Happy New Year!

Here's hoping you had a very pleasant Christmas!

Chocolate Santa anyone?

we did know the real reason for decorations didn't we...

Especially the shiny ones ...
Mind you the fancy ones are fun too



And wishing you a lovely New Year!

Snow clearing this morning...

When the snow pushed aside by the graders that are used as snowplows becomes huge heaps or berms at the side of the road it becomes time for the road crews to clear the snow.

This involves grading/ploughing the sides of the road, so a huge berm divides the roadway.


Then the snowmachine a huge beast gobbles up the snow




and spits it out into a convoy of huge trucks that follow it in an every moving relay. They drive alongside and are filled



and the next truck takes over whilst the full truck rushes off to the snow dump to tip out it's load and then to rush back to join the convoy again and so it goes on... the noise of thundering trucks lets you know when they are nearby!

The third day of Christmas...

Ok it's the third day of Christmas and it's time for Happy families

I know this should be three french hen's and instead it's four wrapped up Robins
but if we're not to fussy ...they do look Christmas-y

It's s nice old pack illustrated by Racey Helps
more about him here


It just goes to illustrate that tradional games are still great fun!

Cutting it a bit fine...

Ha... we spent the day scrubbing the woodblock floor and painting the living room walls a very original white colour... and then scrubbing the floor again ...
it's now much cleaner but has an interesting occasional festive white snow footprint effect due to the fact as a household we are rubbish at being methodical, tidy, careful... all those useful qualities (and we've decided to refinish the floor in the summer).

I did have a moment of despair when I found out the cat had walked through the paint roller tray and then over the sofa (dark blue ...it was...well actually after much work with a wet cloth and elbow grease it is again..phew)

So now I just have to rehang the curtains and then we dive through the trap door into the basement and retrieve the Christmas tree... (yes sis we all know where it is!)..I can almost find the memory of the year when we lost ..ok I lost ..the darn tree funny ...no I can't it was awful...and my other half had to try and buy one on Christmas eve a nearly impossible task we found our tree but it was a tad pricey... still it's a nice tree, and it's said that memories fade...

Actually there may be a surreal quality to this post as the girls keep asking me to watch their entrance and dance instead of typing..their dad is playing carols on the keyboard and the girls are singing ..only the catch is, they're not singing the same carols that he's playing...and I haven't had a drink so it must be real... lol


Well if I can find the camera and have the energy I'll try and add some photos later!
for now it's Have a very Merry Christmas and I'm off to the basement.

Radio for Christmas

Ok this is a test post to see if I can manage to share older radio recordings.....

first attempt is a 14 minute reading
A Second Christmas in Kenya by Elspeth Huxley
(An Extract from The Flames Trees of Thika)
the reader is Felicity Kendal


Click here


if it asks for a password please email me alaskafurrycat [at] yahoo [dot] com no spaces

Snow

Razzy our Alaskan cat

After an icefog turning the city into a magical place for quite a while the fog has lifted and the snow started to fall. When I walked eldest d to school my hands got cold, I was wearing gloves not mittens and they don't work as well for me. Later when I set out to the store I was well wrapped up and it was beautiful. Not like living in the centre of a city at all! We must have had 6 or so inches of fresh snow onto of the base layer. It's light dryish snow that is easy to kick through when fresh. It was snowing as I walked and the only extra that would've been nice was a pair of goggles. I've tried to take a few snaps to give you an idea of how it looked. By the time I walked a few miles in it ..just there and back to stores and the postoffice, my legs were quite tired. Eldest d PE lesson consisted of sledding down the sledding hill at school...Eldest daughters "reading buddies" lesson at school was a sledding party..down the sledding hill .... Eldest d was a little tired last night..lol and I think it's going to snow again but hopefully it'll be warmer than they think or it'll be too cold to play in...


(The last photograph is our back gate)

A Carol for Christmas

My husband introduced me to George Winston's Music and I was smitten.

Tis' the season....


it's available to buy here... amazon
(the credit for the video goes to a kind creative person on youtube)

..............enjoy

Ice fog (pictures added)

We have been living under a cloud of ice fog for several days now. The air is still and very cold.
Each day the covering of ice crystals grows thicker like minute trees of frost growing everywhere making even the most mundane objects seem quite magical. The World sparkles. Chain link fences look as if they've been coated in crystal..soon the fog will lift,or the temperature rise or a breeze begin and it will all disappear but yet at the moment it is quite beautiful.

true love?

I think it's true love...

Walking to school

The walk to school in the morning is getting darker each day....but the snow bounces any available light so that really helps!



As a complete contrast I'm sitting by a very warm wood stove , listening to Evil Under the Sun by Agatha Christie while working on a project for the youngest's class.



If you are ever asked to cut out 18 pairs of felt bears and then punch holes around the edges so the kids can sew them together ..just make sure you have something interesting to listen too (and don't forget to oil the punch!)



and this is what they are supposed to end up like when the children have a go!

New and future Stove

A Saturday, a U-Haul trailer and three strapping chaps later and it's in the living room ...lovely

(No Sis I know this isn't our living room it's when it was in it's previous home...can you tell it's never been used?...they say it was used once but noone believes them it's so pristine)

It's a Waterford Stanley Wood fueled cook stove from Ireland built in 1999 and we do aim to use it.

Roddy Doyle says...

Older D is deep in "Rover Saves Christmas" by Roddy Doyle. I turned round from reading the news to see this sight




...apparently Chapter 4 contains the following " warning... wear gloves and a hat when reading this chapter, because it takes place in Lapland, the North of Finland and it's very cold there"

which is very silly even more silly as she's reading it in Alaska and it's very cold here too (although it has warmed up to 12.3 degrees f this morning brrrrrrr)

There are many squeals and chortles from behind me so I think she's enjoying the book

Chickadees (or Tit's)

I was looking at some lovely pictures at Rattling On's blog and my interest was caught by he mention of seeing a Coal tit up close... her comment caught my interest so....

"We have tit's here too but they call them Chickadee's same family different name.

I just looked them up to check and now know... they roost by themselves in holes in birch trees,have a very dense plumage for birds their size, drop their body temperature at night so they need less energy to keep warm and that they have the ability to add 8% to their body weight each day... which gets burnt off each night...and the next day they have to fill up again...

I'm going to put fat for the birds on my shopping list..."

Info from here , here and here!



and the photographs are of Black-capped Chickadees from Wiki. We see these often and the cats hurl abuse at them through the windows...much chattering, grumbling and gnashing of teeth!

oh and this sites is unusual...you choose the bird from the left hand column click and it shows stamps illustrating the breed and a map showing extent of it's range ...well that's what it does for this fellow ! click here to see

Hare today...

Gosh darn it..sorry I couldn't help myself...(I know I should but I didn't)





Hares... why hares as a subject...

well "We three, Ginger cats Tales" posted this photograph
click here

and that made me think of a fascinating site I hadn't looked at for a long while ..
it's called

Three Hares

What is it about ?
well in their own words....

"The Three Hares

Three hares are chasing one another in an everlasting circle. They share between them only three ears which form a triangle in the center of the design, yet each animal has two ears. The earliest known appearance of this motif is in the Mogao caves near Dunhuang, China, which were created during the Sui to Tang dynasties (581-907 AD). Along the Silk Road other sightings of the three hares (and sometimes four hares) are found. The hares seem to have traveled in distance and time, adapting to different religions and taking on new meanings where they settled. Recently researchers have begun seeking to answer these questions:

• What is the meaning of the three hares motif?
  
  
• Where did the motif originate?
  
  
• How did it spread?

Together with other scholars and researchers, the Classical Chinese Puzzle Project and The Three Hares Project have been involved in studying the history, meaning and journey of the three hares motif. This website is dedicated to stimulating discussion and further research on the three hares."

and to see for yourself click here

it links to the Three Hares Project... (via Chris Chapman's web site he took the beautiful photographs) click here for Chris's site and here to go straight to the project


There is something quite fascinating about Hares..I once watched two hares madly cavorting about in a pasture field near a very quiet hamlet in Shropshire and I've never forgotten it.

I think the project quite fascinating and some of the images very beautiful... I think they could inspire quite a few art projects... a quilt with this design would be stunning..as would tapestry/needle point or painted wood projects!

well back to day to day life...it's white outside ...our snow came late this year but it's here now..so warm breakfasts and snow kit for the children to get to school warm...ttfn

Oh and to listen to a Radio program about the project click here nearly missed that one..

Year of the Horse

Where we walk

(Photo from the ADN by Marc Lester )

a nice slide show with commentary from the local paper
HERE
We walk there too...
it's our Summer 'beach'

Fall/Autumn

Trying to take a photo of a glacier from a moving truck is interesting..


The Pass was a glorious display of pink fireweed

For two weeks or so we have an amazing display of fungus

The milky lake was a beautiful reflecting pool


and the hills a riot of gold, primrose and peach

Agatha Christie on the radio

The BBC broadcast this today
"Crime writer Val McDermid listens to recordings made by Agatha Christie which have never before been broadcast.
A panel of guests, including dramatist Kevin Elyot, biographer Laura Thompson, archivist John Curran, who has recently deciphered Christie's notebooks, director Enyd Williams and writer Michael Bakewell, discuss their approach to dramatising her novels for TV and radio and the light that these recordings shed on Christie's working methods."

and they make it available to listen to here for 7 days
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00mj64x

For any Agatha fans this might be worth a listen Val

oh if you like that one ...and don't miss these (I love the Mr Quin stories and it looks like they're going to read some!)

later in the week

Thank you

Ooooh I got an Award from a very kind lady who writes a far more interesting blog than this one! see http://randomdistractions.blogspot.com/2009/09/accepting-graciously.html I'm not great on Awards and gifts etc but that was a rather neat post on accepting graciously so I shall.

And you must charge across and read her post as it involves disclosing seven interesting things about oneself and Maureen's are a nice mix of amusing & fascinating....I still think the operation observation attempt is my favourite...

now I have to puzzle away (and this makes a nice random distraction so is very appropriate Monix)

Ok here goes....

1.To get to the hospital to have my first baby I had to fly in a small float plane (it was tiny and bounced about quite a bit when it was flying over the mountain pass and I have vivid memories of the other passengers and the pilot offering to miss out a couple of pickup points if I needed to get there quicker...)


2.Before actually meeting my husband for the first time (we met virtually over the Internet) we wrote rather a lot and arranged a holiday meeting without me having the faintest idea what he looked like! Then taking courage in both hands (so to speak) I flew 4,500 miles to meet him ..with the background thought that this might be a very long trip for a quick walk round an airport...(On that flight I read Silas Marner cover to cover and it's still a favourite of mine.)

3.Finally this year (at the age of 49) I have at last learned how to knit! A combination of The ladybird Knitting book, Elizabeth Zimmermans 'Knitting Workshop' book & DVD and the help of the appropriately named Knittinghelp.com on youtube oh and mustn't forget an easy mitten pattern found on the Internet see here something finally clicked and I'm Several pairs of Mittens and two hats to the good ..sofar..yippee

4.My first full-time job was on a Dairy Farm that spanned the Shropshire/ Cheshire border and I was afraid of Cows! (at the time...when I got to know them I thought they were lovely..well most of them anyway)

5.My very first Job (Part time just Saturdays) was at a local bakers, so I spent my Saturday mornings wrapping Very fresh hot crusty bread in White tissue paper twirling the joins into twists so the paper would stay wrapped around the loaf when it was placed in you basket to go home. We sold..box,tin,cobs,milk loaves, Hovis and Wholemeal loaves. Soft rolls and baps and all sorts of yummy cakes and buns. Including Sugar buns, Butterbuns, Iced buns, Cream doughnuts, Jam Doughnuts, Cream horns, Chocolate Eclairs, Vanilla Slices, fruit pies. They also sold Boiled ham by the slice or weight and Gingerbread...

Gosh I'm hungry now and it's bought back memories of warm bread and sugary fingers pressing down onto an old fashioned till that rang with a loud ping when the drawer shot out with some force (yep it was not electric it still rang up in old money so you had to convert in your head..come to think of it you had to add everything up in your head you just entered ..pressed down hard on the keys) the total. Good for Mental arithmetic and Good manners that job!

6.I like to carry around an Old Roman coin...it fascinates me to think who handled it in the past and it makes the past more tangible somehow.

7....got stuck here then was chatting to a friend about a much loved Collie it used to be my pleasure to own..I used to have a much loved collie who as a puppy loved to herd cats into the house (not our cats I hasten to add..any and every cat that made the mistake of taking a short cut through the garden), she was a skinny pup and herded them through the cat door and then followed them and herded them upstairs...I think she really missed us not owning sheep... Meeting distinctly irate cats on the landing being eyed by a quivering collie at the bottom of the stairs was becoming a regular occurrence until she finally grew too big! and appeared one day wearing the cat door around her chest at which point I spoilt her hobby by sealing up the cat door. Don't know if that counts as being about me..but she was certainly an interesting dog

Phewww