Inktrails from Alaska

Christmas in Alaska

Besides happy animals opening presents (see previous post for video) we had and still have gorgeous skies. I'm surrounded by Christmas trees, so there is no need to put one in the house.

There are ravens who hang out near my house, in fact a pair nest in one of my huge spruces every year. But just down the road there were a few calling and goofing off and doing their tricky raven thing. I wanted to get a picture of them.

Now realize I'm working with a digital camera that is several years old, isn't an SLR, and is quite slow. You frame the picture, squeeze the button and WAIT. About a whole second later the picture gets taken. Getting action shots this way is a challenge! Add extremely cold weather and fingers that feel like carrots instead of fingers, and you suddenly realize that I'm a Psychic Photographer. I have to click at precisely the right time, aimed in precisely the spot where I think the action is going to occur.

Ravens are definitely psychic, but they aren't very cooperative! I am pleased that I got them in at least a couple shots.

While I was taking pictures of the dogs, Nature, in the form of Arctic hares, decided to intervene. In the first picture Sofie can't settle because she knows there's a rabbit across the driveway. Then Ole notices and they are both fixated on the other side of the drive. Then Little Miss Hunter dog just says "Screw it! I'm getting the rabbit!" Ole shows us his faithful doggie nature. He's so sweet.

The light changes moment to moment, and twilight lasts a hour or more. The sky goes through a lilac phase, a blue phase and often corals, pinks and deep midnight blue layered with pastels of all colors weave their way through clouds and the dark outlines of trees.

The polar sky is distinctly different from anywhere else on earth. Not as dramatic as the aurora borealis, it still must be seen and experienced in real time to be appreciated. I do appreciate it. Happy New Year!

Happy Christmas to Bucky and the Dogs!

I really like how Sofia played with her toy, and then "told" Ole to try it himself. In the other section where she's asking for something, she's pointing at the balcony door. She needed to go outside to pee.

Making and then watching this video helped me figure out that Bucky apparently used to live with a little dog, because I can tell now that he's doing an extremely annoying little dog yap. I could never figure that out until I heard it here! And yes, he does call me "Mommy" in the beginning of the video. I didn't teach him that, but I'm Mommy and no one else is.

The toy monkey that made noise drove him CRAZY and that's why he was so totally annoying the entire time the dogs were getting their toys. The part where he got his toy actually came first, but the dogs doing their thing was far more diverting to Bucky than his toy (which he is still afraid of). He'll get used to it and tear it up eventually, though!

Ole Ginsu-Mouth McDermott Strikes Again

If you have been following this blog for a while, you will remember something that I'll certainly never forget: The Razor Blade Incident where Ole (the dog, not my son) decided that a disposable razor-blade would be an interesting thing to chew up and eat. Don't worry, he didn't have one single cut inside or outside, though he did chew it up into pieces! Hence his nickname, Ole Ginsu-Mouth.

Today I went into town to get some errands off my endless list of things that need to be accomplished. It's an even longer list than normal, what with the holidays and my students' recital coming up all very shortly. I'm sure you know what I mean!

First stop was the post office. Second stop was the McDonald's just a block away, which is functioning as a drop-off point for the Fairbanks Food Bank right now. Third was the grocery store for just a few things I needed for my planned borscht.

I had three cans of kippered herring to donate to the food bank. I pulled up to the Post Office, checked the car for possible disaster/dangers for the dogs and thought I was safe. Canned food, inaccessible, right? All okay, I thought, and told the dogs to be good and locked the doors and went into the Post Office.

I stood in line in the Post Office for about three minutes until I realized I didn't know my friend's address by heart, drat. I'll have to mail that later, I thought. So I got my mail from my box and went back to the car, opened the door and was knocked over by a seriously stinky fishy smell. I mean this was like a fish smell attack,a fish smell that leaps on your face and eats your nose.

Ole quickly jumped into the back seat looking terribly guilty. Apparently dogs can smell herring through tin cans. He'd bitten quite a few neat holes in the flat can so that the oil had leaked all over both front seats, plus the pillow that I sit on. Slightly stunned and panicking, I grabbed the can and ran around in a little circle (not easy to do on ice) trying to find a nearby trash bin, and finding none, I finally stuck it into the snow on top of the concrete bumper that holds the streetlight. There are going to be some very frustrated ravens tonight.

Next stop: McDonald's, to drop off the rest of the herring cans. Was I going to go inside to do that? No way, because they have a drive up and what are drive ups for, anyway, if you can't drop off herring at them?

When I rolled up and waved at the lady by the cash register, she motioned for me to wait a minute.She opened her window and as I slid my car window down, a fresh wave of fish wafted into McDonald's. Sure, she leaned back a little bit, but when I asked her to put those cans in the food bank barrel for me, and told her why I didn't want to go inside (who knows what Ole would do next) she was very gracious and thanked me for donating to the food bank. And zip! Her window closed. Okay, maybe she could smell it.

I'm nothing if not persistent, and by golly no fish nor dog hair was going to stop me from finishing my errands! I sat on my stinky pillow and drove to Fred Meyer and parked, admonishing Ole NOT to eat the pillow OR the car seats while I was in the store. He didn't promise anything, but was energetically licking away as I left. He'll probably get a furball from all the hair. But maybe he'll clean it up a little?

In the store I realized that I now smelled like herring, too. As I was waiting in line I decided that I'd better tell people what happened so they didn't think....well....eeew...whatever they might think...

It wasn't long before my shopping was done and I returned to the car. It was still fishy as ever, (so much for the Ole cleaning up theory) but at least Ole hadn't eaten either the pillow or the seats.

So Danger Car isn't that dangerous anymore, due to recent repairs. She's got alternator or something problems, that's another story that isn't finished yet and the only symptom is a loud scraping noise (bearings?) even though I bought a new alternator and had it installed yesterday. Maybe I was sold a bad alternator.  Be that as it may, she's still silver, sleek, and "perfumed"......oh yeah, no more Danger Car.....meet FISHMOBILE.