A season of gratitude

This upcoming Saturday is the Solstice, then the days will start getting longer again. I'm always a bit taken aback to consider that it is officially the First Day of Winter. Over Thanksgiving weekend, we got our first real cold snap:

Cricket stays warm by snuggling, sometimes even with me, if DL is unavailable.

For Thanksgiving, DL, like my sister, loves a classic green bean casserole. And the green beans must be from a can! Schlop! Schloop! Gloop! LOL. My sister says she tried to make a green bean casserole from scratch using fresh green beans, fresh cream, nice mushrooms, and caramelized onions from the stovetop. It was... fine! Tasty! But lacking that certain je ne sais quois... I believe that is the taste of nostalgia!

It looks just right beside the stuffing!

Here is the rest of our spread. M brought the fresh green beans she had lightly steamed. So we had real vegetables that were not gray in color, hahahahaha.

I got a local turkey from Sunny Side Up Farm in Delta Junction.

There it is! All of the classics!

It was a good day to have the oven on all day since it was so cold. Cricket took her princess seat by the fire.

But Raven, having a thicker coat, still insisted on Second Walk. A pretty afternoon.

Brrrrr-tacular!

My special friend April was at Sirius for the weekend. Her furever family adores her and she is doing great; even their toddler is a very gentle little lad whom she adores! But they went down to Anchorage for the weekend so I got to visit her. She was very happy and kissy!

She's lovely, isn't she?

This was my first leftover creation: A turkey-green-bean-corn-mashed-potato-stuffing pie. It was pretty good!

Mmmm leftover pie!

In addition to two batches of turkey enchiladas, I also made mashed potato pancakes. That made Thanksgiving last until the following Monday!

Finally the last day was soup. Look at how Princess Cricket happily guards the stock.

Classic turkey noodle!

And the pan was finallly clean on Thursday. One week!

Look at my fuzzies! Aren't they nice!

I had to attempt a family portrait, of course.

Wishing all 14 of my loyal readers a peaceful "start" to winter!

Happy Winter!

This year, we decided to try a new thing--a Winter CSA from Offbeet Farm, which is right up the road from us. The premise is that they grow storage-friendly veggies and store them and distribute them throughout winter. Our first share had kale, a pumpkin, carrots, daikons, turnips, beets, onions, and garlic.

A lot of those things lend themselves well to simple roasting with olive oil.

Raven seems comfy with us, don't you think? She's all, "Raise your paw, raise your paw if you're sure!"

She is so goofy!

Brrrrrrr!!

First 0F degrees this year! Princess Cricket is not very fluffy even deep into winter, and she hasn't even got half her winter fluff in yet. They are being very cuddly.

Cricket made us do our morning run at a balls-to-the-wall sprint. My morning run was thus not as contemplative as usual, but I did arrive at this:

While we may think that we are living in a time of great darkness, when you look at world history, far worse times have come before, and--I'm sorry to realize--far worse times will likely come again. However, although most of us are Little People, that doesn't mean we are powerless.

When we think of past times of atrocity, we rarely ask, "How did Mussolini come to be? How did Pinochet come to be? How did Hitler come to be?" No, we more often ask, "How did the ordinary people let it happen?" Guess who is ordinary people? We are ordinary people. Ordinary people in Germany cheered as Jewish people were rounded up and taken away. They happily moved into Jewish homes and happily helped themselves to Jewish-owned art and assets.

Very few of us are world leaders, but every one of us is a leader of ourselves. Be courageous. Speak out when you see daily mistreatments of people who are considered "less". If you remain in comfortable silence, blending in when you can, you will regret it when you are in your last days.

I hope you find this message a reason not to despair. You are not powerless. Every day, you have the eligibility to be noble and the opportunity to be courageous. Happy Monday from Cricket and her seester Raven. Hope your week is off to a good start.

"I wanna be clooooose to you..."

Fall turns into Winter

Finally Rosie Creek has frozen and our winter playground is open again! All we need is more snow so we can ski over it!

As well as these other icy spots.

There is also evidence in the trees from the ice storm a few weeks ago.

Raven is looking very regal in her fluffy winter coat.

And so is Princess Cricket, although she has quite a bit more winter coat to grow yet!

Hmmmm perhaps Princess is not so regal while eating COLLY FLOWER LEAFIES!!!

Ravey Gravy loooooves COLLY FLOWER LEAFIES!!!

And actually, she's not that regal at all, haha.

Cricket, however, is a true princess.

Although she is happiest of all while snuggling with Daaaaaaaaddy.

I made Raven play the role of Granny Wolf for Halloween. Why Grandma, what big ears you have!

And this year they both featured in my pumpkin.

We've also started Raven in agility classes. As a young-un, she needs more mental stimulation than the retired sled dogs have needed. And she's doing great! Unlike the pure huskies, she's a people-pleaser, so she's having fun learning how to jump through hoops, run through tunnels, etc. Look how patiently she waits for her turn! I'm so proud!

Catching up

Dear Heavens, I have been remiss in posting! Skipped all of fall and went straight into winter. To be fair, we only got a few days of our classically gorgeous Fairbanks Fall, and it barely stopped raining! I try very, very hard not to complain about rain, as I grew up in a drought-vulnerable region, and moreover I do detest smoke when there is a wildfire nearby. But I came very, very close to complaining this year. But even in the rain, fall's beauty comes through. I took a photo of the First Sign of Fall.

And I'll be certain their my dogs by the things they like to do... Like walking in the rain (like walking in the rain), and wishing on the stars (wishing on the stars!).

Misty fall mornings. I think these are the most beautiful!

The last tree to hold its leaves.

Ravey Gravy in the woods

Princess Cricket in the woods

The weekend of St. Francis' feast day, we took the girls and Cricket's sister Bedbug to be blessed at St. Jude's in North Pole, which is a suburb of Fairbanks. Raven's first time at an urban-ish activity. She did well. I was so proud her obedience training came in handy.

The sisters listen so attentively to the sermon!

And pose with Reverend Shirley!

Getting blessed by Father Scott, who has blessed my dogs since 2007.

FIRST SNOW!!!

SUPER EXCITING!!

But it was quickly ruined when we then got a freak storm. BOOO!!! For nearly two days, we got warm weather and RAIN! Which then froze to ICE! The K12 school district, the University, and the Borough offices all closed, and we all stayed home hunkered down. Ice built up on power lines, and we had several power outages, although they were of short duration. I had brought out the camp stove and we had prepared to live without power for a while, but it came on often enough that we didn't even need to fire up the generator!

We shoveled slush from our driveway, to ensure that when temperatures dropped back to normal, we would not have a slick of ice to deal with.

Cricket does not like power outages. She needs reassurance in the form of SNUGGLING.

Then Raven joined the snuggling and I got stuck on the couch!

INTENSE SNUGGLE!!

We lost power so little that we only had to deploy ramen once, and I still cooked it on our electric stove! I only used it because I wasn't sure how long the power would last! I also boiled a big pot of water and filled every single thermos we owned, so later we could have tea, coffee, etc without having to use a camp stove.

Then the weather settled down. Graders came and cleared the roads. And the ice was mercifully covered with snow. We have traction again!

And they are comfy.

Today is my birthday! I am 47, and my goal, which I set early in summer, was to do 47 pushups today. The first day, I could only do ten. A month later, I could do twenty. After several months, I could do thirty! Finally I made it to forty-two, but withheld doing any more until today, my big day! Forty-seven! I made it! And... I do feel stronger in many ways. Shoveling snow has become easier than it used to be, although DL still does the majority of it. And I don't struggle with things the way I sometimes did before. I think I'll keep it up, although maybe I'll just do them every other day.

I wish my 14 loyal readers a happy and safe winter!