Potato Harvest

There is a super typhoon in the Pacific. It is massive. It has swirled over Saipan and Guam and was heading up toward Japan last I heard. It has spun so hard and fast it has pushed all that warm humid air to us in Alaska and we are having an "Indian Summer". Middle of September and not a frost? If I stand quietly outside and take a deep breath I can imagine that I am sharing molecules with my island family.

I was breathing deeply and imagining the heat and wind of a tropical storm Tuesday, when I had a storm of my own... a brain storm.

This IS the time to dig potatoes. I made the motherly announcement, "Tomorrow after school, we dig."

Yes there was a bit of groaning.

I don't know if I blogged about last years nightmare harvest, the one in which we did just as the old timers instruct and waited for that first frost to dig. Well, first frost turned to snow in the day or two it took to find the time to dig. The event was a frozen nightmare that I swore not to relive again. (You can ask Irene, I was still complaining about that afternoon spent out in the snow and muck well into January this year. )What made this especially important for me is that this spring we expanded our garden and one of the first ways to enrich the soil is to plant potatoes. In my diggers mind we had about an acre of potatoes planted. "If we get some of it done... that's all we have to do...today..." I was not going to dig in the muddy frozen ground.


Every kid did a wonderful job digging. Especially Falcom who was so into it. Digging was a delight! Having a 4-wheeler with a trailer attached to haul our booty up the hill to our house made the experience triple good. We did the entire patch in just a couple hours. Our potatoes this year a big and juicy and delicious. I am guessing we have close to 300 pounds. Now all I have to do is figure out how to wash and dry them, but I think I will save that job for Vince.