Freshly picked spruce tips season perfectly cooked halibut.

Spruce tips are easy to find here in Alaska when temperatures are just starting to get warmer and the forest is waking up. Their bright fresh flavor is citrusy with a touch of pine that complements fish beautifully in this Spruce Butter Halibut. Ingredients for Spruce Butter Halibut Handful of fresh spruce tips (approximately one…

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Freshly picked spruce tips sit in a bucket.

And lo, the winter is past! Summer in Alaska is just stunning. The weather is perfect. The days are long. Well, non stop daylight actually. And after a two week long springtime that consists of snow melting into boatloads of mud everything is finally GREEN! I am literally drawn outside into the forest by some…

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For the first time in months it’s light when I wake in the morning and as we draw close to twelve full hours of daylight I have had some time to reflect on our first Alaskan winter. When we first decided to spend the winter here one of the first things people would say to…

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One of the best parts of living in Alaska is that it’s North America’s version of an African Safari. There’s so much life living in these woods. We’ve seen bald eagles galore, flocks of Bohemian waxwings, snowshoe hare and lots of moose. There are tiny voles and massive grizzly bears. Every day is adventure so…

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As I mentioned when we first decided to go to Alaska, ice fishing is definitely on the must do list for us. It’s all part of our Outdoor Education Unit for our homeschool. Here we are in December and with the sun gone and the winter chill coming, it’s time to bundle up and hit…

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Catholic Homeschooling

As you probably already know I am a big fan of nature study for young kids in the homeschool curriculum. There are obviously many benefits that I have discussed in other posts about nature study. Kids learn not only scientific knowledge, but nature study can also improve communication and artistic skills. It teaches them patience…

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Sipping my rose hip tea I’ll now tell you all about those mysterious wild berries of Alaska that I found…… On my first walk in the woods here in Salcha I immediately noticed wild berries of Alaska with which I was unfamiliar. I made educated guesses on what they all are, but followed that up…

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What to do with Rose hips

Today is the day I take the leap and eat from the Alaska wild.  We are making wild rose hip tea and will forage for berries!  So here we are quarantining at this quaint little cabin in the woods of Alaska.  We have lots of time on our hands.  The girls have started school in…

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Homeschool Nature Study

Nature Study is a critical part of our homeschool, but it’s a subject so many homeschoolers skip because they think it’s too complex or they simply get overwhelmed by unnecessary curricula. My three step process to easy homeschool nature study keeps things super simple. Think of it as the “glamper’s” version of nature study. Before…

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