The bucket o' fish was left by a friend of my neighbor. She lives in the cabin next to me just through the trees on the same property. She used to live here, which is why I came home to the bucket o' fish. I never cleaned them, they go to the landfill today. Yecccch! Good thing it has been cold outside!
It snowed last night! It rained most of yesterday and it is raining a little still. There was just a dusting of snow that fell while I was sleeping. Just enough that I had to sweep the stairs so that Stevie wouldn't take a header when I let him outside.
Sofie found just enough snow to pounce and bite. It won't be around long with the rate the rain is falling.
The snow is most welcome. We are all so sick of the fires that we want the snow. It's darker than a bear's den at night without the snow to reflect the ambient light, so driving is not fun. Hey, we are used to 24 hours of light right now. The sun is now setting around 8, I think, it's almost a "normal" day and night, but we continue to lose daylight at a rate of 5-7 minutes per day. For a graph of the sunrise and sunset times over the course of a year here, go to Fairbanks Day.
On the way to work yesterday I had to slow way down because there was a dead moose in the road, with cop cars and several other cars by the side of the road, one with a windshield that had been completely inverted. I felt very sad as I drove past the huge cow moose all stretched out on the lane lines. Every driver that went by continued to drive S-L-O-W-L-Y all the way back into town. It was an eye-opener.
Often the moose AND the person lose the encounter. It looked like the driver of the Jeep Cherokee (or something like that) was still in the driver seat and alive, if maybe beat up. I was relieved to see that someone survived, even if the moose didn't.
In the past two weeks I have taken a ride on a sternwheeler riverboat, driven and dumped a dump truck, and watched Scott unload huge steel beams for his new shop building using a crane. We also have gone dancing several times and had a funny moose encounter that didn't turn into contact, thank God.
We were driving back from Chatanika, where we'd gone hoping to find some music that was less than ear-bleeding volume to dance to, and Scott was driving. It was very, very DARK. Just to tease me, he turned off the lights and kept driving 50 mph down the road, but only for a few seconds. But all I could think of was MOOSE when he did that and it really scared me. (And this was BEFORE I saw the dead moose described earlier.) Luckily he got tired of teasing me, and as we came to the junction of the highway back to my place, I noticed that at the truck weigh station the sign, one of those lighted-bulb signs, was so bright as to be blinding. I said, "GEEZ, that thing is BRIGHT!" And Scott said, "It sure is!" and I turned to look at him and through the window, less than a foot away, was a moose running alongside the truck! Making a goofy face!
We blew past her, and I exclaimed, "Did you SEE THAT?"
"See what?" he asked.
"The MOOSE running right next to the truck!"
"No, but we didn't hit it and that's the main thing!" he replied, grumpily.
It was late, we were tired, and he was a bit cranky, thinking perhaps that I was accusing him of not being a vigilant enough driver. On the contrary, he's an excellent driver. I thought the whole scene incredibly funny. It's not every day that you look out your truck window and see a moose looking back, especially when you are going 45 mph! Especially when the moose has her mouth open and her head turned toward you and it looks like she yelling and you can see her teeth!
Maybe he'll see the humor in it later.
Life in Alaska goes on, and we are all battening the hatches, preparing for winter. There are snow machines to get tuned up, snow tires to put on, numerous things in numerous yards to cover with blue tarps. Your average yard in Alaska has many large bumps covered in snow and blue tarps. If you look at Alaska from a space, I'm sure you could see acres of blue tarps.
The dog mushers are gearing up for winter. The trail for the Yukon Quest goes right by my house, and just last weekend a team went running by followed by a musher on a 4wheeler. Gotta get those dogs in shape!
There are still golden leaves on the birches and aspens. The colors gild the hillsides. Soon there will be leaves flying everywhere like flocks of small birds. Then the snow will fall, and our entire landscape will become a pastel canvas for beautiful twilight sun.
