Midnight Sun Mania

Steve and I just got back from a sunny, 11 mile hike up the valley to some waterfalls. I had my first run in with a bear this year and the first one ever on the trails. It's a good way to get your heart pumping. We saw it as we came around a bend in the trail and stopped about 30 feet short of it. It was a medium sized black bear and luckily it decided we were not something it wanted to mess with and moved quickly off the trail. Sorry no pictures. I got my bear spray out before my camera.
Since we are only a week away from solstice, it is daylight here for almost 24 hours. Here is a recent picture of the yurt at about 11:30 PM. The sun is still barely touching the mountain tops.

All this sun is creating some great growing conditions for our garden. Compare this picture to the one 2 posts ago that shows this same veggie box 10 days prior.

Nicki is currently out there right now thinning and harvesting our radishes.
Leo got to go on his first rafting trip a few days ago. We joined our friends Jenny and Eric on their inaugural trip of their "new to them" raft and floated down the Eagle River. The great thing about it? The put in is only a few miles from our house and we got to see a view of the Valley we had never seen before. Here is a picture of Nicki calmly rowing with the other occupants freaking out.

It has also been bird-palooza around the yurt. I was working inside when I heard 4 or 5 different angry bird calls going on at once. When I looked outside robins, magpies, and wood peckers were harassing this owl.

It had set up shop about 15 feet from the woodpecker's nest and the little birds were not happy.
I spent this past weekend at the Anchorage weekend market selling puzzles. Here is a picture of the tent I shared with my friend Sarah.

You can see my puzzles and the butterfly jewelry shat she sells. It is pretty cool stuff and is made out of real butterfly wings. Check it out at www.socialbutterflyjewelry.net. I sold 8 puzzles and only 2 of thse were to people I kow. I also did some trading with other venders and got Leo a new wooden trainset and Nicki some wooden jewelry boxes. Now that the market is over, I have begun my online selling. You can check it out at www.yurtmade.etsy.com.

Selling Puzzles

I'm going for it! This weekend I'll be huddled under a tent trying my best to sell puzzles to who ever might be interested. Let's hopes for lots of customers. This is s big experiment to see if this puzzle making is going to be viable or not. I'm hoping for it to be able to at least pay for itself but won't be too disappointed if I actually make some money. Here is a photo of a puzzle I did showing off the Eagle River Nature Center logo.

Anything I don't sell at the market is going to go on sale later this month on an online market place for handmade goods called Etsy.
Wish me luck!

Visitors, Hikes, and Veggies

Our good friends Steve and Eve have come up from Seattle to work at the nature center for the summer. We are super excited to have them around for so long and got them quickly integrated into yurt life by roasting marshmallows out back.

Leo once again over does it with the marshmallows. Everything in moderation buddy.

Eve, Ben, and Steve out on a hike. Hey! We lined up in spectrum order! (look at our shirts)

The family hiked up to the top of Mt Baldy (just outside Eagle River) after a recent snow. Yes! in May.

Two and a half weeks after planting our veggies, things are going strong. We have squash, radishes, onions, sugar peas, broccoli, lettuce, collard greens, and carrots all coming up already. Go 24 hours of light.

We are looking forward to a busy summer of visitors, traveling, and of course harvesting

Garden, Cabin, and Warm Days

We have been so fortunate to have had a few weeks of warm weather and it has caused a burst of outside activities. Building a garden was one of our big accomplishments. Here is a photo of our poor car pulling a trailer with 12 two-by-sixes and 2 cubic yards of soil.

Notice the rocks behind the tires? We were only able to make it half way up our driveway until we lost traction on some loose rock and started slipping backwards. After we removed the wood for the garden boxes we were able to get the rest of the way up. And now, here is a picture of our garden (the boxes).

The ground is so rocky that digging holes to fill with dirt is almost impossible. Also having them up in boxes helps keep them warmer during the day, which this time of year is almost always.
We also spent some time at the public use cabin on the nature center trails.
Here are Nicki and Leo enjoying time outside the cabin.

Here are Nicki and Leo inside the cabin.

Leo eating toasted marshmallows.

Our friend Danny who works at the nature center came out to visit us at the cabin and brought the Alaskan hiking essentials in her purse: Bottle of wine, bear spray, and wine glass.

Back at the yurt, here is a picture of the smaller members of the family enjoying the abundant sunshine.

And finally the view from the deck of the now extremely green valley.

Landscaping, Marauding Moose, and Leo the Robot

With the snow gone we have come to realize that the bare ground around the yurt is quite unattractive. Our solution? Landscaping. We have been busy spreading grass and wildflower seed and making rock pathways. We have some plans for some flower boxes and a small vegetable garden. Here is a picture of the new rock pathway leading from the yurt deck to the shed.

We also did some more work on our fire pit to make it more permanent and better lined with rocks. Some how I manages to landscape the number 6 into our yard.

Right by the shed you can also see a sand(rock)box we made for Leo.
The leaves are returning to the trees for their short growing season. They will be all gone again by late September. Here is a picture from the deck with the greening trees and low lying fog (also a strictly summer phenomenon.)

There are a lot of moose about now. They are having a great time nibbling on the willow and alder buds. We were woken up one morning by Georgie's loud barking to find this guy hanging right outside our window.

Leo and I had to run away from one the other day while we were playing in the driveway. I was clearing brush and Leo playing in water of the culvert and a moose decided to amble on towards us. The dogs were out so after I got Leo inside I had to round up the dogs who were attempting to round up the moose.
Oh, and speaking of Leo, the rumors are true. He has officially turned into a robot.

April Happenings

The snow has finally left the yurt property. There are only a few more patches left where the winter plowing piled it up high. Getting Leo outside is much easier without having to bundle him up in 5 layers. Here Leo is roasting a hot dog in our fire pit out back.

He loves roasting them but absolutely refuses to eat them. By the end, this makes for a very full papa.
The inside of the yurt has been full of music and dancing. Here we are at another refined and somber Schneider meal.

Besides listening to music from inside the yurt, we have also been listening to woodpeckers. They have moved in with force (sometimes 3 on a single tree) and we hear them knocking all day long. One has even taken up residence and is pecking out a home in one of our trees.

I'm still busy making puzzles. Here is one that I gave to the nature center auction. It depicts the view of the valley from our house.

Even though the snow is gone from the house we are still out there enjoying it. Here is a picture of a parasailer we saw on a recent cross-country ski trip. It seems Eagle River is a bit of a hot spot for this sport. I recently saw 10 of these guys floating around at one time.

We are doing our best to squeeze in some back-country skiing before the snow leaves the mountains. Nicki and I got out with a few friends for some fun, earned turns.

Here is Nicki enjoying a break at the top with her doggies.

Bye for now.

"Spring" Break

The family had a great time on our "spring" break adventure. Most people enjoy going south to warm places like Hawaii, California, or Jamaica, but for some reason we decided to go north....to Fairbanks.....to the cold. Nicki argued that, "it's after spring equinox, as you go north there is more daylight." She is technically right, but some palm trees would have been nice. Actually, it wasn't a bad trip and we saw lots of cool stuff and had a great time.
It all started out with some volcanic activity. Redoubt decided to puke some ash all over us the day before we left. It basically made the air smell like sulfur and the sky get smokey. I put some pantyhose over the air intake of the car and we were ready to go. Here is a picture of ash trying to blot out the sun.

The first night of our spring (sheesh) break was spent wallowing through hip deep snow to get to this Public use cabin near Talkeetna. It was a fantastic sod roofed cabin that used tree burls to make shelves on the inside and benches on the outside.
Here is a picture of the cabin. If you click on the photo and look closely at the snow on the roof, you can see a layer of ash.

Here is a video Leo enjoying himself on the shores of a FROZEN lake. He could have just as easily done this on a sandy beach, in my opinion. Listen for the "weee"'s as he is rolling around.

North to Fairbanks now. Near Denali park we saw some Caribou. We had never seen any in the wild before. Now we have seen about 30. Here is a picture of them getting dumped on with snow during our "spring" break.

The next night we stayed at some hot springs outside of Fairbanks and then off to another public use cabin. Here is Nicki tailgating outside of the cabin with some pina colada. Very warm and sunny sounding, right. You got the sunny part right.

The sun Lingered on the horizon long enough to take a hundred pictures of it through icicles. Here is one of the better ones.

After getting a bunch of water to drip on the camera, it fogged up and created a kind of cool effect. Here is Leo with Sam the Fox and his baby lion (the pillow).

We spent the rest of the time hanging out in Fairbanks and visiting with our friends mom who let us crash at her house for 2 nights. Thanks, Sally!
We came back on Friday and spent the weekend skiing. I hope all of you in the northern hemisphere are enjoying warmer temperatures. Our snow is quickly melting and we are getting some 50 degree weather. Finally, a SPRING break!