snow machines not snow mobiles

moose kisses. ok now onto the blog part.

When you start your day with this nose begging for a banana you tend to get slobbered on fairly often.

Hey I'm not complaining.

If you visit the wildlife center often times you find yourself ending up in Girdwood,Ak.  Girdwood is only 12 miles North of the center.  I actually moved here back in August.  I finally managed to get my skis dusted off and hopped up on the mountain a few weeks back on my day off.  It was so beautiful.  

It probably doesn't look this nice right now as it is raining for the next few days.  :(

One thing I look forward to each winter is gettingour snow machines out.

Oh wait we don't have any.  Why you ask?

because this happened.....

When you play with fire it tends to play right back.

This past summer our boss was burning some grass to re-seed.  Well, just when he thought the fire was out the wind picked up and happened to carry the fire all the way down to our snow machines!

So now thanks to Alaska Mining and Diving we have 3 brand new snow machines!

These next few pics are when they were actually delivered.  They were explaining the differences in the machines and which work better in certain weather conditions.

It is very important to have snow machines that are dependable.  Especially when you are herding a 2500 pound Wood Bison onto the neighboring pasture. 
 

Jade, our red fox was out and about waiting for his breakfast.  I think besides raw eggs he really loves chicken!

He even prefers to have a nice chicken breast over some fresh moose! 




                                  photo: by Doug Lindstrand
Speaking of moose,  I was feeding Teddy and Nelson a banana when Doug Lindstrand happend to pull up and snap a few photos for me.
I promise I was actually working and not just having a conversation with the moose!  Although, if you ask me, Teddy is the better listener between the 2. 

Teddy is on the left and has already shed his antlers over a month ago.  Nelson will lose his antlers any day now.                             photo: by Doug Lindstrand

YAWN!  Doug Lindstrand caught this great yawn by one of our lynx.  They will be turning 10 yrs old this summer.  They originally arrived here 10 years ago as victims of a forest fire.  They had severe burns on their ears and paws.

I wish they were friendly enough to touch.....boy I bet the fur feels so soft!

When Doug arrived he wanted to get some close ups of Jade.  Jade was a little hesitant as first, but as soon as Doug pulled some treats out he perked right up!

The musk ox calves are doing great with the herd!  We introduced them almost 2 months ago back to the herd they were born in at the center.  I still give them a daily bottle of water (3 pints to be exact).  This is just to keep them comfortable around us in case we ever needed to go in with them for some reason. 

Wrangle, in the photo on the right here was hoping I had more than just a bottle for him.

They must weigh about 350 pounds now!

                                                                                                       photo:by Doug Lindstrand

Mukluk, our 3 year old orphan from Dead Horse, Alaska, even tried sneaking up and stealing some bottle time!  Look at her beautiful horns that she is growing!

It is now March 6th and I am just looking back on last years calves.  Chugach and Wrangle were born April 14th and April 18th.  I can't believe I could be bottle feeding musk ox calves in as short as 6 weeks!



I should get my beauty sleep while I can.  Maybe the bears do know what they are doing when they sleep all winter and party all summer. 

goodnight lower 48,
Erin

Cotton candy for breakfast.

We call mornings like this cotton candy.  Do I really need to explain why?  Beautiful way to start my day at work.

Even though we still don't have much snow it could always be worse.

On Super bowl weekend I went to Wasilla, AK and did some cross country skiing.  The skiing was in Hatchers Pass.  Since there is no snow in Girdwood we wanted to try Hatchers Pass.  it was definitely in need of snow as well but it was nice to get out and about.  Hatchers Pass has some old mines that used to be used years ago.  You can still ski/hike up to the empty houses and read about the mines.  In this pic on the right is is the old mining area.  Don't worry we didn't go any where near this part.  

Meanwhile....

On the Education part of my job snickers has currently visited about 754 students this year so far.  

Kara Robinson is the intern on the left.  This was her first porcupine school program to attend.  

This was Aquarian Charter Elementary School in Anchorage.  

Remember these little guys from last summer?  Well they aren't so little now....   

Kara was getting some last minute pictures with them before we introduced them to our herd.

I couldn't pass up the opportunity to do a little head butting with Wrangle and Chugach.  They are both just shy of 10 months old.  I can't believe how big they are!  I would say they weigh somewhere around 350 pounds or so.

                                                            Smile for the camera!

 

Goodnight lower 48,

Erin

a very weird winter.

Well these blue skies are becoming a common thing this winter.  The other common thing that we usually don't see.....BEARS!  With the warm weather and lots of rain the past few weeks; our 3 brown bears have consistently been active this past month or so.  As I was on my way to work a few days ago; we received a call from Challenge Alaska.  

Challenge Alaska is an adaptive ski and snowboard school.  This season I have been volunteering for them by cleaning their building twice a week.  It is a great cause that I love to support.  

Anyways, they received a road kill moose that they processed and had scraps for us to pick up.  I honestly wasn't sure if our bears were even going to be able to digest the meat or be interested in the bones.  Boy was I wrong!  

When I called the bears all 3 came running out of their dens and immediately snatched up their pieces.  

in the below pictures Patron is eating the scraps.  

You can tell that she has the ribs and loves them like a Texan loves their baby back ribs.

On my way to work earlier that morning I have never been so blinded by the sunrise.  It was gorgeous!

It is the strangest feeling to prepare for darkness for the next few months and snowy weather; but get sun and blue skies......and no snow!

Don't get me wrong, these blue skies and sunny days have been great; but I really would like for their to be snow on the ground.  The animals are liking the warmer weather but they do like snow to eat as well.  The musk Ox especially are missing their favorite time of year right now.


In the winter since the wildlife center is closed during the week I do a lot of school programs.  This winter Kara is working as the winter intern.  she just returned from Christmas break and I think some of the animals missed her.  what do you think?

Jade is so stinking cute!  he is getting big too!
i gave Jade a moose bone from that road kill moose and it was like christmas for him.

Imagine if you gave you dog a bone that big.  Their mouths would be watering!


Currently this year Snickers has visited 629 students in the Anchorage school district!
way to go Snickers!

   If you have been reading my blog for a while you may have heard me mention a musk ox named Mukluk.  Mukluk is a 3 year old female musk ox that we received when she was just 3 months old.  She was orphaned in Dead horse,Alaska when a brown bear killed her mother.  She was our first musk ox calf to ever bottle raise here at the wildlife center.  she is now in with the herd.  Since she was raised on our grain she is also the musk ox that eats the most of it which in turn causes her hooves to grow much quicker than the other musk oxen.  One time a year we have to dart her and trim her hooves.  She does have sharp horns so hence the reason why we dart her.  It is safer for her and the handlers.

This picture is me walking her after she already had her hoof trimming.  We just wanted to keep her up and moving to walk off the remaining drugs in her system before we left her to rest for the night.

just can't put a title to this one.

ok so since I was home visiting Texas a lot has happened.

1. I went to Arkansas to visit my Grandmother for 3 days.

2. I played with a wolf-dog pup.
3. I got stranded in San Francisco.
4. I saw a ton of sea lions at Elephant rock.
5. I hiked into Tennessee  Valley
6. Saw a big tree.

EXPLANATIONS:



Whenever we go we stay with my my grandmother at her house.  I always enjoy staying there since she lives in such a neat area in the country.  There are some horses that my mom loved feeding carrots.  They soon recognized her whenever she drove by.

ARKANSAS

ALASKA

   





ARKANSAS

                ALASKA

 once I returned back to texas for my last few days there before I went back to Alaska; I found out that there was a Wolf Sanctuary that was only 45 minutes from my house.  So of course I immediately called them asking if they could squeeze me in for a tour.  It turns out that their manager worked in Alaska for 3 years at the Anchorage zoo!

She was even fostering a 3 month old wolf-dog (1/4 wolf 3/4 dog) that she is currently finding a home for at a facility.  Having a wolf-dog is illegal in most areas if it is a quarter wolf or more generally.  In order to have one there are special permits needed.  In other words, any person can not go out and just get a wolf-dog.  It is not the same as a pet dog; nor should be treated as one.

Although this may look just like a regular puppy it may develop more phenotypic traits of a wolf-dog later on.  For example, wolves are much more slender naturally than dogs.  They have rather large ears and paws.  Their faces are much more sleek generally.  Overall their diet is much more complex.  I am still learning my wolf facts so I don't want to go into more detail and give wrong information.

His name is Monster.

Terrifying I know.



TEXAS

ALASKA





So the stranded part comes into play now.  Well as I was on my way from Texas to San Francisco for the first half of my journey back up north; my plane from San Francisco to anchorage was canceled because of the weather in the east coast.  this not only upset the plane I was on but whole load of other routes as well.  Next thing I know the gate agent is telling me the next available flight out of San francisco is January 9th!  I will admit I panicked a bit (not as much as my mom) but Facebook came to the rescue.  I posted my situation on face book and immediately received lots of feed back on suggestions and offers.  One of my newest friends, Mary Maddux, immediately came to my rescue.  I met her this last summer in Alaska when she and her family helped volunteer multiple occasions.   i was so blessed to have a great friend to my rescue.

This morning we went to breakfast and afterward walked down by the bay area.  The herring just happened to be running and the sea lions where going crazy!  We saw about a group of 7 that constantly stayed together when hunting.





Elephant Rock was just a place that you could fish and that's where we were hanging out watching these sea lions.  i even saw about 7 pelicans fly by as well.

Ok now onto the hiking part.  The weather couldn't have been any better. Sunny and in the 50's all day long.  Later, after having the best indian food of my life, we went for a hike with Mary's son Sam and his friend Eric.  We hiked in tennessee Valley which opened up onto a beach at the end.

 Overall the hike was about 4 miles total.


Oh I also got to see some of the legendary Redwoods of California.  These were just babies compared to the much larger ones you can see in Redwood National Park.

We drove by some white tailed deer that looked very comfortable with our presence.

CALIFORNIA

ALASKA










Well that should do it for tonight.
Tomorrow we are off to the farmer's market!

Don't worry I WILL return to Alaska :)

Goodnight lower 48,
Erin

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