Fairy Design

My other new design is a FAIRY. I love it and it's so cute on the girls dresses and women's shirts I make too. More to come, summer is creeping closer... The Talkeetna Open Air Market is May-Sept. Sat. Sun. Mon. 10am-6pm in downtown Talkeetna Alaska. I will be there and have a rack of my hand batiked shirts this summer at the "visitors center cabin" across the street from my old location, corner of Main and the Spur Rd. downtown Talkeetna.

VW BUS

A friend just made a special order for a VW BUS shirt. There are a couple versions. I like them and will do some for my booth too. Since I found out yesterday I will be at our local weekend market, yay! More on that later... I think this design is going to turn out good. Of course this is just the waxed outline of the design, next comes the color.

32 moose, for real...

http://community.adn.com/?q=adn/node/160533 


The woman in the linked story and video is both an idiot and very lucky she didn't get hurt. Petting or even approaching a moose is such a bad idea. They are often called "more dangerous than bears" here in Alaska. There are more run-ins and injuries every year by moose than any other animal (besides maybe dogs). Just last month 2 moms were hurt at bus stops by moose in the same day. One was here in Talkeetna and one was South of us in Willow. I just saw 5 moose this morning already getting Jax to the school bus and it's only 8:30 am, 4 were on our road and a little baby was resting under a tree (they like our neighborhood). It is getting light in the morning now, just last month it was still dark at 8 in the morning. I went for a quick walk on the bike path today thanks to the warm weather and extra light (which has some pavement showing through since they plow it, yay! We'll be riding bikes in no time). At the top of the little hill just past the lake near our road I was actually thinking about moose and how there is pretty good visibility on the bike path to watch out for them. That's when I glanced over into the trees and saw that baby under one of them. His mama was no where in sight, but she was probably just over the hill towards the creek resting too. Anyway that's when I turned back towards my car, like your supposed to. That's not when you walk up and try to pet or feed it. Duh! There are soo many moose around this year due to the record snowfall. Up in the high country, where they like to be, there is no relief from the deep snow and it's hard to walk, feed and keep little ones healthy. So they come down into the valley and enjoy our snowmachine and dogsledding trails as well as the roads, driveways and yards. Last week on our drive to Jaxon's doctor in Anchorage we counted 32 moose in one day. Yes 32, Jax helped me keep count. That is 200 miles of drive time. (Anchorage is 100 mi. South of us). 13 we had seen by Willow and another 13-15 were on the flats between Wasilla and Anchor town then just a few on the way home, but wow! That's a record for us in one day. We also saw 2 bald eagles and a dog team running, both pretty common sites up here. There are a couple big signs on the highway between us and "the city" that keeps track of how many 'reported' moose are killed on that road alone, it's currently at 455 for the year (Andy says they restart it at 0 in the spring or fall sometime). One reason we saw so many that day is because the state started a program to feed  moose in hopes of keeping them off the roads. The flats is a place they come to in the winter anyway so there are a couple feeding stations out there. That's where we basically saw a "herd" of moose, which is pretty unusual. At night they are really hard to see until your headlights catch them and then it's sometimes too late. Our local high school started a "Roadkill Class" last year. Only in Alaska right?! The students process the moose meat and donate it to the food bank as well as take some home to their families. True story, and they have had an abundance of meat this year. At www.adn.com  there is a bunch of moose photos posted. One woman had a yearling on her garage roof for most of a day. He climbed up the mountain of snow they had created while shoveling off the roof, it's pretty funny. The snow is causing roofs to collapse too. A church in Anchorage completly caved in earlier this month. It's a tough winter but the end is in site...

procrastination my old friend...

Ahh procrastination my old friend... we have known each other a very long time. Like most people I can put off projects big and small. This year however I would like to spend a little less time putting things off and more on getting things done. My New Years resolution was basically "use it or loose it". This can apply to many aspects of life. But right now, for me, it's about organizing my home and life with small steps. Like cleaning out the big lazy susan and cupboards in our kitchen, which had turned into a jumbled mess in the last couple years. Or the ultimate procrastination project I finished last week. After packing up our CD cases and placing them "temporarily" in travel sleeve zipper cases for our move up here over six and a half years ago I finally returned them to their rightful cases and organized them in a nice wood and canvas CD rack someone had given me a few years back. Finally, right? Why it took me so long to do that chore that I wanted to do every time I saw that box labeled "CD CASES" I'm not sure. But it is nice to have them back in cases and actually next to the CD player, what a convenient concept... I'm learning, slowly but surely, not to make things more complicated for myself.

Ice Fishing B-day Party

On Andy's B-day we met some friends at a local ice fishing spot with a sledding hill right next to it (the hill is also the trail to our cars). Fun. This is my friend Michelle, her son Porter and Jaxon taking a ride... I have a bunch of pics. too, more to come...

Spinach Juice

Andy and I have created our own 'let's call it' Baked Cheesy Spinach recipe. It was inspired by a dish we had in Jamaica. They would include it in the breakfast buffet everyday and "YUM", I wasn't even a huge cooked spinach fan before that. I have no idea what exactly was in theirs but ours goes something like this, with variations depending on what we have.
thawed spinach (or fresh cooked down)
garlic and onion minced (optional)
a little butter or oil
cheese (any type really) we mostly use a little cheddar or parm
salt and pepper to taste
Mix, top with cheese, bake and enjoy

So last week I was making some and started thawing the spinach a little late in the evening. To speed up the process I put it in a strainer over a bowl and poured a bit of hot water from the tea kettle over it, then let it steep and thaw in the warm water. Well, I used that water with a little fruit juice as well to make pancakes for the boys. They had no idea there was spinach juice in them, which is awesome because they are at the age where green=yucky and are picky eaters to begin with. Sneaking veggies in always seems like a triumph. Mom's need tricks to survive and this is just one of mine...

yep more snow

the most snow we have seen in 6 1/2 years here. wow, has it been that long? yep.

Koda's dog house is completely covered because they have been spoiled this winter and come in pretty much every night. We also had to make stairs going down the snow to the basement door. The ground is level with the door, usually, it's deep. Of course our snow blower broke at the beginning of winter...

OMG the snow...

Everything in our yard is buried under a ton of snow...

dogs...

We have a bear dog, Koda Bear and a wolf dog Luna. She has carved out a "snow napping bowl" on the front porch to nap in during the day. There is a lot of snow this year!

disclaimer: we don't really have a wolf, she is a mackenzie river husky and he is a lab & malamute mix... she may look like a sled dog but koda is the runner & puller in the family. he's the one that pulls me around on a kick sled and his dad was a retired sled dog, that's the malamute side. you can tell when you see him run, he's fast...

Frogs

My frog design on a 6/8 T, with a pond and dragonfly on the back. This one is going to WI. this week to Jaxon's old friend Breck who moved away about a year and a half ago. His little bro is getting a robot long sleeve and littler sister is getting an orange owl dress. I could not get these photos to upload to my website so I'm posting them here instead. I'm trying to update my website but it won't always work right and has always been that way. I have a love hate relationship with that site really. When it works to add content it's great and when it doesn't, which is often, it's just a frustrating waste of time. Now you know why it doesn't get updated alot, I would like to revamp it but don't have the time or patience. www.mountntopdesigns.com    I use only soywax and non-toxic dyes on my cotton batiked clothing. See more at my site, sizes for the whole family available or call for more info. (907)733-3395

baby girl

Bailey Hannah, my new (and only) niece... How cute is she?!

Iditarod Restart

Hawken and I went to the Iditarod restart with friends last weekend. It gave Jaxon some much needed quiet time at home with dad to heal from his surgery. Little brother was getting on his nerves that day... We were on a smaller lake away from the big crowd. This is just a bunch of locals that come to this lake each year to watch the mushers take off. The real restart spot isn't far away on Willow Lake. 66 teams took off into the wilderness last week on an 1,000 + miles dog sled ride to Nome Alaska.

New Art, by me...

I have been working on a few little art pieces. Like this mom & baby batik that I adheared to wood then added a border and fabric butterfly. More in the works along with lots of batik clothing for the summer season. I have not updated my website for awhile but it's the same.  www.mountntopdesigns.com  

Kelle Hampton

I have been following this woman's blog for over a year (almost 2) Kelle Hampton. She is an awesome photographer and writes about being a crafty- work from home- mom & artist with a blog. Hmmm sounds familiar, I guess that's why I check out her site (link below) a couple times a week. Although we live in totally different worlds (her pics. are often of her girls on the beach or playing in the sun, she is near my mother in law in FL, while mine have alot of snow, kids on sleds, and trees with mountains) we are not so different. Well, her first book just came out BLOOM and this clip is about it. Her second daughter was born with Downs Syndrome 2 years ago and it was something she didn't expect, but since has bravely dove into the movement to show acceptance for people with all abilities and chronicles it day to day on her blog. Check it out and you'll be hooked on her story and mesmerized by her photos and the way she blends her family and busy life into something all moms with young kids can relate to. Also acceptance of all kinds is a great message to spread...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8mdtbVd1ek&feature=youtu.be 

Her blog is www.kellehampton.com   and her girls are just adorable!