Moose Sightings - 2012

This fall Doug & I both commented that we had seen no moose all summer - not even in the very common places where we always see lots of them. But with all the snow this winter, the moose have been driven down from the high country to places where it is easier for them to walk and find food. Because of the severe winter, many of them are starving and a record number have been killed on the roads. 495 so far just in our valley! That does not count the ones who are injured. They have begun a program to feed them to keep them off the roadways. It is difficult for them to get through the heavy snow, so they take the path of least resistance - the highways and roads. So we have had lots of sightings this winter. We were skiing last weekend at a nearby school trail. When we were finished we drove past the front side of the trail and saw two moose in a yard. We had just skied on the trail past the back of that house twice within the last 30 minutes. I am glad we did not meet them on the trail.

Beside the road (Hyer Road) that goes into our neighborhood.

This moose, like most of them, was pretty unconcerned when we stopped by the road to take her picture. But I think the longer we sat there, the more she didn't appreciate our presence. Note that in the first pictures her ears were straight up when she looked at us. In subsequent pictures her ears became more laid back - NOT a good sign. Seeing that she was beginning to get a bit unamused, we went on our merry way.

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We spotted these two moose beside the road when we were on our way to the Willow airport to meet our pilot who took us to the Junior Iditarod checkpoint. When we were in the air, we saw a huge number of moose around the airport.

Both of these were bull calves. You can see where they are beginning to get their antlers. Doug would still like to go to Point MacKenzie, where he knows several farmers, to pick up some moose sheds (antlers they have dropped). The only problem is that not only are the moose thick, so are the brown bears in that area (also known as grizzly bears). I am a bit hesitant to go on that adventure!

We went to Anchorage last week and saw 12-15 moose on the Hay Flats. For those of you who have visited us, that is the area around the Knik River Bridge that is on the way to Anchorage. The Hay Flats used to be the most wonderful farm ground in the Valley. in 1964, when the huge Good Friday earthquake struck Alaska, the Hay Flats ground had sunk 8 feet when all was settled. The river backed up and covered the ground. It eventually became a swamp. It is still soft and spongy and no farming can be done on the area. Hundreds of acres of prime farm land were lost.

Jr. Iditarod 2/25/12

We flew to the first checkpoint for the 2012 Jr. Iditarod. We watched the teams come in. People on snow machines went ahead of the teams to break trail and put out trail markers for the teams. The kids go about 80 miles out to a roadhouse. After a mandatory 8 hour rest, they turn around and follow the same route back. Conway Seavey won this year's race.
His brother, Dallas Seavey, won this year's Iditarod.

Checker Jane watching the musher care for his team.

Musher snacking his team

Vet talking to musher about the dogs

Musher signing in and out of checkpoint while Jane and vet watch

Team ready to keep going down the trail

Musher Conway Seavey (who eventually won the race)

Conway Seavey checking in

Doug & Colleen

EagleSong February 25, 2012

Doug has friends, peony farmers, who live at Trail Lake, which is at the base of Mt. Susitna. Mt. Susitna is also known as Sleeping Lady. The farm, which is their year-round home is only accessible by float plane in the summer and by ski-plane or a 2 1/2 hour snow machine ride in the winter. The farm is the first checkpoint on the Junior Iditarod. The friends made arrangements for a pilot to fly us to their farm the day the race started. They were a bit worried because the forecast was calling for them to get an additional 21 inches of snow by Sunday.

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It was a gorgeous day for flying and the views were awesome. We saw a lot of moose around the airport and on the way to the farm, as well as lots of snow machine traffic. When we left to fly home, we even saw one of the dog teams on the trail.

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A checker, a vet and the race judge were there to meet the kids and their teams and make sure they had everything that they were supposed to have in their sled and that the dogs were doing okay. We toured the farm as we waited for the first sled dog teams and mushers to arrive at the checkpoint. Other friends of theirs flew out for a cup of coffee or lunch. People here travel by place as easily and frequently as we do in our cars.

Doug watching our pilot fuel the plane

Plane skis

Ready for take-off

Mt. Susitna (Sleeping lady) in the distance
The snowy patch in the trees one of the rivers
The rivers become main highways when the freeze over. But there are always melted places and open water, so you have to be alert when riding a snow machine on the river, even in the winter.

Snow machine tracks

Snow machine tracks on the river

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Eagle Song
The home of EagleSong Family Peony Farm and EagleSong Alaska woodcarvings, an Alaskan wilderness homestead.
Click on this link for more info about Eagle Song:
eaglesongalaska.com
Click on "Tour of EagleSong Farm" for more great pictures. The water right in front of the house is where our plane landed on the snow runway.

Note the 1/2 oval on the left side of the picture. That is the landing strip which Mike has groomed on the frozen lake. He grooms a complete oval so the planes can land, taxi around to the house and them complete the oval to take off again (instead of a long, narrow runway where they would have to go the end and turn around to take off again.) He constantly has to keep the runway groomed so they do not lose their access to the rest of the world. 2 1/2 hours on a snow machine (one-way) is a lot different from a 20 minute plane ride to the outside world.

The large flat places behind and to the side the farmstead are the peony fields.

Our plane taking off to go pick up more people.

Chicken coop

Peony fields

The snow piles would be unbelievably high if he tried to scoop it all off the areas between the buildings after each snow. So
Mike grooms the areas by packing the snow down. It is four feet deep of packed snow. You have to go down about four feet to get into any of the buildings.

If you go to the website, you will see that Mike makes beautiful birch bowls and other wood items. These are pictures of the birch burls which they have harvested. They will be cleaned and shined and Mike will make bowls from most of them. The burls are formed when the birch trees get an infection or imperfection and the tree heals itself by growing over the problem. When they harvest them, they just cut them off the trees. No two are the same shape.

These are a couple of the huge snow machines that they use, along with the sleds they pull. The sleds can be expanded to haul things like lumber or other large loads. Mike had hauled 55 gallon drums of fuel to the farm on the sleds and had more drums to pick up and bring out to the farm. One trip takes most of the day. That is a long day on a snow machine.

Going down into Mike's wood shop

Our pilot was anxious to leave before all of the dog teams had come through the checkpoint on Saturday. When we got in the air, we found out why he was in a hurry. We could that we were flying into snow. He still had to make another trip back to EagleSong to pick up a photographer.

Snow machines below us on the river.

Cabins on the river

Fields near the airport

Apparently we got out just in time. The pilot made it back to Willow with the photographer. But the snow was so heavy that the pilot was unable to continue on to Wasilla to his house where he had a hangar for his airplane. He had to have someone pick him up at the Willow airport and drive him home.
(Remember the story of the old gentleman who was stomped by a moose at the Willow airport and his teeny tiny elderly wife rescued him by beating on the moose with a shovel? We saw him at the Willow airport walking his two dogs. The Willow airport is where the moose attack took place while he was walking his dogs. We did not see his wife with him, so he was on his own this time.)

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Mike was justified in worrying about getting the 21" of snow. But instead of 21", they got 36 inches!!! This pictures he sent us are of the Iditarod folks who got stranded there for a few extra days. They were unable to get out of there until Tuesday or Wednesday. All of the "guests" helped shovel snow. But that's Alaska!
They got another 4 feet last week!!!!!

Chicken Coop - (the same one that is in the pictures above)