Dust, Grit, Wind, Mud, 8 Paws . . . Spring Time

Dust, Grit, Wind, Mud, 8 Paws . . . Spring Time, this pretty much sums up this time of the year up here for me.  Other than, I should add putting storage wax on about 70 pairs of skis.  The transition from winter to something that resembles spring is rather a bumpy road.  We have snow, rain, winds gusting up to 30 mph, pleasant days, sunshine, and gritty dog paws!  There is green plant life poking its head up across the tundra, and soon with our extended hours of daylight, the tundra will leave its brown coat behind and transform to a magnitude of greens.

Migratory birds are heading north. We get huge flocks passing over but not like the Yukon Delta area.  This is subsistence bird hunting season as well.  This always seems strange to me, but in a traditional sense, I get it.  Cranes, swans, ducks, geese are passing over as they head north to their nesting grounds.

We put storage wax on all our skis which is over 120 pairs! Now they are ready for their long summer's nap!

The beach is opening up, and by this, I mean all the sea ice from the February storms is melting.  Even this morning the difference is amazing from yesterday.  Now we just have spots of snow left on the beach.

Typical wet dog walk. It started out nice and ended up with a south wind blowing in with the rain.  We were all soaking wet! 

The Wooly Lousewort are the first flowers to arrive on the brown tundra.  These bright pink flowers are a treat to see every year.

I love the expanse of the tundra.  It puts life into perspective.

Spring on the Tundra

The first Tundra Flowers of the season have appeared finally!  These little ones will dot the tundra are known as the Wooly Lousewort.

Freedom!  A great game of chase!

Wooly Lousewort

Cozy Spring Days of Rain

Spring arrives out here on the tundra whenever it wants just like the rest of the world.  Seasons come and go on their time and never on human time.  I traveled back east, and it was spring there: trees blooming, fresh flowers were up, green grass, mother nature is just showing off with lacy leaves spreading out under a warmer blue sky.

Here on the tundra, it is still the gritty season, dusty at times, or mucky at others.  The tundra is brown, and the lichen is starting to turn greener.  When I landed here on Sunday, there was a fire burning south of the village across the river.  A person was out on their snow machine on the dry brown tundra most likely bird hunting and started a fire. The story goes something like this that the ski on the snowmachine hit a rock made a spark and started a fire.  Springtime in Alaska is fire season which always seems strange. It is dry here as Alaska waits for the rains.  As the plane came in you could see the fire moving across the tundra.  When we went out for a ski, the wind changed direction and caused a back burn which put the fire out.  They did bring in a crew of smokejumpers to work the fire.

We got in a few more days of skiing, and I think we are most likely done as the rain has been somewhat consistent and day and night temperatures are above +40ºF.  If I lived up in Nome, I would be skiing with all my ski friends up there for some time!  I might be able to get some skiing in once we get back to Montana . . . We will see on that one.

 Look carefully to see the smoke from the fire across the river burning.

The ribbon of groomed snow was still perfect for skiing on Sunday afternoon.  The drainages fill with windblown snow and this is what we groom to ski on through the winter.  The ski trail snow lasts and lasts!

The tundra appears after its winter nap, brown, dry and crisp! Snow covered Nulato Hills in the background.

Christian and his buddy Tally---all loving a great ski under a vast blue northern latitude sky.

Miss Sadie cruising right along.

 Blue sky selfie!

If you are interested I am over on Instagram (which I really am enjoying) I have signed off of WasteBook since the ski team season is over.  I am off of Twitter----less social media is best!

The tundra is tossing off its winter coat and will soon be bursting with new green growth, lichen, and flowers!

I switch from skis to my FatBack Rhino FLT bike which I am LOVING!  The more I ride my Rhino, the more I realize this considerable investment in $$$ was well worth every penny!

The beach is still covered in the jumbled up sea ice mess from the February storms.  The ice is now about 1-2 feet thick instead of the 6 to 8 feet after the storms.

 Beach Walk View

 Dirty Old Sea Ice Mess

Melting ice returning to the sea.

 Endless miles of fabulous beach walking . . .

 This Star was tossed back into the water. 

Yesterday was your basic dreary tundra day: rain, low-clouds, cold, damp. One of least my favorite things in the spring and fall is 8 muddy gritty paws.  The Dragon's Back is still holding snow across the slough. This is where our younger skiers mostly ski.

The cannery is the red building in the distance.  The slough is almost ice-free.

Game of Thrones PDS YARN CLUB

This is the first Skein we received in the GOT Yarn Club.  The yarn is a luscious blend of Merino and Silk!  The club also includes a beautiful gift besides the yarn in each of the three shipments.  I know nothing about The Game of Thrones books or TV series, but of course, I joined up right away. I love The Knit 'N Needle, in Montana which is my local yarn shop.  The owner is a talented yarn dyer. I jumped at the chance to see what she has been up to in the dye pot.   

The first package arrived up here in Alaska in a pretty timely fashion.  I say this as at times mail moves rather slowly this far north due to weather, space on planes, and the list of pending mail issues can go on and on.

 

A little look inside a nicely packaged box of goodies!  I always love when yarn comes wrapped in tissue paper it feels unique in an old fashion sort of way!

  

 

I have recently become a huge fan of Instagram!  If you follow me there, you have seen some of these photos. You are not going nuts thinking "I have seen these photos before . . ."

The goodies!  A nice cup/logo perfect for that knitting tea I enjoy daily!  Aimee always does an excellent job of putting together all the right pieces for a knitting club. If you are on Ravelry, you can find the shoppe forum at Ravelry Groups Knit-n-Needle the thread  to the Game of Thrones .  It is not to late to sign up!  We are a very chatty group, many of use have known each other in person for years or have become online friends.  If  you feel like we all know each other  . . . well, many of us do!  Please, we love new knitters so jump in to the chat!  Oh, one last thing it is totally fine to be off topic!

My Waterton Shawl which is more of a wrap or would it be correct to call it a shawl-et?  Is on the needles!  I did frog it out last night as I had a few too many oops for my liking.  I also switched to my bamboo needles as the metal ones were far too slippery.

Counting Days

Day 116 on skis!

I always know how many days a year I ski.  I don't know how many days a year I hike, bike, paddle, swim, walk, knit, read or anything else, but for a few reasons, I count my days on skis.  My father in law and avid skier and outdoorsman always smirks at my days on skis and wonders why would I count them just ski!  Which I totally get----why count?  There has always been something about getting in 100 days on skis . . . in the ski bum world. A ski coaching friend got me turned on to counting my days during my time here in Alaska.  For years now I count my days on skis.

The main reasons is not a competition with others. It is just a way of getting one out the door. I know all kinds of people who say "I ski" or do some activity and then they might only do this activity a few times during the given season.  I guess I might be a bit harsh, but that doesn't seem like getting out the door often enough in my books.  Keeping track of days on skis gives me a goal, gets me out the door, promotes a healthier me, and is just right for us all no matter what!

My goal this year as for many years has been to hit 125 days a year on skis.  I am closer than ever, but I doubt I will arrive at that number this year.  I am presently at 116 days and should be able to ski a few more days before I travel south and east for a family visit. Now if the weather holds like this week, I might be able to ski more once I get back to Alaska.  It has been in the teens and twenties at night and hasn't gotten above +32ºF this week.  This certainly helps keep the ski trails covered in snow.

The most important things about counting ski days are the fact that it keeps me moving, and gets me out the door.  I know outside activity is really a great thing for overall health both mentally and physically!

Like the Norwegian saying I came across a few years ago, "The longest mile is to the door!"

Spring Skiing

It is that wonderful time of the year called SPRING!  When one can often ski in the sunshine, no wind, and just cruise on corn snow!  The last few weeks have been great skiing.  Time to get out on the snow with Christian, friends, dogs, and ski away in warmth.  The reward for skiing in minus whatever temperatures, winds, overflow, hard pack (another way to say ice) and all the extremes we ski with and on out here.

Yesterday we had snow on and off most of the day.  We took out the touring skis and cruised up Picnic Hill in about 2 inches of fresh powder. A nice late afternoon early evening ski. The dogs were thrilled to be out and so were we!

Two great ladies on either side of me that will be moving on to new things in their lives at the end of the school year,  I wish them both happiness and adventure in their new jobs. As I have learned in life it is better to be glad/happy that you have gotten to know such great people even if they move on to new things.  Thanks, great friends!

Hello, weird formatting that won't let me do what I want! I will just carry on . . . This wonderful gal will be heading to UAF to teach and to all the young teachers that will get to know and learn from her, you will be blessed!  The education world will be forever grateful!

The Girls just love being out and cruising around as now they can be on open tundra smelling all kinds of great things!  Hopefully not rolling into much rotten stuff or eating the rotten stuff and barfing later in the house!

As we drove out yesterday you can see the dramatic changes going on these days.  Tundra is showing up, snow is melting/evaporating rapidly. We had snow squalls on the Nulato Hills.  The last few days have been in the teens!  The snow on the ski trails we groom stays for some time.  It is a ribbon of snow out across the tundra and we just keep skiing!

I often ride my new killer cool Fat Back bike out to ski these days. I just load up my skis, carry my ski boots out and ski away!

The Tundra just stretches out forever behind us and now mostly bare of snow except where there are drifts or groomed ski trails.  The trails and drifts are just giant freezers now and we ski away!

Heading back down Picnic Hill which is a nice long gradual uphill/downhill.   The ribbon of groomed ski trail is pretty apparent in these photos.

Sadie and I soaking up the sunshine under that huge deep blue northern latitude sky recently!

My best ski partner ever!  Grooms our ski trails, loves to be outside doing whatever the activity is of the day always fun to share our time together!

Woolly Thistle Mitten Knit Along (KAL) 2019

A mitten knit along may or may not be what I need to jump into in February but oh why the heck not!   The pair I wanted to knit was this cute killer pair by a Swedish designer, Sofia Kammeborn, that was inspired by a recent visit to Trondheim, Norway.  How could one go wrong with that combination? Thus her creative mitten design is named Trondheim.

The Woolly Thistle an online yarn shop hosts a KAL (knit along) each February.  One has to knit stranded colorwork mittens.  I ended up purchasing another cute as can be pattern and casted on two pairs of mittens.  Of course, neither pair are off my needles!  If you are in the market for a new mitten pattern, I would get over to Instagram and #TWTMITTENKAL2019 and have a look at the beautiful mitten designs that are being created today.

I, of course, had some serious bits of frogging from the get go!  I now just accept this as a usual way to start a project.  "Third Time is the Charm!"  Is a beautiful theory: tested, dependable, and works. Latvian Braid is one of those unique design features either you love or deplore. As you see there are no needles in this mitten as it is being FROGGED!

  The reason for the frogging was due to that light blue color which just wasn't going to work for me!  I had hoped it would work but int he end it reminded me of all outdoor clothing of the late 70s that was various shades of light blue--yakkooo-laaa!

Once back on the needles with a lovely Rauma light grey, the mitten took on the life I was hoping for--a bit of a crisper look.  Of course, tea and ginger snap cookies always make life better.  

As knitters were posting more and more cute mitten patterns, I fell for the Acanthium Kit that can ebpurchased at TWT as well.

This is the reason I have two pairs of mittens on the needles.  Both are of course with 100% wool!  The Acanthium mittens are knitted with Jamieson & Smith yarn WHICH I HAVE NEVER KNITTED WITH BEFORE!  Not sure why since I do love everything SHETLAND!  

 

Progress being made on both sets of mittens!

Front and back of the Trondheim.  The waterfront buildings I just adore and the Latvian Braid---cute-cute-cute!

OOOPS! NOT! Wool-n-Ski is moving to WordPress

Once again, I think, I am going to move the blog over to Wordpress. I STOP, THINK, get started and say NO not yet!

Here I am still blogging away on Blogger!  One thing I am going to work on though is my writing and posting more often.  I want my voice here to be more real more me.  I want my blog to be more of a journal that I write for myself and share with you the reader.  I have always enjoyed writing and keeping a journal.  I feel a digital scrapbook is easy to maintain and obviously, others can follow along.  I get inspiration from other blogs that I enjoy.  Thank you, bloggers, who are willing to share your world with us.

What is new? I changed the layout to a more trendy look, at least in my books! Enjoy drop a comment, say hello, BLOG-ON!

Here is an update (4/17) on all of this---I tried yet again to work with WORDPRESS man what a pain in the butt!  I am not sure if it is me, or our connectin here but lets say combursume and a waste of time!

I am moving this blog over to WordPress.  I will update and post a link once I have a new blog up and running on Wordpress.  This has been something I have been debating for a few years.  Today I finally DID IT! 

There are a few reasons for this move. The main reason is it is time for a change. I am hoping to be a bit more inspired by using Wordpress.  From my small bit of research, it sounds like Wordpress will be a better fit with my iPad.

Thanks for following me here over the years and be on a lookout for a new blog at Wordpress.