Botanical Garden, Farmers' Market, Photos, Tired!

We spent some of yesterday afternoon in the Botanical Garden at the university, and today I checked out the farmer's market in town and went to the Ice Show that was part of the festival. Nice to go to the Garden and see plants growing and then go to the market to feel out that whole vibe - I feel at home at a farmer's market wherever it is - just love them. Makes me nostalgic a little for California days when I was so involved in them. I managed to pick the three hour period in the day that it wasn't raining to be there, but got nicely soaked biking home from the ice show.

Energy update: I'm very, very tired. Indeed. Yesterday morning in one of the classes, I had to just accept that I wasn't going to work on the assignment at that time - my brain wouldn't do it. I made it up this morning so that's fine. I didn't write a post last night because I was too tired and because I had two software crashes in a row for my translation job and by the time I'd redone my work a third time it was later than I'd meant it to get. So much to share on here, though - the museum visit on Tuesday was pretty special too.

As you may remember from this post, I don't believe that a picture carries the whole story - it may speak a thousand words but until the words are formed into sentences, they're just an inscrutable mosaic like those refrigerator magnet words. 

But since I am so tired, and since I took some pictures, I'll share some now.

Giant cabbages Alaska Interior-style:

Kale for scale  - beautiful kale.

Here's a sea of marigold:

It was great to see so many honeybees - and at the farmers' market today were two honey vendors selling honey harvested this year. No one down in Homer's getting any honey so far this year - too wet and cold, too little nectar; I just read in the newsletter that many are feeding their bees: think I probably need to do that too. Anyhow, here are honeybees enjoying poppy...

...and speedwell in the salvia bed

I was very surprised to find malabar spinach, easy to grow in California and Hawaii, up here!

You can see chickweed enjoying the bed also. Lots of chickweed, shepherds purse, and other weeds in the beds - I was tempted to sit down and weed!

Now some farmers' market pictures. I enjoyed seeing tomatoes that had been grown almost-outdoors, in dirt with a hoophouse over it, and cucumbers and zucchini - can't grow any of that in Homer without serious protection.

The vendors at this next stall were speaking Russian - I'd noticed that compared to Homer, Fairbanks is very cosmopolitan (especially a lot of Indians as in from the Subcontinent, and lots more Black and Asian people than Homer) but that there isn't the huge population of Russian Old Believers that there is in Homer, with the women everywhere and unmistakeable in their headcovers and floor-length shiny satin dresses. 

This serious-looking pair of vendors are playing Irish folksongs! You can just see his flute, and she has a little squeezebox on her lap that you can' t see. I like the idea that they're just sitting there minding their stall and playing, as opposed to having to be out in the middle somewhere.

There were lots of beautiful craft products - wooden bowls, chairs, tables; petrified wood, glass beads, textiles. 

The Ice Show was a new experience for me. I'm impressed that a university would have its own Ice Arena - probably more often used for ice hockey than for this display of dancing. They started out with a group dance

...and then it seemed like just about every kid danced a solo. The littlest kids were just teensy! And they all performed well, but there were a few who were just amazing. My attempts at photographing them merely showed me that I'm no good at taking motion shots on ice - none of my pictures looked anything like they were supposed to!

I came home with broccoli, cauliflower, tomatoes. Here's a 'still life' of fixing dinner (the first time I've cut up veggies since I got here, btw - so far I've just been eating carrots, lettuce and celery 'straight up' and slabbing off pieces of jicama and eating those 'straight up' too):

You can see broccoli peelings, pocketknife, tomato - and once again I used a to-go mug to keep tomatoes from getting smushed. Notebook and pen and hat in background. Cauliflower and broccoli chopped up marinating in apple cider vinegar and salt...

...and dressed up with tomatoes and the spirulina/sunflower seeds/nutritional yeast mix. Good stuff!