Univsersal Truth

If you grow it, children will love it.  I'd first realized this truth when working summers with the YMCA.  I would bring in vegetables from my garden - zucchini, carrots, peppers, peas, and lettuce - and students would line up to demand more.  They would devour lettuce - no dressing, no toppings, just straight lettuce.  It would make me laugh every time.

And not it just happened here in Tununak.  Three ten-ish year old boys were yelling from outside my window (a common activity when the everyone in the community is essentially neighbors).  I plucked a few leaves from my kitchen table (the site of my lettuce growing hydroponics set-up) and offered each a leaf.  All three ate their lettuce - and liked it.  This from a group of students are even more averse to vegetables as children I know in the lower 48.

The power of gardening is impressive.  It seems to make food taste better.

Usually I don't like to do this, but...

It's been a while since I have created any outgoing information from Alaska.  I'm going to fall back on my standard excuse - I've been busy.  Which is true, mind you, but if I were you, I wouldn't let me get away with such a petty excuse.  So here it is, a condensed version of the past couple months.

Starting with the present day - it's Tuesday, November 23rd.  The fifteenth week of school(!).  Oh yeah, and it's been raining nonstop since last Friday.  My travel plans over the weekend were canceled as a result of the weather and the snow (what little there was) has melted.

Which brings me to the next event: the weather.  Had I written a week ago it would have been a very different story, for winter had come.  Temperatures were well below freezing.  Snow was beginning to pile up (we were receiving about a quarter inch a day - not much, but I'm not going to complain about that now), the river had frozen bringing with it the earliest ice fisherpeople, and I had been skating on the ponds around town.  Even the bay was beginning to fill with ice.  Of course, that's all gone now.

Before the snow had fallen, I did all the fishing I needed to do to get that bug out of my system.  In a previous post I told the triumphant story of my first real successful fishing trip.  The trip that followed was even greater.  I caught three, THREE!, beautiful salmon.  I finally got a taste (literally) of what fishing can be like, and I have to admit, it is fun.  It's nothing I will be devoting great amounts of time to, but it was enjoyable and fulfilling to be able to bring back food that will last well into the winter.  Robby partook in man's (not being sexist - it was literally us guys')  triumph over salmon and we spent the afternoon vacuum sealing our beautiful fillets.  Some of you may be lucky enough to try some if I can find a reasonable method to transport frozen salmon home.  Ideas in this area would be well received (and I can see to it that if your method proves successful there will be a salmon steak in it for you).

Ready for the freezer

Of course, I've also been busy with school.  Teaching is hard work.  It has it's rewards, but there are days where all I want is a, umm, nap, or something like that.  But I feel much better about this year than last.  Hopefully subsequent years continue to get easier.

I have (rather wisely) opted out of coaching basketball this year.  Okay, "opted" isn't the best word.  It implies I was asked (or assumed) to coach.  I was not.  0-14 is not a record that is sought after, even when the coaching competition is as slim as it is here in rural Alaska.  Instead I will be enjoying my afternoons off.  I might spend a day or two shooting hoops with the junior high, but the my teaching responsibilities  will stay in domains I am proficient (and interested) in.

I am, however, coaching robotics again this year (read: math + computers = my interests).  Our school's junior high participates in First Lego League - a pretty awesome set-up that combines Legos and robotic programming into a competitive team activity.  Teams build and program robots to complete a series of tasks and also create a project centered around a theme (this year: medicine).  We will be flying in to Bethel the week after Thanksgiving to compete against the other teams in out district.  Winning teams move on to Anchorage where winning teams move on to the national level.  It would be nice to get a chance at Anchorage.

Tomatoes that just might ripen

Last update - foods.  My hydroponic experiments have had mixed results.  Hydroponics is a bizarre world.  My plants live a most artificial life - sixteen hours of light created by a 400W bulb, nutrients mixed in water delivered three times daily, pH tested every few days, temperatures adjusted, humidity monitored, the electrical conductivity of the water checked...  And after all that I have tomatoes developing blossom end rot and pepper flowers that refuse to set fruit.  Leaves tend to yellow, wrinkle, and fall while others are deep green, grow voraciously, never slowing to blossom, then snap in half because plants that are only half an inch in diameter cannot reasonably grow to heights exceeding six feet.

Basil, thyme, lettuce, and cilantro

That's all very frustrating.  But on the other hand there have been the successes.  I have eaten dozens of salads from my living room.  I created the most delicious pizza with fresh basil.  Out of control (in a good way) extra basil was turned into a jelly jar full of pesto.  I've dried about a cup of cilantro.  I guess it's a worthy experiment.  I'm going to try another batch of peppers and tomatoes after Christmas.  Ask me again what I think of hydroponics in April.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving.