Dear Readers, Thank you for your visits here, especially those of you who wrote me with comments or questions through the blog or through my email. I am migrating now to substack.  All future content will appear at: https://alaskauu1.substack.com. Blogspot was a wonderful platform but substack has added advantages for both writers and readers that, to my knowledge, blogspot lacks. My newest post is about Trash in America, and easy, creative, and money saving ways to reduce yours or mine. Happy reading.  I look forward to hearing from you there. Laura ..read more

 Please follow these links for articles recently posted on Survivalblog.com:   Homesteading Cautionary Tales – Part 1, by Mrs. Alaska   Homesteading Cautionary Tales – Part 2, by Mrs. Alaska ..read more

For a dozen or so years, I have made palatable wine (usually pinot noir and pinot grigio) from commercial kits that vary in price from $69 - $200 per 6 gallons.  To some, I added fresh berries that we grow at home.  I have also made 4 batches of mead with the honey that our honeybees produced.  One batch of raspberry mead was glorious, but three others failed to ferment, so I ended up with three gallons of raspberry/honey syrup – more than anyone needs. Last month, inspired by a friend who makes about 10 types of wine from apricot and wild plum trees, dandelion flowers, and fi ..read more

Egg laying is partially predicated on the season.  Our hens, of various breeds, are always most prolific layers in the summer months.  In the autumn, when they molt (shed their feathers and grow new ones) they do not lay at all for 6 to 8 weeks.  During the cold winter months in Alaska, they shiver in the chilly coop, laying maybe half as often as in the summer.  It is only in March, when we have 12 hours of daylight, that they venture out into the snow and start to lay regularly again. Therefore, I learned various ways to save eggs to eat during the molt and all winter ..read more

About 15 years ago, my husband and I embarked on a radical shift in our lifestyle.   We moved from a high-rise urban condo in Houston, TX to a 2 room log cabin in Alaska… with an outhouse. Because there are no roads where we live, we sold our Mercedes and Honda and bought snowmachines (called snowmobiles in the Lower 48) to travel 3.5 hours to the closest community, and a plane, with floats and skis, to fly there in 20 minutes.  However, twice a year, when the lake transitions from water to ice, we have no transportation at all. Instead of weekly trips to the supermarket and resta ..read more

 Please find my most recent post here, about how to build an outhouse .  https://survivalblog.com/2023/10/01/build-outhouse-mrs-alaska/    The following photos are of our two outhouses.  The one with the moon and moose paddle door handle is the new one.   The other one was built in about 2009.  I am honored to have it featured on SurvivalBlog.com, which, every day, offers informative articles of interest to people who want to live intentionally, and self-reliantly.  It includes product reviews, recipes, historical anecdotes, snippets of news from the R ..read more

Sadly, 2023 was “the summer that wasn’t.” In fact, local weather reporters said that this has been the coolest summer since 2008.  The temperature was not as much of a problem as all the rainy and overcast days. I think the longest stretch of consecutive, sunny days was 4, and those were few and far between.    For someone who tries to raise a lot of our own food, this was a sad state of affairs. My vegetable gardens were pretty much useless.  Seeds, seedlings, and bulbs rotted in the ground, and those that grew were leggy and thin.  Cauliflower and broccoli never set ..read more

 Please see my most recent post here.  I am honored to have it featured on SurvivalBlog.com ..read more

You might think that the Alaska state sport would be hockey, but I would argue that it is dog mushing.  The most famous race is the 1000 mile long Iditarod the first weekend of March, but there are many other shorter, qualifying and alternative races, too, that we all follow.  Conversations buzz with references to favorite mushers and favorite dogs.  My husband and I live in an area of many competitive and recreational dog mushers as well as long time volunteers who help out at the races. The Junior Iditarod race, for teenagers, used to pass right in front of our cabin.  ..read more

 (sorry no photos.  We need to take our computer camera with us next time we kayak). I have read descriptions of birds luring predators away from their nest of eggs or fledglings by feigning a broken wing or leg, but, until yesterday, I had never witnessed this. At the time, we were enjoying our afternoon kayak around the lake while our dog, Buddy, ran along the shore or paddled alongside.  Across the lake, he startled a duck out of the foliage along the water.  She fluttered in a shallow flight away from Buddy, who watched in fascination and then dived in to swim after her ..read more