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Jennifer Searls

Window Thinking

Alaska

June 12, 2022

tourist season

Alaska, home

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 …

Read moretourist season
May 6, 2022

Sale Pending

Alaska, home, throughline

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.

Read moreSale Pending
February 11, 2022

Mountain View

100WordMicro, Alaska, tinytruth

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 …

Read moreMountain View
November 14, 2021

Scritchy Snow

Alaska, Window Thinking

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 …

Read moreScritchy Snow
November 11, 2021

Turn. Turn. Turn.

Alaska, beauty, Grief, Seasons, throughline, Window Thinking

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 …

Read moreTurn. Turn. Turn.
October 28, 2021

October Beats

17 beats, Alaska, beauty, Seasons, throughline

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.)

Read moreOctober Beats
October 26, 2021

Heads Up For moose

Alaska, Seasons

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 …

Read moreHeads Up For moose
October 18, 2021

generosity in a string of lights

Alaska, Seasons, Window Thinking

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 …

Read moregenerosity in a string of lights
October 17, 2021

Living on into the crossfade

Alaska, Seasons, throughline, Window Thinking

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 …

Read moreLiving on into the crossfade
September 1, 2021

On this Day

Alaska

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 …

Read moreOn this Day
February 12, 2021

Morning Sky

Alaska, beauty, Seasons

Sunrise before 9am and coming three minutes earlier EVERY day! Even more – what a gift when day breaks open like this….

Read moreMorning Sky
February 2, 2021

Dancing Lights

Alaska, beauty

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 …

Read moreDancing Lights
January 9, 2021

What Do The Eyes Say?

Alaska

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 …

Read moreWhat Do The Eyes Say?
January 8, 2021

paint the sky with color

Alaska, beauty

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 …

Read morepaint the sky with color
May 15, 2020

welcome to the neighborhood

Alaska, Seasons, Window Thinking

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 …

Read morewelcome to the neighborhood
March 26, 2020

Living in the Age of COVID-19

Alaska, Grief, hope

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.

Read moreLiving in the Age of COVID-19
March 14, 2020

living into the light

Alaska, beauty, hope, Seasons, Window Thinking

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 …

Read moreliving into the light
September 3, 2019

living in a changing climate

Alaska

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 …

Read moreliving in a changing climate
August 30, 2019

Rapids Yurt in August

Alaska, hiking

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. …

Read moreRapids Yurt in August
August 9, 2019

Hike to Rabbit Lake

Alaska, hiking

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 – …

Read moreHike to Rabbit Lake
August 1, 2019

Portage Pass Trail

Alaska

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 …

Read morePortage Pass Trail
May 3, 2019

Carr-Gottstein Park and Beyond

Alaska, Window Thinking

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 …

Read moreCarr-Gottstein Park and Beyond
April 12, 2019

With Warning or No Warning: How are you going to live?

Alaska

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 …

Read moreWith Warning or No Warning: How are you going to live?
April 4, 2019

Anchorage Spring

Alaska, Seasons

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 …

Read moreAnchorage Spring
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