View from the Highway

After feeding the dogs this evening I decided to pull over to take some pictures.  It has been really clear the past couple of days so you can see the snow covered mountains in the distance.

Flo

Flo is one of the snowboard pups.  She's about a year old and likes to collect bowls.  Today I found three in her doghouse!  Sometimes she's annoyingly overactive, but she is pretty darn cute.

Sand Pits and Hangar Lake

Nora and I decided to go on a field trip with Charlie the ex-sled dog.  First we ran around the (now frozen) sand pits.

Then, since it was a clear day, we decided to go to Hangar Lake.  When it isn't frozen, there are usually float planes in the lake.  Now almost the whole thing is completely frozen.  It was frozen pretty solid too- at least 4 inches.

Gas Prices

I'm borrowing Reyne's car so I can feed the dog team, and I needed to get gas.  Do you think your prices are high?

Katrina's Adventure

Katrina is a big deal, and she knows it.  She's one of the top dogs on the team, has run in big races multiple times, and her father is probably the most famous dog in Alaska right now.  She looks kind of cat-like and reminds me of the cat from Looney Tunes (but instead of "meow" it's le woof, le sigh, le woof).   She's a top athlete but acts very dainty when she comes back in from a run.  Because of all of this, one of her nicknames is Fancy (because of recent events outlined below she also has a new nickname that begins with a B).  One time she took my camera out of my pocket and carried it into her house.  Casie said that she's never seen her play with toys or with anything before, but it made sense that "Fancy" would play with high priced items.

When Casie and I went to go feed the dogs on Sunday night, Casie noticed that Katrina was not there.  She had somehow un-clipped herself from her chain and ran off.  We went out looking for her and calling her but we couldn't find her.  We as in about 5 people.  At 3:30 AM Casie heard the rest of the dogs barking and staring at the bushes, and Ms. Katrina was later found under the house.

We had checked under the house multiple times to see if she was hiding under there somewhere (people don't really have basements here because of the permafrost, you can walk/crawl under most people's houses), so we think that she ran off and then came back and crawled underneath the house.

I tried to do an interview with her to see where she went off to:

Saturday Market

Saturday Market was this weekend, and it snowed that morning!  This is a view from the Cultural Center that I took at 9 am when the vendors were bringing their goods inside:

Ice Skates

This are the ice skates I got at the thrift store!  I can't wait to use them!

Sled Dogs

Here are some pictures of the sled dogs:

Above is Vogl (pronounced like "Vocal" but with a G).  She's one of the yearling pups from Pete Kaiser.  The litter is named after snowboard companies.  When she's excited she bounces up and down.  I call her Raccoon Face because of the circles around her eyes.

This is Burton.  Burton is Vogl's brother.  Next to him is their sister, Flo.

Here's one of the teams lined up.  In the front or lead are Trick and Lynx.  Lynx lives inside the house (the only one that does full-time).  He doesn't like to get wet and is too smart for his own good.  Trick is about two years old and is another Kaiser dog.  He used to be pretty crazy and I would never want to spend a lot of time with him, but since the new pups came and he's been running he's been really good and is turning out to be a good leader.  Behind them in "swing" are Katrina (left- the black one) and Earnheart.  Katrina and Earnheart are half siblings- their father is Solomon, who is a famous sled dog.  Sometimes we call Katrina "Fancy".  She's run the Iditarod twice and also ran the Yukon Quest, which are the two most intense races that I know of. Earnheart is kind of aloof but is a sweet dog.  Behind them are two of the snowboard dogs (Sims and I can't tell who is next to him), then Yukon (black and white), Flo and Burton, and then Puma and Pika in "wheel".  I call Pika "Pikachu", and she's one of the dogs that I like to snuggle with. 

Here's Casie and the second team taking off onto the tundra!

Freeze-Up is approaching

The river is freezing up more and more each day.  What is thought to be the last barges of the year came through yesterday.

Outside the dorm:

The Kuskokwim river:

 

Sitting in Casie's house waiting for her and the team to come back from their run. Right now it is snowing with light fluffy snowflakes drifting down from the sky.

I am completely exhausted.

reporting from the dog yard...

Sweater Delivery!

I got a sweater and some other goodies in the mail today. Thanks Phoebe and Tina!

It's been very chilly here. With the wind chill its been in the 20-30s. The ground is frozen, which is nice because it means less mud.

Just Desserts

Saturday night was the "Just Desserts" event at the cultural center (where I work).  There were about 8 acts and people donated desserts to help the high school Passport Club raise money for their trip.

I recruited some of the JV's to help me make some cupcakes for the event.  We also ate a lot of them!

I had to call Grandma for a baking consultation:

Pouring the batter into the the cups:

These were the coffee-chocolate-pudding cupcakes that we made.  They had cream cheese swirl (half with cocoa powder mixed in) frosting and then we sprinkled pumpkin spice seasoning on top.

New Hat

It's been cold here lately and windy.  Today it was in the 30s and felt like it was in the 20s with the wind chill.  Thanks to M&D for sending me a wool hat to keep me nice and toasty :)

Nature Walk

Last week Diane, the hounds and I headed out for a walk to try and see the beaver dam and possibly the moose that have been milling around town.  In addition to the moose that I saw behind the post office, there have been other moose sightings in town.

Ruffian running on the tundra

Leaves have already turned red and fallen off the blueberry bushes, while everything else is going dormant.

The hounds found some caribou bones (vertebrae column and pelvis here...they also found a femur)
 

And now for the best part:  the beavers.  We didn't actually see the beavers, but we got to check out their beaver mansion and infinity pool.  The beavers made a huge lodge, and then damned up a pond by building up walls made of sticks and mud.  The "infinity pool" wall is three feet tall and goes in a complete circle with the lodge sitting in the middle of it.

We also saw some moose tracks!  The moose I had seen behind the post office was a bull moose.  We saw two sets of moose tracks on the trail, one from an adult and one from a calf.  Since bull moose don't really hang around the calves, that means there's at least three moose in and out of Bethel!  (bull, cow and calf).

On the way back to the car the hounds picked up the caribou bones to munch on:

We also saw a kestrel flying!

Downtown Anchorage

This is long overdue from the last day of my vacation!  I didn't spend a lot of time in downtown Anchorage on my trip...only about 2 hours.  I just walked around the Fourth Avenue shops, saw Balto, and went into the visitor's centers.  The Public Lands information center had a bunch of stuffed animals from different parts of Alaska- my favorite of course was the polar bear!  At the Fur Rondy Headquarters they had a statue of Balto and nearby was an Iditarod mural.

Fiddle dance

Reporting live from my first fiddle dance. Saw a shooting star and the aurora on my way over! Sitting and listening to good live music since my usual dance partners are 5000 miles away... aka my dad, grandpa, brother and uncles.

I also made a little friend!  He's around a year old.  I turned on the camera app on my phone so he could see himself:

Overheard in the Airport

"I have three boxes, a backpack, and a swan"

Video Postcard: Aniak

Hello from Aniak!

Reyne and I landed in Aniak yesterday evening.  I have never been happier to get off of a plane.  There was nothing but turbulence and air pockets because of rain storms, so the plane was moving back and forth and up and down and all around the entire time. 

The planes keep on getting smaller!  This is our pilot walking to the plane.  It had 7 seats- one for each person (and someone younger than 2 that was held!) Guess who got/had to sit in the copilot/right seat?  Me!  I didn't take any pictures because I was too afraid to move and then I felt so sick that I was afraid to look at anything. 

First we landed in Kalskag.  I didn't get any pictures because I was trying to get undizzy and went for a little walk around the runway (you can do things like that on bush landing strips).  When we got back up in the air (for the 15 minute flight to Aniak) I tried to take some pictures.  These are of Kalskag (don't they have such a nice sewage lagoon?):

I was so happy to land in Aniak! 

We went for a tour and looked out on the river from a friend's house:

 

We had a delicious moose-roast dinner at someone who had lived in Bethel's house and stayed up playing (my first game!) of cribbage.

Today we're on the People to be Heard list at the Tribal Council meeting and then talking to some people at city hall.

Moose in Bethel

Today Nora and I decided to go to the "Q2" to get soft serve ice cream (I've been in an ice cream mood so I got two).  While we were there a man came up to us and told us that there was a moose behind the Post Office and power plant in one of the ponds, so Nora and I decided to go and check it out.  In our excitement I left my scarf behind, and the man was nice enough to come and drop it off at our moose viewing location!

There were a bunch of people stopping by in their cars and looking at the moose.  He was kind of far away and I didn't get very good pictures of him.  He was standing in  one of the ponds, I'm not sure if he was stuck or not.  Someone else said that they had seen him running around Blueberry subdivision.