Pine Siskins

Our house is now surrounded by hundreds of pine siskins. John filled the bird feeders to draw them in. All these birds, combined with our increasing daylight, makes it feel almost like spring.

Mountains of Snow

We've had so much snow this winter that it comes to the bottom of our waist-high windows. It allows our dog a better viewpoint from which to see into the house.

Sledders on a Rope

This is our string of sledders, with kids on the back of the snow machine and then sleds tied together in a string to the back of the machine.

The Weight of Snow

The last time we drove to Anchorage, so much snow had fallen that all the trees through the pass were bent over with the weight of the snow. I took this picture while we were driving as we didn't want to stop, thus it is a little blurry, but you get the idea.

A Hunt Most Don't See

Recently I was the wife stuck in the sporting goods store. Not the store with cute hats and cool camping gear. It was the kind of store that had tackle and supplies for reloading. I entertained myself by checking out the wall where all the hunting trophy pictures are displayed. You've seen those bulletin boards. I thought it was interesting to find this picture of a successful seal hunt. I bet not many trophy boards include one of these.

Ice Wall

The highway along Turnagain Arm.

Mount Spur

In the foreground of this picture is the icy water of Turnagain Arm near Anchorage. If you look closely at the middle of the horizon you can see a volcano named Mount Spur. It erupted a few years ago, coating Anchorage in ash.

Spidey Returns

I figured that Spider Man had long ago slid off the roof with the several feet of snow that have sluffed onto the ground this winter. We were shocked to notice him this morning stuck in ice, hanging off the edge of the roof. This picture was the last time we had seen him until today. Go Spidey!

Big Hill

We returned to the big hill and found it was just as much fun as last spring. Look how long that hill is! John did have his trusty shovel along, though, to take out a small ramp at the bottom that was causing too much air time.

More Maintenance

Everything in Alaska requires more work , it seems: running water, warm houses, getting the dogs to relieve themselves more than 3 steps from the front door. We can't even have a snowman without it creating more work. Remember this guy? Every time it snowed since we made him we were brushing the snow off of him to keep him pretty. Then we got a big dump of snow and this is what happened. And those skis we had sticking out from under him? That wasn't a good idea! Now they are frozen in place and they interfere with shoveling. Well, off to rescue the snowman!

Four Minutes a Day

We are now gaining four minutes and ten seconds a day! The sun is rising at 9:56 and setting at 4:23. Even though this looks like sunrise or sunset, it is actually the middle of the day. So even though we are gaining in daylight, it still isn't overly bright.

Contra Dancing

This New Year's we went to a contra dance party that was open to anyone who wanted to come. It was the most enchanting evening! Contra dancing is like square dancing, only couples move throughout the room instead of staying in their separate squares. It took place in a boat workshop. The owner had the old, wooden shop cleared out with carpeted benches lining the walls along with his personal tools. The room filled quickly with people bearing food. The ceiling was decorated with paper lanterns and painted soundboards and the in the corner sat a live band. We ran into many men who we knew but didn't know danced, and some of them even owned their own dancing shoes. And the best part was that John, who builds log houses and uses flamethrowers to garden, danced every dance while we were there- including a polka.

Making Belts

The Russian Old Believer men wear belts at all times. Recently some community members came to the school to teach the children how to make these belts. They tied yarn to stool legs and went to work. I believe the belts are called "Paisoks". You can see how a completed one would be worn here.

Cache

We saw this cache at the end of someone's property the other day. Looks like it was made for a Hobbit.

A Mom's Work Is Never Done

I saw this poster exposed at an airport recently. The door to an employee section was left open. I'm sure the manager would be proud to know everyone checking in could read this. I'll tell you what it says since I'm sure you can't make it out: If their moms didn't make them into nice people in 20 years...what chance do you have in a few minutes? How very true!

I went ahead and included the blurry photo because a visual aide is required and it was either this or a photo of someone who's mother's work wasn't quite done yet. That would have been tricky.

A Dignified Dog's Indignity

Did I ever mention that our boxer has only three legs? She loves her family and is loyal to protecting us always. When we go to our sledding hill we have to snow machine a couple of miles out to a remote area. There is no way she would be able to keep up with us on her three legs for the trip out there, and she wouldn't think of being left behind. So while our lab lopes alongside the snow machine, kicking up snow with glee, our boxer is forced to suffer the humiliation of riding in John's lap. I think she thinks sledding is dangerous for us because, when we are about to launch down the hill, she will stand in front of the sled and bark. She tries to block our descent. So she suffers the indignity of riding the snow machine just so she can try to stop us flying down a fast hill. And what do we do in return? We shove her to the side and scream all the way down the luge run.

All Work When We Play

When we go sledding there is a lot of work involved. We can't just sled down a hill; we have to shovel banks of snow to steer the sled on an S curve. And we can't walk up the same slope we sled down because that would slow down the track, so John brings along a shovel to dig stairs into the hill for easy climbing. We left this hill in anticipation of our return. We had the hill set up like an Olympic luge track, ready to harden over the week and be even faster next time.

Sledding!

Doesn't this picture make you want to grab a sled and hit the hills?

Good Grooming

I forgot the very last ingredient to being able to skate ski - a well-groomed trail! This dedicated person was out keeping the Sunset Loop in good shape when we were out. He was pulling the groomer behind his snow machine.

Wax On, Wax Off

Until this year I had waxless skis. Oh, the simplicity of them! I had heard of people waxing their skis, and thought this was performed similarly to the way we put on deodorant. No. First you have to buy wax that I hear is very expensive. I haven't had to purchase any yet because so far we've been able to benefit off of others who were set up for this (I think this is called mooching). Then you take an iron that is hopefully dedicated to only this job, and you melt the wax onto the length of your skis in a wavy dribble.



The next step, which seemed unimaginable to me when I first saw it, is that you take that iron and you apply it to your $300 skis directly in order to evenly distribute the wax into the pores of your ski.



Now that you have the wax applied nicely upon your skis, you scrape it all off! After that, you use a steel pad and smooth it all down. Now you have to protect the waxed side so no one messes up your 1/2 hour of work by touching or scuffing. And I always just threw my waxless skis in the car to jostle around. All this work does pay off. The skis are fast and fun!

Skiing on a Sunny Day

During the break, we did a good amount of skiing. With all the snow we could hardly wait to get out there. This picture was taken at 2 p.m. You can see how low the sun is. It set a little over an hour afterwards. We have always skied a style called classic, but we recently started learning how to skate ski. I was shocked at all the work that goes into prepping to skate ski. I'll show you over the next few days what is involved. In this picture our daughter was slogging through the deep snow and was off course from skating.

Happy Snowman!

Who better to welcome you into the new year than our 7-foot tall snowman? Seeing our rotund snowman should tell you that we got a lot of snow over the hiatus! One of us had the good idea to stick ski poles on his hands and skis under his, um, feet. Now the skis are frozen in place and can't be removed. This is proving tricky for the snow blower and shoveling. But it looks cool!