Window Thinking
One day last week I was out running on the Coastal Trail when I heard a familiar whirr behind me. It took me a pause to identify. It was not the sound of bloated fat bike tires rolling over pavement or the subtle hum of an ebike, but…. rather, a Segway!!! With the ever growing …
A home is not simply a building; it is the shelter around the intimacy of a life. –John O’Donohue, Beauty: The Invisible Embrace This house came available just when we needed it nearly 5 years ago. We pass it on now with deep gratitude for the shelter it provided our family.
The real estate listing said the house had a mountain view, which was hard to believe from our vantage point on the street in September when daylight was fading away. We’ll buy it, we said, we like the backyard and we don’t need a mountain view, which was a gamble, but summers with chickens, gardens, and a …
It was 4F degrees when the dog and I went out for a walk this morning at 8a, still an hour before the sunrise. Before stepping out the door, I pulled on layers of warmth – these Alaska years have taught us many variations according to conditions, and it always cracks us up that as …
Tomorrow is Ryan’s birthday which has become a marking point during our Alaska years – will we get our Anchorage winter snow pack started by his birthday? This year, it seems we have. (and right on schedule) Most afternoons lately I have been hanging out with our chickens – ever since a hawk swooped down …
A mellow sun hangs low this afternoon and autumn is fading out. (I took this photo on the 18th, but I got distracted while looking for 17 beats. Thus, the delay in posting.)
On our routine walk the dog the other night, David and I stepped beneath some of my favorite neighborhood lights, through the gate, and onto the field at the school down the street. As soon as we were through the gate though, we realized something big was moving to our right. As our eyes adjusted …
The setting sun cast an irresistible glow through our windows tonight and it pulled me straight out the front door and down the street to the edge of town. The mountains were out. Sleeping Lady, covered in a blanket of snow. And beyond her, the magnificent Alaska Range. A little to the north, I could …
The greenhouse is cleaned out and the yard is pretty much put to bed. Our garbage service recently sent a note to say they’ll stop picking up the yard debris can at the end of the month and won’t start up again till May. That is six months from now. The sun rises at 8:45 …
September 1, 2012. The sky was flat grey as our moving caravan crossed the Canada/U.S. border and in just a few miles more, the rain began to fall. Welcome to Alaska. We’d left Oregon in 80 degree summer sunshine, but here we had driven deep into the heart of fall. Bright flecks of gold sparked …
Sunrise before 9am and coming three minutes earlier EVERY day! Even more – what a gift when day breaks open like this….
David and I always go to the backyard and check on the chickens when we get back from our nightly walk-the-dog-around-the-block. Last night, after saying goodnight to the chickens, we were on our way back to the house when David stopped and pointed over our roof, Are those lights? I stopped and stepped back to …
Yesterday morning I reached for my keys and headed to the front door to go start the car warming up when I glanced out the window and saw a young moose high stepping his way into a front yard across the street. I hadn’t seen a moose in the neighborhood since right before Christmas and had …
It’s always a long winter season of whites and greys and brown here. We got off to a good snow start this year and have had snow on the ground since the end of October. Not exactly complaining! Snow is far better than icy, wet in our long winter dark!! But we haven’t had any …
When we moved into this house the previous owner left us a note on the counter. Welcome home! she said. And also…..the magpies! The magpies indeed. For two and a half years now, magpies have been the main bird on the block. Periodically there’s a protest in the neighborhood online bulletin board: WHOEVER IS FEEDING …
The HunkerDown AnchorTown Patrol makes unannounced rounds and we are glad to report tonight – we were home and our hands were clean! Our helpers need us to PLEASE STAY HOME.
We’ve come through another dark winter here in Anchorage and light is returning at a rate of nearly 6 additional minutes/day. This picture is from my walk at 8:30p, just after sunset last night. Deep winter dark is behind us now and the 24/7 light is coming at us fast. I’ve lived the dramatic dark/light/dark/light …
Over the weekend we got more rain than we had in all of August! August is usually one of our rainiest months (and my least favorite), but Anchorage only got .04″ rain in August. It was a record-smashing, hot, dry summer here. (<<check that link out for some crazy weather stats) I remember back to …
Last Sunday we took a fabulous break from our routines. In the morning David and I ran one of my favorite Anchorage annual runs – Owen’s Milk Money 5k. And then we got the boys and dog and drove up to Eagle River Nature Center where we hiked <2 miles out to the Rapids Yurt. …
David and I (& Ginger) hiked to Rabbit Lake last Sunday afternoon. He has done this hike several times before, but this was my first. To get there we followed DeArmoun Road east until it became Canyon Road and then Upper Canyon Road. Recent/current road construction has made this a very pleasant access road – …
Highly reviewed across the Alaska trail chatter network, and also by real life friends, this hike has been on my list for a long time. Last Sunday David and I (+Ginger) checked it out. Getting there: First of all – the Whittier Tunnel. The Anton Anderson Memorial Tunnel is the longest highway tunnel in North …
Hey, I want to show you something, said my friend, as she steered her truck off the north-south Minnesota thoroughfare and navigated west, through a maze of neighborhood streets I’d never be able to retrace. It was a warm Saturday afternoon in July. (seriously – 70 degrees!) and we’d just been downtown at the Skinny …
I’ve been meaning to watch the PBS Nature episode, Moose: Life of a Twig Eater, ever since it first became available three years ago, but I never got around to it until a few days ago when I realized PBS would be taking it offline this week. I am sorry to have delayed too long …
Is that grass? asked a friend in response to my facebook post: It is! I said. It’s been five months under a snow blanket. We are super excited because when the grass appears, spring must be right behind! But spring in Alaska is ugly (and stinky). In many places now, depending on sun angles, the …