No Volcano problems for us...yet.

Mount Redoubt erupted, six times so far, throwing ash 9 miles into the air.

But the winds up there are blowing away from Anchorage and the MatSu valley (that's where Wasilla is), so mostly the ash is falling on uninhabited area. There's a lot of that in Alaska.

However, we still have a chance to have fun dealing with the ash. Trace amounts of ash have been detected in Anchorage. And last time Redoubt blew, it was active for five months (I think.). So if the winds shift and it erupts again we could be dealing with the fallout. Woo.

Tess is very disappointed -- she was really looking forward to days off from school (I should point out to her that those days will be added to the end of the school year...I don't think she would be so thrilled to miss school then.).

Personally, eh. We just replaced the water pump and oil lines on the Suburban, so I am perfectly happy to not have volcanic ash sucked into the engine. My only real concern at this point is that it not mess up my plans to fly to Minnesota in May for a family reunion.

Other than that...spring has not sprung yet. We had a dusting of snow last night, it's in the 20's and all the snow that got slushy over the past couple of days when it was warmer is now frozen and thus the roads are really rough with small slippery patches.

CNN just said Redoubt erupted again, sending ash 13 miles into the sky. I guess we have to start watching for ashfall alerts. That's a new one for us...

Ouch...and the Daily Alaska. plus volcano watch.

I have been using our new elliptical trainer almost every day. Burning 500 calories! Which is swell, except I think I ate about 47,000 calories yesterday watching that sad sad Superbowl. I had to watch, but of course the Cardinals lost.

Also, there is a really cool app I downloaded onto my IPod touch (have I mentioned lately how much I love love love my touch? It is awesome and wondrous and fab-u-lous.). This app allows me to enter all the food I eat and it keeps track of calories and fat and stuff. I can even include the calories I burn by exercise. It's much easier to bypass that handful of chips if I have to look at how many calories I am eating, and I know how long it takes me to burn that many calories on the elliptical trainer.

(The touch has been sucking up my time, which is why I am remiss in reading the blogs I try to comment on regularly. I promise to get back to reading and commenting, I miss you guys!)



The Daily Alaska is a shot of a raven hanging out waiting for the eagles to clear out so he can go check for leftovers. I love watching ravens. They are one of those animals that look sorta regal and majestic, until you see them hopping around the neighbor's garbage can or trying to fly off with a slice of bread.

latest entry from the AVO...

Redoubt: Restlessness at Redoubt Volcano continues. Seismic activity remains elevated and is well above background levels. A vapor plume is intermittently visible in the AVO web camera. It appears to rise no higher than the volcano\'s summit.An observation and gas-measurement flight to the volcano is en route now.AVO continues to monitor potential activity with seismic, satellite and radar data. The volcano has not erupted.The Aviation Color Code remains at ORANGE and the Volcano Alert Level remains at WATCH.

Woo. Elevated seismic activity! Maybe we will be watching the ash fall soon. I am very happy to be far enough away that ash is the only danger.

VOLCANO!!!!!!

Yeah. Mount Redoubt, 100 miles southwest of Anchorage, is gonna blow.



Probably. It's been very seismically active since last weekend, and they are thinking this is significant.

But Alaska has ten percent of the world's active volcanoes -- that pesky Ring of Fire. No, not the Johnny Cash song...



but the Pacific Ring of Fire.

Anyhow. Alaska has ten percent of the world's active volcanoes, so this is not a surprise. People are buying dust masks and air filters for their cars and furnace filters for their homes. We are not going to go anywhere if we have ashfall, so I won't worry about the cars, and I will be rooting around in the garage to find the dust masks we have for painting and fabric dyeing. I have to go out anyway, so I will buy some too, if there are any left in the stores.

We have a freezer pretty well stocked with meat and frozen veggies and pizza and egg rolls, plus several dozen cans of veggies (they had a great sale on them, so I stocked up. Turns out I was planning ahead instead of being cheap.) And Costco quantities of rice, and four or five brownie mixes, so the food is covered.

We will have to cover the computers and tvs and stuff with garbage bags, so ash doesn't get into them and wreck em, and not turn them on, because the fans will suck the volcanic dust into them. whoops.

So I might have something interesting to blog about, but I won't be able to turn on my computer. We have forced air heat, so there is potential for ash to get into the house that way, even if we stay inside. Plus we will have to let the dogs out occasionally.

But the ash can't last forever, and my camera card holds at least 5,000 photos. So sooner or later, if this thing blows, I will be telling you all about it.

For the Daily Alaska...
Today is snowy, but with a very bright spot in the sky...

This isn't a great photo, but you get the idea. The little white specks are not dust on my lens, but teeny little snowflakes, and the bright spot is the sun almost burning through the clouds. It was bright enough you couldn't look at it directly, anyway.

Behind those power lines, usually, I can see the Chugach Mountains. Except today there are a whole bunch of snowflakes and clouds between me and them. Okay by me. I like snow. And as a plus, I really don't think there are any active volcanoes in them. whew.