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!

Out and About

I feel like we spent a lot of last summer confined to short walks and the indoors since it was so hot and smoky. This year, we are sharing more of our beloved local spots with Miss Raven for the first time. Despite the rain! Here is our neighborhood trail. I can leave my desk, be home, change my clothes, and be on the trail with my girls in 45 minutes. Life is good!

About a month ago, we went to Chena Lakes, which is a lovely park system based around a largish artificial lake. It was all built in response to a terrible flood that covered Fairbanks in 1967. The people of Fairbanks saw the Chena River overflow its banks, and said, "Dam it!" (sorry!). Anyway, the Army Corps of Engineers constructed a 7.1-mile long earthen dam that controls nearly 1,500 miles of watershed that would otherwise freely flow into Fairbanks. At the time that they constructed the dam, they also created a manmade lake, and a very lovely park. You can go to the "Lake Park", where you can rent canoes and paddleboats, and they stock the lake witih fish. Or you can go to the "River Park" where you can walk along the Chena and enjoy lovely views and a gentle walk through the woods with no climbing.

Aaaaaaanyway, we had to abort that walk about a month ago since Raven had the porcupine encounter. We finally succeeded yesterday, although we happened to bump into a high school cross-country race. What a surprise to find that quiet place overflowing with cars and people! But I figured it was still Interior Alaska and we could probably find a way to take our walk without disrupting the race. Sure enough, I asked one of the folks directing traffic and he said that it was perfectly fine, and in fact the race was about to end in about 15 minutes. So I parked on the side of the road, and we stood at the finish line and cheered in the last racers. They seemed like a nice bunch, and when the race was over, the girls and I took our walk. We got back an hour later, and the place was immaculate--all of the flagging that they had put on the course was gone, there was not a single scrap of litter, and all of the cars that had overflowed the small lots and lined the roads were gone. My little Subaru was weirdly parked all alone on the side of the road outside of the empty parking lots.

The water was high!

Raven ponders the high water.

Cricket ponders the high water.

After our walk along the River Park, we had some more time to kill before our next commitment, so we took about 20 minutes to walk along the top of the dam. It was dam pretty up there!

Wow, look at the floodplain!

There we were just a-walkin' down the dam, singin' doo wah diddy diddy dum diddy doo.

This small storm cloud kept moving around. We only just got sprinkled.

Another view of the floodplain.

Mmmmmm cucumbrrrrrz!!

We love cucumbrrrrrrrzzz!!

The cusp between summer and fall

Late summer is my favorite part of summer. The dragonflies have come out, the mosquitoes have thinned down, the mud has dried up. Time for berry picking! Blueberries first. My friend SM has adopted Cricket's sister, Bedbug (they were an entire litter named after bugs). Bedbug, like Thistle, was a star leader, and she has embraced retirement with gusto. She sleeps in and takes gentle walks. She looks a lot like Cricket, only with pointy ears instead of flippy-flappy ears. She's also a good berry picking companion:

Also, like Cricket, she is a qualified and very loving therapy dog. We met at the Denali Center a couple of times. Aren't they cute?

At one point I took a break to have a PBJ, and dropped it. Well, I'm not a picky eater nor germaphobe, but this time I picked it up and found it had landed perfectly onto a moose turd! So I had to tear off that part.

A good berry year! We are grateful.

I also took Raven on my favorite hike for the first time. We missed out on a lot last year because it was so hot and so smokey. But this was my first hike ever in Alaska!

Pretty and tough bluebells, growing in the mountains:

Even Cricket needs some shade on a hot day:

Look at this view though!

This is Wickershame Dome, a hike for another day. That trails has low, muddy spots. I think we will wait until fall after several hard frosts, and it will be frozen.

The trail continues onward, but it was our turnaround time.

A trip up the Elliott Highway always means pie! But I'm still being covid-careful, so I'm not lingering in truck stops. Pie to go!

Do you think Cricket enjoys her life with us? I sure hope she enjoys her life with us.

What about Raven? Do you think she is comfy? I sure hope she is comfy.

Look, the hillside on campus where I park has in just a few weeks gone from pink fireweed to fireweed fluff:

Fall is already becoming apparent in other ways:

This is a favorite trail of ours. Part of the Equinox Marathon route.

A pause where you'd pause on the marathon. Right after this steep drop. There is an aid station right here. And you'd pause and say, "Phew! The worst part is over!"

Such a pretty trail!

Look! Cranberries are almost ready! But they don't get truly sweet until after the first frost, so we wait until those hushed first days of Fall come.

I got a plant ID app, and it says this is called "marsh felwort":

And while the blueberries are ripe, so are the raspberries. These are right in our yard, and I have to beat Raven to them!