Winter turning to Spring in Alaska. This picture was in February, when it was still frigid cold.
We saw -21 deg F this Winter, which is about normal for February.
Lots of snow this winter.
But not too much snow for Grayson to work on his Bball skills
In February, Grayson decided to make Buffy some monster cookies just after she entered hospice care at home.
Buffy had made me monster cookies each time I deployed. They were usually crumbs by the time they reached me in the Middle East, but I ate every crumb. We couldn't find Buffy's recipe, so Grayson tried one off the internet that said they would stay moist through the mail....but they turned out fairly dry right out of the oven.
But Buffy received them, and sent us back pictures when she got them (with a glass of milk to make up for how dry they were).
Dino walks on the surface of his favorite swimming hole, all frozen over.
Dino's heated water bowl...it's under there somewhere, I promise.
As the temperatures warmed, Heidi began to prowl the yard again.
This old fella visited us the other night. I like how it looks like he has a white mustache.
Heidi, stalking voles from one moose hoofprint to another.
As the quarantine started, we continued trying new cookies. These aren't monster cookies like Buffy's were, but they still tasted good, and we figured out how to make them more moist than our last attempt.
Easter service, streamed lived and watched from our living room.
Quarantine campfire, complete with s'mores.
Also served the purpose of burning off our spruce beetle-killed trees, to prevent the beetle larvae from spreading.
Hay Flats starting to "Spring" up.
In preparation for May gardening, I decided to do indoor starts this April.
Tomatoes, beets, peas, beans, cucumbers, melons and onions.
I hadn't tried starting the garden indoors before, but our ever-increasing sunlight really makes the sprouts jump up quick. Now I need to hope for an early last-frost so i can get these in the ground soon. I may have overdid the number of plants as well....used 7 of these flats, which means I might need to build a few more raised beds than I had planned this year.
Landon finished his BPA work in February, and they went out in style in tuxedos.
Our favorite Asian restaurant now sells KGB sushi rolls.....yeah, we have quite a few Russians living in Alaska!
In January our contractor finished the beam/pier replacement in the crawlspace. The house had to be lifted on hydraulic jacks to swap out the beams, and part of a wall removed to bring in the new beams. He replaced the old 4x10 solid beams with 4x12 Glulam engineered beams, and we beefed up the piers as well. After spending a couple of weekends installing and sealing new vapor barrier, our structural repairs are now complete. Still have drywall patching, painting, windows and other cosmetic damage left to finish, but it's nice to finally have the structural repairs complete.
Here's damage to one of the old beams we replaced.
Lots of movement and shaking during the earthquake cracked and deformed the old beams. The Glulams 'should' hold up better in future earthquakes, but we hope we don't have to find out!
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