In Cordova, there’s no mail delivery to houses, so we all get our mail at the post office. Yesterday, when I picked up my mail, there was a little key with a number on it in the box and a tag that said: “Return key after using.” I took the key and went to the box indicated and pulled out a package. From Potter Craft:

An early preview copy of my book! Of course, there was no one I knew in the post office, so no one would understand why I was jumping up and down, so I kept my celebration to a minimum. I did run off to The Net Loft, our lovely local yarn store and showed Dotty, the owner, who has done a lot make me feel welcome here, but tonight is Tuesday, and if I were still in Maryland I’d be bringing it to SSK at Adega where many of the amazing hands who made the book possible by stitching the samples will be knitting. I miss you guys!

Yesterday I gathered fireweed again with my friend Shelly as well as clover blossoms to make her recipe for fireweed “Honey.” It’s a sugar syrup flavored with the fragrant blossoms. (We substituted cream of tartar for the Alum in the recipe linked to here, since I didn’t want to use Alum–the it worked great and produced a nice clear syrup).

Of course, we had to try it out, so I made pancakes for dinner (oh, if you use that recipe, you can cut the baking powder in half). It was very yummy–it is thick like honey when cool, but thin enough for a pancake syrup when warm.

On Saturday, we spent the day exploring the Copper River Delta:

We had a nice view of Scott Glacier:

and had lunch al fresco:

We saw moose tracks, coyote tracks and bear tracks, but no actual wildlife. On our way home, look what we saw in the high school parking lot:

It’s Here!