A New Coat of Snow and a Bright Blue Sky

There was supposed to be a full moon and a comet and something else. We got a lovely dusting of snow, instead. It covered my poor dilapidated snow guardians in a lovely layer of fluff! 

It snowed all the next day, too!!!! This is from the 10th. 

I decided not to go back out after my 20 min warming period! It had already covered what I had revealed, but I was COLD! 

On the 11th, Mum decided she wanted to go for a drive. So, we went north. We went to the house briefly and then down to Arness Dock and found this.

 This is a 'Jack Up Drilling Platform' next to Arness Dock. I  asked our friendly neighborhood Production Foreman/Platform Supervisor, Mike, to tell me a bit about these. Following text is fascinating to those who have no clue!

  Platform gets towed to the location of prospective well. Legs are clear up, not touching bottom. Platform floats. When in place, giant jacking mechanisms (think handyman jacks) jack the legs down. When the legs hit bottom , the continue jacking and platform rises out of water. It then becomes the basis for drilling 1 or more wells. If successful, they move the jack-up off location, and construct a production platform, such as the ones in the inlet , and drill more wells and produce. If it is a dry hole, they up and abandon, move off and save the expense of a platform.All our platforms are sited over holes drilled from jack-ups. It is staging there (at the dock). When the ice lets it, it will move to deep water and spud (start a new well!). On most of our platforms, each leg has 8 well bores inside them. The well bores are the well itself. Starts as a large hole in the ground. At predetermined depths, the hole gets casing (pipe) run in and cemented in place. Then, drill a smaller hole out of that and repeat. Usually start out with 30", then 20 ", 17.5" and so forth down to 6 " or so. That inside is the well bore. 8 is so we can have up to 42 wells per facility. To complete, tubing is run to bottom, fixed in place and the casing perforated with explosives, allowing fluid into well bore.32. Depending on number of legs. There are platforms of 1, 3 4 and, 5 legs. This platform has 4 legs, but capacity to only drill 1 well without moving. Once that well is drilled, and a permanent platform is set, a drilling rig or two is(are) set up on board These rigs can be skidded to each of the locations on the atfort and drill the remaining wells. Some will be oil production, some gas, some waterflood, and some, disposal. Cook Inlet Oil is 'Clean sweet crude.'

He shared a lot more with me, but that wasn't when I had paper or messenger!!! Cool stuff!

 Kind of blocks the view of the mountains. At least from the top of the bluff.

 Lots of ice out there in the inlet-

 After we got back to Kenai, I dropped mom off and got her comfy and left to go shopping. With ravens. A lot of them. Love these birds!

 Back at the house, I photographed footprints. These and the two under the birds are from squirrel. I know this because the squirrel was on the snow and I got out and took photos of the prints!

 Later, I got to attend a dinner and THIS was the dessert!!!!!!! The video is on  how to make your own decadent chocolate balls.