Arctic Valley- photo post

As we are getting closer to berry picking season (yay!), we are checking out some of our favorite spots for berries. Some of them I won't show pictures of because they are secret places my family goes to, but others, like Arctic Valley, are well-known enough that I'm happy to show pictures.

Arctic Valley has a lot of kinds of berries available, but what we plan to go there specifically for is crowberries. In a lot of the books I have, it says that aren't choice berries. Well, that's what the books say.  The Elders I've spoken to love them and my family will eat them out of hand as well as using them for jam and pies. Not that we will turn down other berries! Of course we will pick what's available. Obligatory warning: NEVER EVER EAT A BERRY OR MUSHROOM YOU AREN'T CERTAIN OF IN YOUR IDENTIFICATION.

So we were checking out how it looks this year. It's still early, but we decided we would have 2 days of specifically picking for Elders. One of those days will be crowberries.

The drive up is one of those typically Alaskan gorgeous drives. There's a lot of it that is dirt roads, with a few pull outs to take in the scenery. In one of those pull outs, Michael spotted a rabbit.

William and The Amazing Turnip Girl love it up there.

A lot of the photos I took are for a project I'm working on to help my family identify berries in all stages of growth. I will be putting that together in e-book form as well, with recipes. Today I also took photos of some flowers. I hope you enjoy them. 

 Lots of robins up there singing, it was a very nice time.

Glacier Day Cruise- lots of photos

One thing about living in Alaska is that there is literally a new gorgeous photo opportunity around every corner. I live in a postcard, surrounded by mountains and National Parks. When you get out of Anchorage, that's even more true. My husband and I took a short vacation to Seward to take one of the last day cruises of the year with Major Marine Tours.

There are some things that I didn't take photos of- like I saw a couple puffins in the water and just wanted to enjoy that moment, same with the Dall's porpoises playing by the boat.

Major Marine Tours has a partnership with the National Park Service, so we had someone from there who was very knowledgeable about Chugach National Park, the history, the animals and the trees in the area. That was wonderful and if you are ever in Alaska, I can't recommend this experience enough- it's educational and beautiful. You get to see places that don't have power lines, cell towers or buildings for as far as the eye can see, it's just Alaska. Built by nature in all it's beauty.

I took 300 pictures. Narrowing it down to just a few was hard, but I hope you'll enjoy them.

We started driving down the highway at 6:00 to Seward, which means we got to watch the dawn coming over the mountains.

 The whole highway is a scenic bypass. You will drive by mountains, through valleys, and by large lakes. It's a gorgeous drive.

I took this photo through the windshield because the fog tracing across the road was so neat looking. There was virtually no traffic.

This is the small boat harbor in Seward, Alaska

And this is the catamaran that was used on our cruise. In the middle of tourist season, they use larger boats, but this was perfect for the number of passengers. The name of the boat is the Melissa Ann.

While we were in the harbor waiting to leave, we watched an otter. It was the first sea mammal we saw.

The next couple of photos are examples of the type of scenery there is- I took a lot of photos of scenery and narrowing it down was hard.

Then we saw Steller sea lions and heard them "roar".

So many glaciers. It was hard to choose photos of those because there were a lot. 

Check out that glacier blue! 

Mountain goat climbing and eating on a rock face. 

My husband took this photo of harbor seals and I like it better than my own photos. He caught them all looking at his camera! Click to enlarge. It's worth it.

More of that "I live in a postcard" scenery. 

It's impossible to get any more Alaskan than a bald eagle flying over a glacier. 

Seagulls. Because my best friend loves seagulls and I need to get a picture of them for her. 

Like I said, I took hundreds of photos, and it was hard choosing the ones to post. But here's an extra from our drive back into Anchorage. 

Sunflower and bee photo box

I think that I should start doing more boxes from photographs. This is from a photo that I took last week. I love the bright, summer colors of the sunflower and bee. 

Click the box below for a larger version to print on card stock, cut out, score folds, fold and glue! 

I'm using the same colors in a shawl I'm working on now. 

Magpie and Moose (and a squirrel just because)

We went to Best Buy to pick up Supernatural season 8 because it's Show 2 in our home (Doctor Who is Show) and on the way, in the wooded lot by our house, I saw a moose. So I ran back in the house to get my camera.

So right before I snapped the photo above, we watched a magpie land briefly on the moose's butt then fly off. Michael and I laughed about it. When I take photos, I'll usually take a few, and choose the best one. The second photo that I took was this one.

Does it look like that magpie was looking for a landing spot? It was there with a couple of it's buddies. They were trying to look innocent but watching the moose carefully.

We saw a magpie land again on the moose's butt, then fly off. I missed that photo. But we stuck around as the moose ambled off into the woods to see if it would happen again, if this was a game the magpies were playing.

Sorry for how blurry it is. But yes, that's a magpie. On the moose. The magpies followed the moose into the woods. They really kind of reminded me more than a bit of Rosemary, who is one of my very dearest friends. She loves sparkly things, and also is a fan of Supernatural and her favorite character is the one they sometimes call "Moose".

This photo was taken yesterday, and has nothing to do with the photos above, except I was able to focus more carefully and wasn't laughing while trying to take the picture.

Young ducks, geese and seagulls- photo post

Today I had an eye appointment. Close to my eye doctor is a little man made pond that's teeming with ducks, geese and seagulls. This time of the year, you get to see lots of adolescents! You can click through to larger versions, but the larger versions are still resized to 25% of the originals.

These ducklings are divers. It was adorable watching them disappear under the water to pop back up a foot away.

Young seagull. Just fyi- they sound adorable squeaking out the normal seagull cry. It also kind of reminds me of  Felonious Gru! 

Really reminds me Gru.

Mama diving duck and her ducklings.

Just a seagull, but I loved the colors in this picture.

This duck seemed as baffled by my daughter wearing heavy, steel-toed boots on an 80 degree day as I am!

Goslings!

I hope you enjoyed the photos!

Mountains- Photo post

 

The photo above is my son, right after he said "I'm glad I live in Anchorage, Alaska." Because sometimes we say things that are obvious. We are very glad to live here!

Yesterday, we went to Flattop. If you're ever in Anchorage, Flattop is worth the trip. Even if you don't hike. If you do hike, the bottom part of the trail is fairly easy. The top part of the trail isn't as well groomed and can be icy even in June but the main part of the trail is hiked by parents with small children and people walking dogs regularly.. If you don't hike, bring a picnic lunch and enjoy some of the most gorgeous views in the Anchorage area. It's a 5 dollar parking fee, and you drive past the zoo on O'Malley, and keep driving until you start seeing signs pointing you towards Glen Alps/Flattop, then just follow the signs.

After you park, you'll see outhouses, a ranger station and a set of stairs. The stairs take you to the trailhead. Because of the grade, I wasn't able to do it yesterday, my knees were hurting a little too much from gardening. But the Turnip Girl and William enjoyed climbing up on a gorgeous day to a place there was still snow on the ground.
Click the images for larger views!
For me? Well, opposite the stairs, there is a shorter path that's a very easy grade and marked with a log fence. You walk up that path, and there is a spot with a bench. If no one else is sitting there, you can have your picnic there, looking over the whole city. Which was very, very hazy because of cottonwood trees and dust yesterday. Keep walking that path, and you find a big compass rose.

Around the compass rose are wood strips at irregular intervals.

Follow the strips and you find names of mountains, the distance to them, and their elevation. So working around the side that wasn't affected by the haze over Anchorage there was Wolverine Peak. 

O'Malley Peak

The Wedge

Ptarmigan Peak (Ptarmigan is our state bird!)

And Flattop!

And come fall, this is one of the best places to go blueberry picking. Yum!!

I hope you enjoyed this photo post. It was a really lovely outing with my family.