Gosh, with these resumes, we could start our own environmental consulting company and vote green (as in Nader).

Cary

Depends...What I did for 20 years was clean up after oil companies after they screwed up...Like Exxon Valdes. If you say the Navy oil skimmers...That was me or one of us...We picked up 80% of what was recovered. Actually nature was doing a better and faster job then us...

Depends...What I did for 20 years was clean up after oil companies after they screwed up...Like Exxon Valdes. If you say the Navy oil skimmers...That was me or one of us...We picked up 80% of what was recovered. Actually nature was doing a better and faster job then us...I got a lot of stories on this one...Eco-freaks don't like me...

That is side of it that got all of the media attention and it is pollution control of a major sort!
I don't know about Nader as Gorbachev started the Green Party after he went out of power in USSR!!

The earth is very resilient. You couldn't convince an environmental wacko of that.

Don't forget to send your carbon credit donations to Al Gore. His wife needs some new shoes. I hear she's after a pair of whale skin boots.

Cary

Isn't he a major pollutant???????

OntheLasGallinas wrote:

...To quell the urge to farm, I plant a large garden. It ranges from one-quarter to one-half acre. I give most of it away. Cary

Being almost at the Arctic Circle on the coast of the Bering Sea, let me tell you about fresh produce...

How does $12.99 for 4 ears of corn sound? How about $24.99 for a MEDIUM sized watermelon? $7.99 for a bunch of really brown bananas?

Your words about giving away produce made me cry. I miss having a garden. I miss having a produce section that you don't have to take out a second mortgage for. Even the produce section we do have has 2-3 items in it at a time, if you're not there at the right time you don't get anything.

Sometimes I feel like those monks in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" who keep banging their heads with a board. I guess somebody has to teach these kids.

Can't have a garden where your at? Here in Fort Yukon (above the arctic circle) a good many people have gardens. I hear you on high prices though........being a milk lover I find it a little disturbing to pay $13.00 a gallon. Or a gallon of gas for $5.50. Most of my fruit and veggies come from a can.

It was my understanding that Alaskans can grow produce just fine, but have a very short growing season to do it.

I really couldn't tell you what vegetables cost in the store, but it's fairly cheap. I live in an area that has a 365 day growing season. We just change crops, depending on season. As an example, we grow cabbage, lettuce, cauliflower, spinach and all other greens, carrots, onions, turnips, and beets in the winter months. In the early spring, we grow potatoes and corn. In the summer we grow everything else. We have to plant corn early (mine is already up) because the pollen in the tassel dies when the daytime temperatures reach around 100 degrees. I put up lots of what I grow by freezing and raise our own beef and eggs. For instance, I freeze about 300 ears of corn per year. I also have an orchard with peaches, plums (both wild and domestic), pecans, blackberries, and mulberries. Last month I expanded that to include almonds, figs, pears, pomegranates, avocados, and jujubes. Watermellons here sell for about $2.00 at roadside stands. Cantaloupes run about 2 for $1.00.

This area gets about 18 inches of rain per year. Most of that falls in September and May, so we do have to irrigate during the heat of the summer.

Cary

When I was very young we lived in Chugiak, about 12 miles north of Anchorage. We had a nice garden there, I mostly remember picking peas and of course lots and lots of berries. I know we had a pretty good sized garden.

Right now I'm teaching on the Yukon River Delta. By October we're frozen and we don't see grass until June. Even in the summer the only thing that grows around here is grass, it's a friggin' swamp. If there's one thing the old BIA did to piss me off it's to put my old village school here where they did, there really wasn't much of a village before that. Now it's an artificially created village where no Yup'ik Eskimo would have chosen to live 100 years ago. They had better sense than that.

What does land sell for up there (Yukon River Delta)? I don't know how I would adapt to the cold. I guess you get used to it after a while.

I guess we pretty much strayed from the forum subject, so I thought I'd throw this in: Boo on Hillary and Obama!

Cary

There really isn't a place you could buy. This is a federal wildlife refuge. The land that's not protected belongs to the Natives and believe me, they ain't selling. Besides, trust me on this one: You don't want to live here.

As for adapting, you're right. A good part of the winter it's -20 to -40 here (which is still warmer than where roklok's at.) When it gets to 0 here people are wearing light jackets. I've had my heavy parka put away since the beginnig of feb. because it hasn't really gotten much colder than -10. I wear my Carhartt hoodie and that's plenty warm enough. It was 25 today, many of the kids were carrying their jackets because it's too warm for them to wear a coat at all. My wife and I stayed up here last summer because we were taking Masters courses full time (online and call in) and didn't want to be bothered travelling during our classwork. On the days the temp got to 70 degrees we had all our windows open and every fan in the house on because we were dying from the heat.