shoveling, shoveling, and more shoveling!!!

Brrrrrr! Yesterday was a low temperature of 1 degree!  Even though it may be cold for us; it is never to cold for the Kodiak bears to get their apple pops.  I have been making popsicles for the bears as treats.  Yesterday, they each got an apple popsicle.  They ate them in about 2 minutes.... Today I gave them popsicles but instead of apples it had dog food in the pop.  hmmmmm....maybe fish pops one day?

 As I was emptying a donation bag I just had to get a photo of the bag before I tossed it out.  A month ago we received donations from the Iditarod left overs from last year.  If you know anything about the Iditarod you have definitely heard the name Lance Mackey.  He is a 4 time Iditarod Champion!  This bag had beef and chicken sticks that we fed to our bears.  Finger Lake is one of the route stops in the race.  We also found a bag of extra dog booties. 

 Jewelie, our sitka black tailed deer, had a banana and an apple added to her grain.  Jonathan and I were finally both working outside at the same time for the first time in a while.  So we decided that yesterday would be a day of getting projects done while there was 2 of us.  Jewelie was one of the first projects we covered.  We shoveled along her fence line since the snow was getting really high.  Then we also gave her some fresh straw in her house.  Now that it is getting warmer we may move her out onto display in the next month or so. 

Today was definitely an arm work out for Jonathan and I!  It warmed up to about 20 degrees and the sun was out.  Since we have had a record year for snowfall; the roofs of all the buildings are needing to get cleared off because of the weight.  I have to give more credit to Jonathan since he had a few extra hours of shoveling than I did.  I did give a tour to a board member and their visitors; while Jonathan began work on the Gift store ramp.  We have a ramp located at the back of the gift store entrance.  The ramp has been closed off for about 4 months now since the snow could slide of the roof onto the ramp.  Now, there is so much snow on the ramp that they had to clear it all off today because of the weight.  Once the ramp was cleared we headed over to our information barn to clear the roof off.  That took about another half hour or so of shoveling.  When we done we were too tired to even climb down the ladder; so we just jumped....

Now, even just typing is making my arms hurt.  If I were a cartoon character my arms would be wobbling like spaghetti.  Goodnight Lower 48,
Erin