How to save a bean?! Don't let anyone eat them!

I posted earlier about the Green Beans that I grew this past summer and how much I am in love with them!  So I decided for the first time to try to save some of the Royal Burgundy beans, dry them, and see what happened!  I started out doing a ton of research on exactly how this process is supposed to work since I havent done it in the past!  Almost all of the items I read or watched (Thank you YouTube) said to leave them on the vine until they are dry in the pod.

But didn't say how many beans you need to leave on the vine in order to have a meal of dry beans or to have seed!  So I left about 10 bean plants with good produce on them to see if they could dry before the winter set in here in Alaska.

They did not.

So I picked the produce and brought it in the house before the winter snows and freeze made the cold frame inaccessible for much of anything.

I brought them in the house and dried them the rest of the way on paper towels.  Yes - the above picture is the beans drying - only about 7 beans.  I forgot to tell the rest of the eaters here that we were trying to save some of them by drying them.  SO they were eaten - sneakily - from the cold frame!  How do you save a bean?  Don't eat them for starters!

Once the pods are really dry - like old attic dust dry - then you break them open (they mostly just fall apart, but if not give them a little twist and they will open right up), and let the dry beans fall out.  Be ready!  They can be slippery little suckers and the dogs think its fun to get them before you do!  They must be awesome since mom played with them for hours - that's what I imagine the dogs say anyway!

I ended up with about 25 dry beans from the 7 bean pods.  Which isnt too bad I don't think.  But we will NOT be making bean soup with our dry beans!  Let me tell you people - it takes WAYYY more than 10 bean plants to make enough to store for soup or to save for next years seed.  

I am going to try to plant these and see what happens - but I will also be ordering another package or two of the Royal Burgundy beans to grow.  Just in case!

Almost time to be planty people again!  Ready, set, grow!

Be blessed in your endeavors and in life!

Recovery from UP Side Down! Earthquake!

Since the last post about the 7.0 earthquake - that Wicked Alaska Earthquake, I have been a busy bee!  Quilting and cleaning!  There was a ton of glass to clean up after the quake and we are still finding shards and chunks of glass everywhere - no matter how many times I vacuum!  We have had over 6100 aftershocks - although some of them have been 5.0 or close to it.  When does it stop being an aftershock and become a regular earthquake?

I lamented in an earlier post that I would run out of Rye pictures and that I was really sad about that - so the Universe provided and the earthquake shook loose some envelopes that had fallen another time behind a cabinet - So I have some fun pictures that had been lost and forgotten.  He was three.

The holidays are hard here still.  Three Christmases and three New Years we have faced without Rye,even though he has been gone only 28 months,  and now without Chads mom as well - Granny.  This was our first Christmas and New Year without her.  I have had 2 weeks off for Christmas - Christmas break it is called here.  There were some big changes in how we do things now since both Granny and Rye are gone.  We did Christmas Eve with Pap and Christmas morning we were home with Reed and Riley (who are moving out and making their own place in the world - that is hard too- more on that later)!  This was a first year for us that we didnt have to kind of hurry through the stockings (we actually cheated and did stockings on Christmas Eve - it was very fun - I'm sure because it seemed a little naughty) and we just relaxed a bit for the morning before going to Nana's house.

I got a week off from school because of the quake but didn't get to get all of the cleaning up done, even though I did quilt a bit during that time!

Above are a 16 patch in brown and blue that is in progess and part of my "Women of the Bible" blocks that I am working on as part of a fun email kind of class at Sylvias Quilt Depot.  Ill post that later as well.

Quilting still soothes me and I do have a number of new patterns that I am working on designs for.  Stay tuned for some new quilt posts! The linen closet is still a shambles but it is a work in progress!  I got about 1/2 way through the linen closet and took 4 boxes to the local thrift to donate.  I will have about that many more before the closet is declared clean!

I got the office cleaned up a bit and dad thinks he can fix my filing cabinet - such a beautiful piece of furniture that I have had forever and I cant bear to just throw it away!

So for now I am operating out of two drawers and that box in front!  It's ok - I needed to do some shredding and culling of old stuff anyway!  This just forced my hand!

We still haven't hung the art and pictures back up yet because of the shakers - every time that I think about hanging them again we have another shake up!  Same with the tea set I got for my birthday - not worth the risk to display it and have another shake!  So my house still looks a bit shaken and stirred - even though I have now taken down the Christmas decorations such as they are here.  We arent much for decorating anymore in that regard.

Brix the dog hides on Gramma Gittlein's lap during and after a small shaker!  Both of the dogs are skittish, they seem to know when the quakes will come but not what to do when it does!  Brix is the worst and he also hates fireworks so New Years Eve was a terrible adventure with him trying to hide on, behind, and under anyone who would tolerate him clawing at them for a few minutes.  We tried his thunder coat and wrapping him in blankets and holding him to no avail.  We had lots of fireworks around us and two earthquakes that evening, one was a 5.0 and a 4.8.  Scary!

Many of our Alaskans are shaken as well!  They are fragile and tired from earthquake fear! It is hard to sleep when you are feeling 5 or 6 aftershocks a night and they all rumble and make noise when they hit your house and you also wonder "Is this the BIG one?"   I have heard a few people saying they are going back where they came from - as in moving out of Alaska - even if that means they will have to deal with tornadoes and hurricanes!  One gentleman said - "hurricanes and tornadoes you have some warning!  This came out of nowhere and hit us hard!"  A cousin of mine had a lot of damage and her neighbors house has been condemned!  It is terribly sad.  We were terribly lucky house-wise, and we had no home damage, just glass and some memorabilia!

We are slowly getting our feet back under us from all of the shaking and from being shaken by the holidays again.  It still is not easier.  Reed was late getting his shopping done and he said "I suck at Christmas" and I said "No you don't - Christmas sucks for us!"  Someday maybe it won't again.

Here's to a New Year and I hope that if you are shaken and stirred it is because you are mixing up something delightful with ice!  Be well.  Be Happy. Be Blessed. Stay tuned.

The next 15 minutes

I have talked a few times about "How much is fifteen minutes?", and how by using ALL of your fifteen minute time periods you can get a lot done!  Read the original post here.

I haven't quite finished the other fifteen minute project, but am still working on it.  I have it all cut out now via my fifteen minute sections and a family quilt retreat as well.

In between those events, I had a number of projects that were scrappy in nature (you will see some of them shortly) and so I began another fifteen minute project to go with them.  Scrappy Bow ties!

This pattern can be made with as little as an 8" square of fabric!  It takes just two squares of 3&1/2" and two squares of 2&1/2"  of colored fabric and two 3&1/2" squares of light/white fabric.  Sew one of the smaller colors to the corner of the light (square it to the edge of the corner and sew across the diagonal), trim off the excess and press open.  Square that to 3&1/2" and then sew it to one of the larger color squares.  Then sew the two sections together to form the finished block.  Make sure you set them down together so you get the centers lined up in the right direction.  I have had to "unsew" a number of these for trying to stack and hurry!  It doesn't pay!

So as I went through the scrappy projects, I also cut the squares for the bow tie blocks.  This particular pattern makes a 6" square.  

I have them stored next to the sewing machine in a box that I got from the school - the student ID's came in it.  Colors in the back and lights in the front.  Mostly because I will run short of the lights long before I run short of the colors, so then I know when I need to dig up some more lights for the project.  You can see to the left of the box the finished 6" bow tie blocks stack.  

These ones are all blue but I have tons of different colors, and it gives you an idea of how they can be put together to make alternate patterns above and below.

It goes together really fast - just about 15 minutes for four of the blocks - after cut out has been done ahead of time. 

Here is another colorway that I am working on to have a "backup quilt" at the ready when I need one - or someone else needs one!

 Sew simple and a great, easy use of  those scraps and that fifteen minutes that you might have thought was useless!

That Wicked Alaska Earthquake!

Oh we have had a crazy week here in Alaska!  We had a Wicked big earthquake - 7.0 on the Richter scale and lasting about a minute.  Thank goodness it was only a minute because it completely took out one of our schools - Houston Middle School which is just across the campus from Houston High School where I work as the Secretary!  School was in session then and it was a heck of a ride, glass shattering all over the place in the pitch black (our auxiliary power didn't come on until after the shaking stopped), and people crying and some freaking out! Here is one of our roadways:

(above Photo by Ivan Fonova)

Here is an aerial view of that same road.  This road is right next to my aunts house on my Grandfathers old homestead.  It used to be a lake!  (and by the way the road is fixed now already - one week later!)  It s temporary fix until the summer construction season but  - road open and usable! 

 Hubby called me right after the quake happened to check on me, and Reedo stopped in when his work sent them home to check on their people!  Great employers - Arctic Insulation. Here is what my office looked like at the High School:

The High School was closed for a week and our Middle School will not reopen at all!  We ended up with all of the Middle Schoolers at the High School and we got 700+ kids home safe and sound by 1:30 in the afternoon.  Our staff was awesome!

But my school office didn't even come close to the home office (or the rest of the High School building for that matter)!

Not sure it is fixable - I don't think so but my dad will take a look at it and be the professional judge of repair ability!  

This big wooden 4-drawer filing cabinet weighs about 200 pounds and fell over forward somehow!  Underneath it were 4 bottles of wine, a bottle of balsamic vinegar, 3 jars of jelly, a jar of applesauce, and a keepsake glass bottle of glacier water!  

You know those tax files you are supposed to keep for 7 years?  Yeah, we have some that are no longer keepers!  We found a new glue formula though - wine, balsamic, applesauce jelly will stick just about anything together!  No matter how many times you mop or wipe - there is not enough soap and water to unstick that stuff!

And of course we lost the main TV -luckily we had a few more throughout the house - namely Reeds gaming TV so we are back in TV business!  The hockey puck in the middle of the TV is one of the memorial pucks from Rye's memorial service.  His urn fell as well but luckily was unharmed!  I checked and Hubby said "Yes - it fell - Yes - It's fine!  We did lose a few Rye memorial items that can't be fixed but we didn't lose any memories!

And here is the sewing/laundry room, where one of my book cases collapsed in a heap and was not fixable!  The iron also took a hit - It appeared fine at first but when I went to use it, turned my back for just a second, and the smoke/fire alarm went off - the iron was on fire - the whole guts of it!  

(you'll learn about that rooster right there in a later blog - stay tuned)

I ran it outside and had to fill the gap (you can see the gap below - which is NOT supposed to be there) - had to fill the gap with snow to get it to go out!  The whole house smelled like burnt electrical for a few hours - seems to be gone now!

Luckily I have an old heavy duty backup iron - it's not auto shut off but it works really well - I just have to remember to shut it off and unplug it!

We were really lucky though - our house had no structural damage and all of our people are safe and sound!  My cousins house - about a mile away - was trashed!  Her direct next door neighbors house has been condemned!  Super sad!

Our Big Lake Lions Rec Center (our ice arena) didn't fare so well!  Although the ice sheet itself needed just a little fixing up and debris removal, we sustained about $75,000.00 of damage to the arena building.  We had to cancel our High School annual hockey tournament, The Big Lake Lions Classic, which we have held without fail since the building was built!  The building was built with no government funds!  Donations, fundraises, grants, and in kind!  Truly a Community Center!

Damaged, leaking sprinkler tank - 17,500 gallon capacity tank shifted by the quake and leaking, with damaged pipes!

A little shot to give you perspective on the size of this tank.

My friend Tyra vacuuming up some of the debris - she really isn't directly under that hanging ceiling tile even though it looks it!  Almost the whole of the lattice framework for the ceiling tiles was twisted or destroyed.

Our hot water and pressure tanks, leaking and with plumbing damage.

We have a GoFundMe site set up to help with the repairs costs and you can also see more pictures and get more information at this site.   Give us a little gift for repairs if you can!

In all of this, there were no lives lost!  Very few injuries, and those mostly were not serious!  Our power was out for less than 10 hours!  We have had the coming together of our communities and neighborhoods.  Each neighbor asking the other how they were and if they needed help - helping each other to get through this, and to weather the weather (we have had rain, snow and high - I mean high- wind) in addition to the aftershocks (we are at 3000+ aftershocks now!  This morning it was a 5.0 that jolted me and the dogs out of our relaxed pre cookie making haze!  Cooking still relaxes and soothes me and I made three kinds of cookie today!  Christmas on!

I hope that if your earth shakes and quakes, that you can rely on your neighbors, family and friends, and that if the wind should blow let it be a soft warm one!  Blessed be!