Community garden at the Ester library

For the last two years, an informal community garden has been functioning at the JTEL's Clausen Cabin, in part to help preserve Ida Clausen's gardening legacy, passed on by Lynn and Ray Kulp (formidable gardeners themselves), and in part to provide an option for JTEL members and residents of Ester who had unfavorable gardening locations (or none!). The JTEL has provided information on running a community garden, seed starting and saving, gardening books, tools, seeds, and a few flower and vegetable beds. So far, it has worked. The only requirement has been that those who take advantage of a bed or the other options also help care for the rest of the yard (i.e., show up for the garden work parties or water the flower pots on the porch if they seem to need it, mow the lawn).

Diagram showing major garden beds around the Clausen Cabin. 

Reservations are taken for the major beds starting in March. The JTEL recommends contacting Calypso Farm & Ecology Center for information on gardening best practices. While no formal community garden has been organized, the JTEL is open to options. If you have some ideas about this, send us an e-mail at board at esterlibrary.org. Thanks!

Thank you!

Twenty people pledged $1,325 to the John Trigg Ester Library from their Permanent Fund Dividend through the Pick.Click.Give. program this year, and that means a LOT to us! We know the choices were harder this year, and so we appreciate each donor that much more. Thank  you.

Here's why one person supported the library through the PCG program:

I like the convenience of walking to a neighborhood library rather than going downtown or to the bookstore. A bookmobile doesn't replace that community center feel that a library has, and I want that for our village. The Pick.Click.Give. program gave me a convenient way to donate to a cause I believe in.

Happenings at the Clausen Cabin in April

The first week and a half in April at the Clausen Cabin will be a bit busy! We've got Easter Sunday coming up on the 5th, and the Ester Community Association is as usual sponsoring its annual Easter Egg Hunt. Decorated eggs will be hidden throughout the village, including on the library grounds. At the Golden Eagle Saloon, there will be the traditional Deviled Eggs, among other edible goodies prepared in excess for the weekend's musicians and audience.

The next week is the library's seed swap! Just bring any heirloom or open-pollinated seeds you  would like to trade, and come by between 1 and 4 pm to the Clausen Cabin at 3629 Main Street, Ester. Come chat with your fellow seed and garden enthusiasts! Take free gardening literature! Learn about seed saving and seed stewardship networks.

We're only holding one Seedy Saturday this year, and although it's a bit late in the season, Kurt Wold of Pingo Farm assures us that it's not yet too late for trading seeds. He'll be there to provide advice (and hand out catalogs). The JTEL seed library has plenty of seeds, from flowers to vegetables to grains, and you can sign up as a member of the library or just trade with your neighbors.

There's loads of fun at your community library, and this summer will be even better. Come join us!

Here's one for the community clubhouse

The truth is libraries are raucous clubhouses for free speech, controversy and community.

–Paula Poundstone

Of late, many library members and Facebook fans have been receiving requests for letters of support for the John Trigg Ester Library's capital proposal to the legislature. As members, you all have a wide variety of options to choose from when it comes to opinion or action. You can even ignore the project, focus on other things in your lives, etc. But what is a library truly worth? And why should you support building a "raucous clubhouse"?

Well, here's what some notable people have thought about the value of libraries:

With a library you are free, not confined by temporary political climates. It is the most democratic of institutions because no one—but no one at all—can tell you what to read and when and how.
—Doris Lessing

Cutting libraries during a recession is like cutting hospitals during a plague.
—Eleanor Crumblehulme 

What a school thinks about its library is a measure of what it feels about education.
—Harold Howe  

What is more important in a library than anything else—than everything else—is the fact that it exists.
—Archibald MacLeish

As board members, it is our role to bring the vision of the Ester library to reality in a timely and fiscally responsible fashion. Even if our attempt to gain an appropriation from the Alaska Legislature fails this year, the support we gain will bolster our attempt next year. The JTEL can provide a strong example of thrifty, far-seeing northern-appropriate public construction of the kind that should be supported by the legislature and business. And letters can always be aimed and used for other proposals that we will be crafting and sending to other funders. So please—write a letter of support. Thank you.

Once and future timeline

Looking at our capital fundraising and our new library-related construction, this timeline extends into the past as far back as 2012 and as far into the future as 2017. Its midpoint is February 6, 2015 (although it isn't exactly that precise on this graph), because that was the due date for the proposals to the Alaska Legislature (5 pm, to be exact). This gives you an idea of the variety of events and construction ahead of us!

We are looking for members for the Construction Committee, the Fundraising Committee, and help with the upcoming fundraisers. The Friends of the Ester Library can use your help, too—even a little bit makes a big difference!

Love that Library!

Share the Love!

Each year our Pick.Click.Give. campaign is dedicated to a specific aspect of the John Trigg Ester Library's work. We are still working on gaining the funds to construct our building, but we have enough to do the sitework, and we are hoping that you will sweeten the pot and help us earn more matching funds. This summer, the grand transformation begins!

Then maybe all those books can come out of storage and onto shelves—where people can take them off and read them!

Seedy volunteers wanted!

It's the beginning of February, and that's not too soon to think of mud and sprouting seeds! The Master Gardeners had a seed swap last week, so it's time to start thinking about getting the seed library's organized for this year. Unfortunately, the director of the GEB program will be out of town for the middle to latter end of February, and won't be able to schedule any then.

But wait, all is not lost! You, too can volunteer to organize a seed swap! It's easy, it's fun, and best of all, you end up with lots of seeds! The JTEL can provide the space a (it will need to be organized and overseen by a library member), or you can do it in your neck of the woods. Instructions are here. Different groups do it differently, and the JTEL has references that describe other methods. We've focused on one of the simplest.

Please contact the GEB director, Deirdre Helfferich, before February 15, at 479-3368.

New board member, progress on the catalog, and plans for the summer

We have several events coming up in February through May (more on that soon), and we now have one alternate board member, Jasmine Stokes, to help when the regular board members are out of town or unable to make it. She is working with Varpu Lotvonen on organizing our collections. Jasmine has long been associated with Angry Young & Poor and various theatre efforts in town, and has strong organizational skills (she's also an excellent costumer!). She attended her first meeting in January, but assisted the library with the LiBerry Music Festival as stage manager.

The JTEL catalog is now up to 3,479 titles in our collections, and more being added rapidly. The advantage of LibraryThing, although it doesn't do much that a full-scale library might need, is that it is very very simple, and adequate for our current needs. Board member Phil Rulon is looking into open-source software that might serve as full-function library software, such as Evergreen ILS. However, this software, and any such full-service open-source software, may be beyond us at for several years, as described in this article in Library Journal.

Our upcoming construction plans include 1) making the interior of the Clausen Cabin useable; 2) adding a ramp and arctic entries; and 3) fixing the front railing of the cabin.

We also will be doing sitework on the library site; if we get sufficient funds from the legislature and other sources, we can tackle the foundation and shell as well as the construction survey and groundwork—but we need your help. How? Simple! write to your legislator in support of the JTEL's capital request to construct a passive house community library and cc us a copy of your letter. More information is available here.

New board, new charge

The annual meeting was a bit disorganized and began with a near-death experience for one board member, who is violently allergic to nuts (walnut caramel raspberry ice cream, even home-made, was NOT good for her health, and resulted in the absence of two board members and, as you can imagine, some consternation at the beginning of the meeting).

After things got going, sans agenda and the two willing but otherwise occupied members (one ill, one helping), we got down to the business of reviewing the year and presenting the annual report. The Annual Report was simplified somewhat from last year, offering:

• the President's Report
• Friends of the John Trigg Ester Library
• Financial Report (to be corrected)
• Fundraising & Grants Report
• Program Overview for FY 2014
• Acknowledgement & Thanks

The membership enthusiastically approved the proposed Friends. The board was charged with seeking professional assistance with bookkeeping. The new board of directors includes:

• Deirdre Helfferich, president
• Connie Huffman, treasurer
• Varpu Lotvonen
• Hans Mölders
• James Rogan, vice president
• Phil Rulon
• Eric Zentner, secretary

The membership entrusted the board to find the needed two alternate board members.

Annual Membership Meeting October 19

It's that time of year again!

Your Board of Directors invites you to come to the annual membership meeting for some excellent food, fun door prizes, and for the business of the library. It's your library, so please join us—we promise it'll be short.

Location: Hartung Hall, Main Street & Ester Loop & Wellhouse Road, in Ester
Time: 5 pm
Day: Sunday, October 19

There's parking at the library (3629 Main Street) a block away, or, if you are inclined to beverages, at the Golden Eagle.

The board has no votes to bring to the membership, other than elections, but we do seek your feedback on the Friends of the Ester Library, and, of course, this is the ideal time for any member to bring forward any issue or idea.

We have a nine-member board, three of whom are continuing onward, two who are retiring with this election, leaving four members running for six spaces. We will need two library members to fill those remaining two board spaces.

Hope to see you there!

October lectures

The winter library lecture series has begun! October's lectures kicked off with Merritt Helfferich on Wednesday, October 8, speaking on the Berlin Blockade of 1948–1949, and the "Raisin Bombers" who dropped small parachutes of candy and dried fruit to the children at the end of the runway in Berlin during the Blockade. This was the first time an event like this was held at the Clausen Cabin, and the eleven guests were comfortable, but we were lucky more didn't come! Helfferich gave a slide show and illuminating talk.

Berliners in the ruins at the end of the runway watching the planes.

Our next lecture is scheduled for Tuesday evening at 7 pm, Hartung Hall, and will be given by Paolo Greer. "A Revised History of Machu Picchu" is about Greer's personal research on Machu Picchu, the most famous archaeological site in the Western Hemisphere, and what he discovered about the history of its looting. He will describe the purposes the most important building in Machu Picchu serve, something about which the ‘experts’ are very vague. Also, Greer will tell where the lost statue of the God-Inca (Pachacútec) stood in the city, where it might be now, where Pachacútec’s mummy may be now, and a little about ‘Plateriayoc,’ the sister city of Machu Picchu.

Left: Greer on the cover of South American Explorer, issue 25, in 1984.
Right: Geer in 2013, guiding a group of guides to Machu Picchu (in the background).

Save seeds from your favorite tomato!

The Growing Ester's Biodiversity program is pleased to present for the second year a free workshop on saving seeds from tomatoes and other pulpy fruits. Many such fruits require a period of fermentation to remove the projective coating that prevents germination, while others, such as tomatillos, do not.

Aurora Siberian tomatoes grown in Ester, 2014. Photo and garden by Deirdre Helfferich, GEB director.

This year, as in our first year of conducting the workshop, we have the good fortune to have local grower and seedsman Kurt Wold of Pingo Farm / Zone 1 Grown in attendance; Wold has been finding tomato and pepper varieties that do well in our climate and offering them in his catalog. He is the only seed grower for vegetable seeds in the state. He is also a certified potato grower. Wold is the organizer of the Great Alaska Turnip Breeding Project, in which local gardeners grow turnips and harvest the seed or report on the results, with an eye to developing a tasty, tender, large, root-maggot-resistant turnip for the Interior. Wold will talk about the project and bring bouquets of lettuce and carrot flowers.

The workshop details:

• location: John Trigg Ester Library Clausen Cabin, 3629 Main Street
• time/date: 4 pm, Saturday, September 27, 2014
• bring: heirloom/open-pollinated tomatoes, cucumbers, or tomatillos, a sharp knife, a jar and lid for each variety you'd like to save, towels, and a cutting board or plate

We'll provide labels, pens, informational handouts, and some extra jars if people run out. We will also have samples from our seed library. Bring extra tomatoes and we'll have a tomato tasting!

Horror at the JTEL and Readers on the Run

It's fall—and you know what that means! Well, yes, harvest and yard cleanup and preparation for the white stuff, of course, but also—Readers on the Run! (Or see our Facebook event page.) This year we are celebrating horror and the zombie phenomenon for Alaska Book Week. Runners will face a pack of hungry zombies somewhere along the route. Prizes will be given for best runner costume, best zombie costume, best poem, and, of course, best times. Download and post the poster!

Horror fiction is a well-represented genre in the John Trigg Ester Library's collections, both in the film and literature collections. Horror has its roots in folklore, myth, and religion, and often reflects, through metaphor, the larger fears of society.

So what can we make of the ever-increasing popularity of zombie-themed fiction? What metaphors does it play on? What does it mean that zombies have been gradually increasing their lurch speed? Hmmm. Come find out—at the library!

Authors of horror fiction represented at the JTEL include:

• Ian Banks
• Clive Barker (Weaveworld, Imajica, etc.)
• Ambrose Bierce
• Algernon Blackwood
• Ray Bradbury
• Ramsey Campbell
• Roald Dahl
• Ted Dekker
• August Derleth
• Charles Dickens (A Christmas Carol, Tale of Two Cities, The Pickwick Papers, etc.)
• Dennis Etchison
• William Faulkner
• Neil Gaiman
• Nikolai Gogol
• Laurell K. Hamilton
• David G. Hartwell
• Shirley Jackson
• Henry James
• Stephen King (Desolation, the Gunslinger series, Christine, etc.)
• Dean Koonz (Midnight, Fear Nothing, etc.)
• Tanith Lee
• Fritz Leiber
• H.P. Lovecraft
• Brian Lumley
• George R.R. Martin
• Chuck Palahniuk
• James Patterson
• Edgar Allen Poe (collected works)
• Anne Rice (Interview with a Vampire, Queen of the Damned, etc.)
• Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (Frankenstein)
• Dan Simmons
• S.P. Somtow
• R.L. Stine
• Bram Stoker
• Peter Straum
• Whitley Strieber
• F. Paul Wilson
• Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

And more! Aside from gothic horror, modern horror is often cross-genre, and includes science fiction, fantasy, and other genres.

Winners from the 2014 Pie Throwdown

We had a tie this year! The Best Sweet Pie was tied between Barb O'Donnell's All-Berry Pie (featuring raspberries, blackberries, and cherries), and Julia Mickley's Blue Comet (with lime zest and whipped cream!).

The four judges had a very difficult time choosing among the 34 entries. Becky Anderson, who brought tiaras and boas for all the other judges, said that every single one was delicious—except the one that they didn't have the nerve to try, which was Kristen Sullivan's pie crust for canines and humans (human-grade ingredients, including barley and carrots) and featured a stylized pawprint in the center. The judges gave it an award for Best 4-Legged Entry, and it went in the auction for $60. According to Maggie Billington, the winner of the auction, it was VERY popular with the dogs. (Sullivan operates a business, Ruby Snacks, that specializes in doggy treats.)

The Best Savory Pie was Carla Helfferich's Tomato Pie for Grownups (Helfferich had previously submitted a gooey pie called Easy Tomato Pie, made with Bisquick and especially formulated to appeal to youngsters—this one is for the adults in the family).

Most Unusual Pie was made by Sarah Furman, and was a Raspberry Jalapeño Pie decorated with nasturtiums.

The pie auction raised $310, and the judgeship auction raised $150 (helped along because Nick Gassmann's left hand started bidding against his right hand). Along with the generous donations of pie bakers and eaters, musicians and people donating at the door, we earned $4,600! Thank you, everyone!

Pie throwdown 2014

Nancy Burnham is once again the Berry Pie Throwdown organizer. She's gotten three fine local women to participate as judges this year:

• Becky Anderson, an artist who works in fused glass, has extra crowns for herself and the other judges, and is making a prize for the event. And she has a new kitten.
• Marlies Guest, who is new to Ester and wants to get involved in the community. Ester's all about the can-do, volunteer spirit, so she'll fit right in, we can tell already!
• PJ Strawther, who loves pugs! She's a fan of the Dog Park, and, obviously, loves pie too.

There will be room for a fourth judge, but you've got to get to the LiBerry Music Festival no later than 2 pm, because we'll be auctioning that seat off to the highest bidder!

Bring your homemade pies to the Golden Eagle between 12:30 and 2, and stick around for the awards at 3:30 (and the subsequent auction of the top winners!).The rest of the pies will be available for people to eat at requested $5 per slice donation.

Now, suppose you were here last year, or three years ago, and you recall a delicious pie that you'd like to make at home, but you're not sure how it was made? With so many original and unusual recipes, the LiBerry pies might be hard to replicate—that is, unless you had the Throwdown Cookbook!

For only $25, you too can make pies like these:

• Porknberry Pie (winner 2012, Best Savory Pie)
• Lenin Meringue Pie (winner 2011, Best Sweet Pie)
• Miniature Tomato Jam Pies (winner 2009, "Most Sophisticated" Award)
• Blueberry Chocolate Pie (winner 2009, "Most Surprising Ingredients" Award)
• Parsnip Custard Pie (winner 2010, "Most Unusual Pie" Award)
• Zucchini-Lavender Pie (winner 2010, "Most Savory Pie" Award)

and many others, including: Blu-Barb Crisp, Blueberry Rhubarb Pie, Cheesecake Pie with Blueberry Reduction, Chocolate Lingonberry Pie, Dark Chocolate Cloud Pie with Blueberry Topping, Easy Tomato Pie, Fauxberry Pie, Flower Power Pie, Fruit Pizza Pie, The Green Monster, Mixed Berry Pie, Raspberry Poppers, Spicy Blueberry Pie, and more!

Every year, you can add to your collection with individual recipe pages, available for a nominal price. Buy them all in a handy binder, or pick and choose from previous years and buy only the ones you want to create a cookbook to match your tastebuds. Available at the music festival!

Contact Nancy at 479-2507 for more information on the pie contest or to volunteer.

2014 LiBerry Music Festival handbill

Here it is! Amy Cameron of Bad White Dog has created our poster this year. Pass on the word! August 30, Saturday, at the Golden Eagle Saloon.

Progress at the gazebo

The first work party to clean up and reinstall the windows went very well: it didn't rain! The turnout was good, and we got a lot done.

The old, broken windows were removed:

They looked very sad in the garbage can. Connie Huffman decided to see if she could salvage a couple of them.

Eric Glos and Hans Mölders did the carpentry and removal work.

With all the rain and sun we've had this season, the shrubs and weeds had grown profusely (as have the flowers), so we did quite a bit of weeding, pruning, and stump removing. Carla Helfferich donated a whole wheelbarrow full of flowers to the cause, both perennials and annuals.

Included in the mix are: lobelia (white, lavender, magenta, blue), geraniums (red and pink), a purple trailing petunia, two yellow nasturtiums, a Maltese Cross, a Scarlett, a six-pack of marigolds donated by Anne's Greenhouse, dianthus (red, magenta, white, pink-flecked), two columbines, and a brilliant white Asiatic lily. We also transplanted several columbines and delphiniums from Ansgar's cabin (escapees from the flower beds up there).

Mike Musick created a new access path to the gazebo around the southern end of the large flower bed, closer to the path to the park and more directly opposite the path from the post office. (He referred to it as the "Ester Post Office Loop Trail.") The large rocks from it will become a fire ring at some point in the future.

Ritchie Musick clearing the leaf litter between the gazebo and the outhouse. Weeds and leaf mulch were piled into the compost bins, almost filling one up. All that's needed now is horse manure!

July at the library

Fourth of July was HOT! We gave away loads of t-shirts and membership forms (not to mention pink lemonade) and talked with lots of people about the plans for the new library, the Clausen Cabin, and the gardens.

This month, our work party schedule includes repairing and re-installing the stained glass windows at the Ida Lane Clausen Gazebo on July 19 & 20th, 11 am to 5 pm. You recall these five lovely windows, created by Denise Akert-Mohr:

 The windows were destroyed, shot out by a .22, in winter or spring 2012-13. A sixth window, showing a robin, was left untouched. We promptly covered it with plexiglass to help protect it (at least from flying rocks or BB guns). Denise was crushed, and the community was, justifiably, outraged.

However, we rallied, and the library set aside monies through the Community Revenue Sharing fund program to recreate the broken windows. Denise provided original drawings to Expressions in Glass, where Debbie Matthews matched the glass and designs as closely as possible from the photos we took, doing a beautiful job.

At the annual meeting in 2013, the JTEL announced a fund drive to pay for Lexan to cover the new windows. The drive earned $1,020 by the middle of December.

So now it's time to put our plan in action, come together, and make beautiful construction music at the gazebo!

Come on down on Saturday & Sunday, July 19th & 20th, any time between 11 am and 5 pm. We'll feed the volunteers, fix up the gazebo, tidy up the gardens, and make our public art available to the public again.

And, as a bonus, Denise made another window! (We'll install it at the work party.)

See you there!

Birch syrup at the library

In the last weeks, we've had leafout, but before the buds actually burst, the sap was running from the ground up through the roots and trunks of trees. Millions of gallons of sap rise in the trees around us, and the trees change color as their bark and limbs prepare for spring, the catkins come out and the pollen from willows and aspens and cottonwoods spreads. That's the sap-tappers' time of year, and when birch syrup is made.

The JTEL is working with the OneTree Alaska program to begin a regular tapping program on our property on Village Road. After a Memorandum of Agreement is drawn up, we can arrange to use OneTree's reverse osmosis machine and tapping equipment. (You may have seen Birch Pavelsky and Jan Dawe of OneTree as well as Deirdre Helfferich and Hans Mölders of the JTEL board recently, traipsing about on the property, checking buckets.)

Sixteen birch trees will be coming down this summer when we start work on the driveway (more about that coming soon), so these trees were chosen for the first season's work, but instead of using only one tap, three taps per tree were used since they will be cut down. The peculiar weather reduced the tapping time, but the total collected was 57 gallons of sap. OneTree will receive two-thirds of this in exchange for the use of their equipment, and the JTEL will receive one-third of reduced sap (some syrup, some sap at 14% sugars), which can be used as prizes for upcoming events.

More to come!

Charity Walk for JTEL

It's the 12th annual Charity Walk! On May 9, Friday, aproned walkers will be walking on behalf of 58 charities in the Fairbanks North Star Borough, including the John Trigg Ester Library!

 If you would like to sponsor the  JTEL, contact Deirdre Helfferich, president of the library's board of directors (she'll be strolling downtown for the event, with apron!).You can reach her at 479-3368 or estereditor@gmail.com, or by Facebook. 

Or, if you'd like to walk in the event yourself, you can still register in person, although there will be a late fee.

Thanks, and enjoy!