Another beauty day!

It was pretty foggy this am, but burned off by noon and turned in to a fairly decent day. On our walk today we noticed the blueberries and huckleberries are blooming. They have such a small delicate little flower. Some are pink and some are white, I'm not sure which berry is white and which is pink, but they were loaded with flowers and bees.

I love this walk that we take up and above the town, this is probably one of my favorite views of Port Frederick Sound. I noticed some whale blows way across the bay, that's a good sign, they are coming in here to eat, and so will the salmon!

A little sunshine in the mail

I knew it was bound to happen, rain. Sometimes I do have to remind myself that the Tongas National Forest is a RAIN FOREST after all! It doesn't take long for a week of sun to dry out this place, they even had the fire get away from them at the dump the other day. For Christmas Franks sister Leah and her husband Steve got us a subscription to fruit of the month! Leah and Steve know how much we miss fresh fruit, every time they visit they ask what they should bring up and we yell "FRUIT", I can't think of a better swap, fruit for fish. We received organic strawberries today! There was a problem somewhere with the shipping though, they shipped on the 15th and we received today.......luckily they weren't moldy, but they were pretty banged up and soft, but we managed to save enough for some strawberry shortcake, YUM! Made the rainy day so much nicer. THANKS LEAH AND STEVE!!!


(I only took one picture before the strawberries were gone and before I realized someone had his eyes closed)

More and more humming birds are arriving daily. Nooks loves having the feeders in the front window. She makes this funny chirping sound at them.

Hummingbird Season

Since it stopped freezing at night, at least the last 2 nights anyway, I figured it was safe to put our hummingbird feeder out. Didn't take long for those little birds to find it, they are so funny, fierce little birds and so mean to each other. They bang against the front window when another one buzz's them. They are not easy to get a picture of either!


JC just sent me this picture of Kyler, he's holding his own bottle now. Still doesn't have any teeth breaking thru, but I'm sure it won't be long. I love it when they get this age and turn all chubby!

Still warm and sunny!

Made a trip up to the dump again today, always an adventure! This smallish brown bear looks like he's had a rough life! Scars and recent wounds all over him! Notice he's tagged in his ear too, someone is keeping track of him.


Then when he started going up the hill I noticed even more scarring on him. When he got up near the trees in the shadows and didn't move, if you didn't know he was there you couldn't even see him. See, I know they are always out there watching me!

This was probably the big bruiser who gave him a few of those recent wounds, fighting over food. He kept ducking when I tried to take his picture, but notice how pretty his fur is compared to the other one. Bear season is open, but these guys are safe up at the dump, they hunt these guys from the beaches, where most of the bears are right now eating what little grass is coming up.

How's the boat looking? WHAT, you say, it's not in the water?! There is a ton of salad hanging off the bottom of it, we'll have her cleaned up and back in the water by tomorrow. We're thinking of having the bottom painted to save us from having to take her out every month this summer and hosing her down.

Spring................

I think it is safe to say spring has arrived! Yesterday, Frank and I ran into these crocus all bloomed out, can you see the bee's full of pollen? While we were looking at the crocus a hummingbird buzzed us! Need to get the feeders out, but they will freeze at night!


Today we took a ride out the road since it's still nice and sunny. Thought we'd see how far we could make it before the snow stopped us. Got about 10 miles out, made it to Game creek, I think it's probably the biggest creek on the island:



Then on our ride back in I had to take a picture of these tracks, now I know it's spring the bears are waking up! That's some big paw tracks!

Spring or Winter?

This is the view out our front window this am:



Where are the flowers? Where are the humming birds? Where is the flipping sun!!!!!



Frank took this picture a couple of weeks ago, first bear of the season, up at the dump. I thought that eagle was being a little brave, but that bear wasn't going to share. They have a cage around the garbage now and burn it most of the time. Once it's mostly burned they push it out of the cage, so this bear was getting his dinner cooked already! This "new" method is supposed to keep the bears away from the dump, oh, but guess where they go now? That's right, into town. Who comes up with these great ideas.................

Home again, home again.......

Slept most of the way home on the ferry and once we got the van unloaded and stuff put away I had to take another nap, finally starting to feel normal! Last night was terrific at the Folk Festival. It started out with a 12 year old, Kit and the Kaboodles, her voice is as strong as Leanne Rimes was at that age, I'll be watching for her in the future. Ray Troll and the Ratfish Wranglers were a hoot, the band fits his art. We had some good laughs when they sang Ketchikan Cannery Girl, they even had a dancer, dressed in extra tuffs, rain pants, and plastic apron, too funny! One gal from Gustavus had written a song, I thought was for us. About being out on the water and trying to beat a west wind home, but she left out the part about tying up to a mooring buoy for the night, so the song must have been about someone else.................The night ended with the guest band, Les Amis Creole, Uncle Chris would have loved this! Lotsa cajun music to end the night! Frank was handing out business cards to the band members afterwards, with promises of free fishing trips......but those guys will probably never come back, it rained and snowed sideways all week while they were here.

Noticed most of the towns snow birds are back, it must be spring! We just need a nice day to get the boat out of the water to get her cleaned up. Frank will be working temp. at the school for the next couple of weeks, but right after he'll need to start getting new line on the poles, and all the other little things that need to be done finished, May will be here before we know it.

Folk Festival Week-end

Frank and I will be taking the ferry over to Juneau for the week-end to catch a little of the Folk Festival. There is a band from Hoonah going over to play, so we need to support them, the Bear Paw Pickers, plus they're good! We'll be staying with our friends Debbie and Lin, so I think we're in for a fun week-end. I think Frank is even bringing his gold pans, so he may get a little panning in while were there, I think I'll head to JoAnnes for some restocking while he's in the creeks.

Sat, 4-13, I'm starting to feel the affects of not going to be until after 1am for 2 nights in a row, I'm getting too old for this! There are some great musicians at this years Folk Festival, we just haven't been able to leave until they are done playing every night. These long, dark winters sure turn out some talented people. Each band has only 15 minutes of playing time on the stage, and some of them you would like to listen to all night, then there are others..........well, let's just say their 15 minutes seem to last an hour, but there is only a few of those. The last band last night had an young boy, maybe 10 years old, helping them. He had on his gold and black shinny shirt, open down to his belly, and boy did he have some moves! He was like a mini Mick Jagger, that boy was brought up on rock and roll! I hope someone got some video for him to watch when he hits his teen years! We'll be heading back over there tonight for the last night, the headliner band will be ending the show with a long performance. We caught a little of them last night, so we're really looking forward to tonight, we'll just sleep all the way home on the ferry tomorrow. Which reminds me, we have to be up and at the terminal at 6am...........yew.

Latest News

Since my computer hates myspace and won't even let me log onto it anymore, I've had to resort to a blog. I don't seem to be having much luck with the blog either, but I think that is due to our Internet connection being so slow after 8am in Hoonaville. So I'll keep trying, be patient.

Latest news:

JC and Mikayla were married last Friday, April 4th, I think they went to Post Falls, Idaho. Since they are both only 17, Jim and her mom both had to sign to give them consent. Kyler was probably the biggest shock, (he was born in November) so I'll survive the marriage too. JC sure seems a lot more mature then I was at that age, and he's a very attentive dad. I'm still waiting for pictures!

This is Kyler in the hat I made him, at little big, but he's growing so fast it won't be long before it's too small! Look at that big belly!

Frank is expecting another grandbaby in June. His youngest son Josh and his wife Audra are expecting a girl, their first child.

My nephew Kevin and his girlfriend Stephanie will be getting married in July in Portland, sounds like it will be a very nice wedding. Too bad all this fun stuff is happening in the summer when we are working! I just hope we get lots of pictures!