Greetings from southeast AK!

[AKMotherClucker]

Hello fellow chicken lovers! I have been a long time lurker here on BYC, and recently joined. (darn mystery chick from McMurray got the best of me). We currently have two big (adult) girls, Lucy is our black jersey giant, and Bumblebee is our silver lakenvelder. We are also in the throws of raising 15 chicks, to split between our family and my in laws. It's a grab bag: 3 buff orphingtons, one named "Ms. Honey", 2 black jersey giants, one is "Jon Snow", 4 easter eggers, the red one is "Ygritte", two sumatras, one is "Ptera" (like pterodactyl) the other is "Raven", two pheonix's, one is "Hachan", a silver laced wyondotte, "Whiskey", and a mystery chick that is driving me crazy trying to figure out what it is, and what gender it is. So far I am loving all of the "whats my chicken" guesses, and pictures of coops, there are some super creative coop set ups! I'm excited to see how our coop evolves with all of the great ideas here.

 

[BantamFan4Life]

Welcome to BYC! I'm glad you joined us!

 

[Michael OShay]

Welcome to BYC. Glad you decided join our flock. My family and I have visited Alaska on a number of occasions and love it there. Are you from the Juneau, Ketchikan, or Skagway area? We are selling our house in Hawaii and moving to Wasilla (south central AK). Our property here in Hawaii just went into escrow on Monday, and we are putting a cash offer in on a small farm in Alaska later today. Any tips or advice you can give me reagarding living in Alaska will be greatly appreciated. Feel free to PM me if you like. Please feel free to ask any questions you may have. We are here to help in any way we can. Good luck with your flock.

 

[Mountain Peeps]

Welcome to BYC! Please make yourself at home and we are here to help.

I love the names of your birds! It sounds like you are really enjoying them! Definitely check out this link if you haven't already. https://www.backyardchickens.com/f/15/what-breed-or-gender-is-this

I have five birds. Three buff orps, one EE and one SS named Gracie, Sunny, Daisy, Quanie and Rosie. I love naming my birds and I'm glad you named your's too!

 

[drumstick diva]

Welcome to Backyard chickens. Have you posted a photo of your mystery chick at "what breed or gender is this."

 

[AKMotherClucker]

Welcome to BYC. Glad you decided join our flock. My family and I have visited Alaska on a number of occasions and love it there. Are you from the Juneau, Ketchikan, or Skagway area? We are selling our house in Hawaii and moving to Wasilla (south central AK). Our property here in Hawaii just went into escrow on Monday, and we are putting a cash offer in on a small farm in Alaska later today. Any tips or advice you can give me reagarding living in Alaska will be greatly appreciated. Feel free to PM me if you like. Please feel free to ask any questions you may have. We are here to help in any way we can. Good luck with your flock.

All the same area, was born in Ketchikan, live in Juneau, and lust after Haines I've never lived in the Anchorage area, it's much flatter up there than it is where I am, and also drier, and far from the ocean (part of why I won't live there). It rains constantly here. (proof: just got done with a 2 week stint with no rain, all locals were relieved when the rain started again) Winters are fairly cold up there. Bears. There isn't much poisonous stuff up here, but the bears are a ruddy nuisance. We have black bears, they're constantly in the garbage. Up farther grizzlies are more likely, and I'm sure they would eat garbage given the chance. Bear proof your garbage!! Up in the matsu valley, plants get big, so I hope you're a gardener! Ummm, don't know what else! Being from Hawaii, you're probably used to astronomical shipping and grocery costs, so that'll be nothing new. If you have questions about specifics, ask away!

DrumstickDiva, I did post my mystery chick to the forum board. So far the popular consensus (and my favorite) is a female cuckoo maran, but only time will tell

 

[Michael OShay]

All the same area, was born in Ketchikan, live in Juneau, and lust after Haines I've never lived in the Anchorage area, it's much flatter up there than it is where I am, and also drier, and far from the ocean (part of why I won't live there). It rains constantly here. (proof: just got done with a 2 week stint with no rain, all locals were relieved when the rain started again) Winters are fairly cold up there. Bears. There isn't much poisonous stuff up here, but the bears are a ruddy nuisance. We have black bears, they're constantly in the garbage. Up farther grizzlies are more likely, and I'm sure they would eat garbage given the chance. Bear proof your garbage!! Up in the matsu valley, plants get big, so I hope you're a gardener! Ummm, don't know what else! Being from Hawaii, you're probably used to astronomical shipping and grocery costs, so that'll be nothing new. If you have questions about specifics, ask away!

Thanks for the reply and information. We've experienced the rain in southeast Alaska and you do get a lot more of it than southcentral Alaska. We've been told that bears are very uncommon in the valley around Wasilla but moose are abundant. I know what you're talking about with the garden plants. I've seen the 40 lb. cabbages, 30 lb. radishes, etc. And your right about the shipping and grocery costs in Hawaii. They're even higher than in Alaska. And there's no comparison in property costs. We are selling our home for enough to pay off our mortgage and buy a similar sized and newer home in Wasilla with loads more land, outright (mortgage free with $100,000 left over). It's how we are able to make a cash offer on the place. Thanks for the offer for me to pick your brain again if needed. I may be taking you up on it. )

 

[AKMotherClucker]

Thanks for the reply and information. We've experienced the rain in southeast Alaska and you do get a lot more of it than southcentral Alaska. We've been told that bears are very uncommon in the valley around Wasilla but moose are abundant. I know what you're talking about with the garden plants. I've seen the 40 lb. cabbages, 30 lb. radishes, etc. And your right about the shipping and grocery costs in Hawaii. They're even higher than in Alaska. And there's no comparison in property costs. We are selling our home for enough to pay off our mortgage and buy a similar sized and newer home in Wasilla with loads more land, outright (mortgage free with $100,000 left over). It's how we are able to make a cash offer on the place. Thanks for the offer for me to pick your brain again if needed. I may be taking you up on it. )

Oh yes, forgot about the moose. They can be mean I hear.
Just peaked at home prices in the anchorage area. They're a bit cheaper than where I'm at, and land is way cheaper. (Our ~1/6 of an acre lot that our house sits on is valued at 90K for reference). But it makes sense, minimal flat land=high flat land prices.
Can I ask what promoted the decision to move? I have to say I wouldn't mind a few years in Hawaii

 

[Michael OShay]

Can I ask what promoted the decision to move? I have to say I wouldn't mind a few years in Hawaii

There were a number of factors involved. First and foremost, we wanted to get out from under our mortgage--something that would have been impossible to do in Hawaii unless we moved into a condominium or town house with no place to have chickens (or anything else). Second, Hawaii has changed at lot since we moved here over 2 decades ago. It used to be that most of our days were trade wind days that kept our temperatures cooler and our humidity down, but in the last few years the wind patterns have changed and we have seen long period of Kona winds which bring in the heat and humidity, which we hate. I'd rather shovel snow any day than deal with heat and humidity. In addition, the Kona winds bring in vog from the big island volcanic eruptions which are causing us to have respiratory problems, especially my son-in-law and granddaughter who both have asthma. Since the second vent opened up in the big island a couple of years ago, the vog has become worse. Some days the air is so hazy with it we can barely see the mountains around us. Another factor is we are sick and tired of the crowds and traffic here. Even though it's only about 15 miles or so from our house to the high school where my son-in-law teaches, it frequently takes him nearly 2 hours to drive from the house to work, and almost another 2 hours to return home; and that's if there are no wrecks between our house and the school. In addition, Hawaii is on the fast track to financial disaster. Taxes continue to climb, many of them implemented to support the rail project which some experts are now estimating will run as much as 19 billion dollars over budget, and take as much as 20 years to complete; and Hawaii's residents are the ones who are having to pick up the tab. And on top of all that, the homeless problem is becoming epidemic in Hawaii with squatters not only taking over the beaches and parks, but even camping out on people's private property. On a couple of occasions we have had to call the police to run squatters off our property. Other states are buying many of these people one way plane tickets to Hawaii and they are coming here because Hawaii has no winters (it's hard to be homeless where it's cold in the winter). I don't mind helping people who are really in need and want to do better, but there is no way we are going to allow them to squat on our property, particularly where it may concern my granddaughter's safety. We have been planning to move for some time; the only question was where. We wanted someplace we can get out from under our mortgage and have a similar size home to the one we have now with considerably more land, someplace where heat and humidity are not a problem, someplace where crowds and traffic are not an issue, someplace with a lot of natural resources and good hunting and fishing, someplace with good clean air to breathe, and somewhere without ridiculously high state taxes. We narrowed our choices down to Alaska and northwest Montana. Since Alaska met all our criteria (even better than Montana), and since we have visited Alaska on a number of occasions and all of us really love it, we decided to sell our place and move to Alaska.

 

[AKMotherClucker]

Wow Michael Oshay! I hope Alaska can offer you everything you're looking for. I am a severe asthmatic myself, and I totally appreciate the clean air I get here!
One thing that I didn't think of before is the light. I don't notice it, but everyone I have known to move here notices how light it is in the summer, and how dark it is in the winter. In my opinion, the light and dark is totally manageable, however some people find it difficult, and purchase things like bright lights to counter balance it.
Hope that helps, best of luck with the upcoming move!