Six(th) Sen(se)tence Story--Penultimate HAWMC!

After all that drenching sunshine, a band of cloud came in yesterday. You can see it wreathing the mountains across the bay. When the sun isn't out, it feels so much colder here, even if it's only a couple degrees lower.

Today's penultimate prompt is inspired by the Six Sentences blog, and asks us to write a six sentence post--tell a story, make it short and sweet.

Six sentences--is that like a sixth sense? That the overall message of the story will be something beyond the sum of the six parts? I love any kind of challenge to impose a formal structure on my words, and I have no idea what I'm going to write! To make up for the paucity of words in this post, I have some springtime pictures to share afterwards.

In Six Sentences: Centrifugal, Centripetal

Living in Alaska has made me acutely aware of a year's passage as a journey around the sun--the face of the earth, the texture of the air, are so different in different seasons, I might as well have traveled to a different place. At times (equinoxes, solstices), the rate of change seems to accelerate and I am conscious of myself as a fly, a mote of dust, on the back of a stampeding elephant. The scanty hairs on the elephant's back are too stout for me to grab on to; the sticky filaments on my own legs have little traction against the wind in my face. Will the G-forces pressing on my back push me down through pachydermic skin, vortexing like water through a plughole, into the warm center, or will the headwind rip my grip loose and send me spiraling into orbit? Connections with loved ones reticulate the slippy surface of my ride, modulate the forces. Someone folds paper, concertina-fashion, draws a figure, cuts it out; opens up a chain of dancers, holding hands, links of the chain that keeps me here.

Springtime Pictures

I ate my first fresh nettles last night! If you've been reading this blog, you'll know how much I adore nettles.  

This moose and yearling calf were eating fresh green beside our road yesterday afternoon. With the angle of the ditch, they didn't even have to go on their knees. Baby went into the woods, but mama wasn't bothered by me at all, so I got a closer shot--

After such a hard winter, she looks to be in wonderful shape. Her coat is glossy, she's not near as skinny as some of the moose we've seen. And she didn't have to abandon her baby/now-yearling, who was also looking good.

Happy Sunday!

Irish Cream Mousse Recipe, Kneeling Moose, Phil Adventures

Homer is known as the town at the end of the road. Well, there's a long road out the end of Homer, opening into the back fold of the bay, a huge and gorgeous wilderness. I dropped Phil there yesterday with his loaded sled, jury-rigged with skate-ski poles for him to pull it by.

He's headed out for a couple days in this glorious wilderness. It'll be a combination of reconnecting with something he's loved doing every spring, and discovering new territory. He used to go on a lot of ski-camping trips in the backcountry around Anchorage all the years he lived there, come March, when there's still lots of snow but the days are luxuriously long. But the backcountry around Homer is less explored for him, and he's excited to change that.

His playground: (and this picture doesn't do justice to the mountains on the horizon and the gorgeous sweep of valley below--two river drainages).

When I was driving home, I saw this moose in our neighbors' yard. Snow had melted or gone away under this spruce tree, revealing some tired, brown grass from last year. Apparently, that was the best food available right now. Moose are browsers, not grazers, so they have to get down on their knees to eat from the ground. Pretty poignant.

I've had several requests to share recipes recently, and will work on catching up on that. First, the "Irish Moss Mousse." I threw this together from off the top off my head when we got back home and had a St Patrick's Day party to go to. We shared it with some other friends the next night, and then Tuesday was Amy's birthday party, so it got another outing then--and now it's all gone! And this is the only picture ;)

Note: this is not a "pristine purist" raw food recipe. It contains some instant coffee, and some whisky! It is very low sugar, though, and my Naturopath recently told me that whisky and other hard liquors don't bother candida (not sure why he was telling me that, lol)! But I'm sure you could sub out both of these if you didn't want them in--I'll offer some suggestions for how to do that.

I also did this in such a hurry that I used warm water to soak my irish moss and nuts. Ideally, I would have soaked the irish moss for longer, in cool water; ditto the nuts.


Irish Moss Mousse (mostly raw, vegan, gluten free, low sugar)


1 cup irish cream irish moss gel *subrecipe below
3/4 cup whisky! Or use nut milk, or water with butterscotch extract (if you can find it gluten and dairy free, if that matters to you), or water with more vanilla
1 cup young coconut meat (I get frozen young coconut meat in Anchorage. It does have a little added sugar, so I don't use it often. If you're anywhere but AK, you probably have easier access to young cocos!)

1 cup soaked cashews

1/2 cup coconut sugar (for the tawny color)--or use a half cup erythritol if you want it sugar free

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon vanilla
2 tablespoons non-gmo lecithin granules (or use sunflower lecithin)


Put everything in the blender except the lecithin. Put the ingredients in in the order listed--it blends more smoothly that way. Blend until very smooth. Test the flavor, add a little stevia or a pinch of salt if the taste isn't quite "in focus," add the lecithin, and blend again.

Pour into a 9-in pie plate and chill. I sprinkled cacao nibs on top as decoration--some coconut whipped cream or similar would have been beautiful too.


*Sub-recipe: Irish Cream Irish Moss Gel
2 cups irish moss, soaked (approximate measurement)
3/4 cup brewed coffee, cooled (you could brew up some chicory or maca instead of real coffee, or you could use a few drops of Medicine Flower coffee flavor extract in water).
1/2 cup erythritol
Blend all three together in a Vita-Mix or high speed blender, on high, until a smooth gel is obtained.

Notice, this recipe has no coconut oil or cacao butter in it! This means it doesn't set up quite as firm as a recipe with oil added--it's more of a spoon pudding really, but it also means it's way lighter! So, low or no sugar, light on the fat, and that really brings out the kick of the coffee and whisky. I couldn't eat very much of it because I'd have gotten drunk and buzzed, probably, but a little went a long way, and it received rave reviews from everyone else! If you did want it thicker/richer, you could use nut milk in place of the whisky, and add either some coconut oil (half a cup)--or even cacao butter for a chocolatey flair--or some xanthan gum (one teaspoon).

Let me know if you try it! And thanks for the encouragement to post the recipe before I forgot what I did!

Mostly Pictures of Snowforms and Moose

In my last post, I promised more photos when I got home. And here they are! A lot of photos in one post.
This is one of the snow-submerged benches--we're walking along at the level of the seat, and you can see it's been alluring for a few dogs too!

See the cute little snowman on the garbage can? And I think the posterboard looks like a moose from the side!

Phil got in close and made the snowman look huge!

The lake we were hiking around is just beginning to thaw in places--a beautiful time.

 

The moose from the top down and the beavers from the bottom up have been hard on the trees--lots had fallen down!  Terry is an incredible photographer, and she's working on taking one great shot each time rather than shooting a dozen and hoping for a good one.
It's a treat to watch her at work, finding the right angle, light, composition.

The artist at work in the beautiful birch wood... 

And of course a scenic shot... 

Here's a couple more pics of those downtown moose from the last post-- 

A big cow and her calf, both of them looking much healthier than some moose we've seen around.

 Another moose crossing the road--I just caught her in this picture, do you see?

The snow berms on the sides of the road are just beautiful. The snow is dirty and grayed from the road spray, but it has all kinds of amazing reliefs carved into it, like wind-chiseled sandstone. 

There was some fresh snow that whitened everything up--gives some idea of how darn much snow there is, too! 

One more. If we weren't on the open road, it might feel like being in a mysterious cave! I kept wanting to stop and just stare at those carved formations on the vertical snow. 

This picture is taken from our friend Joe's front room. See how the snow is almost up to the bird feeder?

And looking past the bird feeder--that's some deep snow! 

We knew we should have driven the truck to town! Phil scored at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore. Turned our "warthog" into a snail!  

 We had a beautiful drive home...

And although the car seemed about to break down at one point, we got home in time for a very delightful St Patrick's Day party, in honor of which I even had time to make a raw vegan Irish Cream mousse with irish moss!

One more--these icicles outside our cabin, bent into all kinds of interesting shapes--I could look at them for minutes on end.

 Happy end of weekend to you!