Wheelbarrow

so much depends
upon

a green wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
wood pile.

With apologies to William Carlos Williams. :)



It does not get any better than this, nor have I ever felt more loved... Mike split all the wood, and Carl lent me the truck to buy the wheelbarrow. Mike also helped me build up my green wood storage platform, so all I have to do is haul the wood down and stack it. With my new wheelbarrow!

Yup, I'm a lucky girl. :)

So when's snow coming?

This is like the opposite of the Ice Classic. People are speculating on when the first snow is going to stick.

The Minor News writes a new blurb about it almost every other day, and has had this poll up for about a week now:



The local butcher is having a contest: " When is it going to snow? The first person to guess the first layer depth (in inches) of snowfall in fairbanks will win a case of steaks, 50lbs of potatoes, and 10 lbs of carrots..."

Oh, and I saw a car this morning that had just had its studs put on. The summer tires were sitting in the hatchback. I guess I ought to do that next week.

The clouds come in...

... warming the air and making the day visually bleak.







I can't wait until snow comes! I've already put my isothermal snow collection device* in the yard, taken out the extension cords for the car plugin, and taken the screen door off and put it away. And I'm going to wax my skis this weekend! Yay!

*Photos to come of this high-tech device. :)

Edited to add:
Here is an article about a 13-foot sunflower.

Notes from here and there

1. We have a snow forecast for tomorrow. Yay! I'm sure it will just be a sprinkling, but still...

2. Road not necessary for road rage. File under "incidents from the villages".

3. Here is an article you absolutely must read: Anchorage woman holds police at bay in armed standoff over cat. The article includes the memorable lines, "The woman refused for several hours to come out of the Centennial Village residence, resulting in a standoff with police. The standoff ended when the woman took some medication and fell asleep."

4. Finally, here is an article describing two of our candidates for borough assembly. This one's a real gem. Apparently, the Bennett brothers would like to eliminate property taxes to free us from serfdom. Understand, the State of Alaska has no income nor sales taxes. The only source of income for road maintenance, fire and ambulance services, schools, etc. is our property taxes. But the apostrophe-abusing Bennett brothers (signs all over town proclaim, "Bennett's For Borough") inform us:

Think about it, you buy a home and property, you get a 30 year mortgage on it and pay anywhere from $150 to $200,000 to the government besides your mortgage.WHY???

To rent your property. The government is claiming ownership on your property, you are the Serf, and the government is the lord, the landowner. Don’t think so? Don’t pay your “rent” and watch them take it from you.

This is Wrong! We, the Free people of the united States of America have the Right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Property!

To pay homage to a state entity is to place yourself subservient to that entity. To pay a “tax” implies that we are not the rightful owners, only the lessor of the land.Our Founding Fathers would NEVER have backed such an institution. They saw Property Rights as the Foundation to an Individuals Freedom.

That's a direct copy/paste. The spacing, punctuation, and spelling are all theirs. I think I need to go lie down now.

And so it begins...

Last night we got our first light, light dusting of snow. The trails are *almost* frozen, although they still need to be covered in snow to be truly passable. Miss Millie B. Doofus, SuperAgent of the Second Law of Thermodynamics and Supreme Ruler of the People's Independent Republic of Bunnistan, sez, "I am a fluffy, cuddly bunny."


The birch forest that we like to walk through is denuded, and the sun is cold and stark:





The girls are bouncy and happy and run around like greased lightning:


Parts of this hillside are cut from when the mining companies came to check whether mining there would be profitable:


A stand of quaking aspen that has yet to drop its leaves:

Another stand of quaking aspen made the local paper for being the first to turn in the fall.

Edited to add this bit of hilarious irrelevance. I had to take a screenshot of this targeted advertising fail. Why in heck is this product being advertised to me?

I couldn't think of a worse match if I tried!

Two problems can make a solution!

Woman fends off attacking bear with giant zucchini.

More like the poor bear was afraid the woman was trying to give him excess zucchini! He obviously didn't have his "no zukes" pin on.

Here are my three fuzzies relaxing:

Happy Equinox!

The equinox is at 7:09 tonight local time. After that, you lower 48 folks will beat us for daylight until spring.


I don't know why we don't have closer to exactly 12 hours of daylight, but there you have it.

It is also a full moon; how cool is that?

And, according to spaceweather.com, the sun is back up to its regular shenanigans. Yay!