Cryogenic Surgery (Caution to those with weak stomachs)

Well today I got to once again help out with surgery on this tumor that keeps reappearing on one of the camp's horses. Doug, the wrangler performed the surgery and I was invited to assist. We cut the growth off of this horse's eyelid last fall but it grew back with a vengeance, and much bigger than it had been before. The vet that we consult with agreed that cryogenic treatment was the best option at this point. Doug was very disappointed to be forced to play with liquid nitrogen...NOT! The surgery went well and uneventfully and I guess we'll wait and see what happens with the tissue, whether it grows another tumor or not. These are some photos taken by our documentation crew :)

The tumor pre-surgery

A very sleepy sedated horse

Doug administering local anesthesia

Look at the size of that thing!

Staunching the bleeding a little...ok a lot!

That's the device used to administer the liquid nitrogen

Still frozen tumor site

All done! Ended up looking pretty good!

Almost Finished...

This is a quilt wall hanging that I have been working on for Josie. I just got it back from a lady in the community who did beautiful stitching on it for me...something I am not very good at yet but am learning.






I just need to finish the binding and then I can send it off to her in Indonesia... late Christmas gift haha :)

Signs of Spring

Spring is starting to wiggle it's way into our minds....

The girls start swimming lessons today with their school. After lunch they are bussed to Palmer (40 minute drive) and have swimming lessons in the afternoon and arrive home around 5:00p.m. which is 1 1/2 hrs after their usual home time so we adjust :)d


Do you see where the sun is shining directly above the mountain peak? Well a few weeks ago we were so excited when it barely made it up above that peak at all for just a few seconds before sinking back down!! Wow! It's so fun to SEE spring coming around!

The snow is melting off of my deck, uncovering my grill and my bird feeder...those poor neglected birds...I didn't feed them nearly enough this winter. But back to my grill!! I am starting to anticipate cooking on the grill, friends over for cookouts and beautiful long evenings out on the porch!
Well this can't always be trusted but I waited until the sun was sufficiently off of the gauge before catching the temperature...half an hour earlier it was showing 85 degrees when the sun was directly shining on it haha! Don't we wish :)
Mud season preview...I've been told that's an official Alaskan season! Well from what we saw last summer I think the entire summer was mud season. But we have our rubber boots standing by...

I don't know for sure if bunnies count as a sign of spring but at our house they do! The kids really wanted lizards...so we got them a bunny!! haha! But we all love it and have named it Willow...or Whillo as Naomi prefers to spell it.


So there you have it...signs of spring in Glacierview community, Alaska...Pretty soon it will be "good-bye snowmachining" ...till next fall.

Mountain Family Rendezvous at Dan Creek

Last Friday we had an unusual adventure. We loaded up our snowmachines with camping gear and headed out on the trails to Dan Creek. It's about a 40 minute ride but with Naomi riding the little Bravo it took us about 2 hours! Needless to say the kids were pretty cold by the time we arrived.



We got our stuff into the wall tent that was still set up from the weekend earlier when the site hosted the yearly Mountain Man Rendezvous. We built a fire in the woodstove and got some dinner going. Naomi thought it was a great adventure and they kids played house while we set up!



There were a few other families there as well so after we were settled we headed out to the main campfire to enjoy some great conversation some hot coffee and roast some gigantic marshmallows.



Then we headed off to bed. It was -20 degrees Farenheit outside so the kids packed into their sleeping bags with their outside gear still on. Some of it was shed during the night and Jeremiah ended up sleeping in the sleeping bag with Mommy. The next morning we gave the kids a choice of whether to stay another night or if we should go home and it was unanimous to stay! Little troopers!





The next day was filled with different activities...riding snowmachines around, shooting at helium balloons, climbing steep hills and sliding down, a dog named Glacier. The older "boys" also enjoyed blowing up tree stumps and such.











Sunday morning we played a little and then packed up to head home. We just had all of our gear packed in and Ryan was going to move the snowmachines over to the path when Jeremiah decided he wanted to ride along and ran over to where Ryan was waiting on the snowmachine. He tripped and fell and hit his mouth on the metal footrail of the snowmachine and bit two teeth through the skin above his top lip. Boy did that bleed! We were pretty sure he'd need stitches but by the time we got home the swelling had gone down quite a bit and I think the swelling helped to push the skin together helping the incisions to stay shut pretty well.



In all it was a great adventure and we had a wonderful time out in the beautiful Alaskan back country with a bunch of great friends.