Take my hand and let’s take a walk through some happenings in the world as I know it today. Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of a Homestead life.

A family member is in construction mode building a cordwood log cabin made with homemade mortar. Ingredients you may ask? Sawdust from cutting down your own trees, sand, and lime. Lime which came from oyster shells, the oyster shells (calcium carbonate) are heated over a fire to a brittle point using coal from the beach, the shells now become calcium oxide. Then crushed by mashing with the end of a stick. To finish it off, the last step is to pour water on the crushed shells, whose molecules then decide to get a little litigious and create intense chemical reactions and heats the water to a boiling point as they mixture turns into a hydrated lime that is used to make the mortar. Shells = cement type mortar… who knew. Homestead chemistry at its finest. (warning longer video: at 50 seconds in the boiling really starts,

Who knew cleaning peonies, to sell to the public was such a detailed task. To help save water, and get it done, 6 hours of hand cleaning each peony with a cotton swab and dabs of water. What were we cleaning….. fly and bird poo.

Stinging Nettles: Uncomfortable is a nice term to use if anyone’s had the pleasure of experience nettles. I’ve learned that if you boil or steam the plant, the stinging capability is neutralized. Then it’s like spinach, rich in nutrients. Cook or add into sourdough bread for a hearty hunk of sustenance.

Grizzly Adams did have a beard.

Kachemak Bay: Kachemak means large cliff above water and that stands true. Mile after mile of beach and cliff. It also has the second highest tide in the world. Approximately +/- 20 feet each day. If you fancy a journey up or down the beach, you must pay attention to the tide, lest you get stranded at a point until the tide goes out.

Homer beaches are combers paradise. Coal, shells, petrified wood, drift wood and whatever else the tide was hungry enough to collect that day, or perhaps an artifact the glaciers ejected from 10,000 years ago. Driftwood is interesting to me because rare does nature provide 90 degree angels. But I found a few and made a coat rack!

Stacking hay bales: Who knew such a process could be fun, but a crew of family and friends (and considering ‘working’ hours are whenever it’s daylight), this stacking session filled the air with good company, chatter and laughter that lasted until 10pm. Item of note, gravity is your friend if you have hay bales and a hill.

Comfrey: A perennial herb with a pinkish/purple flower (forgive my lack of the pink color languages). A medical plant that has been used to heal wounds and some believe to knit broken bones, hence a nickname of Knitbone. To apply, why make a poultice. What the heck is that? Crushed up plant with some water to a point where it feels like a wet paper napkin that you crumble in your hand, a pulp of plant material.

Nature’s Bounty. Alaska + high tunnel + water + a hell of a good gardener provides this!

The views, the endless views.

Visitors of all walks of life. I give tours of the Homestead, I get tell a story to strangers, yet these two lovelies wanted pictures of the tour guide. I guess that's me..... She's a Cuban, living in Vegas and working in Alaska for the summer. He an Ontarian, far northern Ontario and we talked aboooooot fishing but I'm sooooory I didn't catch his name.

Caretakers ‘work’ if you call power tools and beautiful days’ work or just a good day.

Oh, least I forget, some of the furry or feather friendly locals.

More to come on Homestead Happenings.