Old Man Winter showed up yesterday, about 2-3 weeks behind schedule. We had a winter weather advisory to expect 1-3 inches and possibly ice. Well that turned into a good 8″, maybe 10″ with wind.
It’s wet and heavy.
And the power has been out since the wee early morning hours.
The kids were outside yesterday playing in the snow while Dean and I buttoned up the shop walls. We managed to get all the metal on and enclosed, all but the end where the garage door goes eventually.
Yeah! No more snow all over our stuff!
Once we get the woodstove installed we’ll be able to work in relative comfort this winter. I’m super excited.
We salvaged a shelter logic frame from the dump earlier this season and erected it to store our camp trailers and 4-wheelers. There was a good 10″ of snow saging the tarp down so the kids and I worked on clearing it off before chaos and collapse happened.
Now we need to shovel copious amounts of snow away from the walkways and drive. We won’t be getting plowed anytime soon so we must use good ole man/woman/child-power to move white stuff. All while Dean works pushing snow with the loader for our commercial client.
Life in Alaska.
Now we’re inside warming up next to the wood stove. B’H for non-electric heating. Times like this remind me that I need to install a 12 volt power and lighting system with a small solar array. Then at least we could function relatively normally without power.
But that’s a project for another day.
The grader finally came through at 5 pm. At least we could get up the road now if we had too. The oldest kiddo might be able to make it to work tomorrow.
In the meantime, we’ll light some candles and lanterns and play some games!
It’s been a minute, but autumn has fallen and winter is knocking at the door.
The trees have been gorgeous this year, so much color.
Picking Labrador Tea
We’re still getting into the upper 50°s during the day but hard freezing at night. Ice on the animal’s water buckets every morning. We’ve hunted for moose, picked a few berries & some Labrador Tea and photographed a lot of mushrooms.
Lil Bit harvested her garden. She ended up with a good little batch of green tomatoes and some potatoes.
I don’t know how I made it my entire life without being called for jury duty but here I am. August was my second time being on the call list here in Alaska but first time ever being seated on a jury. It has been enlightening.
I’ve always been willing and interested in serving as a juror. For me, it’s not only a civic duty but a faith based duty as well. Heaven knows that if I ever found myself in need of a jury I certainly would want someone (or 12 someones) willing to serve and not doing so begrudgingly, wishing they were somewhere else, and not giving their full attention and due diligence.
I found myself really examining my thoughts and beliefs and actually needing to reconcile a couple of contradictory beliefs. I’m thankful for the opportunity to see our justice system work, mostly the way it was intended to do.
Innocent until proven guilty.
It’s a catchy phrase that we toss around. But before today I never really had to dig deep and experience that reality from a position of judging facts. Questioning myself as to whether or not I truly believed that all those sitting in the defendant’s seat could be, should be awarded that right. Sometimes it’s harder than others.
It’s our right as Americans.
I learned a lot about how our local courts work, the process and people. It was interesting to be sure.
After three days of trial proceedings and the initial day of jury selection, I was invested in the process. Unfortunately I was one of the two drawn as alternates and I was excused before deliberations began. I was disappointed at first, then relieved that I didn’t have to sit in judgement over this person! It’s a heavy thing to be sure.
So next time when the jury duty notice comes around I’ll be ready, once again, to perform my civic duty.
The weather man said to tie down any loose items night before last as overnight Thursday & Friday would be a bit gusty. Remnants if an ex-typhoon they said.
It’s never a good time to have a wind storm when you have an overabundance of beetle killed spruce trees in your area. The wind set a steady tree swaying pace the entire day, kicking up a good gust fairly often.
The power was out for a large amount of Alaskans from Sterling to Willow yesterday morning. They had clocked some 70mph gusts up north. At around 7:20 am ours went out.
Time to fill the woodshed. First time we cut wood without Caleb here. 😥
We managed to cut up about a cord of wood yesterday between two friend’s properties. Thankfully these trees were already down and not a casualty of the storm. We do have one tree down on our place from the storm to dispense of. Overall nothing to complain about. Plus that should fill one side of the woodshed. Now to the other side.
This was the longest outage we’ve had since moving to this house. The biggest inconvenience for us being unable to flush the toilets. Trees were down everywhere, on houses, on power lines, on the roads. A good reminder for always being prepared. I need to figure out a water storage system for this house. And install a couple 12 volt LED lights. And finish that solar generator I bought all the components for a couple years ago. Also time to fix the generator pull cord… I need to make a honey do list.
Thankfully, those dedicated lineman worked overtime and restored our power at 3:21 am. About 20 hours, I wonder if we’ll see a difference on next months electric bill?
Fred Meyer must have been the only store in town with power since everyone was there shopping. It was worse than tourist season.
Yesterday was our “end of year” field trip. We’ve still got a few weeks left but a little early celebration never hurt anyone.
Before we boarded we spent some time exploring around the docks.
The Sovereign, a City of Seward tender. Lil Mister observing the suspension and breaking system of these old railway cars.Giant puffin mural.Carved sea otter benches.A cool old padlock, somewhere there’s a key to this heart…Spray foam fixes everything!The three munchkins with Dean & I reflecting.He’s so adorable.
Major Marine Tours out of Seward took us out for a 4 hour tour. (Glad it wasn’t three and the weather wasn’t rough.)
Captain Marcelle navigated the “Kenai Fjords 360” throughout Resurrection Bay like a boss.
First thing we see after leaving port are Dall’s Porpoises swimming with our boat. They look like little baby Orcas. They were quite amusing swimming and jumping out of the water, crisscrossing in front of the bow.
Once we were underway the Capt put this nav map up for us to reference. It helped keep our bearings for sure.
Then we saw a bald eagle perched on an enormous rock. We spotted a sea otter in Thumb Cove.
After traveling past Fox Island we saw some Stellar Sea Lions sunning themselves on Mary’s Rock. Captain Marcelle was terrific for getting us excellent views of the wildlife. We had a beautiful day, sunshine, 41-45° air temp and no sea swell! Simply gorgeous spring day!
We cruised past Barwell Island on the east side of Resurrection Bay, which has some WW II era bunkers. Then the best thing happened, another vessel alerted us to a pod of three Orcas just two hours into our tour! What an awesome inspiring moment!
We also experienced a mirage, called fata morgana, of Montague Island. It made the island look like a plateau instead of the peaked mountain tops it has. Once we changed position and could look back at the Island you could once again see it’s peaks and valleys. So weird!
Besides the abundance of wildlife that we saw and learned a few facts about (did you know there were 10 types of Orcas worldwide and three types that frequent our Alaskan waters?) we also learned about history (WW II, Russian exploration, President Harding and the Good Friday Quake) and geology when we passed some unusual rock formations of pillow basalt. It was quite the learning experience!
Our route was the red one. It would be nice to take the blue one some day!
We peeked into Carol’s Cove to observe 6 Harbour Seals on our way back towards the west side of Resurrection Bay where we had a great view of Bear Glacier. Lil Bit was excited for this one, she really wanted to see the seals. It’s nice to see them elsewhere, than in our nets stealing our fish! Then we spotted two coastal mountain goats on the sheer face of the mountain side! And another Harbor Seal in the water along the Callisto Cliffs.
Lil Bit observing the Harbour Seals with binoculars.There were 6 seals sunning themselves.
Nearly 4 pm and our tour is about over, what a wonderful experience! I love seeing the rugged beauty and bounty of Alaska. And seeing landmarks like Cain’s Head which we’ve explored a couple of times on foot. I think Lil Bit counted 8 species in total that we spotted today. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves! Little Mister was most comfortable on the bow feeling the wind rush through his hair. Thing 2 wasn’t in too many pics as he enjoyed the freedom of roaming about the boat at will.
I’m very grateful for the homeschooling resources we have with IDEA and the rich experiences we get to have thanks to their efforts. Trips like these would be out of reach for us without them.
Alaska on my mind... 