Finally Some Rain!

We had been eagerly anticipating cooler weather, which had been in the forecast for over a week. As the promised day got closer, it started to include rain, which, given the fires, was Very Exciting. Yesterday was The Day! Temperatures did indeed drop. It was DL's birthday, so it was also nice to eat something besides cold sandwiches and salads, and chow mein (which is the only thing I'm willing to cook in the heat). Seared ahi seemed celebratory!

Here is a map of fires in Alaska, which recirculates every few years. I sure hope it remains every few years and does not increase in frequency!

The girls look comfy. Do you think they are comfy? I sure hope they are comfy.

Ugh. Heat and Fires

As hot as it is, my surroundings are still visually beautiful. It's not fireweed season yet. The first bloomers are the dandelions, which is why I urge people not to kill them; they are the pollinators' first meal each spring. Second are the bluebells:

Hot on their heels are the roses:

They are everywhere!

Then my own pretty columbines. Sometimes I wonder why I bother growing ornamentals since the wild roses, fireweed, and wild irises are so prolific, and require no effort of me, but once established, my perennials are the same!

When I say "hot", I know I will get limited sympathy from any readers in the Lower 48, but this is hot by our standards:

We get by with a little help from the swamp cooler and copius consumption of watermelon. We always have a partial one in the fridge and a backup watermelon lying around the house. :D

Even Cricket, with her lighter houndy coat, is hot.

Raven is hot, too, but with her youth, she finds it more tolerable.

I've learned that they like salads. :D

In more distressing news, a few days into the heat wave, we had dry thunderstorms all over the state, and multiple wildfires started. One is nearby, so we have prepared to evacuate. I found an old file on my computer called "bugout list.xls", but when I opened it, it appears that I was thinking to flee into the wilderness; the list contains wilderness survival gear and tents and sleeping bags. I had to make another one for a wildfire evacuation situation, if we are just "fleeing" into town to stay at a hotel. And we will have access to grocery stores and restaurants.

First, we prepacked bags with important documents, meds, and spare clothes. Then I made a list of things to grab as we head out the door, those prepacked bags of course being among them. Our hiking daypacks have a lot of good safety gear in them, so I included those. And I had DL add anything else he thought of to that list and get those things ready. Then in evacuation time, we consult the list, grab those things, and go.

Once those bags were packed and sitting happily in a quiet corner ready to go (and the threat level had not increased), we had the luxury of thinking beyond immediate survival. I call this Second Tier planning: If the house really burns down, what are the things that will be hardest/most expensive to replace? DL suggested winter coats and boots. Then I added expensive eczema creams, haha. You're probably looking at about $3-4k right here. Is it irreplaceable? With the exception of one hat that a friend knitted for me, nope. But it'll be a comfort come winter to have these things ready.

We also pre-evacuated photos and family mementos, and a few rare books. Surprisingly little of my treasured book collection is irreplaceable! I can replace almost any of them with the click of a button! But I included a few that will be engrossing to read to self-soothe if our house burns down. And I also did photograph our bookcases, so if we ever want to duplicate them, we can!

And I've signed up for all the text alerts, and no longer turn off my phone at night. Unfortunately, they aren't divided by geography, so I can be woken up in the middle of the night by an evacuation notice for 40 miles away, but that's okay. Better safe than sorry.

The Borough maintains an evacuation map, which of course I have bookmarked on both my phone and my computers. Green means "ready", which means pack your emergency bags, medications, pet supplies, etc; yellow means "get set", which means stay near home so you are ready to flee with your stuff if you need to; red means "go", now immediately, do not pass go, do not collect $200. However, DL and I are staying one step ahead of them. We are now NEAR a green zone, so we are ready! If they turn us green, we will "get set". If they turn us yellow, we will leave immediately. We won't wait for the red.

I am grateful for how many of my friends are taking steps to evacuate and stay safe. (I felt similarly during COVID, when it became extremely obvious that my crowed leaned toward the cautious end of things!) If my friends and colleagues were those fatalistic, "I'm not worried/God will protect me" types, I think it would be bad for my anxiety. My musher friends who have dog teams are all evacuating super early. I offered help with dog transport, but dang, they were so organized that they declined! If any locals are reading this, please don't hesitate to reach out if you need help. This is a classic Fairbanks scenario where we all help each other. People are offering beds, showers, and camping space to strangers. Please reach out if you need help!

Here are some handy links to monitor the current situation:

• FNSB Evacuation Status Map
• Alaska Interagency Coordination Center info page and Fire Map
• BLM Fire and Lightning Strikes Map
• UAF's Smoke Prediction Map

Happy Spring Partie Troix

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.)

Happy Spring Partie Deux

Spring in Fairbanks is actually two phases: "Breakup", which is when the river breaks up, and "Greenup", which is when the trees bud. The first buds started to burst on May 4th this year:

And the rhubarbs also appeared.

And we saw the first mosquitoes, siiiiigh. So time to bust out the bug jacket.

However, Raven the Sheppy is suuuuuuper happy about Screen Door Season. Sitting in front of the screen door is an Important Sheppy Duty!

The forest paths have dried up enough that we can take walks again without squelching through mud.

Look at that pretty light!

Sometimes we pick up Trout and take her for walks, too. Trout's mom is probably another month or so in a cast, so Trout gets to take walks with friends instead.

Trout has excellent recall so is allowed off-leash.

In other news, our friend MK is fostering a litter of puppies. Their mama is from a village that has no vet, so she was shipped into Fairbanks to raise her puppies, then she will be spayed and returned to her family. The puppies will all be adopted out. Look how cute they are!!

Teeny nosies and teeny toesies!

Awwwwww!

They are juuuuust starting to get silly and playful.

But do not quite have jaw strength for those teefies to be awful. Yet! However, mama's nipples are a bit raw, so weaning will begin soon!

She looks to be a sheppy husky mix like Raven. She's beautiful!

And verrrrry sweeeet.

Some of the babies show the sheppy, too.

Lookie these beans! They come in both licorice

And strawberry.

They have already begun the untying-shoelaces phase of puppyhood.

"Grrrrr! I shall untie your shoesies!"

This one looked like a black bear cub when he fell asleep in my lap.

Lookie dis paw!

Sheppy puppies!

Micromanagers

Trout the malinois is hanging out with us this week while her mama recovers from ankle surgery. Her mama was the dog handler at Cricket's kennel of origin. Cricket and Trout have been friends for eight years now! However, Trout and Raven only met for the first time last summer.

I am astounded at the similarities between the two of them!

They both follow me everywhere and stare at me like micromanagers.

They both sleep like roaches.

They both like to stare out the windows.

They also both have giant pointy ears.

And they are are good protection dogs. On our walks, Raven and Trout don't let strange dogs get near me!

Guard Trout!

I briefly went down a (rather pleasant!) google hole and learned that while they are not directly related (Malinois are from Belgium and Sheppies are from Germany), they both descend from a common ancestor, some ur-shepherd whose descendants range throughout western Europe. They have the protection skills of the giant livestock guardians, as well as the herding skills of dogs like border collies. They are very smart and very devoted to their jobs! And when they are not herding livestock, they like to herd us! Which explains why Trout and Raven are so extremely committed to micromanaging.

It's actually kind of insane, and I'm not sure if I'd want more than one of these dogs long-term. They are kind of all up in my face all day, and while it's cute and endearing short-term, it could get tiresome for years and years. Still, their commitment to micromanaging is amazing. They are dead asleep on the couch and I go upstairs to just, like, change a shirt or something, and they are up like jack-in-the-boxes, chasing me up the stairs, jostling for position, just to watch me change a shirt! Then they squeeze in next to me to escort me back downstairs. They even have to be on the same side of the tiny cabin as I am.

Although they will both seek affection from daddy/uncle.

Our last time on this trail for the season.

Look at the water!

It's in actual streams now.

Handsome DL always following up the rear!

Then we get home and snooooooze. However, do not be deceived! Those ears are always listening!

The micromanagers take turns flopping!