Ruby Tuesday and Then Some

I'm going to start things off with Ruby Tuesday...then I'll follow with my regular blogging if you are interested. Last night I discovered that I have a whole bunch of radishes ready to roll. I did a quick Internet search and found "Radish Chips". They were hot and good. Dad and I were thinking they would go really good with crackers and smoked salmon. Mmmmm.

If you want to see lots of red check out Ruby Tuesday here!



Now on with the rest of my post....

Want to go from your happy place to frustrated and pissed off quickly? Restring your weed whacker. Enough said on that.

After way too many hours I finally got the yard and ditch whacked and mowed. Looks so much better now.

My Hensa Roses are going crazy. They smell divine! The Johnny Jump-Ups under the Lilac bush are getting huge.

The Striped Marvel Marigolds are starting to pop open. Wish you could get a better feel for just how many there are. Oh, and the Schizanthus that I fretted about this winter and wanted to throw out finally popped out a little butterfly. Olivia loves them so I'm glad I kept them.

My very sad Dianthus plants are giving a few beautiful flowers. Another is all white and one a deep red. I thought I had killed all the pansies, but apparently there are a few left.

This little tiny plant produced a cute little monkey flower. Where is it that they talk...Alice in Wonderland? I want to show Olivia, but I'm not sure what movie is was.

The Impatiens are producing a few flowers here and there, but not like I had hoped. Maybe it will get better in time. The petunias should take off any day now. I wish the yard was more full of color. It always seems they bloom just in time to freeze!

These are odd...Fireball Marigolds. When they first bloomed the petals were laced with fire red and then as they got bigger it has almost faded away. I'll try to get a close up of one when it first blooms.


Dad and the Wee People went off to bed and I spent some quiet time in the yard. I love to be out here between 11:00 and 1:00am. The traffic has died down and all I hear is the waterfall and a few birds. It is really peaceful.

The new grass outside the pen on the corner is doing great. It looks so much better than the wild look from last year.

Look who sits right in my lap and falls asleep. She really likes to be held and I wonder what will happen when she gets big. Will she still want to sit in my lap? A few of the black tipped feathers are starting to emerge. What a pretty turkey this is going to be.

While I held my turkey these little stinkers untied my shoes. They are right on my feet wherever I go. I just love all my birds. It's amazing how much enjoyment I get from chickens and turkeys.


The sky was amazingly beautiful tonight.



Janie has a lab named Daisy who looks just like my Roscoe. Daisy is fortunate because she gets to go on very long runs while her owners are on horse back. Janie figures Roscoe would be a lot more mellow if he had the opportunity to run. I can't let him loose as he has no training/manners at all and would destroy my gardens so he just doesn't get to run. Janie got me to thinking and tonight I tied him to the 4-wheeler and attempted a run. Guess what? It worked! The first trip was one mile and the second was 1.5 miles. I'll have to ease him into as he is two years old and never really exercised, but I can tell it is going to make a huge difference in being able to manage him.

Well...here we are at almost 2am on a beautiful Alaskan night. Time to hit the shower and bed.

Ruby Tuesday: Rosy Cheeks

Join the Ruby fun here!

Ruby Tuesday: The Love Doctor

This morning I was sitting at the kitchen table drinking my coffee in silence when I looked over and saw this. Artwork by 10-year old Emily. I'm afraid to look inside the binder. What could she have to say? Just thinking about it was enough to make me giggle.

More Ruby Tuesday!

Ruby Tuesday: Rosy Cheeks

Join Mary The Teach for Ruby Tuesday!

We have very little snow so far this year, but what we do have is enough for the kids to have some fun. Here's Emily showing off her balance. I think someone might be going snowboarding with her brothers this year.

It's a lot of hard work pushing your little sister up the slippery slope,

but it's worth it for the ride down.

Now you really didn't think I was passing pink off for Ruby did you? Not me! Check out those cheeks. Those two little girls had the most rosy cheeks while sledding.

Lucas also wanted to show you his freshly ruby-scraped nose and cheek which may or may not have come from a much older sister who might possibly have thrown a sled in his direction while being sassy. He'll also tell you his foot is bropen (broken) from the same sister crashing him into a pole although it really isn't. It was a rough day of sledding for the Lukey Monster and I'm sure it won't be the last.

The Ruby in Valdez

Check out what people love about their corner of the world here.

Do you like red? See red in the world here.

We rolled into Valdez late and went right to the hotel in town. In the morning we went out to Allison Point to visit Dave's camp. Standing at his tent site you can see the town of Valdez across the waters (to the right in this photo).

To the left you can see the Alyeska Oil Terminal with big red "Do Not Enter" signs.

Dave's camp was actually a group of about ten people. Perched on a bright red cooler Cole washed his teenage daughters hair. Awwww....just too sweet.

We also saw the big red warning signs to watch for bears in the area. I'm really glad we didn't see any. It never ceases to amaze me that people need warned to stay away from the bears. That's a no-brainer, but apparently there are people out there without brains!

Pink is a shade of red, right? :) Off the end of my Breast Cancer Awareness fishing pole you can see the docks of the small boat harbor.

Here's one of the five silver salmon that I caught.

Here's my darling husband with one of the five that he caught. See the man in red over his should on the other side? That guy was a fish catching machine. No kidding.

Elijah is fighting his 10.5 pound silver that wanted to go under the dock. Not a good place to let them go as we lost a couple when the dock cut the line.


One happy fisherman decked out in red!

It was time to head home so we took our haul down to the cleaning station where you could get a nice view of the boat harbor.

Final tally: Homer-5, Gayle-5, Elijah-1 and Forrest-2 (plus one from Allison Point). Also, the day before some nice guy gave us four he caught.

Pretty red sign saying good-bye.

We didn't begin our 363 mile journey home until after 5:00pm so scenic stops were limited. We took some quick photos at Bridal Veil Falls. Doesn't he look handsome in red?

Elijah would have climbed to the top if I would have let him. What a dare-devil.

We also stopped at this tunnel through the mountain. A sign read: "This tunnel was hand cut into the solid rock of Keystone Canyon and is all that is left of the railroad era when nine companies fought to take advantage of the short route from the coast to the copper country. However a feud interrupted progress. A gun battle was fought and the tunnel was never finished".

Elijah running back from the other side of the tunnel.

Across the street ran the Klutina River. Our last photo op for the man in red!