Autumn in Alaska and What I've Been Up To

So, once again blogging got delayed (obviously).  A quick recap of events that have prevented me from doing much other than getting through life the last month:

1.  The daughter's teeth started to bug her.  Got her to the dentist, but he didn't find anything on X-ray (cavities or what not), so he thought it was because maybe that her wisdom teeth were showing up on the X-rays.  Made an appointment for a more in depth X-ray.  Wisdom teeth didn't wait and poked through the gums.  So, it was in to get the daughter's wisdom teeth removed earlier than most teenagers.  She's recovering well, but yeah that was an unexpected turn of events there.

2.  The son's medications stopped working again.  So, we are trying to come up with some other plan to help him regulate his moods and help him to sleep at night.  It's been hard, but hopefully we'll get there here soon where he's doing better.  Fingers crossed.

There was good things in the month too though.

1.  We finally, after working hard the past year, got our medical bills paid off, this time with some help from the PFD.  Between those bills (which unfortunately were on credit card), it ate the entire PFD we got this year, but at least it paid off the rest of the medical bills, so I'm not complaining at all.  Course, now I have a wisdom teeth bill to pay off, but it is a major load off of my mind to have some pretty substantial bills due to my back paid off and the wisdom teeth are on Care Credit so I have a year to pay them off before interest pops up to haunt me.

2.  We went to the local fall festival again this year.  And this year it wasn't snowing and horribly cold.  Instead we actually had sunlight that day and the temperatures were chilly, but not bad, which was great.  Unfortunately, the amount of things they had to do was severely reduced this year compared to previous years (partly due to, I'm sure, labor shortages and all), so the son went on a few tractor rides, walked around a while and was ready to go home.  The daughter did manage to decorate a pumpkin at one of the events there (seen above) and so we got a free pie pumpkin out of the day, which was cool.  It was kind of short, but the kids seemed to have a good time anyway, so that was good.

We did stop off at a local produce stand that we like (Bushes Bunches) and I was able to score a FEW turnips (it's been hard to find them this year), a nice big onion and some local potatoes.  I would have bought some veggies from the farm where the fall festival was, but their prices were crazy high (2.50 per onion as an example) compared to my budget, so I passed on buying vegetables there.

3.  We celebrated my son's birthday at home.  My mother-in-law came over to help us celebrate and it was a lot of fun.  We had home made pizza and breadsticks and it was a nice and enjoyable evening.

4.  I got my pantry and freezers organized, managed to get produce processed before it went bad (with the CSA, that wasn't as easy as you might think as the quality just was not there this year) and put up as well.  I feel pretty darned good about those accomplishments, honestly, as with the son's medications not working great, it's been hard to get things done some days.

5.  Fall has been hanging on this year, which has been wonderful for a person like me who loves autumn above all seasons :).

I was asked by a reader what fall was like in Alaska, so I thought I'd give a quick tour of what fall is like up here.

Well depending on the year we may or may not have fall at all, really.  Last year we went directly into winter pretty much from mid-September or so.  This year is much nicer.  Normally, though, we do have snow at any time after October rolls around and most years the kids are running around in snow gear when they go trick or treating and trying to not slip and slide on the ice as they go from door to door in the subdivisions.

The leaves are hanging on the trees instead of immediately dying and blowing off this year and if you look around you'll quickly see more shades of gold than you thought you'd see with the trees seeming to all change color to different shades of yellow and brown.  It is surprising the trees are holding on so well with all of the rain we've gotten, but they are and I'm super happy about it.  

The temperatures are cold at night and in the morning (shot above from a few days ago),  but by afternoon I've been able to open the windows pretty much every day to air out the house still and let in that crisp autumn air.  It's pretty warm for this time of year, another thing I'm grateful for.  

We do have the furnace on and it kicks on at night and in the mornings, but it isn't kicking on constantly yet, which is a wonderful turn of events when I think of what the heat and electric are going to cost us this winter.  

When I first moved up here I greatly missed the colors that the trees would erupt into during the fall, especially missing the foliage changes from my youth in New England, but as I've gotten older and spent a good portion of my life now in Alaska, I really do love the change to golden hues that happen up here.  If you find someplace with lots of cranberry bushes growing they will change a beautiful shade of red toward the ground as well (I couldn't find a good spot in my yard to take a picture of some to show you).  

So, Alaska has its own color palette to appreciate this time of year.

So, there you go, a quick shot of Alaska in the fall (well, my yard in the fall anyway *laugh*).  Hope you enjoyed a tour of the fall shades we are experiencing up here at the moment.  I love them and wish I had some chairs on my deck so I could sit out there and really enjoy it.

I do, in fact, have some blog posts in the wings for October, so hopefully I get to post them!  I hope you are all having a great fall (my prayers are with those impacted by the hurricane and other events, for sure) and I will hopefully see you soon!