A Major Catching up for the New Year!

Since I have not written a blog in months and months and since pictures are more powerful than words, and since much of what we are now doing repeats what we have already done (no complaints here!) I am altering the format of this blog to include lots of photos and little commentary.

This is our yard with a very large moose calf standing next to the sign that reads "Ye Old Watering Hole, which is where we dump the beloved slop bucket that catches our water under the sink. Mama was on the other side of the house and you better believe that David took this photo and ran back into the cabin!



One event that Fairbanks holds in the winter is the Tired Iron which is a race (of sorts) of old snow machines. 

This photo was taken on 2/22/11 on or trip to Talketna

And the photo on the right is from Esther Dome.  Since Fairbanks is in a flat area amongst hills, the higher peaks are called domes and there are usually electronic equipment stations on each one, being the highest point in the area.

Of course, one of the main attractions in the area is dog mushing in all forms.  Here is a "fun" race at Dog Musher's Hall, right down the road from our cabin...weekly races for all sorts of amateurs.   Another great dog racing event is the North American Classic which is for great sprint runners.  It takes place over 3 days and starts right downtown Fairbanks.  There is quite a festival atmosphere involving great dogs running, big, giant dogs pulling huge weights and  a fur auction.

On of our last "winter" trips was a day trip to the Blackwater area and a skiing trip with friends. David in  snowshoes.   and I spent a good deal of time flopping around!

In June I was lucky enough to hook up with two ornithologists who took it upon themselves to check 9 boreal owl boxes along the Steese Highway going out of Fairbanks twice a week, from before the chicks were born to when they left the nest.

                            The owls are tiny..about 7 inches high at most!

In June we decided to take Fred on a shake down float on the Chena River to see how he did in a canoe.  He was GREAT!   And this moose was determined to get his photo on a post card!

Before we went on the Clearwater River for a canoeing trip David, Fred and I went to camp on its banks in late April.  Note all the snow on the ground.



We made our annual trek to Chicken for Chickenstock, the little bluegrass festival that a friend of ours runs at her parents gold camp in Chicken.  This year we added an actual gold panning trip to the gold camp of a workmate of David's.  Never again.  First of all it started to hail.  Then I got stuck in sucking mud and had to take off my boots to get out and then retrieve my boots by popping them out with a shovel.  Yuck! The people we visited had a real deal going and used a sluice box. But not us!And then it started to hail.  Yuck again!

Our first canoeing camping trip of the season was with Jack Wilbur, David's boss and 4th generation Fairbanksian and super canoer. On May 5th David and I with 2 other men and Jack went for an overnight trip on the Clearwater River.  Cold but really great and we learned a great deal about canoeing and camping.      

After this trip we never cooked on a coleman stove again.

 

We take the solstice very seriously here and along with the midnight sun baseball game which we have attended, we have the Midnight Sun race with over 3000 runners, from all over the country, many is costumes.  Fittingly it starts about 8 pm and, you will notice how light it is,   

 

It is the little things that count.

In June one of David's clients took us on a great flight over the Alaska Range.  We had hoped that we would be able to have him drop us off in August for a weekend camping trip, but the weather never cooperated.  But we had a great flight.  The funny thing is, he parks his little, fabric covered plane right in his backyard!!!       Believe it or not, this is the body of a WWII  plane that crashed into the tundra in the 1950's.

We had a lovely 4th of July in Homer, listening to Dylan's band, Burnt Down House play at two fundraisers and then ride in a fire truck with Fred in the 4th of July parade.   And Fred had a chance to visit his bigger twin Eire.

In August we had friends come to visit and we took them on our favorite trip, canoeing on Tangle Lakes to fish and camp.    T he only hard part is a double portage up and down very steep and rocky hills with a canoe on head.  I was exempt because of my extreme old age...and it was my birthday! But the fishing and  berry picking were great even though it was cold and windy!   We were lucky to see a father and his 10 year old son shoot a caribou right on the bank of the Delta River as we were floating by, so we stopped and looked at the fresh kill.    Since they already had one caribou in their raft they were going to be quite overloaded but quite well set for the winter!

A big trip for us was the Labor Day trip to Haines and Skagway, 1600 miles.  The big draw...bears!!!! 

 

 

Skagway is the head of the famous Chilkoot trail that the miners used to get to the goldfields in 1896, and home to some magnificent mushrooms! Fred on our tent. 3 is a crowd! And the famous sand hill cranes that migrate through Fairbanks to great thrills of all.

I was so lucky to go winter camping with Peg Billingsley, the musher that I am helping in her training for the Yukon Quest 2012.  here we are at -10 camping overnight.  I built the fire!!!!

     

 

  we celebrated David's 60th birthday with a cookout.  Turned out to be the last warm day of the year.  He received many gifts of frozen local game meat like moose, caribou, grouse, salmon, & halibut cheeks.- Only on Alaska.