CHAT Peak Autumn 2021…or…Frost on the Pumpkins

AlaskaSue

AlaskaSue

North to the Future
Well, I think we actually hit Peak Autumn yesterday, as much of the prior Termination Dust (first new snow on the mountain ranges) had disappeared under a couple days of sunshine. But today my area had varying amounts of snowfall, including 3” or more in parts of Anchorage and an inch or more in my town (but not my area, yet).

Went out for a walk and wore a hat and gloves but only threw a sweatshirt over my shirt and jeans. But I shoulda worn my parka! Really frosty out, especially with that sharp north wind. I know this temperature will feel warm come January but for now…brrr!

The snow is way down now on all three mountain ranges I can see from here (there are two more ranges to my north including Denali, but I‘d have to go a couple miles to view), all the way down to where the birch and cottonwoods are still dressed in bright colors. Pic at the corner of two roads near me of Matanuska Peak - taken a few minutes ago.

A32E275E-F31F-4B4C-A212-62F0ADBC521A.jpeg

I may use this thread to post pics of the island, my ferry trip, and the drive in from the town where we‘ll disembark with the pickup.

But please, if you would, share what your autumn looks like so far - which I believe officially begins tomorrow for everybody else, even as it‘s ending here! ;)

eta: forecast tonight is mid-20s. Y’all stay warm, now…. :)
 
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AlaskaSue

AlaskaSue

North to the Future
Step-mom took this pic today near her home, just a short distance from the CG Station there. Her Cairn Terriers went nuts as you can imagine :)

Kodiak brown bear momma and three Cubs (3!) fishing for salmon. No snow on their hills yet but the green is gone. This is one of my favorite walks on the Island, any time of year.


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D

Dozdoats

On TB every waking moment
Thank you, Sue!

65 degrees, cloudy and rainy here. Fall is not far off in reality, our burning bush (a popular local shrub that goes blood red in winter) is just beginning to turn.
 
V

vestige

Deceased
AlaskaSue said:
Well, I think we actually hit Peak Autumn yesterday, as much of the prior Termination Dust (first new snow on the mountain ranges) had disappeared under a couple days of sunshine. But today my area had varying amounts of snowfall, including 3” or more in parts of Anchorage and an inch or more in my town (but not my area, yet).

Went out for a walk and wore a hat and gloves but only threw a sweatshirt over my shirt and jeans. But I shoulda worn my parka! Really frosty out, especially with that sharp north wind. I know this temperature will feel warm come January but for now…brrr!

The snow is way down now on all three mountain ranges I can see from here (there are two more ranges to my north including Denali, but I‘d have to go a couple miles to view), all the way down to where the birch and cottonwoods are still dressed in bright colors. Pic at the corner of two roads near me of Matanuska Peak - taken a few minutes ago.

View attachment 291015

I may use this thread to post pics of the island, my ferry trip, and the drive in from the town where we‘ll disembark with the pickup.

But please, if you would, share what your autumn looks like so far - which I believe officially begins tomorrow for everybody else, even as it‘s ending here! ;)

eta: forecast tonight is mid-20s. Y’all stay warm, now…. :)
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Mid 20s?

That is a bit cool for a Kentucky boy.
 
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Ragnarok

Ragnarok

On and On, South of Heaven
vestige said:
She does post some really nice pictures.

I could live there as a young man.

Now... not so much..

It takes about 40 years to get set up anywhere.

I don't have that left.
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I don't either but that's how I want to leave this world.

Living in God's country.

The older I get the more I miss hunting, fishing, chopping firewood, and preparing for the long winters.

Even though I didn't acknowledge it, my childhood years were my best, by far!
 
W

WalknTrot

Veteran Member
It's 34 degrees here (N MN) this morning. Close, but still no frost.

A few maples and the sumac are turning red, otherwise..the trees are drought stressed and not coloring normally.
 
Blacknarwhal

Blacknarwhal

Let's Go Brandon!
Peak autumn? Not to be a douchebag but it was still summer when that pic was taken.

Course, it's surprisingly cold and rainy in Michigan today. Buttoned up the house to take advantage of yesterday's comparative warmth. Temperature in the house went from 76 at 1 AM to 71 at 8 this morning. I don't know how I bled off five degrees in seven hours, but it happened.
 
AlaskaSue

AlaskaSue

North to the Future
Blacknarwhal said:
Peak autumn? Not to be a douchebag but it was still summer when that pic was taken.

Course, it's surprisingly cold and rainy in Michigan today. Buttoned up the house to take advantage of yesterday's comparative warmth. Temperature in the house went from 76 at 1 AM to 71 at 8 this morning. I don't know how I bled off five degrees in seven hours, but it happened.
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Ha, yep it was still Summer by the calendar. As I said, Fall officially starts today - but the old Alaska saying is….We don’t give a rip how they do it Outside* ;)

It is 26 degrees with a very frosty moon shining brightly- guess I’ll have to pick those still-green pumpkins before I leave this morning!

*Outside - a colloquialism meaning anyplace that is not Alaska
 
Kathy in FL

Kathy in FL

Administrator
_______________
The only reason it got down into the 80s here is because of all the rain and cloud cover. Still too hot for working manual labor in the middle of the day. We are putting in border/plant beds around the BOL. For now it is lava rock around the AC units a and we'll mulch the rest until I can figure out some gorilla gardening/edible plants that are self sufficient since we are up here only a week or so out of the month. Winter is when we grow a lot of crops here in Florida and they've already been laying the new strawberry beds. My son wants to build a strawberry tower at our primary location and he has about thirty plants that will be delivered in October.

Next projects in the work, simultaneously, to get the ol' BOL up to speed in case we move here more permanently in the near future is a 40x41 metal barn (vertical construction on a concrete slab), a metal 48x30 open carport on concrete slab, and a 12x18 wooden gazebo that is screened in on a gravel pad out back of the house. Once that is mostly completed we'll go inside and change out the floors, paint everything, put in new counter tops, and change three of the bedrooms so that they don't look quite like a summer camp experience. LOL

After that we may build a small barndominium as a kind of guest house either for my parents or the kids if they ever come up. That is off a ways however as it is a want rather than a need which the other stuff pretty much is. Tired of putting the kabota tractor, side by side, and zero turn in the house attached garage.

And most of these needs to be done while it is cooler. You can send some this way if you are a mind to Sue. And if anyone wants any of this blasted rain they can syphon it off if they want to. Hard to get any work done when it is pouring down. Every. Single. Day.
 
Blacknarwhal

Blacknarwhal

Let's Go Brandon!
Kathy in FL said:
The only reason it got down into the 80s here is because of all the rain and cloud cover. Still too hot for working manual labor in the middle of the day. We are putting in border/plant beds around the BOL. For now it is lava rock around the AC units a and we'll mulch the rest until I can figure out some gorilla gardening/edible plants that are self sufficient since we are up here only a week or so out of the month. Winter is when we grow a lot of crops here in Florida and they've already been laying the new strawberry beds. My son wants to build a strawberry tower at our primary location and he has about thirty plants that will be delivered in October.

Next projects in the work, simultaneously, to get the ol' BOL up to speed in case we move here more permanently in the near future is a 40x41 metal barn (vertical construction on a concrete slab), a metal 48x30 open carport on concrete slab, and a 12x18 wooden gazebo that is screened in on a gravel pad out back of the house. Once that is mostly completed we'll go inside and change out the floors, paint everything, put in new counter tops, and change three of the bedrooms so that they don't look quite like a summer camp experience. LOL

After that we may build a small barndominium as a kind of guest house either for my parents or the kids if they ever come up. That is off a ways however as it is a want rather than a need which the other stuff pretty much is. Tired of putting the kabota tractor, side by side, and zero turn in the house attached garage.

And most of these needs to be done while it is cooler. You can send some this way if you are a mind to Sue. And if anyone wants any of this blasted rain they can syphon it off if they want to. Hard to get any work done when it is pouring down. Every. Single. Day.
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That is quite a list. The guest house is a great idea; it will help you tribe up. That could be particularly valuable in the near term.
 
Kathy in FL

Kathy in FL

Administrator
_______________
Blacknarwhal said:
That is quite a list. The guest house is a great idea; it will help you tribe up. That could be particularly valuable in the near term.
Click to expand...

That's been on the list. But there is only so much money coming in increments for each project, not to mention time. Eighteen years ago when we started building this place we did most of the work ourselves except for some contracting stuff. We don't have as much time (and free help from kids) these days and my 55 year old shoulder and back starts screaming after more than a day of heavy lifting. Hubby is still going strong ... stronger ... at 57 than he was 20 years ago.

Geez Louise building materials and costs have skyrocketed. The metal buildings are tubular metal rather than red iron construction but are reinforced and have a wind rating of nearly 150 mph which we have to have here in Florida. For now we have some land clearing to do in about 2 weeks and we are hiring a local contractor to do it (and then burn it off) because it is more expensive to rent the kind of equipment we will need. Our 45 acres is mostly forested except for the utility easement and the acre the house sits on and even that has a bunch of live oaks in it though we've selectively opened the homestead up over the years. Back when we first built the BOL the trees were within 12' of the house.

With all the kids pretty much self-supporting except for the youngest who is now nearly 18 and wanting to be an auto mechanic we are looking to start spending and setting up our physical "part time retirement" so we can ease back a bit by the time hubby hits 60. We can't do as much as we want at the moment as we are partially supporting my parents and we don't know how long we'll have them. My Dad slides a little more each month it seems then he has lot of good days that tells us we are getting ahead of ourselves. I don't know, life just is what it is but we've both decided that we need to focus more on us for a bit or we're going to be sorry for it at some point.

Sorry for the thread drift folks. Back to Sue's gorgeous weather.
 
AlaskaSue

AlaskaSue

North to the Future
Had a gorgeous flight to Kodiak this morning. Took this photo of the view from Deadman‘s Curve driving up to folks’ house from the airport today….nice to be on The Rock again.
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Video I took as I flew into Kodiak. I caught two fishing boats zooming out for the catch, so I put this on my channel so I can share it :)

RT 11 seconds
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jp_Ym6paRTA


Almost to the house, I stopped to get a short vid of Kodiak brown bear momma and her three cubs out for salmon - same bears that my step mom saw the other day (shared her pic up thread).

RT 9 seconds
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZjQ6wFHgBU
 
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et2

et2

Has No Life - Lives on TB
Well fall was a day ago. Just turned the heat on today. It was getting cold … 55 today. Came home and the house was cold, wife in a cover-up. Why she didn’t turn the heat on was beyond me.
 
AlaskaSue

AlaskaSue

North to the Future
Photo (not one I took) of the Anchorage Hillside area on Monday…Anchorage and much of the Mat-Su Valley got snow this week - the mountains are fully covered already! This area is expecting up to another foot over Friday. :)

I grew up just below that flattop mountain at the left (Flattop Mountain) and my brothers and I hiked all over that area before there were any of those buildings up there ~

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AlaskaSue

AlaskaSue

North to the Future
Today’s End-of-Autumn photo…Anchorage area 5-12 in snow depending on area. Valdez got a couple feet.
Photo by Marc Lester, Anchorage Daily News Sept 24, 2021
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Since trees haven’t lost much of their leaves yet, you can imagine there’ll be some loss of limbs and trees around the area.


ETA this pic…poor guy lost the boat off the trailer taking it from Anchorage to the Kenai, somewhere on the road south out of town. Not my photo, I’m a bit off the mainland ;)
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