Spring is here!

I just returned home after spending Spring Break visiting family and friends in Tennessee. It was really warm there a few days while my Mom and I were traveling. I had a wonderful trip and returned home to 10 inches of fresh snow! This was the biggest snowfall we have had in awhile and I wasn't even here to watch it come down. Greg wasn't too fond of it on Sunday, aka the first day of spring, as he shoveled the driveway and walkways for 4 hours. Spring so far as been great.

 We've hit near 50 degrees the last 3 days in a row.

 Our winter eagles are still here but will be gone soon.

They will be leaving soon as the warmer temps become the norm.

 We tried to take a few pictures of the eagles.

 Hopefully before they leave, we can get some pics of better quality.

Weekend Visitor

We awoke Saturday to an early morning visitor. We could see through the window a huge moose in front of our home. The moose was making its way across the yard but decided to stop and enjoy breakfast.

 Unfortunately for us, the breakfast turned out to be one of our young birch trees.

 The moose must have really liked the taste because it stepped up on the raised bed and proceeded to nibble away!

 Greg tried to shoo it away without much luck.

 You don't want to make them mad because they might still be mad when they encounter the next person. They can be incredibly aggressive and dangerous when agitated.

 To give you a sense of scale, the spruce tree on the right is almost 7 and a half feet tall.

Eventually, the moose moved on but not before deciding to stop in the corner of the yard and really put the hurt on a smaller birch tree!

 It finally tired of that tree and slowly made its way around the neighborhood.

Something I had looked forward to this weekend was the big snowstorm the Weather Service predicted for us. Some predictions had up to a foot of fresh snow!  Of course, we got maybe an inch total of new snow this afternoon. It was enough to stop our record streak of snowless days at 37! Can you believe it? We had not seen a measurable snowfall in 37 days! Greg hadn't complained about lack of new snow but I missed it!

First blog post of the new year!

Hello everyone and hope your 2016 is going great for you! It's been very busy for us so far. It took us a little while to recover from our Christmas trip. Then we started moving to our new home. We finally got totally moved in over the weekend. Greg's birthday was spent cleaning. He did get a drive-thru hamburger as a treat for dinner. No cake though. I think we are going to enjoy this new home. We have over twice as much space as our condo, a beautiful yard, a nice sunroom/greenhouse, and I can get a pet! I won't let it out alone, however, as we have two huge bald eagles that winter in the trees four houses down! These birds are gorgeous and it is so exciting to have them so close to us.

 The last week of January, Greg and his friends, Kay

                           and Melody,

 were able to walk to Town Square on their lunch break and see this year's collection of ice sculptures.

 We may have go see them again, as they are much more impressive at night with the lights illuminating them.

 For the most part, the ice sculptures seemed to have survived a huge 7.1 earthquake here in Anchorage.

 It happened Sunday, January 24, at 1:30 a.m.

Our local newspaper said that most of Anchorage was asleep at 1:29 a.m. but everyone in town was awake at 1:30 a.m., including me.

 Greg was still up and it probably frightened him more because when he made it to the bedroom doorway, he could see the dining room chandelier swinging almost touching the ceiling as it moved from side to side.
 It was quite scary and seemed to go on forever.

 It lasted actually less than a minute. Hopefully, we will never experience another one like that or stronger. There was quite a bit of  minor damage around town.
Thankfully, the new home doesn't seem to have suffered any damage.

Thursday, December 17th

Wow, it's been quite a few days since we last posted! I guess we will finally wrap up the polar bear trip pictures. Probably the most exciting part of the trip was after we spotted a mother and her cub about 75 yards away. We made our way near the shore to get a closer look. The captain threw the anchor over into the water to help keep us near the shore and in a good spot to view mom and cub. The anchor somehow hit the side of the boat making a huge clanking noise.

 When the anchor hit that boat, the mother who had been paying us no attention suddenly rocketed toward us at full speed.

Sorry for the blurry pictures, but we were not prepared to photograph a charging and very protective polar bear mom!

It was quite thrilling and somewhat scary to be in that tiny boat and see her racing toward us.

Remember, we were anchored down about 15 feet off the shore and not going anywhere quickly.

 It was quite a bit of relief when her paws hit the water's edge and she then stopped.

As the beautiful cub joined its mom on the shoreline, it became apparent she wasn't going to come out after the boat, and everyone quickly realized just how lucky we were.

 We were literally feet away from such magnificent and rare animals that may not be around in 50 years.

This photo I took shows just how close we were! Greg's fancy lens wasn't needed for these shots.

We are headed to Tennessee for the holidays. Wishing all of you a Merry Christmas and a great 2016.

Even more from our polar bear trip!

Here are a few more pictures from our polar bear trip to Kaktovik, Alaska.

 First, a little background on this village.

 It has a population of around 250 people.

 Kaktovik is an Inupiat village located on Barter Island.

 This island is found in the Northeast corner of Alaska near the Canadian border.

Kaktovik is a very isolated place!

 However, this remoteness allows the residents to maintain their Eskimo traditions.

These people are very dependent on the subsistence lifestyle with caribou and whale being the primary meats they rely upon for survival.

 Another interesting fact is that Kaktovik lies within the boundary of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).

ANWR contains nearly 20 million acres. It is the largest wildlife refuge in the country. Kaktovik is one of only two villages located within the refuge.



 Check out this big boy!

 Sometimes, we just floated along in the water as the bears walked along the shore.

 More pics to come!

More from our polar bear adventure!

Kateel motored us along the shore in search of more bears. If we saw any close to shore, we just followed along quietly alongside them. When they seemed to be preoccupied with something, we would stop and anchor to allow us a chance to take some photos.

 It's hard to actually express how gigantic these bears really are. When standing on their hind feet, they can be up to 11 feet tall. They can weigh up to 1,500 pounds! You will notice in some of these pictures that many of the larger bears are not snow white like others. This is because as they get older their fur turns a creamy yellow color. In this photo, a mom and her cub keep their distance from a resting monster male. He was massive!

Mom and cub also walk near some other resting bears. These look as if they have been rolling in the dirt.

This lone bear was out for a stroll.

 He made some mean noises as he ambled along.

 We were able to get a few pictures of this bear as it walked right to the edge of the water near us.

 His fur was a beautiful clean white color.

 He scratched around a bit in the sand and then made his way over the little hill to the other side of the island.

 Many more pics to come!