Kitty in the Sewing Room

Our new kitten, Eli, has been settling into his big Alaskan life pretty well. So far he has spent most of his time in my sewing room...mainly because he has been having a little bit if diarrhea. My sewing room has tile floors that are pretty easy to clean when a kitten's paws might have a some icky stuff on them. It's a great excuse for me to be stuck in my sewing room.

And I have even managed to do a little quilting. I think it has been three months since I touched my midarm. I'm happy to be getting into the groove again.

Everyday, Eli gets a bit more relaxed. A quick snooze on the floor while our dog, Kinley was upstairs. Sometimes I think Kinley is acting like a mom and licks Eli...cleaning him up. Sometimes Kinley relentlessly chases Eli around the house.

Breakfast Club is next Thursday. Not sure if I am going to make it but I like the pattern they are making so I went ahead and started my version. It's a strip pattern.

The pattern is from Kim Brackett's book, "Scrap Basket Beauties." I know I am going to make some changes to the layout and the border...I just can't resist "exploring." The block is cute and super quick to put together. No matching points to worry about!

As you can see...Eli occasionally asserts himself...poor Kinley...all she wants to do is play! 

Talkeetna Train Trip

My husband's parents are visiting us. One of our adventures was to take the train from Anchorage to Talkeetna. It was about a three hour trip...mostly through wooded areas. The train cars have glass domed ceilings and a restaurant in the bottom half. Very nicely appointed train cars. 

Talkeetna is one of my favorite little towns in Alaska. Several colorful moose can be spotted around the town. This looks like a patchwork moose to me.

And some lovely one-of-a-kind shopping...

The artist is Joan Edwards. Titled, "Floating Kaleidoscope Blues."  A batik wall quilt for $750. This town lacks a quilt shop but not much else. It is well known to mountain climbers who wish to catch a plane ride to base camp on Denali (I started to type Mount McKinley...no longer the name!) 

Talkeetna...a big climbing town with a small drinking problem. Just one of the many quaint sayings associated with the town.

Critter Overload???

It is tough to get much of anything done when every time I look out a window...I see critters.

Early one evening we saw this grizzly just tearing up the roots of two birch trees. Not sure what it was trying to get. I'm confident this is not the grizzly we saw earlier this season. It could be an offspring of her since this one is pretty blond too.

We are in the middle of an owl invasion. We've had as many as five owls in the trees of our property. Click on this tree picture to get a closer look. We think we have at least one or two adults training three juveniles to hunt rabbits. Lots of bunny parts in our yard that Kinley is only too happy to find!

And...black bears have really started to become a common sight in the past week. Besides this one, we've had a mother sow with only one cub in our yard yesterday...and in our garage today.

As if that wasn't enough bear viewing...we have out-of-state visitors so we went to the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center in Portage, about 45 minutes from Anchorage. We were excited to see two brown bears right away. One in the water and one on the far shore.

Then one of the grizzlies started walking right toward us.

Wow...I was thinking I sure hope this silly fence stops this bear. At this point he was a yard away...yipes!

This bear weighs 850 pounds and is 12 years old. He was so close, I could have petted him.

Apparently the smaller female wanted to spend some time with me too.

I better get going...might miss some more animals with my head stuck in front of this computer.