each day an adventure in alaska: mostly bears...and a little snow!

yes, i woke to it snowing out there. it's sept 23rd and it's snowing. the stuff has pretty much all melted by now, but it is supposed to get into the 20's tonight. loved the grizzly in the water pictures. they seem to have a great life there at the conservation center and so it was great to see bears just happy and playful. it was the side i needed to see.

for a bit one of the bears was just laying back in one part of their little pond and she kept grabbing her toes. so cute!

who knew grizzly's could float so well. no idea how deep their pond is.

always easy to get fun photo's of bears there it seems.

the water is a bit chilly i'm sure so not for me, but she does look pretty relaxed out there.

super sized pumpkins for super sized bears. they seemed to like it..i was sure they were picking out the seeds. those must have been especially tasty. i need to get myself some pumpkins and make some pumpkin bread. would be great to have some at that first monday walk gathering.

today i texted several folks but nobody could join me. so back to normal at my end. you just can't always find people to walk with you. so i walked alone.

really liked this one of the big bear. he's a big guy, but also very handsome.

rio apparently isn't ready for the snow so she settled in on the couch and opted out of todays walk so it was just blossom and i.

thought this came out nice as well. the bear just looks so relaxed and peaceful.

this next series are on the other side of the pond. the road kill moose are often tossed over the fence so they still have bones scattered all over. she was in the water and grabbed this pelvis out....i hadn't really looked at the thing and thought it was a skull. i posted it on facebook and someone asked if it was a pelvis...when i looked it was. so clearly i can't tell an ass from a skull. very impressive since i'm a nurse. haha.

anyway..she was having a grand time playing with this bone . nothing left to eat but that didn't stop her from chomping on it and tossing it about.

was thinking she probably wished she had opposable thumbs...if she knew what that was.

anyway, i decided to head to rovers run with blossom. seemed a good hike to face the bear demons. that trail is known as a trail frequented by grizzly bears, though generally more in the salmon run time. a few bear/human attacks have happened there.

i was happy i didn't see any signs of bear activity, but i think it was good for me to take this loop on my own. chances are you eventually will meet bears the more you hike alone, but i think it's a low risk really. happy that i was in the car and not on a trail when i had my negative bear encounter. it kind of protects trails for me a bit still. i have run into many bears, but nothing so scary as what i had happen in the car.

the snow will have trashed the bear prints on the car i think. i was ready to attempt to put flour and cornstarch on the prints so see if i could bring them out and get a better picture. i suspect the hood prints are trashed after i did that. the window ones may be as well. it's not big deal now. i had to wait til i was ready to muck them up. it was good to be able to share the prints with a few people. made it more real for them.

she was over there playing and i was far enough away that i could feel like i was peeking through the trees into her world .

blossom did fine as well today. though one small dog was off leash on the way back and though the owner said, "he's fine" the dog came rushing blossom barking at her. so annoying. blossom was on leash as she was done playing with her tennis ball. it got lost in the snow actually. anyway, it's so annoying when people say their dogs are fine when they really aren't. i mean he didn't actually attack blossom but rushing other dogs barking like that isn't really ok behaviour.

did listen to part of an NPR interview with elton john. it was really interesting. he apparently is doing a run of shows in Las Vegas and he had a new piano made for this. the piano cost about one million dollars...the piano is called "blossom". aww...he has a new album out and it seems to have a lot more piano with some emphasis on his talent as a pianist as well as a singer. he did a concert up here a few years back. i was happy i could go. it was just him and his piano. was great...such a treat to have such an intimate concert with such a great and well known artist.

i did laugh after the concert as we were walking out. i made a comment about his piano playing, anyone, one of the other girls who was there said something about yes, he plays amazing..."why didn't he play piano man". to which we all cracked up over..i explained to her that he didn't play piano man because that was a billy joel song.

he was saying he is going to Russia to perform. sounds like he'd debated due to their stance on gays with the Olympics. he figures he has been there many times, has gone there since the 70's and has many fans there, probably many gay fans and he didn't want to disappoint them or discourage them. he hopes to be able to have some influence. anyway, very interesting interview with him .

also started my day with a ted talks. a young woman from Afghanistan. when she was of school age the taliban had control and girls were not allowed to be educated. her parents wanted their daughters to be educated and she dressed as a boy for several years to escort her sister to school, they had to hide the fact that they were actually attending school and just pretended to be going shopping. it was at great risk to them and to their family, but they managed to get educations.

she went on to get a college education and at the young age of 22 is not only a college graduate but has returned to Afghanistan and opened a boarding school for girls. quite the ambition. she seemed to want to let us know that though it often seems that we have done little in her country, girls are getting educations now and things are improving.

she was especially grateful to her father for putting such value on his daughters getting educated. she didn't want to belittle her mothers influence, but she was just pointing out that in Afghanistan as a woman you need the support of the men at this time. without her fathers support she would not be where she is.

the black bears are in their new enclosure and it has a walkway over them. they seemed to be used to their new digs. they were getting fed some salmon among other things. people often clean out their freezers before the new hunting/fishing season and drop off the meat to the center.

good to see it all getting used and not wasted.

got some errands done that have been out there. i'm not good at getting my to do list done.

wood bison. waiting to be re-introduced to the wilds of Alaska. they were originally shipped up from Canada.

this big guy was not keen on me or my jacket. he made a few runs towards the fences. that is a lot of animal coming at you. they are powerful looking. so strange though how small their hind ends are compared to how massive their front ends are. they will be protected until they get established, but they will be hunted down the road like everything else is.

errands generally means i spend money, which i generally hate to do. it's cheaper to not run errands. that is what i find anyway. there don't seem to be many free errands.

wood bison just seem to lend themselves to black and white. they are like the musk ox, almost prehistoric looking.

i mean look at that face. it's just oddly shaped.

this young elk looked so innocent and cute.

sweet face

here is the big daddy elk. he was frisky and noisy that day.

little fox sleeping. i always love these little guys too.

the rest are from today. figure i'll mix these up...older and newer. slowly adding pictures to the shutterfly account.

looked like maybe an inch of snow at my place and up in campbell airstrip trails system. nothing was going to stick. the trees in my backyard are just barely starting to turn colours. not sure what this winter will bring, but this little snow is a good reminder to get ready.