Wayfarer Scientista

The Long Dark Night

2009-12-21T18:10:00.005-09:00

Happy Winter Solstice!

Otherwise known here as the beginning of the end of the long dark night. In celebration of the day I took my lunch break by ski around 1pm when you could almost tell the sun had risen. We've got 5hours and some odd minutes of daylight at the moment - not bad really from other places I've lived - and by January 1 we will have gained 12 more minutes. This is worth celebrating. With fire and malted beer and good warm foods and laughter and friends.

'Tis of course the season for things such as:
-funny takes on holiday songs such as "the 12 days of Christmas my ex-governor brought to me" over at The Mudflats
-listening to King Island Christmas (over here)
-making chocolate truffles and packing them two to a cute little box and giving them out to all and sundry: my favorite gift
-office holiday parties and the attendant white elephant gift giving: this year at the big boss's not quite completed house
-a flurry of mail: all of his family and all of my family this year got silly pictures of us dancing in the snow as did some of our friends.
-the X-mas bird count: this year we saw 7 ravens and 2 redpolls and at -27F we considered that huge. However, it was an excellent excuse to go for a ski along the bluff.
-Lebkuechen, the food I still miss from living in Germany at this time of year: available this year in Los Anchorage!
-decorating the house with Santa riding on every imaginable creature (whales to mooses)
-skiing, skiing, skiing, and sauna-ing....and then repeating!
-contemplating how much my life has changed in one year...but that's for another post!

D2Cat

2009-11-27T13:54:00.002-09:00

So this is the little guy who showed up on our doorstep. So far no one has come forward to claim him. He has been very friendly towards the other Disreputables and as such well, what can I say? We're soft hearted. So I think he's going to stay as Disreputable Cat Number 2 or D2Cat unless anyone else has a better idea? Feel free to suggest in the comments.

On a completely unrelated note, I've been getting lots of spam comments lately so I've re-engaged the word verification. And I'm sad that in the time I've been gone some of my favorite bloggers have gone to password only blogs and I can't read them now. :(

Adrenaline

2009-11-18T08:45:00.006-09:00

There has been a bit too much excitement in my life lately. I'm hoping for a mellow night some time soon. There follows three ways to have your adrenaline surge:

1) Hearing the cry of some beast while stepping naked from the sauna while it's blizzarding (not a verb, I'm sure). Turns out it was a stray cat with a canning jar ring around his neck. We coaxed him into the warmth, took off the lid, and fed him a little spoon of wet cat food every hour. He was clearly starving and miserable. He has since gotten a clean bill of health from the vet (a 5hr round trip) and is schmoozing with the DDog while still a bit afraid of the DCat.

2) To come home from a lovely walk with the DDog to the sound of a smoke alarm going off only to find flames merrily dancing their way up to the ceiling outside of the stove in the basement. Got to pracitce my fire fighting skills and use of the fire extinguisher which made a huge mess. My love comes home from the vet with the newly vetted cat to find me looking wild in the basement with all the windows in the house open eve if it's -20F and soot and fire extinguisher dust all over the place. "Honey I almost burnt the house down."

3) Crash! Bang! After the fun post fire clean up the middle of the night finds the newly liberated stray trying to find extra scraps of food on the kitchen counter and dislodging and breaking all the dishes he found there.

And to top it off one of my Love's employees loaned her brand new car to someone (3 payments made) only to have it totaled by a driver in Los Anchorage who ran a red light and then got out and ran. Turns out the car was stolen. Luckily all the occupants where okay other then some minor bruises and cuts thanks to seatbelts and airbags.

Let it snow, Let it snow!

2009-11-14T19:46:00.003-09:00

I've made it safely home despite a white knuckle drive from Los Anchorage after my two conferences and a brief bout of not-quite-the-flu. I was not too keen on the snow when driving home. It is always a little scary when you only know where the side of the road is when you drive over the rumble strip. It makes one thankful for rumble strips in a way that one normally is not. Perhaps it wasn't too good of an idea to listen to an audio book that involved a guy deciding to cut off his arm to escape from a canyon (Aaron Ralston). I was as relieved to skid into my drive as the Disreputables and my love were. I was wired for half the night on adrenaline.

Now however, big fat fluffy flakes and snow piled higher then my knees, slush rushing down the increasingly constricted river, and lots of white stuff just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. I love snow. I really do. Ask anyone who went to undergrad with me where there was no snow. I love snow, I love winter. Tomorrow the skis are coming out!

Underway

2009-11-08T17:44:00.003-09:00

I've been traveling this week - lots of conferences and meetings, 3 to be exact. Two days for the first meeting, a day of travel, 3 days for the next, a day of travel, weekend with friends, a day of travel, 2 days for the next one. Yippee! And the really expensive hotel where I stayed would only give me internet access if I paid $25/ hr and I balked. The picture above does not really related to my travel other then it was taken in another west coast temperate rainforest. The photo is from the Popular-Icy-Surfing-Town whereas I am farther south. It was -15F when I left home, winter by all accounts although we certainly don't have enough snow to show for it, and now I'm in fall again. Me and several crates of mice that were loaded onto the plane with me. I wonder what that was all about.

PS

2009-11-02T21:55:00.001-09:00

It's time for a new header, don't you think ?

Pictoral Summary of My Summer

2009-11-02T20:31:00.025-09:00

As I mentioned before I had a very busy summer. This tends to be the trend in all places where the summer is 3-4 months long but this one was even more so then usual. So, rather then bore you with too much verbage here is a pictoral summary with a little bit of clarification of the highlights.

Measuring vegetation monitoring plots.

I spent a week in Denali in the same house that Olaus Murrie lived in. What an amazing place to be - staying in the place where one of the greatest -oligists of this state and one of the first conservationists here lived. I was there to help train and to pick up my 3 person crew. (Just one of my crews this summer - last week the last seasonal left. Break!)

Rafted the glacially laden river that is very famous for it's salmon. It's Red (Coho) Salmon fetch the highest price on the Seattle market. This was a invasive weed survey and patrol.

Scary holes in the water. I will post more about fishwheels (I promise Rubberducky!) later but there were plenty of them on this river (our is) including some carcasses of wheels that had washed downstream. I have to admit that one of my guilty pleasures this summer, when I found a minute, was to text my sister about the very famous, expensive red salmon "Five minutes from the river to grill - you should come visit". To which she invariably replied "u stink". My sister can always be relied on to know exactly what the price is that it is fetching on the market at any given time.

Watching glacier calving from the Million Dollar bridge (not to be confused with the bridge to no where although it may well fall into that category depending on your view) - it counts as movie entertainment up here. We were camping here at the end of our float and waiting for a pickup the next morning.

Brutal hikes to research caves and mines in July heat. It was hot! Don't let anyone ever tell you that it's always cold in Alaska.

I wonder if they built to code?

A massive 60,000 acre fire, lightning caused, in wilderness, dual agency response (i.e. disagreement of what needed to be done). Flying helicopters into the smoke, trying to lay plots ahead of where it will burn.

Didn't think these guys lived here either did you? Nope, nobody else did either.

Flying over the Malaspina, a small little ice field the size of Rhode Island. Climate change and whale and harbor seal / boat collisions.

Another lovely piece of ice that threatens an entire way of life every time it closes that gap. Last time the military (and the major) thought we should detonate a small nuclear bomb to clear up the problem.

The Disreputable Dog grows tusks! Nope, he just found some sheep horns on a backpacking trip and decided to bring them home as a souvenir.

Backpacking with my love, my parents, and the DDog. (You already heard this story so I won't belabor it)

Ice storm. It did this to our tent zippers too.

More cave work.

Fire severity.

The Disreputable Cat always ready to warm my lap at home.

The Engagement: the detailed version

2009-10-28T20:45:00.011-08:00

Yay! for all of you with RSS feeds. My own is an appalling mess and I really need to go clean it out on of these days and re-set it so it more accurately reflects my reading interests. I haven't looked at it in over a year. Really.

So let's see, it seems that the story of the summer that interests you most is the story of my engagement. Some of you may have known that I was dating someone, sort of, in Alaska before I moved back. The guy was wonderful but it just wasn't working for me so sometime in March I decided to split with him. After being away for so long I felt I had lost whatever "it" that was there. I felt terrible about it but one cannot manufacture feelings where they are not. And I was busy with my job and my new/old co-workers (I had worked here seasonally before) and friends. One of these new/old co-workers kept insisting I go x-country skiing with her and another co-worker, someone completely new to me. And so we skied, weekend after weekend as the light came back to the northern skies. On weekend new/old co-worker (who needs another name) was away on a trip to Hawaii but new co-worker and I decided to keep skiing together. I thought he was cute, I liked him, but I was new and trying to focus on my new job and blew it off as me making things up. Then he wrote me the sweetest card asking me out on a date.

I have to say I was absolutely flabbergasted on our first date. There were flowers (all the way from Los Anchorage) and a homemade meal, candles, table cloths, and champagne. I think he even intended a post but I had been in Alaska too long - long enough to not know what to do with a man who is really and truly romantic. And bold. Did I mention he was bold? The funny thing is, that both of us moved here thinking, 'dating is going to be slim to none but I'm going'. I mean after all, the community we live in has about 250 people. We were so wrong about the dating. We had a great rest of the spring and a great summer despite our crazy hectic schedules. And it just felt right. I dunno, I never used to believe people when they said they just knew someone was the one but we did. We just knew it. Of course, he loves the Disreputables. Retrospectively, he knows wouldn't have had a chance if he didn't. His friends didn't believe him that he's met someone until he sent pictures of proof. They were sure he was making me up. Guys don't meet girls in Alaska, right? Everyone knows that.

This fall my love, my parents, and I went on a backpacking trip north of the arctic circle. It's something I've dreamed about with my dad since I was in high school and we had been planning it for some time. It was sort of the end of the field season, enough so that we could escape. We had this amazing backpacking trip for 6 days across the tundra. Then, sore and bedraggled we hauled ourselves to a hot springs just north of Fairbanks. Under the new lights of the stars and the moon - new to us as the darkness was just returning - as the mist of the hot springs wafted around us and my parents were long in bed, he proposed. It was very romantic. Of course I said yes. We've had three distinct reactions: my family) what? you know what month already? his family) what? you don't know the date already? our co-workers) what?! you are going to wait a year?! Because we have decided to get married near the fall equinox next year when the workload slows, the colors are gorgeous, and even those scared of winter can love Alaska.

Re-Emerging

2009-10-27T08:40:00.004-08:00

It's past the autumn equinox and I'm long past due on the page. I've been thinking about coming back ever since the equinox as the craze of summer field work has faded but it's hard to know where to start. I've missed being here and sharing with you and although I've been sneak reading some of your blogs I haven't been commenting much. But where to start? Do I give you the blow by blow of a crazy summer? Or do I just start with now? With the two inches of fresh snow and the peach taffeta sunrise that occurs a good two hours after I've arrived at work? With the grouse that are strutting around the yard and the ice flowing down the Copper River? And my goodness, I never did fully explain the fishwheel, oh where did the summer go? And much has changed in my life since I was here last. I moved again (I know! but I think it will be a while until the next one) and I fell in love and got engaged to be married to a wonderful guy. The Disreputable Dog has fully recovered from his surgeries and acts like a young pup and has collected his allotment of fall moose leg bones and the Disreputable Cat has been on shrew patrol in our arctic entry ever since she caught one there a month ago. I wonder who of you are still checking to see if I post? I hope I haven't lost the lot of you. I am here now. Here for the winter. I promise.

Burning Daylight

2009-06-08T09:28:00.004-08:00

It's June and the solstice is around the corner. The entire first week of June went by in the blink of an eye and now it's summer in Alaska. It's hot too. For those of you who still secretly harbor thoughts that it is always cold in Alaska I'll have you note that it was 85F (30C) all last week. The salmon have begun running and we are harvesting the first of our lettuce. This weekend I found a junco's nest in the grass and the mosquitoes got so bad that we were actually forced inside long enough to realize the power had been off for 6 hours. I got my fishwheel permit and we're on the neighbor's fishwheel so I expect a few 3am phone calls to clean a hundred fish or so. WE even did a little dipnetting but there was a rain on Friday and the fish were hanging loose in the water, gauging the new flow, and we didn't have any hits. There is so much I want to come and write about here, to share with all of you, and yet I never seem to make it here lately. There's just too much going on. We are burning daylight here - and like the metaphorical candle it is on both ends.

I'm headed to the most famous of Alaskan parks this week to pick up another crew of mine and to attend some of their training - they are part of a network effort so all of the training for several parks will be occurring there. I'm not looking forward to the 7 hour drive (starting as soon as I'm done here) but it should be an enjoyable week and I hope it will be cooler. Truth be told though, I think this park is rather over-rated and has too many visitors, I prefer my own (but then, I'm biased). But still, it should be fun and I will likely run into many people I know there from grad school and other jobs. If I'm really lucky I'll get out on a hike or a run there. But it's unlikely - that is, if you don't count field work. Thank goodness for fieldwork though! It's what makes all the lab and computer time worth it. Of course, it makes it hard to get around to reading all of you as regularly as I would like...

Tired

2009-05-27T08:29:00.003-08:00

It's been a busy time. Tiredness lags at the eyes in the early morning and though the sun is bright there is a deep calm in the chest as if the body would easily fall into slumber if it came to rest for a few seconds. But it isn't the season for rest.

I'm trying hard this field season to schedule for weekends at home. Home to tend my garden, the Disreputables, to catch up with bills, to remember the feel of my own bed, to spend time with my new boyfriend. However, sometimes other things happen. Last Friday 4 Germans showed up at headquarters asking after me. Turns out they are my mother's cousins and were here for the weekend. We had a lot of fun visiting but entertaining is not exactly restful. The weekend before we hosted a going away party for two colleagues with more then 75 people showing up - a fabulous potluck with lots of kids running around and funny stories and with more people showing up then I even know in the community.

Seasonal allergies have hit hard these last two weeks. Birch and aspen then the willows and now the spruces are blooming - all wind pollinated. It exacerbates the feeling of tiredness. I'm in Los Anchorage with one of my crews - we've got gear to get and some training to cover while here. I had forgotten that Los Anchorage can actually be a pleasant place in spring. I have my bicycle and in the evenings I explore corners of town I wasn't aware existed as well as long time favorite places. There are more fishermen standing on the banks then I would expect for this time of year but the bike ride refreshes me and I recover from anti-social feelings. It's hard this time of year to find time for the self - too many crews of people all clamouring for attention as they adjust to life here at the park and figure out how to do things. It makes me feel vaguely parental even though many of them are older then I am. Patience is important as is good humor.

I want to share pictures but I am on a different computer and the connection doesn't work and so I will have to wait.

Images of Spring

2009-05-19T16:49:00.002-08:00

Recovery

2009-05-12T16:59:00.003-08:00

The Disreputable Dog is amazing. The surgeon told me that this leg might take longer to heal up. If anything, it's healing faster. On Friday he was a miserable lump of a dog. We got him out of the vehicle and whenever I wasn't visible or was more then 5 feet away he would whine. His eyes were cloudy and drugged and he fought the drug induced sleep all he could until he would just keel nose first into the rug. He refused to eat all weekend and had to have pills thrust down his throat and he was completely and totally uninterested in his hedgehog (a stuffed toy that he carries around like it's his baby and that he has to show every visitor). I think the drugs must have made him nauseous. And his leg was this nasty purplish swollen thing. Frozen peas helped but he didn't tolerate them for very long.

I pedaled home yesterday wondering how he'd be and out came this bounding dog with his hedgehog in the mouth full of energy and a sparkle in his eye. He ate - of course he did, he got hare that my boss gave me - and he even lifted the other leg to pee - putting all of his weight on the newly operated on leg. His joy in all things has been revived. He tussled his cat instead of the other way around. He threw his hedgehog in the air a few times. Still, he set up howling when I left this morning and twice I had to bike back to pacify him. If that were me post surgery I think I'd still be whining on the couch.

First Pasque Flowers!

2009-05-05T15:51:00.003-08:00

I just found this pasque flower (Anemone patens) today on my walk to my phenology plot. I call it a northern crocus because it is the first flower to bloom in the tundra and it's of similar size (we can't grow crocuses sadly). I was so excited to see 4 or 5 of these little guys today!

I'll be gone for the next few days as I have to head back to Los Anchorage tonight for the Disreputable Dog's second operation (right rear leg). He goes in at 7:30 in the morning and won't be out until the next day. I've been so encouraged at his progress from the first operation (left rear leg) but I am not looking forward to him going back to pathetically in pain again for a few weeks.

Sharp-shinned Love Affair

2009-05-04T17:10:00.003-08:00

This weekend was a busy one. I dismantled an old dog run, I dismantled an old compost pile (with yummy albeit frozen composted soil in it), I built 4 planting beds + 2 half planting beds (i.e. they aren't finished and yes, that yummy compost is going in them), I went to a seed swap where everyone complained about voles (so I lined the bottoms of my new planting beds with fine wire salvaged from the dog runs - I'll post pix when the last two are finished), I dismantled and moved two beds and reassembled, and I watched, mostly listened, to a lovesick pair of sharp-shinned hawks.

It started Friday night while we were having a hurried dinner out on the picnic tables before rushing off to see the premiere of a local high school history film (which was fabulously well done I might add). We kept hearing these, at the time, unseen hawks just going off. We speculated but we had to get on the road. The next day though they were in full form. They seem to have claimed the land we have lived on as part of their territory as they kept swapping places on one particular aspen tree. Maybe we'll be lucky and have a nest! Or not so lucky as far as seeing any other birds this summer - I noticed that it had gone deadly quite where the other birds were concerned. However this weekend I did see my first spring robin and this morning on my bike ride in I heard my first varied thrush. While at the seed swap we had tundra swans and a bald eagle flying overhead. That and a week of really warm weather and it must be summer, even if the ground is still frozen half an inch down!

One Dead Bear & A Blueberry Pie

2009-05-01T15:38:00.005-08:00

It's okay, you can look, it's a paper bear. A very dead paper bear but a paper bear nonetheless. Doesn't s/he look ferocious? Yesterday was my annual bear safety/ shotgun training. At least mostly annual. I've given the bear training myself more times then I can count and I try not to fall asleep when someone else gives it but the afternoon shotgun session is always worth being outside for a sunny spring day. That despite my exceedingly bruised shoulder from the shotgun (but see that shot right through the heart - that's mine). Plus I got blueberry pie out of it.

Let me just say, for the record, that despite my many years in bear country and my many encounters only 1 of them ever involved a charge and I emptied a can of Bear Spray in that grizzly's face and it stopped. Granted, it stopped about 1 foot in front of me and my quivering fieldworker who I was holding down with my other hand (he thought he should run! Never, ever run from a bear!), but he stopped. For the most part I won't be taking a shotgun with me but relying on good old pepper spray (I have an old post on it here, if you want more details). There are two occasions I prefer to have a gun though: 1)when I'm working on a salmon stream - let's face it, this is pretty much a grizzly bear buffet and they may think that this little naked (relative to a bear) bear needs a lesson in who gets the best fishing holes and 2) when I'm working in an area where I know the bears are not only well adapted to humans but to their food (this is a particular problem in bear-baiting areas - don't get me started).

Here's some fun bear-human facts to entertain you:

-more people get killed by pet dogs then bears
-in Alaska, more people get killed by moose then bears
-bears have never attacked a group of 4 or more if those people stand as a group (cowering behind your partner doesn't count - you've got to stand shoulder to shoulder)
-bears are a lot like dogs in their body language
-bear bells mean absolutely nothing to bears since they never evolved with a sound similar. However, pick up a stick & snap it up in little pieces and they will hear it and take good heed.
-I'm way more scared of humans then bears (but this fact may be more about me then bears)

This picture is not mine - I don't know who to credit. I've been told it's of a local bear but there are a few tree species in the photo that make me suspicious of that. As you can tell though, bears will go to great length for food!

Do me a favor, if you live in bear country, take down your bird seed already! And don't put it up again until it looks like winter!

Break-Up

2009-04-30T12:02:00.009-08:00

Many a person in Alaska will try and tell you that break-up is not really about rivers but about that time of year when a couple who has been keeping each other warm through the winter break off their relationship. But really, it does have to do with break-up of ice on the rivers (even if the latter is also true). I'm kicking myself for not grabbing my camera when I took the Disreputable Dog on his evening walk to the river where we witnessed break-up.

Tidal ice along the ocean in Los Anchorage

Rivers in Alaska have long been important transportation routes. In the winter they are highways for sled dog teams, snowmachines, and skis. In the summer boats of all types go up and down them. But during break-up and freeze-up all traffic stops. Predicting break-up has long been a pastime of locals and their is at least one break-up that is akin to our state lottery.

Having found that my new residence is a short walk from the mighty River that Brings the Highest Price for Wild Salmon, the D. Dog and go there twice daily. I love these huge, glacially fed, silty rivers (ok, I'll admit it, there isn't really any river type I don't love). Just standing on the banks makes me feel like I'm out in the field. The other day we had stopped in the early morning sun to look out on a still mostly frozen scene with a few leads of water. When we arrived on the banks in the afternoon we were just in time to see it all break up and wash out.

We sat in the sand on a high bank while the ice roared and crashed and moaned, while huge car sized chunks of ice floated by, submerging occasionally and then creating huge sprays as they lunged upward again like whales breaching. Occasionally a berg would strand temporarily on the edge of the river until enough of its brethren piled up behind it and forced it back out into the stream. The river was chock-a-block full of ice, it looked like the surface of a slurpee, churned pieces of ice streaked with sediment layers of grime and a huge variety of freezing ice patterns rushed by. The sound of it was awe inspiring- roaring, rushing, seething, spraying, sucking. I can't really describe it accurately. Huge blocks got torn from the banks creating their own current and sending muddy water skyward. And after sitting there for maybe 45 minutes all of the ice had passed us. Suddenly there was an open river with a few small pieces of ice still clinging to it's banks. Looking down river we could just discern the rush of ice as it headed for the open ocean.

My Cat the Tree hugger

2009-04-28T16:42:00.003-08:00

Yesterday, when I was out planting greens in the window boxes (yes, this might be a sign that I will stay at this residence a little longer then the last), the Disreputable Cat escaped out the front door. She is an indoor cat as there are things that would dearly love to eat her and things that she would dearly love to eat. I was about to run over and scoop her up when she caught sight of the red squirrel.

Now this may have been the first time she's actually ever seen a red squirrel and she was absolutely enthralled. As I watched she walked straight through a cat-belly deep puddle, tail dragging in the water, in the direction of the squirrel. I could hardly stop laughing. The squirrel was in no danger and when I finally rescued the D. Cat from the little island she had marooned herself on she grasped each tree as we went by (only the aspens though, not the spruce) and I thought to myself 'My cat's a tree hugger'.

Field Season Looming

2009-04-27T17:12:00.006-08:00

It's going to be summer next week and then it's going to be crazy, hectic busy, and then it's going to be over the week after that. At least, that's how it feels. I'm planning my field projects and I'm already trying not to think long term planning because I'm going to be gone almost every single week, starting the last week of May. It's not going to be the kind of field season where I go far, far away, drop off the planet, and stay there for 5 months before returning to the real world (which morphs into the unknown in my absence). No, this is the kind of field season where you spend one week at site A doing a project involving one taxa, the next week at site B involving and entirely different taxa, off to site C immediately thereafter to deal with yet another taxa, and so on. And yikes - how many people do I have to coordinate with and arrange equipment for? It's going to be an adventure, as is always the case when your transportation methods include (but are not limited to): snowmachine, hiking, helicopter, and raft. Right.

I expect I will come out the other end with crazy stories and beautiful pictures and absolutely ready to hole up for the winter doing mellow things. Right now we are all scrambling - we've got 13 million acres of land to traverse and take care of (that's six times the size of Yellowstone National Park) and 3-4 months to do it in. So right now, I'm logistics girl - 'cause I need to line it all up so that then I can just let it flow.

Rabbit's Foot

2009-04-25T16:03:00.004-08:00

Snowshoe hare foot found in the woods - it always seems that predators leave one behind...it makes me wonder about the origin of the "lucky" rabbit's foot.

Things I've been doing while I wasn't here:

Moving again - out of employee housing. There's been quite a crunch for housing so, despite the difficulties of finding housing in the area, I've moved
D. Dog's surgery & 3 subsequent check-ups - the vet is a 4 hour drive away. There is a vet closer but I have been repeatedly warned not to take an animal to this vet unless you intend to put them down. His next one is for the week after next.
Hiring two crews of seasonals for two different projects
Been sick, again, this time with a cold
Monitoring the Aspen trees for catkin development
Bringing my bike out of storage and resuming the bike commute - it's much easier from my new place which is about 4 miles away. The other one was 15.
Celebrated a birthday

Signs of Spring in Alaska

2009-04-24T15:55:00.002-08:00

Strange baby faced men who look vaguely familiar keep showing up at work - all winter long they've had chest long hair and beards but now they've gone in for their "annual" - annual haircut that is.
Flocks of snow buntings swooping around the roadsides like a wind swept snow storm
Owls becoming more visible, their hoots filling the forests
Daylight increasing so fast that it is confusing when trying to guess the time
Big lakes of melt water stuck between the frozen ground and permafrost. You could stock some of them with fish, I swear.

My mother asked me a week ago how much snow we had - 2 feet I replied. She asked if I was exaggerating. I wasn't. You couldn't even see the benches of the picnic tables and now, a week later, there is bare ground under them.

Whew!

2009-04-06T17:00:00.000-08:00

Ice Festival Creature 2009

So I'm finally feeling totally recovered (and I still have no clue what it was). The Disreputable Dog had his first knee surgery and is doing very well although he manages to be very pathetic at the same time, howling when I leave until the Disreputable Cat comes up to comfort him (I peeked in the window). And my step-father has been buried (but I'm reserving a future post for him.) Thank you for all of your kind thoughts.

My favorite at the festival this year

Before I got sick I was going to post all these fabulous pictures of ice sculptures from the Ice Sculpture Festival in the City of the Midnight Sun where I was just before I got ill. I'm still posting them but it feels a little out of sync with the season as the we now have almost 14hours of daylight now and it has gotten above freezing every single day and the pussy willows are bursting from the very top-most branches of the willow trees. However, the ice festival is one of my absolute favorite events in this grand state and I was delighted that I had the excuse to go up there and the time to visit them with friends.

Ice DNA (to scale!!!)

This last photo is not as clear as the others as the camera batteries were getting cold and the lens was fogging up (it was -35F ~ -38C) but it is of an ice slide. A fabulous set of long ice slides that run the length of the hill. Now many respectable adults feel that they shouldn't be using such things but how else, I ask you, does one stay warm when standing around a gallery of ice other then by running up the hill and sliding down on your butt, going so fast that you laugh wildly into the cold air even though you forgot how much catching air on an ice slide would hurt when you came down.

ice slides!

Showing up at the page

2009-03-24T12:26:00.007-08:00

So I've been very ill this last week. It makes an impression when you pass out in front of all of your co-workers and your boss at a very important meeting. It's not good when they find you face first in the snow in the parking lot. Yep, that was me. Making an impression at the new job. The Superintendent took me to the emergency clinic where she was asked if she was my mother after my boss confiscated the keys to my truck. The Superintendent (aka Big Boss) asked me my phone number and I couldn't remember it. She asked my parents' number and I couldn't remember it either.

If I had been more then semi-aware of my surroundings I would have been worried about the doctor at the emergency clinic who didn't know how to spell the illness he thought I had and who looked like he was sixteen complete with black baggy pants draping off his boxers. It might have concerned me that he was focusing on things that didn't hurt. But I was not myself. Luckily my new co-workers rallied - the next day my boss called up two other co-workers and told them they were taking me to Los Anchorage (one was going anyway), another co-worker commandeered my pets.

I had been to City-of-Ice-Sculptures the weekend before for work and by the time the weekend had come had checked myself into the emergency clinic there. I thought the diagnosis seemed a bit bogus but was going to give the meds a shot. I thought I was fine at the meeting - really, I did. Then I crashed, spectacularly. So now, between the clinic here, the one in City-of-Ice-Sculptures, and Los Anchorage I now have three completely different diagnoses - and my symptoms don't fit any of them. Argh.

Just days before this the Disreputable Dog blew both his posterior cruciate ligaments (that's akin to a human ACL). He's scheduled for surgery next week. Last night Marlboro Man (my step-father) passed away - I can't absorb it. Oh, and that volcano (Mt. ReDoubt) is exploding - luckily the ash is not falling but it may prevent me from flying out of here.

Anywho, that's where I've been. Signing off for now....

Falling books

2009-03-04T08:00:00.000-09:00

Monday morning I learned that the independent bookstore where I spent the year of 2008 is closing its doors, on my birthday no less. Sadly, the belt tightening that has people reducing the number of lattes they buy has caused them to reduce the number of books they buy and the place just can't stay afloat. So it will be closing. I'm having a hard time imagining the town without it - even though it was absent all of my growing up years. It was more then a bookstore, it was a social place, a comforting place, an escape, a place that blurred the imaginary and real. I feel for my colleagues there who now are joining so many of the ranks of unemployed. I also cannot help but reflect on how my personal fortunes seem to be in direct contrast with everyone else. I lost my job at the end of 2007. I lost my home. I lost my sense of direction. Etc. And then, just as everyone else started to lose their jobs I was offered a new one in the field I love in a place I love with people I truly enjoy. I am truly grateful for this fact. I feel like I have been experiencing this economic downturn a year ahead of everyone else and now I've gotten back on my feet.

Already I miss the bookstore. The smell of the fresh books, the fireplace with the big wing chairs, the big stuffed pillows in the children's section, the crisp displays, the rhythm of book selling, of browsing, and buying, and enthusiasm.

Happy Square Root Day!

2009-03-03T15:33:00.005-09:00

Okay, on a purely nerdy note, today is square root day - a day when both the day of the month and the month are the square root of the last two digits of the year - a holiday that only comes around once every nine years. It is one of those oddly satisfying symmetries in the world.

On a related note, there's only 17 days left until the equinox! Woot!

(Edited on 3/6/09 to add: I made a mistake! I meant to say that square root day only occurs 9 times a century. NOT every 9 years! Sorry I didn't catch that earlier!)

Somewhat Wordless Wednesday

2009-02-25T17:09:00.002-09:00

So I finally am able to upload my photos again - but the system isn't yet refined so I can add my nifty little signature to them. Oh well. This picture is from my weekend ski along a fire break north west of my house. There are a gazillion unofficial trails all throughout Alaska and in winter you can access the ones that in summer would be swamp, such as this fire break. I think they planned this one so it would frame the mountain just so, don't you?

Yukon Quest 2009

2009-02-24T14:53:00.004-09:00

I'm sure you all have been wondering where my dog mushing posts have gone to - I've been attempting to restrain myself a bit. But now the winner of my favorite sled dog race has been announced - congratulations to the winner of the 2009 Yukon Quest - Sebastian Schnuelle!

Sebastian Schnuelle arrives at the finish line in Fairbanks, AK (this year it
started in Whitehorse, YT). Photo by John Hagen & taken from the official
Yukon Quest Page.

It's been a very exciting Quest this year - we all thought we knew exactly who the winner was from the start and then he fell out due to a penalty (well deserved in my opinion although he seems quite sore about it) and then it seemed equally obvious who was next in line but he got stuck a day before the ending of the race on Eagle Summit. It's one of the things I love about dog mushing - the winner is never a given.

Short Week

2009-02-20T15:00:00.001-09:00

This image is from my trip up on the Alaska Marine Highway this January. It exudes serenity and peacefulness. I'm feeling somewhat wordless today - the week escaped me, somehow it's Friday but I missed Wednesday. I have fun weekend plans - more skiing, a dinner date, a new book club to attend, and the Yukon Quest Dog Race to follow. I'm feeling dreamy and tired now as I snuggle with the D. Cat on my lap and the D. Dog at my feet. Did I mention the D. Dog caught himself breakfast the other morning? He was most pleased with himself.

Inspiration Award

2009-02-19T20:21:00.000-09:00

awww! Thanks to Step-wise Girl for nominating me for the Inspirational Award! I'm very flattered. I think I'm going to follow CAE's example and only nominate one blogger at the moment. I'm going to nominate Dea over at the Huffblog. She inspires me by the way she takes life by the horns even when it challenges her greatly.

Recovering from 90th Birthday Party

2009-02-18T16:00:00.003-09:00

So this weekend I flew all the way across the continent to join the rest of my family in celebrating my mother's mother's 90th birthday. It was a long day of travel - pretty much 24 hours worth - but you can't miss a 90th birthday.

My grandmother, I call her Oma, is a pretty amazing woman and the fact that she has made it to 90 and is the only one of her generation of her family to do so is quite remarkable. She is a survivor against incredible odds being as she was a German speaking Mennonite in a Jewish village in the Ukraine, Russia in 1919. Between the Russian revolution and the second world war she lost everything she had including most of her family - she was always on the wrong side simply by birthright. But she was clever and cunning and she survived and came to Canada as a refugee. At 89 she finally became a Canadian citizen after living there more then 50 years.

However, the exact details of her life are a bit of a mystery as my sister and I found out when we tried to make party favors using an old photo of her. We wanted to add some details to the photo card - where she was born, when she was married, when she came to Canada. This proved much more difficult then we anticipated and of great dispute among family members. We couldn't even pin down the age she was when the photograph was taken. At the birthday she told my mother she was 35, me she was 15, and my sister she was 25.

It was a lovely party - I think she enjoyed it. It was a lovely moment to spend with my family, to see them all there, to all pitch in and create this gift for her. And then I flew all the way back across the continent, picked up the Disreputables, then drove 4 hours in a blizzard to arrive home sometime after 1:30am last night. As a result I'm a bit bleary eyed today. Not to mention the fact that I spent the weekend in a time zone four hours different then my own.

Footprint Friday: Snowshoe Hare (Lepus americana)

2009-02-13T21:38:00.008-09:00

Location: The boreal forest in Alaska

Approximate size: ~11 inches, ~29cm for the set above, when looking at the below picture it is approximately 14 inches, 35.5cm between sets

Answer: Snowshoe Hare (Lepus americana). I can see how some of you might have thought moose however a) a moose footprint might have the beginning two pieces but not the back bit b) a moose's toes would not be quite so far apart. Argh! I just realized my second picture didn't show up which would have made it clearer - hmm...well, will have to get it later tonight. Sorry about that! (Edited to add: there it is! Now you have a better sense of scale)

This little piggy wore boots

2009-02-11T19:00:00.001-09:00

So I actually have very blister prone feet - and as Silver Fox pointed out in a comment, I am "hellishly gung-ho for the outdoors". It's not the best of combinations. My feet are so blister prone that I can get blisters in slippers and any other foot device and yes, if I go barefoot I can manage that too. If I haven't worn a pair of shoes for a week I'll get blisters, if I've worn a pair of shoes for a whole day I'll get blisters. So this explains my skiing situation - I hadn't worn my ski boots for that long of a ski in a month because, well, I've been moving. This blister problem has plagued me all my life to the point that in field camps there are entire betting games based on the number of blisters I come home with in a week with winners scoring whatever the cheap beer is that is being drunk in camp. I kid you not. Usually I have a thousand and one strategies for dealing with this. I am the person you want to have on your trip if you develop blisters because I can wrap them up in such a way you won't even know they're there. Of course, I'll also make you stop the minute you mention that your toe/ heel is starting to hurt. Which was my big mistake. As we glide along the beautiful crystalline river I think to myself 'hmm, my big toes hurt, I bet they're blistering' and then as Life-Long-Ranger says that he feels a bit of a cramp I say off handidly, "Yeah, I think I'm getting a blister". Did I stop and take care of the offending appendages? No. I did not. I was thinking 'it's cold out, the sun has gone down behind the ridge, we're almost there'. Almost, it turned out was another 2 hours and by then the damage was done. So now I spend my evenings soaking my toes for half an hour each night, I spend the rest of the night freezing my toes so as to let them dry out (freezing because there is a cold draft on my floor that can only be buffered by soaks and slippers), and I spend 15 minutes each morning wrapping them and generally making sure that, other then the first twinge as I change shoes, I will not notice that they're a mess. Really, if they insist on fussing like this they're just going to have to get over it because I am going to continue to go running, hiking, skiing, and snowshoeing - every day and they're just going to have to deal. You'd think my feet would have figured this out by now. I'm not letting a little pain get in the way of my outdoors time! There now...if you're brave scroll down for a photo of the damage... (if you just ate or have a sensitive stomach I suggest you avoid this part).

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after a few days of healing

Morning

2009-02-10T19:51:00.007-09:00

The view from my office

This morning's weather report: "Clear starry skies and a full moon this morning". Then a breif update on the volcano that is trying to erupt. They forgot to mention owls. Just after my breakfast and snowshoe through the woods (our morning walk when there is thick fresh snow on the ground) with D. Dog there came an enormous crash and the snow fell off the roof. I look around, the D. Dog looked around, the D. Cat streaked to the porch door which has a full pane of glass in it. And there, sitting in the snow, was a Northern Hawk Owl, it's tail stretched out absurdly behind it. They look a lot smaller when you're looking down at them - something I have never done before as they're usually perched on the top of spruce trees like funny hats. Apparently it crashed into the window and sat there staring at the D. Cat who stared back, their eyes strangely similar.

I'm not really sure why these past few days have found so many large predatory birds on my porch - I'm delighted to see them up close but a bit concerned that they might hurt themselves. Good thing the D. Cat is an indoor cat! Of course, I didn't get pictures of either - I was too busy looking and observing their every mood - you'll have to forgive me.

______________

Oh...not to be crude...but who wants a pic of my poor toes? Vote by your comment!

Weekend Fun

2009-02-09T17:25:00.004-09:00

This weekend a co-worker (I'll call him Life-Long-Ranger) and I (and the D.Dog) went for a x-country ski on the River-Known-For-Its-Expensive-Salmon. It was amazingly sunny and the four major mountains practically shown with reflected sunlight. It wasn't particularly warm but it wasn't particularly cold either. We skied for miles, enjoying the scenery that is hard to access any other time of year and enjoying the mostly smooth surface to travel on. Only occasionally did we have to avoid jumble ice. On the way back my toes were aching a little but I didn't particularly feel like taking off my boots - I figured the blister could wait.

At home it was immediately clear that I had bled rather profusely through my sock and yes, indeed, I had major blister-ripage on both of my big toes - mashed meat. Sigh. You'd think I'd know better by now.

Sunday morning I was being lazy, soaking my feet in brine and watching the D.Cat watching the birds feeding on my porch. The birds are predominantly common redpolls with two variants of pine grosbeak in attendance as well, the russet and the pacific. Occasionally a Stellar's jay would chase the group away. Then suddenly all of the birds vacated, a huge bird soared by, then came back and landed on my porch railing. A rough-legged hawk. It sat there, thumping it's foot against the railing and then chewing on it distractedly. Then it flew straight at the window, bounced off it with its feet, and flew away. Well you can imagine the D.Cat's excitement although the bird was twice the size of her. She ignored my dire warnings of how one ought not to mess with such birds because they would as soon as eat you as be eaten. Lucky for me she's an indoor cat.

Once my feet were bandaged up enough the D.Dog and I went off into the woods again - sans skis since I couldn't bear the thought of putting the boots on. But we made good tracks hiking in the woods for 4 hours where we saw a little saw-whet owl just beginning its breeding calls. By the end though the D.Dog was on a mission for dinner and it was getting colder although not much darker since the moon was so full and we headed home.

I apologize for the lack of photos - I'm needing to get my system back into working condition.

Crossword Breaks

2009-02-06T10:10:00.004-09:00

One of the things I like at my new work, which is more or less totally unrelated to work, is the crosswords in the bathrooms. I don't know if this is a tradition carried on in the male toilets but in the female toilets there are clipboards with random crossword puzzles torn out by people from every conceivable place and pens. Everyone fills out a little every time they go in. It turns out this is a great brain stimulator and a great break and since several people work on it you learn a lot too - it's fun to look at the answers for that question that really stumped you. Sometimes crossword books appear when we've run out of tear-out sheets (let's face it, crosswords are hard to come by in the Basin). Currently I find myself wondering whose handwriting belongs to which of my co-workers. Perhaps I'll even get to know that and then I'll know who knows all the TV trivia, who knows the history, etc. I bet you all can guess which questions I'm good at.

Mercury & Alkali

2009-02-04T20:50:00.003-09:00

I find it amusing that I can tell if it's getting below -5F (approx. -21C) because after that temperature the colder it gets the warmer the indoor, alkaline battery operated thermometer at work goes up. So currently it's -20F (approx. -29C which is the D.Dog's favorite all around temperature to lounge around outside in) and the indoor thermometer reads 68F (20C)! Which it's clearly not because I daren't even take my long underwear off indoors and I refuse to even cross the parking lot without my hat. So instead I peer out in the dark at the bi-metallic sensor which currently is accurate. But sadly, this thermometer, like all I've ever seen commercially available, stops at -60F (approx. -51C). Which is clearly not good enough here because we bury the needle at least once a winter. Mercury is no good either - it freezes at -39C (-38.15F), where both Fahrenheit and Celsius are almost the equal.

Perhaps it's time to get an alcohol thermometer - do you think I can make my own? It has a suitably low freezing point ( -113C , approx. -171F) - the weather gods have mercy on us if we ever get to that limit!

In Memorium: Shelly

2009-02-03T21:54:00.003-09:00

I didn't know her particularly well but we crossed paths many times in the last ten years. I first met her at a conference, and then several more and at the houses of friends. As I was leaving grad school she was coming in under the same advisor. She was smart, beautiful, and possessed a confidence I wished I could emulate.

Not too long after starting grad school she smashed her finger in the door of the bathroom. And it changed everything. It didn't heal, and it didn't heal and then she was diagnosed with subungual melanoma. Cancer is often unexpected and freakish and unfair but this seemed particularly horrible - that such an everyday occurrence (well, everyday to klutzes like me) could suddenly turn the world upside down. She was an amazing woman - she did so much even after the diagnosis - learning to fly, continuing to pursue her PhD. Our paths continued to cross and I would always check in but not being close I didn't want to pry.

It came as a shock to me the other day to stumble upon her blog, Shelski, and learn that she passed away with the with the end of 2008. She lived her life well, she did the things she loved and she will be missed. My thoughts go out to her family.

Snow & Cold

2009-02-02T19:44:00.003-09:00

This morning I wake to snow sifting down from the sky the way powdered sugar does for a cake, steady and even, light, coating everything. I do not find this out until the Disreputable Dog and I set out on our morning walk. It's funny how I've forgotten some of the characteristics of cold and how some of the habits have stayed with me. As I unpacked I was absolutely delighted to find my thick down coat and heavy warm boots as my Colorado versions were simply not enough to keep me warm. As I continued to unpack I found more things: long underwear, cutoff sock ankles for that space on one's wrist between glove and coat, several different thicknesses of hats each for a certain temperature range and likewise a set of gloves. When at the coldest three of each of these together makes the perfect pair. I had forgotten I had all these layers, forgotten I needed them, but luckily, there they are. And in the pocket of the coats a headlamp, a habit I continued in Colorado out of sheer habit. One can always use a headlamp somewhere in winter and it's no fun being caught without one.

I am delighted with having, for the first time, a garage for my truck. I never had any particular interest in garages but I can honestly say that it is a pleasure to get into a non-frozen car and not worry about cracking the plastic seat belt cover by hitting it with my bag when the temperature is 0F (-18C) or below. It is nice not to have to scrape the windows clean or to plug the car in at night to a timer so that it warms up enough to start (although I still do this at work). I like having round tires in the morning, not square ones that must be gently warmed up.

Tonight I was tired, mentally, and I new I needed exercise but the gym, a cold empty room at a Bible College with dust bunnies coating the ground and an erie empty feeling, did not appeal to me at all. So instead I went skiing with the Disreputable Dog. Darkness had already started to fall but luckily the shadow twilight phase lasts a long time and afterwards the snow is still quite bright with a little moonlight. By the end of our hour and half ski it had gotten difficult to see. Not only was I stubborn and refusing to turn on my headlamp but the ice crystals on my eyelashes were starting to freeze together.

Moved In

2009-02-01T21:24:00.004-09:00

So I finally made it out of the terminal ferry town. They opened the road in the afternoon and as I passed the giant snow plow/ gravel truck belly up in a ravine with all six wheels waving in the air my grip tightened on the steering wheel. One hundred and thirty-six miles is a long way to go when your top speed limit is 35mph. All thoughts of empowerment and hope that had been in my head after watching the US inauguration at the local bar - the only place open for breakfast at this time of year - had fled my head. All focus was on the road. As darkness fell and a blizzard blew up I was absolutely delighted to reach the next town on the road in the beautiful Yukon Territory. My shoulders were bunched up and tight from straining so close to the windshield. At the hotel resteraunt all of the plow drivers were discussing how to get that damn rig out of the ravine - apparently they had gotten the other 3 (!) out of the ditches they had gone in over the previous 5 days but this one was down a pretty steep slope and was proving a challenge. It may be there until spring, spring being sometime in June.

The next day was longish but familiar and I made it all the way to my new home. En route I passed the people who had slept in the hotel room next to me jack-knifed off the road with their trailer blown open at the seams. No one was there though so they had clearly made it to the next town over. Chaos ensued when I arrived at my destination, my rear sore from eleven days on the road (you may remember it took me seven to drive down in the summer). It took a few days but eventually the where's, the who's, the when's got cleared up and my stuff arrived from Los Anchorage and after I had put the pieces of my homemade bed together and dumped the frozen mattress on it and screwed together the pieces of the homemade cat scratching post together I hit the road myself, following the moving crew out to Los Anchorage. I had a shopping mission, and arriving there at the dinner shopping hour I was soon more then ready to get out of town and I headed out to my friend's who had the Disreputables. The Disreputable Cat had quickly taken control of the other dog who is a puppyhood friend of the Disreputable Dog. We spent the night and then headed to our new home.

I've been busy getting new mailing addresses, phones hooked up, internet services, unpacking and cleaning, sorting and making discoveries (why did I pack that?), and filling out paperwork at work. Showing up for work my first day was great - I had a very warm welcome from several people who I've worked with in the past and it felt like coming home. The Disreputable Dog has been so excited to have the scent of snowshoe hare and the, to him, perfect temperature of about 0 degrees F, that his tail wags constantly on our twice daily walks. The Disreputable Cat was fairly anxious the first couple of days but other then a new wariness of strangers she seems to have recovered. We had new snow on the weekend and I went skiing with some of my co-workers and then again the next day on my own. There's nothing better then being able to literally ski from your front door.

Day 9 on the road - Stuck due to road closures

2009-01-20T11:36:00.003-09:00

Well, I made it off the ferry and promptly got stuck as the pass made famous by gold diggers of the Klondike Gold Rush has been closed for 3 days straight. So close to my destination and yet so far! On the up side - this means I actually got to watch the Obama inauguration this morning. Yay!! The whole event leaves me with feelings of goodwill towards the world and with hope.

The ferry was lovely - lots of interesting people to talk to and gorgeous, unprecedented, June-like weather. Which explains my current problem. Two straight weeks of burying the needle off the deep end of the negative side of the thermometer (mercury freezes past -60F) followed by a week of above ten degrees above freezing for a week and you have the perfect black ice recipe. I was hoping this portion would take me a day and a half...but it's looking like it will be longer. However, I suppose a two week road trip is not complete without some challenges!

Day 5 on the Road - Waiting for the Ferry

2009-01-16T11:41:00.003-09:00

Red rock landscapes covered with glittering masses of snow. Ice crystal encrusted junipers and sagebrush on salt marshes. Inversion fog banks. Tiny little towns with wonderful little houses. Smelling the change in the air as I hit a more humid climate. Trees getting bigger and bigger, denser and greener. Marshes and white egrets. Falcons and hawks watchful on fence posts. Winding, slightly hidden trails in strange cities. Having my favorite meal from 10 years ago at the same place and finding it hasn't changed a bit. Connecting with old friends for an hour, an overnight, a glimpse here and there. Lovely glimpses of the ocean. Foggy walks on the beach and small cafes. The cold rest area where a lady was offering cookies and coffee.

I love road trips, especially by myself. My sister, on the other hand, hates them. I am enjoying this transition time - the time to decompress from one life and prepare for the a different life. The Disreputables have safely made it to Anchorage. They're anxious, as to be expected, but in good hands. I am waiting near the docks where I will catch my ferry and take the Alaska Marine Highway for several days. I'm looking forward to watching the expanse of coastline, to reading books and perhaps catching up on my correspondence. It's very foggy out right now. The coast is just down the block from the bookstore cafe I'm perched in and I can't see it. I can smell it and hear it though and tonight I'll be on it - my first night on a ship since Russia. I can't help but think it will compare favorably. When I land the US will be ready for inauguration - and I will be in Canada and likely remote enough not to have a radio signal. A bit ironic that but that's okay, I'm sure I can catch up on the whole thing on the blogosphere.

Bon voyage!

Day 1 on the road

2009-01-12T19:09:00.001-09:00

Somewhere, when returning from field work to more "civilized" parts the song "On the Road Again" was playing and my co-worker turned to me and said "that could be your life theme song". And in some ways she was right.

Today's drive went well - Driving across country is a great way to transition into my new life from my old life. It's amazing how one can spend a whole year stressing over job applications and interviews and then suddenly it all comes together. At the start you tell yourself that this will be the case, that something will eventually work out that it is just going to take time but doubt does creep in. And then all of a sudden that patience pays off. So day one of a long trip...5 days on the road....4 days on the ferry....2 days on the road...and then my new home.

New Year, New Beginnings in 2009

2009-01-10T17:41:00.004-09:00

Just before the old year went out I was offered a new job as an –ologist for the largest US National Park in Alaska. I had been toying with the idea of more graduate school and had been pursuing both jobs and PhD options simultaneously. Of course, both of these options became very available at about the same time. For now I chose the job – it was an offer I couldn’t turn down – although I have not entirely given up on the idea of more grad school. So as of Monday (01/12) I head back north. This time I’m taking the ferry from Bellingham, WA to Haines, AK. A very good friend in Alaska has agreed to fly with the Disreputables and to keep them at his house until I arrive – he had plans to be visiting family in Colorado anyway and as much as I will miss those crazy Disreputables on the road I think this will be easiest on all of us. Last I checked, two days ago, the temperature was –78F (or damn cold) and between super cold temperatures and having to be stuck in the hold of the ship for 4 days I’m not sure they would have enjoyed it much.

Yours truly in the largest US National Park in 2002

I am very excited about this new job. I will be living in a very small town again (Town-Where-Two-Highways-Meet) but I’ve lived here before and have friends here. The park is fabulous and has great staff and there are three ways to drive out of there if I need a break! My new header is a picture of two of the more famous mountains in the park taken in early fall by a park ranger Neil. It’s a bit strange getting a new job as many people are losing or worried about losing theirs. As the economy has continued its path it has become clear to me that the loss of my old job was an early sign of what was to come.

Adieu 2008

2008-12-31T17:14:00.000-09:00

Russian Aleutian Sunset 2006

Two thousand eight was an interesting year for me. As the year began my funding for my research (and therefore job) had ended, I was living in a Town-Named-After-Purchaser-of-State, Alaska, a small town at the very end of the road where mountains meet the ocean. As beautiful of a place as it was, it was exceedingly cold, dark, and isolated feeling when without a job. (Did I mention I was also tired of being evacuated for tsunami warnings, volcanic ash fall, and flooding and having only road getting blocked off by avalanches for months on end?) So I decided to go south to spend time with my family in Confluence-of-Two-Gold-Medal-Fishing-Rivers, Colorado. I flew with the Disreputable Dog & Cat in tow and a cooler full of frozen salmon. Everything else I left in Los Anchorage in the garage of friends who were also formerly neighbors.

Winter River, Colorado 2008

Initially I was a bit overwhelmed being back in Colorado – not having really been back for more then a few days since before I went on exchange in high school. It was an adjustment for both my parents and I to live in the same house again. I was anxious having left my career abruptly and not knowing when I would resume work on it. Not knowing exactly if I wanted to. Two thousand six and seven had landed me in some hard emotional places in the work place – I had experienced some deep trauma and it made me unsure if I wanted to continue. So two thousand eight became a year for me to reflect and heal. It turned out to be a great year.

The Bookstore where I worked 2008

I temped for a time at a Green Building Company until I bored enough to prompt me to apply at the local independent bookstore as a bookseller. The bookstore was a good place to pursue other hobbies – I had great co-workers who were all very invested in the store and proud of it. I got to spend some very valuable time with my family. I was there for my parents when my mom had eye surgery that did not go well. I was able to brew with my dad, garden, go hiking with my sister, take my niece and nephew mushroom hunting and play at the pool with them. I had the opportunity to reconnect with old friends, spend time hiking and eating good food together and get reacquainted with many people with whom I had lost touch with over the years – sometimes deeply, sometimes just casually. Initially I was not comfortable with where I was or running into all of these people – invariably everyone comes through the bookstore – but after my summer drive down the Alcan Highway from Alaska to Colorado I found resolution and grew to enjoy these encounters. I re-connected with the town where I was raised and I healed and realized that I did want to continue with my career as an –ologist, that my passion for it was worth pursuing, that I was not yet done with Alaska.

Oh! And I had my first ever blogger meet up – Silver Fox made her way over from Nevada and we had a lovely time getting acquainted (that's us in the picture!). Thanks Silver Fox for getting in touch and stopping by!

Not Abandonded

2008-11-30T17:08:00.004-09:00

Hello dear bloggy friends,

Contrary to popular belief I have not abandoned my blog. Thanks so much for asking and for your concern! Things have been rather hectic lately (and in addition I have broken my camera and am waiting for it's repair). Many of the things that are making things hectic in my life at the moment I am not currently able to blog about for various reasons. I do hope however, to resume normal blogging behavior (week day posts) in the beginning of the new year if not before then. I do miss our conversations and I miss visiting you all as well. Sadly, my computer and email connections are infrequent, tenuous, and slow which means even though I occasionally manage to sneak a visit I often am unable to comment. Again, hopefully there will be changes in the new year! And yes, if you are planning on coming my way (Colorado) at any time in the near future do email me! I would love to meet and visit with any of you in person. Meanwhile, I will wish you all a warm, loving, and thankful holiday season and a light on the winter solstice (or, if you will be experiencing a summer solstice and winter seems far away - a lovely day enjoy the best things summer can offer). I hope to see you all in the new year - keep an eye on your blog readers.

the best to you all, Wayfarer scientista

Ode de Skunk

2008-10-13T08:45:00.002-08:00

For the second time in the middle of the night I got up to let the Disreputable Dog (DDog) out because his tummy was bothering him and he needed to throw up. He's very civilized about these things and will determinedly keep after you until you get up and let him outside for he does not like mussing up his house. I stumbled to the door and then back in to bed, meaning to lie there just a few minutes for warmth and then to let him back in, but I must have fallen into a deeper sleep. Goodness knows I was tired having down 5 ten hour shifts on my feet at the bookstore in a row. A few hours later I was awoken by an acrid smell. I worried immediately that there was an electrical fire, goodness knows they wouldn't be tarring the streets at this hour of the night. So I crept from room to room trying to locate the source of the smell to no avail hardly noticing in my half awake sleep that the open window was not helping. At some point in my search I noticed the Disreputable Cat (DCat) lying in front of the door starring out in the darkness and remembered that the DDog was still out there. The cat always waits by the door for her dog. I let him in and went back to sleep, trying for the life of me to ignore the smell, the comforter pulled up over my head and telling myself that if it was a fire surely the smoke alarm would have rung.

The next morning I awoke very groggily having had relatively little sleep and, encountering my dad who was returning from walking the dogs, asked him if he knew the source of the smell. "Skunk" was his reply along with "don't bother to take a shower yet because you'll have to take your dog". It turns out that while I had forgotten the poor DDog outside he had met up with his first ever skunk, no there are no skunks in Alaska, and while he was probably going up to say hello to what he thought was a cat it sprayed him, right under my bedroom window. Since I haven't been around skunks for awhile myself and since I smelled it before I let him in my half slumbering brain did not make the connection. The front of his ruff and chest were yellow with skunk spray and he had come in and laid down on my bedroom carpet and tried to rub the offensive odor off. My mother, whose 60th birthday had been the day before, shouted at me "Happy birthday!" and I broke into peels of laughter. There was simply nothing else left to do.

Having done that I went about collecting the ingredients to chemically neutralize skunk spray. A former organic chemistry professor of mine (Dr William Wood) had analyzed the various chemical components of skunk spray and then continued on to figure out what denatured it. Of course I only had half the ingredients necessary but they would have to do. So the DDog and I stepped into the shower and I lathered him with my special mixture and waited five minutes before rinsing it out and shampooing him at which point he was banned to the sunny deck to dry out. After showering myself and removing the bedsheets and the rugs and bleaching down the tiled entry way I made a run to the store for more ingredients. Between spraying my carpet and room down with the Anti-spray solution (which is really meant to be rinsed out) and alternately flinging all the windows open and running a fan and closing them all up and turning up the heat (to vaporize it) we managed to decrease the smell immensely. Today, I will steam clean the carpet and hopefully that will remove any other residue although to be honest with you I've reached olfactory exhaustion so I'm not sure I can tell if it smells or not any more. I'll have to recruit some independent noses for a test.

Anti-Skunk Spray Recipe (Note: It may bleach things a bit!!)
by Dr William Wood

2 bottles of hydrogen peroxide (16 fl oz.)
1/2 cup baking soda
1 tsp. liquid detergent

Mix it all up and use immediately. Do not store!

Still searching

2008-10-06T17:41:00.005-08:00

Photo from a river trip, Alaska 2004

Cross your fingers for me...I'm all excited about a position or two that have opened up that seem like they could be just what I'm looking for. I'm trying not to get my hopes up but it's hard not to sometimes. I know that eventually my persistence will pay off even though it's often hard when you can't see the next step in front of you.

First Snow

2008-10-04T17:39:00.000-08:00

It's here - the first snows above 8,000ft in elevation. We even had storm warnings this weekend. I hear from my friends in Fairbanks that there is already enough snow on the ski trails to make them usable.

VP Debate

2008-10-03T06:00:00.000-08:00

I just have to say this...that accent she's got? I never heard that accent from her as governor before.

The View

2008-10-02T07:57:00.000-08:00

Happy October

2008-10-01T07:48:00.003-08:00

This young of the year cow was practically posing for me - I had stopped to look because some people with New Jersey plates had told me there was a moose up ahead. Moose are rare in Colorado but can be found. I rather think though that the tourists mistook the longhorns that were in the pasture for the moose as there was none in sight.

Autumn Glory

2008-09-29T19:55:00.002-08:00

I've been out enjoying the fall colors this "weekend" (my weekend being Sun/Mon this week). This weekend is probably the peak for fall colors up in the high country. Today I went for an over-the-continental-divide drive with my parents to enjoy the views. My dad and I really wanted to get my mom out to see the color but it was touch and go as to whether we could because she had another set-back with her eyes and was extremely light sensitive. Luckily she was able to go - fortified with heavy black glasses and a big hat. She loves the colors as much as I do and I think it cheered her immensely. The dogs enjoyed it immensely as well - nothing better then going on old dirt road with your head out the window and occasionally stopping for little meanders and walks.

Blodgett Lake

2008-09-28T20:06:00.000-08:00

Today was a good day for a 14mile round trip hike with two friends up to Blodgett Lake. On our way we passed several other lakes some of which, like the unnamed one pictured, reminded me of Newfoundland. It was a pretty steep return and as a result my knees ache.

Ephemeral Glory

2008-09-27T20:09:00.000-08:00

After too many 10 hour work days on my feet it's glorious to take my break out on my bike and see this.

Fall Colors

2008-09-25T19:50:00.002-08:00

There are some mighty fine displays of color going on right now. I love fall, love kicking my feet through fallen leaves and the raspy sounds they make as they fly by. I love the intensity of color and watch it as if I will never see color again. I love the winds that rastle by in gusts - more fickle and tempermental then other times of year. I love the harvest the preparations for the winter, the first dustings of snow, the crispness of the air, and the slowing down of activities after the frenetic pace of summer.

Family Wedding

2008-09-23T07:45:00.003-08:00

I've been away for a long weekend to North Carolina for a family wedding. Out of all of my many cousins the last eligible one got married this weekend. I am smack dab in the middle of them age wise and the only non-married one among them so I got lots of introductions to single men and questions about timing of my nuptials. They were implacable. But as I had been expecting it I had my little tool chest of responses at the ready which resulted in much laughter.

It was a wonderful time though - good to be together again for a positive reason - and there's nothing quite so fun as rooming with your sister and your grandmother. My 82 year old Grandmother is the life of every party and can drink every one of her offspring and theirs under the table. Talking to her when she's been drinking is the best way to get any juicy family gossip out of her. One night she was complaining how everybody treats as if she were old and how she's healthier then the lot of 'em - of course they weren't treating her as if she was old but rather as if she were drunk which she was. Roundly.

Ah, a fabulous weekend with family, catching up, hanging out, a little bit of celebration and even a bit of mourning...it had been too long.

Plums

2008-09-23T06:25:00.000-08:00

Like our apricots they're rather small in comparison to what you'd find at the market - but they have the richest flavor and I wouldn't trade them for anything. At what point in time did humans decide that looks were more important in fruit then taste?

Pears

2008-09-22T06:29:00.000-08:00

And now the later fruits of summer begin...the pears & plums and the first of the apples.

Cat Under the Quilt

2008-09-21T06:15:00.000-08:00

The Poor Disreputable Cat was under the weather for a few days following her annual shots - she didn't come out from under this quilt for 2 whole days. But she's back to her Disreputable self - playing the piano at night and attacking dog tails when they're napping.

Bears

2008-09-20T19:00:00.000-08:00

Today was a long morning at work. I took my lunch break several hours too late and went for a much needed bicycle ride. At first I was pedaling furiously, lost in the thunder clouds in my own mind, taking no notice of the lovely autumn day, the wind, and the colors on the hillside when I went around a bend and there, just a few feet off the road sat a beautiful black bear munching on service berries. Suddenly everything was restored in the world and the rest of my ride I could feel the thunder clouds in my head slipping away even as they gathered on the horizon of the land.

Drying Herbs

2008-09-19T07:50:00.000-08:00

Summer savory drying.

Tomatillos

2008-09-18T07:39:00.000-08:00

Next on the list for canning/ freezing: salsa!

Eggplants & Hungarian Hot Peppers

2008-09-17T07:36:00.001-08:00

Purple Harvest: a basket of freshly harvested eggplant & Hungarian hot peppers. You can tell I've been eating pretty well lately :)

Morning Glories

2008-09-16T07:34:00.001-08:00

A beautiful morning glory and nasturtium still resist the cold weather nights for a morning

bloom.

*edited to add: yes, of course it's a nasturtium...sorry, I was busy waxing eloquent about a clematis outside my workplace when I posted this to my mum and I must have typed it in by accident. Thanks for noticing :)

First Frost & Canning

2008-09-15T19:33:00.004-08:00

This weekend's canning projects: tomatoes, peaches, and bread & butter pickles.

We've had our first frost and it's been getting rather cool at night so we've had to cover up the precious vegetables (tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, cucumbers, summer squash) with old sheets. We're a little early for Halloween but they make fantastic ghosts under the full moon.

More on VP nominee

2008-09-14T19:29:00.005-08:00

I've been thinking about your requests to share my knowledge of Palin. Despite my inclination to stay away from politics on this blog, I am strongly tempted, but I also feel like much of what I could say is being said better elsewhere. If you haven't found it already you should definitely visit the Mudflats: Tip toeing Through the Muck of Alaskan Politics which is posted by the AKMuckraker. It's one of those blogs that once would have primarily interested Alaskans - but now one of our small fish has jumped into the big frying pan. I am heartened to see the turnout of the "Alaskan Women Reject Palin" rally and was absolutely mortified the other day when, showing my Alaskan ID in Colorado for a purchase, the woman behind the counter exclaimed "You would look just like Sarah Palin if you put your hair up!". I was tempted to explain that just because we're from the same state doesn't mean we are related.

I will say this: I do not agree with Palin's politics and I do not believe she is qualified for the position of vice-president of the United States. Quite frankly, her politics scare me. This is true of most Alaskan politicians but luckily their power has been limited to the state of Alaska. It dismays me that this political race seems to have become Obama vs. Palin. Isn't it McCain who is supposed to be running against Obama?

That said I am seriously considering your request to post my experience with Palin as governor of Alaska. I'm just trying to figure out how to do so without attracting total furor and in a way that is most beneficial. So I'm thinking on it...please post any specific questions you might have in the comment section and I will try to address them!

Home Grown Tomatoes

2008-09-11T21:10:00.000-08:00

The juiciest batch ever - like eating candy!

Jungle Cat

2008-09-10T21:07:00.000-08:00

The Disreputable Cat watching us make cider from the safety of an ornamental grass in the garden. Don't tell her that you can see her harness peeking through ever so slightly.

Wild Harvest

2008-09-09T21:05:00.000-08:00

There's a lot of "fun" to be had in finding edible fungi. I've even had the opportunity to write an official book review for the local paper of the book pictured.

Squirrel Food

2008-09-08T21:01:00.000-08:00

Lots of mushroom hunting lately - even the squirrels have been busy. Did you know that they will pick and dry mushrooms for the winter? Well they do. One year a dear friend and I went out to a cabin he had built (in Alaska) and had been away from for a year due to hip surgery. We went in spring and when we went to check out the outhouse we found it piled three feet high with dried mushrooms!

Marigolds

2008-09-07T20:45:00.001-08:00

Continental Divide

2008-09-06T20:55:00.001-08:00

We've had lots of visitors lately - my mother's cousins from the former East Germany on their first trip to the United States for 2 weeks and my 4,000 mile away romantic interest for a week. And for some reason Labor Day brought about several meetings with people I haven't seen in over 15 years - there have been a lot of those this year.

Apricot Cider

2008-09-06T20:52:00.000-08:00

What do you call apricot cider? I dunno, but it sure is a pretty color....and I hope it tastes as good! This is the first batch in our experiment.

Tricycle Parking

2008-09-05T20:40:00.000-08:00

My niece & nephew were up for a visit and we went for a tour by bike.

Surprise Quilt

2008-09-04T20:22:00.002-08:00

I'm trying a little experiment of posting a picture and a short blurb for the days that I can't get to a real post - let me know what you think! (And don't worry - I still will post full length real posts - I just seem to have less time for it lately then I would like.)

My mom was given this quilt as a surprise by her sewing group as a get well present for her eyes. She's given away many quilts in her life but I think this was the first one she ever received - she was incredibly touched as was I.

The AK Governor

2008-09-03T21:17:00.002-08:00

Okay...erm, I can hardly stand this...I just listened to her speech. She's the Governor of my state but I didn't vote for her (rather for her opposition). And now she's the VP candidate? I half expected my blog to be over-run by the rest of you by now asking the questions I have gotten in person such as "What is competitive snowmachining?" I've had to walk a fine line at the bookstore cloaking my politics under the multi-interpretable response "I'm still in shock" and I am, it's no lie.

Awards: Arte y Pico & Brillante Weblog

2008-09-02T17:47:00.002-08:00

In my absence several of my dear bloggy friends have kindly awarded me some awards. It is obvious that I have been absentee for some time as they have sort of accumulated and I have not had the chance to pass them on. I am terribly grateful to all of my readers and to the bloggers I read - and for the community they offer even though I have only been able to visit less often then usual this summer (without the usual excuse of being away doing fieldwork in some place without internet connections). Thanks to all of you.

______________________

Parlance & Penny, Step-wise Girl , and SciencGirl at Curiosity Killed the Cat have awarded my blog the Arte y Pico Award because, she says my blog" shows her love of the nature that surrounds us". Thank you Parlance! This award was created by Esey from Uruguy to celebrate blogs that are art and commentary. She (Esey) translates the saying "Arte y Pico" as

"Wow. The Best Art. Over the top."

So - I'm supposed to pass this on to five blogs (oh, the decisions!!!). An they are:

1. Silver Fox over at Looking for Detachment

2. Writing as J(o)e

3. Hypoglycemia Girl at 366

4. Vincent at A Wayfarer's Notes
5. Jen at Bove's Boots

______________________

Brigindo over at Dirt and Rocks, Dancing Fish over at Underwater Knitting, and the Bean-Mom have been kind enough to pass along this other bloggy honor: The Brillante Weblog Premio-2008.

Thank you! So nice to think of me! (Ack, 5 more blogs + 2 for a late penalty! How to choose?)

1. EcoGeoFemme at the Happy Scientist
2. Jen at One Plus Two
3. Chuck at Lounge of the Lab Lemming
4. Chas at Southern Rockies Nature Blog
5. Andrea over at Fine as Frogs Hair
6. CAE at VWXYNot?
7. QT at Can We Kick the Bar Here?

Rules for the Arte y Pico award as follows:
1. Pick five blogs that you consider deserve this award for creativity, design, and interesting material and also contribute to the blogger community regardless of language.
2. Each award has to have the name of the author and a link to his/her blog to be visited.
3. Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given him/her the award itself.
4. Award winners and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of the Arte-y-Pico blog so everyone will know the origin of the award. http://arteypico.blogspot.com/
5) In compliance with said rules, the award winner must show these rules.

Rules for Brilliante Weblog award:
First the usual rules
1. Put the logo on your blog.
2. Add a link to the person who awarded it to you.
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs.
4. Add links to these blogs on your blog.
5. Leave a message for your nominee on their blog.

Everything that Rain Promises

2008-08-20T21:10:00.004-08:00

I must admit the last month or so has been full of some not so happy surprises. I complained once to a friend that I wanted a "boring life" for once - the kind of boring where you just don't have anything to say to people about what is going on in your life because everything is the same and everything is good. My friend said he couldn't imagine me living a boring life and that since I seem to be one of those people who things always happen to, I would probably get tired of it quite soon. However, since I have been through many life phases where it seems like every time the telephone rings there's more bad news I am adept at taking the little things in life and appreciating them for all they are worth. So here are some of the things I am enjoying this summer despite it's challenges (just in case you thought I was getting whiny):

Lyle & Mormon Lakes - a hike taken in the rain with both my sister & Life Long Friend

- being back in Colorado means the opportunity to go hiking and reconnect regularly with old friends & my sister
- being able to spend time with my sister all alone for the first time since she had kids (since 2002 in fact)
- getting to spend more then holiday time with my niece & nephew...which includes lots of wandering in the woods with baskets in search of anything edible or otherwise collectible.
- getting re-acquainted with old friends
- super sweet blogger friends who not only keep stopping by to visit but also give me generous awards even though I have clearly been absentee this summer (they will be passed on soon!!)

the first mushroom harvest of the season, from top left: a fabulous bright pink fungus growing on a wild gooseberry (not edible), golden chantrelles & coral fungus, mysterious white fungus (who is leading me to make all sorts of acquaintances) & more chantrelles, puffballs & boletes (otherwise known as leccinium)

- taking my niece, nephew, sister, and friends mushrooming in Colorado! How exciting is it to find orange chantrelles when the most common ones in Alaska are dark purple (commonly known as pig's ears)
- getting to eat fresh picked mushrooms
- fresh fruit! oh peaches! Oh apricots! oh plums! (I survived the lack of fruit in Alaska due to TreeThings, bless their hearts, who brought fresh fruits by the crate load up from California just for us fruit deprived Alaskans. There was also the abundance of wild berries which helped immensely but nothing beats buying fresh fruit from the orchard roadside stand.)
- getting to make hard cider (yes, that's with alcohol) & wine with said fruit with my dad
- lovely fresh garden produce .... homemade pizza (mine) with only the crust made of ingredients not grown or harvested by ourselves
- nightly entertainment by the Disreputable Cat who makes sure that everyone has their dose of cheer even if it means she has to swat them on the nose (most often this has to be applied to the Parental Dog who takes things quite seriously)
- having the Disreputable Dog at work as an official bookstore greeter

Here are the Parental & Disreputable Dogs being cute together.

*Note: the name of this post was liberated from the name David Arora's mushroom book Everything that Rain Promises and more... which is a good book for the beginner mushroomer and highly entertaining to boot

Updates

2008-08-16T17:30:00.000-08:00

Thank you all for your kind words on my "Fatigued" post. Here's the update: there is good news and bad news.

My mother's eyesight is increasingly better. Her brain is increasingly coordinating her eyeballs. For those of you who don't know she has had cataract surgery on both eyes and then had to have emergency surgery subsequently as both retinas detached. All in all she has had 11 surgeries on her eyes so far in quite a short time span. She still has quite a bit of pain although it is slowly getting better. She is now able to get out into her garden - which is the best therapy there is for her - and she is able to resume writing her garden column for the local paper. Unfortunately, the two other things she loves, sewing & reading, are still beyond her reach despite 5 different pairs of glasses. Unfortunately, she keeps having set backs.

The Disreputable Dog seems lately much improved. The tests were inconclusive - yes, there was abnormal growth in his left front shoulder but not enough to tell definitively if any of it was cancer. But in the last few weeks he has his spirit back and the rest of the household menagerie no longer does periodic nose checks with him to see if he is okay. His limp has decreased markedly and we have been able to go back to our regular length walks. I'm not yet taking him hiking and he's still rather slow and going down stairs seems very difficult but at the moment we're taking a hiatus from veterinary visits and tests.

As for the bad news the Original Marlboro Man is doing very poorly. Twice now we've all rushed to his side only to have him recover. He is grimly determined to hang on despite being increasingly miserable. In addition, the bookstore has been broken into and robbed twice in the last week. This is particularly upsetting as it seems to be someone who is or has worked here in the past - it is discomfiting to be suspicious of our co-workers and to know that they must be suspicious of me.

Due to all the goings on, I have fallen behind in absolutely everything in my life so please don't be hurt if I haven't visited lately! I'm even missing the wedding of two very dear, long term friends of mine this weekend - I hope they are having fabulous weather and a fabulous time! My best wishes to you both! Here's to wishing you a long and peaceful marriage.

Summer Fairs

2008-08-16T17:01:00.006-08:00

Things I love about summer fairs:

- children drawing with chalk on closed off streets
- live bands even when they aren't good
- pancake breakfasts
- crafts booths
- library booksales
- children running around in car free zones
- waving to people in the parade
- a sense of community

my 5 year old niece & 3 year old nephew at the fair

Things I'm not so fond of in regards to summer fairs:

- cheap stuff that is either "free" or for which children whine for
- parents buying other people's children cheap stuff which perpetuates it (because then you have to buy their kids stuff or rush up and buy your kids it before it gets bought for you)
- sugar crashes once the parade candy wears off

Endangered Species Act Endangered

2008-08-13T08:32:00.010-08:00

There's been a lot of rather distressing news flying under the radar as Olympic Games play on. This is just one of them - a move by the United States President to weaken the Endangered Species Act - and it has escaped the notice of most. And since I think it's pretty damn important - and perhaps more in the realm of something I can do something about - I'm reporting it here just in case any of you missed it. Please, if this is an issue you care about and you are a US citizen, write your politicians.

By DINA CAPPIELLO Mon Aug 11, 7:22 PM ET
(AP and Yahoo News) - also reported elsewhere

Parts of the Endangered Species Act may soon be extinct. The Bush administration wants federal agencies to decide for themselves whether highways, dams, mines and other construction projects might harm endangered animals and plants.

New regulations, which don't require the approval of Congress, would reduce the mandatory, independent reviews government scientists have been performing for 35 years, according to a draft first obtained by The Associated Press.

Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said late Monday the changes were needed to ensure that the Endangered Species Act would not be used as a "back door" to regulate the gases blamed for global warming. In May, the polar bear became the first species declared as threatened because of climate change. Warming temperatures are expected to melt the sea ice the bear depends on for survival.

The draft rules would bar federal agencies from assessing the emissions from projects that contribute to global warming and its effect on species and habitats.

"We need to focus our efforts where they will do the most good," Kempthorne said in a news conference organized quickly after AP reported details of the proposal. "It is important to use our time and resources to protect the most vulnerable species. It is not possible to draw a link between greenhouse gas emissions and distant observations of impacts on species."
If approved, the changes would represent the biggest overhaul of endangered species regulations since 1986. They would accomplish through rules what conservative Republicans have been unable to achieve in Congress: ending some environmental reviews that developers and other federal agencies blame for delays and cost increases on many projects.

The chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, which oversees the Interior Department, said he was "deeply troubled" by the changes.

"This proposed rule ... gives federal agencies an unacceptable degree of discretion to decide whether or not to comply with the Endangered Species Act," said Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va. "Eleventh-hour rulemakings rarely if ever lead to good government."

The new regulations follow a pattern by the Bush administration not to seek input from its scientists. The regulations were drafted by attorneys at both the Interior and Commerce Departments. Scientists with both agencies were first briefed on the proposal last week during a conference call, according to an official who asked not to be identified.

Last month, in similar fashion, the Environmental Protection Agency surprised its scientific experts when it decided it did not want to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.

The rule changes unveiled Monday would apply to any project a federal agency would fund, build or authorize that the agency itself determines is unlikely to harm endangered wildlife and their habitat. Government wildlife experts currently participate in tens of thousands of such reviews each year.
The revisions also would limit which effects can be considered harmful and set a 60-day deadline for wildlife experts to evaluate a project when they are asked to become involved. If no decision is made within 60 days, the project can move ahead.

"If adopted, these changes would seriously weaken the safety net of habitat protections that we have relied upon to protect and recover endangered fish, wildlife and plants for the past 35 years," said John Kostyack, executive director of the National Wildlife Federation's Wildlife Conservation and Global Warming initiative.

Under current law, federal agencies must consult with experts at the Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries Service to determine whether a project is likely to jeopardize any endangered species or to damage habitat, even if no harm seems likely. This initial review usually results in accommodations that better protect the 1,353 animals and plants in the U.S. listed as threatened or endangered and determines whether a more formal analysis is warranted.

The Interior Department said such consultations are no longer necessary because federal agencies have developed expertise to review their own construction and development projects, according to the 30-page draft obtained by the AP.

"We believe federal action agencies will err on the side of caution in making these determinations," the proposal said.

The director of the Fish and Wildlife Service, Dale Hall, said the changes would help focus expertise on "where we know we don't have a negative effect on the species but where the agency is vulnerable if we don't complete a consultation."

Responding to questions about the process, Hall said, "We will not do anything that leaves the public out of this process."

The new rules were expected to be formally proposed immediately, officials said. They would be subject to a 30-day public comment period before being finalized by the Interior Department. That would give the administration enough time to impose the rules before November's presidential election. A new administration could freeze any pending regulations or reverse them, a process that could take months. Congress could also overturn the rules through legislation, but that could take even longer.

The proposal was drafted largely by attorneys in the general counsel's offices of the Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Interior Department, according to an official with the National Marine Fisheries Service, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the plan hadn't yet been circulated publicly. The two agencies' experts were not consulted until last week, the official said.

Between 1998 and 2002, the Fish and Wildlife Service conducted 300,000 consultations. The National Marine Fisheries Service, which evaluates projects affecting marine species, conducts about 1,300 reviews each year.

The reviews have helped safeguard protected species such as bald eagles, Florida panthers and whooping cranes. A federal government handbook from 1998 described the consultations as "some of the most valuable and powerful tools to conserve listed species."

In recent years, however, some federal agencies and private developers have complained that the process results in delays and increased construction costs.

"We have always had concerns with respect to the need for streamlining and making it a more efficient process," said Joe Nelson, a lawyer for the National Endangered Species Act Reform Coalition, a trade group for home builders and the paper and farming industry.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works Committee, called the proposed changes illegal.

"This proposed regulation is another in a continuing stream of proposals to repeal our landmark environmental laws through the back door," she said. "If this proposed regulation had been in place, it would have undermined our ability to protect the bald eagle, the grizzly bear and the gray whale."

The Bush administration and Congress have attempted with mixed success to change the law.

In 2003, the administration imposed similar rules that would have allowed agencies to approve new pesticides and projects to reduce wildfire risks without asking the opinion of government scientists about whether threatened or endangered species and habitats might be affected. The pesticide rule was later overturned in court. The Interior Department, along with the Forest Service, is currently being sued over the rule governing wildfire prevention.

In 2005, the House passed a bill that would have made similar changes to the Endangered Species Act, but the bill died in the Senate.

The sponsor of that bill, then-House Natural Resources chairman Richard Pombo, R-Calif., told the AP Monday that allowing agencies to judge for themselves the effects of a project will not harm species or habitat.

"There is no way they can rubber stamp everything because they will end up in court for every decision," he said.

But internal reviews by the National Marine Fisheries Service and Fish and Wildlife Service concluded that about half the unilateral evaluations by the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management that determined wildfire prevention projects were unlikely to harm protected species were not legally or scientifically valid.

Those had been permitted under the 2003 rule changes.

"This is the fox guarding the hen house. The interests of agencies will outweigh species protection interests," said Eric Glitzenstein, the attorney representing environmental groups in the lawsuit over the wildfire prevention regulations. "What they are talking about doing is eviscerating the Endangered Species Act."

On the Net:

Fish and Wildlife Service: http://www.fws.gov/endangered

National Marine Fisheries Service: http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/laws/esa/

National Wildlife Federation: http://www.nwf.org/news

Fatigued

2008-07-30T08:42:00.004-08:00

It's been a heck of a week and a half. I wanted to write last night but I was exhausted beyond reckoning and actually went to bed at 7pm. Here it is roughly, in sequence and bulleted.

*The day before the lightning hike I took the Disreputable Dog to an veterinary orthopedist. Over the past few weeks he has been limping so badly in favor of his front left shoulder that he can no longer walk around the block without having to stop for a rest. The orthopedist ruled out any of the usual suspects and concluded with the thoughts that there is a strong possibility of either bone or nerve cancer. Neither of which are good. He recommended us to a osteology research clinic/ school ~250miles (~400km) to the north of Town At The Confluence Of Two Gold Medal Trout Streams (where I live) in Town Known For It's Veterinary College.

*Lightning Hike - a good break from reality - see previous post.

*Lucky for us we didn't overnight because the retina in my mother's other eye ripped that night. An early morning drive to Oil Drilling Town (~110mile/ ~180km to the west of Town At The Confluence Of Two Gold Medal Trout Streams) for more surgery.

*Next day a 5 hour drive to Town Known For It's Veterinary College. First we manage to arrange for Life Long Friend to take the Parental Dog for the day, and for Life Long Neighbor to come check in on my mom while my father and I get up at 4am for the drive. We get to the college and they take a bunch more x-rays, convinced that the orthopedist may have missed some views (can I say at this point - thank goodness I signed up for veterinary insurance for my dog while in grad school as I didn't want to ever have to choose between rent/food and my dog. If you don't have pet insurance, and you are in North America, I recommend VPI - it's better then human health insurance in the US).

*Good news: there is nothing in his lungs or soft tissue so if he does have cancer it hasn't spread there. Bad news, they still don't know what it is so we will be back for bone scans (for bone cancer) and MRI's (for nerve cancer).

*We leave Town Known For It's Veterinary College the same day, I have to get back to work, and unfortunately I'm late due to road construction (which is hard to plan for when you are driving 10 hours) an so a series of complicated phone calls ensue. Luckily my co-workers are most understanding.The Dalai Lama came to Famous Intellectual Ski Town and the bookstore had put together a bookstore for it which means that everybody is working this week and there really wasn't anybody to call but a few people who are willing to extend their hours (thank you!)

Lama who is in town the day after trip one to Town Known For It's *Because we have the bookstore we also have free lawn tickets to the actual talk by the DalaiVeterinary College. I take the bus up with my sister's step sister and my bike and we find a nice place among the aspen trees to listen. It's an interesting talk although he's a bit difficult to understand. He has a childish giggle that we understand more clearly then anything else. But forget zen (I'm kidding!), I have 1.5 hours to bike ~30miles (~50km) from Famous Intellectual Ski Town to Town At The Confluence Of Two Gold Medal Trout Streams before I have to be at work. I'm desperate to fit some exercise in here - usually I bike/ run/ hike at least once a day but with all this driving there hasn't been any. So I pedal like a mad woman and get to work with 5 minutes to spare.

*Next day is my day off. I go briefly to a summer festival then there's more news. Brother-in-Law's mother is ill with heart problems so he rushes off to Kansas. Sister's mother is in town to work on more permanent care for step father (original Marlboro man) and as they come west over the Continental Divide I go east to Mile High City where the Disreputable Dog and I spend the night at sister's step-sister's house (how's that for confusing?) alone and get up bright and early to make a 730am appointment at the veterinary college which is still a bit north. The Disreputable Dog spends the whole day getting a bone scan - they use the radio active element technetium to scan for unusual growth in the bones - and waiting until he is no longer "hot" and is safe to be picked up. And then it's back home again with another late arrival.

*Despite tiredness I cannot help but notice how beautiful the mountains are on our way back. There has been a rain and the mists are rising up the treeless hillsides. The small town we stop in for a walk is spotlighted in evening sunlight with a rainbow arching over it.

*Get up super early because a) the vet has called with results at 6am - the results are inconclusive. There seems to be unusual turnover in the left shoulder but not enough to determine whether it is cancer, and b) because my parents are back off to Oil Drilling City for another eye appointment. I'm off to work early and I'm so tired I feel like I'm hallucinating. And despite the fact that I have several telephone calls to return, some bills to pay, and a blog to catch up on I ignore it all and go to bed at the soonest possible moment.

Carter Lake Hike

2008-07-22T16:57:00.007-08:00

A flash of lightning dances along the mountain ridge. One one-thousand, Two one-thou-KABOOM! The thunder was so loud that I involuntarily sat down as did the Parental Dog (PDog). The problem was though, that we were at approximately 11,000 feet above sea level (~3,400m) and slightly above treeline - a bad place to be when the lightning is so close which is was. The rule of thumb is that if you can count to 15 after seeing the lightning before you hear the thunder then the lightning is 5 miles away, anything less then that is considered dangerous as lightning not infrequently travels 5 miles between strikes. We started to run, crouched low like crabs against the ground, going from krumholz (the twisted stunted trees at treeline) clump to krumholz clump.

My dad and his dog (PDog)

My father and the PDog were out for an over nighter, I was out for a day hike. We had reached their campsite earlier and had dropped his pack (with his rain jacket) at the site he had selected and then had hiked up beyond the lake to the pass. Hail and rain were coming down hard and the lightning zapped around us the thunder cracking so loudly in the air it was hard not jump. I stopped briefly under a clump of krumholz to dig out a wool shirt and my rain jacket. The PDog stops with me, relieved we are taking shelter, as my father dashes across a boulder field. As soon as I have my jacket on I am urging the PDog across the boulder field as my dad yells "stay low" at us - crabbing as quickly and lowly as possible across wet rock while trying not to do something stupid that might injure me. We quickly descend into the forest where we take refuge under a stand of spruce in a relatively dry space. My father is drenched. We wait no less then 20 minutes before the electric show slows down enough for us to resume hiking. And then we wait one more minute just to be sure. While there we snack, I put my long johns on, my dad puts on my wool hat, we count the distance between each strike and the thunder.

Owl's Clover

Finally we resume hiking and the ground is covered with hail that crunches under our feet. We still move rather fast and we reach the campsite to find everything drenched and my father decides to hike out with me. The final deciding point is that the PDog is absolutely drenched, wetter then I have ever seen her (despite her water-dog roots she does not like to get wet above the ankles) and would have to share a very tight space under a tarp. It turns out to be a very good decision as the roads are all washed out on our way back and there are mudslides turning the river red with silt. I am glad for the immediacy of the storm, it has pushed out of my mind all of the contemplations and worries about the Disreputable Dog's health, my mother's health, and jobs and put me square in the here and now - delighting even in the torrents of water pouring onto the trail, over my boots, and onto the road below.

Tibetan Poetry

2008-07-18T11:06:00.004-08:00

Yesterday we had a reading of Tibetan Poets at the bookstore, read by 4 actors. I wanted to share this one with you.

MADE IN CHINA by Tsoltim N Shakabpa
made in china
by unpaid prisoners
made in china
by starving prisoners
made in china
by brainwashed prisoners
made in china
by tortured prisoners
made in china
by dying prisoners
made in china
from dead prisoners
would you buy anything
made in china?

Auto Insurance

2008-07-17T11:41:00.003-08:00

Conversation with my auto insurance customer representative (CR) regarding the hole in my windshield which desperately needs to be fixed (see post: Mile 1,380/ Km 2,221 (Yukon Territory & British Columbia) .

CR: What make is your vehicle?
WS: '96 Toyota Tacoma
CR: Where did the chip happen?
WS: When I was driving through the Yukon on my way to Colorado from Alaska.
CR: No, where did the chip happen?
WS: The Yukon Territory.
CR: No, not the make of the car, where?
WS: Um...the Yukon Territory is a Province of Canada - it's kind of like a state in the US.
CR: I thought you meant you were driving your Yukon car when it happened. So the Yukon is a state?
WS: Um, my vehicle is a Tacoma. The Yukon is a territory of Canada, it is similar to a state.
CR: Why were you driving in Canada?
WS: You have to drive through Canada to get to Colorado from Alaska.
CR: Are you sure?
WS: Quite.
CR: So what date did this happen??

Fame & Fortune

2008-07-16T19:50:00.007-08:00

Two women came into the bookstore, one looked mildly familiar but it wasn't until Colleague-Who-Sometimes-Terrifies-the-Customers turned on a brilliant smile and charming manner that I was sure. They wore tattered unkempt clothes the way the famous do when they don't want to be recognized. I did not recognize the woman from her fame, although I'm mildly aware of it, but because she is the mother of sommeone I went to school with. Said daughter is now quite famous herself and her face has appeared, to my astonishment, on the tabloids lining the grocery store aisles. I have never been one for knowing who is famous - I've never lived in a house with a television, I didn't see my first movie until I was eleven, and living in remote places for extended periods of time means that I only see them in blocks and spurts (I do enjoy a good movie - don't get me wrong) - and although I seem capable of remembering the latin names for all 6 sub-species of wild turkey in North America I never seem to remember the names of the famous, not the singers who's songs I like, not movie stars, not sports heroes. It's something that comes in handy in this town which lies down valley of a playground of the rich and famous who like to pretend that they aren't.

I was not entirely sure whether I should say anything but if it was the mother of any of my other classmates I would ask because I'm always curious what people I once knew are up to. So when she bought her book I asked "You are So-and-So's mother, aren't you?". She was a bit surprised, surprised perhaps, that I didn't ask her to confirm herself to be her own famous self. I explained that I had gone to school together with her daughter and her face lit up. When I asked how her daughter was doing she said "well, she's arrived, she's made it". Well, what else did I expect? She probably would expect me to sell any real information to the paparazzi. How was she to know that I would never do such a thing? That it wouldn't cross my mind (I mean, I wouldn't even reveal her identity to you all)? Then she relented and said, "you know, thank you for asking, because just because she's famous doesn't mean it's been easy". We then talked about her sons one of whom is also famous and another who seems to be going somewhere with rugby. But what surprised me was that the one child she seemed the proudest of was the one pursuing his PhD in a difficult Asian language. She said she would pass on my greetings to her daughter and I wonder if she will remember me? I rather tend to think not since she has probably met thousands of people since being famous, but then how do you forget your classmates out of a class size of 12?

It's funny, because what I most remember about her was her ferocious temper. I wonder if she still has that temper? All of the super market tabloids that she has graced show her beautiful and smiling. She was lucky at first that they treated her well, but in the past years she has gotten rougher treatment and I hope that she does not see them although I'm sure she stands in super market aisles occasionally herself and cannot avoid them all together. I cannot imagine living life in that spotlight and would not want to but I hope she goes well.

Mixed messages

2008-07-14T20:35:00.005-08:00

So today I got turned down for a job I interviewed for and I got asked out on a date.

A very hardy primrose growing out of a concrete block

(PS - the answers are up on my music meme if you are curious)

Hiking & Swimming

2008-07-13T23:00:00.002-08:00

Another weekend hike, this time with Life-Time Friend and two of her girlfriends. This time the hike was another short 8miles because I wanted to get back to take my nephew, H, swimming, and because one of the girlfriends was leaving dad at home with the new baby for the first time and didn't want to be gone too long. It was another glorious day and it got warm enough to initiate the first skinny dipping of the season. The first is always the hardest - throwing your warm body into streams or lakes full of fresh snow or ice melt - but once you've done the first one you pretty much have to do it every hike that the weather is nice. In comparison the local municipal pool was a hot tub.

The only bad thing about the hike was that the Disreputable Dog (DDog)was not allowed to go. He has some sort of severe shoulder injury and is on restricted activity and will be seeing a doggy orthopedist next week. It nearly broke my heart (and likely his) to leave him behind. The Parental Dog (PDog) was more then happy to be spoiled for all that she is always nervous hiking about the unseen wildebeests that might be lurking out there and just waiting to pounce on her. The PDog has very poor eyesight and a very active imagination. My favorite story about her is of my dad taking her backpacking for the first time. He was sitting on a log eating his super with her sitting in front of him when an owl hooted off to the front of them. She promptly got up and went and sat behind my father! Brave she is not and as such she is usually glad to have the DDog there to have her back. Although Summit was there (the dog of Life-Long Friend) we were dog poor - I cannot remember the last time I went on an outdoor outing (discounting fieldwork) with other people where the dogs were not at least equal in number to humans if not exceeding them.

On my return H and I had a lovely time at the local pool where he showed me how he knows to blow out the air underwater by saying "artichoke" (which is a rather difficult word for him) and where we generally bounced and splashed around until his teeth were chattering and we had to lay on the hot concrete to warm up - him with his butt in the air. On our way home we stopped to look at his grandfather's current project which is to get the pool to be entirely dependent on solar energy.

Of Children & Art

2008-07-11T19:55:00.007-08:00

My just-3 year old nephew, H, has come for a week long visit (without his sister) with his grandparents and aunt. It's a bit tough with my mother's eyes, but my dad and I manage to tag team most of it even with my odd working schedule. H is a cuddle bug and has inherited his grandfather's sweet tooth. You know how some people have cognac before bed? Well, my father has a glass of maple syrup. Yep, that's right. When we were little my sister and I always had to hide any candy we had from his insatiable sweet tooth - not that he doesn't share, he's very generous but you have to get to it before he does. Tonight he had made homemade strawberry shortcake and my nephew was so excited he flapped his arms in the air and said "thank goodness the food is here!"

H experiments with the dog head cone as toy/ clothing

We've had a few bears through our yard this spring, mostly a mama black bear and her cub, and H has heard stories about them. For some reason he was talking about them and saying how if the bears come by at night he'll just punch them in the mouth. We mentioned that this would probably not work and he'd best let Disreputable Dog take care of it since he knows all about bears and what to do, when H raced inside and closed the door behind him to "keep the bears out before we go to bed".

The Disreputable Cat also enjoys the dog collar

Before joining H for dinner I went off to an art gallery opening called "We will be rich for the rest of our lives" of a childhood friend of mine, Gabe Liston - it was fabulous. He does these wonderful things called Blue Book tiles where he actually uses old books as canvases. He also does wonderful things with light in his paintings. Check out some of his work over at Lastwater and click on paintings or Blue Tiles for artwork. His subject is mostly children and he has a great knack for catching those emotional childhood moments.

Weekend Hike

2008-07-09T20:50:00.004-08:00

I worked the US holiday on the 4th of July and the weekend but had Monday and Tuesday off. Luckily, Atmospheric Chemist friend can take any day off he chooses in the summer since he works at a teaching college. He came up from Oil Drilling city with his dog and we had a lovely 8mile- 2,000 foot elevation gain - hike up to a pretty mountain lake. There was still some snow at the last bit but the lake was beautiful and we had it to ourselves.

Atmospheric Chemist friend and I met in Alaska where I was attending grad school and he doing a post-doc. It's one of the serendipitous things in life that finds us in the same state. He's altogether glad to come west to cooler elevations this time of year as I was happy to join him in the desert regions in early spring.

I came home to good news - my mother's latest eye appointment went well and she did not need additional surgery! She has now had 4 surgeries on her right eye and one on her left (and will need additional surgery on the left once the right completely heals). And blessedly she no longer has to lay still with her head at a 75 degree angle below her shoulders! Her vision is recovering, albeit slowly, and the spectre of blindness fades from our thoughts. It turns out that a childhood illness - ricketts - which the doctor did not believe she had (it has been an uncommon thing in North America for some time as it caused by malnutrition) made her more susceptible to retinal detachment. Who knew?

Six Word Memoir Meme

2008-07-08T22:00:00.003-08:00

Tagged by was tagged by Doris Rose of MacBean's Adventures & Silver Fox for this meme to write my own six word memoir. I apologize for the long delay it took before I did it!! So here are three possible six word memoirs for me... (except mine only have 5!).

"Always takes the scenic route"
"Pays attention to the details"

Milkweed

Music Shuffle Meme

2008-07-06T12:15:00.007-08:00

edited on 7/14 to add: Okay already, I guess nobody wanted to guess so here are the answers ! I wish you could hear how totally different this music sounds played next to each other.

Tagged by CAE at VWXYnot? I'm not tagging because I suspect that this has already made it's rounds while I was on my blog-break. But if you didn't do it and you want to - have at! - just leave a comment saying so. So the rules are that I am supposed to post the first line from the first 25 songs that play, no matter how embarrassing the song, and then you all are supposed to guess the artist and song that the line comes from. Erm, just looking at my list there are some really esoteric songs there but okay (and you can probably tell by my list why I'm no good at guess on other people's lists). The other rule is that I am supposed to cross out the line when someone gets it right (and when someone does I'll put it in orange) ...anyone want to enlighten me as to how to do that? Help! 'Cause I haven't' figured that whole text crossing out thing yet. And then I'll post the answers in a week or so.

So here goes nothing!

1/"When I was a child, nobody smiled..." is Nobody Knows Me At All by the Weepies
2/"Something is calling me into the mountains..." is Into the Mountains sung by Lisa Dancing Light (remember this one from the school musicals???)
3/"Es kamm Mamhad Mustafeh aus der Turkei..." is Bruder by Rainhard Fendrich
4/erm, this song has lots of saxophone in it...no words...solo jazz saxophonist is Serenity by Clarence Clemons
5/On the Road Again by Willie Nelson ~~"On the road again, just can't wait to get on the road again..."~~
6/"Trying just to be, and I'm trying hard just to breathe..." is Soul Swimming by Beecake
7/"Well I was sitting, waiting, wishing...." is Sitting, Waiting, Wishing by Jack Johnson
8/"Well it's been a long time, I knew we'd be together another time, another place..." is I'm Alright by Jo Dee Messina
9/"She's beating full of steel and holds a hardy, hardy crew, and there's lots of work to do..." is The Salty Sea by Alaska's Hobo Jim
10/Love Song by Sara Bareilles ~~"Head under water, and they tell me to breathe easy for awhile..."~~
11/Non je ne regrette rien by Edith Piaf ~~"Non je ne regrette rien..."~~
12/"I've got you under my skin, I have got you under my skin..." is I've got you under my skin sung by Diana Krall (Propter Doc & ScienceGirl had the right song)
13/"He drove her heart just like he used to..." is What you didn't say by Mary Chapin Carpenter
14/"Ein kalter shower jagt, mir durch die Haut..." is Noch ein Leben by PUR
15/"The years grow shorter not longer..." is Wonder why we ever go home by Jimmy Buffett
16/Superman (It's not easy) by Five for Fighting ~~"I can't stand to fly, I'm not that naive..."~~
17/"It doesn't get any lonelier than this..." is Lonlier than this by Steve Earle
18/"Stone blind, alibi...." is Alibi by David Gray
19/"Are you breathing when I'm breathing?" is The Consequences of Falling by k.d. lang
20/"Auf dem weg zu mir, habe ich mich oft verlaufen..." is Auf dem Weg Zu Mir by Steppenwolf
21/"Llego la banda q toca todo el dia..." is Esta Borracha by Los Borgi
22/"Home is behind the world ahead..." is The Steward of Gondor from the Two Towers/ Lord of the Rings Soundtrack
23/...this one I'm going to post the title and if you can guess the artist, fabulous. The language is Twi and, to be honest, although I sign along to it I would probably totally butcher the spelling. It's called Wo ho kyere by Daddy Lumba.
24/"I wake up, looking around my room, all my dreams crystalline clear..." is Winter Dreams by Jan Garrett
25/""si, ya es hora de esconder..." is Te Dejo Madrid by Sharira

Step 1: Put your MP3 player or whatever on random.Step 2: Post the first line from the first 25 songs that play, no matter how embarrassing the song.Step 3: Post and let everyone you know guess what song and artist the lines come from.Step 4: Strike through when someone gets them right. Step 5: Looking them up on Google or any other search engine is cheating.

AK to CO Travel Map

2008-06-30T20:00:00.000-08:00

Here is a very rough map of my road trip (courtesy of AAA/ CAA). It's the only map I was able to find that included all of the areas I drove through. My approximate route is the thick grey line. Do you guys want more detail? I can provide it but it will have to be a state by state, province by province map. This at least should give you a good idea - just imagine it that I pretty much followed the spine of the rocky mountains all the way down (they go north-south until the Yukon at which point they turn and go east-west).

Photos are up finally! They're posted on the original posts. Let me know what you think.

Day Hikes

2008-06-30T15:22:00.009-08:00

'Tis the season to hike. My skis are finally put away. Technically, I could probably continue to find patches to ski but I'm done with the season. My ice skates and sleds, my skijor lines, sleds, and other winter paraphernalia are packed away.

It's hot and I try and keep biking to the cooler hours of the day but as the snow melts out of the high country there is increasingly more and more places to hike. My first day hike of the season was a mild 9.5mile round trip hike before and evening shift at work. It's gorgeous and there is lot of water for happy dogs. My friend is training to hike the JT trail so she carries a 40lb pack mostly filled with spackle containers.

This weekend found me with another friend traipsing through a wildflower strewn meadow and then up the hillside. I don't know the mileage for this one because when the batteries in my camera dies the GPS was sacrificed and we weren't exactly following known routes the entire time. We flushed a sparrow from it's nest and bend down to see four beautiful thumbnail sized, pale blue eggs with brown splotches. we come across a deer skull with blue flowers blooming through the eye socket and we get wet and muddy. We had a lovely picnic lunch along a lakeside where two pooches swim and the Parental Pooch dips her toes (she's supposed to be a water dog but she'll only get in up to her ankles).

From L to R: Parental Dog, Summit, & Disreputable Dog

At some point in the afternoon while we are gaining altitude the Disreputable Dog suddenly keels over in the duff and has a seizure. I catch him before he hits the ground and hold him, leaving the other dogs to my friend. The whole thing lasts about 10 minutes and I am so focused on him that I don't notice the mosquitoes feasting on me. And then he's okay and we are a bit shaken. My friend recently lost a good dog friend and I, while having seen the DDog do this before, still find it jarring and a bit scary. We take this as a sign that we should turn around. We go slowly at first as the DDog is a bit wobbly on his legs but by the end of the hike his tail is in the air again and he is happy.

Deer skull, baby deer tracks, coke kiln, sparrow eggs

We stop, on our way home, at the little cabin owned by the Original Marlboro Man and gather some rhubarb for pies and make sure that the lawn has not dried out entirely. I come home to relieve my dad from caring for my mother and she and the Disreputable Dog sleep side by side the rest of the evening.

Cataract Surgery

2008-06-30T10:00:00.000-08:00

My mom had her second (left) eye operated on for her cataracts on Thursday and this time it didn't go so well. By Saturday her vision was going black and when we called the emergency hotline they wanted us down in Oil Drill City immediately. Upon examination it was confirmed that her retina has detached and she immediately needed more surgery. That went fairly well although it's extremely painful and now she must lie on her side with her head at a 75 degree angle for 3 days and it may take as long as 3 month for full recovery. She's in a lot of pain and she's also very nauseous - it makes me wonder how eye sight relates to balance as it almost seems as if she's got motion sickness.

Speaking of balance. I highly recommend the book "Balance: In Search of the Lost Sense" by Scott McCredie. I'm in the middle of reading it (if I had finished it I would know the answer to the eyesight question). Scott was one of the authors we had who came to sign and speak about his book. It's non-fiction and it is really well written not to mention fascinating because balance is really something with so many unknowns still.

Of Doings

2008-06-24T19:40:00.006-08:00

Grumph....working on uploading pictures of the trip but between being on the wrong computer and internet connection issues it feels slow in coming. Maybe I will try again tomorrow.

Went for a hike today, pre-work, around 9 and a half miles with the Disreputable & Parental Dogs and a friend from Peach Country. It was a glorious day and the first real hike of the season. Luckily the hike we chose was snow free - there is a lot of snow still in the high country and post holing is the name of the game if you go too high up in elevation. As that snow melts, rushing off the mountain sides in rivulets which lead to swollen streams which cascade into swollen rivers, the flood threat grows. Daily I watch as the local rivers rise and listen the the grinding of the rocks under the water which are being moved by the force of all that water. It's perverse, but I find much pleasure in it's raw power even when it threatens to take out a chunk of roadway or a local bridge.

The Disreputable Cat met her first grass snake. It surprised her so much that she leapt in a quick arc over the head of the Parental Dog and out of her harness in one fell swoop. I grabbed her as she bolted for goodness knows what. As soon as the surprise wore off she was ready for another look but I like grass snakes so I deposited her inside and let the snake make its get away and live to eat more bugs that destroy garden crops. After such excitement Missus Cat needed a rest and slept the rest of the day away. Meanwhile the Disreputable Dog finally got those staples out of his face and although the vet keeps telling him he should turn his scar into a bear story he insists on sticking to facts.

Happy Summer Solstice!

2008-06-20T14:42:00.003-08:00

I hope you spend part of the day out in the open air, swimming or biking, walking or relaxing, enjoying the longest day of the year. Or if you are one of my readers in the southern hemisphere, sitting in front of a warm fire, laughing with friends, and taking heart that the shortest day is over.

Today is a big holiday in Alaska although it's a bit bittersweet knowing that it's all downhill from here, that winter will come, but there is still plenty of summer to enjoy and the darkness will not make itself felt for many months yet.

Mile 4,113/ Km 6,619 or Journey's End

2008-06-17T14:15:00.002-08:00

Well, here I am in Colorado again. While I was gone summer has come and with it the heat. It's not really heat - it just feels like it after being in the cooler north. It seems that almost the entire west has had a long winter and a slow spring. My rear hurts from all that sitting. I'm tired and dusty and both the Disreputable Dog and I have full blown hay fever. We are welcomed mightily by the rest of the pack. The Disreputable Cat comes bolting down the stairs along with the Parental Dog. When I take the dogs out for a walk both of them are wagging the tails fiercely, happy to be together again. My parents, too, are happy to see us.

The next day I open for the bookstore and find my boss already there brewing coffee. It seems, as the day wears on, that there was great deal of uncertainty that I would actually come back. Bets have clearly been made. Perhaps they, and you, knew what has taken me a little bit longer to see clearly - that I will be back in Alaska sooner then later.

PS - Pictures coming soon!!

Mile 3,276/ Km 5,272 (Montana, Idaho, Utah, Colorado)

2008-06-14T21:45:00.003-08:00

The last day of travel - I had to hammer it out. By now my rear hurts and I'm just ready to end the trip but somehow the miles I had left were more then I expected so I did about 800 miles in one day - most of the US portion of the trip.

Montana is a memory zone...I drove through the once small town that used to be my refuge a summer when I did field work in the eastern prairie. The camp was small, the person coordinating was temperamental, and the prairie vastness rolled on forever such that I thought sometime my soul would roll out and away and I'd never be able to reign it in again. I could understand how those prairie wives who were stuck in one place and could not travel like their menfolk might lose their minds. I spent the 4th of July in this town, alone. I attended a bluegrass festival in the local park and then camped by the river, lighting a lone sparkler by myself at twilight.

Idaho is a short portion of our drive but we are back - or is it still - in the mountains. I've spent time here too and I watch for the pronghorns and the coyotes.

We hit the heat in Utah - we forgot about heat and it was stifling. The poor Disreputable Dog was panting heavily and the rivers we stopped near for him to swim in were lukewarm and didn't cool him very much. Utah was full of more road construction then the entire rest of the journey - and I had thought it was bad in the north. I almost got lost a few times with the detours. Utah is another memory place, and the heat. I wonder now, how did I ever live in this heat - spending full days out in the sun with no refuge? I watch the prairie dogs on the roadside catching grasshoppers with fondness.

Utah Photos

In Utah bright red poppies burned through the desert gardens. We stopped at a river for a swim and at a nearby gas station I jokingly asked a guy with Washington license plates "Are we there yet?" and he said not yet, took a look at my license plate and asked whether I had ferried down. When I replied no he jabbed his finger at me an exclaimed "You guys are CRAZY". Well, I've heard that before.

Colorado Photos

Just across the Colorado border I see a semi truck rolled over and burned, emergency vehicles surrounding it. Clearly it has burned a huge swath of the median and their is less then a 3rd of the truck left. I hope that the driver is okay. I pass by the red rock country that started in Utah - the country I always yearn for in the spring with it's eons of history running through the stone - and into the grey cliffs which as a kid I used to imagine were precisely what dinosaur skin would have looked like. Of course, now we know that it would have been a lot more colorful as their relationship with birds has become more known but the texture of these cliffs still reminds me of skin. Now I'm in the home stretch and soon I am home, in the cool of the evening, the scent of my parents' garden wafting out at me. We park and end the day and the journey at mile 4,113 / km 6,619.

Mile 2,618/ KM 4,213 (Alberta & Montana)

2008-06-13T21:00:00.001-08:00

Alberta Photos

I am impressed by the vegetated wildlife overpasses throughout the National Parks in Alberta. I've always thought that making wildlife go under a road was a bad idea - after all, most animals do not like to go underground or in dark confined places where predators might lurk.

I pass the US border in Montana, a little outpost where the border guard is mostly concerned that I might be bringing animal products in. He asks me if I'm tired of Alaska and offers me a "welcome back to the lower 48". Of course, I'm anything but tired of Alaska and I tell him I'll probably be back this way sooner then later. All the same I am pleased to be welcomed. I am taking a slightly longer route then necessary through Montana but I want to drive along Glacier National Park.

Montana Photos except for lower right which is Idaho (with a milage card)

It's a beautiful drive. All day we see more coyotes then anything else - some lit up by the morning sun, a pair running along a fence line - and the occasional pronghorn, and one lone elk with his silly little velveted antlers which are just sprouting and thus look very small on his head. We stop near the park to walk on native lands which have been burnt by wildfire. The sun is warm, the wildflowers blooming, and little rivulets of water fill the dirt tracks and the Disreputable Dog does his best to lie in them although they aren't quite deep enough to cover him.

At the end of the day we find ourselves at a KOA campground and feel like we are at a hotel. We are parked on lush grass and can hear peacocks calling in the distance. Last night a bunch of teenagers had come through my camp running their fingers along the tent and the Disreputable Dog launched out of the tent on defense barking and growling. I shouted at them and they nonchalantly pretended they didn't know they were in someone else's campsite. I had been fast asleep and my adrenaline was so high my hands were shaking - I had removed the safety off the bear spray and had my knife in the other hand. Luckily, none of it was necessary but it took a long while to get to sleep. Now at the KOA station I experienced my first darkness and had to rummage for my headlamp which had been unnecessary up until now.