End of summer in my backyard . . .

Oscar was here all summer . . .watching for moose . . . and look what shows up the day after he leaves!

Here is Mt. McKinley / Denali, Mt. Hunter
and Mt. Foraker from Pt. Woronzof across
Cook Inlet south of Anchorage Airport.

Near Earthquake Park . . . Mt. McKinley/Denali on an August Day . . .











Backyard pool . . .










Young beaver in the pool . . .











a couple kids in the new family . . .











Reflected Duck butt . . . just for Pat! :)

















The Duck family is getting bigger!










Some nice reflections on the pool . . .











9pm in August . . . nice place to walk.

Musk Ox Farm

Very interesing creatures . . . total of 66 at the farm on this day. Combed for Quviet in April each year . . . Quviet sent to Rhode Island for processing into yarn, then the yarn is sent to local villages in Alaska for knitting into products.

Goliath - 4 year old male in rut

Farm is 57 years into a process for making the oomingmak into a domesticated animal. They live to be 12 to 20 years old . . . eat about 10 lbs of vegitation per week and use all the nutrition, thier excriment has no nutritional value . . .





Eve - 4 year old female















Yearling female












Yearling Male

Gorgeous Day in the neighborhood . . .

Anchorage was in the haze, but some nice fluffy clouds over the bowl . . .












A view of Flat Top in the summer . . .












Looking up the valley from Glen Alps trail head













Glen Alps . . . on a summers eve . . .
















Three Baron's RenFest in Anchorage . . . a couple of weekends in early June . . . has a long way to go to contend with Crownsville, or many others!













Battle chess tournament













trying to be in period . . .

A trip to the interior - Fairbanks 2011

The Alaska Range from the North side . . . couldn't get around the haze . . .


































new young caribou . . .














Musk Ox holding her winter coat










Some wild life at the hot springs . . .




























Looking toward the front and the work room area . . .
















Drinking an appletini from an ice glass, i.e. more wild life at the hot springs!










The mirror is about the only thing not made of ice.










Chenga Hot Springs Ice Museum from the outside . . .











Chenga Hot Springs Ice Museum, yes, there are roooms in the ice museum you can stay in!












The adult pool at Chenga Hot Springs - no kids allowed! . . . ahhhh the true wild life at the hot springs . . .











Quite a few of these guys hanging out at Creamer's Field.










Here are the birds that are expected at Creamer's Field . . . we had plenty of Canadain Geese while there.











Musk Ox at the Universtiy of Alaska Fairbanks












A couch on the side of the road about 20 miles south of Fairbanks on the Parks Hiway.












Hiway rest stop in Denali State Park . . . still a bit early to try to use this stop! . . . it is like the Denali overlook pull outs . . . both north and south still packed with snow . . .









Spring and Mt. McKinley makes an appearance . . . haven't seen it much this past year, or maybe I'm not looking as much these days.

Mom's Puzzle

Meltdown . . . Break up . . . the nice way . . .

The moose are out in force these days . . . they wander out of the park areas looking for things to munch on . . . here are four in a construction lot just south of mid-town.












and a fifth that I couldn't fit in the previous picture . . . but you can see the hotel in the background.












Had to put this one in . . . one of those shots























Part of my backyard . . Campbell Creek . . . still some ice bridges across the creek, but a lot more is open now . . . temps are creeping up . . . mostly in the 30's this week . . .



The fishing hole is still frozen over, but it is getting a little squishy out there . . . this was 8pm the long sun shadows in the trees . . .







Not seeing any salmon in the stream yet . . . a few months away . . .








Definite moose tracks about . . . though more of this is people than moose . . .

Guess I need my tripod . . . couldn't hold still long enough to get a decent shot of last nights moon.

These just don't do it justice . . . it was very bright, didn't look all that close . . . but it was very clear.
















Here is Anchorage under that bright moon . . .
Flattop is a hill just east of Anchorage in the Chugach State Park . . . I was on the hill to check out the moon . . . and caught a couple pics of the Anchorage bowl while I was up there.

Now Pat, This ==>
is an Osprey . . .

My visitor was definitely a Bald Eagle!











Winter is coming to an end . . . look who came to visit today . . . this is the tree outside of my living room window.











Not the best of pictures, got to work on my picture taking again . . .