Fur Rondy

Fur Rondy (short for Fur Rendezvous) is a 10 day Winter festival in Anchorage - it's like a state fair on ice. It started in 1935 as a way to encourage activities around the expected rendezvous of trappers from around the state who would leave their trap lines each Winter to bring their furs to market. Over the 83 years of the annual celebration, other staple events have been added, such as the kids' sled dog race down 4th Avenue and the "Running of the Reindeer", as well as a carnival that is just as well-attended as any Summer-Fall carnival around the country.  In the picture above you can see the carnival rides at work entertaining riders amidst the snowy Anchorage landscape.


Downtown Anchorage, with the carnival rides in the foreground, the Chugach Mountains in the background, all surrounded by the typical Anchorage traffic on our snow-packed streets.


Plenty of riders waiting for their turn at the carnival rides in the snow.


One of the neatest additions to Fur Rondy over the years is the competition of snow or ice carvings. This year it was snow carvings, and they were magnificent. They start as a block of compacted snow Friday night, and are judged Sunday as works of art.


This snow angel was the eventual winner.


Here the artist is working away Saturday night.


Wolf in a hollow tree.


Snow castle.


Bigfoot's butt???


Eskimo.


Ah, there's his face, looking the wrong direction.


Winter carnival rides.


The Rondy Fur Auction is still the centerpiece of the festival. There are usually some very unique fur pelts up for bid. Many of them now days are pelts confiscated by State Troopers from poachers, and the proceeds of those pelts goes to buy equipment for law enforcement.


Grayson checking out some of the sled dogs after the race.


This year they held a fat tire bike downtown.


Also one of the favorites, the blanket toss. Alaskan Native traditional game, with people holding the perimeter of the blanket and tossing the participant up in the air to see how high you can get them. Here the blanket is being swept clean of snow between tosses.


Now that's a hat. At Fur Rondy, the goal is to have everyone wear your favorite fur piece. This man stopped to let us take a picture of his wolf hat (an entire wolf skull and pelt).


Back home, last week, Grayson spent the day sledding while Dino and Heidi played in the snow.


This week, our snow piles have grown significantly, with another foot and a half falling over the week.


A spooky pic of the moon overlooking our snow piles out front.


Our potatoes sprouted in the bags.


We've only ate through 1 bag of our four collected from the garden, and evidently the crawl space where I kept them is too warm, so they sprouted right through the bags! Moved them into the garage where it is cooler, but also need to give some away since it is now clear that four bags were too many for us to consume over one Winter. If you want some Yukon Gold potatoes, come on by. Next year I'll plant only half what I did last year.


Another day at the sushi place, eating their 'boat load' of sushi.


I spent last week with the Alaska National Guard, to help with an exercise for a natural disaster type response. They stood up a Joint Task Force to respond to a number of events where uniformed military (both Guard and Active) were needed to respond, and I spent the week as the Joint Task Force Deputy Commander for Title 10 forces. Very similar to what I did with Florida and Puerto Rico last Fall for the Hurricanes, but this scenario was more Alaska-focused. I enjoyed it, and we accomplished quite a bit. This picture is of the totem and Guardsman statue outside the National Guard Armory in Anchorage where we established our headquarters.


This bear stood right outside my office during the exercise. Luckily they're all asleep this time of year.


We saw Little Shop of Horrors as a play on Saturday, the performance was good.


Grayson, feeding the plants.


The boys enjoyed it.


I think it might be time to invest in a ski rack for the SUV.


Jolene received her certificate from the National Board this week. Over two years of work to achieve the National Board Certification. She was the only teacher in the district, and one of only five in the state, to achieve the certification this year. Now she's trying to decide how to spend that stipend (the boys vote for a trip to Europe this Summer - - me too).

Creatures Great and Small

Although our bears are still denned up for the Winter, there are plenty of creatures out and about across the Alaskan landscape in February....and with no leaves on the trees to hide them, they are easy to spot. These moose have a bull traveling with them, who hasn't lost his antlers yet. They should be shedding off very soon.


We had quite the windstorm a week or two back. Hurricane force winds spilled over from the Copper River Valley into our Mat-Su Valley. Alaska is a land of extremes, even within the Winter we bounce from one extreme to another - - in this case, a lull of several weeks of cold, calm air allowed the cold air to sink to the surface and displace the warm air, creating a temperature inversion that can keep us well into the negative temps during long spells each Winter. But when higher pressure sets up in one of our adjacent (higher elevation) valleys, the resulting pressure gradient causes a violent overflow of air into our valley - which often results in a 3 day windstorm clocking in at 70-80 mph, or even higher. This time, the extreme pressure gradient was caused by a storm in the Gulf of Alaska (pic above), that would have been a 'named' hurricane flashing across your news feeds had it been on the East Coast, but here in Alaska it goes unnamed and unmentioned - though it still wreaks havoc across the Valley. The strength of the storm at sea caused a huge pressure gradient across the landscape which created hurricane force winds at our house lasting 5 straight days (and most of a sixth day) until the pressure across the two valleys equalized. A six-day blow was longer than we had experienced, and it left some damage in its wake. Our grill was disassembled by the wind, our wrought iron outdoor furniture toppled and blew across the yard, we lost some shingles off the roof for the first time since it was built (it snowed afterwards, so we'll have to wait til Spring to look more closely at the roof), and I assume the missing pieces of our compost bin are most of the way to Nome by now. Glad it's over, but that was quite the wind storm. At least the strong winds broke apart the temperature inversion, giving us some warm (~20 deg) temps for a while.


Bull moose through the spotting scope.


Can you find the small creature in this picture? (Hint given in the next-to-last picture of this blog).


Moose on the flats. The frozen wetlands give them access to grasses and shrubs that are normally much harder to reach during the rest of the year.


Moose and fast-growing calf.


At the creek, Dino closes his eyes, and wishes that when we he opens them, Summer will have returned and brought the salmon back with it.


Nope, still frozen.


A local pond, frozen over. Might be a good place to do some skate skiing lessons.


Pioneer Peak looking over the Hay Flats.


Another bull moose that has retained his (spike/fork) antlers. I would have expected them all to fall off by now, but seems to be fairly common this February to see bulls still sporting their racks.


Landon working his BPA sweetheart banquet, all dressed up.


Grayson also dressed up, but for a different event. Skiing on the freshly groomed trails at Government Peak.


Our good friend David blesses us with organic eggs from his chickens. We like the variety, and with two boys, they are consumed as fast as we can cook them. I like this carton of eggs he gave us, because it shows the variety of size, shapes and colors. The six in the back are from his turkey! We haven't tried the turkey eggs yet, but will soon.


Alright, here's the hint. A different angle on the same fellow hidden in the prior picture.


But this one is even harder.  There are seven ptarmigan in this picture. I can only find six. How many can you find? (Hint, if they closed their eyes, you'd never see them. Second hint, follow the footprints).

Maybe you can help me out. I think we only have one fox around the house this year, but these two videos seem to show two different foxes. The first is from November, before the snow. The second video is more recent, but I think the second fox is smaller (and he should be bigger with a thicker coat if it's the same fox). Same fox or not?

These last two videos are clips of moose moving around the house. I like the size perspective between the fox videos above and this first moose below - - moose are big.