Miscellaney

The flooded banks of the Tanana after the rain storms:


My first rhubarb leaf of the season! I made a rhubarb blueberry pie!


My veggies for the week:

Starbuck on the horizon

Dogs are our link to paradise. They don't know evil or jealousy or discontent. To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden, where doing nothing was not boring--it was peace.

--Milan Kundera

This beloved schnozz

A dog can never tell you what she knows from the
smells of the world, but you know, watching her, that you know
almost nothing.

--Mary Oliver

Circle to Fairbanks Trail!

Last weekend, we hiked a section of the Circle to Fairbanks Trail. Combined with a hike the prior day in the White Mountains, it brought our week's mileage up to 55 miles! Not bad for a pair of old lady dogs! We normally average about 40 miles per week, between the morning runs, the evening walks, and the weekend hikes/skis. That means that since I got Autumn in the fall of 2007, and Linden the following spring, we've done about 14,000 miles together! That's over half the circumference of the planet!

I finally got a portrait of all four of my fuzzies! Four! Four fuzzy things! Ah, ah, ah! Vahnderful!


The ridgeline was pretty:


Wild lupins were everywhere:


The ladies were having fun:


Starbuck ponders while gazing into the distance:


Linden is a goober and ponders nothing:


Autumn, my beloved old leader and treasured companion, is happy to pass the baton on to DL and Starbuck as the next primary caretakers of her two doofus charges, Linden and me. Now she finally gets to rest in her dotage. :)


Starbuck naps:


Starbuck holds out her paw for me to hold:


A lovely pink arctic bloom!




A pause for reflection:


BUMBLEBEE!


A storm coming in:


WOLF BEAST TRACKS!!


"Phew! Are we pooped!"

Mount Fairplay hike!

On our way home from our Taylor Highway adventures, my four fuzzies and I hiked Mount Fairplay together. It was a stunning day, with a recent storm having washed the sky and landscape. We could see all they way to both the Alaska Range and the Wrangells, about 150 miles to the South.

Here is a photo of DL looking vaguely menacing, with a pack of wolves surrounding him (!!):


And here is a photo of said wolf pack having a grand old time:


All four fuzzies in one shot!


Caribou bones:


Cranberry flowers:


Blueberry flowers:


Dwarf fireweed:


A storm to the south:


Sun in the valley:


Linden being a goober:


Autumn being fuzzy:


Starbuck and her fuzzy schnozz:


DL, backlit:


Three happy dowgs!


Super happy to play in the snow!


The rolling hills to the North:


One! Two! Three! Three fuzzy dogs! Ah, ah, ah! Vahnderful!


The sky beneath my feet!


Starbuck and me!


SNUGGLES!


That storm to the south thickening up:


In other news, it's been raining a ton here in Fairbanks, and it snowed in the Alaska Range! How high's the water, mama?

Notes from here and there...

1) Veggies for the week:

Rosie Creek Farm reports that shares are starting out slim due to the cold weather and unexpected mid-June frost (we dropped below freezing one night!).

2) Autumn lords it over Linden and Starbuck as they share the dog bed:




They make huskyballs together just as perfectly as Autumn and Linden always have.

3) So our electric cooperative, Golden Valley Electric Association, is somehow affiliated with rural electric cooperatives all over the Northwestern United States, and we get a very special monthly magazine, the Ruralite.

Ahhhh, the Ruralite. It's difficult to explain the Ruralite. It's apparently published in some way that allows for GVEA to include stuff for specifically for us Fairbanksans, while the rest of the magazine is for all of its rural readers. It includes fishing and hunting tips, "recipes" that instruct you how to assemble a casserole using a box of macaroni and cheese, and profiles of local folks from places like Pahrump and Walla Walla, who do things like make art out of old license plates. There are two sections of reader advertisements. The personals are usually along the lines of "Fit, Christian White male, 70 years young, seeks like-minded lady, age 30-92, for adventure/companionship". The other includes "Please donate Campbells Soup labels to Beaver, OR middle school. Address as follows..." or "I am trying to remember a recipe my gran made in Kentucky in the 1920s. It was a cherry cake with rum in the batter. If anyone has this recipe, please send it to Route 37, Box 252, Tumbleweed, ID..." or "My pawpaw used to sing a song that started 'We sing like larks in the name of the Lord'. Does anyone know the rest?"

Aaaaaaanyway, this month's Ruralite included this gem:


Oh Ruralite! Don't ever change.

A weekend in the sun

Last weekend, DL, the dowgs, and I took a long weekend to attend the Chickenstock music festival. The drive to Chicken is gorgeous, and really half the fun! There were no behbeh meese in our camp this year though. :( We listened to some silly music, took some walks in the woods, ate a ton of marginally nutritive food, skipped stones, collected pretty rocks, climbed a small "mountain", and slept ten hours a day. That's a good vacation!

Forest dowgs!


New spruce tips!




Wild roses are everywhere now, and sweetly fragrant:


DL and some old mining equipment:


Wee ickle flower:


The Chickenstock stage:


Big fuzzy malamute:


Fat dog:


"Hey, good lookin!"


Moose turds on top of bear turds. So many blueberries in the bear turds! Obviously from last fall, since there are no blueberries yet.


A nice view:


An old dredge:




Pretty camp spot:


The Taylor Highway:


Mount Fairplay coming into view! Report from that hike here. I'm slammed! Byeeeeee for now!