Happenings

That time of the year...

2011-08-27T14:45:00.000-08:00

Yummy berries, beautiful colors!

While cutting grass next to our house,

2011-07-14T20:47:00.001-08:00

There was a Hop Hop that caught my attention. Not much open water right here, though we've seen a frog twice before. Must be a wood frog. Living in the woods.

Welcome sign

2011-07-01T10:22:00.003-08:00

A nest of sticks in the woods, and a sign to make sure everyone knows who is welcome: not dogs and not cats, but definitely butterflies and birds.

Summer folk fest

2011-06-12T22:44:00.002-08:00

Saturday we enjoyed the summer folk feat at former Alaskaland now Pioneer Park. The small slough cutting across the grassy field was a huge attraction. The music was great, too.

(I didn't realize my settings were wrong - this should have posted two weeks ago.)

ONAC day 1

2011-03-18T22:48:00.004-08:00

The Open is this weekend (open = unlimited number of dogs, as compared to the limited last weekend, where maximum number of dogs is 8). We went to watch the first day. We just barely made it see the last three teams take off. A half hour later, the first teams crossed the start/finish line after doing the 20 mile trip. (~20 mph)

Red light - no problem. Going the wrong way on a one way street - no problem.

Weather was beautiful for the spectators, and since many of the dogs on the teams are short-haired, it was likely no problem for the dogs either.

That's Sonja and Emilie on the last picture in the light purple jackets.

Beginning of NaPali coast trail

2011-02-16T14:23:00.005-09:00

From Anini Beach we moved our tent to Hanalei for the weekend. And took the opportunity to drive the road to its western end at the Kee Beach, where the trail for the NaPali Coast starts. A lot of warning signs in the beginning of the trail (though a lot more at the beach!). Our kids did great.

Emilie showing off a bit up the trail - the Kee beach, where the trail starts, is underneath us. We took it slow and steady. The trail was a little bit muddy - enough to get us some obvious marks on the legs, but it was not too slippery.

At the 1/2 mile mark, well above the ocean, we got the promised glimpse of the NaPali coast. The kids managed to get there all by themselves. A few obligatory pictures...

And then we headed back down.

Crazy Yukon Quest

2011-02-14T22:42:00.002-09:00

The Yukon Quest, the 1000 mile sled dog race between Whitehorse and Fairbanks, has been crazy this year. First, from the reports I heard, temperatures were perhaps even above freezing in Whitehorse just before the race start. Then the race started, and things looked fast. Hugh Neff was up front, and even seemed to have made it past some difficult sections of the trail on the Alaska side before weather moved in. He seemed unstoppable. Then the cold front moved in, and things started changing. Fast. First, reports of Hugh Neff finding some serious overflow (water flowing over ice), serious enough that one of his dogs was submerged. All of that in fourty to fifty below temperatures. He still made it into the checkpoint in Central ok. Next, a report that four-time champion Hans Gatt also got stuck in an overflow someplace - he fell in chest deep after the ice he thought was solid broke under him. Same cold temperatures. A fellow musher helped to get him and his dogs out and built a fire, and they improvised some shoes from various materials on the sled, and made it to Central, where Hans Gatt scratched. He is lucky to be alive. And last report - Hugh Neff, the leader for 800 miles, could not make it over the summit a bit further up the trail, and scratched too. It will be interesting to see how the race continues, and I just hope that everyone will be safe and sound when all is said and done.

Camping at Anini Beach

2011-02-14T22:18:00.003-09:00

Camping at Anini was cool. As in being in the far north of Kauai, one could feel the latitude, and we wore sweaters most of the time :). Unlike the previous spot at Anahola (where people sat at sunrise on the beach, motionless), there were plenty of people right next to where we pitched the tent at Anini, but they were on their knees, looking for the tiny red shells called Kahelelani. So we joined them, and found some too. Apparently it was one of the few spots around the island where the shells can be found. Picture below: our tent, a few steps from the beach. The waves break on the reef far out in the distance.

The next day we took a hike around Anini. There were a lot of cool trees to climb over, through, under, or around.

Notes for future camping: the tip of the beach was actually not the best place to camp - there was a channel nearby that guided a lot of the water behind the reef in or out. If it had been warm enough to go swimming, it would have been better to be a bit to the side from the tip. And, not under the trees - the lack of sun was noticeable. Though one cool thing about the trees was that we got to see the wild chickens going to roost in the trees. And there was an egg right next to our tent too. (it had been there when we put the tent up, so who knows how long it was there...)

Reindeer tree, as Sonja called it. See it, looking out towards the right?The antlers are going up off the picture, one big round eye is visible, as is the mouth and the nice neck. The legs, well, you have to imagine those.

Almost at the end of the beach.

And the next day, we ended up eating breakfast at this picnic table, also a few feet in the other direction from our tent. Had to pull up our feet a few times when the wave came in higher. And a nice big wave is crashing over the protecting reef far offshore.

Kilauea Point and Wildlife Refuge

2011-02-04T20:41:00.006-09:00

We left Anahola Beach and headed for the Kilauea Wildlife Refuge on the Kilauea Point.

We ate some pizza for lunch in a top parking lot, looking down on the main parking lot [at left] and the refuge. No food is allowed in the refuge. Huge cliffs everywhere. To get to the parking lot, one *has* to use a car - no pedestrians. Ouch! (They cited safety concerns due to the narrowness and turns of the road.)

The wave action against the cliffs was very impressive. Wouldn't want to be down there at sea level!

The most common bird in the refuge is the red-footed booby. That is apparently what all of those white dots are. on that green hillside.

May be because it is so common the hawaiian name for it is the sweet and short 'a.

Checking out the endangered (Hawaiian) Nene goose. We almost got kicked out after the kids forgot how to behave, started chasing each other, and nearly took out this poor bird. As soon as we corralled them, we left, but it was close.

A Laysan albatross soared around the point (top of picture). It is huge, with ~6ft wingspan.

At the end of the day, we put up our tent under the big trees at Anini Beach - in fact it was right behind that big tree on the right, with the Kilauea point visible in the background. That picnic table served us well the second day for breakfast.

Sixth day of camping - Anahola Beach

2011-02-01T21:29:00.003-09:00

The sixth day of camping took us to Anahola Beach on the east side of Kauai. We arrived in late afternoon. Put up tent and went swimming. This is how the beach looked a couple steps down from our tent.

In the morning we woke up and Emilie insisted in the dusk that she needed to go poop, so I got up to take her to the bathroom (for peeing, we had a potty with us, which stayed in the vestibule. and was used a lot by both kids). As I stuck my head out in the grey light of early morning, I was taken aback - some twenty or so people sat in intervals on the beach, including pretty close to our tents, and were either reading or writing or just watching the waves. All had headlamps on, so initially all I saw were these twenty or so points of light spread out on the beach. I was wondering what new-ageish occurence we have come across? This picture doesn't do it justice, it got exposed for a long time. I had to ask the girl we encountered as we waited in line (!) for the bathroom at 7am. She said they were a college group who were taking an outdoor education class for credit, they were heading to the NaPali coast from there. After at least half or 3/4 hour, all of them got up and went to their tents.

We had a leasurly breakfast, the sun got up, and we headed back into the water. The kids loved it.

Watch out, a monster's coming out of the sea! Sonja had a swimsuit that has inflatable chambers inside.

Then the tent was packed up. All that was left of our sleeping area were some mats that were in the vestibule of the tent. Beautiful day!

Vacation - next couple days

2011-01-26T22:01:00.006-09:00

After visiting the highlands we kicked around the lowlands for a couple days. We stopped by the National Tropical Botanical Garden. Our kids were still a bit young for that, and we did get attacked a bit by the mosquitoes like they warned us (and so we put on the bug spray we bought from their office), but I still enjoyed the visit. This is a view from the shuttle into the valley where the garden is.

One of the things I learned is that some trees respond to the decreased sunlight in winter by dropping their leaves. That explained the leafless trees we saw there. And here we were wearing t-shirts and shorts and wondering how the trees could tell that it was wintertime, since for us it sure felt like summer.

Another thing I learned is that vanilla is really an orchid. That likes to be supported by something, like a tree in this case.

After the garden, we went to the Poipu kids beach and had a blast. Kids and one parent were on the kids beach (crowded, but we expected that), while the other parent snorkeled nearby. It was great.

In the late afternoon, we returned back to Salt Pond, and had some more beach time. Between the palm trees on the left is Martin coming back with Emilie from the kids beach there at Salt Pond. They were goofing off in the water and apparently having a lot of fun. That unfortunately resulted in nursemaid's elbow. We ended up going to the emergency room that evening, when they tried to restore it but did not, and again the next morning, when they managed to restore it, and she was just fine after that. Still, it did give her about twelve hours of wearing a sling. She felt very special then :). But she was also glad to get her use of her arm back.

PS: Top picture is the bark of a eucalyptus tree. Love those colors!

PPS: They had cocoa trees too. Yay!

Vacation - first couple days

2011-01-24T22:09:00.005-09:00

We went to warm up in warmer climates for not quite two weeks over New Years. It worked great.

Main goal of the first couple days was to not get burned, and get a lot of sand time. First full day in Kauai we left our hotel, shopped for items, then went to find our campsite. Put up the tent, and went a few steps over to the beach and played. The rest of the five days we spent at that campsite we generally rolled out of our sleeping bags sometimes after sunrise, ate breakfast, and walked a few steps over to the beach and played. And played. And played. Then for lunch or early afternoon, we explored different parts of the island.Our tent in Salt Pond Beach Park on the south side of the island.

On New Years Eve in the early afternoon, we headed up to Waimea Canyon and to the Kalalau overlook, way above the coast that the NaPali trail follows. Kids had fun running on the wide path.

Looking into Waimea Canyon.

By noon the second day

2010-11-23T13:15:00.004-09:00

By noon the second day... or how did Sonja cross the road?

=== === ===

By noon the second day of the subtropical wet mass hitting the subarctic, road conditions of side roads have worsened a bit, though my understanding is that main roads are being maintained with sand and gravel and are somewhat passable. Here we are walking up and crossing the street after a brief visit to our neighbors on a side road. There was no way to walk directly on the road.

Interestingly, one of our neighbors did pass us in his truck as we were walking up. In his old 70's truck, he did not seem to have much problem, even without chains. I don't intend to try it until I have to.

On the radio they announced the schools are closed again tomorrow, so that means a full week of no school for us. Good decision from the school district administrators.

Outside, it is still just drizzling, so overall it's not bad to be outside. But the above-freezing temperatures make everything super-wet. Since walking on the street itself is impossible (one just falls down, and the pants get a layer of water from the water on top of the ice), we walk through the snow, which makes for wet boots. And any fall into the snow means some more water for the snowpants to absorb. Jackets just get a doze of the drizzle from the constant drizzle. We have never been so wet after spending such a short time outside. One hour outside meant pretty much soaked everything. I even broke out my extratuffs (rubber boots). This is no weather for the mukluks I normally wear all winter long.

So now we will just continue to work on the snowmen. The one I build yesterday afternoon collapsed overnight, the small one that Sonja build survived. I need to practice :).

By noon the first day

2010-11-22T23:46:00.002-09:00

By noon the first day of the subtropical moisture system making its way into the subarctic, our local road looked like this. But that was noon, and it continued to drizzle continuously the entire day and night (at least so far), so it will be interesting to see how things look tomorrow. No school tomorrow either, due to the rain, so we will continue to practice that thing so rare in Fairbanks - making a snowman.

Taking the dogs for a walk, it feels, except for the darkness, like April. Everything is melting. Slush underneath the snow. Not what we bargained for in November. Especially since we finally got some decent snow this past weekend, making it look like the winter won't be so bad afterall.

More snowmen tomorrow.... if the snow lasts :)

Natural light

2010-11-21T23:06:00.003-09:00

Here is our house in the bright sunlight (reflected off the full moon), around 10:30pm tonight. Temperature just around freezing. Freezing rain predicted tomorrow. So probably no moonlight tomorrow.

Spectacular sunset Friday

2010-11-21T23:05:00.001-09:00

Friday evening we had a spectacular pink sunset. Denali was throwing a
shadow into it (bottom left).

Tanana 2

2010-11-13T22:29:00.001-09:00

A bit further on the floodplain, a whole bunch of driftwood.

Walk by the Tanana river

2010-11-13T22:27:00.002-09:00

The dogs and I took a walk by the Tanana river by the airport. This
section of the floodplain riverbank has been actively eroding over the
last however many years. Another thing to note is that this main
channel of the river has just small but hardly any big ice pancakes on it. Late freezeup.

Leaving Toolik

2010-09-28T22:04:00.004-08:00

Saturday I woke up to fresh snow on the ground. And the honking of some 150 geese flying south. They were way late, for being that far north!

After breakfast, Anja and I left Toolik to drive back down to Fairbanks. Anja needed a ride, and I was happy to have company. Half a mile from Toolik, just before we got back onto the Dalton Highway, there was the group of ptarmigan I saw a few days earlier again on the side of the road. I only realized there were some thirty of them once these ones took off and the other ones, right next to me, joined them in the air. They are real well camouflaged.

Shortly before Atigun Pass we saw the first patch of blue sky.

Some places names along the Dalton are funny. Here, the "Oh shit" corner that one should slow down on, no matter which direction one is heading:

And eight hours later, we arrived in Fairbanks.

Another morning

2010-09-25T08:39:00.001-08:00

Ptarmigan

2010-09-22T08:57:00.004-08:00

This morning it was 4F on the thermometer (-15C). Cold and clear. Everything is white or black or brown or various shades in between.

The group of ptarmigan that is hanging around Toolik and making their noises just flew to the shrubbery a bit further away as I walked out of my weatherport tent to take a picture.
A closeup on one part of the picture above, showing the birds in flight:
Here is closeup of one bird from Monday. They are definitely changing their plumage to match the landscape. The red above the eye only shows up from some angles. I love their feather boots. Now if they just didn't make so much noise, I would never know they are here.

View this morning from Toolik

2010-09-21T09:36:00.002-08:00

How the weather is depends which direction you're looking. One way clear and beautiful. The other way a wall of thick fog. Everything is frosted from the 14F nighttime temperatures.

Almost 100k

2010-09-11T18:54:00.001-08:00

Crazy. We've put almost 100,000 miles on the car since March 2002. And
I thought we don't drive that much.

Nome Creek camping

2010-09-06T18:49:00.001-08:00

Cold licks

2010-09-03T22:46:00.000-08:00

Sharing ice cream at Hot Licks

Glimpses

2010-09-03T22:45:00.001-08:00

Fleeting glimpses into the lesson happening in the classroom

More migrating cranes

2010-08-25T22:23:00.001-08:00

Another amazing Fairbanks day.

This morning near UAF, what a sight! (and the larger group had already passed us by that point)

A trip to Chena Hot Springs

2010-08-24T15:31:00.002-08:00

This Sunday we took the first trip all together. Destination was Chena Hot Springs. After arrival, the kids ate a sandwich before we went to soak.

That time of the year...

2010-08-24T15:18:00.000-08:00

Ried

2010-08-08T01:41:00.000-08:00

The kids enjoyed seeing all the animals in Martin's village, like this
neighbors kitty.

Switzerland

2010-08-02T08:14:00.000-08:00

And then I finally made it to Switzerland . A three hour train ride
later, I'm waiting to see when Martin arrives from his trip to the
Simplon Pass.

Denali 8 hours later

2010-08-02T08:11:00.001-08:00

After coming down with Alaska Airlines, 8 hours later we were on the
Condor flight to Frankfurt. Flying over the same route as that
morning, in reverse, at least for the first hour. Again had a nice
view of Denali.

Denali

2010-08-01T10:42:00.001-08:00

Denali, or McKinley, the highest mountain in north america, this
morning.

Dipnetting

2010-07-28T11:33:00.003-08:00

Martin is in Europe with the kids, so I went Dipnetting at Chitina with David. This guy (in the picture below) and his friend were fishing "our" spot, so we had to wait until they finished catching their 30 salmon each, which they did some 50 hours after they started. Then it was our turn. We got about 10 fish each in five hours, not bad for a slow run. At 1 pm we stopped, gutted the fish and cleaned them, carried them back up the trail to our bikes, biked the 2 miles (one hour) back to the car, put the fish into the coolers with ice and loaded up the car, and drove the six hours back to Fairbanks, arriving around 11 pm. Slept real well.

A walk with the dogs

2010-07-01T15:35:00.003-08:00

Pictures from a walk with the dogs last night. Starting around 9, finishing around 10:30 pm. Most picturse taken around 10pm.

Camping on the Chena

2010-05-10T23:38:00.002-08:00

We had a very nice camping trip this past weekend. Good company. Sunshine. Great bonfire. A nice hike up the beginning of the granite tors trail, followed by a nice melow paddling trip from our campsite to the bridge a couple roadmiles downstream.

Keith and Susan joined us for the bonfire, together with Regine, otherwise it was just our two families with four kids total.

Dads paddling with the kids, right by our campsite. The granite tors trail is on the opposite bank, and we used the canoe and kayak to get there. A lot of fun.

The bonfire, including smores.

Sonja got an early present for her birthday from those guys: her first swiss army knife. That's what it's called, "My first swiss army knife" or such. Does not have a point at the end, which is very nice.

Emilie and Elias throwing rocks into the river.

Signs of spring

2010-04-30T21:41:00.002-08:00

The tripod fell down yesterday (Nenana Ice Classic)
Robins, geese, cranes, etc are back
Bugs are back
Hummers are back out too, somehow they too disappeared during winter (low mileage per gallon???)
It rained!!! First time since... September?
Mud season by our house where the sun doesn't shine enough to dry things out
Mud season by the river, too, resulting in some bare knees after the muddy pants got taken off

and still by the river, one can actually see into it, perhaps even half a foot! Now before the glaciers start melting and sending a lot of silt down the river, when one can see barely two inches in.

Things are about to go green. The buds on trees are about to break. Yay for that, too!

Painted nails

2010-04-28T00:02:00.003-08:00

Yesterday, Sonja asked if, when she is big, she can paint her nails. I said something non-committal. Looking up a minute later, I realized Emilie had taken destiny into her own hands, and had already finished all the nails on her left foot, and was working on her right. I wonder form where does she even know about painting toe nails.

In honor of the robin that arrived by our house yesterday and was singing loudly this morning, I changed the blog header. Spring is here officially now that the robins are here. Yay!

"Hot chocolate"

2010-04-27T23:59:00.002-08:00

Hot chocolate (aka in swiss german 'schokie', since it started when Lena was visiting here) made from the mudpile of dirt that will hopefully turn magically into a garden.

April weekend

2010-04-21T22:49:00.004-08:00

We had a nice and relaxing weekend. On Saturday, we went to see the baby reindeer at the university farm, followed by a walk through the botanical garden to enjoy the warm sun. Unbeknown to us beforehand, there were a lot of cool trees to climb on.

This tree by the reindeer was sporting most of the kids pretty quickly.Then the tree by the farmhouse was a popular spot too.

We only managed to make it some fifty yards further before the next tree climbing opportunity presented itself.
And after some playing in the kids house, going through the big maze, climbing up a big hill of dirt, and playing in the sand, there was one more tree and rock wall to climb before we headed back to the cars.
In the evening, Elsbeth et al treated us to a salmon dinner. On the way back, we stopped by the Tanana. No more skiing on it.
But, there was fun to be had by breaking the ice along its edge - the needles of the ice are delightful. Or may be I should call them candles since this ice is called candle ice.
On Sunday, we headed to Chatanika to walk and play by the dredge that's right across the Chatanika Lodge.

Elsbeth, Elias and Emilie look down from the tailings onto the dredge down below.
The dredge from the other side.
After several hours of walking and climbing across the tailings, making rock towers, making rock walls to make a 'house', and otherwise entertaining ourselves in the warm sun, we headed back the quarter mile back to the lodge for lunch. On the way, while Tinu watched all four kids, Elsbeth and I explored the dredge for a couple minutes.

There are a lot of staircases.
And a lot of levers.
And overall, it is one gigantic piece of history. That thing moved tons of rocks, and must have made enormous noise when operating. It is amazing to drive along the road and see the miles of tailings that this machine and others like it turned over in search of gold and piled into 30 ft or higher continuous snakes of rocks.

After lunch, the kids checked out some of the outhouses on skis, left from the outhouse races last month. One of these years I will have to come to those.

California visit

2010-04-20T23:43:00.002-08:00

Over the easter weekend we had a nice visit to California so that the kids got to see their cousins and aunt and uncle and grandparents and many animals at the SF zoo. Fun trip. At the end, parents and "adults" as well as "adoults" elsewhere got banned from pretty much every but one room in the house.

Unfortunately the british cousins were supposed to be returning to Europe this past weekend. We'll see how long it takes them to return given the situation of the european airspace. Sounds like they are opening it up, though the volcanic ash cloud may return any moment. And, the cloud got blown over southern end of Greenland too, so Martin might have been impacted too, but he is not supposed to be heading out of field back to civilization until next weekend.

Fried squirrel, first mosquitoes, and a flying bunny

2010-04-20T23:21:00.003-08:00

Pfew, what a day it has been. Yesterday I had some sort of stomach bug, so I came home early to get some sleep. Then later got the girls, and went to sleep with them, taking some cold medicine to help me sleep. By 3am when Sonja started crying, I realized it was a bit dark in our house. Normally, there are some nightlights around, the alarm clock shows time, and the oil monitors have the temperature settings showing. All was dark. And quiet. Some fifteen minutes later when I could no longer sleep, I decided to call the local electric company. No known outages in my area, I was told, and asked to check the main power breaker. So off I went to take a hike. Flipping that main breaker outside did nothing, so I called them again, and they said they will send a crew over. Only some time later did I think that I could have waited until the morning - with the temperatures we've been having, reaching 66? F yesterday, and 40s or 30s at night, the house doesn't cool down as quickly as during the middle of the winter, and so it doesn't really matter that much if the heaters are running or not. Anyways, I figured by that time whoever was called was on their way. An hour later I got woken up by a strong knock on the door. The crew apparently went all over the place and couldn't find the meter. So I went with them. The problem ended up a fried squirrel - just like five years ago this time of the year, a squirrel electrocuted itself on our powerpole. I don't know what squirrels are doing up there, we have plenty of trees around to climb up. Anyways, the crew got the problem fixed, and by 5am we had power again. And one of the guys said that he is getting the rest of the day off, so that I shouldn't feel bad of getting him out of bed at 3am. Good for him. I won't.

It was as the crew were replacing the fuse high up on the pole that I heard the first bugs of the season. Here they come. Just as the snow is almost entirely gone.

Talking of the disappearing snow - this year we had so little snow, that we didn't even have a problem getting to our house this spring, and drove every single day. In the past, every year we had to park the car up along the road and walk the rest of the way for a week or so because the driveway got too icy, but not this year.

So the last story of the flying bunny is a sad one. I took the dogs for a jog/walk. Cooper was loose and somehow managed to flush a bunny so that the rabbit came flying out of the bushes straight at me, elbow height. Saphira was on the 4 ft leash and was quicker than me and got to it first. By the time I growled at her enough and she let go, the bunny was still alive but probably with a broken neck or similar, and was not hopping away. So I let Cooper finish him off. Poor thing. Still with its white coat. I wish I would have caught him when he jumped at me. Oh well.

To end on a happy note, the kids helped me after dinner to do some water diversions in our driveway. Sunny day. Plenty of water coming down everywhere from the last of the snowmelt. Fun was had by all. Big and small.

To finish off, a picture from a couple weeks ago when we came back from California. Very nice aurora. We haven't seen much of it this winter.

Tanana bonfire

2010-03-27T22:01:00.003-08:00

This afternoon we headed down the Tanana from the wayside downriver to the end of the second slough. The river was busy, a lot of people were enjoying the warm temperatures and sunshine. We had already passed one dog team, and here were two more, all with people sitting on the sled (likely paying passengers). Martin had a hold of Cooper to make sure that he didn't go say hi to the other dogs. I had Saphira, the kids had Cooper, and Martin got the most exercise - no dog to help along.

May be 3 miles down the river we arrived at the bonfire, near a fishwheel on a smaller slough of the Tanana. It is right under another bluff, but with a camera in one hand and skate boots on my feet, I didn't get very far up, unlike some others.

The kids got rides on the dogsled. First the girls, then the boys. With both Martin helped across the place where the ice was a bit broken so that the sled wouldn't crack, but after that the kids drove by themselves.

When the boys were on the dogsled, the girls got a ride from Chris. He always thought a snowmachine was a way to get chicks.

A closeup of the fishwheel on the bank of the river.

On the way back, around 5pm, we took a different, smaller slough, before going on the main river the last two miles. Fun time, passing many of the people from the party. On the main river a small breeze downriver slowed us down a tiny bit, but overall it was one excellent afternoon on the river, with friends, skiing, sunshine, and fun times.

ONAC day 3 (dogsled races)

2010-03-21T21:35:00.004-08:00

We watched today the last day of the Open (North American Championships). Egil Ellis won the Open for tenth time. Amazing. He was actually not the fastest today - Arleigh Reynolds beat him by 10s or so (on 27 miles - again, amazing!), but over the three days of racing and 67 miles (20+20+27), Egil won by 54 seconds.

This is how you get a superexcited team of about ten or so dogs to the starting line: you hook up a snowmachine behind, and that way you go only as fast as the snowmachine, and stop when it stops.

One of the mushers: Clifton Carroll of Ft Yukon. The only village musher this year. The rest of the 14 mushers were Fairbanks-based, except for 1 from Canada, 2 from Michigan, and Egil Ellis from Willow, Alaska.

The dogs run about 20mph, so during the hour or so between the time that the last mushers leave and first ones get back, there are various activities, including the parka parade. Here is one beautiful parka:

Overall, another beautiful day.

ONAC day 2 (dogsled races)

2010-03-21T11:36:00.003-08:00

The Open North American Championships (ONAC) dogsledding races are underway this weekend. The "Open" stands for unlimited number of dogs, unlike the "Limited" last weekend. Wonderful weather for humans, too hot for the dogs - temperatures have been rising to close to the freezing point, may be even above it, in the heat of the day.

Arleigh Reynolds was in first place after the first day. Our dog Saphira comes from his lines, at least on ther mother's side of things (she ran off one time and came back pregnant, so the father was one of the dogs in the neighborhood). The nine-time defending champion Egil Ellis took the first place after the second day of racing. Today is the final day, day 3.

A couple pictures from day 2. We barely made it in to see the last few teams finishing at the dogmusher's hall.

Leading the dogs back to the dog truck after the race:

The last two mushers passing each other a hundred yards from the finish line. Mount Hayes in the background on the left, and Hess and Deborah on the right.

Ice park

2010-03-18T23:07:00.006-08:00

Well, let's see... Martin made it back ontime, despite the Chilean earthquake that happened five days before he traveled. But he made it back, and that allowed me to go to the ice park a few days ago at night, while he was at home with the sleeping kids.

A tribute to that famous photograph Lunch atop a skyscraper by Charles Ebbets.

A rather realistic-looking dragon, considering it is a mythical creature.

Mechanical fish.
A close-up of the multi-block piece Saltwater Safari, that won 1st place (realistic).
And now, ten days after Martin, our friends made it over to here also, and we're glad to have them. Yet another visit to the ice park today, was that the fourth one for me this year? - this time with them.
Ice phone.
Something for Doerte.
Coming from back from the giant slides.

Here comes papa

2010-02-26T13:13:00.004-09:00

Above, hourly position of the Nathaniel B Palmer for the last 3 days. Here they come! Martin should be back within the week.

And this is where they have been since they left:

All of that accessible via this link that shows the latest position of the Nathaniel B. Palmer.

Looking forward and looking back

2010-02-13T21:32:00.002-09:00

Looking forward:

Looking back:

(Today, enjoying the warm AND sunny weather on the Tanana. A lot of people did the same, parking lot was full at the "campground".)

Lower Angel Creek cabin

2010-02-08T22:57:00.003-09:00

This weekend, Dorte and BJ very very kindly invited us to Lower Angel Creek cabin with them. After flip-flopping on them because I thought it was a bit cool, I decided it would be great to join them on Friday evening, after temperatures warmed to above zero.

We met the next day at the start of the Yukon Quest, then went to the trailhead. Temperatures around almost 15. The cabin itself is some 3 miles away from road. The trail is pretty flat and relatively wide, and was in excellent condition given the very low snow year. However, there were the typical bumps from snowmachines along the trail, every 3 to 6 yards or so a hump, which made it more difficult for Sonja. On the way back, she complained that she was shaken through and through.

Sonja was on her dogsled, which was loaded up with a duffle bag with our sleeping bags and pads; and Emilie was in the chariot. I had a backpack with the rest of our gear. Dorte and BJ carried (again, very kindly) some common gear such as cook stoves and toys. After trying out various combinations (such as one dog pulling Sonja and the other dog pulling me), with Sonja we settled on "the train" method - Saphira running loose up front (otherwise we were too fast for Sonja), Cooper on the line, hooked up to me (on skis), behind me the chariot, behind it an empty sled in case Sonja couldn't have the bag with sleeping bags on her sled, and then Sonja on her sled. Sonja did great.

On arrival to the cabin, we got treated to some nice colors of the sunset just as the dogs were eating their dinner (Thai is there too, at sixteen probably the oldest dog to make it there on his own power). It was cloudy the whole weekend, which was good, since it meant warmer temperatures. Sunday the temperature dropped a bit and was just above 0.

The cabin sleeps six: there are two lower bunks that sleep two, and two upper bunks that sleep one. Dorte did a great job translating books on the spot. The kids had a very fun evening playing with each other.

Sunday, almost ready to head back out to the car. Back half of "the train".

BJ skied in his mukluks (!), his skis with the bindings that take the mukluks are in front. Bolto is such a cuddle dog.

Overall, Lower Angel Creek cabin seems to be a great place to take kids - it is 3 miles out, so not right on the road but relatively close, doable within an hour or two (depending on how many pee stops you have to make :). The trail is flat, so no big uphills or downhills. And it does feel like an adventure to get out there.

Dredge

2010-02-02T20:46:00.004-09:00

With the very low snow year so far this year in Fairbanks, I have been limiting myself to skijoring either out of our house (on a flat road, then a flat trail) or Creamer's field. The other day I tried the dogmusher's trails out of Creamer's field, but vowed to not go back until we get more snow, since several times I thought I was going to break my skis on big tussocks. No wonder all of the dogmushing races out of the Dogmusher's hall have been canceled so far this season due to lack of snow.

One of these days, I will make it to the river.

But even out of our house, it is not a bad little ski. At the end, there is a view of a dredge. And in the bright sunshine these days, it can be very beautiful.

I had Saphira hooked up all the way to the dredge viewpoint, so when I switched her for Cooper, she was very happy and on the way back, she elected to stay way ahead of us just to make sure that she didn't have to work any more. I love the view of the frosted hillside behind her.

The dredge is located on this pond here, but surprisingly it does not show on the satellite image that is currently on google maps: the dredge visible in that picture is I think the second one that is off the left side in this image:

The case of the missing dredge... Those things are big, and I would have thought difficult to hide.

And, in case I am wondering in a few years how I dressed for these short 1h skis with the dogs (temp around -10F this afternoon in this location):

On the head, a very ugly but warm and windproof hat with earflaps, and a neckgator over the cheeks. On the body, long sleeve shirt and a sweater, with a windbreaker over the top. On the legs, tights with a windproof layer over them. On the feet, warm socks in the boots, and boot warmers over the boots. And on hands, mitts.

Winter in California vs Winter in Alaska

2010-01-20T22:29:00.005-09:00

While Martin has been busy enjoying incredible scenery but unfortunately not doing much due to weather (see his blog at glacieradventures.blogspot.com, which I assume will stop being updated when he actually gets to do fieldwork), we have enjoyed a trip to california. Today, we visited the California Academy of Sciences - really an indoor rainforest and aquarium. Kids enjoyed it, but it was a lot. Sonja drew this picture tonight: California on the left, Alaska on the right.

On the California in winter page, there is a rainbow (she started drawing those after we saw one on the way to Petaluma a couple days ago), sun and multiple butterflies, including the blue one like we saw at the academy today. Raindrops below that since you need rain in order to see rainbow. And below that, a tree with apples and branches on which there are butterflies, and a flower. Interestingly, the tree has leaves on the bottom just like the flower. Grass below that.

On the Alaska page, there are three rows of snowflakes, hills or mountains with the sun setting behind them, and a house.

And, all of the above drawn in the one color that sonja carefully selected from the 20 that are in the pouch - a pink one. :)

Happy new year, Papa!

2009-12-31T18:47:00.002-09:00

Papa and everyone else, wishing you a happy new year! We're off to see the fireworks.

Ester Dome mushing

2009-12-30T15:42:00.003-09:00

Sonja joined me at work for a couple hours today (Emilie was at her daycare, which is open this week). After a lunch at home, we went to the top of Ester Dome with the dogs. Good inversion: -10F and below in the valleys, while it was probably around +20 at the top of the Dome. Sonja went on her sled, I on the skis, and each of us had one dog. We started in the saddle between the two main tops, and went on the out-and-back to the last top on the west side. Beautiful view of the alaska range and denali and the sun.

It took some trial and error, but at the end we had a system: on some downhills I took my skis off and held the handlebar of Sonja's sled and ran downhill that way. On some downhills I skied, tied only to one dog (too bad we can't let both of them run loose at the same time if we want to see them ever again) and was holding the line to Sonja's sled so close that the sled was pretty much right behind me. On the smaller uphills, each of us had one dog. On the bigger uphills, I took the skis off too, let my dog loose, and helped the dog that was pulling Sonja. And thus we went. At the end, Sonja was tired, and when I fell down and her sled tipped across my skis, and that caused some tears to be shed. Luckily it was only a 100 yards or so from the car, so we got home without problems.

Nearly back home, here is a picture of the Alaska Range at 3:20pm or so, about half hour after sunset. Mt Hayes is on the left, Hess and Deborah near the center. The hills closer by were the location of the fire/smoke that plagued us this past summer.

LARS open house

2009-12-29T23:30:00.002-09:00

Around Solstice the Large Animal Research Station (LARS) of the University of Alaska Fairbanks had its open house. We went there and enjoyed seeing the animals.
Sonja with Martin, and Muskox in the background.

Emilie running after them.

Reindeer, I think. Or was it caribou? Apparently the reindeer, having been domesticated for meat, do have a wider ribcage, and shorter legs.

Muskox.

Martin and the kids watching some muskox.

Overall, I think we will need to come again next year (may be during the spring/summer open house too), but it is one of the good activities that Fairbanks offers during winter. The lighting of the Christmas tree at Creamer's field was another such activity (my notes for next year...).

Another blog to follow

2009-12-29T21:56:00.002-09:00

Martin left yesterday for fieldwork for a couple months. While he will have very limited access to email etc, he said some colleagues of his will be continue posting notes on the following blog: http://iceshelf.wordpress.com/.

Erin, one of the bloggers on that blog, did add me to her SPOT mailing list, and I already got some wonderful details such as that they were right here. (The map that this leads to is pretty much white everywhere, which is an unusual experience since even alaskan maps on google maps are not white - they are from summertime.) That part of the fieldwork Martin luckily? unluckily? missed, but now he is joining Erin and who knows who else on a cruise.

On a note only related to the color white mentioned in the previous paragraph, I thought that it might be time to say good bye to those cranes I had in the header of the blog, and instead put in a more season-appropriate picture - featuring some (not all) white.

Various shades of white

2009-12-17T23:43:00.002-09:00

We've had an inch or two of snowfall here and there in the last week, which is good - we need more snow! As a result of the snow, we're back to a world in various shades of white.

Last few turns before our house

Look! A hint of yellow - the "End" sign on the bottom of the pole visible near the center of the photo.

Today at creamer's field, where we went skijoring with the dogs. There are colored lights on that spruce tree, it looks like they don't really show up on this picture. Too bad.

We went there to Creamer's ten days ago when they were lighting the christmas tree, it was a wonderful thing to take the kids to. Even though, as Martin said, if Santa Claus has musical inclination and he was listening that night, he might skip Fairbanks :)

Meal planner

2009-12-03T21:54:00.002-09:00

I like the idea of a meal planner as seen on here (and she lists the dishes themselves here). (As an aside - I really like Meg's blog - she is creative with kids' things, sewing, crafting in a way I wish I was. Two years ago I grabbed a copy of her 'yoga poses for children' that she still has on her blog, got those pictures printed, and to this day Sonja periodically takes the photos out.)

Now, in order to clean up the house before Martin arrives, I thought I should copy down some of our weekly shopping lists that we have actually managed to do in the last two months... similar to the meal planner on Meg's blog. For inspiration for the future time when we don't know what to eat. Then at least I will be able to toss those tattered and torn shopping lists out. They have been sitting around for a few weeks already.

These are probably equivalent to about half of the weeks - the other half we have just not managed to make a menu and do the shopping all at one time. Quite a few repetitions - might be good to figure out some other dishes into our standard vocabulary. It would have been interesting if I had jotted down what we ate five years ago - I am sure there are some dishes that we ate regularly then that we forgot about for one reason or another by now (e.g. the shrimp with tomato / feta sauce; or the potato / sausage / leek dish). In fact, there is no overlap with what we ate for one week a year ago.

OK, here I go. Some week we thought we might eat the following - and at the end the menu might have changed as circumstances dictated:

Chicken with sundried tomatoes cream sauce
Martin's mom's rice with veggies (rice cooked with bouillon and veggies and at the end topped with layers of cheese that melt on top)
Roesti (potato pancake from cooked then grated potatoes) with creamy mushroom sauce
salmon with potatoes

Some other random week:

Pasta casserole (Baked dish of egg pasta, yellow bell peppers, leeks + peas in gorgonzola / egg sauce)
Beef and broccoli stir fry
steak tacos with guacamole
Sicilian spaghetti (a sauce consisting of anchovies, raisins, and some other potent flavors, topped with fried breadcrumbs, from Jamie's cookbook - that british chef)
Salmon + rice (that might have been a very basic curry consisting of zucchini and red bell peppers in coconut milk together with the salmon)
Mushroom ragout

Another week

Martin's mom's rice
Spaetzle (sort of fresh pasta that's dripped into boiling water), fried up with some veggies and may be cream
Salmon chowder
Pork Roast + potatoes
Fried rice using the pork meat

Another week

Fettucini Greta Garbo (from the Fiddlehead cookbook - pasta with smoked salmon in garlic cream sauce, if I remember the recipe correctly)
Homemade pizza (I like this crust)
Chuck steak + potatoes
Roesti with mushroom suace
Potatoes, onions, sausage
Salmon + Rice
Stir fry - beef and broccoli

This week, we have made

Pasta carbonara
Martin's mom's rice
pizza
pasta in an italian sausage + canned pumpkin pasta sauce

Now the question is, what to cook tomorrow. May be I will take the pumpkin risotto out of the freezer, even though Sonja didn't like it the first time I made it - but she can have scrambled eggs, from the fresh eggs we got both from Marin and Anne.

Martin's blog

2009-12-03T10:37:00.001-09:00

Here is what Martin has been up to:
http://glacieradventures.blogspot.com/2009/12/windless-bight.html

Thirty five degrees, or no more various shades of white

2009-12-01T22:45:00.003-09:00

This morning, the local temperature as announced on the radio was "thirty five degrees" in Fairbanks. I kept waiting for the "below" part, but it never came. Indeed, a chinook (warm wind) came, and with it our winter wonderland scenery that we got to enjoy for a week or so around here disappeared. Before, everything was white or various shades off white, except for kids or dogs. As the wind came and knocked the snow off, the trees are now in various shades of dark gray.

We went to get the Sunday paper, so one of the dogs got to pull the kids in the sled (regular sled, not a dogsled) on the uphills, and then run as fast as they could on the downhills to keep up with all three of us barreling down the hill in it. Here is Saphira in her skijoring harness, ready to go for the paper.

I do keep hoping for more snow, so whenever that happens (hopefully soon), the scenery may change to the various-shades-of-white again.

White Friday (aka dogsledding and skijoring on Creamer's Field)

2009-11-27T23:04:00.002-09:00

Instead of a black Friday, we had a white Friday, and enjoyed a ride around Creamer's field with the dogs. Sonja was on her dogsled, I was skijoring, and Emilie was in a backpack on my back.

This is not a very good video, but it gives an idea of how this first time went (we did take the dogsled out yesterday too, but I was walking, not skiing). Even though it has been very warm (around 20F), the camera conked out on us a bit later, complaining it was too cold, so I thought I would post this one for Martin as is - he is having a white Friday too, a whole white week or more, probably, somewhere on the snow (or rather, Ice) off here.

Emilie the doctor

2009-11-21T00:14:00.002-09:00

Today, Emilie started grabbing some of the toys the kids never play with, and put on the gloves, and took the stethoscope, and started checking out what might be wrong with me. I have never seen either of the kids play with that stuff before, but she sure knew what one does with it - she went to listen to my chest to make sure everything was ok.

Time to skijor again!

2009-11-21T00:00:00.002-09:00

Monday I went skijoring for the first time this year, a full month-and-a-half later compared to a year ago. And probably on less snow. And it is now November, with November temperatures, so a bit cool(er). We went to creamer's field. The dogs puled like crazy, even though the skis did not quite glide in the close to -20F weather.

Same thing Wednesday - creamers field, dogs pulling, cool temperatures.

And today, Friday - I went to explore the Chena Flats area off Chena Pump road. They are trying to get a greenbelt in there, sounds like a good project. One trail access is off Chena Point Rd just past the gravel pit on the north side of the road. Today, it was a couple degrees colder than the other days, or may be I was not dressed as well (note to self: that neckgator which is loose is a bit too loose, it sure makes for a cold face when it's not hugging it!), so we didn't stay very long exploring (20 mins?), plus due to the low snow, the trails were not really punched through. But I look forward to getting to know that area.

Pics from wednesday, with the good neckgator, after our run: both the dogs and I have some small icicles hanging from our faces, in addition to that nose of mine.

The changing Tanana

2009-11-16T22:24:00.004-09:00

In the last couple years, the Tanana river by Fairbanks has really changed. In particular, this was noticeable in the late fall before we got permanent snow, when the water levels were in their lowest of the year (since there is no melt of snow or glaciers, and no rain input) - I could cross easily onto the island that's across from the airport (the main mass that does have some channels cutting across it, here). There was just a trickle of water, together with some ice covering bare rocks... but really, no water to speak of. If the dogs hadn't run off ( I stupidly let them both off the leash since I was on 'an island' - well, they could get off that 'island' just as easily as I could get onto it), I would have checked out the main channel of the river, which is now on the far side of that island. As a result of it, all of that water heads straight into the bluff visible in some of our pictures and then continues into the slough (this one). This slough that Sonja played in two years ago as a toddler no longer has the lazy water it had then, nor the mud beaches that provided so much fun. It is amazing to watch that river change so much in such a short time. Glad our house is nowhere next to it - definitely a dangerous neighbor.

This picture is looking west from the end of the trail by the airport (map) towards where the Chena enters the Tanana (by the leaning trees visible on the right side), October 2009:

Summer 2007, same spot:

Closeup (Saphira, Mica, Sonja):

2007, looking upriver from the same spot:

October 2009, looking upriver from across the "river", the only flowing part of the river across which I had to jump across is visible in the lower portion of the picture

I wonder how different that beach where we've been hanging out every now and then will be next summer, if indeed more and more of the water is flowing in a different channel. Time will show.

Goofing off

2009-11-16T22:20:00.002-09:00

Aurora

2009-10-23T01:44:00.003-08:00

One of the dogs had to go pee in the middle of the night. Good thing. Otherwise I would have missed this.

When I first opened the door for Cooper and saw the aurora, I decided that it was so good that I was going to wake up Martin, so I called out his name, only to remember that he left for a conference two hours earlier. Maybe he saw it from the windows of the airplane.

Smith lake is frozen

2009-10-20T23:18:00.002-08:00

The snow that fell three weeks ago melted within about a week... then it got superhot (60F)... then it got cooler (consistently below freezing).... this morning a dusting of snow fell from the sky. Can't go skiing, but we'll have to try skating.

Martin

2009-10-20T23:16:00.003-08:00

Two and a half weeks ago

Fall colors three weeks ago

2009-10-20T23:11:00.003-08:00

This is already three weeks late: some pictures of last little bits of color around.

Snow

2009-09-27T08:59:00.001-08:00

Equinox snow

2009-09-22T21:31:00.003-08:00

Happy equinox! Days are getting shorter fast, and just to prove the point that winter is coming, it was snowing today...or trying to. Not sticking. Yet.

Labor Day camping

2009-09-20T22:52:00.004-08:00

We went camping two weeks ago (Labor day) over in the Mt Prindle area. Car camping. Beautiful weather, beautiful fall colors, a ton of blueberries. Blueberry pancakes for breakfast. (This pancake mix recipe, which we really like). Sonja loved camping, and we had to sleep in a tent the next night too (though it was just our driveway that night).

Here Sonja crosses a small creek to get to our tent (green, in the background to the right of her head). We were right off the dredged rocks, so we just threw some flat ones into the creek. She loved going across.

Fun in our Hilleberg tent (too bad it's only three person tent... we will very soon need a four person one).

After dinner

Breakfast: blueberry pancakes. We did bring some sand toys for the kids to play with, so the sand buckets made for good emergency buckets for blueberries, since we didn't have any other container to store them in. Martin is holding one of them in his hands.

Cooper thinks the sleeping bags make for a nice mat.

There were a ton of blueberries - even more blueberries than hunters (and there were a lot of hunters, since the hunting season started two days earlier). Bushes like these right next to our tent and everywhere around... mmm good. We just need to teach Emilie to pick the blueberries herself instead of the bucket.

Beautiful colors.

Cranes at Creamer's Field

2009-08-30T22:53:00.005-08:00

(Above, 80+ birds flying as seen from the Coffee Roaster's Thursday.)

We spent the beautiful Saturday afternoon at Farmer's Market, then at Creamer's field (a migratory bird refuge), then picking raspberries at a local raspberry farm (our own are finished, we need more bushes at home!). A few pics from Creamer's field.

There were many Canada Geese on the ground. We also saw a bird of prey try to get one of the birds on the ground, unsuccessfully. Five years ago when Martin's sister + partner were visiting here, we saw one get a duck. Should spend a bit more time over there one of these years.

Car camping on upper Chena

2009-08-25T23:01:00.006-08:00

Three moms, five kids, three dogs, one night on upper chena river.

Bummer was Sonja was not feeling well, so she didn't play much on Friday, and I rolled my ankle.

Friday night:

Lucie and Emilie hard at play.

Dogs and kids are off and away, moms remain.

Bald eagle.

Saturday morning, very foggy until the sun was high enough to burn the fog off.

Two ravens bugged a bald eagle, and periodically one or both checked us out.

Car camping at its finest. Allows one to bring everything ut the kitchen sink. Neither the kitchen sink, nor the husband, would have fit inside my car, it was too full already (not pictured :).

The trees lean any which way into the water. Cassidy, Sonja and Lucy are bundled up.

Saphira and the almost-burned-off fog.

Emilie's two!

2009-08-24T23:45:00.003-08:00

Last week, we went to Pioneer park to celebrate Emilies birthday. Beautiful sunny day. Liz and Grace joined us for a fun-filled hour or two before we headed home.

At the fair

2009-08-24T23:37:00.003-08:00

The fair came and went very fast, and we barely managed to visit it on the last day it was open - Saturday a week ago. It being Alaskan fair, there were not only the chickens and bunnies and pigs and goats on display, but also some reindeer.

The petting zoo had goats that were determined to get the first and last piece of straw from the girls' hands. The girls loved it.

(and yes, since it was fair-time, it was raining...)

A how-to for IKEA delivery to Fairbanks

2009-08-23T21:13:00.003-08:00

One reason for going to kids birthday parties is that you can get all sorts of information out of them. E.g. last weekend: after querying about an item in the house, I found out that the item arrived from IKEA, and that the description on how to do it can be found on someone's blog. Searching google-blogs hits the jackpot:

http://bahamasonthebrain.wordpress.com/2008/03/17/ikea-hits-the-al-can/
or a how-to for getting IKEA to deliver to Fairbanks. Or other places without IKEAs.

That time of year...

2009-08-13T22:55:00.002-08:00

Dropping Sonja off at her daycare, we now regularly see birds flying. Geese. Or cranes out on the field below the university. Closer to the ground, there are one or two yellow leaves on a tree here or there...the fall is in the air. Coming closer and closer. That time of the year.

(The stick in that picture is an antenna on the university fire department building, which is right next to Sonja's daycare.)

Moose

2009-08-11T23:28:00.002-08:00

Most of the fireweed is blooming close to the top. Except by our shady house, some fireweed is only starting to bloom.

Why did the moose cross the road...?

May be it was going to trade in our clunker of a car for cash. Though we should give it the truck, not the subaru, for that purpose :).

Drumming

2009-08-07T23:29:00.002-08:00

Martin took a beginning drumming class during the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival. At the end, the class, together with the various other percussion classes, had a performance. We went to see their rehearsal. The kids loved it. Danced in the back.

Martin is somewhere there on the photo (back row, looking at the instructor):

It was great. We wil really have to expose our kids to more music and artsy fartsy stuff.

Upper Chena picnic

2009-08-07T23:22:00.002-08:00

A week ago Sarka and her husband invited us to join them for a picnic on a gravel bar of the upper Chena River. We did, and had a wonderful time. The gravelbar was close to the Granite Tors trailhead.

Kids ran around. Dogs had fun too (one at a time, to make sure they didn't disappear). Adults mainly sat around.

Sarka and George shared really good moose sausage with us. And we had some pizza dough, cooked over the fire, too - instead of wrapping it around a stick, we put it into one of the fish grills. It came out great.
Setting up:

The kids: Lucka, Kacka, Sonja, Emilka. Sonja is still wearing the ductape crown form the previous weekend's Red and Green River Regatta.

The men putting away the folding table. I just love the drunken trees in the background.

I am so glad that the air quality is unhealthy

2009-08-06T23:35:00.005-08:00

Everything is relative. Right now, the air quality is unhealthy. Great! Yay, that's good to hear! Wahoo! (my responses to the unhealthy level)

"Unhealthy" is great to hear in comparison with what we had been through. In the last couple days, the air quality has been "very unhealthy" (a step above "unhealthy"), and even "hazardous" for a couple hours last night, due to the smoke from the forest fires all around us, so to have a plain "unhealthy" condition is almost a pleasure. Everything is relative...

It did help that it rained last night and today. First true rainfall in a month. Much needed.

Fallout of ash on our car during one night.

Sun.

View from the west ridge of the university onto the field below. Geist Road would be in the background, if it would be visible.

Ashcloud above our house. The light was real strange.

Average Joe (or only Jane?) spends half an hour a day preparing food (and four minutes cleaning up)...

2009-07-31T10:30:00.005-08:00

From this NY Times Magazine article:
Today the average American spends a mere 27 minutes a day on food preparation (another four minutes cleaning up); that’s less than half the time that we spent cooking and cleaning up when Julia arrived on our television screens. It’s also less than half the time it takes to watch a single episode of “Top Chef” or “Chopped” or “The Next Food Network Star.” What this suggests is that a great many Americans are spending considerably more time watching images of cooking on television than they are cooking themselves — an increasingly archaic activity they will tell you they no longer have the time for.

Well, in our house we are over those numbers. Actually, if I take it that we have 2 adults in our house, about an hour is spent on food prep... that might be reasonable. So perhaps we are just average. However, the cleanup... even if I combine that twice 4 minutes, we take way longer than 8 minutes to clean up from the cooking. Perhaps we do need a dishwasher... Or a TV show that shows how to do it.

Googlecar

2009-07-29T22:01:00.002-08:00

Googlecars have been making their way through town, according to Dermot Cole of the Newsminer. Saturday, we saw this one above (the one in the distance) after we left our friends' house. Monday, I saw two of them by the airport.

Once google uploads the data onto their maps, I will have to go surfing around. They did not cover this above road in their first street-view of Fairbanks, and neither did they cover our road. For now, I will keep an eye out for them, and wave to the camera if I do see one.

Ash leaf

2009-07-28T23:18:00.003-08:00

This:

is the ash remains of a birch leaf that got singed in this fire:

twenty or thirty miles out of town and blown to town, fallen down from the sky and deposited gently on a horsetail.

Amazing that this fragile ash-leaf survived in one piece, starting with getting burned without falling apart, to the entire journey in the air, and fall.

And, to practice my czech:
Vitr z lesnich pozaru tricet az padesat kilometru od mesta privanul tento spaleny brezovy list a usadil ho na preslicku. Je neuveritelne ze se ten list nerozpadnul ani kdyz shorel, ani pri ceste k nam, ani kdyz padal dolu k zemi.

A short trip up north to Toolik

2009-07-26T14:46:00.006-08:00

Last Sunday, Martin came back from Yakutat, and I promptly left a day later for a short work trip up to Toolik Field Station. With Naomi, we flew into Deadhorse, the airport for Prudhoe Bay, where they take the oil out of the ground and which is where the Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline starts. Prudhoe bay is an ugly... can't really call it town, since there are no normal houses - all the oil workers come for two weeks on (the job), two weeks off (back home)...so perhaps I should call it an ugly place. The weather did not help. We did see some geese and this swan on the tundra in the development (map).

Then we picked up the car, and drove about three hours south to Toolik. Along the way, we had nice view of the Sag river (?) rounding a bend around a hill (map)

A bit further, a caribou grazed on the tundra.

A bit further south, the foothills of the Brooks Range.

And, finally, we made it to Toolik. Some people sleep in these weatherports. In the background, the mountains are rising out of the rolling plain.

A long tailed jaeger in the air.

Rock ptarmigan on the tundra.

Two helicopter pilots in the evening: Ryan and Jonas, by another building where people can sleep.

View of Toolik from a nearby hill.

Lots of research happening at Toolik... so they build lots of boardwalks so that people can get around easily, and don't damage the fragile tundra.

To study the effect of warming on the ecosystem, the researchers have put up a bunch of greenhouses.

Two days later, we left back up north to drive to Prudhoe Bay. Saw a herd of muscox, then an hour later this lone one. There is a pingo visible on the horizon on the right side.

Prudhoe Bay was even grayer than when we came through the first time. We made it on our flight, flew to Barrow, took a five hour layever there instead of flying via Anchorage. After a dinner, we walked down the beach in Barrow to the airport. Unlike Prudhoe Bay, people live in Barrow, not just work. There are houses. And since there are no trees or fences to hide anything, Barrow can look a bit bleak too. But it is great to see things, like this upside-down whale-hunting boat stored in the front yard.

This house has hides drying on the sides of the house, and a sled on the porch. It sits right on the beach, and to protect it and other houses from storms, there is a big line of sand bags lining the beach.

Back on the plane, for a short bit, we had a break in the clouds and saw the landscape below. Those rivers seem to have a lot of sand on their shores. (map of location)

The kids and Martin seemed to survive fine the three days that I was gone, which was good. Still, I got n enthusiastic "Mama!" from Emilie early next morning when she woke up, for which I was also grateful. My first trip away from Emilie for more than a few hours.

Porch Punk

2009-07-17T23:31:00.002-08:00

An unidentified visitor to our house, our porch, this evening. Seriously hairy. Yellow in color, both the general hairs and the hair sticking up in the punk spikes, though that's not visible on top of the yellow kid's chair. A thanks to Saphira for pointing out our visitor.

Strawberries (again)

2009-07-17T23:24:00.002-08:00

mmmmmm gooood

We ate dinner at the garden [our plot at the community garden] - brought home made pizza, the kids were eating, I was picking, then they washed the dishes with garden hose, all the while eating strawberries, and afterwards we went to splash in the Chena. They would have loved to play in the river all night long. What a fun evening.

Fireweed by our house

2009-07-16T23:22:00.002-08:00

I pulled out most of the fireweed around our house in the last however many years. Still, some remains. It is actually a wonderful, beautiful flower, enormous from Emilie's perspective, but it is definitely a weed if unchecked.

Interestengly, in czech, my dad said its name is Vrbovka Uzkolista, or willow-like narrow-leafed plant, nothing in the name implying weed-like properties. But the leaves are willow-like. And that property apparently made it into english also, based on this page, which lists synonyms as Willow herb, or great willow herb, in addition to translations in a bunch of languages including greenlandic. I may have to ask in Barrow next week if they have the same name for it.

Here is the fireweed by our house:

Sonja was patient with me trying to take a picture. I asked her to grab the plant (thinking she will reach up to show how tall it is), but instead, she grabbed it and yanked it down to her level...and made a nice mask out of it.

Emilie, picking our first raspberries, was dwarfed by the fireweed behind her in our driveway.

Portraits by Sonja

2009-07-15T23:11:00.004-08:00

At Sonja's preschool, they have a lot of cool things. Like little stickers in the shape of eyes. This afternoon as we got there to pick her up, Sonja showed me a drawing of rainbow/different colors she did, and wanted Emilie to draw something too, at the small table that is set up outside in the play area so that kids can draw even during the times when they are outside. So we went there. Sonja started putting on the eye stickers. Four eyes stared at me from the paper. I asked her whether that was me and Emilie, and she said yes, then she proceeded to draw me around those eyes, and also Emilie (though she did not finish her body on that one). I had on a grey sweater over a pink dress, so that's what I am wearing in that picture. The only pink that remains visible is in perhaps the hip area on the right side.

And then she drew Emilie again. We're officially now in the era of stick figures. It's cool!

Yesterday's drawing. I forgot to ask her whether that's trees. And of course more eyes.

And, the drawing by Emilie while Sonja was busy drawing me and her:

The hot and smoky weather ended. First the hot weather, after last night the temperatures did not rise as they had done for the past week or so, and then even the stinky smelly smoke went away when it rained and the wind shifted to come form the north. Hurray!

Dog at midnight

2009-07-11T00:13:00.002-08:00

Cooper at midnight:

I can't believe we're halfway through the "summer" (which here counts as June 1 - August 31, the period when on average we don't have frost at night). It is starting to get darker at midnight.

My attempt at creativity

2009-07-11T00:00:00.004-08:00

At the last moment, I signed up for a four-day class at UAF summer sessions - a four day landscape painting class taught by David Mollett. I really like his art. The class has ben fun. I am a complete novice. Oh well. I have enjoyed it, so that's what counts. (Even if I get a D since I realized the class is actually graded... not just pass/fail. :)

(my attempt)

(closeup of the scene, the fast way)

It has been great to see how others do it, apparently so effortlessly, mixing the colors, arranging the pieces - like this japanese student whose name I won't try to spell. It just amazes me how all of the elements in his picture look exactly like what he is painting.

It has also been wonderful to watch David Mollett paint.

The only bad part is that while I love oil paints because they don't dry out (so if I mix a color one day, I can still use it the next), our car now has some colorful smudges exactly because the painting does not dry in a timeframe that I am used to. (So, Martin, be prepared for some extra color in the car :)... just an advance warning so you're not too shocked when you come back from Yakutat.)

Mom, you know what I like more than salami?

2009-07-08T23:19:00.004-08:00

Mom, you know what I like more than salami?

No, what?

Lena and Kasper!

That was after we spend the evening with Kasper and his mom and their friends, completely by chance - we went to the Tanana river to eat dinner on the beach, and there they were. The days have been hot and smoky. All the kids loved the water.

(Lena is Sonja's friend in Switzerland, with whom we spend many fun moments last year in Switzerland, as well as several days during our trip to Europe two weeks ago.)

Sonja with Kasper

Emilie with Cooper

Smoky

2009-07-06T22:43:00.002-08:00

The smoke came on the 4th of July. Surprised me - we have had some good rain in the last two weeks, and I thought things (forests) were sufficiently damp to not burn (much). I sure hope that the summer of 2004 won't repeat itself - we had some bad smoke then, for days on end.

(view this afternoon of the Tanana River some 3 miles away, from Friar's Way)

Fun on the porch

2009-07-04T23:22:00.003-08:00

Beautiful and hot day yesterday, beautiful though somewhat smoky today. We ate dinner on the porch both days. Kids loved it. Especially the little plastic pool with water. And the bubbles. The joys of summer.

What pool? The one that Emilie has a stroller in... next to the doors that used to be our front door and the back door until last December - we'll have to move them out but they are heavy. For now, they make a nice background to the pool and all the other junk on our porch.

The last couple days have been wonderful!

Swiss airplane

2009-07-01T23:27:00.002-08:00

With Emilie we got back to Alaska two weeks ago. It was obvious that we flew from Switzerland - the plane featured beautiful goats and boys in the mountains:

Martin and Sonja should be arriving tomorrow. We can't wait! I will have to ask them whether they saw that plane in Frankfurt also... even though they themselves are not flying swiss airlines.

Strawberrie are ripe!

2009-06-30T22:34:00.004-08:00

Here is what happens when you put an empty plate in front of (hungry) Emilie and ask her to put some strawberries on it for her dinner - our own strawberries, picked this afternoon.

Swiss wildflowers

2009-06-30T22:07:00.004-08:00

A few posts might be jumping back to our trip to Europe. So, here are some swiss wildflowers:

Flowers by our house

2009-06-27T23:58:00.003-08:00

The last photo above shows some tulips flowering now in the middle of summer, that I planted in the fall. Amazingly, they survived winter, didn't get eaten by voles, AND managed to grow flowers (they were quite shaded by grass and fireweed when we came back from our European trip). A bunch of other bulbs I planted apparently became food for the voles, since I could not even find the bulbs in the soil when I dug through it earlier this summer when there was no sign of life in that area of the garden. So, hurray that something survived!

What we eat

2009-06-27T23:48:00.002-08:00

What we eat: spatzle fried with some bacon, potato, and something green. Spaetzle is effectively fresh pasta, passed through a sieve into boiling water, and after draining generally fried up.

And the green stuff is this: lamb's quarter, a common weed. Someone I know told me yesterday you can "cook it like spinach", so I of course googled things first, but it's true... so Martin, we might be eating more weeds when you get home... just a forewarning.

PS: And no, it's not a quarter of a lamb that we will be eating.
PPS: And we might also eat some chicken fried steak, which, from my googling, is NOT chicken.

Washing the nose (and eyes and ears and cheeks)

2009-06-27T23:36:00.004-08:00

Emilie learned the words that describe various face features in daycare before we left for our trip to Europe. So throughout the trip, she had fun washing all of our faces with a wet wipe, while identifying the "nose" (generally the first in the sequence), eyes, ears, cheeks, mouth...

And she continued that in Alaska... so she "washed" Cooper's nose, ears,...

and then she let Cooper go, came to me, wipe in hand, and wanted to wash me with that exact same wipe. Ah, the innocence of childhood. And no, I did not allow myself to be washed all over my face with the same wipe that was swiped over Cooper's nose and mouth :)