Clouse Tacos

These are Clouse Tacos. Lippa smelling, giggly, loud, full of energy, silly tacos.

This is how we roll em at the House of Clouse. Actually Jon rolls them. Once rolled nice and tight they work it and work it and work it until they get out.

I'd say we make them about every month or so- these crazy Clouses love them. The tighter the wrap the better.
Kiley thinks she looks like a salmon.... she does have a pretty good imagination.

Planting... finally!

We still can't get into the green house, and there is still tons of snow. BUT we did thaw out our potting soil and we found some pots and other planting paraphernalia in the garage.

Kiley even got in on the action- she planted marigolds. They still haven't come up, so we might have to start again. Marigolds are usually the first to come up aren't they?
Sis took this picture. Thats me planting my gladiolas- man they were already sprouting!

See? Not the best picture, but you can see those sprouts.

We planted marigolds, gladiolas, broccoli, lettuce, some petunias, lupine and an herb garden. We stick them in front of our deck doors.

This is what has sprouted so far:

Broccoli (we have high hopes this year-- we discovered it needs a ton of light!)
and some Marigolds, or I think they are anyway. We'll see.

We also have some Dill and Basil growing in our herb garden! So far our planting season is off to a so-so start but we are still very hopeful for some amazing results this year in our garden!

Visitors

Look who came back for a visit this spring. Our old friends the moose. They are a mama cow and her calve, respectively. This must be the same cow that has visited us for the past couple of years, I hope she isn't offended that we can't tell (they all do look alike you know). We must have some tasty trees.
They came to visit right about the time Kiley was going to be walking home from school, of course Sis was still sleeping so I had Blake go and pick her up. That night at dinner I was asking Kiley what she would do if she "ran into" a moose on her way home from school. Before she could say anything Sis said, "SHOOT IT!"
Now there is an Alaskan girl!

Desperate

Let me start this by telling you that it was 10 degrees at our house this morning when we woke up. Ten, t-e-n. It is April 12th.

It always seems like an act of desperation this time of year- planting that is. Desperate to feel dirt, warm sun and to see GREEN things growing.

We could feel it though so Jon and I decided that we were going to do some planting on Sunday. We broke out the seeds, and then decided to look for our potting soil. We faced our first hurdle there. The potting soil was stored outside under the back deck and was pretty much frozen solid.

Second hurdle- I usually store my pots in our crawl space but this year we thought it would be a great idea to store them in our newly constructed green house. Perfect, no dirt in the house! Easy access! Right?

Um... wrong.

This is our green house. As of yesterday. Yes it is covered in snow, lots and lots of snow.

See that little crack at the top of the door? I could peek in and see the temperature in the green house- it was 64 degrees in there. Ahhh, we won't feel that heat until at least June.

Third hurdle: Jon and I thought we could easily dig out the door so we dug this path. Cute isn't it? I was thinking whoo hoo planting here we come! Then Jon discovered the 6 inches of ice covering the bottom of the door and my dreams of planting went down the tube.

Spring in Alaska..... gotta love it!

It's Official

I'm sick of snow.

Don't get me wrong, it has been a fabulous winter. Actually an amazing winter, we couldn't ask for better. But winter is over. It is spring now.... that was official March 20th.

This week we have had snow storm after snow storm with wind and rain mixed in. We have woken up 4 out of 7 days with fresh snow on our deck- like 5 inches of FRESH snow.

We've had some great walks. It is always good to get the kids out for some fresh air.

The dogs even loved the walks, especially Kami.

We built some great tunnels-- kind of like snow mice or something.

Towing was a huge hit-- hours and hours of fun.

Of course we can't forget about sledding-- what a way to burn off some energy! Kiley must have ran up and down this hill enough times for all of us.

As beautiful as this is I am ready for it to all melt away. Soon. I'm ready for some brown mud and then some bright green. In a few months I hope to be picking berries right here on this tundra.