Let Me Count the Ways. I know this is late, but I found this hanging in the school and saw that it needed to be announced to a bigger audience. To say that he loves his mother more than ants...that is HUGE! And more than falling in the snow? Have you ever heard love expressed in a more poetic way?

Is It Cold?
Yep!
They still went in anyway. Then, when they were wet they rolled in the sand and crawled so close to the fire they were almost in it. It was a fun Memorial weekend.
Leo's sand angel.

Operation Daffodil. There are a few hills along the highway between Anchor Point and Homer that face the sunshine in such a way that they nearly scream to have flowers growing on them. A woman I know, for several years now, has heard this calling and ordered hundreds of daffodil bulbs to plant on these hills. She and a small gang of women sneak out at night in the fall and climb these hills along the road to plant daffodils. When passing car headlights shine on them they lie back against the hill so they aren't exposed doing their good deed. Each spring daffodils now grow where they shouldn't and people are left to wonder how it happened.

Sky High. My cousin Ian in England saw my post about our gas prices and sent me this picture of gas prices there. He translated it out to $9.60/gallon! I thought it was bad here!

Daylight Hazard. With summer solstice approaching on June 21st, our daylight hours increase greatly every day. Right now we are up to 19 hours from sun-up to sun-down, but after the sun sets it is still dusky for a long time. This is great for our plants and our spirits, but it makes it hard to watch TV in a room that is all windows. This picture is Sophie trying to watch her favorite show and cut the glare on the screen. See her hand sticking out of the blanket? Another hazard of so much daylight is our eating schedule gets out of whack. It is quarter til ten at night right now and we are cooking dinner on the grill.

Hot Is Relative. We have our first scorching hot day and of course the boys want to get out the swim trunks and start up the sprinkler. It was 54 degrees F. They ran around in the sprinkler for 15 minutes and then asked me how to turn the water warmer. When it gets over 70 degrees F we have to force our kids to play outside. They wilt at that temperature. See the buds on the tree? That was three days ago. Today the leaves are opened and getting big. It is amazing what all the extra daylight does for plants. We planted that tree 13 years ago and it struggled along in an unimpressive way for years. Then one year a moose came along and munched the tree down to a little nub of a stick. We were so upset that our little tree had been bullied like that. But when it grew back, it was full and healthy. The moose pruned it stronger.

Ann's Tomatoes. Lush and ready for her to take them across the inlet. She wraps each tomato plant in remay before the big trip. I am envious of her green thumb because...
my tomato plants look like this. I got a little late start. But they are all transplanted in their buckets with the 5-year-old chicken poop mixed in and they are ready to grow! We still have to have the heater on at night in the greenhouse.

Bathroom Graffiti. This morning I found the words, "I love E" on the wall in the bathroom. The prime suspect was our 7 year-old. Apparently he was so overcome with love for someone whose name starts with an E that he had to write it immediately. We haven't figured out what his writing utensil was yet. He wouldn't fess up, but he was willing to clean it up for whomever it was "who did write it."
He was surprised a few years ago when we were able to figure out right away who wrote this one.

The Fortress, Reinforced. John has now built lidded boxes around the sides of the garden, making little greenhouses for our squash and cucumbers. He had makeshift corner greenhouses last year and the squash loved the protection. The cucumbers are an experiment. They wilt and die if you even look at them wrong.

This is my favorite. For hinges he cut up old leather work gloves. Thrifty with hinges. With plastic, not so much.

Dump Truck Lineup. I found all of Leo's dirt trucks lined up this morning by his dirt pile. He is apparently getting ready for the summer dirt-play season. There is a lot to do making roads, hauling dirt, and grating. Now he knows where to find each piece of equipment.

In Case You Were Wondering.

Log Stacks. We've had some really nice weather for a week now, and you know what that means....time to get ready for winter! I came home to find that John had spent the day chopping and stacking wood. We heat our house with oil and with the price of fuel going up so high, we will be burning a lot more wood.

I before E except after W. The derby is for king salmon. There is a good run of kings passing this area all of May and the first week of June.

Frog Eggs. I friend of mine brought this bucket of frog eggs to the school today. She said that they can be found in ponds under the water, usually attached to grass or sticks. The eggs are held together with a jelly-like substance. Her daughter used to find the eggs, put them in a bucket with holes in it, and then place the bucket in the pond again. That way she could come check on the egg development frequently. There is a pond behind our property that we ice skate on in the winters. I hope to find some frog eggs there and watch them with the kids.

Dog Bone. While dogs in the lower 48 daintily chew on steak bones left over from fancy restaurants, our dogs gnaw on what they can find. This is Ann's dog, Tucky (he came from Kentucky), and his prize, a moose leg. Ann is my friend who found her wedding ring in her truck after it was missing for 10 years. She had another dog of the same breed that died this fall. He had saved her from an attack by a brown bear while across Cook Inlet at her fish camp. Bears consider us their snacks.
More yummy moose to snack on. The teeth are like popcorn.

Feral Pheasant. This is a domesticated pheasant, raised by a friend of ours, purchased by someone else, and then released into the wild. It reminds me of the year that John bought 20 pheasants with the intention of selling them to hunters for training their dogs. But when the time came to sell them and see them killed off he decided to release them. They hung around here for years. The following year he bought another batch of pheasants and raised them in a long running cage. A big dog dug under the fence and killed every pheasant in the pen. John was so mad he set a snare to catch the dog. A couple of days later he saw that he had snared the culprit. He approached the dog angrily. Then it wagged its tail. All was forgiven and John let the dog go. Such a softy.

Garden Fortress. All winter long John thinks about his garden. He considers it a battle between himself and Alaskan elements. First, John built a fence around his large garden to protect it against moose. The moose irreverantly leaned over the fence and ate an entire row of broccoli and cauliflower, waiting until it was nice and ripe. The following year John raised the fence and added an orange rope eye-level to moose that he had seen on other gardens and figured was there to frighten moose.

Next he added greenhouse plastic to the walls of the garden to protect against cold winds. This made the garden a virtual greenhouse. He started building the rows higher and higher in order to keep the soil warmer. You can see in this picture how high he now builds the rows. Both of these measures worked well.

His next battle was against chickweed, which is an especially insidious weed nearly impossible to be rid of. His first idea was to cover the entire floor of the garden with a black cloth that would suffocate the weeds. They only thrived under the heat of the blanket. The following year he spread grass clippings all over the garden. It turns out that the best way to control weeds is to pull them out by hand. Our children were dismayed when John realized this fact and decided that it would be their job. His new idea for this summer's battle against chickweed is to buy baby ducks and let them loose in the garden, where they will gobble up all the weeds. For the record, I think this will backfire and they will eat our veggies.

The garden is now ready for planting. But our last snow was a week ago, so when we put the plants in the ground, we will cover them with a special white blanket that protects the plants from frost. Gardening in the Alaska. Not for the casual gardener. The only real advantage is our everlasting sunlight.

Wigging Out. At the school where I work we were supposed to dress up like old people so I borrowed a wig to make my costume. After sitting on school bleachers watching a concert for two hours, we were further entertained by macho log-building John and Leo wearing the wig. We laughed all the way home.
Okay, it was only a mile home.

Bridge Repair. This bridge over the Anchor River is getting a repair that lasts ten days. Those who live past this road have a 20 mile detour to get into Anchor Point. With the saltwater fishing season and tourist season just getting going, many are questioning the timing. The area below this bridge is a favorite among fly fishermen, though, who will be glad to see it completed before the river opens to fishing on Memorial Day weekend.

The Ring Part II. One of my favorite people in the world told me a great story today about her wedding ring. Ann and her husband own a set net site across Cook Inlet, which is a very remote area that they can only get to by plane or boat. They work very hard catching salmon and their fingers swell with the labor of it. Ann was in the habit of taking off her wedding ring and putting it in her purse when she fished and one day she looked in her purse for it and it was gone. She couldn't find it for ten years. The other day someone got into the back seat of Ann's truck and said, "Look, a ring!" There it was on the floor of their truck after ten years. It no longer fits Ann's finger as her knuckles have become enlarged after years of serious volleyball so she wears it on her pinky finger. I took this picture after transplanting vegetable plants with Ann in her greenhouse. See the dirt under her nails? She's one of the hardest working women I know.

Chess In Pieces. It is hard to be a cool-looking chess set when there is an exuberant, tail wagging labrador retriever cruising around. And the final insult is that after the lab knocks the head off a stately pawn with her tail, she eats it. The lesson: keep your chess pieces above tail-wag level.

Running in Water. This weekend we went to a track meet that was so cold it felt like an end-of-season football game. The snow was finally all melted from the field and was replaced by huge puddles of water. It was cold, windy and wet, and everyone had a blast.
Leo didn't see much of the racing. He had a coat, but he took it off and opted instead for the turtle method.

Have Wheels; Will Learn. Yesterday morning at the Russian school, two young ladies in their traditional dress rode up on four-wheelers and walked into school. There are no buses at the village. Most students get there by walking, bicycling, or four-wheeling. John says I'll be getting to work in the winter on the snow machine. We'll have to see about that.

Gravel - the pits. This area is a hotspot for digging up gravel. You usually can't tell that you are driving alongside a gravel pit as they are supposed to always be disguised from the road. So, you're enjoying the scenery and just over the mound by the road is a scene like this old gravel pit that has filled in with water. There is a battle going on right now here between the owners of the gravel pits and those who own property adjacent to the pits. I feel for both sides. After all, everyone uses gravel and wants to purchase it, but no one wants to live next to where it is dug up. It has to come from somewhere. If only they all had a golf hole in the middle.

Moose Ready for Business. Even though we have snow still on the ground, our summer cabin rental season starts tomorrow with the arrival of our first clients of the year. John took the plaque we had made for the door and sank it into a moose antler. He found the antler shed on the ground.

Voles. In the winters here the voles come in the house to stay warm. When we first moved to Alaska we lived in a trailer that was infested with them. At night we could hear them scampering around the kitchen and shaking the trash bag. They look a lot like the mice that Leo drew a portrait of here.

Boat Tent. John took our boat to the geniuses at Nomar Canvas and they designed and sewed a tent for the front of our boat. When we travel to Prince William Sound in the summers we will be able to quickly zip this tent in place and turn the bow into sleeping quarters.
They also made a canopy for the back deck so we can have protection from the rain, which there is a lot of. John plans to test the new additions to the boat this spring on his annual bear hunt.

Augustine Smokes. I saw this column of smoke coming out of Augustine and quickly pulled over to take a picture of what I thought would turn out to be a big eruption. Nope. Just steam. If you haven't looked at it yet, the Augustine Volcano eruption page is interesting to check out. You can see eruptions as they happen on a graph.