This is the part of summer I like the least: Heat arrives, mosquitoes come out in force, the dogs have not yet shed their coats, I myself have not acclimated to the heat. In another week or so, the dragonflies (whom I think of as the Air Force), will arrive and start eating mosquitoes. And the girls will dump their coats. I, too, will acclimate. And we'll be doing some fun hiking.
In the meantime, this time of year is certainly visually beautiful. Look at these fairy slippers!
Trout still joins us for (short) walks. Her mom has three more weeks until she is allowed to try walking! Watching her heal up from her broken ankle reminds me of when I broke mine. It is definitely frustrating, and time passes slowly, but it does pass!
"On the road again, we just can't wait to get on the road again, the life I love is taking walkies with my friends..."
MMMMM COLLARDSTEMZZZ!
YESH! COLLARDSTEMZZZZZ!
There are some areas where we can find shade on these blistering hot days.
I almost wussed out of attending the "No Kings" rally on Saturday, but since it was at 10 a.m. in the morning I figured the heat would be bearable. I got up at 6 to walk the girls first, which was another plus for avoiding heat! I have been carrying this sign at every protest. I cannot decide which of the policies of this administration is upsetting me the most, but this about covers it, right? (And WRT the heat, I realized that folks were demonstrating in places like Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, etc, so surely I could handle Fairbanks!)
Look at this pretty sheppy! I would not bring my girls to sit around at an event like this; they are active girls and if they are just gonna sit around, I think they are better off doing that in the comfort of their own home!
The crowd estimate for Fairbanks was 3000! Contributing to the nationwide total of 13.14 million! But what I found more heartwarming than the massed crowds in big cities is all of the gatherings in small towns and villages across Alaska. 20 people in a village of 30. 10 people in a community of 12. Several hundred in the hub communities of several thousand.
One of my tricks for hot-weather cooking. Stir-fry. Everything cooks in 10 mins! This style wok was actually developed in a region of China that was poor in fuel. It's thin and heats up quickly. The entire premise of stir-frying is that you cut up everything small and cook it quickly over a hot fire. Contrast against my ancestral home in the North, which has plenty of woods and makes more soups and stews in heavy iron woks! (No, I didn't learn this from my grandparents. We are a disrupted family, so I learned about this in books.)
