more pictures from the big city.

Sadie also got to have a short visit with her other great grandma, Louise.  She was a little shy at first, but warmed up after a while.  How lucky is this girl to have so many great grandparents around?

Another fun visit... Sadie's cousins Dimitri (10 months) and Casey (almost 1!) 2010 was apparently the year of the baby in the Prosser fam.  Not attending this play date was the other almost-1-year-old cousin Denis, but he has a good excuse since he lives in Norway.

бабушка

This weekend our fam took a trip to the big city.  Dad got to go catch fish, mom got to go to the dentist, and for some fun shopping excursions with Sadie's grandma Caroline, and Sadie Mai got to hang out at бабка Sophie's house.  Sophie is Sadie's great grandma, and she is pretty great.  Sadie thinks so too. 

Like usual, Sophie cooked up a storm, and everything was delish.  Sadie not only enjoyed eating all of her own food, but also all of Sophie's.  She did offer to share, at least.

 These two are kindred spirits.  Adventurous, joyful about life and not afraid to be a little silly.  Think 88 is too old to play anymore?  You need to meet this бабушка. 

And play they did.  Sophie's house is full of all kinds of pretties and treasures from near and afar.  I think Sadie was quite taken with it, especially this family of wooden elephants. 

But to be certain, the greatest treasure in the whole house is Great Grandma Sophie.

When life hands you cantaloupe...

...Make Summer Melon and Radish Salsa

The poor cantaloupe is a hard sell these days, what with all the bad press its getting.  Can I just say that I have never been a fan of cantaloupe to begin with...listeria or no.  I think I have been regionally misplaced as far as cantaloupe consumption goes.  Everyone I know likes to eat their cantaloupe in fruit salad.  Bleh... I might have done better liking this melon if I grew up where it was eaten with salt and pepper, or even a thin slice of prosciutto. Well, there was a sad little melon sitting in the fridge, uneated and very ripe, from last weeks organic CSA box, so I thought I would give this recipe (from this week's CSA box) a try.

1 1/2 cups diced melon

1/2 c. diced cucumber

3 green onions, thinly sliced

3 radishes, chopped fine

4t. lemon or lime juice

1T. fresh cilantro, minced

salt and pepper to taste

This is seriously, excellent excellent salsa.  Not only is it pretty, bright, sunny and crispy, it is delicious, as in you could just eat the whole bowl for dinner, and you might.  That being said, the other recipe in this week's box of produce seemed to pair nicely with this salsa, so if you don't want to just eat a straight-up bowl of salsa for dinner, you could try it too:

Black Bean Quesadillas with summer squash

2 T. oil

1 small onion, minced

1 large bell pepper, finely chopped,

1 medium summer squash, chopped

3 oz of mushrooms, also chopped (are you seeing a trend here?)

2 cloves of garlic

1 T. chili powder or other seasoning of your choice 

I used the ancho-chipotle blend from here

1 cup black beans (cooked) 

1/3 cup fresh cilantro, minced

Salt and pepper

tortillas (I make my own using this recipe)

1cup shredded cheese.

Sautee the first 8 items from the list together in order of ones that need the most cooking to the ones that need the least.  Shut off the heat, add the cilantro and then use the veggie mix, tortillas and cheese to make quesadillas.  I'm not going to explain to you how to make a dang quesadilla... if you don't know, maybe you should watch Napoleon Dynamite again, gosh.

You know who else liked this dinner?

My 15-month-old.  

It just goes to show that kids are down with trying new things,

especially when they are bright-colored and bite-sized.

 Here is the plate I made for her... she was definitely a huge fan of the tortillas,

and black beans, but then she ate bits of almost every thing else too.

Happy weekend, and happy cooking to you all:)

Hangin' with dad.

for the lols

Gosh. This could have saved me lots of time as an English teacher.

the rest of the comic (What we should have been taught in our Senior year) is here.

It is in very poor taste, of course, but funny.. and a little bit true.

Happy Friday.

The most singularly disturbing toy mauling I have seen to date.

thank you for this Cash

dream of having a pony

is now a nightmare

What do boxers and toddlers have in common?

 A lot, actually. That could be a post in and of itself.

But today Sadie and Cash enjoyed the wide swath of low-tide beach with equal delight.

What they don't have in common is that my kid will go into the water, fully clothed, up to her waist, even though its 50 degrees outside and the water is even colder. My dog will barely get his feet wet.

MIY Monday: Crocheted Eggs..Chrocheggs? (tutorial)

One thing that Sadie really, really likes is checking for eggs in our chicken coop.  I usually let her put the eggs in the carton (with intense supervision) but then she wants to take them out again, and put them in again, and... you get the picture.  It also goes without saying that eggs don't make the best toys.  Going through a box of yarn remnants from last years Sock Monkey Hat making binge, I found a color palate that reminded me of eggs, so I decided to make some eggs that Sadie can play with.

The yarn is organic, tea-dyed cotton in worsted weight.  These would probably look better if you were using a sock weight yarn, but I don't have any of that, and the point was to use up what I had, so... I used a G hook and started with a magic double loop of 6 single crochets. I crocheted these in the round, so you either have to count or use a thread marker.

Row 2  two SC in each stitch- 12 stitches.
Row 3 two SC in first stitch, SC in next: repeat around-18 stitches
Rows 4-8 SC in each stitch around- 18 stitches
Row 9: SC 2 together, SC one. Repeat around, 12 stitches
Row 10: SC in each stitch-12 stitches

at this point you should probably stuff the eggs. I am using a poly-fiber fill that is from a dog toy that Cash destroyed. I thought about putting a pebble into each egg, just to give them a more realistic weight, but kind of glad I skipped that step since one of the things Sadie has decided to do with the eggs is throw them at the dog's head.

Row 11: SC 2 together SC one, repeat around-6 stitches
Row 12: SC 2 together until the top is closed. 

Cut thread, pull tail through the last loop, and then use your crochet hook to pull the loose end back down into the egg--weave it through a couple times, then hide it.  Voilla. Crocheggs. Its a seriously quick and easy project. 

A perfect homemade toy to help your little practice those fine motor skills with none of the messy clean up that playing with real eggs requires.  And now I have until Christmas to figure out how to crochet the chicken to go with them.

Happy Monday!

a case of the gypsy blues.

When Sadie woke up from her nap today she asked to go bye-bye.  My one-year-old gets cooped up too.  Since the boys were out in the country, I didn't have a vehicle, so my bye-bye options were somewhat limited to where our chevrolegs wanted to take us.  We went for a walk on middle beach.  Sadie was perfectly happy to run around there and pick up rocks, and roll in the sand, even though that meant I had to pick a cigarette butt out of her hair (gag) but on the walk home through Front Street I felt bad for the first time that this shabby looking town is all I have to show my kid.  Sadie points her pudgy little fingers at a pile of decomposing refrigerators that are lined up in a litter-strewn alley between two falling down houses.  I'm trying to give her some kind of an adjective, because she wants to know what everything is these days.  "Junk." That's the best I could do. Front St. in Nome is decaying.  The ever-prevalent wind is scouring the exterior off the buildings, the sidewalk is streaked with hawked loogies, spilled beer and expired cigarettes.  Even though it's 5pm on Sunday there are plenty of people staggering around more than a few sheets gone. They are laughing really loudly, and ridiculously, which Sadie then immitates in her childish way, which is sad because she is trying to comprehend funny, and that laughing really isn't funny.

I know this is part of my love-hate relationship with Nome... as in I LOVE the surrounding country, and the awesome friends we have here (truly some amazing people) but I HATE the town of Nome itself. Seriously. I cried the first time I saw it.

Dear Sadie, If I could redo our bye-bye this afternoon I would have us wake up in Edinburgh, or somewhere else like that.  Somewhere old, but clean.  We would stay at an inauspicious pension, or maybe a tiny bed and breakfast owned by a sweet snowy haired lady with a thick accent that's just a little to hard to understand. We could go for a walk on old cobblestone streets that are so worn from foot traffic that you wouldn't trip over them too much.  When our legs got tired we would pop into a cafe and I would be so delighted to find a really strong cup of espresso, and a raisin scone for you.  We'd take our snack to a park, where there would be a fountain and some grass for you to run around on. You would feed the crumbs from your scone to the pigeons.  If we were lucky, we might even see a police officer on a horse. You would probably really like to see a horse. I don't know what else we would do...admire the magnificent, towering castles, maybe just walk around and people watch--look into shop windows at all kinds of different curiosities, go eat dinner in a place that has comfy vintage chairs and warm yellow light filtering through prismatic lead crystal.  When our eyes had finally seen enough new things for one day, we could retire to our accommodations and fall fast asleep under a fluffy, white feather-down comforter that still smells just a little bit like the sunshine soaked up on an afternoon clothesline.

Now that would be a bye-bye I could feel proud of. So it's midnight and I am travelocity-ing tickets from Anchorage to Edinburgh, and guess what? $345! That is less than a plane ticket from Nome to Anchorage.  Maybe when Loren gets home from this most recent hunting excursion I'll convince him that Sadie and I really need to go bye-bye to Scotland.

summer sliding into fall

The days have been getting shorter, and seemingly more busy, as summer comes to a close and fall creeps in. I can't put into words the way my eyes just want to drink in the sight of the tundra in fall.

Maybe it's because I know that soon the landscape will be void of any color (and warmth for that matter), but I really feel like if I had to pick a color palate for my soul, this would be it.

right, maybe minus the four wheeler--but the guys (Loren and my sister's main squeeze--Glen, who gets credit for the first three pictures seen here) have been out enjoying the fall colors too--and catching three delicious caribou that we are in the process of cleaning and putting in the freezer. 

Caribou is delish. Yesterday we put up almost 100# of homemade sausage of the breakfast, Italian, and Chorizo varieties. We ground up some of the caribou fat to add into the sausage to give it superior frying ability, and it is fan-frikin'-tastic if I do say so myself.  Today was ribs, and tomorrow will be hamburger, steaks and roasts.  Every time I get to clean and process an animal I feel so humbled and thankful for the gift of this animal's life that gives us clean, healthy and affordable food for the winter.   I also like that the people hunting for our meat are ethical, and don't waste anything.

That is all that is left of three caribou.  I guess you need to leave something for the bears, and shik-shiks. With my husband I always know that the meat will come in from the field clean and well cared for. I really appreciate that about him. It means a lot to me to be able to raise my little one on some of the healthiest food on earth--fresh game and fish, tundra berries and greens...look what good babies it grows! :)

Don't mind me if I use this as an opportunity to veer widely off topic and post gratuitously cute pictures of my baby... oh look, here's another one:

Ever since my sister was here last week Sadie has been obsessed with accessorizing.  Can't go wrong with striped pyjamas and a pom-pom scarf... no you cant.

What is it about my sleeping baby that I just love so much? Maybe that it is the only time she stays still long enough for me to really get a good look at her?