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Adam and Shannon
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| June 15th
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| June 14th
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| May 22nd We have been having lots of fun!
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| May 13th Johanna is here! We have been having a wonderful time, been able to take a few long walks, had a very enjoyable BBQ on the high banks of the Chena river, dodging the mozzies and cooking hot dogs. We tried baking Gluten-free tortillas--lots of fun and a bit of a challenge.
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| May 6th,
Spring is here! You have to look hard to find any snow on the ground, the sky is light until 11:30, and we have been able to take walks without any extra layers!
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| April 23rd Break up!
This is Bo Jangles, a cat we are taking care of for a man in Adam's platoon. Picture #2 shows that cats are not always dignified, no matter what they might think.
This photo was taken on the 8th. The rabbit was eating the bark off of a tree that fell down in our backyard |
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| March 22nd
Ice skating at the pond!!
Yesterday evening we went to the World Ice Championships! It was very enjoyable looking at all of the ice sculptures, although a it chilly. They had an ice maze, slides, huts, and, of course, sculptures.
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| March 13th A photograph of the two men in Adam's Sniper team appeared in the Alaskan Post, an Army newspaper for Fort Wainwright and Fort Richardson! Needham is holding the new Sniper rifle, which came out only a few months ago.
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| March 9th
Yesterday morning Adam put up some wallpaper in the kitchen for me! The wallpaper was on sale at Wal-mart, and having it up makes the kitchen look quite cheery.
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| March 7th Greetings! It has been a while since I updated this page, the reason being that I haven't had much to report. Adam and I have been doing very well, but things have been pleasant, rather than newsworthy. The coldest part of winter has passed, and the days are getting longer and warmer. Today the temperature reached +50, and the snow has begun to recede from the roof tops, sign posts, and trees.
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| February 16th We had a visitor today!
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| February 6th I've often read INVICTUS William Ernest Henley, but a week or so ago I found a Christian reply to Mr. Henley's essentially humanist philosophy that I really enjoyed: My Captain, by Dorthea Day.
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| February 3rd The Aurora we saw last night!!! This photo wasn't taken on our camera, but this is the same Aurora that Adam and I saw. Praise God!!
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| January 25th My first big knitting project--finished!
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| January 23rd Last Tuesday Adam and I went to visit Wendell, a man in his late sixties who lives about two miles from us on the river, as the crow flies. He came to pick us up on his snowmobile, which is called a “Snow machine” by Alaskans, and brought us through the woods by back paths and old, half overgrown trails, over the frozen river, to his cabin. It was a beautiful scene, and I was annoyed at myself for forgetting the camera. The pines were covered with white snow, and stood tall and silent against an ice-blue sky, and the birch trees were clothed in white ice. There is little wind in Alaska, and in the forests no sound is heard but soft footfalls and falling snow. The stillness and it’s unfamiliarity to me make the landscape seem almost illusory, as though in a dream, or some strange beautiful land of fantasy. I had never ridden in a snowmobile before, and enjoyed bouncing through the woods on the contraption. Going over the frozen river ice, which is broken in places because of the unusually warm weather this past week, (20F), was a bit nerve-wracking, especially as I heard, or my imagination supplied, the sharp sound of cracking ice now and again. Wendell’s cabin is built some 40 yards from the river, of logs he floated down in the early days before there were roads in the area. Once inside, the cabin smells like wood fires, and looks like a cross between a bachelors’ pad and the abode of an old 49’er. Pots, pans, rifles and arrows hang from the log walls, and an old wood stove heats the cabin, upon which stood a pot full of carrots and potatoes, cooking for supper. In one corner sits the computer, amongst a tangle of wires, books, and papers. Wendell found a few old pairs of cross-country skis that we put on, and then we, (or rather I; Adam was quite good with them), struggled across the snow behind Wendell’s house, towards the road. Wendell has seven horses that run free range over the land. Big, furry animals they are, cross breeds mostly, and one came loafing up to sniff me curiously as I passed. I wish I could have a photo of the sights I saw, and of the sunset that flamed along the skyline in its slow descent, turning the tops of the pines gold-red against the dark clouds to the East, and shinning over the hushed forests, and fields of snow where the wild blueberries grow in the spring. It was absolutely lovely. We skied for some time, and returned to the cabin, where Wendell fed us “mooseburgers”, burger shaped pieces of fried ground moose, which to me tasted like flavorful beef, very good, and also cooked potatoes and carrots. Wendell knows a good deal about Alaska, and told lots of stories. Apparently when WW2 came hundreds of small mines spread out in parts of Alaska that can only be reached by airplane or sled dog were deserted, and the mining equipment was melted down for the war effort. These old abandoned cabins and mines can be found all over Alaska, overgrown with trees. Wendell owns a claim some eighty miles from Ruby, a village along the Yukon river that can only be accessed by air. He and his two sons took a trip by “iron dog”, snowmobiles, down to the place some twenty years ago. They were traveling the same time as the Iditarod, along the same trail, taking advantage of the fact that the trail had been cleared for the race. It seems there are three Iditarod races: Dog-sled, Iron Dog, and Man Power races. The Iron dogs go first to clear the way, then the man power, and last the dog sleds. In the man power race you are allowed to use anything man-powered, such as snow shoes, bicycles, skis, etc. Wendell and his sons were traveling between the Iron dogs and then Man Power races, when the snow began to fall very thick, so that it was a foot deep on the trail, and the Man Power race began to flounder a bit, and soon the racers all fell back into the trail he was breaking with his snowmobile. Big, rough men they were, Wendell told us, and most of them carried little but the clothes on their backs. They subsisted on candy bars, for the main part, and traveled day and night through the snow. Cabins along the trail are always kept unlocked for anyone who might be passing through. Wendell owns a few mining claims, pieces of land in the middle of nowhere where gold has been found. Gold mining is still done in the area a lot, it seems. One mine near Fairbanks, called the Fort Knox mine, has had millions of dollars worth taken out of it these past couple years. You can still find miners in remote areas, living in log cabins, trapping and hunting, and getting supplies by airplane or dogsled. It was fascinating hearing him talk, and looking at some old photographs he had of his trips, listening to stories of wolf packs on the frozen river, moose, hunting, growing his own grain, trying to live off the land, etc. When he moved into the area Fairbanks was much smaller, and the only way to get to his property in the summer was by steam boat. Altogether it was a delightful evening.
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| January 21st
So maybe I was on my knees.........
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| January 17th
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| January 9th
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| January 2nd
A while back we had an adventure with a shrew of Gothic or Hun origin, but I'm betting Hun. This creature was first sighted by the door of our room, but gave me no chance for prolonged observation, as he fled under the front door and out of the house. I thought I'd seen the last of the shrew, and so went about my business. Later, while I was sewing, the Hun darted in the door, checked the perimeter, and leapt behind the guest bed, and set up his defense. Not contented with that, he raced around the room a few times, (most distracting to the seamstress), and at last went rummaging in the closet. The shrew, a spastic little character on a sugar high, continued to zing hither and yon while I attempted to sew. For the morbidly curious among you who are wondering, I did not shriek once. This little shrew ran about for a good while until I once again chased him under the door, and knowing he couldn’t exit up the stairs outside the front door, set up a blockade of books, lest he should try to escape his trap. The shrew, however, waited until my back was turned and, running the blockade, escaped into the bedroom, where we found him once again an hour or two later when Adam was home. We deployed and moved in. The runaway was chased into the family room where he executed a series of evasive moves behind the Christmas tree and the sofa, a feint under the table, and back again. By now I was on my hands and knees, armed with a broom watching the shrew and yelling out directions to Adam, who wielded a boot in one hand. Midst this chaos Pvt. Duel entered, and, caught up in the excitement of the chase, also began to bound about after the shrew. Furniture was thrown this way and that, and the shrew, despairing of hiding behind his vanishing cover, struck out for the open, feinted to the left, back again, and then Heigh ho for Freedom!-- made a dash for the front door. Alas! Freedom was not to be his. Thwack when the broom, Phwomp went the boot, and the expired shrew was carried by the perspiring victor to the window, and ceremoniously thrown to the Arctic wolves.
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