Birds, Birds and Birds

I guess this time of year is for the birds! The eagles are out every day choosing sticks for their nest, but they don't choose the sticks that are on the ground - they choose tree branches, then land on them, and fly away ripping the branch from the tree and carrying it back to the nest. They should be laying eggs any day now. The next two birds seem to show up together each evening to feed, even though they are unrelated. The second and third pictures above are of one of the Chuckers (a type of Partridge) that visit our bird feeder each day. The last two pics are of our resident male pheasant who has made our house his home. We think they both came off a game farm ~10 miles away down near Pt Mackenzie. They pose well for pictures in return for the sunflower seeds that they seem to enjoy.

Unexpected Visitor

We had an unexpected visitor to the bird feeder this week. A male pheasant decided to make his presence known. There aren't supposed to be any in Alaska, but evidently a few land owners have begun to keep them for hunting leases, and some have escaped. Earlier this last fall, Pappy had thought he saw a female pheasant with chicks, but dismissed it thinking there were none in Alaska - but this male pheasant's appearance confirmed his suspicion. The bird is visiting our feeder a couple times a day, and seems to have Dino bewildered.

Landon and Grayson were excited to receive a package from Honey this week - and Landon spent that whole afternoon outside in the cold wind with gloves, coat and hat chipping away at the rock Honey sent until he had 'excavated' the entire stegosaurus fossil. He still wants to be a paleontologist.

The top picture is of Jolene mushing her team of sled dogs at last week's Becoming An Outdoors Woman 'retreat'. She's now our family's first musher! She also learned to snowshoe and x-country ski during the retreat, but we don't have pictures of those events.

Jolene and I volunteered at the Alaska Science Olympiad event this weekend, and she helped coach her school's team to a third overall finish in the state - I'll let her tell the story and add those pics later. She had some of her students win the state competitions associated with the courses she teaches them. I was impressed at the level of performance in some of the high school (and even junior high) engineering competitions. These kids have a bright future.

Iditarod 2010

Now that the race is in it's last days, I am finally (with a little prodding from Layne and Josh) getting a few of the pics posted. Newton Marshall, the Jamaican musher, should arrive in Nome any minute now. All my favorites: Jessie Royer, Jeff King, Martin Buser, Dallas Seavey, Mitch Seavey, and Dee Dee Jonrowe have already arrived safely. Lance Mackey won the race for the fourth year in a row in just under 9 days, coming within 2 hours of Martin Buser's record time. Keep in mind that all these photos are actually taken while standing on a lake! A lot less snow this year and so we were able to hike out further. One of these years I will ski or snowmachine out to where there are less people watching (and remember to wear long johns!)

We enjoyed the "tailgating - Alaska style" it was fun to watch people arrive in various forms of transportation. It was warmer this year (in the 20s) but the wind chill and lack of sunshine left us a little cold. Landon enjoys watching the dogs while Grayson says "Snowmachine, I love snowmachines." He had to wave to everyone that went by. I am always impressed with the friendliness of the mushers, but I am sure they are ready to get out on the trail and enjoy the peace, quiet and hardwork that is dog mushing!

Views of Alaska

Been a very busy month. My orders came in, and I'm scheduled to make the Ferry from Haines, AK to Bellingham, WA the first week in May. My refresher training starts in Lemoore on May 10th. So I've spent the last several weeks trying to get ready to check out of this command and set up my move. I'll spend only about 5 months "home" in Lemoore over the next 2+ years, so there's no use in uprooting the family until my schedule becomes a little less dynamic. Meanwhile, Pappy and Grammie will be here to help Jolene and the boys.

We made the trip out to Willow last week to watch the Iditarod start. Our Christmas lights are back on around the outside of the house, and will stay on unti the last musher makes it into Nome. The leaders are battling it out right now in their last day or two on the trail. Jolene will post those pics later after she downloads them from the camera. The pics on this post are from here around the house. The two adult eagles are back building their nest again this year. Spot (the one missing the wing feather) is just as feisty as ever. They'll lay their eggs around the first of April.

Jolene and Grammie are due back today after spending the weekend up at Chickaloon for a program called 'Becoming an Outdoors Woman' with courses in snow shoeing, dog mushing, x-country skiing, big game hunting, snow machining and others. They should have some good pictures and stories to tell when they get back.