Figuring out when to go to Chitina to dip net for red salmon is always difficult, but this year was particularly challenging. The king salmon run was poor again this year, and they stopped letting you keep them after 19 June. But on average the reds run later than kings, so going early means you might get a king (this year you could keep just one), but you aren’t likely to fill out your permit on reds. That likelihood increases after the 4th of July, and the reds are generally larger then, too. And because the goal is to fill the freezer with fish, we’ve tended to forego the chance to get a king and go later.
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Leucopaxillus Risotto
A new crop of Russula mushrooms
With all the rain we’ve been having, a new crop of these delicious, big, white Russula Leucopaxillus came in and Rose and I decided to make a mushroom risotto.
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Boreal Banquets
We love mushrooms, raw and cooked, but we’re usually restricted to what we can get at the store. This summer has been unusually wet, though, and there are a lot more mushrooms in the woods than usual.
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Brexit upside — books on sale
It’s still hard to believe that a whole country would shoot itself in both feet economically on purpose. Oh well, books over there are on sale now at about 11% off Thursday’s peak and about 15% off where the pound was a year ago:
Graph courtesy of www.x-rates.com
Update, 6 July 2016: Unlike the US stock market, the pound is not recovering. It continues to drop and is now almost 14% off of its recent peak less than a week ago.
Graph courtesy of www.x-rates.com
Update 27 August 2016, showing long-term decline, sharp Brexit drop, and sustained low value.
Graph courtesy of www.x-rates.com
Update 6 October 2016: Renewed action on Brexit takes the pound to new lows.
Graph courtesy of www.x-rates.com
Wow — one day later, renewed Brexit talk has really shaken the pound again. Here is the one-month graph, followed by the one-year graph:
Graphs courtesy of www.x-rates.com
Update 8 October 2016. Good article in the New York Times today explaining the “hard Brexit.” Another reminder (as if we need one, given Trump and the Colombian vote against peace) that the voter is not always right. Here is the dollar/pound exchange rate over the past month:
Graph courtesy of www.x-rates.com
Update 4 November 2016. As soon as it was ruled that parliament would have to vote for Brexit to actually occur, the market reacted quite positively (because there is a new chance that it won’t happen). Great real-world experiment in the economic damages of isolationism in a global economy:
Graph courtesy of www.x-rates.com
Update 16 Jan 2017: Brexit continues to keep the value of the pound depressed.
Graph courtesy of x-rates.com
Dude, It’s So Hot!
A couple of summers ago Rose had some friends visiting, and we all went into town for the Midnight Sun Festival. It was a beautiful day, and it seemed like all of Fairbanks and a lot of tourists were out in the streets having a great time.
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