Beginning the Earthquake Structural Repairs

Eight months since the 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck, centered just a handful of miles from our house, and we are now finally starting to get some of the structural repairs completed. We completed some of the initial cosmetic repairs ourselves, and will be working on other small projects for some years to come. But the work to the house foundation, decks and pier/beam structures are being completed by a contractor.  Here the contractor dug out a concrete pad that had shifted during the quake, and rebuilt the support for an upper deck.

He used some small equipment to sink helical piles into the ground to provide new supports for the 2nd story deck.

I think we'll like this alternative solution to sonotubes or concrete pads.

Afterwards, we had him build a Trex deck in place of the old concrete pad.

And now the deck supports are beefed up to 4x6 versus the previous 4x4 supports, which were damaged during the quake.

Landon's room is still torn apart, while we figure out how we're going to reinforce this wall.

The fissures are all filled, ready for soil and seeding.

I used the broken up concrete pad, and the extra substrate to fill in some of the fissures caused by the small land slides, though I didn't have enough to do the whole job.  Fill dirt and rocks are a little hard to order this summer, due to the state using much of it to make road repairs from the quake.  But it feels good to finally get some of the work started.

Fishing with the Family

We had a visit from Honey, Kate and Chase, and took them with Landon and his girlfriend, Shannon, down to the creek to fish for some sockeye.

Kate learning the 'flip' technique.

Kate landed the first sockeye.

Chase, working on landing the second, with Honey giving pointers.

Chase didn't take long to land a large red.

Meanwhile, Landon and Shannon were on a different part of the creek pulling some in. Shannon hadn't caught a salmon before, so Landon was ready to help her land her first one.

Once she had it on the shore, she learned how to use the 'fish bopper'.....

And to pop the gills to bleed it out quickly.

Shannon and her first salmon.


Jolene's first two salmon of the year.

Dino enjoyed watching the action, and he was glad to be out of the yard for a little while.

Grayson's Birthday

Grayson celebrated his 12th birthday this July. He chose to spend the evening at the Extreme Fun Center playing games.










He and Landon had the laser tag all to themselves for nearly an hour.






Mini bowling.








He wanted a bike for his birthday, and we were able to find one in the neighborhood at a yard sale that fit him very nicely.


Two ice cream desserts??? Happy Birthday Grayson!

Summer Walks

Each season provides a different perspective on the trails around our house. The eagles lay eggs each April, and by July the chicks are beginning to look like their parents (without the white plumage).


No one grows cotton in Alaska, but we have plenty of 'cotton' falling off our cottonwood trees this time of year.

This big fellow meandered through our garden patch.  No garden planted this year, due to need to roll equipment over the garden patches to repair some earthquake fissures and slides down the bluff.


We've had no swallows take up residence in our bird houses for a couple of years.  I think I figured out why.  This little guy just likes to lounge in the houses and watch us work around the yard.


A bumble bee hovers over a fireweed bloom.

Dino down on the hay flats.


Jolene, looking back towards the house.

Dino bounding through the Alaska high grass.








I thought these flowers growing on lily pads in the pond near the house looked interesting.




Heidi looks like a gargoyle perched atop a retaining wall in our backyard.


We've had a hot summer.  More 80 degree days than ever recorded, and even hit 90 degrees (also a first).


Thermometer showed 93 on our back deck.


Unfortunately the heat brings wildfire danger, and evacuation warnings. This year we had a wildfire start in the woods near our house, and within minutes of it being reported, a helicopter landed near the house and dropped off several firefighters who put it out.....30 minutes from the time it started until the firefighters left enroute to other fires.  Impressive for a state with such a low population.

Ever seen a grasshopper comb his hair?  (video courtesy of Honey).

The Lost Expedition

In 1845, Captain John Franklin departed England with 129 crew aboard the HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, with a mission to navigate the Northwest Passage. Instead, the ships were eventually trapped in ice in the Canadian Archipelago, and the crew abandoned the ships, relinquishing them to the crushing forces of Arctic ice.  After many searches and rescue attempts, all of the crew and the Captain would eventually succumb to diseases and the elements before they were found.  The ships would remain lost until one was discovered in 2014, and the other in 2016.

The entrance to the Anchorage museum, where the discovered articles of the Franklin Expedition were on exhibit.

The Inuit people of current day Canada played a crucial role in the investigations into what happened to the Franklin Expedition.

Although there were no written records kept by the Inuits, investigators found that stories they told of previous expeditions were re-told with incredible accuracy 300 years after they occurred, having been past down from one generation of storytellers to the next.

Once the wrecks were eventually found, artifacts were recovered, and are on exhibit at the museum in Anchorage.

Belaying pins, made of heavy metal, bent by the ice as it crushed the HMS Erebus.

HMS Erebus ship's bell, recovered from the wreckage ~170 years after it sank amidst crushing Arctic ice.

A canister with teeth marks from a curious polar bear readily visible.

They also had an exhibit of a local popular cartoon - Molly of Denali. Would probably be more correctly pronounced if they had called it Sally of Denali, though.