Preparing for winter; Short Summers in Alaska create an amazing race
Here in interior Alaska our summers are short, Autumn happens in a blink of an eye, Break up(or what lower 48’ers call Spring) takes about a month and winter takes over for about six months of the year. This means when the snow has melted fully the race begins to get as much done before the next onset of winter. It always seems like a race. Sometimes we win. Sometimes winter does.
Was it Covid19 or something else?
I keep asking others in our area “is it just me or did this summer fly by?” In a blink of an eye, it went from spring, to mid summer and then voila, it’s Autumn. I don’t know if it is just due to the typical short summers of Interior Alaska or if it was because of Covid? The weather was super odd this summer? Unrest throughout the nation? Combination of all of it? I cannot put my finger on it. We did manage to have some successes and then, as usual, some failures. When you are raising animals, growing a large garden, developing an orchard, raising honeybees, collecting firewood, and you still have some building projects to complete you tend to have a bit of both success and failure. I’ve learned over time the best thing to do is celebrate the successes and learn from the failures.
Some landscaping projects complete
This year I started with the goal of cleaning up the front yard. After recently planting some apple trees that are cold resilient I noticed that the previous owner had landscape fabric all over the mounds in our front yard. I decided I would clean this area up which ended up being much more work than I expected. The area was overgrown with moss, weeds and grass. Any day that was not raining, which seemed to be a rare occurrence this summer, I would go out there and work on it.
We trimmed it up by end of July. All plants were planted and we purchased 15 bags of mulch to place around the landscaped area. All in all, I think it turned out nice. The birch and spruce trees heavily shade this area which makes it challenging to pick out plants that will do well. All plants in this area need to be shade tolerant so with that in mind I grabbed a mix of ferns, flowering shrubs, Columbine flowers, and even a rhubarb. Some of these do like a lot of sun, but they still do reasonably well with shade.
Next mission. Refinish the back deck.
This project we knew would be a monster to complete. Add in all the non stop rain and it seemed like it would potentially be the project that never ended. We have a very large wooden back deck and for the past couple of years has needed some TLC. This year we decided to take on the task of replacing some of the wood that had rotted, sand down the rest and then repaint it with textured paint. This would protect for the future years and also make it less slippery during rain. We purchased two large five gallon containers of Cabot DeckCorrect Tintable Resurfacing paint.
We started middle of July when we noticed we had a couple of days of sunlight with the upper deck. This smaller area allowed us to get into our groove and it gave us all a morale boost to see it completed so quickly as it took us about two full days to finish it. Next however was the larger area which would also need sanding, boards that were rotted needed to be removed, clean off the entire surface with the leaf blower and then finally paint.
Break the job up into smaller portions
We set up the deck in quadrants to make it easier to deal with. This way it did not seem as if it was such a daunting task. I can promise you. When you are sitting on the deck, covered in moldy wood dust, looking at all the work ahead and your arms and back are incredibly sore, it is helpful to break the job down into small parts. It kept us all going knowing that “okay finish this part, then take a break”.
Every day during July and into August we would watch the weather. If there was the chance at all to be sunny we would quickly break out the sanding and painting supplies. One sunny day in middle August we were painting as fast as we could while making jokes with one another. Work was going well when a large, dark cloud began approaching over the trees. I remarked on it, however we kept painting. Within 15 minutes we found ourselves having to race to get the paint cans, brushes and ourselves out of the rain. We watched from inside the house as the rain washed off all the green paint from the banisters that we had just painted. It is incredibly frustrating to watch your work washed away by the rain.
By middle of August this project was done. Perfect timing considering we still had work to do on other projects! Finishing this project allowed us to then move on to and complete another project! A shed for our bikes!
Wet bicycle seats are not enjoyable
I have been home this summer so my son has been asking to go bike riding around the neighborhood. Now don’t get me wrong, I love riding my bike. I do not however, like sitting on a wet bicycle seat. Since all our bikes were always outside of our house in the rain; they are almost never dry. I came up with the idea early summer to use some of the lumber that would be salvageable. Since we already had the woodshed built we could attach this shed to it using only a modest amount of supplies.
We began working on this project the first weekend of Labor day by laying out the wood we would need. We then built a very basic frame and it started to take shape. Of course this was a pretty basic structure with the only need being to keep items out of the rain and snow.
By Labor Day weekend we had this project done! Just in time too, because late Monday night the winds were picking up and rain was in the forecast!
Turkeys and Meat chickens experiment complete!
Of course, we also started this past spring with two rather unexpected experiments. Turkeys and meat birds. This was rewarding in several ways. First we learned that it is not as hard as we thought it would be. Second, we filled our freezer with meat we grew ourselves, thereby allowing ourselves to be even more self sustainable. Last, we have now determined that next year we will 100% be raising chickens for meat. We are not as certain about turkeys. This, in my book, was a huge bunch of successes. Since it only takes 6-7 weeks to get to grow weight this works well for our short summers here in Interior Alaska! Watch out because ducks might be next! mmmm duck confit anyone?
Egg layers?
As of this past weekend, all of our girls are now able to lay eggs! Very exciting! This means we get about 5-8 fresh eggs daily. What we do not eat we sell to a friend. Each week she gets a delivery of farm fresh eggs that are about 2-5 days old. Nice! I did not grow up even remotely close to chickens so the ability now to be able to just walk outside and go grab ingredients for breakfast constantly amazes me. Over the years, I have seen some say it’s addictive to be able to grow and eat your own food. I agree with this sentiment wholeheartedly!
We have managed to figure out (we think) what was killing our ladies. We believe we had mites attacking. This was then paving the way for our ladies to succumb to illness which, in our extreme climate, would ultimately kill them. Thanks to a friend at a local farm who pointed this out so I was able to secure some Elector PSP Premise Spray. This stuff is not cheap however it has eliminated our issue with our ladies dying one at a time in a slow downward spiral. I ordered my spray on Amazon however I do see it is no longer there. I have provided the link to another vet company that sells it.
Animal attacks on the homestead
All was well and good this summer with our hens until a hungry fox arrived in the area. Unfortunately, on the 4th of July, the girls were out in the yard for a bit of recess when Reba, our very docile and shy Polish Hen, was grabbed by the fox. We never did find her so we know that the fox made off with a tasty meal for its family. RIP little Reba. You were a cute girl.
Since then the girls have not had the recess they love because we have witnessed the fox many times out in the yard, always trying to find ways to get into their fenced in area. This is all the more sad since our short summers in Alaska make it where they stay cooped up in their run once the snow flies.
What about the garden?
This year, at the onset of Covid19 hitting the US my husband and I purchased a large tent which would ultimately be used as a greenhouse. This would be used to help us counter the short summers in Alaska. We have previously had some luck with tomatoes and peppers but we really wanted to see if we could up the production.
Unfortunately this year would not be the year for it. It has been incredibly overcast and rainy for a good portion of the summer. This made our short summers in Alaska even shorter since the plants were just not getting enough light. Many of our plants are showing signs, even today, that they are getting many of the nutrients they need but they are not getting the sunlight they need. In order to rectify this situation we will be cutting down some trees so we can allow the much needed light into the garden. This will happen most likely within the next year.
Rainy weather not helping our already short Alaska summers
Due to the pretty nasty, wet weather we’ve been having even our fruit bearing trees have taken a hit. It has allowed some of the trees to develop more foliage but almost all the fruit trees have shown signs that they are screaming “ENOUGH”. The rain has thoroughly saturated the ground so when you walk around the property everything is squishy and soggy. The rose hips barely seemed to develop, the raspberries had only small amounts at any given time and the chokecherries have developed but in drastically smaller numbers. The only plant that seemed to thrive in all the moisture was the high bush cranberries. Due to that I have been picking some here and there to be made into jelly that we can have with our homegrown turkeys during the holidays.
Our garlic that we just harvested last week developed only small heads. Once again, thanks the low lighting and so much moisture. Still I’m grateful we got garlic and we got garlic scapes. The scapes I harvested in late July which is definitely later than we normally harvest so it seems as if everything is behind this year or is just not producing as much. Shortly I will be planting more. You can see how I normally would plant garlic in this article.
Small harvests. We need more light and less rain.
As of today we have managed to harvest about 30 pounds of produce and that is a mix of zucchini, squash, snow peas, garlic, potatoes, lettuce, cauliflower, broccoli, and green beans. As for tomatoes? Not a one. We have huge plants but nothing to show for it. Typically we get tomatoes off our deck but even those failed to produce any. The wet, dreary cold summer slowed everything and failed to produce the heat that the tomatoes love.
With all that, we did have one notable success in the garden. Early this spring we planted asparagus in a separate part of the yard. About a month and a half later 20 of the 25 crowns we had planted had come up. I’m truly hoping they have stored enough energy to come back next year. This area worries me because, once again, it gets very little light there but we are running out of areas to plant! I’m hoping once we remove more trees this will alleviate that issue. Now to see if the asparagus comes back next break up. I will consider that to be a great success! We planted Jersey Knight asparagus which supposedly do well in our short summers in Interior Alaska.
Rainy days not helping after our short summer in Interior Alaska
As of today, September 9, it’s rainy, dreary and we’re expecting a high of 49 degrees. After the already short summers in Alaska that we already expect I have to admit I look out the window of my office with some disgust. I have firewood to collect, split and stack. There are herbs to collect and dry. I have one last building project to complete with my husband. It is more of a repair project than a building project. I have fish to save from our pond before it freezes. Soon we will be taking down the greenhouse that we had such high hopes for.
The only positive that comes to mind is I have locally picked apples from Clair’s Cultivations that I have to turn into apple sauce and apple butter. This will fill the house with wonderful apple cinnamon smells that do seem to go well with our dismal weather today. Just the thought of it fills me with the desire to make a cup of hot apple cider to warm my hands and insides.
Soon the snow will fly and I guess at that point we get to decide. Did we win or did winter?
