Saturday afternoon the snow started to fall out north! Town already had gotten a bit, but we were still in the frozen ground mode at mum's.
Sunday was lovely. Around 5pm I went out to take a few photos. The fog on the lake was startling and surreal.
The first snowfall is always so magical! Actually, almost every snowfall is magical! The lake seemed to be solid enough for the neighbor's labs to cross on, I reckon a few more weeks and it will hold a human my size!
Tracks of all kinds were scattered in the fresh snow. No moose, though.
The birds were fliting and chirping and hopping to and from the feeders like crazy!!! There were lots of different kinds out there today-
The last days of March have been white and blowy with intermittent sun breaks. We stayed put, except to pick up the newspaper!
As I started down the drive, I noticed my tracks tended to stay in the center of the road. Obi's tracks went down one side and up the other!
I texted this photo to Tony. He figured my bunny tracks guess was probably right.
I snagged the paper (it is really icy under all this snow!) and looked towards the house where Obi was hanging out. It appeared today his tracks wandered in his own bunny trail!!!
Mum wanted me to feed the birds-had to empty the feeder first!!!!
We had a visitor who drove over the tracks outside and provided a perfect perch for Mittens inside!!! Sharon does not like cats. She tolerates Mittens.
The next day another friend stopped by and I was able to do a few chores while he visited with mom. He also brought me a jacket. Mum has a blue one like this, but smaller. In fact, there are a LOT of people around who have these sorts of jackets! They came from the winter games a few years back. Jim didn't use this one and asked if I wanted it. I was rather impressed with how it blocked the wind. I wore my blue Kenai polar fleece hoody under it and was warm and toasty!!! And green!!!! Friends are great people to have around.
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.
Kazul has decided to retire to the Mountains of Morning and so Kris is taking over for the King of Dragons. We'll miss the work Kazul has done, but she does have several grandchildren now and needs to spend time with them. We have replaced the family photo with just Moses, but as he is a major part of the family, it should suffice!
