Kennel Progress!

Pat has been home the last few days and has completed a couple projects, among which is this kennel floor! We had discussed options for the flooring of the kennel and had not looked forward to hauling rock. Pat had a genius idea of making a deck of sorts with plywood. Upon inspection of our project piles, he discovered this tongue-in-groove siding that was given to us. He had enough to make a nice sized deck over the mud and muck, and the dogs love it!


The mountain is still steaming, but nothing new. It's been gorgeous! This one is courtesy of Pat's photo skills!

Steaming

These are actually my pictures, for once! Yesterday was a gorgeous day, so on my way to work, I stopped and enjoyed the view. Redoubt is still mostly just spewing steam but that will likely change at any point. I am also excited that there is a patch of lawn visible!!! We still have tons of snow, but it is shrinking and becoming more and more slushy. In light of the soon to be diminished walk across our water, we have considered getting a treadmill...for the dogs!

Ashfall

This is what round one has looked like. Pretty tame. I'm so thankful that it hasn't been worse. It is definitely coarse and grainy stuff. I imagine all the dark bits will help our snow melt when it's time!

These pictures show the ash cloud over our house. It looks a little like a raincloud. Actually, it looks a lot like a raincloud! In the picture above, you can see the blue at the treeline. It was a bit eerie! The thunder was really crazy! What an amazing thing to hear thunder from the volcanic clouds!

This is not a sample from a corian chip or granite piece! This is a close-up of the snow with the ash in it! The picture below is ash on the roof of our house. It looks like a dusting of snow, but it's not! Redoubt keeps blowing, so I don't know if it's going to be like this for months off and on like 20 years ago or if it will be a shorter run. I hope it's a shorter run!

Redoubt

Here is an accurate picture of what happened yesterday. We were unable to see anything due to the cloudy weather.

Fortunately, none of this ash fall came near us. This is not a black and white photo - at least the camera was not in that mode! I'm glad for the lack of ash if it changes the landscape so drearily, among other reasons!

Thar She Blows!

He looks at the earth, and it trembles; He touches the mountains, and they smoke.
Psalm 104:32

Yes, it has begun to erupt! Fortunately, we are not currently in the ashfall area and have not had any adverse affect from the eruption. It is likely to continue, so we are not out of the woods yet, but I'm excited to have the sun come up and get more information! I want to see it! I choose to think of this as an amazing display of Creation!

Spectacular Day

Pat took the camera to work yesterday and took a few shots of the mountains! It's been unseasonably warm this week. That means above freezing (even overnight) and up to 45 yesterday!

The sun coming up on these mountains is truly breathtaking in person! This is a view that you can't see in summer! The summer sun doesn't set for long and when it does it's 2 am: plus, there's no snow for the sun to reflect off of! Winter here is amazing!

Autumn Glory!

These trees are on Wolfe Street up from us! The sun was shining on them and it was too beautiful to pass up!
This shows the sun shining on the aspen leaves while the background shows how dark and forboding the sky really was!
This is Mt. Redoubt (named after an early explorer) from the top of Skyline Trail. The light band at the base of the mountain is the Cook Inlet and the Mt. actually rises from sea level to over 10,000 feet. It was/is spectacular!
I was "wasting" film to finish the roll and this shot was at Skilak Lake on the far west side. Not too shabby! I wish I could say that the color really looked that amazing, but it only shows up on film!
This was on our Skyline Trail hike (before the bear hunt) while I was picking wild blueberries beside the trail! It has snowed up on these high elevations, and in fact, the back mountain ranges in this picture are completly white-capped!

Wow! That's all I can say! The weather is extraordinary! The sun is out and I took the picture of Mount Redoubt across the cook inlet this afternoon! The other pic. is of us out on the Russian River trail. We had a great time! It was a little brisk! Quite invigorating! I'm looking for a job & have one place that is feeling better & better! I'll send pics when I know! Have a happy day!