week they wove some bookmarks using a Viking pattern. 

📷by Bre

I believe Bella photo bombed Gideon.

📷by Bre

Working our Fall List

We have had several back-to-back days with no rain - it's a horrible time to be so sick and stuck inside. 

I heard Michael outside...a bit of investigating revealed he was playing with the chickens. OK! He was cleaning out the chicken coop. This is on our list of things to do before it snows. These girls are giving us 18 - 20 eggs a day! It is wonderful to have a good supply again - but it's a bit overwhelming as well. LOL

These girls were more concerned about their dust bath than the noises from inside the coop. 

As long as she knows where the food is, this one will be happy. 

While Michael did the hard work in the coop, I defrosted our stand-up freezer. I've been trying to eat down the food to make room to put our veggie harvest and stocking up on meat.  I am making no progress. No matter how much we eat the freezer keeps refilling as fast as I clear it. It was perplexing. I gave a mini-lecture to Michael about he and I need to change our mindset - possibly buying to many loaves of bread or what not when they are on sale. I unpacked the stuffed freezer....my WORD. I found 12 1/2 gallons of ice cream, another gal of ice cream and a box of keto bars. ::Snort:: Someone hit a sale and tucked them into the freezer. This cooler of ice cream takes up a shelf in the freezer...so at least I feel a BIT better about making progress in clearing the freezer.

We eat ice cream one night a week - we'll be eating a long time to get through all this. 

I helped scatter shavings and this gal was NOT happy when I tried to move her out so I could clean under her. 

Ah, a nice clean coop - the water heater is in place. Michael also spent time redoing the insulation on the doors. 

We were able to check two projects off our list today...chicken coop cleaned and winterized, and the last big freezer defrosted. We'll see if we are done before the snow flies.