Grow North Farm, Muldoon Saturday Market, Stand Up For John Lewis

 These are some of the veggıes I pıcked up last week from Grow North Farm.  By subscribing to the CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) I pick up a selection of vegetables they select from what is ready to harvest each week.  You can see

I got a basic recipe for turnip greens online, but spruced it up.  It came with onions and garlic.  In addition to the turnip greens (which I steamed withwhite wine) and added walnut pieces, raisins, and hot sauce.

I thought it was great.  My wife ate it, which is always a positive.  

She made the turnips and cooked up the kale the next night.  

There were two booths selling non-food items.  And that many selling vegetables.  Some of that may be due to it being early in the season and not that much is ready to harvest.  But refugees raise the crops at this farm and wonder how much ICE fear is impacting the market.  And I'm trying to figure out ways to let you know how to contact vendors without making that information easily collectable.  Photos probably.  Mirthalaska.com

The soaps were amazing.  The fragrance was not overpowering (like a certain department store that no longer has a location in Anchorage) and the designs are spectacular.  They almost look like they belong in a bakery.  

This "is a seed from the ivory palm in South American rainforests" according to the bookmark sized card the vendor passed out.  It's an ivory alternative.

The necklaces below are made from this Tagua Ivory.  The card also says, "I design in Alaska, and our products are made in Columbia."   www.lajoyatagua.com  From the website:

"The main mission of LA JOYA is to empower women in Colombia who have been the victims of social problems.

Through developing jewelry made from natural seeds, in sustainable ways, we are preserving the environment and contributing to the social development of communities."

​

This was a week ago Thursday.  

That Saturday I went to the market on Muldoon.  Chanshtnu Park.  

I'm not sure if it's just early and people are waiting for other things to ripen or people are concerned about ICE showing up.  Many of the food vendors at this market were refugees in the past.  Someone else suggested there were just too many farmers' markets competing.  

Eclectic Cal describes this booth well.  The key things I saw were the carved walking sticks (lower right behind the blue jug) and the chaga.  Cal also took part in the musical part of the market.  He also offered chaga tea so people could taste it.

Cleveland Clinic has a page on Chaga:

"Sure, you’ve heard of portobello and shiitake mushrooms. But have you heard of chaga mushrooms?

Typically found in Siberia, the fungi have been used throughout history to boost immunity thanks to it being full of antioxidants."

And in Alaska too.  On birch trees.  An Alaska Native gentleman carrying his very young grandson knew what chaga was.  Something he'd collected.   

And this is Alizka.  She grew up in the mountains in Romania and is right at home gathering wild edibles and medicines here as well.  We didn't talk about nationality (though she speaks Hungarian as well as Romanian and English) and she agreed to the photo, but I've smudged her face just to be on the safe side. (I hate having to do this.) She offered a blueberry and (some kind of seaweed from the Atlantic) paste that has some crazy high percentage of vitamins and minerals people need.  She also had a lot of different salves.  you can contact her at novalunaherbals@gmail.com.  

I was back to get my weekly allotment of veggies at Grow North again this past Thursday and from there I biked to the Park Strip for the celebration of John Lewis.  I'm behind in my blogging so I'll leave it at that rather than try to add more.  Let me get this up first.  

If you want to Stand Up, this is an organization that is coordinating with lots of others working to 

"To stand up for social, housing, environmental, economic, and racial justice across the state of Alaska. We are a BIPOC led 501c4 that uses direct action to confront systemic injustice, mobilize community, and amplify underrepresented voices." (From the Stand Up Alaska website.)

 

 They have zoom orientations on Wednesdays at 7pm and I went this past Wednesday to find out what all they're doing.  Their website will help out.  I'd recommend the Wednesday night zoom.  Just click on the Action Alaska zoom and will tell you how to connect.  I got a full orientation and got to ask lots of questions.  

ICE-Free Refugee Day Celebration (And More)

RAIS (Refugee Assistance and Immigration Services) is among the groups that help folks under the umbrella of Catholic Social Services in Anchorage,  (I'd also say I've never seen a trace of proselytizing  in any of the RAIS activities.)

Yesterday, Thursday, June 26, was the first day of their summer CSA program pick up.  That's Community Supported Agriculture - a program where consumers pay farmers upfront and then pick up fresh vegetables every week.  In Alaska, that is necessarily limited to summer.  

I first learned and blogged the term CSA in March 2009 when I was a volunteer with an NGO (non-governmental organization, what we call non-profit) in Chiangmai, Thailand.  Here's that post which talks about CSAs in general and what was happening in Chiangmai specifically.  

Because it was the first day of Grow North Farm's 2025 CSA distribution there was also a celebration for World Refugee day. with music, dancing, art activities, and food from around the world. (That sentence was more or less lifted and edited from the email I got from RAIS.

For the rest of the summer, in addition to the subscribers picking up their veggies, there will be booths where other refugee farmers will be selling their crops.  Here's a blog post from 2022 showing you the variety of things for sale. It's always colorful and people are often wearing the clothing they would wear in their original countries.  There are also people selling baked goods.  The one that captured me last summer - the Egyptian Kitchen - won't be here this summer.  They are in Egypt until fall.  Lots of folks will miss their incredible home made cookies.  

Yesterday, I only saw a couple of tents where people were selling veggies and preserved food.  Most of the booths were services available in Anchorage.  The library was there - my mind's going blank - and there were a number of groups with various arts and crafts activities for kids.  

I spent more time at the Choosing Our Roots table, because it was a group I knew nothing about.  This is Adam in the photo.  He's head of the Board of Directors.  Later, the Executive Director Chami joined us.  Basically this groups helps queer youth find housing and get their feet on the ground.  They work with various groups including Alaska Housing, Alaska Children's Trust, Covenant House, and RAIS.

'Youth' means about 15 to 25.  Chami said she herself had been homeless with a baby and worked herself out of that situation and is now a social worker (I'm pretty sure that's what she said) and a licensed therapist (I'm sure she said that).  So she can counsel these youth with first hand experience of what they are going through.  

This was a very colorful (in the literal sense of that word) event and a photographer's buffet.  Except it wasn't.  Many of the people, for cultural reasons, do not want to be photographed.  

And as the title hints, two different people I mentioned this event to responded, "So ICE will be there?"

So no, I don't want to give ICE any assistance in identifying potential targets.  

I took only a few pictures.  Of course I should have taken pictures of the vegetables, but I wasn't thinking.  We got, as our CSA email listed:  

• Radish
• Spinach
• Sorrel
• Bok Choi
• Either Chamsur or Arugula

Don't know what Chamsur is?  Well, the RAIS email tells us not only what it is, but also how to use it.

"Chamsur is the Nepalese word for Garden Cress - a green which is popular in mountainous regions of Nepal and Afghanistan. Nepalese farmers brought seeds to Fresh International Gardens to experiment with growing Chamsur in Alaska - it proved to be well suited to Anchorage and has grown at the farm every year since! 

Include garden cress in any soup, salad, or sandwich for a tangy flavor. The taste is very similar to that of arugula, so it works great in any wraps, sandwiches, or salads! Add this Green Salad with Garden Cress to your list of tasty summer salads! Or use both your spinach and chamsur in this Chamsur Palungo recipe."

Don't know what to do with sorrel?  Another hint from the email:

"Sorrel is another tangy green, bright and lemony and makes a lovely Ukrainian Sorrel Soup - perfect for a rainy summer day."

I did take a few pictures and I've smudged out the faces of kids and people who might not want ICE to know they were there.  

And if ICE was there, they were unmasked and unarmed and just chilling with everyone else.  Here are a couple of pictures.  

I'm trying folks.  I've got pieces of about five posts that haven't been posted.  So many other things are luring me from the blog.  

I'm trying to decide if I really want to duplicate last summer's 1000 miles (1600+ kilometers) of biking.  I'm at 740k so far.  (That's slightly ahead of last summer.  But there were bike-able days in March this year, and last year I was biking hard the second half of the summer.)

I'm doing Duolingo Turkish everyday.  Sometimes I feel like it's hopeless because it's focused on everything but my speaking.  And while I'm gathering vocabulary and a loose understanding of the grammar (and all the fascinating but maddening suffixes which change tense, change who is acting, indicate coming and going, and many other conditions), I don't think I can actually use it to make oral conversation.  Speaking uses other muscles and parts of the brain than reading, writing, and even listening.  But Turkey is the last place on my list of places I promised myself I'd go to another time.  I passed it up while I was a student in Germany and decided more time in Greece for then, and Istanbul later.  Later is going to be never if I don't do it soon.  

And now I'm taking letters every Monday afternoon to my two Senators and my member of Congress.  I'm trying to find different ways to try to break through to them.  But I do believe that numbers matter to legislators, so I encourage others in Anchorage to join the group.  Just go to their offices (510 L Street for the Senators, 6th and 7th floors, and half a block away (1016 W Sixth Ave Suite #406) between 4pm and 5pm on Mondays.  There's no formal gathering, just people coming and going.  And if you miss a week or two, not a problem.  But I am getting to know the staff.  Begich has a second office in Fairbanks.  And Murkowski and Sullivan offices in Fairbanks, Juneau, Ketchikan, Matsu, Soldotna.  So you folks can also make weekly drop-offs.  

Biking gives me a chance to see what's new and changing in Anchorage, so I have pics on some of those things to put up.  I did post about the closing of Lake Otis at 42nd.  Lake Otis is back working, but work on 42nd continues.

There's somebody working on an ordinance to change local Anchorage elections to ranked choice voting (the State has that, though Republicans are trying again to do away with it) and I'm trying to get more info on who is doing this and how it's going.  I know an Assembly committee had it on their agenda this week.  This would be a great improvement.  

Frustration with Democratic establishment and their problems with the bright young, articulate, members of their party, culminating, most recently, with the Islamaphobic responses to Mamdani's apparent primary win in New York.  For example. Christopher Bouzy, the creator of Twitter alternative Spoutible, writes, "Democratic Leadership Told Rep. Jasmine Crockett She's Too Black and Too Loud."

Gardening and regularly visiting the Alaska Botanical Garden as part of one of my bike routes.  

Don't despair.  Find beauty every day.  Get outside and move your body.  (The biking and gardening) Find good folks to be around.  Find ways to resist.  

There are organizations offering lists of ways to fight back daily.  Taking action is the best antidote for hopelessness.  Here are two that send me regular (not daily) emails with list of ways I can resist:

Peoples Action Institute  

The Digital Drumbeat

Agave, The Beach, Ethiopian Food, Bumps

 I'd like to write a post about key problems our democratic system hasn't been able to handle - like preventing a convicted rapist, etc. from being elected president.  Not the comparatively less important issues that pop up on social media and mainstream media headlines focused on this or that person or event, but the truly serious systemic failures.  The inability of the justice system to mete out timely justice to a well financed presidential candidate.  The inability of the First Amendment to cope with propaganda magnified by social media which rewards people for spreading lies and outrage, and enables foreign enemies to stoke fears and spread dissension.  

But that's a much longer post that requires a lot of documentation.  

So I was just going to put up some photos today

Agave

I wrote succulent on the photo titles, but agave was also in my head.  The link above on agave proved me right.  The first one is down the street. 

The second one is in my mom's front yard.  They don't bloom that often, but when they do they're impressive.  This flower is about 9 feet long.  I'm not sure how, in this droughty climate, it manages to stay upright.

There was a humming bird filling its tank, but it didn't wait around for me to get my phone out.  

There are speed bumps on the street, but these natural obtrusions - the roots from the Italian Stoney Pine trees - are much more effective.  If you don't navigate this just right, your car is going to make serious noises as the bottom hits elevated parts of the street.  There are others with cones up the street, but this one goes almost all the way across the street.  Where the cone is, it's higher than the curb.  

We hear this all the time, even cars going very, very slowly.  You have to go all the way over to this side of the street to get by without notifying the neighbors that you are there.  And then there are the cars that don't slow down before hitting this.  

This is a good example of the importance of good government.  The cost to drivers - at repair shops and then increased insurance costs - probably will be greater than the cost of repairing the street.  Though the street has been repaired and the roots come roaring back.  Other benefits of a good government are less tangible. Say the benefits of a good school system.  You just don't see the immediate effects of a bad school system the way you see (and hear) the impacts of these gnarly streets.  

It's also a reminder that if people disappeared, much of human activity would be hidden by nature reclaiming its space.  

We had dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant.  Underneath is the bread - injera - a spongy, pliable food that you tear off and use to scoop up the food.  We ordered two vegetarian combos and one serving of lamb.  (In the middle.) We also got extra injera  to use until we could easily get to the injera underneath.  

On Fairfax, between Pico and Olympic, is a row of Ethiopian restaurants and shops.  

Today (Monday) the ladies drove to the beach and I biked down to meet them.  It's not exactly warm by LA standards - in the mid to high 50sF - and there seemed to be a mix of fog and haze in the distance in most directions.  But there's something about sitting on the sand and having the waves pounding.  Enough to lure this guy in the picture into the surf.  I used to swim all year as well when I was a student at UCLA.  I worked as a noon duty aid and after school playground director at an elementary school in Pacific Palisades.  All my classes were early morning.  Between lunch and afterschool, I'd honda down to the beach where a regular group of guys played volleyball and body surfed.  

This guy was sitting with his bike and surfboard a little in front of us.  At some point he was getting ready to leave.  He pulled out a brush and started brushing sand off everything - the surfboard, the backpack, his wetsuit, his feet before putting on his shoes.  Then got the surfboard strapped onto the backpack and made his way to the boardwalk.  

I just wiped the sand off my feet with my hands before I put on my shoes and biked home.  But I'm intrigued by his use of the brush.  

1600+ / Looong Construction Project/Last Veggie Pickup

[Most of this could be considered moaning on my part, though I think that this project inconvenienced way too many people for way too long and could have been better planned an executed.  

But there is one bit of news in here that I haven't seen reported elsewhere - an explosion that cost one of the construction workers an arm, according to another construction worker I talked to.  I wanted to get that in here at the top for those who will just look at the pictures and skim.]

I'm now biked a few km over 1600, which equates to 1000 miles for the summer.  And being on a bike, I'm acutely aware of construction projects that impact cyclists.  

Construction on the curb cuts on 36th has taken forever.  At least a month now.  There's about a mile stretch from Lake Otis to New Seward where all the corners have been torn up.

This is the first picture I took on September 6 at Lake Otis and 36th.  I have to cross both streets to get to the school I'm volunteering at. 

I will say that the people working on this project have been very polite and helpful when I have to cross - pushing the button for me and otherwise making it a little easier to cross.  

This is the same corner, just looking to the right from the picture above.  Friday - Sept 27 - 21 days later!  But they were busy doing things below ground level.  

They've moved this hydrant over about three feet. (I took the picture Friday - Sept 27)  It used to be blocking the sidewalk and has bothered me for over 30 years.  I never thought they would ever dig out a hydrant and move it over.  But they did. Thank you! You can see it two days ago, well below ground level.  

On the west side of the intersection they put new curbs in a couple of days ago.  Here's what one looked like today, wrapped in plastic.  

As I say, this work has been going on for at least a month now.  A couple of weeks ago, I helped a man who was carrying his son through this mess.  I helped by getting the wheel chair through while he carried the kid.  It was a heavy motorized one.  

I asked one of the workers what the purpose of all this was.  He said to improve mobility for disabled people.  Well, it's been impossible for a month.  

And it's been like this for all the intersections along 36th.  It seems to me that completing one intersection at a time would have meant most were usable and none would have been unusable for too long.  I'm sure they have some logical explanation based on cost or that different workers do different parts.  But the result was difficult to navigate corners along the whole stretch - all torn up at the same time.  

And given that this project is at the corner where the University campus begins, it would have been nice to do this earlier in the summer when traffic to and from the University is greatly reduced.  They've also been doing work on Northern Lights at the same time - the other main access point to the University.  Traffic there has been blocked up regularly.  

Explosion

I did ask a worker about the delay the other day.  She asked if I'd heard about the explosion.  I figured that was the day the power went out in our neighborhood.  This ADN article confirms that.

But the worker I talked to also said that a worker lost his arm in the explosion and was at a hospital in Seattle.  That's not in the article and I hadn't heard about that.  I wish him well. (The woman I talked to used 'he'.)

Drivers are inconvenienced by blocked lanes and longer lines of cars trying to cross the intersection, especially at times when students and staff at the University are coming and going.  

Pedestrians along with cyclists, also more directly inconvenienced.  And people with difficulty walking had major obstacles.  In a wheel chair?  Forget it.  They did put boards here and there, but for most of the month the ups and downs of the wet dirt were impassable for wheel chair users.  And I had to dismount and walk - usually in the street to where the normal sidewalk began

I ended up taking a longer roundabout route that avoided the intersection altogether when I could.  

But,while I'm on the subject of bad bike lanes/sidewalks, I'd like to mention - again - the sidewalk on the south side of 36th west of Old Seward Highway.  The gravel spill from the big empty lot next to New Sagaya is a hazard that isn't being repaired.  Where there are curb cuts and cars drive out to 36th, there are always big holes and ruts.  They get repaired once a year or so, but quickly disintegrate.

Veggies

And, finally, Grow North Farm's CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) project ended this week.  The farm is sponsored by RAIS (Refugee Assistance and Immigration Service) under the umbrella of Catholic Social Services.  We've been enjoying freshly picked veggies since June.  And figuring out ways to cook and eat and store way more than would ever buy in a grocery store.  This week there was a box of rainbow chard, parsley, celery, and potatoes.  Then we had a choice of Brussel sprouts or cabbage - see picture below.

You can join the list of CSA subscribers next spring.  Go to the Grow North link and ask to be put on an email list so you'll know when to sign up.  

Slow Blogger

I still have pictures from last Saturday's hike to Winner Creek and a bunch of new books from Loussac Library to post.  And a couple of more political posts in draft form.  Volunteering at the school is getting me up earlier than normal and started with the day.  That's good.  And the kids are great.  

Innocence Project Ribs, Veggie Pickup, Steller Turns 50

Keeping busy these days.  I'm in the third grade class daily mostly helping one young man catch up on his English but also with other kids too.  Biking in the breaks in the rain.   

Also went to the Alaska Innocence Project's BBQ Rib Cook-off.  This year their invite also mentioned there'd be veggie options too.  The baked beens were great.  

Justice is one of my most cherished values, and the idea of innocent people be locked up, even executed, moves me greatly.  Right now the national Innocence Project is working to prevent an innocent man from being executed. 

"The Missouri Supreme Court has scheduled the execution of Mr. Williams on Sept. 24, for a crime he did not commit."

Even the prosecuting attorney involved has changed his mind.

"The St. Louis County prosecuting attorney reviewed these DNA results and filed a motion to vacate Mr. Williams’ conviction because he believed the DNA results proved by clear and convincing evidence that Mr. Williams did not commit this crime."

Moving on to the execution, when there is serious question, even if not definite proof, of innocence, tells me these people are not serious about justice. 

The BBQ took place at the Alaskan Airmen's Association great building at Lake Hood float plane base.  It's a great location, but the steady rain and cloud cover that evening meant there were very few planes taking off or landing.  And one would hope they might consider a name change soon.  Airmen seems a lot sexist.  I suspect they could find reasonable synonyms, like pilots, flyers, etc.  

Picked up our Thursday veggies from Grow North Farms.  

And Friday afternoon went to the Community part of the Steller Secondary School 50th Anniversary celebration.  Here's one of the students who spoke to the crowd hold the Legislative Proclamation Rep. Alyse Galvin presented the school.  Alyse was involved with Steller a long time as a parent.  (As were we, but not for so long).  I saved this picture in fairly high resolution.  The story is pretty cool, but not sure you can read it.  Among the signatures is Sen. Jesse Kiehl of Juneau, who was a Steller student when my daughter was.  

Here's Rep. Galvin talking to the gathering before making the presentation of the Certificate.  To the side are the student speaker (whose name I didn't catch), the principal Maria Hernandez, and a parent who worked hard to organize the anniversary weekend.  

And here's Bob Reid, one of the original Steller teachers back in 1974, who came up from Texas to participate.  Bob talked about how the school got started and the ideals of creating a school where everyone participated in the decisions on courses, rules, etc.  Students, teachers, administrators, staff, and parents.  And how the vision was to bring the world into the school and involve the students out in the world.  

Bob was also a neighbor of ours before he moved to Texas, so it was great to see him again.  His major claim to fame for me was that he was the host of "Nothing but the Blues" on the then new public radio station KSKA.  

For those who can't read the Legislative Proclamation, here's part of it:

"The self-directed aspect of Steller Secondary School is a big part of what makes Steller so successful, and so unique.  With an emphasis on responsibility to self and to one's community, students, parents, and staff work together through a democratic process to set school policy and procedures.  The school ethic encourages self-advocacy and inquiry:  students are encouraged to participate in collaborative processes to determine what courses should be offered and which events will take place. 

With no bells to call students to class, no advanced placement classes, and no interscholastic sports, students who choose to attend Steller find themselves both appropriately challenged and personally engaged through the opportunity to co-create independent studies and intensives with their instructors and their peers, and to develop self-directive intensives ranging from foreign and domestic travel, sports, carpentry, drama, creative writing, sculpture, and batik, to fun with math and the chemistry of cosmetics.

As part of Stellar's commitment to their motto, "only the educated are free," and their recognition that education of the individual occurs in the context of an interdependent world, the school heavily emphasizes service to community, both through a sustained commitment to service intones community, region, and state, and through a commitment to one another within the school's peer mentoring and leadership opportunities."

I'd note, that while it says "no advanced placement classes, and no interscholastic sports," students are free to arrange those activities at other schools in the district.  My daughter took advanced placement classes at another high school and she took German at the University of Alaska Anchorage (UAA) while she was in high school.  And NBA player Trajan Langdon played basketball for East High School while he was at Steller.  

The school was named after Georg Steller, (from Wikipedia):

"Georg Wilhelm Steller (10 March 1709 – 14 November 1746) was a German-born naturalist and explorer who contributed to the fields of biology, zoology, and ethnography. He participated in the Great Northern Expedition (1733–1743) and his observations of the natural world helped the exploration and documentation of the flora and fauna of the North Pacific region.

Steller pursued studies in theology and medicine before turning his attention to the natural sciences. In 1734, he joined the Russian Academy of Sciences as a physician, eventually being selected to accompany Bering's expedition to the uncharted waters between Siberia and North America. Steller kept detailed records of species and cultures encountered, as well as ocean currents during the journey. . ."

Among the regular visitors to our backyard, the Steller's Jay was named after Georg Steller.  (The photo is from a 2014 post and I wrote then that I did nothing to enhance the color. The light was just right.)

So connecting several threads here, I took Dr. Margritt Engel to the Steller anniversary celebration.  Dr. Engel was my daughter's UAA German teacher while my daughter was at Steller.  But more important, Dr. Engel translated Georg Steller's journals from the expeditions to Siberia and North America.  She brought two with her to give to the school for their library and to arrange for further interaction with the school and scholarship on its namesake.   

Consumer Alerts: Netflix Plan Change; Costco Tandoori Wrap

 The email the other day told me that the plan I'm on with Netflix is being discontinued.  They announced that I would save 40%.  But then in the smaller print it said, I'd get ads at that lower price.  

A few short ads.  Few is pretty vague.  So is short.  Anything over 5 seconds is too long for me.  And in the middle of a movie?  That's sacrilege. 

"Designed not to interrupt you during a scene" - So does this mean at the end of the scene, but in the middle of the movie, they will interrupt?  Totally unacceptable.  

My current bill is $11.99 per month.  That's up from $9.99 a month not that long ago. [I looked on line.  Seems they announced the increase in June 2023 and it went into effect in October 2023, best as I can tell.]

That's less than a year ago.  Can we expect annual bumps from now on? 

Compared to going to the theater, Netflix is a great deal.  So great that we find we are spending way too much time watching.  At least we limit to after dinner, generally not starting until 8:30 or 9:30.  And trying to end around 11pm.

But as I think about it, we lose a lot of reading time and a lot of time when we used to talk to each other.  And I have noticed that blogging gets cut back by Netflix.  

So I replied that we did not want ads and were ready to cut loose from Netflix. 

I got another email - My current plan would end September 30.  I replied that our Netflix addiction would end September 30.  Of course, the emails from Netflix were not ones you could reply to and I got notices that they weren't delivered.  

Prices go up because people are willing to suck it up and keep paying.  In this case I need to figure out how to let Netflix know, I don't plan to pay after September.  

Meanwhile, I had to go to Costco to get a repair on one of my hearing aids - which they did and it worked.  But as I gathered some fruits and veggies and fresh salmon, I saw some Tandoori Chicken Wraps.  Looked good and they had a $2 off sign, so I thought we could try them.  

Today, when I looked to see if and how to heat them up, I saw there were no directions.  Just the longest list of ingredients I can remember ever seeing.  

From what I could tell checking a Reddit discussion, you were supposed to eat them cold.  We did.  

Boring!!  (Does it make sense to put exclamation points after boring?  Probably not)  Despite all the ingredients it didn't really taste like anything.  It was mushy. Avoid.  

Back To Netflix 

And if you have Netflix, and you're also unhappy about this, you can go to manage your account and play around until you find the contact button.  Then you have a choice of phone or chat.  

I chose chat, because I can make screenshots of what was said, but I'm pretty sure it was a bot responding.  When, at one point, I asked how many siblings do you have and where are you in the birth order, the response was 

"I'd be happy to answer Netflix-related questions today. Do you have any questions about your account or our service?"

At the end when they asked if I had more questions, I said that they hadn't answered whether they were a bot or human and the answer was "I am a human."  Must be depressing having people think you aren't human all day - assuming that was true.  

Maybe we need to have legislation requiring customers be told whether the chat or voice they are talking to is a human or not.  With consequences if they lie.   

I'd suggest people go into your accounts and tell them you are going to cancel your accounts at the end of September (or whenever your basic service ends).  If enough people do that, perhaps they will reconsider.  And you can always rejoin later if you have severe withdrawal symptoms.  

 

Biking For Veggies Gets Me Into Police Blockade

 It's Thursday.  The Refugee Assistance and Immigration Service of the Catholic Social Services in Anchorage has a farm - Grow North Farm - where I subscribe for weekly veggie pickups over the summer.  It's about 7.4 km or or a bit over 9 miles round trip.  I can do much of it on wooded bike paths.  But eventually I get to a quiet residential street in Airport Heights.  

My first hint was a police car a block to the east.  But then as I headed down the street there were more police cars.  Lots of them.  My first reaction was a bad crash, but I'm on a bike and I can go around on the sidewalk if necessary.  But then I got within about 20 feet of the cars and police behind them, yelling at someone I couldn't see.  But I could see that at least one officer had a gun pointed over the car.  As regular readers of this blog probably know, guns are not a fascination of mine.  But one of the benefits of blogging is that I learn new things.  Here's an image of shotguns I got when I googled 'police guns'.  What I saw most resembled one of the circled guns, probably the bottom one, because he was holding it and I saw that box magazine as well.  (Based on the pictures and interactive description from here.)  Of course, I'm just guessing from my brief look and googling now.  

I realized quickly that if the police had guns pointing further down the street, over their cars, that there was someone down there who might start shooting toward the police, near where I was.  (There are fairly regular reports in the newspaper of Anchorage police involved in a shoot out.)  Rather than pull out my camera and try to catch this dramatic scene, I turned my bike around and headed back, turned the corner and tried the next street over, which got me to DeBarr.  From DeBarr and Airport Heights, I took this picture while waiting for the light to change.  I never heard any shots fired.

I originally encountered one set of police coming from the south.  Now I'm looking south from two blocks to the north.  So there were police on both ends of the street.  

I carried on toward Grow North Farm.  It seemed bizarre that cars and people were carrying on normally so close to this dramatic scene, without even knowing that something was happening.  

On my way back everything on that block was back to normal.  Not a sign that anything had happened.  It was like a movie set had packed up and gone home. (I grew up in LA where there were movie shoots all over.)  But I don't know that a movie set would have cleaned up as well.  

At home I unloaded the veggie haul.  Today's selection was:

• Rainbow Chard/ Collard Greens

• Mizuna

• Cilantro

• And a choose-two grab bag of: Kohlrabi, Cucumbers, Zucchini, Salad Mix, Hot Peppers, Tarragon, and Oregano

From the grab-bag, I chose Kohlrabi and Cucumbers.

I played around a bit with the Curves on my photo program to offer you this somewhat alien looking kohlrabi.

As a bonus, we got to pick out a peony.  This one made it in pretty good shape sticking out of my backpack on the ride home.  

Denali Was Out In Full Glory

Here was the view from the mile 135 Denali Lookout point last Tuesday afternoon.  The mountain was magnificent.  The tallest mountain in North America.  All 20,310 feet (6,190.5 m) were showing, just about.  Aconcagua in Argentina is 22,831 feet (6,959 m).  But Aconcagua is one of many peaks in the Andes range.  The whole of Denali can be seen from 3000 feet and up.  And Tuesday it was all out and clear.  

After about four years in Alaska, I wanted to make a post card of clouds, labeled "Denali as most tourists see it."   There was a couple from Toronto there taking in the sight and I wanted to let them know how lucky they were to see this great view.  And we became friends for the next couple of days, enjoying the park together.  

Below is that same view on Thursday afternoon on our return to Anchorage.  My postcard view.  You'd never know North America's highest mountain was hiding behind those clouds.  You can also see that a lot of snow melted in those two days.  

And below is a picture of Denali from the North (on the right), on the road in the National Park.  Still clear.  

Our Canadian friends got great views of the mountain.  Below it resembles a full moon just rising.  

But as lucky as they were with the Mountain, they were unlucky with animals.  I don't remember a trip to Denali when we saw so few big animals.  The few we saw were not particularly close. There were plenty of ptarmigan, gulls, and ground squirrels.  

First we hiked along the Savage River trail.  We've learned from past experience that this early in the season, the trail on the east side is still full of snow and ice in parts, so we hike to the bridge along the west side (right side in the photo) and returned the same way.  

As you get closer to the bridge (about one mile each way) you start to see these Tolkien rocks.  

And excuse me for putting all these photos up extra large.  Denali National Park is extra large and even this effort doesn't do it justice.  

We stopped at Sanctuary campground for lunch, where we saw this giant head in the rocky mountain across the way.  Anyone else see it?  Two of us did.

Just before Teklanika campground, there is a pair of small lakes, ponds really.  One had buffleheads and pintails and a kingfisher.  The other had northern shovelers.  

We parked at the Teklanika overview - which is as far as you are allowed to drive - and walked down to the bridge below.  You can drive in the first 30 miles only until May 20 when the tour busses start.  (Well, they already had some tour busses for the benefit of cruise line passengers, but not too many.)  Beginning May 20 you can only drive as far as Savage River (12 miles in.)  The road is still closed at mile 40 due a a huge avalanche a few years back.  So 20 miles further to Eilson, and then the next 30 to Wonder Lake aren't accessible. An Anchorage Daily News article say it won't be done until 2026.

It was only as we were headed back after a long day, that we saw the first large animal - a caribou.  There were two moose after that.  Denali - being far north with a short growing season and a long winter, is no Serengeti.  There just isn't enough food for the large herds in Africa.  But three large animal sightings is pitiful.   It was a VERY windy day, and perhaps that kept the animals hunkered down.  

Our new friends headed to their hotel outside the park and we got back to our campground.  I'd brought a bunch of the broken tree limbs from the back yard post winter clean up and some nice dry pieces of firewood and we quickly had a dinner cooked in foil.  First on the grill while the flames were high, and then on the coals a little longer.