in texas this is how we "cinnamon" roll

Well it's vacation time!  I packed lightly and flew on down to good ole Texas.  Since summer time is so busy at the center the only time I really get to visit home is Christmas time.  So this next blog is going to show you a little bit of what I do while I am visiting Texas.

But first thing is first...what is going on while I am away?

The day I left Girdwood and Portage, Alaska there was a storm that left them with about 30 inches of snow! FINALLY!  Now I can't wait to go to Alyeska and do some skiing or snow boarding!

let's see what the animals thought of this storm....

the musk seem to be enjoying it. After all, their natural environment in the wild is in the Arctic.

Nelson and teddy seem to have a fairly good coat of snow on them.  However, if they didn't like sitting in the storm they have a barn right behind them.....

 The Bison herd also prefers this type of weather.  Instead of laying down in the wind they actually stand right in the middle of it usually and herd together.

All 4 previous photos were taken by Doug Lindstrand.  He is one dedicated photographer!  He is out in the weather on all sorts of days.

Ok so back to Texas....

One of the main things I miss from home is church.  My family goes twice on Sundays and Wednesday nights.  The fun thing about Wednesday nights is sometimes there are suppers before church.  I was lucky enough to run into the lady that was preparing this weeks meal and invited to help.  If you know me; I love to cook and bake.  Also, this week just happened to be my favorite meal: Mexican pile on and cinnamon rolls! Mexican pile on is basically nachos.  One of my favorite foods :)

So as I was helping yesterday; I wanted to show you just how much work goes into preparing a meal for roughly 200 hundred people.

the Mexican pile on part wasn't too difficult.

Dice Tomatoes.

Dice the onions.  Yes, I cried a bit.

And use about 50 avocados to make guacamole.











mmmmmmm. cheese.  only needed 2 blocks of this stuff and 4 huge cans of rotel.

ok here comes the demise of my sweet tooth.

First you need dough.  I was too busy crying with the onions and stealing bites of avocado to pay attention to the dough making part.









Then all the ladies making the cinnamon rolls grabbed their amount and started rolling.  Once the dough was rolled out we added the good stuff.  Butter.

                                                                        Sugar.

                                                                     Brown Sugar.

This is Mrs. Blake the lady that was in charge of this meal.  I think all the helpers were trying to pay close attention to how she makes all her recipes.  They are so good!!!!!!





Once you add the cinnamon and roll the dough up you have the rolls!

 mmmmmm.  We made just over about 200 rolls I think.  they were a hit.  I mean who can resist that smell any ways?

After a full tummy and church I slept very well last night.

goodnight lower 48,
Erin

snow finally arrived....but now I'm visiting texas.

 OK I have to give a shout out and credit to three hardworking gals before I say any more.  The past couple of months there has been fence building on some forest service property that the AWCC is now using to move some of our Wood Bison onto.  We have 6 people working on the fence project and they are all very hard workers.  After all, to work with frozen grounds, below 0 temperatures, wind, and even freezing rain you sort of have to be hard core.

From left to right: Kayla, Teal, and Kara.  Once spring time arrives this new fencing will allow the AWCC to spread out our bison herds on bigger pastures.  We are still re-introducing bison in 2015 this will just allow more room for herd growth in the mean time.



One thing you get very good at when working in the elements is figuring out the right type of gear and clothes.  A good pair of rain boots (preferably insulated) is a must have thing when living in Alaska.





I love, love, love this photo of Kara with the 2 musk ox calves that were born in April.  Look how big!
I can't believe they weighed just 20lbs at birth!

The above 3 pictures were taking by Kara Robinson.  Hope ya don't mind that I borrowed these Kara :)

 Goldie Locks and the 3 bears.....well minus the Goldie Locks part.

The 3 bears made an appearance a week or so ago.  Our brown bears do still hibernate even though they are in captivity.  The time however is about half of what a wild bear hibernates; which is about 6 months in the wild.

photo by: Doug Lindstrand

I like this photo that Doug Lindstrand captured!  As you may figure but working with animals they can be unpredictable.  Well, last week a young bull elk decided that he wanted to be in the musk ox enclosure.   At least they get along right?

I think he basically claimed the haylage pile.
Mukluk is in the background eating what she can of the haylage he didn't claim.

I kept this blog short and sweet.

Merry Christmas and goodnight lower 48,
-Erin

Where did you go snow?

Well, we are well into November and yet where is all the snow!  I am ready for skiing, snowball fights, and to just stop filling up frozen water bowls!  Once the snow arrives most of the animals would prefer to eat snow rather than drink water so it makes my job a bit easier when it comes to hydration for the animals.

Jade has been doing some upgrading on the size of his den.  In this pic on the right I went to play with him and he was showing me his newly dug hole.

A few days later a local photographer and member of the wildlife center stopped by to take advantage of the sunny weather.  Since we were really slow on the amount of visitors; I had some free time to get her an up close encounter with Jade.  she was very generous and emailed me some of the pics she captured of me with Jade.  

Photo by: Catherine Diehl-Robbins

Meanwhile I was able to get a great photo of Adonis spreading his wing.  If you don't remember; Adonis is the oldest animal we have at the center.  He arrived to us 18 years ago from Bird Treatment and learning center (in anchorage).  He was found with a bullet in his left wing which in turn had to be almost entirely amputated.  He is no longer able to fly.  We actually have no idea how old he really is.  when he was found he already had his white head.  A bald Eagle typically gets his white head when it is around 5 years old.  This means Adonis is at least 23 years old!


We do have a tiny bit of snow on the ground but hardly anything to make a snowball out of....trust me I tried already...  However November is still showing signs of the rut; when the animals are typically breeding in the wild.  Doug Lindstrand caught a great photo of the bulls fighting.  since we don't have any female reindeer at the center the bulls don't fight nearly as aggressive.

 

                                                photo by: Doug Lindstrand

  Sarah Howard was feeding the moose when Doug drove by and saw a great opportunity to snap some shots of her with Teddy.

                                     I didn't realize we had cannibalistic moose here.....

                                                      Moose photos by Doug Lindstrand

               

This photo was from a few weeks back that Doug emailed me.  Solo the Sitka black Tailed Deer was just lounging around and sun bathing.  He is getting so big!  Next year, during rut, it will be interesting to see if Solo becomes aggressive with us since he has Leia (the female sitka Black Tailed Deer).






I may not have mentioned it in my last few blogs; but I moved to Girdwood in August.  I do miss living at the center but every day when I wake up and realize I can walk to town to buy groceries or walk to the post office.....well let's just say it is much easier to get errands run when you live in town.  That and there is more things to do than living in Portage,AK.  I imagine summertime will have me camping at the center when i have a 4AM bottle feeding.  I can't wait already till next summers calves!

Goodnight lower 48,
Erin

State Fair, Denali, and a Hand Tram adventure

Well it was that time of year again to give the bears all the veggies from the state fair.  All 3 were ready to go to get some giant pumpkins, cabbages, gourds, and all kinds of other veggies.  The past 2 years I have mentioned this event in my blog.  But just in case you missed those I can explain.  The Alaska State fair has veggie competitions.  Once the contests are over we get most of the veggies in hose contests.  And since most of the veggies aren't really tasty to people at the size; they are still yummy for our brown bears.  But don't worry we also give out the veggies to Snickers the porcupine, elk, reindeer, Sitka Black Tailed Deer, and the musk ox. 

                          Now for the second listed adventure in my blog title....Denali National Park!

This is my third time to visit this amazing place.  One of the employees at the center bought a Road Lottery pass from someone.  What the road lottery is:  every September once tourist season and summer is basically over they open all 92 miles of the park for public vehicles to drive.  This means no riding on the huge motor coaches for 8 hours straight.  You can enjoy the views from your own personal vehicle with a great group of friends.  The animals are still very active as well since they are getting ready for winter. 

The colors in the park were just gorgeous!  Fall has definitely arrived here much sooner than down in good ole' Portage,AK.  We even made it into the park before sunrise....which was at about 7:18am. 
So right now we are seeing about the normal daylight hours....but that won't last much longer.

I better get a happy lamp to prepare me for this summer.  (Lamps with special florescent lighting to keep you happy when the sun is away)


The red in all the bushed were my favorite part of these pics.  It was some kind of wild blueberry that the bears were just gorging themselves on.  I think we may have seen a total of about 8 brown bears, 5 bull moose, tons of Dall sheep, Ptarmigan (birds), thousands of Sand hill Cranes that were migrating, and 1 Doug Lindstrand.  Yes, we even passed the famous photographer on our way out of the park.  He was just getting started to get some good sunset pics of the park.  That man is dedicated!

Mt. Denali (McKinley as we know it) was especially viewable this trip.  Because it was so clear the whole way we got great pictures of Alaska's largest Mountain.  The mountain is right around 20,000 feet or so. 

 Bert and his favorite Girlfriend, Kara, going for a walk.

This is the time of year we are training our reindeer to be comfortable walking around the center.  We are then able to use Bert for christmas and any other winter events.  People are able to get up close to a reindeer safely; and also learn about them.

....no they cannot fly.

Yesterday was my day off.  I wanted to get one last good hike in so I hiked Winner Creek....and then some.  Winner creek is 2.5 miles long (one way); however I kept going and totaled right around 7 miles or so. 

I took this snap shot as I was sitting at the edge of the bridge in thee previous picture.   Don't worry mom it was only about 10 feet above the creek. 

just playing around with the camera angles....











Then thought I would play around with the colors...

Once you get to the end of the trail there is a Hand Tram that fits up to 2 people.  I definitely got a workout in by pulling myself across.  The tram is about 54 feet from the bottom of the creek.  Gee, it sure does seem much higher when you are in it. 

This picture is about half way across the gorge. 

again just getting artistic. 





Well back to the rainy outside.  Of course, I  am not complaining after the September we had last year....gah so much rain!  This year has been awesome!  I am ready for the snow to arrive so ski season can begin!!!!!!!!

Goodnight Lower 48,
Erin

Picking a fight with hornets and trees

Rut has officially begun!  What is rut exactly?  Basically it is the time of year when the animals are breeding.  The elk are the coolest animal to watch this time of year.  Not only do they shed their velvet over night basically; the soft material that covers their antlers while growing,  but they also start to get very aggressive.  

The females are on the left.  In the wild one bull elk has a group of females called a Harem.

In order to control the safety of the herd we actually separate the younger bulls from the dominant bull.  If we were to leave them all together that bull would end up picking the younger bulls off one by one.

Surprisingly this isn't even the dominant bull!

 The black bears sure have been enjoying their daily portions of salmon at 4 pm.
Uli almost 100% of the time picks up a piece and walks to this spot on the rock and puts on a nice show of chowing down for the public.
All of our salmon is donated from locals that need to make room for this year's salmon.
I for one have a freezer full of silver salmon to get me through the winter.

Devin, my boyfriend, was visiting again and he loves feeding the black bears.  It's my favorite daily task as well.  I wouldn't even call it a task.  I get to feed bears everyday!!!!!
I like this picture because you can see how patiently Uli is waiting for her next filet.
Our animals eat better than we do!

                                            A closer look of Uli awaiting her next meal......

I also like to throw in a bag of hooligan every now and then.  Kuma loves the hooligan.  I blogged about the hooligan back in may when we were dip netting for them.  This is some of that batch that we caught and donated to the bears and eagle.....I wouldn't dare eat that nasty oily fish.
However, a lot of people do like to fry them up.





Speaking of nasty fish I heard that if you want to get rid of a hornet's nest a good way to do it is by hanging a fish head on a stick over a bucket of water.  The hornets will eat so much of the fish that they get full and fall in the bucket.  Yeah my mind was blown too!

and can you believe that it actually worked!  However, I did discover that I should have used a filet so that there was more for the hornets to eat.  So unfortunately there will be a round two of this hornet nest adventure.

Here was that hornet nest that I got to play exterminator with......

viewer discretion advised on this next photo

So about that tree that I was fighting with......

well I DEFINITELY lost this round.  I was cutting branches for the moose when I decided I wanted to climb a tree for some top notch branches that were out of reach.

Tree 1 Erin 0

Don't fall out of a tree and land with a branch sticking in your leg.  It is a little uncomfortable and results in 10 internal stitches and 15 outside stitches.

On that lovely note I will say....

Goodnight Lower 48,

Erin