Fireweed! Fireweed! Fireweed!

The fireweed has been astounding this year! The hills, ditches, roadsides, and fields are all exploding in pink! Here are photos from a short day hike we did a few weeks ago. This was Linden's first hike after being released from her activity restriction after her tumor removal. Those were a long ten days! She was of the opinion that she could bounce and pronk around the yard and go for long walks, that very same evening after surgery!

It was smokey when we headed out, but the smoke cleared away as the day wore on. The juxtaposition of the cheery pink blooms against the smoke and the tree and brush remnants from a fire of a few years ago was startling. But of course, it was exactly as it should be. Fireweed is so named because it is one of the first plants to recolonize an area after a burn.





Purple and pink and yellow!




Interesting collection of stuff... blueberries and bearberries and lichen! Oh my!


Cairns on a small hillock:






I like this old burned snag in this gorgeous pink profusion:


Juuuust as we started to say, "Okay, that's enough for Linden's Freedom Celebration! Let's call it quits until the smoke clears!", the smoke started to clear:


A pinksplosion!






A bit of purple amidst the pink:










Our Autumnster back on the hillock:


Three fuzzies relaxing:


Tounguage:


I went over to where Starbuck was snoozing in the shade of a rock, and she lazily reached out her paw. "Hold my pawzzzzzz...."






A pale pink one!


The wild daisies of Alaska are a bit rough and tumbled:


Wolves bounding through the grass!

Scenes from chez nous

Domestic scenes in and around Casa Fuzzies:

Our 4th of July was low-key. The fire danger was so high that not only was there a ban on burning brush and campfires, there was even a ban on charcoal grills. We cooked pork chops in the oven and ate on the deck:


While a talented young lady serenaded her uncle and aunty:


This is Bannock. Bannock is the soooofftest, sweeetest, most tender-mushy-gushy dog ever!


I watched a bumblebee do her thang in a flowerpot:


The fireweed has been astounding this year. I'll post photos later of the fields of them we saw on a hike. But even the ones in front of the cabin are exploding in pink!


And a Heaven in a Wild Flower...


Here is Ms. Booger Pants, looking adorable and gooberdy:


And Ms. Autumn, looking wise, soulful, and serene (thanks for the excellent description, e. davis!):


SCHNOZZES!!


FANGS!!


Starbuckaroo has FEETIES! That smell like Fritos!

The "doghouse"

Both Autumn and Linden's and Starbuck's former families advised us that the transition from sled dog life to pet life should be gradual, so we should set up outdoor dog houses for them to use at least for a while. So we did. It turns out, though, that once they experience indoor life, they have no interest whatsoever in a doghouse. When I left Starbuck at her former home last summer when the old ladies and I spent a month in Colorado, she howled in protest and refused to enter her former house.

The house DL and I set up for her is now used as a dining room for a very cheeky squirrel:


Total dog-hours in this house: 16
Total skwerl-hours: ~543

Booger's stitches are coming out today!

I keep telling people that Booger's getting her stitches out today, completely forgetting that in Alaska, having a dog in your office doesn't require an explanation! (Although wearing glasses apparently does... Smoke, people! Smoke! Anyway I'll wear glasses when I dang well want to!)


In other news, the smoke has been coming and going with astonishing and unpredictable speed, and it doesn't even correlate with weather. Monday was hot, even into the evening:





and crystal-clear.

Yesterday it cooled down and drizzled a bit, and yet the air was so bad it was 2x worse than Beijing.

Today it is warming up again, and the air is clearing up and I can see sapphire-blue skies and puffy white clouds.

Hmmmm...

In other news, I saw the fuzziest-wuzziest-fuzzbucket caterpillar ever the other day:




I tried to google it; the closest thing to a match I could find is Pyrrharctia isabella, colloquially called by the utterly delightful name of "Woolly Bear Caterpillar". Apparently it's more common outside Alaska to find them with a brown band in the center, and the narrower the brown, the harsher the upcoming winter. Seeing as our Alaskan Woolly Bears have NO brown, I guess the folklore holds true here!

The Frito Factory

Lest you think my hard-working dogs just lounge around on the couch all day, you should know that they actually, along with all of the other dogs of Fairbanks, are employed at a Frito Factory. After the humans go off to work or school, the dogs pack themselves lunch...


And the bus comes around and gathers up the dogs.


At the Frito factory, they wear hair nets and gossip while they form Fritos with their toes (the most skilled dogs can make four Fritos with one press of a paw!).


At the end of the day, the bus takes them all home, where they wash their superhero lunch boxes and thermoses, hide them from us, and then curl up on the couch and pretend they've been napping all day.

Booger in her cone

Linden sez, "Ain't no cone stops me from cuddling with my sisters on my couch."