Passing Time

Riley is over visiting Megan and the boys tend to crowd them. So, I decided to keep them busy and play around with the computer. The temp is -16 outside, so we won't be. Good news though, we're gaining daylight!

Christmas 2008

The kids pre-loot on Christmas morning.

All around the table

From the left Cody (standing), Justin (standing out), Kathy, sis Jennifer, Louis, Cathy, the backs of Jenny and Angie.

Cathy and Judy - I love this picture.

Eddie and Jacob

Premeditated Deception

Cathy was walking up the stairs and saw this little bit of "artwork" that appears to be signed by the artist. She called Colton down and he denied doing it. She knew this, but needed to ask. Then she calls Justice down, believe it or not, he denied it too. Actually, when she asked him about it, he said "read it...it says Colton." So I called Colt down and told him he would have to be punished for having done this. I told him it wouldn't be so bad if it were pencil instead of ink. Then Justice proclaims from up the steps, "It is pencil." Then I asked him how he knew and he said he watched Colt draw the picture. I finally decided the lies had gone far enough and got him to confess to his actions. He said he was drawing on a piece of paper and it got on the wall. I guess he just went with it. Besides a spanking for his art and lies, he had to clean the wall.

An Edlin's Idea of Winter Fun

Now you see 'em...
...now you don't.
We love doing this. We get under a tree burdened with a load of snow. Then we kick the tree. For a few seconds, it's white out conditions. It's more fun if your coat has a hood. Otherwise you get a bunch of snow down your neck. We had to kick a lot of trees to get this picture. The timing was tough. They had fun getting it just right. Now, right after I took this whiteout picture and put my camera in my pocket, Justice yelled "Eagle!", and a bald eagle drifted just above the trees right over our heads. It was the coolest thing! I hoped that it'd land in a tree, but it didn't. I couldn't get my camera back out in time. 

So I posted this one. We saw it in town yesterday. It's looking right at me. Awesome.

'Round the Christmas Tree

Don't look at Colt's shirt tail.

My ladies.

The Rest of the Ride

These are the rest of the pictures I wanted to share from our "hunt" turned "ride". 

This is a frozen creek that I thought was pretty interesting. The shelf is where the water first froze. About two feet below that is where the water started to freeze again. As the water supply started to decline, the ice couldn't support itself and broke through. We could here water running where I was standing when I took this picture. My foot broke through once, to water. It wasn't deep, but it was enough to convince me that I didn't want any part of me wet for the rest of the day.

We took this picture on our way out. It wasn't long after that darkness moved in.

Colt and his ginger bread house

Colt's class made ginger bread houses a couple of days ago. This is his before we ate it. You'll notice a sidewalk stone missing. It was a Hot Tamale and it was irresistible. I couldn't help my self. He got way more upset than I thought he would. As you can see, he recovered.

First panoramic post

My friend Eric got a pair of snow machines last week and we've been chompin' at the bit to take 'em out huntin'. We hunted. We saw two rabbits, five moose and two ferret looking things. Minks? Three of the moose were bulls, nice but sub-legal. Next year. When our ride started, we couldn't see the sky anywhere. After we had lunch and started back, a brisk wind kicked up and blew the sky wide open above us. This view inspired me to try out the panoramic function on my camera. It worked pretty good. It makes the terrain look sloped, but otherwise, it looks pretty good. We're looking west at the Chugach Mountains. Knik Glacier is up the valley to the left. Wasilla is out of the valley to the right. Anchorage is on the other side of the mountains.

A bit cold

The temperature has gone to the cellar and stayed. I think it hit 2 today, it's zero now. These are the trees in our back yard. We haven't had recent snow, it's just so cold that any moisture in the air clings to the trees (or any cold object for that mater) and they get this frosted appearance. Today we had eagles all over town in the trees. I don't know if they're always there or if they just stood out because of the frosted trees. We must have seen about ten of them.

I finally got some roasts out and marinated some meat for jerky. This is caribou and I pulled moose off the smoker this morning. Of course the temp drops like a stone when I decided to do it. It makes for some less than idea conditions. I have to put a cardboard box over the smoker and then insulate the box so the temp will stay up. It makes it harder to get the meat dried just right. Colt and Justice sampled the moose and it passed for flavor.

Snow fun

Cathy and the kids made a snowman in the front yard. It's been warm today, so we thought the snow was going to be better than it was. It didn't pack very well, so he's not a very big feller.

Smiles for all of us.

How many snowmen have you made with moose turd smiles? These were from the visitors we had last month. The nose is at risk of becoming smile material. It's a carrot. I realize the picture isn't very clear. Sorry about that.

New camera fun

Just a quick one to keep the blog fresh. We got a new camera (works under water) for our trip to Hawaii in March. We were taking self photos and decided to post one. Love to all, Happy Thanksgiving!

A quick one

My bou finally came back from the taxidermist and well, it's a heck of a lot bigger than I remember. My plan was to put it over the window in the living room. We have vaulted ceilings and you'd think that would be tall enough. Or, at least I did. Wrong. We needed 5 ft of clearance minimum to mount the beast and that area was short by about a foot. So, I had to put him where the bear was over the front door. He looks great although he's  a little hidden. 

My taxi says he has a lot of "character traits" that make him very unique. His ears suffered some sort of injury that he can't explain, and hasn't seen before. It may have been from a predator attack or from thick brush or who knows what. I'm going with a wolf story. 

He also has a double bez on his right side that is somewhat rare. Bez are the parts of the antlers that stick up just above where the shovel is, if a bou even has a shovel. Mine has one full shovel on his left with both bez on the right. Typically they have a bez on each side. Although there isn't any thing very typical about caribou antlers. 

The last trait he mentioned was he has several light colored tufts of hair on his muzzle. He thinks this is where bugs had bitten into him or possibly laid eggs on him. He found several larvae under his hide when I brought it in. We found one in the field but though nothing of it.

Chase's first ptarmigan hunt

Well, I finally got to take Chase out ptarmigan hunting. And he did quite well. He shot three times and got three birds. The first two were on the ground, the last was on the wing about 30-40 yards away. It was a pretty good shot. So this is his first ptarmigan, and his first Alaskan game. If you click on the picture, it will enlarge and you can see Mt McKinley behind his left ear.

Here's all three of them.

While we were out we saw a parade of moose. Eight to be exact! Eight! First we saw one moose walk out of the valley, then another and they just kept coming. The last three were bulls. You can see the bulls in the left of the screen. The first one is huge! Points sticking up every where. It was one of the coolest things any of us have ever seen.

Early in our hike, we found this ice structure. There's a well that runs year round, even in the winter. You can see it's clear on the left and some how was broken and jumps across the space into another tunnel of ice. That's Chase in the background.

Uninvited (but welcome) guests

Today we had some visitors to our front yard. A cow moose and her two calves made a salad of the bush's in our side yard. You can see one calf behind the cow on the other side of the bush. The other calf is out of picture right.

This is the best picture of all three that we have. It was taken from our bedroom window. Megan's reflection is on the window. The calves dropped this year.
After leaving some fertilizer in our yard, they crossed the street and munched on the neighbors bush's. Then they crossed again to forage in the woods behind our house. It was very cool seeing them.

October fun

Colt lost his first tooth this past week. He's our first to actually loose a tooth before his 7th birthday. Maybe I won't have to spend a fortune on his teeth like the first two.

This is Justice's birthday present. Now everyone in the house wants one. We have to watch it or one of the other kids (or daddy) will crowd Justice off of it.

Cathy did her hair up for "Crazy Hair Day" at Curves. She said she was the only one there that did it. She didn't mind because they give out prizes for participation. Less competition. I kind of like it. It looks better than it usually does.

First snow and other goings on

This was from Chase's court of honor. I know it's not a very good picture. The guy with his hand up is his new Scout Master. That is Chase in the back on the right.

Well, we got our first snow. It wasn't much but it was enough to make everything wet when it thawed. The kids are going to school and Justice ran outside in his PJ's to get in the photo. There's no snow now, it all melted off. We went to A-town the morning after the snow and we counted 4 cars off the road, 2 were rollovers.

This is funny. Justice is drawing on the floor. He was like this for several minutes. I don't know why, it doesn't look very comfortable. He leashed the blue dog to the chair and then got down there and started drawing. He'll draw and color for hours, keeps himself busy and out of trouble.
If you'd like you can visit Chase's Boy Scout troop web page at WWW.t230.com . His photo is on the front as the Senior Patrol Leader. He says it was taken at Bennett Lake in Yukon, Alaska on his canoe trip this summer.

Moose season!

Last week we drove about 250 miles to this place..Healy. It's an archery only area that allows ATV use. Lots of moose, we saw lots of bulls, maybe one was legal. The snow fell while we were there. It wasn't much and may as well have been rain.

The only blood that was shed was grouse. Archery only area means for all animals, including these delicious little birds.
This is Mike Rebarchak and me cooking a grouse on top of a mountain. He just got done stalking a moose for several hours and had no food with him. I shot this bird while coming up the mountain to see if he was successful. He wasn't. I got to watch the whole stalk through my bino's. It was very cool to see, even though he didn't get the moose. He stepped out of the trees 50 yards from the bull, and it was looking right at him. It turned and ran away up the hill. This was the closest we got to success.
So, the next day we drove back home, 250 miles and 6 days later, nothing but grouse blood on our arrows. The day after we got home Jon invited me up to his house to try our luck again. And here you go. He got this mature 3x2 brow tine, 47 inch bull. He's legal because of the 3 brow tines. The story of the hunt goes like this:

I got to his house at 0715 am. We got to the area we wanted to hunt around 0745am. We heard and saw nothing all morning. Just after noon we started cow calling and scraping on a tree. Around one o'clock a cow came walking up and got within about 25 yards from us. That was cool in and of itself. Less than an hour later, I was facing away from Jon and he said, "Is that a dog?". I turned and looked at him and saw this monster's rack swaying in the sunshine in the same area that we saw the cow. I told him no that wasn't a dog, it's a big bull coming right toward us. He slowly made his way even closer and Jon shot him at around 25 yards. He ran about 70 yards down hill towards our truck, then collapsed. After our we stopped shaking from adrenalin, Jon said he was asking me if the noise he was hearing was a dog. So he never saw the bull until it was very close!This is about 10 o'clock, we're pooped and cold and very stinky. Eric found out we killed a moose and came right out to help us. A true friend. He brought Skittles.

Denali road trip

Last week we went on a road trip into the Denali National Park. This is a big deal in many ways. Every year, the state has a lottery and allows 4-5 hundred vehicles per day for three days to travel beyond the point on the road that is normally limited to tour bus use only. It's about 85 miles to the end of the road with a maximum speed limit of 35 mph. Long day! But there is plenty to see along the way. You can't look anywhere without being awed by God's creation. These pictures do not do it justice. Many people make the drive and never see Mt. McKinley. We were more fortunate than that. It was visible for us for about an hour and a half. In this picture you can see the highest point in North America, just over the top of Chase's head. In case you're wondering, it's cold. It would be bearable but the wind is blowing very hard here. Colt has a piece of jerky.

This is the same area, just close up so you can see the mountain better. We continued on the road that runs through the valley.

Throughout the trip, we saw an abundance of wild life. The most of which was bears. I think they're my favorite to watch. We saw about 12 bears. There's two above the road in this picture. They are heading for the gap between the SUV and the white car. It's a couple of juvenile brown bears. All the red colored bushes are blue berries. They were chowing down all over the hillside.

This is one of them when we were driving by. You can just see its back and head.

And here they are after they crossed below the road. They kept people pinned to the area for a while.
I'll have more photos on this trip later as I get them from the rest of the family that went with us.

Caterpillar lip...no more

He finally talked his mama into letting him shave his face. He needed it.

His hands were shaking when he started to shave. He did well and didn't cut himself at all. He needs to work on his shaving cream application though.
Looks like someone hit him with a pie.

These two clowns were yucking it up the hole time. I took them out for a few minutes and let them show off their tats. They got them at the Alaska Sate Fair. And the finished product. Nose, lips and ears all still in place.