More fun food

Notice the noodles?? Part of Abbie's dinner, but still they are next to the squirrel!
At Liam's camp he got to hunt for small game. He and one other boy each found and shot a squirrel. The camp counselor suggested a braise then frying like chicken. Today that is what we had to try with our burgers for supper...just a snack, squirrels are not so large in Alaska!



Liam said it tasted some like rabbit, Abbie said it was hard, Kyle was not a fan...I think it tastes a little like liver. Very "brown" flavored and kinda tough, it is hard to get a good taste because it is so small with so many bones. I am thinking stewed would be better. Liam thought it was awesome he got to eat something he directly harvested. He got to track, shoot, gut and skin this animal himself! Next time I will have him cook it too! There will also be a post about the tanning of the hide, a multi-day process.

Girls

Had to post this one here too, Abbie NEEDED these glasses from old navy. They match!! Her camp was done these last two weeks at noon and Liam's not till 5:30 so we had a lot of good girl time!

Summer fun

As I have been informed (gently, of course!) it has been a long time since I posted here. The kids have had camp, it has been Lily and my birthday and Father's Day. Which stacks up to long days away from home and lots of party/prep/clean-up for us! Liam and Abbie had a blast at their camps. Liam did the Alaska Conservation camp from the Fish and Game...fishing, boating, hunting, bow shooting, and gun safety. Abbie did a kids drama camp from the Fairbanks Drama Association...she got to help write and act in a production of Stone Soup. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera for all this fun! With all the warm weather, I did manage to get one good shot of some much needed sprinkler time.

This fun is just before disaster, Liam slipped while running for the swing and scraped up his back and hip and bruised his backside and hands. Slip-n-slide without the slide, not recommended!

First trip of the season!

A few pictorial highlights from our first camping trip of the summer! For this trip we chose to go up the Steese Highway to about 55 mile, then off road to the banks of the Chatinika river. We had fair weather, one big thunderstorm and most of a day of showers, but otherwise not bad.

Not sure what these butterflies were eating/drinking, but it was very cool to see them so close!

Lots of fun to fling rocks when you get to use a tool! The slingshot and staff sling brigade.

Abbie got a real fishing pole to use this year! She does well with it, but it needs some better line...it keeps kinking up from being spooled too long.

Liam descending from fly fishing to try the spin rod for a bit. He caught a few little grayling with the fly rod but we didn't have much luck with the spinners. I think most of the big fish had been taken over Memorial Day weekend.

Kyle had some good luck with the prospecting though!! Some more fines to add to his collection.

This was a fun trip, we will definitely be going back to this spot. So nice for us to have a place off the road with prospecting and fishing right in front of the truck!

More pink

The rose jelly never did set up so we had rose syrup. We decided to still try it on toast, but we had to dip.
Liam's reaction, yum!

Abbie's reaction, not so favorable...I am going to try tempting her with rose soda after a trip to the store for soda water. Liam is excited to try this. I am thinking it will go better as an accent, rather than the only flavor note.

I had to try some on the last bit of frozen goat yogurt, soooooooo tasty! The tang and perfume went very nicely together. It's pretty too.

Pretty in pink

Today I tried to make rose petal jelly, A new experiment for me...such color! The ingredient list for this jelly is: rose petals, water, lemon juice and sugar. No food coloring! But the finished product is a bright, red/pink. The jars are still warm but it still looks very thin in there. I think we maybe ended up with syrup instead of jam. I haven't tasted it yet either. I will post more tomorrow when we get to try some on our toast.

Late Rabbit

Hehe, this bunny was gray not white but maybe he was still running late?? I am anyway....We finally got a chance to cook the bunny that was hanging out in the freezer. He was not a wild rabbit so no fears of tularemia. After lots of asking around, I decided to grill him. Mostly because it is so hot out!
We made our own BBQ sauce and cut him up for grilling. It took about an hour (so dinner was late, surprising, right?) then he was served up with fried apples and couscous. The rabbit was very good and did taste a lot like chicken. It is slightly more game-y and the flesh is a little meatier. I wish we had not used the BBQ sauce on all the meat so more flavor of Rabbit could come through. All in all very tasty! We also tried some new beers from Gouden Carolus. New to us anyway, Dad found a great beer store in Anchorage that is now permanently on our shopping list.

After cutting as much as we could from the back and ribs, those still meaty bits were tossed in a pot with some pintos to make "hare beans" those were part of supper last night along with grilled pork chops.