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Category Archives: Outdoors

How high?

8 degrees. That was our high today at the work site. That’s warm considering we started out at -4 degrees. Thankful for that forced air heater we have blowing in our work area! Still, the tootsies get mighty cold!

Cabin Building, from start to finish

Cut logs

Cut logs

Logs are milled into squares or rectangles, as in this case.

Logs are milled into straight sided beams.

The floor and door are framed and the logs are going up.

The floor and door are framed and the logs are going up.

This is a portable rec cabin on skids.

This is a portable rec cabin on skids.

As the courses go up, windows are framed in.

As the courses go up, windows are framed in. Windows and doors are set in with slides that allow the cabin logs to shrink without binding the frames.

Almost to the top of the windows!

Almost to the top of the windows!

Adding roof support beams.

Adding roof support beams.

Oh so close to being done!

Oh so close to being done!

Finished rec cabin, complete with deck!

Finished rec cabin, complete with deck!

Our First Snow

It snowed Sunday night, our first snow as Alaska residents. The kids got to go outside while it was coming down just for a few minutes since it was late and getting dark. The next day, I had an off day from work and after we tidied up the house they got to go outside and really play in the snow. We only got a couple of inches this time, so not really enough to make anything dynamic with it, but fun to play in none-the-less.

Dean 368

The girls wanted to snowball fight but for some reason, their brother did not. Hmmm, me thinks they were ganging up on him.

Dean 371

I asked “How much do you love the snow?” “This much” says Thing Two!

Dean 369

Our backyard and the play set.

Today they are only enjoying the snow from the window sill, coughs and sniffles are keeping them inside. 😦
But we will survive by baking some banana bread!

Brrrrr!

18 degrees on the way to work, 25 on the way home. Definitely winter now, but no snow… yet.

Snow??

It’s mid-October and we’ve seen the trees transition from bright green foliage to gold, to no foliage in a matter of a few weeks. The wind has kicked up and it can really blow here. The average temp range for October looks like highs in the lower 40s to upper 20s for lows, with an average snowfall date of Oct 17th. This past week we’ve been experiencing unseasonably warm weather, highs in the 50s and lows in the 40s.  It has been great weather for working outdoors at least.

Last year Anchorage had its first official snowfall on Sept. 29, 2012. Parts of the greater  Anchorage  area did have snow a couple of weeks ago but not on the “official” NOAA measuring site, so no “official” snow fall yet this year. And we haven’t even seen a snowflake fall down here yet.  And it’s not looking like we’ll see any in the next few days either.

Although, one can see fresh snow on all the peaks round about us. They are bright and pristine white with their new winter coats on. That is, one can see them when the skies are clear, not too many of those days here lately.

Our forecast is calling for warmer temps and rain, only a slight chance of snow mixed with rain showers later in the week. Not so fun for people waiting for their first Alaska snow! 😉 You know, the ones with the snow boots and warm gloves and   waiting to play in the snow…

This is a eight-photo panorama of Cook Inlet's...

This is a eight-photo panorama of Cook Inlet’s Turnigan Arm, a few miles south of Anchorage, Alaska. The tide’s out. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

4 Months

Thursday marked our fourth month here. Wow, time flies!
We have seen the seasons change from late spring to summer, then fall. We are staring down Old Man Winter, but he seems to be holding off a bit, thankfully. I am sure that we will be excited come spring to see the end of winter’s grip, but first we will enjoy our first snow and have fun playing in it!

Weeding the Garden

 

Note: I wrote this back in early August and am just now getting around to posting it. Granted, gardening season is over here, and is close to an end in other places, but read on. 🙂

One of life’s little lessons.

When we were out weeding the garden before Dad’s memorial, I was reminded of how important it is to weed our gardens daily. Not only our vegetable gardens but our life gardens. Weeds are those things that spring up and choke out the good plants. Good plants can be relationships, habits, thoughts… Weeds can be taking others for granted, ignoring needs of those you love, being self-centered and/or thoughtless. Or simply inattentive. Letting those weeds grow can be disastrous. At first they seem harmless, just a little sprout with a couple of leaves, when you think to yourself “I’ll worry about those tomorrow”. Then tomorrow and the next day, and the next pass, and then you have a weed that’s larger than your plant. Soon the weed is rooted around your plant and choking the life out of it. By then, if you pull the weed, you’ll also pull up your plant. Either way, your plant suffers, or perhaps even dies.

It’s just like cleaning the house. If you don’t do it daily, it piles up on you and then you can’t seem to dig out of the mess! Or the laundry, every mother knows how fast Mount Washmore can spring up! It’s better to do a little every day instead of trying to do a lot all at once!

Remember to weed your garden today.

Tell that special someone how important they are to you.

Hug your kids.

Kiss your mother.

Call a friend.

Termination Dust

TD is on its way, when will it get here?
Wait, what is TD?

Simply, TD is snow. The one true harbinger that summer has been terminated. Hence the name Termination Dust.

We’ve had snow north of us, last week parts of Anchorage got 9 (yes NINE) inches of snow! But it was mostly gone as quickly as it came down. No snow here yet, although we had some pretty cold temps for this time of year (in my estimation, but no records set). Right now we are experiencing a general warm-up. Highs in the low 50s and lows in the upper 30s to low 40s. But this is supposed to be the last of the nice weather… three days of partly sunny, slightly warm days and then, BAM! Highs in the 30s. Dig out the winter gear folks!

Anyone want to guess when our first official snowfall will be??

Maintenance

The Garden

The Garden

We went to the cabin on Saturday (7/20) to start preparing for Dad’s memorial and the family’s visit. Scott had been out and mowed around the cabin, down the drive, making it easier for us to get in. Dean spent the next couple of days mowing and weed-eating the rest of the yard, around the back of the garden/greenhouse and behind the cabin. I cut down the overgrown comfrey that was so large it branched out over the walk-way to the cabin. It’s in bloom now and the bees were really working! You could hear a constant buzz of them working the comfrey and chives. The kids started weeding in the garden. We got the new plants and the strawberries weeded. The seeds that the kids had planted last month were producing some really nice radishes. We harvested quite a few of those and ate them! We also had some more rhubarb out of the garden.

I spent a lot of time looking around at what needs to be done. Before winter sets in, we need to wire brush and sand the exterior logs and put a sealer on them. Some of the logs are starting to dry out too much and if they aren’t sealed soon, we could be looking at dry rot and that would be a disaster.

Since I wasn’t able to live out there this summer, and do the work that I had hoped to do, all of those chores are still in need of being done: finishing the outhouse, tearing the old porch off and building a deck on the front of the cabin. Caring for the garden, harvesting and putting up the produce, making rhubarb wine. Hopefully the weekends will stay open for me to be able to go out more frequently and get some of that work done. Dad’s friends are so good to plant/weed/work the garden and help keep the place looking “lived in”, I can’t express my gratitude sufficiently. Good people, that’s what they are. It is a lot of work.

Alaska Facts

A photograph of Mount McKinley from the Stony ...

A photograph of Mount McKinley from the Stony Dome lookout point in Denali National Park.     (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

State Tree: Sitka Spruce

Fish: King Salmon

Gem: Jade

Mineral: Gold

Bird: Willow Ptarmigan

Flower: Forget-Me-Not

Motto: North to the Future

Alaska was admitted to the union on
January 3, 1959.

Land Area: 586,412 square miles,
equivalent to 1/5 the size of the continental United States (AKA:
lower 48 or “outside”) and is way bigger than Texas.

Highest peak in North America: Mount McKinley (AKA: Denali) 20,320
feet in elevation.
Kenai, where we live, is one of the oldest
permanent settlements in Alaska, dating back to 1792. You can find
jade on the beaches along with agate and jasper, and some say the
occasional piece of gold. We have significant Russian and Native
cultural influences here in our local area.