"I remember, in the winter of our first experiments, ... looking on snow with new eyes." - Edward M. Purcell

It's all too easy to be of two minds about the winter in Alaska.

On one hand, we can't wait to see the green mountains, the lush forests, and all of the beautiful waters and wild life.

On the other hand, we will be sad to see the ice and the snow go.  Those who only come to Alaska in the summer truly miss out on the majesty of the mountains and the austere beauty of the frozen lakes and tundra.  However, there are a number of things that I'm sure most people would be glad to miss out on, such as the two inches of solid ice that forms on the roads, forcing you to actually become used to sliding around on the road while driving 50 MPH.  And of course, then when it begins to warm up and it rains on the road, you get pot-holes IN THE ICE.  Awesome!  Now that is definitely fun!  The long nights weren't too bad, but we're definitely glad to have some sunshine back (and really pumped about 24 hours of daylight in a couple of months)!

We've done really well finding the silver lining this winter, and have been out snowshoeing, nordic ice skating, and cross-country skiing as much as possible.  Hardly a weekend has gone by that we haven't been outside having fun!  That being said, we'll just say that we were out on Kenai Lake, it was beautiful, the sun was shining, the dogs exhausted themselves, we covered at least 5 miles, and we had the whole lake to ourselves!

Animalistic Tendencies

I wake up in the middle of the night.  It's definitely dark but I can see pretty well, so I head out into the kitchen and grab a little bit of food, take a couple of nibbles and drink a little water.  Then go lay back down and curl up, and fall asleep again, comfy and warm.  About an hour later I wake up again.  Hmmmmmmm, I could use another snack.  It's still dark, but it stays dark a long time here.  I'm not used to it, but it's alright, I like to sleep a lot anyway.  I don't really feel like lying back down again though, so I head over to the couch instead.  I sit down on the couch and look around.  Not too much going on this time of night.  The dogs are both asleep on the bed, the white and black one is under the covers, and the big black crazy one is laying near the foot of the mattress.  They are so annoying, especially the white one.  I can't stand it when she growls and bites my neck!  Hmmmmmm, the big tank is making an enticing sort of drip-dropping sound.  I can't help myself.  I jump from the back of the couch onto the tank!  Uh-oh!  The big man that has been living with mom and I is awake and he's coming for me!  Dang it!  How does he hear me?  I better get the heck off of here and run!  Hiding, hiding, hiding...  Coast seems clear, I'd better not chance jumping onto the tank again.  I'll just sit at the bottom of the tank and meow at it instead.  They'll like that I'm sure...  Maybe after I do that for 15 minutes or so I'll go lay down and clean the other white kitty a little bit.  I really like him...most of the time.

I just heard my three favorite words in the world again, "Go, For, Outside."  I love those words.  They normally mean that my humans are going to wear my body out until I wont even be able to go up and down the stairs to go to the bathroom once we get home.  It is going to be AWESOME!  I wonder what we are going to do this time.  Maybe we will go back out to that wide open space where I can't get any traction.  If I could put a word to what that surface was I would call it ice.  It is really hard to stop on, but once I get going I can go really really fast.  Or maybe my humans will put on those extra-sized shoes and we will go up into the hills together.  I really love the hills with all of the smells and the moose to chase.  I really need to watch out for those cornice's though because they are really hard to climb back out of.  Perhaps we will just go for a drive and I will get to scare off all those other big machines coming at us from the other direction with my ferocious barking.  Whatever we decide to do together I know that it is going to be exciting and because of that my little body just can't stop bouncing all over the house.  Maybe if I cry a little bit we will go quicker...

  

 

What are they doing what are they doing what are they doing?  Are they going to feed me?  I hope they touch me soon and a lot I think I'll run over to them.  Ooh, dad is sitting on the couch I'm sure that he would like me to try and sit in his lap and stick my face in his face, or maybe I'll just stick my nose in his crotch, he might like that better.  No?  Okay, what if I put my paw on that black clickey light-up thing that he sits in front of and pokes with his paws.  He's awful interested sometimes by those pictures that are on it.  I should try to help.  Oh, he didn't like that.  GROAN!  I'll cry at him a little.  Oh he told me to "sit" but I don't want to sit but maybe if I do...  OOOOHHHHHHH YEAH!  I LOVE it when he scratches my ears...  Wait he's heading for the kitchen is he going to feed me is he going to feed me?  Oooh, there's that scarey water bowl I can't stand that bowl sometimes because it has the water in it and I start drinking and I just can't stop can't stop can't stop.  OOH!  Maybe he's getting that ball out of the sink! Fetch?  Fetch?  Fetch?  Fetch?  Fetch?  Fetch?  Fetch?  Fetch? Fetch?  Fetch?  Fetch?  Fetch? ...No?  Why not?!?!?  Fine, I want to go outside and bark at things...or maybe I'll just bark at nothing at all.  I don't know much, but I know that once I get started I just have a heck of a time stopping!

(Just ignore the fact that Ben sounds like he is going to die...)

 

 

The humans that pulled me out of that cold wasteland in South Dakota have now brought me to an even colder land.  I knew that letting them catch me could lead to even greater troubles.  It is a good thing that there is a heater just for me in this tiny place that we all try to call home.  As soon as it is turned on and warmed up you won't find me anywhere else.  The other good thing about these humans is that they feed me...A LOT!  I know that half of it is for the other cat, but after my rough start in life I just can't help myself.  Instead of a skinny half-starved kitten, I have grown into a cute roll of chub and fur.  It rocks!  Even with all of my spastic episodes throughout the day I don't seem to lose even half a pound.  I don't have to eat them anymore but I still catch mice for the fun of it.  I don't feel like they belong in here anyway.  Those humans are usually pretty excited, I just wish they would let me play with them longer before taking them away.  I have a new love in life though, it is called PAPER!  If those humans forget and leave a piece of paper lying anywhere unguarded around the house I like to make a jigsaw puzzle out of it...and maybe eat a little.  A fun holiday did just go by and I got to eat something called "garland".  It only made me a little sick.  I have started to enjoy sitting with the humans again.  After a year I am finally getting over being embarrassed about peeing on the big one.  How was I suppose to know I had a UTI?  Oh well, no harm no foul.  I think I might stick with them a little longer since they have that big black thing that lets me lay with him all the time.  Uh oh, they are coming back with the little black and white one, she is probably going to bite my neck a whole bunch...

Akiiki, Lilly, Attila, and Cleveland (respectively)

A Post of a Different Sort

Ben here.  For those who have been checking the blog, we apologize for the fact that we haven't put anything up for a while.  It has certainly been a crazy couple of months!  Anyway, we haven't had as much time since we've both been working, and this isn't so much of an update post as just me wanting to show a few of you what happens when you are unemployed for a couple of months with no car to get around in and a tiny apartment.

With the lack of a mode of transportation and an abundance of time, you do things like:
1) Find some software that will stitch all of those panoramic pictures together that you've had for 5 years.

...and new ones from this summer...

Exit Glacier Overlook - September, 2011

Exit Glacier Outwash Plain from the Harding Ice Field Trail - June, 2011

Pond near Palmer Creek, Twin Lakes Trail - July, 2011

Paradise Valley Overlook - September, 2011

Paradise Valley Overlook - October, 2011

Resurrection Bay - September, 2011

Ocean View from Kenai - October, 2011

2) You may also spend some time learning something new, like bluegrass style on the banjo.  (Sorry about the sound, I was too close to the camera.)  This is the simple version by the way and isn't how someone who is actually good at playing bluegrass style would play it.

 Anyway, aside from those things it was a great time to rest, hang out with the dogs, cook and make things, and relax and enjoy life a little bit.  Again, sorry to everyone about the lack of posts and we will begin making more again!

Snow Snow SNOW!!! And SHOES!

Oh the woes of living in Alaska during the unforgiving winter!

Sometimes, for no apparent reason, you leave the relative safety, warmth and coziness of your home, to go outside and brave the cold, ice, and snow!  Occasionally, you feel the overwhelming urge to put on wool underwear, an extra shirt, two pairs of socks, a pair of snow pants, and a coat that consists of not just one, but two coats, put together to form a heavy, water-proof, and altogether much too sweat-inducing shell for which there sometimes seems to be no escape!  Then, to make things worse, you put on a stocking hat, a pair of gloves AND a pair of mittens, and some boots that would be better suited to kicking down doors than walking anywhere for any extended period of time.

Then you get in your truck, fully-equipped with studded snow tires, 4-wheel drive, and 300 pounds of traction sand in the bed, and drive up the "highway", which is basically a typical highway but with the added bonus of a layer of ice over the entire top surface, delicately frosted with snow that has been packed into a sort of shifting, ice-like substance that can give way suddenly and with no warning, and drive to a place where obviously no one else has parked since the last time it snowed (probably last night), making you think, "Hmmmm, I wonder if we will be able to get going again once we stop."  But, for some reason you stop anyway, and then for some silly and altogether unfathomable reason, you get out of the truck.

At this point, you decide the best course of action would be to put on a pair of "shoes".  These shoes consist of a big piece of plastic with a hole cut in the middle, hinges, and then another piece of plastic with some metal spikes on it, and straps to hold your feet atop these medieval-seeming contraptions, in the middles of the holes.  Then, you just head off into the woods!  "Why, oh why, oh why, would anyone do this for fun?!?" you ask.


You let the dogs out, who move more like deer bouncing through the snow with all of their unspent energy, and wonder, "How will we ever get them back in the truck???"  You follow them down a hill that you would probably think twice about descending on foot, much less when it is coated with a foot of snow and you are wearing plastic and metal death-devices on your feet.  You walk along through the woods, if trying unsuccessfully not to trip over small trees, downed logs and brush covered in 6 inches to 2 feet of snow can be called "walking".  You zig-zag through the forest, trying to make it to the shores of a river, all the while wondering whether or not you will make it, or die first of acute heat exhaustion due to all of the clothing you are wearing, or be stomped into jelly by the moose that the dogs randomly flushed out of the woods and lead straight back to you to deal with.

But, against all odds, you finally make it as far as you are going to go.  It's not the river...its a giant half-frozen marsh!  You know that it's "half-frozen" because where the dogs ran around on it even way out in the middle, you fall through at the edges of the water, filling your water-proof boots with cold water that smells like it came out of the wrong end of an elephant.  So, you take a couple of pictures with your spouse, sit down in the freezing snow, and watch the dogs run around on the ice that failed to hold you.

Finally, you trudge back through the snow, eventually making it to your car as the temperature begins to drop, and the snow begins to come down hard and in large flakes.  You are elated to make it back to the vehicle, loading the dogs up, and heading toward your all-together much too small home.  The dogs sleep for, basically, the rest of the day, evening, and night, and you are filled with a sense of nice contentment as you sit on the couch sipping hot apple cider and hot chocolate.

What a great day in cold, snowy, wintery Alaska...

Fall: A Time of Changes

Fall is a truly beautiful time in Alaska.  Well, to be fair, we haven't found any times in Alaska that aren't beautiful.  As suddenly as the leaves appeared in the light of the 20 hour days, they have turned yellow and offer still another breathtaking view of the Alaskan mountains and forest.  The fireweed has "burned up", red flames strewn sporadically all over the forest floor, licking the bottoms of the the birch trees which have torched into huge living bursts of yellow flame.




As the leaves are blown from the trees by occasional winds, the bare trees are revealing a sight forgotten in the explosion of green leaves and insane tourists: the austere and massive mountains towering to incredible heights above the rivers and lakes that have been the main focus of our enjoyment for the last few months.  It's like unwrapping a huge awesome present at Christmas!  To make it even better, as they do throughout a summer, the mountains have gradually become an earthy green, brown, and gray.  But, with startling abruptness, they have become white again, and not a slowly downward crawling, but an overnight white, surprising you every morning...until you realize that in less than a month it has crept more than halfway down the mountain.  Until today...

Life is changing for us as well.  Rachel has been working at the middle school for about a month now, and it has been a trying experience in a number of ways.  As with most jobs with the schools (especially support positions), many things are less than desirable...and we'll leave it at that.  However, she is in the schools and meeting people, gaining experience and establishing a reputation with the people in the school.  Ben has one more week with the Forest Service and then will be on a work hiatus for two weeks until he goes through the substitute teacher training.  He is really looking forward to a little time off.

We're really curious to see how this winter is going to go.  There will be a number of new things, the least of which is certainly not the sunlight (or lack thereof).  Even now with the mountains surrounding us the sun doesn't come up until after 8 AM, but at least we get nearly 11 hours of light.  Rachel is not too keen on driving to work in the dark though.  We will also have to purchase some studded tires for the first time in our lives.  We thought, "Oh no, we're from Montana, we can handle the roads."  Pictures to follow on what we've been told about some of the roads in the winter.

Despite the change in seasons, we're really looking forward to the winter and all of the changes and surprises that it will bring!

Ben and Rachel

A Fish Eye's View

Sly The Silver Salmon

I have finally finished out my 1 year in salt water and it is time for me to begin my journey back to fresh water where I will then have the opportunity to spawn and complete my life cycle.  I am so pumped!  It has been a great 5 years.  I began my life as a fertilized egg in fresh water where my mother laid me.  She left me with my nutrient filled egg sack, which I ate as I developed into an alevin.  Once my egg sack was gone I could finally be called a fry.  What an exciting time in my life!  I grew for about 4 years in the fresh water, but then one day I just had a wild itch to see the world, so I headed downstream, and ended up in the ocean.  What a change!  The predators were as big as whales!  Zipping in and around the Pacific Ocean I had the time of my life.  Aside from those Kings I was the biggest Salmon around.  Then one day something changed.  Maybe it was just hormones, or some really irrational nostalgia, but I had the intense urge to go swim up the river where I was born, even though it would kill me.  My milt was ready to fertilize some eggs :)  As I made my way to the estuary I found many other silver salmon experiencing the same hormonal insanity.  Before entering the fresh water I decided it was time for one last meal.  After 5 years I can definitely say that it was the biggest mistake of my life.  In front of me I saw a piece of something twirling and dangling and thought about how lucky I was to have that lovely meal dropped right in front of me.  I dove towards it, pushing other salmon out of the way as I grabbed it.  I grabbed the perfect section of meat but then I immediately felt something tug on my mouth.  I tried to retreat and take back the meal that I had just swallowed, but it was not letting go of me.  As I was pulled toward the surface I began to see the outline of what appeared to be a boat.  As I surfaced I saw four people upon the boat jumping around, grabbing nets, and stretching out towards me.  I resisted even more and watched the human on the other side of the line struggle to keep a hold of me.  I was strong, but the humans were stronger and I was eventually hauled into the boat and indignantly thrown below with others who had suffered the same fate as I.  However, it was gratifying knowing that I would be able to provide meat for those in need throughout the cold winter above the water.  My life was complete and although I would not be able to complete it the way I had thought, I knew that I now had an even higher calling and I am thankful for that opportunity.


Harriet the Halibut

What a life I lead on the bottom of the ocean.  265 feet down and I would go further if I could, but I am a little halibut and I am trying to stick close to others of my kind.  It is dark and cold down here, and both of my eyes are on one side of my body, that is how much I love staring upward.  Being as I am a lucky halibut a tasty, stinky fish has just landed in front of me.  I am not one to snap and grab it though. I think I'll just nibble a little bit and take a minute to let it all go down.  As I'm swallowing the tasty, stinky fish, I feel a tug deep in my throat and feel myself being lifted off of my comfy ocean bottom bed.  I don't want to go up to the surface!  It's too bright up there!  I fight with all 20 pounds the whole 265 feet.  The hook is imbedded so deep within me that the human on the other end of the line finally wins out.  However, in my last few minutes of life I take in the funniest scene that my eyes have ever beheld.  I am hauled into a boat where the human on the other end of the line is almost passed out from the exertion of the fight.  Take that!  I am glad that although I may not have been the winner of this fight, I do not have to deal with the next week of sore muscles that the human is going to have to deal with.  What a wonderful life!  I'm glad to know that I made the human work for those tasty fillets that will later come off of me after I've passed. 


Yvonne the Yellow-Eyed

I am a Rockfish, but of a different color.  My eyes are buggy and yellow and my skin is the color of sherbert.  I swim around with a look of constant surprise on my face.  Of course, I am a fish, and with my short memory it's befitting because I am constantly surprised.  Just like any other day I was trying to find a meal wherever I could get one and it just so happened that today was my lucky day.  Right in front of me a squid landed and he was way to slow for my quick reflexes.  I snapped so quick that I took the whole squid in at once.  The only problem was that when I swallowed the squid I had an immediate case of heart burn that began to force me to rise to the surface.  I tried to dispel this unpleasant feeling by throwing up my air bladder.  I was not the only one surprised by the sudden change of events.  As I was pulled aboard what I assume was a boat, the surprise and wonder from the female human on the other side of the boat almost equaled my own.  Once on board I knew the next course of action that would take place.  I would be grabbed and my air bladder that had been used just seconds before to protect would be popped and my juices would squirt all over whoever took on that calling.  The surprise on their faces was classic!  As I am filleted my ear bones will be cut out for their ivory and made into jewelery for the beautiful female who pulled me aboard.  It was a good life and I enjoyed what I can remember of it.


We had a great time fishing with Paul and Chris.  Waking up at 3:30 in the morning, on the water by 5:30, fishing until 4:00 in the afternoon, and processing fish until about 9:30 at night, it has taken us all week to catch up from the exhaustion.  But, our freezer is full of fish at the moment, and we are looking forward to eating it throughout the course of the winter.  Paul and Chris could not have made the trip more fun, especially Chris's excitement over every single thing that was hooked, whether we ended up hauling it into the boat or not.  We are so thankful for their hospitality, and Ben is really looking forward to going out again.  It was not without it's punishment though, since every time we closed our eyes or got into the shower for the next two days we felt like we were back on the waves being tossed about like one of those Magic 8-Balls.

Thank you Paul and Chris!
Ben and Rachel

Clammin' to Prevent Famine

Rachel: Ok...
Ben:  Yeah that was pretty bad.
Rachel:  Clamming is dirty business.  You get up really early in the morning, on your day off...
Ben:  That sounds dirty already...
Rachel:  Pile into a small truck with your husband and two other boys, with two dogs in the back...
Ben:  Gettin' dirtier (and more smelly) already...
Rachel:  Travel two hours and wind up on a muddy, sandy beach with dead fish all over the place.
Ben:  Hmmmmmm, sounds like fun so far.
Rachel:  You put on your rubber boots...
Ben:  Oh goodness, it's going downhill...
Rachel:  Grab your shovel, or if you are rich enough, clamming gun...
Ben:  We aren't rich enough.
Rachel:  ...and head out into the mud.  You walk around for about half an hour staring at nothing but mud...
Ben: ...and looking for mystical clam divots in the sand...that you have no clue what they look like.
Rachel:  You take the opportunity to speak with other clammers that know what they are doing, and getting clams...
Ben:  ...but it doesn't help you at all for the most part.  You are still like a lost puppy looking for a puppy chow factory.
Rachel:  Then, miracle upon miracle, you discover one of these mystical divots.
Ben:  How did we miss those again?
Rachel.  And the annihilation begins.
Ben:  You work your butt off trying to dig each clam out before it can escape.
Rachel:  Those things are fast.  We're talking, like a mole-with-its-butt-on-fire-burrowing-toward-water-after-chugging-a-case-of-Five-Hour-Energies fast.
Ben:  So you dig in as fast as you possibly can, and end up on your knees in the mud, digging with your hands, trying to get the thing out, and hoping that you haven't lost it already.
Rachel:  As you dig like a dog in the mud, you realize that once again you have broken the clam shell, and therefore the clam, into millions of pieces with your shovel, because, once again, you aren't rich enough to afford the clamming gun.
Ben:  Remember all those times we thought we lost it and then realized that we had hucked the pieces of clam out with the first couple of shovel fulls?  That was embarrassing...
Rachel:  Let's reiterate that we are clamming for "razor clams".
Ben:  "Razor"...like those sharp things that I never use?
Rachel:  Exactly.
Ben:  Right, so when you totally smash the clam to pieces...the pieces are really sharp!  Hence, the super thick rubber gloves!
Rachel:  The excitement of pulling out your first clam, demolished or not, is comparable to finding a thick, meaty piece of pirate treasure...in the shape of a clam.
Ben:  The hoots, hollars, whooping, and exuberance were abundant after that.  We struck, literally, all kinds of meaty clam treasure.
Rachel:  One must keep in mind that you go clamming when the tide is low.  And as the moon shifts, so does the tide.
Ben:  Oh, so that's why the ocean nearly swallowed our cooler and bucket of flounders from the salmon fishermen!
Rachel:  Yes.  We raced the tide back to shore...
Ben:  But of course, we searched out mystical divots as we went.
Rachel:  Although we did not capture the 240 clams that had been our goal...
Ben:  That 240 would include each of our 4 individual limits of 60...
Rachel:  The 2 pounds that we DID get, and the dead flounder that we received, made for some pretty good clam chowder and fried flounder.
Ben:  Wait, what about the "dirty" part?
Rachel:  Even though you may try to protect yourself, the mud and sand find a way into everything.
Ben:  Boots, gloves, hats, pants, socks, bags, mouths...it's maddening...
Rachel:  But worth it...
Ben:  I can't wait to go clamming again...do you think we'll be rich enough for the clamming gun?

Rachel:  Ummmmm, let's see...