You can dress 'em up...

Well I finally got the kids dressed and standing still long enough to get a good picture. This was about the fourth take. I think it turned out pretty well.

Merry Christmas!

December in Alaska

Well, I was going to take a picture of the kids in front of the tree, but before we even got home from church everyone was going in different directions and this is the result. I had to take Chase back to church for music practice. So this picture will have to do for now. I took it before church this morning trying to see what flash or light combination was going to work. I'll put another up later with everyone in it.

This picture gives you an idea of what we go through to hunt ptarmigan. What you can't see is that the snowy slope that John Williams is standing on is wind packed and in places you can't kick your boot through to get traction. Many times, you have to stab through with the ski pole then rest your foot against that. As scary as that may seem, if you fall you just slide down the slope unharmed. The bad part is having to walk back up! This is the same slope that we saw the moose on in a previous post. That's John Chin in the back ground. We chose this route thinking the birds would be in places we'd seen them before. They weren't. Had we taken the easy trail we'd have found them much sooner. But then I wouldn't have such a cool picture. Another thing missed in this photo is the extreme winds. It was constant at 30-40 mph with gusts that had to reach 60. When we found the birds, they were in a drainage facing into the wind. When they flew, they just rode the wind and fortunately for short distances. We got 13 this day.

November's final post

Did someone call for a super hero? I live with the Justice League. Spidey's ride'n low, I bet it's hard to shoot webs and hold your pants up at the same time.

We went ptarmigan hunting on Baldy today and the dark spot is a bull moose silhouetted on top of Baldy. There were two when we first entered the vally, but when they saw us they started playing mountain goat and split. Cool.

I couldn't post with out showing a littla carnage. Total today was 17. John Chin and I got 6 while John Williams and Eric Rausch got the rest. J.C.'s legs were cramping up by the end and as I type I feel like I've been run over by that moose.

Christmas is near

Well it's November 25th, we've had about a foot of snow and it all melted off. Well, except for my back yard. It's like a dog mine riddled sheet of ice back there, or should I say shiite of ice. Loxi looks like scooby-doo when she runs around after her ball.

As you can see I got the house decked out in lights. Well, at least my version of decked out. That peak was a challenge. I had plenty of ladder but the drive way was frosted over and it made for quite a treacherous feat. I think Chase was more afraid for me than I was. Or maybe he was just afraid I'd fall on him. All the hooks were all ready on the house so all I had to do was hang 'em high.

A Christmas Story is playing on TNT and Colt enjoyed seeing the kid sticking his tongue to the post. He's such a good boy, so sweet. He's so warn out by bedtime that he's usually out with in minutes. Justice however, takes close to an hour every night. We tried going without naps and he went to sleep quick, but it was miserable listening to him whine the last three hours of the night. So he lays in his bed, talking to the wall or what ever, with Colt softly snoring from the other side of the room. As many nights as not, Justice will have to get out of bed to poop. I don't know what to do with him, love him I guess.

I have to recap dinner tonight. Oh, so good. Rice, steamed baby carrots and fish. I smoked some Salmon and halibut and Cathy grilled some dried tomato and pesto salmon. We couldn't keep the kids out of the fish. It turned out well. I have just enough salmon left over for some dip. Soon I'm gonna smoke a caribou roast, a little dry rub over low heat and smothered in love. Do these pants make me look fat? Love all of you!

Edlin6

Ptarmigan Hunt

John Williams and I went ptarmigan hunting today. This is the first ptarmigan I've ever taken. I got one other. John got two also. We flushed four and got them all.

There was some significant snow accumulation at elevation and so we had to use snow shoes. Four hours of heavy exertion and we got 4 birds! But I'd do it again. As you can see it was a beautiful day. It's been raining and 40's at lower elevations. Now that the clouds are gone it's below freezing again. I prefer that.

Grouse shot

The quality on this video is not going to be that great. I played it on my TV and video taped it with my camera that has a memory stick. It's redneck but look at the source. I'll fix it when I find someone who has the right equipment. For the time being, this will have to do.


We were bear hunting the same place I got mine, I was shooting a camera, the John's were shooting bows. J Dub got a grouse later, but we didn't get it on film. No bear either.

This is my first attempt at uploading video. I think it will work out pretty well. Cathy made me delete the video of her with her hair-don't.

Today I put my first caribou jerky on the smoker. It smells good. Good thing the bears have gone to den.

We got our first snow two days ago. It started out as rain but changed to snow by Saturday morning. Chase was camping this weekend, he said he went to bed with rain and woke with snow. It got down to 10 degrees both nights. He had a good time but he was glad to be home. Other than the smell, it was good to have him home.

Justice's birthday party and Eklutna moose hunt

Justice is excited about his cake and candle. Colton is excited about Justice's loot. That's a German Chocolate and beside that is a Cherry Dump Cake. We fried halibut, grilled salmon and ate way too much. Ahh the good life, wish you were there.

This was a pink and purple pony that our friend Stacey LeBlanc gave Justice. He loved it, it's already missing the wings. Now if I can get him to paint it black and mount some heat seeking missiles on it, we'll be good to go.

This was yesterday, 14 Oct, we were moose hunting in Eklutna. It had been raining earlier, the clouds had just cleared for this beautiful view of Twin Peaks. The other two bald peaks are John Chin and John Williams. Nobody had hair on this hunt. We didn't see any moose or bear. We did see two grouse, but they must have been shot at before. They took to the treetops before we could get into range.

birthdays

This picture is from the top of Black Rocks. There was five of us in the group, but two didn't make it to the top. We're at about 4600 ft. My house is at the bottom of the ridge down to the right. You can sort of make out some of Eagle River to the same side. Anchorage is to the left of the elbow of the man sitting down on the left. The water in the background is the Knik Arm of the Cook Inlet. This Hike was in May. This is Chase and me on the summit of Bird Ridge. The water is the Turnagain Arm of the Cook Inlet. Anchorage is north-west of here. This was the second time I hiked this ridge in 2007. Chase was in Anaheim with his middle school band at a competition and he missed it, so we went again. Nine people started this one, four made it. This hike was in May also.
This is Hiland Mountain. It was the worst hike ever. We were bush whacking the first half of the hike and I had some kind of allergy issue going on like I've never experienced before. I had to use an inhaler to finish this one. The most interesting part of this hike is the view of a Nike missile site on the mountain ridge behind us. It's been inactive and abandoned for decades. We're standing just above Eagle River with Anchorage to our left and behind us.

Alaskan Summer Fun

In June the whole family went to the Russian River to catch some salmon. As you can see it was a perfect day. It was the first time we all went down there and it was the only time this summer that I limited out. Cathy and Chase limited out too. We also saw a young grizz on the way back to the truck. Very exciting!

This trip was Meg's first try at salmon fishing and she caught this dolly varden. It's in the char family and she was very proud of it. She caught it completely on her own.

The last picture is of another sunny and warm (for Alaska) day. Cathy turned on the water sprinkler and couldn't keep the kids out of it.

Caribou hunt

In August, John W., Chase and I went caribou hunting in far north Alaska. It took 16 hrs to drive there. The top picture is the Alaska Pipeline. It goes on for hundreds of miles, mostly above ground. Occasionally it dips down under ground for 40 or 50 feet then comes right back up. Other times it goes under for an entire mountain. You can't tell in the picture but you can walk under it and barely duck you head, well I can.
We stopped at the Arctic Circle for a few minutes to stretch our legs and use the toilet. The Arctic Circle is the imaginary line in the northern hemisphere that gets 24 hrs of sunlight/darkness.

The end of the road was Deadhorse. The sign was on the building outside of the post office. We went to Deadhorse regularly because John's wife was expecting and we could get cell signal. Also that was where we could get gas. It was $3.69 gal.
The last photo of course is the reason we went. I got him on the 7th day of hunting. It got down to 33 degrees that night with the sun up. That was good because it kept the flies away and cooled the meat down nicely.
Another interesting fact about the Haul road is that it is the only crossing of the Yukon river in the state of Alaska. Weird. I meant to get a picture of it but it was dark when we crossed going home and we didn't want to stop on the way up.

Ground control visit

We had some visitors in July and we made the most of it! While Dad, Dave, Chase and I went halibut fishing in Kachemak Bay in Homer, Cathy, Dovie, Grandma Great and the younger kids went to the beach. You can see they caught plenty of marine life themselves. They had a blast.
We didn't have too bad of a time. Chase caught the 2 largest fish on the boat, this one is the largest at about 100 lbs. The water was like glass and the sun came out just as we dropped our lines.
When we got back on shore we went to the beach and tried our hand at surf fishing, not so good. But look at that view behind the kids. They caught some more starfish and we got skunked by an Asian man who was catching at least a fish per catch.

We saw the humpback whale in Resurrection Bay. There were two whales together and they put on quite a show. This day was sunny and warm also and made for a great boat ride. Colt and Megan did get sick however and earned the sympathy from many on board.


I love the pictures of the kids together.

Summer fun

These photo's are from July. The group photo was from a drive we took to Hatcher Pass above Wasilla. It was clear and sunny but the wind was blowing and we were at about 4000 ft, so it was a bit chilly.
The most exciting fishing trip we had was when we saw the brown bear sow and cub. We didn't catch any fish, but the kids will never forget this day. We also saw 2 black bears up stream from here.


The last photo is Justice and me sitting on a boulder in the Little Susitna river. When we left Hatcher pass, we stopped here to pan for gold. It was fun but we didn't find any, the kids had a blast.

Berries, birthdays and salmon

These are more pictures from my August file.

This is Colt on his 5th birthday. We had a party for him and his cousin Joshua. In the picture is Meg, cousin Riley, Chloe LeBlanc and the back of Justice's head.
This picture of Chase and justice was on mount Baldy above the house. Another beautiful day, we were picking blue berries. You can see Mt McKinley in the background. I love Justice's expression, I can't explain it, I don't know what he's doing. He's an Edlin, there's no telling.

The picture of Chase was the last day we went salmon fishing. He has a spawned out red. I need to teach him how to hold the fish so it looks bigger. I'm gonna add a picture of me holding one to show contrast, it's dirty pool, but it's pool. It also shows the details of the fish, but mostly it makes the fish look bigger.

I added the picture and realized the guy behind me has a fish on. It's pretty late in the season and most of the fish we landed were spawned out. We took home 7 that day, 9 was our limit.

Moose hunt

Well, you knew I couldn't wait too long to post my hunt pictures. I labeled this one moose hunt because I was Moose hunting. Black bear was legal too and the opportunity arose. Originally I said I shot him at 15 yd. I went back to this site with some friends and measured the shot with my range finder-6 yards. That's not an impressive bow shot by any means, what is impressive is being that close to a bear in tall grass and keeping your shorts clean.

The bottom picture shows another adult bear that I believe is a sow.

We didn't see any bear or moose when we went back. It's getting cold now but there's no snow on the ground yet. I don't know when they go to den but I guess it'll be soon. Moose season is closed now in that area, so when we go back it's for bear. J.C. and I loved the meat. It goes against everything I've ever heard about bear meat. That bear was even better than caribou, which was my favorite game meat.

The last moose hunting this year ends on 20 Oct. It's at Eklutna Lake, about 30 minutes from the house. I hope to get in 2 more hunts. It's for any bull, so no antler restrictions. It's also archery only, so there's not a lot of pressure even though it's so close.

Another good thing about the Eklutna hunt is the grouse hunting. We always see grouse on the way out. It's very fun and challenging to shoot birds with a bow. The down side is you can loose a lot of arrows and they're not cheap.

Kids in a cotton wood

This picture is from a hike we did to Thunderbird Falls back in August. This tree was near the end of the hike. All the kids fit in the hole and you can see Cathy on the other side. It was a beautiful day- sunny and warm. Also, if someone held Colt upside down like that, he wouldn't be smiling.

First try

I decidied to try blogging because I can post pictures and they won't take forever to load and won't over fill your screen. It may take me a while to figure this out, hopefully it will be worth it.
I know I just sent this picture out in e-mail to most of you but it's such a good picture I decided to post it first. It's on Justice's third birthday, he was playing at the table while everyone else was at school.