Dogs in the Snow

We just wanted to include pictures of Oreo (Barb's Shi Tzu) and Buster (Sullivan's lab/shepherd). They both had their coats on and were enjoying the outdoors. Buster was shivering a lot this morning because he has a very short coat and couldn't stay warm in the falling snow. So I dug out both dogs' coats. Thank you to Barb's cousin who sent her Oreo's coat as a Christmas present last year. He has grown into it nicely and loves wearing it. He also loves the snow...as you can see...with his face full of it...and his tongue out licking off his mouth. He goes outside and rubs his face through the snow and it gets stuck all over his body except where his coat covers him. Buster is more pristine playing outside but he loves to explore. The worst part is when they come inside tracking snow. Oreo is especially bad because he is usually COVERED in snow and as it melts off his fur the carpet and flooring get soaked. Aaaahhh...only 6 more months of this. HA Ha.

First Big Snow-October 26

The locals say this is just a "dusting"...by our book this is the first substantial snowfall. We have had at least 2-3", but snowplows don't do anything but the main roads (plowing and spreading gravel) with this amount. So, I have had my first hillside adventure getting home today. I stopped my van (on the snowy hillside) to take pictures for this blog and couldn't get going forward again. The wheels just spun in place and the van fishtailed around. I had to put the van in reverse, go backwards down the hill a few driveways, pull tail first into a driveway that sloped uphill, then put the car into drive and use the momentum down the driveway to turn and go up the hill again. I did make it home in one piece so I was pleased with my ability to get myself out of my predicament.

Notice our two dogs enjoying the romp in the yard in the first picture. I love how they hang out together. The second picture contains the tree featured just a few blogs ago in full autumn color. Thought showing the contrast in just a few short weeks was fun.

Anyway, the kids came home from school today and Sullivan and Dharma went outside to play. (Barb is leaving on a retreat with church tomorrow and needs to pack as well as study for three tests.) Sullivan used a cheap snowboard-type thingy to try the hillside. He said it was lots of fun. Then he and Dharma raided the sodas and made "slushies" with the fresh snow. I had a rootbeer one and Shaun had a coke one. They came in all tired and ready for homemade pizza. We have two gas fireplaces in our house but none on the main living level. I miss that and the real fire sights and sounds because tonight would be a night when we would have a big fireplace in Yorkville roaring to life and making us cozy. But again, the view here is beautiful and it has been a great day.

(PS We actually got snow for the first time two days ago, but it only fell for a couple hours and melted by afternoon. This one should stick around because it is now suppose to get above freezing before the next snowfall is predicted this weekend.)

Dare Week

Our neighbor (who brings Dharma home from school every day along with her own daughter) is on the PTA at Dharma's school and is in charge of Dare Week. She put this sign on the chain link fence between the parking lot and playground. It is made out of large red cups. She ran out of cups making the sign and had to run to Wal-Mart for more after school yesterday. Then she returned to school with the two girls and they all finished the sign together. Dharma was so excited to show it to me this morning when I dropped the girls off at school. It shows up really well against the snow and with the snow highlighting it as it landed on the cups. I think they did a great job.

Winter Boy Scout Campout

Sullivan and Shaun went on their first Boy Scout campout the weekend of October 20th. There was a camporee held about half an hour from our home which Sullivan's new troop attended. The packing list for this campout consisted of over 30 items...many of which we did not own because it was clothing and gear specifically for outdoor camping in winter weather. After spending over $1000 on Wiggy sleeping bags, backpacks, special gloves and liners, specific socks and liners, waterproof/snow pants, non cotton shirts, and even a new type of underwear...the boys were off. Sullivan loved his new pack but has to work on learning how to fit everything inside it. :) At Camporee he got to fire a old fashioned gunpowder and ball musket, watch a bow and arrows be made from scratch by mountain men, and work on his tenderfoot requirements. One of those requirements was lighting a fire from wet wood. He was taught to find a certain kind of bark that burns easily even when soaked, start the fire with that, and then build it up a little at a time until it was big enough to cook upon. Then he had to prepare lunch for his patrol. Overall both Shaun and Sullivan had a great time. Shaun said in spite of all the clothes, he had a hard time keeping warm, but Sullivan said he was really comfortable all weekend (except that the Boy Scout tents were too drafty and next time he was bringing his from home). So glad Sub had a great time...now he just needs to not grow much any time soon so he will get a lot of use out of his new clothes for a while.

First Moose Sighting--October 11,2006

Sorry the picture is a bit blurry. It was taken through our front living room windows at about 8:15 a.m. on Wednesday. It was the only shot left in my camera so I don't have a better one to show you. Buster was going crazy barking out the windows. I was in the kitchen getting D.D.'s lunch together when she went to check out what he was barking at. She shrieked in sheer delight "It's a moose, mom! A moose!!" To give you an idea of how big this moose was, the green bush behind it's head stands about 8 or 9 feet tall at its highest point. This was quite a big moose! We judged it as "taller than dad/Shaun" at its back. Of course we know nothing about the sizes of moose...so anything would have been impressive to us. Anyway, the moose sauntered right into our yard, went down the side hill, stopped to nibble on one of our bushes, then crossed the street to our good friends' home, and had a snack on their bushes before heading out of sight. It was all very exciting. We had been warned that as winter drew near, we would start seeing moose in our yard. They apparently come out of the mountains (where snow has already fallen) and feast all winter on the lower vegetation that has been growing all summer. Shrubs in berries left on them are supposedly a favorite as well as apple trees and so on. Dharma got on the phone and called Grama and Papa with her news but she was very dramatic in her presentation. She said "First, when we moved here, my class went to the Alaska Zoo and I saw a moose there. Then when we were driving here, I saw caribou in the mountains. Lots of caribou. But now....now I have seen a moose in my own yard!" She thought this was fantastic.

Volcano at Sunset-October

Some people said they had a hard time seeing the volcano in the first posting so I am resending it. This was taken last week at sunset. Barb and I were marveling at the view while cleaning up the kitchen after dinner, and I decided to go outside in the yard and see if I could take a better picture. The volcano is the grayish rise dead center in the picture on the horizon. It is such much more vivid in real life and I need to become a better photographer, but it gives you a good idea.

Our House

Several people have asked to see pictures of our house. The first one shows the front of our house. The second one shows the back of our house. Since we are on a hill, we have a very small backyard. These trees and bushes are actually the divider between us and our next neighbor down the hill. We are a corner house, so we have a fairly decent side yard with a tiered garden. I have been working like crazy getting it ready for winter because the last renters of this house didn't do any yard work for years. The weeds are literally 3 feet tall and the roots go down another foot. It is like blasting cement to pull them out. I have one tier completed. Another tier almost completed, and a section beside the house almost done. Sullivan plans on planting garlic beside the house today. We have planted wonderful strawberry plants on the steep hillside of a tier and plan on cleaning out another tier in the spring for red raspberry bushes. We have also planted one small blueberry bush. Blueberries don't grow on big bushes here like in the midwest. They are on plants that spread out sideways but stay with 8 inches or so of the ground. They are slow growing plants, but suppose to produce a lot of berries when they are big (about 4 feet across for one plant). Sullivan and Shaun built a fort in part of the backyard garden that was cleared out, and Dharma has her little tykes cabin set up nearby in the same garden bed. She and I planted small rose bushes in three colors around the cabin and I planted more perennials along the edge of the bed. Nothing in any of the gardens has been completed, but I have been trying to make the most of the daylight and warmth to start the hard work. Freezing weather is expected this weekend so that will be the end of gardening until spring.

Another picture of mountains

This picture is taken from our street, just higher up the hill. For orientation purposes, look at the streetlight in the left forfront of the picture. Directly below that lamps' globe, down about an inch is another street light. The rooftop it is in front of is our house. I was just trying to capture how tall the hills are around us and what I meant by the snowline getting closer and closer to us. Be sure to look very carefully at the left side of the picture beside the bare branches on the left edge, and notice the all white mountain. You can barely make out its sillouette. It must be very tall to be that covered in snow. Also note the clouds on the left side of the picture even with the first lamp post. It is very common here to have clouds so low that the mountains are completely covered from sight. Another really cool thing we have witnessed is what are family calls the brigadoon effect. The clouds hang so low to the ground covering up the whole bottom of the mountain but then suddenly stop near the top of a mountain. You look up and see what appears to be an island floating up in the sky. A really cool one happened a couple days before this picture. We were driving home and ran into the house to get the camera. By the time we got back outside, the clouds had moved further up and completely veiled the mountains. Wish we had gotten a picture of it for you because it is really bizarre looking. This picture only shows you the mountains on the right side but there are equal mountains on the left. A river runs in a gulley between them...hence the name of our town.

Snow on the mountains

Two pictures for you today that just don't do the scenery justice. The first one is taken from our driveway looking off toward the east last Friday. Those are a corridor of mountains going endlessly eastward (at least from our viewpoint). The further away they are, the bigger they get. Snow has been on the tvery top of the mountains since we arrived, but every few days seems to bring the snowline closer to us. What is hard to make out in the picture is that the tops of all those hills keep going up a ways more and are snow covered. The day was crisp and crystal clear and unfortunately the snow reflected the light so much, that you almost can't make the mountains out. You definately can't make out the mountains to the far left in the picture that are tall and snow covered. I had hoped to capture them, but didn't have any luck. (For my mom and Vange, note Buster drinking from the little pond with water clear enough to reflect his image. This is the pond that had belly up wildlife in it when we moved in. So glad it is clean and pretty now. )
The second picture is of a road we drive on to get to our house. If I hang a left at this point, I will drive up a hillside and get to our house. This was the first day that snow was on our "little" hill and the shot was too picturesque to miss.

Volcano

First let me orient you to this picture. It is taken from the street in front of out house last week. That is the side of our house and the deck you see is on the second floor of the back of our house. We live on a hillside and the back of our house faces toward a valley which contains Anchorage. Start by looking at the horizon on the left of the picture. First you wil see some trees both without and with leaves poking above the horizon. Those trees are actually down the street from us on our hillside. Continue about half an inch to the right and you will see a couple blips above the horizon. That is the downtown part of Anchorage...about 15 miles from us. Continue traveling with the horizon to the rightfor just under an inch. If you look closely, you will see a white mountain jutting straight up into the sky. That is a volcano. Redoubt volcano, I believe. It is approximately 120 miles from our house, past Anchorage, across Cook inlet. It doesn't look like much to you probably because I don't have a strong enough lense to capture it well. But it is over 10000 feet high and totally white with snow. When the sky is clear...usually toward the evening so this was a rare daytime appearance, we can see this as clear as anything. It is truly a beautiful and breathtaking sight. From my kitchen window, I can look out while cooking and cleaning up from dinner and see this volcano. Our neighbors told us it was there but we couldn't see it for probably a week after we arrived due to all the rain. When it showed up one night, I was speechless. There really is an active volcano within sight of our house! Wow, did I ever really feel like I was in another world. If you continue to follow the horizon past the volcano, you will see a little dip in the horizon. That is part of Cook Inlet. Most days we can see some of the water in the inlet, but it is just a sliver so it won't come out in a photgraph. So that is the southwesterly view from our home. Come see it for yourself.

Student of the month

Last week Shaun and I received an invitation to attend the end of September assembly at Dharma's school. Friday we sat in the multi-purpose room with the students, teachers, and some other parents as the September awards were handed out for various things...best class in music, best class in PE, reading awards, math awards, etc. Dharma's name was called, and she earned Student of the Month. We and she were very excited. She had never won an award before and she was pleased as could be. I took this picture when she returned to her classroom. The certificate reads "Student of the Month...Dharma Gilley...for always doing her best". Dharma is a child who truly delights in school and enjoys going every day. Now we (Dharma and I) have also started a Brownie Girl Scout troop of 1st and 2nd graders at school. So far, we have 12 girls signed up and are off to a great start there for Dharma as well. What a great beginning of a new year at a new school.

Fall

Almost overnight a couple weeks ago, fall hit the area. One day everything was green and the next it was yellow. And I do mean yellow. Very few trees turn other colors like red or orange because I have been told that those varieties don't survive the winters here. So everywhere we looked it was yellow or evergreen. As the days passed, the yellow only seemed to intensify. The newspaper said that the yellows are particularly vibrant this year because there was so much rain over the summer. The trees are now super healthy and happy and showing their colors to prove it. This picture is of a tree in our side yard (that is our house behind it) taken last week. I wish you could see the trunk of this tree up close because it is smooth, bronze in color...something I have never seen before...and puts out clusters of small black berries. I haven't had a chance to look up what kind of tree it is, but Dharma and Hannah, our neighbor's daughter, love to climb in it. They also crush the berries and add water and "paint" with the juice of the berries on rocks and paper. Yesterday the winds were upwards of 50 miles per hour here, so most of the trees are now bear. Winter is coming.

September 16--Homecoming

Well, Barb has officially had her first date. She was asked to the Homecoming dance by a fellow Freshman who is a month older than her. This young man lives a few miles from us and Shaun takes him to school every morning along with Barb. From the moment they met, the two of them hit it off. Shaun said he has never heard a boy talk so much, but apparently they carry on long conversations on the way to school every morning and eat lunch together along with other friends most every day. She was so excited to go. One of our neighbors is a perfume representative so she had Barb come over and pick out a sample to wear. I put her hair up in fancy twists in back and painted her nails. She wore a dress she bought almost two years ago on a whim at the end of prom season for $9. She looked cute in it then to use as dress-up fun with friends, but I almost didn't want her to wear it to the dance because she fills it out too well now. This picture was taken on our front porch as she was hamming for her two girlfriends who had been over all afternoon "helping" her get ready. She had a great time. Now no more dates until she is 15!!!

Sunrise and Sunset

Many people have asked us about the length of the daylight here. On the first day of school, Aug. 22, sunrise was at 6:26 a.m. and sunset was at 9:37 p.m. It was bright when my high schooler went to school at 6:45 a.m. and kids stay out and play late into the evening. The philosophy here is "make the most of the sunlight while we have it". Regular bedtimes and dinner times seem to be tossed out the window while kids and adults stay outside as long as possible. Today is Oct. 4th and we have now been here for almost 6 weeks. The sun rises at 8:14 a.m. today and sets at 7:21 p.m. The day is almost 3 1/2 hours shorter than it was when we arrived. It is crazy!! By Christmas we are expected to have just under 5 1/2 hours of light between sunrise and sunset...mind you that close to sunrise and sunset the sky is not bright so the actually daylight is more like 4 hours according to our neighbors. But, when the sky is clear here, the sunrises and sunsets can be really spectacular. The first shot attached was taken from our front porch to the east of our house at sunrise in early September. The second picture was taken from our back deck toward the west. I think they are both amazing pictures of two times of the day here. Remember, though, the clouds have to cooperate. This is a really rainy, overcast time of the year so often you wake to clouds in the morning so the sunrises are harder to see. As the day wears on, the sun usually comes out and the clouds lift for amazing views around us.

Salmon Fishing

As Labor Day weekend approached, Sullivan and Shaun pondered going Salmon fishing. Until we live here a year, we are not considered residents of Alaska (even though we can get a license and vote) as far as hunting and fishing go. A one day license for salmon fishing runs upwards of $25 for an adult, but kids don't need a license until they are 16 so Sullivan could go for free. Shaun and I both asked around for locations to go fishing. Finally bright and early Monday morning, Shaun and Sullivan headed out. Shaun had a license for one day. They went to a local spot about 20 minutes up the road and came home about 5 hours later with one small fish. It turned out to be a pink salmon which the neighbors said was only good for dog food. Sub and Shaun said they caught a larger fish but it looked so beat up and half its tail was missing that they were afraid something was wrong with it so they threw it back. After describing it to the same neighbor, we found out it was the fish they should have kept...a silver salmon. Matt, our neighbor said that once a fish has traveled this far to get into the local rivers, they have had a rough life and do look beat up. Shaun and Sullivan also found out they were fishing in the wrong location...close but not correct. So after lunch the boys took to the road again and went to the right spot. Attached is the picture of the fish that Sullivan caught that afternoon. Not bad for a first day out...approximately 5 pound silver salmon. They brought it home and another neighbor's son taught us all how to filet it. So for dinner on Labor Day we enjoyed our first salmon caught by Sullivan. It was delicious!!!