The View From Here/Up For This Week + 'Eighty Percent Raw'

The View From Here

This morning it is bright sunshine, calm, sky blue ocean, the peaks of the mountains across the bay clearly visible above the scarf of cloud pinned to their shoulders. Yesterday the ocean was iron-gray, reflecting a rain-filled sky for much of the day, whitecaps and cats' paws all day long. 

Yesterday, too, I finally planted out those carrots (as well as one errant lentil sprout that had fallen in with them and now surpasses all). It may well snow again and will surely freeze, but in the raised bed at least, the ground is not frozen and carrots are quite hardy. Unfortunately, this morning has also shown a small black rabbit who will be quite happy to eat down all those little carrot tops if the bears don't come and dig up the whole bed to get to the fish carcasses underneath first! Phil has spent some time walking around with the .22.

Up For This Week

After my flurry of activity and new-found energy on Saturday, yesterday I was more zombie-like than ever and aside from planting carrots and starting a new translation project, spent much of the day, perforce, prostrate. So, energy conservation must be a key watchword. 

That said, the main thing on the horizon this week is that I'm going to drive up to Anchorage by myself tomorrow, for a medical appointment on Wednesday and also to pick up Bees! I'll be collecting two colonies for myself and others for probably half a dozen other people who live down here on the Kenai Peninsula, delivering them Wednesday afternoon/evening and then having another Mercury removal on Thursday morning.

Sounds like a lot of excitement. I don't know how much time I'll get to write in here, and am aware that I didn't write the product reviews I promised last week. I'll try to make up for that, and I expect that I'll feel compelled to write about the whole bee adventure that I've undertaken. It's been a little over a year since I was last among the bees, back in Hawaii, and I have missed them. On the other hand, I know that keeping bees up here is a whole different proposition. So, more on that later. 

I've never driven to and from Anchorage alone before, although I did drive the whole way one time when Phil was sick. It's 250 miles of varied beauty and amazing seasonal variation, and I'm glad that the days are long enough now to reduce the likelihood of me being surprised by a moose barging out in front of me. They really do that! It seems like they are so big that they just assume that everything else will get out of their way - and the ones who learn differently don't survive to pass the message on to the rest! As Phil says, they are not evolved to coexist with highways!

I also really hope to get in a Wordstalk, and probably some food talk too. I know, I'll share the recipe for my alternate fudge that I expect to sustain me in my journey tomorrow.

Eighty Percent Raw

One more thing:  please check out Eighty Percent Raw Magazine's new and very user-friendly look. There is now a single unified blog to which all the writers contribute - I have the honor of the first post on it! I wrote the first of a two part series about the 80-10-10 diet and how to make it work for you. The second post will be about some of the pitfalls of the diet, from my experience practicing it for several years and watching others do so.