Pumpkin Carving Madness!

Last night, we were invited to a Pumpkin Carving Contest/Party. I was told it was pretty competitive and there had been some good entries last year. I told Pat about it and he was up for the challenge. We went to the store and had to carefully select just the right pumpkin (it had to be big enough), and headed to the party. It was on, right away.


My friend, Tami had a very popular pumpkin with the kiddos! The judging commenced when all were set up and lit. Pat's Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation Logo Elk is on the top right. I'll have to get another better close up! It turned out really well, and it won the prize for "Most Creative" pumpkin!

How Much Wood Would a Woodchuck Chuck?

This is what we've been up to the last week or so. Last weekend we were able to borrow a splitter from friends and we've been at it ever since. The stack on the left was started a couple months ago with Dad's help. We were able to make a decent dent in the stack by the end of the weekend.

By the end of this week, we've just about filled the now named woodshed with split and stacked wood. Pat is so excited! We've put up about 14 cords of wood, though some is birch that has to wait to cure until next year.

The stack under the tarps are birch for next year, where the stacks in the woodshed are for this years' use. The birch stacks were helped with Mom's visit! Nothing like making visitors work for their stay! We left a "hole" for Pat to use for his wood stove. This stove will heat the fluid that will run in the floor. We hope we have enough wood to keep that one going as well.


On a different note, here's a glimpse of what our evenings look like. Pat likes to tell the dogs who's boss. They don't listen very well. It's a little dark, but still funny!

Lingering Fall

Since all the leaves are quickly falling from our trees, I want to look back at the last few weeks worth of good fall color. The trees across our pond are completely bare. The leaves carpet our roads and driveway in shades of yellow and gold. The grass is still nice and green and makes a perfect contrast with the leaves piled under the trees. While I pine away for lost or dropping colors, I thought I'd put up a few fall photos!



The swans made a comeback for a day while Mom was here, and I was able to get a couple pictures of their presence. It's nice to watch them, though it's a bit of a shock to hear them honk so loudly!

Mom's visit!

The last two weeks have been a bit of a blur! It's been filled with activities and seeing things again for the first time!
Mom's visit highlights (since I think she took hundredS of pictures!) include:
Mount Redoubt is behind Mom, though my lighting wasn't showing it. I tried to get the beach and the puffing volcano in the shot. Oh well!
We then took a hike up to Russian River Falls. The Autumn leaves were brilliant in the sun and there were still a few salmon jumping up the falls. Despite all of Pat's longing, we did not see any bears that day!



Rowdy and Bella thoroughly enjoyed the walk!
We took a sunny day to drive down to Homer. It was a gorgeous day and we stopped first at the bluff at a friend's place to take in the views. Some of the clouds just enhanced the places the sun illuminated. In fact, I had never seen such distances before. It was amazing.




We walked the beach, found shells and glass, and continued on to some shops and a local winery for a wine tasting. The locally made Alaskan berry wines were quite yummy, though our server could have held back a little on our portions! The view outside of the winery was exquisite.

Pat can't bear to go without a shooting lesson!
Yep! Tsunami's possible. We took a trip to Seward on another sunny day. The views were unbeatable.


We visited Exit Glacier and took the trail to view the glacier. We then took the trail to view the outwash and discovered we could walk around to the foot of the glacier! I was pretty excited and skipped up to the ice and began to play! In this first picture it seems I'm showing...
We had fun watching the ice melt and just feel how small we really are compared to such a sight.