We feed our birds sunflower seed chips. This food is high in energy content and low in handling time. They need that when it’s really cold out and the days are short (on 21 December we have 3 hours and 41 minutes between sunrise and sunset).
Continue readingWhen Mr F Meets Mr C, it’s Cold in Alaska
(I wrote this 20 years ago, before I had a blog. With -40s on us again, it’s a good reminder of the old days, when these temperatures were more frequent.)
It was cold here in Fairbanks for the past couple of weeks—down around -40º for days. That is the temperature where the Fahrenheit and Celsius scales meet. And air that dense tends to hang around for a while when it’s in the neighborhood. With the proper clothes, this isn’t much to get worked up about. It’s too cold for skiing, but strolling around out in the crisp is actually fairly pleasant.
Continue readingA Simple Ladder Safety Device
When we replaced our deck with composite boards on the surface, we could no longer use that surface for our extension ladder, which we need to do to wash the outside of the upstairs windows.
Continue readingScootie
We don’t keep cookies in the house and rarely eat them anymore. Even when we used to make them, though, we’d prefer to eat the dough. But every once in awhile you just want something cookie-like, so we invented this simple recipe.
Continue readingMagic Beans
This is a recipe for the best black beans we’ve ever had. It began several years ago when I had some boiled corned beef broth leftover that I thought might be good with beans cooked in it. It was very good. But it could be even better. So I began to tinker, and I think we have it down pretty well. Yes, they are magically delicious.
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