Berry list!

Berry season, folks, and it's time for pie and some great local music!

Date & Time: Saturday, August 25, 2 to 10 pm
Location: Golden Eagle Saloon, 3630 Main Street, Ester, Alaska
Cost: $15 donation requested at the door, $5 donation requested per slice of delicious, homemade pie! 
Pie contest entry fee: $2 per pie (savory and sweet categories, no limit on number of entries, but all must be homemade and include berries)
Pie registration: noon to 1:30 (don't be late!)
Pie judgeship seat auction: 
Reason: good fun, good music, good pie—and raising funds to build a library! 

Here's the scoop:

• PIE THROWDOWN: Bring your homemade pie with berries in it to the Golden Eagle Saloon between noon and 1:30 pm, pay your $2 entry fee and register your pie (and bring your recipe for publication in the Throwdown Cookbook!). Winning pie makers receive FABULOUS prizes, and the top pies are auctioned off to the audience. Awards are presented between 3:30 and 4:30 pm (we hope the judges can finish that fast!) and then the other pies are sold by the slice ($5 donation requested per slice). And if you'd rather just eat pie, one of the judge's seats is up for auction, too, so get there early to have a chance at tasting every pie entered! 
• BERRIES: Most people know what berries are: blueberries, cranberries, etc. But did you know that things like strawberries or raspberries aren't actually berries, botanically speaking? And that avocadoes, watermelons, tomatoes, bananas, and lemons are? Pies submitted for the contest must have berries in them, but the berries may be either by the botanical definition or those fruits commonly thought of as berries. The pie judges will be the final arbiters of what constitutes a berry for purposes of the contest, so be prepared to sweet talk them if necessary (large donations to the library sometimes help in this matter).

• MUSIC FESTIVAL: music starts at 2 pm and goes until 10 pm, with some really incredibly good local bands and performers, including Ptarmagin, Zingaro Roots, Tim Robb, Almost A Minyan, and many, many more. 

LiBerry Music Festival & Berry Pie Throwdown!

The annual music festival and berry pie contest fundraiser for the library is being emceed by none other than Bob Miller this year! Held as usual at the Golden Eagle Saloon, we have a marvelous lineup in store for you, with some popular faces returning and some new surprises. The festival starts at 2 and ends at 10 on Saturday August 25; more details coming soon!

Ester Fourth of July Parade Video

The Ester Fourth of July parade features local culture, politics, produce, music and art, and all with an irreverent Ester twist. This year brought the Synchronized Dumpster Divers, a giant vegetable man puppet, the Scottish bagpipe band, and many more!

An outdoor book nook: a community garden from the library

The John Trigg Ester Library called for volunteers on Planting Day, and boy, howdy, did it get them. Almost twenty people showed up to help beautify their community. Here's some photos of the resulting garden, taken by JTEL board member Molly Rettig a week or two later.

Rhubarb bed in honor of Pat Garner.

Wild rose on the roadside with the gazebo in the background and delphiniums between. Ansgar Clausen was famed for his delphiniums.

Roadside construction!

Folks coming to pick up their mail at the Ester Post Office have noticed the flurry of recent construction and gardening activity across the street at the Ida Lane gazebo this last month. Many have come ambling across the street to enquire about the bustle or compliment the volunteers on the flowers and garden, and sometimes even to join in. The volunteers sweating away in the sun and rain appreciate it—it makes a difference to know that what we are doing is making a difference and is noticed. If you can help out, so much the better.

Next week we will be working to complete the outhouse near the gazebo in time for the Fourth of July; no guarantees, but we're doing what we can. One item we will need before the outhouse can be used is about 12 full bags of sawdust, or a large pickup bed full.

Your library needs you! or, Compost Happens

Poster for the upcoming trio of work parties to build composting outhouses on the library properties.  See the post below, "A walk in the sun," for more information on the library's plans this summer. Karen Jensen, librarian and Collection Development Officer at UAF's Elmer E. Rasmuson Library, did a little research and found a couple of scholarly works of reputable provenance that may be of use to those wishing to look into this in more depth:
"Guidelines for the safe use of excreta and wastewater in agriculture and aquaculture: Measures for public health protection," (PDF) by Duncan Mara and Sandy Cairncross; and "Health Aspects of Dry Sanitation with Waste Reuse," (PDF) by Anne Peasey. Both of these reports are available at the John Trigg Ester Library, along with The Humanure Handbook. The library will use the compost that results from the outhouses for landscaping.

Sun and rain at the Ida Lane Clausen gazebo

Wow! Starting on Friday, June 1, and stretching out through Sunday, June 3, close to twenty volunteers helped transform the area around the gazebo to a little flower-filled park. College Peat delivered garden soil during the middle of the day on Friday, and Hans Moelders and a crew of teenagers (Oliver & Stanley Rogers, Chantz Turner, and Taylor) moved it from the edge of the road back behind the ridge of old clay and out of the ditch. It was HOT. Clutch Lounsbury delivered a load of well-composted horse manure, too, so everything was ready for Saturday.

Planting Day, June 2, started out cloudy, with a big noisy downpour during the night giving way to sun and blue sky by the time the work party got started. Joe Grill did some serious shoveling, and Mike Musick, Jimmy, and Hans entertained the rest of the volunteers with lots of grunts and sound effects from lifting Old Mining Stuff and big rocks and hauling them via the wheelbarrow to the new rhubarb/flower beds being created. Board members Greta Burkart, Nancy Burnham, Jan Omstede, Molly Rettig (and her beau Josh), and Trey Simmons fitted rocks, planted rhubarb, chives, delphiniums, raspberries, strawberries, daisies, nasturtiums, portulaca, and lobelia. Jennifer Jolis, Barbara Stone, Greta & Trey, Nancy, Jan, and Hans and I donated plants. Hanging baskets were planted, too, and several pieces of old mining stuff incorporated into the walls of the garden beds.

The grounds got a good stump-clearing and raking, too. Rebekah Gormish, Shannan Turner and her children Callista and Skyler, and myself worked on leaf-raking, wall-building, manure-shoveling, planting, watering, and brush-clearing. It was a good solid work party, and we got a lot done. THANK YOU to everyone who donated food and drink, plants, supplies, and especially those who came and helped!

On Sunday (today), June 3, Hans and Jimmy had decided to meet and start work on the concrete forms for the first outhouse. I decided to come along, and did a little tidying while they found a spot for the outhouse and built the form for the floor. Later, Margaret, Oliver, and Stanley Rogers and I went to Anne's Greenhouse and got some johnny-jump-ups and pansies, which I added to the garden beds.

The gazebo grounds are looking wonderful. Jimmy will continue working on them; wave as you go by, or feel free to stop and help!