More recently, we purchased 200 bloomin' blueberry plants from Michigan, planted them in rows atop rotting spruce logs, and failed miserably at protecting them from their first Alaskan winter (which was unusually cold and barren of snowcover), and hence also failed at cultivating our blueberry ranching dream. Temporarily, at least. I did manage to have the foresight to plant a small nursery patch of each of the various cultivars, and those are thriving, albeit needing elbow room and row-covering to truly reach their potential. I'll write more on that at a later date, as I do plan on dividing and expanding our berry patch in the near future.
Around that time, my dad also acquired two wethered dairy bucks (which was another adventure worth a few jaunts down the memory lane of goat antics), and my sister and dad dabbled around in beekeeping. They kept them for two years, and actually had enough luck to see quite a few bees through the winter. But the second summer was a year notably low in pollen availability, and they ended up providing the bees sugar water throughout most of the summer, and the quality of the honey suffered. No color or depth, but still worth harvesting. In retrospect, both my dad and sister say there was probably enough spruce pollen at least to suffice. This is another topic I'll revisit later in this blog, as I do plan on rejuvenating the hives with a spring bee order.
This property was purchased in two parcels. The lower 2-acre piece came with a two-story 2 BD, 1BA gingerbread ticky-tacked cottage house tucked back in a sitka spruce copse, a pooshky & fireweed field flopped out before it, with a protected but spacious cathedralesque view of the saltwater lagoon, that briny artery to town. There was a redwood snorkel hottub and faded shingle shopshed, a rotting log bridge across our tricklin' crick, and no direct sun in winter. Dad weed-whacked a ton that first summer, then finally bulldozed the field of native herbaceous growth. I started my inaugural garden here with a covered double-swing to enjoy it on. We shoveled labrynthine pathways through the snow and I returned from college & settled in. A couple years later, Daddy-O bought the forty-acres caddy-corner to the lower field. 40 acres of steep lowlands alder scrimmage and prickly thickets of spruce and devil's club understory. A year-round creek, and one top corner of the parcel even corralled the gorgeous gorge biting into said creek. South-western exposure. Dad had a road cut in up the mountain the same summer I put up a wall-tent over-looking Seldovia Bay.
We've made a lot of changes to this little slice of landscape, and we've gone through a lot of alterations in other aspects of life, too. A whole lot happens in 10 years. We've added on to the shopshed to accommodate goats and chickens, turned a relocated greenhouse into a new workshop, fell and milled choice swaths of spruce, expanded gardens and tinkered contentedly. My man and my son and I currently live in the original 80s era cottage and keep up with the continual maintenance. Future projects include building a milled-log house, sauna, and greenhouse out of salvaged windows. Current preoccupations include chickens, goats, rabbits, and permaculture intentions.
Here are a few shots of our place & life.
So that's the short story on the neck of these woods. What's led you to deliberate your intentions?
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