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.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
"Hot chocolate"
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.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
April weekend
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.
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.
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
California visit
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
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.
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.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Tanana bonfire
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.
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.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
ONAC day 3 (dogsled races)
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.
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)
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.
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.
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