"Work hard, play hard” is our family motto.

Bobby and Susan. They are the father/daughter team that jointly built and maintained our first website, lasting 15 years. Susan took most of the photos and wrote the text, while Bobby was the webmaster and implemented the design. This is truly a three-generation business.

After harvesting many pack baskets worth of nettles for our hair products, we dry them in our greenhouse. By the end of May when nettles are in their prime, the greenhouse is empty as we’ve just finished planting all our veggie, herb and flower starts in the high tunnel or ground.

Susan and Patrick love exploring Alaska and being in nature as much as possible. We are grateful for our work with Alpenglow fosters that love.

Liam loves helping the business, especially when he gets to use wheels. He deftly finagles the trailer loads of empty bottles and jars to our packaging shed behind the workshop. This saves not only time but his mother’s back.

Kachemak Bay gifts us with food, views, an incredible place to walk and learn, and a place to center our spirit and remember how fortunate we are to live here.

Our high tunnel (aka hoop house) extends our brief growing season by increasing temperatures and reducing wind. At 30 x 60 feet there is lots of room for vegetables, as well as herbs and flowers that we grow and make infusions and extracts from, for Alpenglow products.

We love living so close to the sea, yet right in the mountains. Yes we have a long, dark, cold winter, and life is not easy at this latitude, but we love Alaska and the community we live in (and so does our dog!).

Off to harvest berries and hike across Kachemak Bay. Alana learns the ropes of steering in choppy seas on a boat borrowed from generous friends.

We love growing healthy, organic food that we eat year-round, as much as we enjoy growing herbs and flowers for Alpenglow products.

We never tire of our beautiful Alaskan landscapes.

Susan teaches classes and workshops for school groups, nature centers, for homeschoolers and at farmer’s markets. At our daughter’s school, they grew a few varieties of Calendula, which we harvested, dehydrated and made into a healing balm for the children to take home. They participated in every step of the process. Not only educational, super fun too!

A high priority for our family (and business) is to grow and harvest as much food as possible from our healthy environment. Every summer we make ice cream with home-grown berries. Liam and Alana are happy to hand-crank the ice cream maker as the reward is scrumptious!

Alaska is The Land of the Midnight Sun. This photo of Liam biking was taken in July at 11 pm. Those long summer hours are both delicious and tiring. And it’s the reverse in winter. At our latitude of 59 degrees, we receive just under 6 hrs of daylight during winter solstice.

Exploring Alaska is high on our list. We had a great time on a recent trip backpacking across a glacier in Wrangell St. Elias National Park. Truffle loves the wilderness as much as we do.

Blueberries with a fallen caribou antler in the tundra.

A long winter means a long ski season. We are grateful for our local trails and get out as often as we can.

Susan loves her chickens. We all enjoy eating organically fed and free-range eggs from our happy “Houli-Hens” (our last name is Houlihan). But they are our pets too, and they bring peace and joy to our family.