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.