sun, 06-sep-2009, 14:24

Piper wants something

Piper wants to go for a walk

Another gorgeous day in Fairbanks. September is one of my favorite months. The bugs are just about gone, it’s cold and crisp in the morning, and there’s usually an abundance of sun and blue skies. This year has been no exception so far, making it hard to stay in the house. I’ve been out on several excellent walks with the dogs on the trails around our house.

We’re also in the process of getting our road and driveway fixed. We’ve been living here for two years, and both have deteriorated since we moved in. The road is a tough one because so much water runs over it during spring breakup, and I’ve been told that no matter what you put on the road, it will just wash away in a few years.

Still, we had to do something, so we changed the pattern a bit this year, installing a culvert in a particularly bad place, and filling one of the deep spots with very large rocks instead of mine tailings. The hope is that they won’t get carried away in the spring flooding, and may drain well enough that water will cross there instead of running down the road. Time will tell, but at the very least, it should be a much nicer drive this winter, and will be a lot easier for me to keep it plowed.

Road & driveway work

Road & driveway work

One of the common destinations on my walks is this pond, on the property next to us. This is the same pond that I photographed and wrote about last April when I went ice skating on it. Once the Creek freezes, I like to walk upstream to this pond, cross it, and return home on the mushing trails. It’s a nice spot.

Larry and Jenn's pond

Larry and Jenn’s pond

tags: fall  panorama  Piper  pond  road work 
sat, 29-aug-2009, 16:32

Moose damage, water tank

Moose damage to the water tank

We’ve had quite a few moose encounters over the last few days. This morning I felt what I thought was an earthquake, but when I looked out the window to see what was happening, there was a bull moose next to the deck trying to work the velvet off his antlers by rubbing them on the deck stair railing. He didn’t completely tear off the railing, but he came close. Along the way he stabbed our water tank several times (you can see the damage to the foam insulation in the photo on the right), knocked over a wheelbarrow, and ripped my National Weather Service rain gage off the dog yard fence. We’d seen the same moose yesterday afternoon along the power line using a power pole support wire on his antlers.

I shot a couple videos of this morning’s action. The first one is after he started ramming the water tank. I decided I needed to go outside and scare him away before he did any more damage to the house. You can see that he thinks twice about charging me before he runs off. I thought for sure he was going to barrel right into the Jeep. Here’s the video:

The second video shows him going to town on the stair railing. This was was shot through a window, so it’s not quite as sharp:

It’s only a couple days from moose season. We live in a bow-only hunting area, but the regulations here allow bow hunters to take any male with more than a “spike/fork” set of antlers (meaning a little antler spike on one side of his head and a forked antler on the other side). This moose is much larger than that. I’m not sure if he’d be legal in a typical hunting area where hunters can shoot any moose with more than a 50” antler spread, but he’s close.

Hunting season means cool temperatures, lots of sun, and gorgeous colors. Here’s an iPhone panorama shot of our back yard:

Back five

The backyard

tags: bull  fall  iPhone  moose 
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