Lovely and amazing

I wonder if other people talk about the weather as much as Alaska bloggers do. We must sound obsessed -- but in our defense, good weather days are few and far between, and are an occassion for jubilation. The last week or so has been warm and comfortable - high 60's by the time I get home from work. And that is not normal for this time of year. I remember wearing gloves and a hat to work last May! The trees are hard-core blooming now and green grass is visible in every yard. I keep thinking it must be June because of the amount of snow that has melted off the mountains. I hope the weather continues for our summer visitors!

In other news, I changed out my blog masthead photo -- the giant poppies are from last year's 4th of July trip to Kachemak Bay. My sister came up for a visit and camped/fished with us over the extended weekend. D dropped us both off to visit the tiny town of Seldovia for the Independence Day celebration while he fished in peace!

Risha's first bass.

Greased pole climbing in Seldovia - this guy climbed the highest and won $100.

My favorite part of Seldovia's 4th of July festivities: canoe jousting! The water was 46 degrees.

Cakes so awful you'll cry

Um, wow. People are out there making some really weird and wildly inappropriate cakes. And taking photos of them. And sharing said photos on the internets.

Here they are gathered together in one blog for your viewing pleasure -- CakeWrecks:

To make up for all the cakes gone bad, the blogger posts lovely and normal cakes on Sundays.

Don't forget to check out the fan favorites:

I have no words -- just read through this post: Inspiration vs. Perspiration That poor woman!

Holy ego, batman: When Brides Have No Budget (or Taste)

Last bunch of photos

Everyone is probably thinking, enough with the Deep Creek photos already! Wish granted peoples. This is it.

Pop quiz: which peak is this?

Answer: if you didn't say Redoubt, obviously you are not reading enough of my blog. A rap on the knuckles with a ruler for you!

It may look calm and serene on the beach, but trying to pull up on shore in a boat is a nightmare -- which is why the tractor launch does so well in these areas. The tiny little waves will beach a boat so fast it'll make your head spin. And then you are stuck until the next high tide, which is hours away. There are no protected coves here (like Whittier or Homer) so beach breaks are discouraged by the captain.


This is beautiful downtown (and pretty much the whole town of) Ninilchik. Photo taken from the top of the Ninilchik View Campground stairs.

I was picture-taking like a crazy woman. Poor D -- he usually runs the other way or ducks his head or gives me the stink eye when I whip my camera out. This time he sent me down to the beach for photos while working on getting the boat ready to head home.

Windblown tree on a little hill:

Hey, I guess it's cool to park your old weatherbeaten boat anywhere you want in Ninilchik.

Even better when you abandon it in front of a NO PARKING SIGN. Classic. Love the irony.

A story for you, dear blog readers: when his parents were up a few years ago, D found this cafe called Suzie's in Sterling. They all loved it and D took me exactly twice. I loved it. However, for the last two years D and I have tried SO hard to visit Suzie's again, but every single time it has been closed. EVERY TIME. FOR A DIFFERENT REASON. Too early in the season. Too late. Not open 'til noon. Not open on Sundays. It's almost spooky, like we aren't welcome. So this last time, I said NO MORE! Because Suzie's was closed again and it's for sale. (insert me shaking my fist with an angry look here)

We ended up having to drive another hour or so for the only open roadhouse, which I have forgotten the name of. But it did make me smile to see this tiny little puppy perched in a milk crate atop this motorcycle.

TiltShift photos

A nifty photo-altering program has been featured on quite a few of the blogs that I read, so I tried it out on a few of my images. The effect is amazing -- depending on where you place the distortion bar, that part of the picture looks like you took a photo of tiny little minature set.

Original:

TiltShifted:

Original:

TiltShifted:

Check it out here: Tilt Shift Maker. Works best on a photo taken from above or a wide vantage point, with lots of detail: buildings, people, boats, etc.

On the lookout

Over the last year or so, we've hit up a few furniture stores in the hopes that they stock the mission-style recliner:

It's for D -- although I did sit in the one at his parents' house in MN and it was sooo comfies. The ones here in town are all leather, which is not what we want. Fabric all the way! And of course they're expensive -- big surprise, right? Such a shock that Anchorage has high prices in relation to the rest of the U.S. I adore living in this state, but certainly the tradeoffs include high prices and a piss-poor selection of goods.

I keep checking Craigslist too but the offerings are few and far between -- and those crazy Craigslisters with too much time on their hands always get the good stuff before I can. Gonna keep checking the stores too and maybe I'll get lucky before D's birthday.

Monday update

Did all the mommas out there have a great Mother's Day? Mine is currently in Cali -- my parents helped my sister buy a brand-spanking new truck. (They are REALLY GOOD at negotiating car prices.)

D is continuing to basically work two jobs -- his regular one during the day and then the one at home. Here is all the (free!) insulation that went into the crawl space -- the boat is rendered invisible by the sheer amount of the stuff:

D is still discovering random and weird things as his work in the crawlspace progresses. Most of it isn't worth much and goes in the garbage, although I've managed to sell a few things on Craigslist (farming plows, futon). I wonder if this pamphlet is worth anything -- it's from 1976. I flipped through it and read some passages, especially the section on a woman's role in Islam. Of course, this is just one group's interpretation of the Qur'an, but interesting stuff nonetheless!

And I arrived home from work one day last week to this lovely sight - a big humongo hole in the dining room. No biggie - the weather was warm and we somehow managed to keep the cats from running to freedom. Have you ever tried herding cats? It's damn near impossible, but Drift is getting pretty skilled at it. The new sliding patio doors went in and are a thousand times better than the old set in every way.

Eagle invasion

The amount of eagles in the Deep Creek area was staggering -- I've never seen so many in one place before (except maybe in Homer when the Eagle Lady was gearing up for a feeding).

We saw this set on the beach from the boat:

Our campsite overlooked an open grassy area and the actual Deep Creek. Eagles were flying in and out of the area all day and night.



This guy didn't move from the perch for hours:

One eagle acted as if he was going to swoop down and carry Drift away, NO LIE. It was surreal to see a big winged creature (and they are HUGE) come low and eyeball the puppy. It made me nervous.

I can relate

More Deep Creek photos

I'm not surprised Drift is looking into the camera -- he's definitely a photogenic dog.

Volcanic ash from Redoubt's last eruption in April continues to stick around. It's been about a month now and the AVO predicts the volcano will blow again soon.

Speak of the devil -- here is Redoubt in the background. D noticed that it has much less snow than the other dormant volcanos, due to ever-present steam.

Neat stuff found while beachcombing.

Cinderella's coach

My sister works as a nanny to two little girls in California, and made quite the impressive gift for the oldest's birthday:




Damn, she is a sweet nanny -- I hope that family knows how lucky they are, though I am 99% sure they do not.

Risha's boyfriend carried out most of the manual labor -- consisting mainly of pumpkin-innard scooping with a spoon through a ridiculously small hole. How's that for being a helpful boyfriend! Here's Risha's description of the rest: "The pumpkin sits on an axel made of metal line and the top part is from a crown royal bottle we got at a bar."

I'm asking for a full-size version for my birthday...

Dirt Day

For some reason, I'm having a difficult time following through with composting. I'm all about the recycling and reducing and that jazz. But on three separate occasions I have gathered all the necessary tubs, containers and dirt, only to taper off my efforts. And then the compostable materials go rotten (not good and honestly, really gross).

Next weekend on the 16th, the AK Soil & Conservation District is hosting a "Dirt Day" and will be offering some swanky compost bins for sale at a very reduced price. I'm super excited about this particular type of composter. The materials go in at the top and the good stuff comes out at the bottom -- something my other homemade Rubbermaid tubs can't do.

In the future we may even pick up some worms to help along the compost. I'm not sure they can handle the crazy stuff we're supposed to chuck in the bin, like newspaper, dryer lint, pet hair, and jello -- so for now I'll start with the basics and then introduce the little wigglies into the process!

Tractors and trucks and boats

Deep Creek has a small boat launch -- which we discovered to be still covered in snow -- so the tractor launch was our default choice for Saturday. $55 dollars later, we were perched in the boat (see Drift patiently waiting?) and ready for our hookup.


Big boats, small boats --doesn't matter, the tractors will get you in the water. While we waited, the guys went back in to retrieve a boat that couldn't get its motor started. This big charter boat was on the way into the water.

We're hooked up...

And in the water...


Wheeee!

Friday night lights

As odd as it is to have 60 degree weather in MAY, I'll take it...no complaints here. We had clear skies for our trip (plans changed and we went fishing out of Deep Creek). Our campsite was across Cook Inlet from Mt. Redoubt, so I was able to snap a few photos of the steam rising from the volcano. It was quite a sight.

Here are some images from our drive down on Friday and the first night at camp:

Oh take me Home(r)

Get ready, Homer, we're coming! I won't be posting again until Monday, but will hopefully be able to include some great sunny photos of our trip. D pulled out the superwarm down sleeping bags for the tent. Although the day temps are predicted to be in the high 50's -- which is, well, pretty awesome -- the low will be hover at about 37 degrees. Hello, chilly! And we don't hit our high temperatures until late afternoon or so.

And I'm crossing my fingers for some nice halibut...and praying that work doesn't call me in for a swine flu case.

How to get swine flu