Earrings

I've got a post about Colorado coming soon, but in the meantime, here is a bit of a follow-up to my last post.  These are earrings I just made tonight, using porcupine quills and seed beads.  I've got a plan in mind using nice ivory and jade beads, but I wanted to do some practice!

I did learn a few lessons from working with the quills.  First, always throw away clipped barbs before doing anything else - otherwise you'll lose them and spend a good amount of time on the floor looking for them before your cat eats them.  Also, while you can thread the quills straight onto the wire, it is easier to run a needle through first, then the wire.  You break fewer quills that way!

Alpine Creek Lodge

This weekend was our third anniversary.  We spent it at Alpine Creek Lodge, off the Denali Highway.  Thursday, we hopped in the car right after work and started driving.  We made it to Cantwell around 11pm and crashed for the night in a little motel.  Then it was up bright and early for the remaining three hour drive.

Alpine Creek Lodge is about 70 miles from Nowhere, with Nowhere being Cantwell, AK on one end (population 222) and Paxson, AK (population 43).  It is on the Denali Highway, which would not merit the name in any other state, being a 130 mile dirt road with about five little hotel/B&B's spread out along it.  We wanted to get away from it all!

The road is teeming with wildlife - this beaver was one of the first things we saw, along with moose, caribou, and porcupines.  There are bear out there, but we didn't see any.  The caribou was a bit concerned by us, but not overly so.

We had the fortunate timing to be driving by just as the F22s from Elmendorf were flying an exercise right over our heads.  We watched for 10 minutes or so as they circled and dropped flares and such.  Pretty awesome!

We got to the lodge at 11am, got situated, packed some lunch, shouldered our packs, and headed off.  We hiked about 7-8 miles down an ATV path that terminated in this gorgeous lake where we got to watch caribou grazing, terns and ducks and swans flying about, and beaver building.  Absolutely fantastic!

On the walk back, we found a fresh grizzly track that hadn't been there before.  I measured it with my hand - 6 inches across!  Since we were ostensibly bear hunting, we took a look around, but didn't see anything and it was getting late, so we headed back to the lodge.  A 14 mile or so day, done in 7 hours with full packs - we were done in!  But Jennifer, the owner, had dinner ready for us and we spent the evening recovering. 

This is the view from the lodge.  Isn't it amazing?  The lodge is quite rustic, as you can see from the first picture.  It's not 100% finished yet - the bottom floor is all done, as is half of the second floor.  Inside, it's decked out with rooms on both sides, plus a large common area in the middle, for eating, sitting about, watching TV, and playing games.  Wi-fi is also available, and there are two full bathrooms.

We didn't stay in one of those rooms, though.  We had the Trapper's Cabin, which is the little cabin in front of the lodge.  For an extra few bucks a night, we got a sitting room with a wood stove, a bedroom, and a kitchen.  It's not entirely functional yet - no water, limited electricity, but the privacy and space were great to have.  Very cozy, with a fire going!

The next day we used the information we'd collected already and set up on a ledge overlooking a creek, a likely spot for bear as we'd seen some sign.  It was about an hour in, 2-3 miles or so.  We arranged it so that one of us would be watching from our "blind" while the other got to wander about some.  The Husband went back to where we'd seen the fresh print the previous day and scouted around a bit.  He started tracking an even larger bear - 7-8 inches across on the print - until he found cub tracks alongside and backed off quickly.  I mostly wandered about in the tundra, looking for sheds - but I did go into the spruce forest long enough to find a porcupine which turned out to be my first kill.  We'll be having porky stew next week!

Apart from another porcupine The Husband bagged, we didn't come back with anything else.  Never saw a bear, but it was great to be surrounded by such beauty and silence the whole weekend.  If anything, the drive back was even more gorgeous than the drive out!

On our way out, we found this beaver on the side of the road miles away from any pond.  He was quite distraught, hissing at us when we stopped, and trying to dive into the dirt when we drove past.  I felt bad for him.

Scouting out a little dirt road that led into the next valley (we'd heard there were bunnies out there), we found a moose on the edge of a lake.  I watched him for a while, and sure enough he obliged us by swimming across.

This caribou was quite curious about us on the drive back home.  He was very energetic, too!

Altogether, an amazing weekend.  I highly recommend stopping by Alpine Creek Lodge if you're in the area, even just for coffee and tea and a chat.  Everyone is amazingly nice, and the surroundings can't be beaten!

Just watch out for that grizzly with cubs!

Wildlife Photos

Sorry for the absence!  Things have been absolutely nuts around here, what with the end of the school year and the start of a hugely busy summer.  We leave Thursday for a bear hunt/anniversary retreat up the Denali Highway!

But before I go, I thought I'd leave you a few shots from the last two weeks.  Mostly at Potter's Marsh, though the last one is Eklutna Lake.  I'm very excited because all of my favorite birds are back!

First, the Sandhill Cranes.  They tend to prefer the mudflats over by the rifle range (stupid birds), but we caught this flock winging overhead at the marsh!  Great to see.

Green Teal.  Love'm!  How can you not, with such gorgeous colors?  There were dozens flocking around the marsh.

Pintail.  Not a favorite of mine, but I do like this shot, with the reflection in the water.

Arctic Tern!  I love love love these birds!  They are so much fun to watch, as they dip and dive through the air, and way cooler than stupid seagulls.

More teal, flocking in for a landing.

Not a bird, but this muskrat is a bit of a rarer sight at the marsh.  We actually saw two this day!

Birders, help!  I'm having trouble identifying this pair!  They're diving birds, and from a distance I first thought loon, but the head shape is wrong... What do you think?

BBA #23 - Pane Sicliano

The 23rd bread in the BBA challenge and I still have a while to go!  This bread was a lesson in reading comprehension for me.  I'm going to blame it on The Husband finally being home and messing with my schedule.  I had several reading comprehension issues, but the bread survived it!

The first reading comprehension came Saturday as I mixed up the pate fermente.  As I was mixing, I read the formula again only to find that this is a three day bread, not a two day bread.  Ooops.  Fortunately, I only work afternoons on Monday and the bread could be baked before going into work.  I'm not sure what I did to the pate fermente, but it came out a lot wetter than usual!

Onto day two.  I took the pate out to lose its chill.  It's supposed to sit out for an hour - well, we went to run some errands, and The Husband multiplied "some" into "many," and it was over two hours before I got back to the bread, which had a distinctly yeasty smell.  In a hurry, I mis en placed everything, looked over the formula again....  Ooops.  Seminola flour?  How did I miss that?!  I had no seminola flour.  So I dug through my cupboards and ended up using oat flour instead.  I proceeded to knead the dough.  It rose quite swiftly and was ready for shaping.

The shaping part was totally fun.  This qualifies as one of my favorite shapes, along with the epi and fougasse.  Simply put, the dough was formed into baguettes, then spiraled in from each end simultaneously to create the traditional "S" shape - though my boss asked if it was supposed to be a treble clef, which gives me an idea to try next time I am experimenting!

This morning, I set up the oven for hearth baking, explained to The Husband about the steam pans, and popped the bread in.  Halfway through I rotated the pan 180 degrees as always.  Five minutes away from my timer going off, I said to myself "Self, when doing hearth baking, don't you usually reduce the heat after the first minute or two?"  "Why yes, self, usually I do.  I wonder why this formula didn't?  Let's see."  After rereading the formula:  "Oh.  It did say to.  Ooops."  And I swooped to pull out the bread.

Despite all that this poor bread suffered, it actually came out quite tasty, something both The Husband and the coworkers agree upon!  I shall have to try it again when I actually have seminola flour, though!

Alaska Awesomeness

So there we were, driving down Northern Lights in the middle of town, when I glance out at the sky.  "Oh," I said to The Husband, "There's an eagle."

"No," he corrected, "there are TWO eagles."

Still driving (yeah, I know), I craned my head to catch sight of two eagles... locked together in the sky.

I pulled over as fast as I could and grabbed for the camera, but by the time I was able to get a shot, they had separated and were just spiraling around high up.

Isn't Alaska awesome?