Snorri howling at moose

Snorri generally alerts us of anything or anyone passing the house. Today a momma moose and TWO babies were in our backyard when she started wailing as loud as she could. When I saw what she was yelling about, we stood quietly and watched them for about 10 minutes. The two babies played together in the pond while the mom foraged for goodies in the yard. After a while they calmly walked past our outhouse into the woods.
Every day is a reminder that I live in AK.

First time on the Chena River fly fishing

My Brother in Law Terry and I went grayling fishing on the Chena river last week about 30 miles east of town. We did very well.
My prize for the day.

-Justin

Beautious scenes from Chena Hot Springs Road

While Justin and Terry were fishing Mandy and I looked for wild flowers and other goodies.

Eli and chickens

Up the Richardson Hwy past Summit Lake

Awesome views of the Alaska Range. I don't think we could have asked for nicer weather.

Valdez

Driving the Glenn Hwy around midnight

Eli slept through all of the bumps and road construction. What a good baby. The view was magical- all five hours of it. We stayed the night in Glennallen before heading south to Valdez. Mandy and Terry stayed in a cute little cabin and we camped out in the truck with the dogs.

Kenai Fjords

Exit Glacier in Seward, AK

Me and Eli

Justin and I met up with Mandy, Terry, and my nephew Eli about a week and a half ago down in Seward. We traveled most of the road system together and had an awesome time, but getting to see Eli was, by far, the best part.

Gunnar checking out the chicken coop

The chickens moved out of the big house about three weeks ago and we're all a little bit happier now. They have more room to flap their wings and we don't have chicken dust covering every inch of the cabin. This was Gunnar's first and last time in the coop.
Chrissy

Ptarmigan Hunting and some strange weather

Well, its spring time in Alaska, and while its not 40 below, its been cold and off and on snowing alot. On Tuesday we had a dismal day in town with gray skies and light sleetish rain, but when a friend and I headed west of town up to Murphy Dome (a really big hill, REALLY big hill that goes above the timber line and has one of those weird looking early warning missle defense thigns on top of it) check it out we found awesome weather. Sunny, about 55 degrees and no wind. We were determined to see and bring home some of the elusive ptarmigan that live on this hill. The ptarmigan for those who don't know is apparently not that hard of a bird to hunt if you can figure out where they are hanging around, but up to this point I have not found that place. They are solid white in the winter and blend in with the snow pretty well. In the meantime, you end up trudging through snow and ice trying to find that place. We hiked around for a couple of hours, up and down, through big wide stands of willows that harbored 3 and 4 foot deep snow that was way to soft to be walking on. Most all of that snow on the hill has gotten mushy by this time of year, just too much sun. So we're falling through here and there. Sinking up to the waist.
Well, I saw one bird. It was around that point where you mentally give up on the goal you set out for and just start walking, not really paying any attention to the surroundings. Thats when it always seems to happen for me. I am loping along, trying to stay on top of the snow and then there he is, about 10 feet from me, just looking up. I shot and thought I had him, but a second later he flew off and left me searching for the next hour. No luck.
Ooh well, hes either another predators free meal or somehow my tired shot was so off that it blew right past him. In the end, I was just glad to have seen a ptarmigan this year and to have gotten out and seen the beautiful mountains this time of year. Can you find the ptarmigan in this photo? This morning we had some freak snow storm move through that is still dumping snow as I write. Its supposed to turn to rain later this afternoon, so it'll probably all be gone in a few hours, but its weird how we keep drying up, losing all the snow and then get it back a day later.
Back to work for me...
-Justin

more babies

The dogs have become quite fond of the chickies. They've gone from incessantly licking their lips to just calmly staring. The two blonds (Kentucky and Miss Ohio) are White Rocks and the light orange two (Marita and Buffy) are Buff Orpingtons. Precious huh?

More new chickens!

Just talked to the feed store and we'll be picking up our other 4 chicks tonight. 2 White Rock's and 2 Buff Orpingtons.
I will do what I can to get Chrissy to take some more photos and get them up here.
-Justin

our new arrivals

Justin and I both work for very cool people. We were able to leave work early today so that we could pick up 2 of the six chickies. The other 4 wont be here for another two weeks. Meet Nubbins and Cupcake. There will be a ton more photos to come.

getting inspired

Okay, so I don't usually post about things super personal to me, but in this case it's sort of necessary and I guess appropriate. For the past while I've had an overabundance of creative energy that I haven't been able to figure out how to channel. This morning gave me new hope and by writing about it, I thought it might help me gather my thoughts and send me down a new path. There's been a common thread throughout my photography and that is to construct things at some point during the process- whether it's an environment to photograph within or arranging the photos themselves. Lately I've been more interested in the creating side of things. The photograph has become secondary and is merely a documentation of an idea. The question isn't what should I photograph, but what should I create? I like to collect things. I find myself picking things up like twigs or dead insects that evoke something inside of me. I guess what they evoke is a sense of wonder... how can something so simple be so flawlessly beautiful? How can a leaf falling from a tree leave me so inspired and what do I do with this inspiration? I've recently started working for a local greenhouse. I'm pretty sure that it's saved my 'creative' life. It has brought me home and helped to ground me. I more or less grew up in a greenhouse, so I'm treading on very familiar territory. Touching the dirt, watching a seed grow, smelling the leaves of a tomato plant make me feel alive and feel connected to a cycle. My collection has begun growing again since I've started working there and this photo is a result of that. My new creative path is to take things we overlook or take for granted on a daily basis and to put them into a different context where they can be stopped and viewed with intent. I'm not sure where this path will take me, but I'm interested in finding out.

L.O.V.E.

You know, you don't truly realize how much you love someone until you witness them being chased by a 1000 lb moose. Today Justin and I went on a leisurely ski up on the trails near Ballaine Lake. A moose encounter was really bound to happen sooner or later, but I didn't quite imagine it happening the way that it did. We were nearing the end of our ski when I saw a moose charging out of the brush ahead of me (this is where Justin was because he always skis way ahead of me). I guess Justin startled the moose and in turn began chasing him out of fear. I couldn't believe what I was seeing! This moose was a ski poles length away from Justin as he sped away. After my initial shock I started screaming Justin's name which then caught the attention of the moose. It looked back at me and then tore off the trail. I threw off my skis and by this time Justin had stopped to remove his. I was nearing tears when he yelled back to tell me to stop; that there was another moose on the other side of the trail (probably the baby). Now we were in even a bigger predicament. The mom was on one side, the baby on the other and I was going to have to cross between them to get up to where Justin was. Eventually another skier came along and we built something of an alliance in order to pass the moose safely. It gave me a real scare. When we came to a stop I kissed him and smiled knowing that I still had my husband in one piece. Love is a funny thing. Sometimes when you have it so good you forget how precious it is and how easily it can be taken away.
Chrissy

Solar Power

Chrissy and I went to the Homebuilder's show today, mainly because it was something interesting to do indoors on a Saturday. It was still pretty cold out today and its hit that point of pseudo-spring that makes you just want it to be occasionally warm outside. So, indoors was the name of the game. While we were there we ended up talking with some people at a solar power booth. I am really intrigued by the idea of being able to live off grid, while still having the available grid if necessary. The only problem with that up here is that the Electric Co-op currently has a buy back power program that is paying $1.50 per k/w when they sell it for only .17 cents per k/w. In turn the way it was told to me was that you can't have a solar system with a battery bank in combination with the grid power line. You can have the panels and the inverter feeding your daytime or "lighttime" power comsumption, but after dark you'd be dependant on the grid. That doesn't fit in well with my idea about power independance, so it would only make sense to look at "off grid" units. For what its worth, they really didn't seem that expensive compared to what I had figured they would be. The company that we talked to has a primer on the basics of how the system works here.

This all got me thinking about a couple differnet things, we're going to be building a greenhouse soon and one of the things that I have always been intrigued with is a biotherm. Its a water heater with a pump that runs warm/hot water through a bunch of small hoses that sit on top of your shelves but under your plant trays in the greenhouse. It keeps them warm as they are starting out.
I was wondering if its possible to make a closed loop water heating system that would get its energy soley from the sun and not need an inverter or pump or anything. Could the action of heating water be enough to make it funnel through a system of hoses and circulate? Would the sun warm it enough that it would make any difference? Is there enough Fairbanks sun in March and April for the whole thing to even work?
I don't know, but I think that its worth looking into a little bit further.
Here is a link to my terrible diagram of what I was thinking about earlier. Its terrible, I know. I was essentially just scribbling, but the idea seems doable. I was reading about all sorts of differnet solar systems on Build It Solar and realized that you can pretty well adapt it to most any application. At worst it looks like I may have to get a small electric pump to run the whole thing.. Looks like this solar pump might do the trick.

Who knows, it just seems like interesting stuff to look into. That is just about all that is on my mind tonight.
-Justin

my two favorite guys

Northern Lights late tonight

The northern lights were the best I've ever seen. This was my first attempt to photograph them. It's not as easy at it looks. The forecast calls for more painted skies until Saturday, so I have a few nights to play around with photographing them.

Chrissy 4 degrees

new beginnings

A lot has happened since my last post. We've gotten through the coldest part of winter (January and February) and now Spring is at our doorstep and on the brain. It's been on the brain since the beginning of March when we had our first premature bout of warm weather. You would'nt believe how tropical 30 degrees feels after 40 below. Everyone shed about 10 lbs of winter gear and had stripped down to sandals and short sleeves. Fortunately the days have gotten much longer, but warm weather can't get here soon enough. It's trying really hard to snow right now and the temperatures have been hovering in the upper teens.
In preparation for our warm weather we have been building a chicken coop that will house six birdies (laying hens). We've been doing a lot of studying and chatting with local folks who have 'wintered' them over with success. Designing/building has been an interesting challenge for Justin and myself. Let's just say that it's been a real test of our communication skills. It's been fun though, even through the arguments. The coop is tightly insulated and should keep the hens laying even through the coldest months of the winter. We already have people lined up and ready to buy fresh eggs. If all goes as planned, which nothing ever really does, it should be a self sustaining venture. We've decided to raise the chicks ourselves and they should be arriving the first week of April (only 48 hours old).
I've also been trying to speed up Spring by planting/sewing seeds in our south facing windows. So far I've planted some Dahlia tubers, annual seeds, and tomato seedlings. I like to just sit there and watch them grow with childlike wonder. It's good to see green. The last chance of frost is usually around the first of June, so I still have some patient waiting to do. Living in this climate really makes you appreciate the seasons.

'Every moment Nature starts on the longest journey, and every moment she reaches her goal.'
-Goethe
Chrissy 14 degrees and snowing

beginnings of the chicken coop