In the year 2011: February 2011

Monday, February 28, 2011

Spring Time In Alaska

My sister was posting pictures the other day of the snow storm that blew through Utah. Well, sister, I love you, but I think I got you beat on this one. The wind has been blowing with gusts up to 95mph. The skies are crystal clear, so you know what that means? Brrrr...freakin...brrrrrr! I didn't leave the house at all yesterday for fear of being blown away! I stepped outside just a few times, but was greeted with a shower of blowing, icy snow.

Not one inch of snow fell over the past few days, but I had bigger drifts in my yard then I have seen all year. It hasn't calmed down at all today either

This little snow drift was just from the wind!

What I woke up to through our bedroom window.

I believe I'm dreaming of green grass, warm weather and sweet smelling flowers. Lower 48 here we come!!!

Thursday, February 24, 2011

A Little of This....a Little of That

So I gotta get the hang of this. Brenda, you do such an awesome job on yours! I'm a bit motivated now to start taking pictures again! I love you all and miss you like crazy.

This is called an Inukshuk...an inukshuk is a pile of stones built to look like a person. In the North where there are herds of caribou, inukshuks were built in semi-circles. The natives would then chase the caribou into the semi circle. The caribou were made to think that they were surrounded by people. The natives were then able to corral them and take them for their food storage. Nowadays, there are herds of reindeer and caribou that are basically corraled by four-wheelers. They don't harvest reindeer so much for their meat as they do their horns. They saw off their horns ever fall (don't worry, they grow back quite fast) and grind them up into powder. There is a huge market for it in Asia as they believe the reindeer holds special powers. They also believe the same about the Northern lights and will dedicate their lives to have the opportunity to dance under them even for one night.