A recent trip to the Eagle River nature Center yielded excellent moose watching opportunities.

Later on a moose followed us to where 2 swans were swimming around.  I like this shot because they are all facing the same way and are all heads down.

 

 This is the westerly view off of our deck, and its true, we do have a view of Denali.  Until the leaves grow in on the trees I suppose.

We had a mostly sunny day and Leo decided it was time to break out the sprinkler.  Yes that is snow still lingering in our yard.

 Fort building has been a big to do lately.

 And Kaya is as bummed as the adults in the family about the disappearing snow.  She is taking the term rock skis to a whole new level.

In yurt news: It's coming down next weekend!   Hopefully it will be back up again by the end of summer.

Family news: We have another dog. The current doggy-o-tally-meter reading is at 4 doggies. Meet the newest member, Cinder.

Nicki has been out mushing about 3 times a week lately and was able to be volunteer dog handler for Iditarod. Doggypalooza around here. I even got the chance to go on my first solo mushing trip. Holy excitement. It's not skiing but it is the next best thing.
Speaking of skiing, 2 other stay at home dads and I got to go on a 20 mile ski trip going from Knik Arm to Turnigan Arm.

We also got to ski one of the mountains that we can see from our deck here at the new house. It's that point in the middle, covered in white, between the 2 trees.

Life has also been busy inside the house. I've been digging the permanent space and been making some fun changes. I turned a closet into a play house.

Put in a swing.

And made a train/lego/marker board table.

The kids have found a new love for following along with yoga videos. I don't think they are watching the same video.

Empty Yurts and New stuff

We are officially out of the yurt. Before we left we were treated to a northern lights display that could easily be seen from our loft out the top dome. Pretty cool.

Kaya rocking the curls and construction princess look amid the chaos of packing.

The empty yurt.

Not to worry, our yurt adventure is not over as we will be moving it to our new place this summer.
Here is a picture of Nicki going out for a late night mushing run in some really cold weather.

Here is a photo of our new place.

We love the wood interior. It is actually arranged a lot like the yurt. The master bedroom is a loft over the kitchen and looking out over the living area.

A photo taken from across the valley really shows the barn shape of the house.

A few more new things: Leo has found a new love for drawing. We can't get him to stop.

And, not even a week into moving into the new place, Nicki has a new dog.

Meet Quill, named after a run in with a porcupine. She is already proving to be a great puller as well as being super nice dog.

Lots of Snow

There has been a lot of snow and cold temps in Alaska lately. Leo continues his apparent imperviousness to cold by taking a nap outside at sub zero temperatures.

Lots of snow on the yurt.

The snow is piling up on the railings.

Our lamp post hads a big fluffy hat.

The dogs had to be dug out of their houses.

But, the kids were ready for it.

Pulks on the Cheap #3

In making the latest pulk, I was able to figure out the pulk to pull bar connection. It involved attaching a foot long length of metal tubing to the metal tubing of the bike trailer. This metal tubing has just a slightly larger inside diameter than the outside diameter of the pull bar. You can see it on the lower right corner of this photo.

The tubing was drilled out at the mid point and then towards the back. These holes allowed bolts to be threaded through it and the bike tubing (also drilled out by me). Locking washers help keep everything tight and together. A closer look at the connection can be seen below.

The small hole perpendicular to the ones holding the bolts was drilled out to fit a locking pin. This pin runs through the metal tubing and through holes in the ends of the pull bars. You can see the pull bars and the locking pins keeping them in place in the photo below.

The locking pin is attached to the metal tubing using a strap so it doesn't get lost. I put a grommet at one end of the strap and attached it to the tubing using a screw.
I also added a little bit of art work to the wheel saddle for a little extra flare.

So there it is. I spent less than $30 on each pulk. Things that might add to your cost is not having old skis laying around to use or not having a bike trailer. Old skis can easily be found for cheap at garage sales, thrift stores and on craigslist for less than $50. Old bike trailers can be found the same way. I don't think it is unreasonable to be able to do this project for less than $150 starting from scratch.

It's been a pretty fun project and I hope it helps people get their kiddos out in the winter time. Getting outside makes winter so much more enjoyable (and seemingly short).

From Yurts to Barns

It is with mixed feelings that I announce the end of our current yurt adventure. We are in the process of buying a house north of our current location. We are moving into a barn. OK, we are moving into a house with a cambrel roof that makes it looks like a barn. It has the same basic lay out as the yurt (open loft master bedroom over a kitchen with an open living room and utilities and garage in the basement). Oh, and room for a yurt. Sometime this summer we plan on moving the yurt to our new property and using it as a playroom/guest house/workshop. I'm going to try and post information about taking down a yurt and our new floor plans later on in the year.
But for now.....
a few photos of the things that have been going on around here in the last month since I posted.
We have had a big thaw and a couple of wind storms. One of them picked up our canoe and pitched it into the forest.

Thankfully we are back on track and filling in with snow.

Fresh tracks on a Christmas ski at the nature center.

A visiting goshawk right off of the yurt deck

Is Nicki pampering her dogs a bit too much? A pawicure, really?

They seem to like it.

Leo and Nisha buddying up.

Leo getting ready for a peewee mushing race.

Leo and Georgie crossing the finish line after Georgie going the wrong way, stopping, and Leo falling off.

The Schneider ski train (thanks for the photo Lia). Great resistance training.

Kaya showing off her usual smile.

One of Leo's many amazing lego creations.

Christmas morning.

Pulks on the Cheap #2

So here is the completed pulk made from a bike trailer.



I bought some replacement backpack hip belts from REI. They only cost $5 and they worked great for attaching the pulk poles to. I attached grommets to the belt and then threaded bolts through the poles and hip belt to attach them.
Here is the hip belt with the grommets, the small gold circles.

I originally wanted to put the grommets through the cinch strap (black) but it proved to be too far forward. Luckily there was some additional material else where that was trickier to put grommets through but worked fine.

The usefulness of this zipped pocket was eliminated.

I used electrical conduit and bent it with a conduit bender. I drilled it out with normal drill bits and a cordless drill. When drilling metal you need to use slow speeds, and you need to start with a small bit and slowly increase the diameter of the bit as you change them out (1/16, 1/8, 3/16, 1/4). It takes awhile but it works.

Here is the attachment to the hip belt. The gold grommet is where the fabric on the hip belt will go. From left to right - locking nut, washer, pipe, washer, grommet, washer, bolt head.

After trying it out on the driveway, I found that it glides great and is pretty comfortable.

The bike trailer actually had holes and an attachment system for poles. So, on the next trailer the pole to trailer connection is going to be the big thing to figure out.