Arizona Vacation

 

Stuey, Nora and I have been on vacation in Arizona for the last week.  We have been spending our Thanksgiving vacation with the cousins - Jack, Sam, Polly and John. We have done this for a few years now and it has become an annual tradition.

Our days have been a blur of time by the pool, hikes in the desert, good food and watching the sunset from the porch.  There will be a number of blogposts to come, but here are a few pictures to whet your appetite.

Patrick

Tame Ice and Wild Snow

 

Lately Kodiak has had GREAT ice.  In the meanwhile the downhill skiing has not been so great - too icy.  

Anyway while skating I got to thinking about a recent trend I've seen on social media.  There is now such a thing as 'wild ice'.  I gather 'wild' ice is ice that is out in nature as opposed to man made.  I find the whole concept of 'wild' ice ridiculous. Ice is ice.  I've never skated on ice rinks in my entire life - too small and confined.  But I sort of get the feeling that the people talking about 'wild ice' grew up skating on rinks.

No one makes the distinction between 'wild' snow and man-made snow.  Everyone would agree that 'wild' snow does not exist.  Backcountry skiing is what skiers would call it. 

I like ice where I can take my dogs skating.

Patrick

Smooth Ice

 

Lately it has been super windy and cold.  It's a sheet of ice on high and the downhill skiing is a little scary.  But since Sunday we've also had ice on the small ponds down at sea level.  So we got ice skating and there is no need to climb up into the mountains to get in our dog walks.

Red and Rey both like the ice and race all around chasing after me while I ice skate.  But Bode refuses to go on the ice.  He broke thru the ice a couple of winters ago and ever since he has refused to go out on it - even on ice covered in snow.  Smart dog.

Patrick

The lake at Fort Abercrombie is still open

Let the sun shine in

 

These are all pictures from dog walks last week.  We have plenty of snow but it has been pretty cold and often very windy.  Sometimes the skiing has been icy and sometimes excellent.  And somedays I decided not to ski at all.  But on all the days the sun shined.  Even on Thursday - it was supposed to rain that day, but instead I had spring skiing conditions on Pyramid in the sunshine.

So the dogs and I have been getting our daily quota of sunshine.  Beautiful, low-angled, early winter sunshine - Warm and appreciated.

Patrick

Garden ready for Winter

Yesterday I topped off the veggie bin in the fridge with carrots from the garden - I harvested a couple of gallons of carrots for the winter. This morning I covered the rest of the carrots with leaves and topped with a tarp.  I hope to harvest those carrots in spring.  The last time I did this I harvested 8 gallons of fresh carrots in April (click here for post). Fingers crossed it works again.

As an experiment I also buried my unharvested beets in leaves.  It'll be interesting to see what those taste like in spring.

I am still harvesting kale, and my kale often does not die in the winter.  So I am hoping to harvest it all winter long.  Except last winter the deer ate all my kale.  I also have Brussel sprouts to harvest.  Let's hope the dogs keep the deer away!

My salad greens are just about done.  The salad is still alive but I think this recent cold snap marks the end of the road for garden salads.  But it is amazing how long of a growing season I get here in Alaska.  I started harvesting nettles in May and here it is in November and I am still harvesting salad greens and carrots.  And I may have kale for the rest of the winter. And I do not even use hoops or covers.

Patrick

 

Corvis the Raven heckling the dogs on yesterday's walk