Homer holds its Farmers Market on Wednesdays so of course we had to attend. We passed by it on the return from the Kilcher “homestead”. Once we found parking, we played frogger to cross the Seward Highway and visited all of the booths. I bought a couple of cranberry oatmeal cookies from a booth run by Old Believer Russian Orthodox farmers and Cathy fell in for these multi-colored carrots with the tagline “grown near the Kilcher place” at an adjacent booth.
We stopped at the library to use the internet and saw these goats munching on the lawn, so we of course had to go and see them. The owners were there, sitting in the shade (after all, it was near 70 degrees in Alaska) and their dog ran over to join in the fun.
Goats appear to be the real deal to draw in people. This young lady stopped her truck and came over to talk with us about her goats. She was a member of the Old Rite community located near Homer and was very interesting to talk with.
Cathy is feeding the goats the remains of the “grown near the Kilcher place” carrot tops. I wonder if the goats were impressed?
These two young men asked if they could pet the goats and of course their owner complied. The goats really drew in a group of admirers. The new owner was pleased that they were getting accustomed to humans as he had just purchased them and was unsure of their disposition.
As we were preparing to leave Homer and head north to Soldatna, I decided to take a quick set of photographs of the surrounding area as the sun was “almost” out, which is a little unusual. These were taken around 8:00 pm.
We could see the mountain range looking across Kachemak Bay towards Halibut Cove and Kachemak Bay State Park. There were many glaciers and ice-fields visible from our camp. It was hard to imagine the scenery as we really never saw these mountains on our last trip due to low clouds and drizzle.
This is a view of the 4.5 mile long Homer Spit taken from the town of Homer. You can actually see our motorhome in the original photograph! Halibut Cove is about six miles away, directly across the bay We had intended to visit the cove, but found out is is entirely on private property and the only docking is through one company. The fee to cross and have a lunch was $77.00 per person for three hours on land. We passed and went to Safeway (where the Kilchers shop) for a gourmet lunch from their deli.
I caught this eagle on the edge of camp, sitting next to her gigantic nest.
She was guarding her two little ones.
These guys do not get the distinctive white head feathers until their second year. At this stage they resemble golden eagles and are not really something to look at, other than they are kind of cute.
We spent the better part of the morning slowly making our way up the Kenai peninsula towards our next stop, the Diamond M Ranch Resort in Soldatna. One of the owners of the resort was injured in the Mt. Marathon race in Seward on July 4th as is still recuperating from her injuries.
Listed as one of the daily events this week at the Diamond M is the 6:00 pm piglet training and conditioning practice runs for their race at the Alaska State Fair. The six piglets sprinted out of the start gate and ran the course with a little encouragement from the “coach”, one of the park employees. An orphaned llama, Shilo, decided to join the fun as he ran around the outside of the course.
This was kind of like herding cats! They were running right, left and center. The coach seems a bit preoccupied.
Here they come for turn #1!
Arriving at the finish, most of the piglets finished in a grouping but the coach was working with the runt at the back of the pack.
She let the little guy pass her in the home stretch under the watchful eye of Shilo.
This is the start of the second round of conditioning and training. Notice the strategy of keeping to the inside of the course? It helps to keep the total distance down and improve your time.
Approaching the finish, the trainer is once again running with the slowest teammate. The piglet on the outside is sprinting so fast, she blurred the photo as she passed her slower competitor at the tape.
I smell bacon on the horizon for this one.
After watching this training session, we headed down to the Kenai fishing platforms near Centennial Park to see what was happening. Apparently, more than 70,000 sockeye salmon per day were passing through the counters – LAST WEEK. A hastily placed sign on the trail warns hikers that a mother moose and her newborn are in the vicinity. Be aware. Be very aware!
There were several fisher persons there, fishing in a way I am unaccustomed to so we found out how to properly set up rigs for sockeye salmon. The fishing was slow and the silvers were not expected to arrive until next week, so we went to the local fishing supply store and spent about $20 to get setup with the proper weights, hooks, yarn (yes, colored yarn) and the plastic salmon eggs. I now have three complete rigs setup and we will make our initial attempt in the morning.
Well Jason, I beat you! I caught a dead salmon that was already cleaned.
I am trying to look like a fisherman here, but alas, I did lose all three of my setups due to underwater obstacles.
After we returned from losing setups on the Kenai, we had lunch. We had thawed some frozen strawberries, so we asked if we could feed them to the racing piglets. Since they are in training for the state fair, we were told that they followed a special diet. We had to settle for mama pig Petunia. Petunia was across the large field, hanging out with the llamas and the goats. We were given additional foodstuffs as they had not been fed yet and headed out across the field. Shiloh came running to us and started bumping into Cathy (which we were told she does for affection). It was kind of cool. We gave the strawberries to Petunia and the cole slaw mix went to the goats, llamas and of course Petunia. The llamas were not interested, the goats were marginally interested and Petunia, well she ate like a pig!
I helped this goat get his tie line unwound from the post he was attached to, allowing him more room to roam. He still stretched the tie line as far as it would go to get to the cole slaw.
Another of the goats. I think she was interested in munching my camera.
After serving the luncheon buffet to the animals, we headed into Old Town Kenai and visited the newly reroofed Russian Chapel, which is positioned directly across the street from the Holy Assumption of the Virgin Mary Russian Orthodox Church.
The church was undergoing renovation three years ago and it looks spectacular, almost brand new.
Leaving Kenai, we headed across Bridge Access Road, which crosses a large saltwater marshland that is inhabited by moose, caribou, bear and eagles. We managed to see an eagle soaring across on her way to a huge nest atop some nearby trees. We took the Kalifornsky Beach Road south, which leads towards Homer as we had never traveled this section before. We stopped to take a picture of a mother and baby moose, in broad daylight no less, but as soon as the truck stopped they ambled off into the woods, disappearing almost instantly. As we neared the Cook Inlet, I spotted a turnout and made the turn, crossing a berm that must have been put there to keep cars out. The cliffs leading to the beach were over 100 feet tall and very soft. We looked over and saw this spring sprouting water about halfway down the cliff.
Here is another shot of the spring showing the beach below. You can see the orange, almost sulfur smelling water trail leading down the side and starting out towards the sea, It crosses under the gravel bed then reappears in the sand. I managed to gather a large plastic bag of fireweed seed pods which I will try to grow in Georgia.
Looking up the beach towards Kenai, you can barely make out the snow- capped mountains across the inlet.
Our next stop would be where the Kasilof river empties into Cook Inlet. There is a lot of activity here during the king salmon run as evidenced by the large parking areas and number of restrooms. Well, now that the kings are in, the place is almost deserted. We drove the truck onto the sand at the end of the road but decided to turn around before we got stuck. The tires were all spinning but we made it to firmer sand and parked. We walked the beach (yes, this is a beach, with sand, and the temperatures we in the high 60s, which is a hot day in Alaska).
We walked down to a spit of firm sand to capture a shot of this commercial salmon boat sprinting up the river to the processing center. Again, you can barely make out the distant mountain range.
Tomorrow we are heading out Funny River Road, which adjoins the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge, and then plan on visiting the Saturday Farmer’s market in Soldotna.
Travelling with the Schinglers 