Siitkaq  -  Net

Iwanun Pityallu siitkaqkuk.

Translation: 

Johnny and Peter are hanging a net.

High temperatures on the Kenai Peninsula brought on an early harvest for the local peony crop.
KBBI's Kathleen Gustafson visited  some of the local peony fields and spoke to growers.

Jeff Lockwood and Homer Truffle Company's Evangelina Briggs celebrate summer's heat with a look at the New World fruit that took the Old World by storm - the chili. 

Recorded at the KBBI Studios in Homer, Alaska, and at Homer Truffle Company. 

First aired 7/14/19.

The special session of the Alaska State Legislature is split between two cities. Most legislators are in session at the capitol in Juneau, but about a third of Alaska senators and representatives followed Governor Dunleavy to Wasilla, making an override of the governor’s budget cuts an impossibility. District P Senator Gary Stevens of Kodiak spoke with KBBI’s Kathleen Gustafson by phone from Juneau about the failure to override and about what comes next in the special session for this week’s Legislative Update.

A dry heat wave across Southcentral Alaska has raised temperatures in Cook Inlet streams, and there’s fear the sunny weather and warm water could be bad news for salmon.

Sue Mauger has tracked non-glacier stream temperatures in Cook Inlet for years. And she says she hasn’t seen readings like these.

“We saw the highest recorded temperature we've ever measured in 15, 16 years,” she said. “That was 81.7 degrees on the Deshka River.”

That’s a north-south river between Talkeetna and Anchorage known for its premier sportfishing.

The Homer Community Food Pantry has devised a way to give teens in Homer access to healthy food. They coordinate with local students to have bags of non-perishable food sitting by the door at Homer High School, Homer Flex School and West Homer Elementary. Kids who have a need can just pick up a bag on their way out the door, but what happens when school is out?

Alaskans want to get outside in the summer. But this year, they’ve had to ask whether that’s wise in all this wildfire smoke. Most of the Kenai Peninsula and Anchorage have been covered in a smoky haze for the last four weeks from the Swan Lake fire near Sterling.
 

As of Tuesday morning, the fire was just shy of 99,000 acres, with 406 personnel actively working to contain it. The fire is emitting a wide cloud of smoke.