Hunting

On Sunday the 12th at 6am I went caribou hunting with my brother in law, Peter, and my father in law Tim. We drove north just past the Brooks Range - it only took us about 14 hours total. We saw no caribou, some wildlife we did see were some ptarmigan, sheep, moose, porcupine, and about a trillion mosquitoes! It was about 80 degrees where we camped, Galbraith Lake, north of the Arctic Circle. After searching for caribou a couple of days we gave up and headed to Chena Hot Springs - on our way there we heard there were tons of caribou near Phrudoe Bay. We were only about 100 miles from there. It was a fun trip, the Dalton was not too bad and it was really cool to go that far north. Next year I think we will go later in the season when more animals are legal. Enjoy the pictures.

A stop light on the Dalton!?

Some fireweed and a cool rock formation.

Supposedly the farthest north spruce tree on the road/Pipeline. Somebody started to chop it down for some reason, also about 50 feet north of this tree is a living spruce.

Looking down on the road and Pipeline from one of the passes in the Brooks.

Some mountains in the Brooks Range.

Some mountains in the Brooks Range.

The Arctic Circle.

A view from the road. You can see the pipeline and the fireweed. Fireweed is the first plant that grows after a wildfire. In some places it looked like the fireweed went on for miles.

Under the Pipeline, just north of the Yukon.

Crossing the Yukon River. The floor of the bridge is wood!

Baby Labrecque 3!

I forgot to mention that Kari is pregnant. The cat is out of the bag.

Back from MN!

Kari and the kids just got back from MN. They went down to celebrate Grandma's 80th birthday. While there they went north to Uncle Steve's Cabin (where every year the males in the family do their deer hunting) and Duluth. Here are some pics:

Joachim and Grandpa mowing the lawn at the Cabin.

Macrina, somewhere.

Macrina at Canal Park in Duluth.

On the shore of Lake Superior.

1, 2, 3 ....

Jump! I believe this is Canal Park still.

Duluth.

Getting ready for a race sponsered by TCF Bank - where Aunt Bonnie works.

In Grandma's and Granpa's yard.

Bonfire!

Aunt Bonnie pulling Joachim and Macrina in a sleeping bag. This is inside Uncle Steve's Cabin.

John Butler Trio

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ps9ENtfoHI&feature=related

I'm pretty sure the John Butler Trio is my new favorite band. Check out this video of one of their songs "Losing You". John Butler is an amazing guitarist, singer and songwriter. Totally wish they could come to Alaska and play at the Bear's Tooth or something.

Big Update

Ok, so since the last time we have posted much has happened. Pascha - the best Holy Day of all time. With that comes decorating eggs etc. Also this year our dog Katie gave birth to eight puppies on Holy Saturday. Very exciting. On Holy Friday I also put new flooring in the laundry room. It looks great, still needs new paint and trim, but just the new floor looks great. We went camping/clamming in Clam Gulch. It was our first time clamming. It was very sucsessful. I probably got about 100 clams and about 6 and 1/2 cups of clam meat. Kari can make a great clam chowder! The weather has been great, already this year we have had more sunny days than last year. For Memorial weekend we went to Seward again. We camp off Exit Glacier Road, in the 'special use area' i.e. free camping. Anyway, this year it was us the Johnson, Phelps,

Finklers, Rays and Peter Lamb who camped. The Curry's and Curry sisters also hung out. While in Seward we went to Exit Glacier, the Sealife Center, Lowell Point and just generally had late nights and even later mornings. The pictures below are not in order so you will just have to read the captions.

The family at Lowell Point, Emma Phelps is with us. This was Memorial Day - it was beautiful!

Macrina at Lowell Point.

Seward from Nash Road (near the Maximum Security Prison).

Joachim and I at the Sealife Center.

Joachim in the Sealife Center, listening about the latest research.

Macrina at the Sealife Center, I had to put her on the display table so she would not run off. She is a handful!

That's my girl - excersising her 2nd Amendment Rights!

One of the Puppies.

Joachim learning how to clean clams.

Clams waiting to be cleaned. Basically you bring them home in a bucket of saltwater. You feed them some cornmeal - that helps to clean the sand out of them, then you can clean them.

Me cleaning the clams.

You can barley see Mt Readoubt from our camp in Clam Gultch. There is steam rising from it, there continues to be seismic activity.

Sunset at Clam Gultch.

Macrina loves her Nutella!

Another puppy - the eyes are still closed on this one.

Joachim decorating eggs at the Lambs.

This is my bedroom. I painted and did the floor and trim the week before Holy Week.

Interesting Article

I hope this is not true. But we did elect someone who has about zero experiance.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123879833094588163.html

Ash

Volcanic ash from Mount Redoubt fell on Eagle River Saturday night during Vespers. Very little of it. Here is a picture of our yard looking out towards the chicken coop.

The snow just has a light dusting of grey to it. It is really only noticable where the paths are. Joachim thinks it looks like pepper on the ground.

Another Busy Saturday

We had another busy, productive Saturday. Kari went with Dn Pat and Peter Lamb to get more wood. They were able to get two loads for our house and two loads for Peter's. Here is our wood pile now:

While Kari was gathering wood, I finished painting the unfinished bedroom. There are two colors. A dark blue and a burnt orange. They look pretty good. Next we need some more plywood to make the entire floor level, then then we will put on laminate flooring. Here is the room:

After that was all finished we took a long walk in the 50 acres and are now making dinner and getting ready for Vespers.

Busy Day

I had a very busy day yesterday. It started with cooking a great breakfast of Pancakes, Eggs (fresh from our chickens), Veggie Sausages, and Stawberries and Tangerines. We had Joachim's Godfather, Peter Lamb over to eat. Peter and I then took advantage of our Church clearing some land and collected a bunch of wood. Peter heats his house with wood, I use wood to decrease our heating bills. The product of our labour:

After that, I worked a little on the house, I spent about 20 Minuts sanding some mud in the our extra bedroom in preperation for texturing and painting. After that I went to the range with Peter Johnson and Subdeacon John Phelps. I brought my .357 and fired 38 Special from it. Peter brought his 12 gauge with a compression stock so I could feel the difference from my 12 gauge and his. I shot 5 rounds of buck shot and 1 slug through that. No brusies on my shoulder, I should get that compression stock! I also fired Peter's Mini 14, it shoots .223. After coming back I had to butcher one of the chickens. We had a rooster which was harrasing the hens and eating food, so was basically useless. Here is me outside getting the skin and feathers off and guts out:

After that I brought it inside, did the final cleaning and cut the legs/thighs and the breasts off. The wings were so small they were not worth keeping. I then vacumn sealed it in our new vacumn sealer. And the finished product:

I'm very proud of myself for cleaning the chicken all by myself. This is only the 3rd time I have butcherd a chicken, the other times I had someone looking over by shoulder who actually knew what they were doing. Can't wait to have some chicken and dumplings after Lent!

Some Interesting Math

So I was thinking about the biggest budget ever submitted to Congress (and believe me I was not happy about the spending under Bush) of $3.5 Trillion. Thats 3,500,000,000,000.00! So I thought lets see how much we are spending per day in this budget since Jesus was born. For simplicity we will say Jesus was born 2000 years ago, and there were only 365 days in each of those 2000 years. 2000 Years x 365 Days = 730,000 Days. $3,500,000,000,000.00 / 730,000 Days = $4,794,530.55 per day since Jesus was born! This is on top of TARP, on top of the Omnibus Spending Bill, on top of the nearly $1 Trillion 'Stimulus' Bill need I go on. Kind of interesting in a scary sort of way.

Miss Them

The rest of my family has been in Minnisota for the last week and a half. I miss them. This morning I asked Joachim if he was ready to come back home, he said 'Not yet Papa, I have to play with Grandma and Granpa.' Cute but a stinker.

A Child's Perspective II

The other night an Allstate commercial came on. Of course their spokesman is the guy who played the president in the first few seasons of 24. Anyway, Joachim saw him on the ad and said, 'That's Brak Obama; he's my friend, yeah.' Thought I would share that story with any left-wingers that read this blog.

What the French Say

Everynight I read a story to Joachim. I usually lay down in his bed with him, and almost everyday I have to ask him to scoot over so I can actually fit on his bed. The other night I asked him to 'Scoot over si vous plait' I explained that 'si vous plait' is what the people in France say for 'please.'

Now Joachim loves his Uncle John, and takes everything he says as truth. So when my brother John tells Joachim that the French say 'Oui oui, ha ha!' Joachim believes it. So when I told him the French say 'si vous plait', he turns to me and says, 'no Papa, the French say 'oui oui, ha ha' complete with the nasel tone so typical of the French and in a way that says "I'm better than you" He really knows the French mentality.

Funny Story

Tonight we ate dinner at my parents house. In fact we do every Tuesday. Fr Jack and Esther come over as well. Anyway, after dinner tonight Joachim was sitting on my lap. He let a big one rip loud. Kari, looking my way said under her breath, "was that Joachim."

Hoping that no one heard Joachim's fart I nodded my head.

Joachim then looked up at me and said, "I burped" pausing for a second, as if something was wrong he corrected himself, "I burped out my butt Papa." I love the way a child's mind works.

Pipes

So I forgot to post anything about our water pipes. When we have our wood stove going the other, forced air, heater does not come on. Part of the force air is directed into the crawl space so the water pipes do not freeze. To counter that, I installed heat tape on the pipes, supposedly it is good to 40 below. Last Saturday it all went wrong. We got back from church and Kari was outside and heard something funny. She went to the pump house and heard water spraying out of the pipes with great force. She yelled at me to go check it out. I panicked. We eventually got the pump and pressure tank turned off and opened up all the faucets in the house. By that time there was about four feet of water under our house. This was about 9pm. We got ahold of a company that could pump out the water and fix the pipes. They were currently at a job site and said it would be a couple of hours. They eventually came by about 1am. By about 3am they were finished. All for only $650.00! Anyway, this weekend I put new heat tape on and re-insulated the pipes. God willing we will not have that problem again. Today was the first day of using the wood stove again.

Macrina

I love this dress on Macrina. She looks so cute. The picture really does not do her justice. Anyway, when Joachim first saw Macrina in this dress he exclaimed, "She is my princess!"

We celebrated Macrina's first birthday at the end of January. She turned one. He got her an ice cream cake from Coldstone. She loved it. She quickly gave up trying to lift the cake to her mouth, so just bent down and brought her mouth to the cake. She got pretty messy. She is pretty much insane as well. Today she climbed into her crib from the floor. She can also climb from her chair, to one of the adult chairs then climbs from the chair to the couch! She hates staying still!

A Child's Perspective

So I was looking at the Drudge Report just now. Joachim was on my lap. We saw a picture of President Obama. Joachim saw the picture and said 'Dats Prezdnt Obama. Obama's silly.' I swear I did not teach him that.
-Ben

SLEEP

For the last week now Joachim has been getting up at 7:30 in the morning, I don't understand what is happening? He has always slept in till at least 9 and now I am having to drag myself out of bed because he has no decency to let his mom sleep. Does he not understand that Women need there beauty sleep????

The New Post

So I know I have not posted for ever now but I have been so busy with two kids, three dogs, and 7 chickens. And now coming up sometime in the spring, hopefully sooner we will be adding some goats for meat and milk (and no the milk does not taste bad)and meat rabbits to our list of animals. I am so excited. I don't know about Ben, OK I do know about Ben he is wanting to do meat rabbits for SURE but very hesitant about the goats as they are bigger and well they are goats. Since I am the one that takes care of all the animals, he can live with the goats. But, I have to say I am NOT BUTCHERING THE RABBITS! NOR THE GOATS!!!!!!!!!!!.

I want ever one to watch the Regus and Kelly show on at 9:00 am some time in march, as I have entered Macrina in the cute baby photo contest and I need EVERYONE to vote for her once she wins the finely 5 or something like that heheheheheheheh LOL Here is the Pic that I sent

Merry Christmas!

Christ is Born! Glorify Him!