Inktrails from Alaska

Welcome to Second January

Right now I live in one of the angriest towns in American: Fairbanks, Alaska. While people in the Lower 48 are posting pictures of their flowers, we wake up to snow again. And again. To the flower posters I say, Fuck you! Just when you think we might be heading toward Break Up here comes more snow. It was snowing when I went to bed last night at 2am, and it's still snowing at 10:30 as I type this. It's powder snow, so you can't make snowmen, or fun rude sculptures (Goldstream folks, you know what I mean). On the other hand, it's easy to brush off your car. On the other other hand, goddamnit, I'm so tired of brushing off my damn car!

In March I was ecstatic that we were entering a normal Break Up. I hadn't seen a "normal" March in at least 12 years. Climate change has made our weather completely unpredictable. Used to be, you could count on March to start all the melting and send us hurtling into Mud Season. If we were lucky March was gentle, and slow but relentless and we got to bypass Mud Season completely. Ah! The good old days!

This year March passed and April reverted back to January. Possibly December. Second Christmas, anyone?

The borough reminded us in April that we now need a burn permit to use our burn barrels. My burn barrel.

Here are some signs that Winter has been here way too fucking long:

1. My dog yard has geological layers of ice, snow, birch sticks, and poop.
   
2. My tiny 13lb fox terrier is so acclimated to snow and cold that she can now run around outside at -10F without booties.
3. Same fox terrier has developed an addiction to eating ICE and hard snow chunks. This is a breed from the British Isles...
4. When I come into the house, and stamp the snow off my boots, the terrier runs around EATING all the snow off the floor.
5. My Norwegian Elkhound is getting tired of snow. The dog of the Vikings, the Norwegian Elkhound, is GETTING TIRED OF SNOW. No longer does she go outside and take her snuggle naps in the snowbanks. She goes out, barks at stuff, does her stuff and wants back in again. This is not normal at all!
6. People who changed their tires in March are now sliding all over. Winter says to them, "Psych!" (Well, I do giggle a little.)
7. I'm back to wearing my parka, mukluks, long underwear, hat, gloves, and layers. In March I could wear a hoodie and jeans!
8. I feel intense anger when I look out the window and see it's snowing. In October, it's pretty. In April...see #8.
9. I'm saying "fuck" a lot.

Tiny terrier with a 50 gallon trash bin, of which you can only see the lid.

 

It's been too cold to take Blueberry, the elkhound, outside to brush off all her fluff. She's becoming a floofy Cloud Dog. I'm gonna die of Grey Lung! There's so much fur in here that Zuzu Bean, the terrier, eats it for fun! Headline: Unknown Woman Found Suffocated In Cabin, Police Use Vacuum To Identify Body.

How do we cope? Coffee. LOTS of coffee! There is a reason there is a coffee hut on practically every corner here. Also, we have the same number of pot shops. Just sayin'. It's not my coping mechanism but I'm glad it keeps some people from going postal! The number of pot shops is approximately equal to the number of Thai restaurants, so it's functioning ecosystem.

Coping also means making up stupid songs.
To the tune of Drunken Sailor:
What do you do with Alaskan Winter? What do you do with Alaskan Winter? What do you do with Alaskan Winter too late in the season? Way, hey, it won't go away, Way hey, it won't go away, Way hey, it won't go away, Let's go to Hawaii!

To quote a Talking Heads song, "I'm still waiting...I'm still waiting..."

A Chocolate Story, and a Squirrel

Alaska is still the land of the midnight night, right now. We have twelve hours of day and twelve hours of night. I should be able to sleep during the darkness and walk around like a normal person in the daylight, but no. Late yesterday afternoon I decided to try out my new-to-me Ninja blender. If you aren't familiar with these blenders, they are like the monster truck of blenders. I think I could use it for a wood chipper.

I got a hankering for a chocolate milkshake. But more healthy, of course. Made with yogurt, a banana, a tablespoon of chai tea for kick, and let's see...what kind of chocolate do I have around the house? Chocolate chips? Naw, I just bought those and I don't want to open them. Cocoa powder for baking cakes? Ummmmm, no, that's probably a little too intense and I don't want to get diarrhea. Wait! I have some Ibarra Mexican hot chocolate, let's try that!

You may not be familiar with Mexican hot chocolate. It's a hard round of chocolate about three inches in diameter, and almost half an inch thick. It's chocolate, sugar and spices. You are supposed to use about a sixth of it grated into a cup to make hot chocolate. I decided to drop the whole thing in the pitcher.

I'm eager to see the pure shredding and mashing power of this blender. In goes the banana, the yogurt, the tea and one whole round of the hot chocolate. It's a lot of chocolate, and I forgot that it also has sugar in it. No matter, I want to see the blender crunch that baby up! It's built like a tank, plus it has a killing blade about ten inches tall, and you have to clamp the top on. This is the most serious blender I've ever seen.

There is an actual smoothie button. I push it.

If you think this is heading toward a massive blender misadventure with chocolate all over me and the ceiling, you will be disappointed. However, I didn't know that the blender would put on a show! It goes RRRRR like you think it would, but then it stops, starts, stops and starts again, goes on for a few more extended RRRRRRRS and eventually decides my smoothie is finished. It does its thing, you know? Someone must have made a Smoothie Macro. Imagine that, someone in a Blender Research Lab, wearing a white coat and goggles (for obvious reasons) making smoothie after smoothie, pushing the button and holding it, pushing the button and letting go, until they have exactly the right number of Whooshes vs. RRRRRs to make the optimal smoothie. "What do you do for a living?" "Oh, I'm a Blender Engineer."

I pour my milkshake into a glass. The sugar in the Mexican chocolate didn't dissolve, because it can't do that in cold yogurt.  So it's a little crunchy. No problem, I can deal with that. I stick a straw in it and it's so good! Other than the crunchy sugar, it's a smooth chocolate banana milkshake.  I drink it down while streaming a TV show. Delicious.

Everything is fine for a while and I feel great. Really great! And then I get a rapid heartbeat, and overall feeling of Uh Oh and realize I've done it again. Given myself a case of chocolate overdose. Yes, I've done this before. Hint: don't make brownies from scratch from real chocolate and then eat half of them. You will find out what chocolate toxicity is. This time it isn't as bad as the brownie episode, so I just keep watching episodes of my TV show and wait to feel better.

After a while I realize I've been watching that show for quite some time. I feel fine again. The rapid heartbeat has gone away and I'm back to normal. It's 2am. Time to go to bed.

The dog has already gone to bed, so I join her and snuggle down and there I am. Wide awake. For hours. I can't tell you how many times I checked my farming game on my iPad.

It was 6am before I fell asleep. I guess I shouldn't have had that chai tea in the milkshake, or so much chocolate. You think?

I was totally knocked out and having a fairly rotten dream when both of us were awakened by a very loud scratching noise on the house or balcony. This was so loud! What's up there? A wolverine? (Not a serious possibility mind you, but it was loud!)  My bed is right by a window. The super loud scratching noise suddenly stopped as a squirrel flew through the air and landed on the window with a loud BAM. Then it ran away.That's not something that happens every day, or has ever happened. I have no clue whether the squirrel was being chased off my balcony by something or maybe had had a large caffeinated smoothie the night before.

This was a new and novel way to wake up.

About an hour later my dog started talking to me about the front door. Not barking, like she does at a moose, fox, or other dog. But just a "errrrmmmmaa ggrrreeemmm" like "Mom, you gotta see this!" Now I can't say it was the same animal, but what do I find coming right up to the door? Fresh squirrel tracks. Like it wanted to come into the house...for some smoothie?

The Rain Rant

I hate rain.

If you really know me, you know I hate rain. As much as I want to visit Scotland, I would never want to live there because it rains there so much.

Consider snow. It's beautiful, it piles up, and the piles of snow can be moved out of the way. You can take a walk in it and brush it off of you. If you happen to be a dog, you just shake it off and done. Your feet stay clean. You can build snow men, or anything you like. People enjoy cross country and downhill skiing, not to mention snow skating and running around the country on a snowmachine. Snow decorates all the spruces, and turns my world into Christmas Tree Land.

But rain? There is no happy walking in rain. There is only me, stoically stomping to the car and getting in as fast as I can. Knowing that Ole the Norwegian Elkhound is going to get wet footprints all over the car. As soon as rain hits his coat, he shakes, but rain doesn't stop, it keeps striking his coat, and he doesn't like that. Sure, he is a double-coated dog and he'll be dry underneath, but the sensation of being struck by little missiles of water constantly isn't his favorite.

Rain=mud. Mud is a total pain in the ass. My driveway has some pretty good (and expensive) gravel but the rest of the road is dirt. There are no dog walks when it is raining. And Ole does not want to go out into the back yard and pick through wet grass and leaves. I let him out today and yesterday and he walks verrrry slowly and verrrry carefully, picking up his feet and placing them as if to find the least wet spot.

My house has a metal roof, so there is this constant drumming, plus huge DRIP PLOP DRIP PLOP sounds from water splashing off the roof onto the rubber mat by my front door. It's so loud and so annoying because it sounds like it is IN THE HOUSE. But it isn't. But it is TRYING TO BE because that is what asshole rain does. It is TRYING to get INTO YOUR HOUSE! Fucking rain!

I liked rain just fine when I was a little child. It didn't bother me one way or the other. Back in Michigan sometimes it would rain so hard you couldn't see past your window: it was just one shining, grey sheet. It didn't rain like that all the time, just once or twice a year, and it didn't last all day. It was kind of fun, in a novel kind of way.

But I grew up, and moved to Eugene, Oregon. This is where my hatred of rain truly began.

Eugene is so humid and so rainy that when the sun comes out, people stop working and go outside and go, "Oh wow! What's that yellow thing? Sun? Sunshine?" And they hold up their fungus-ridden arms up to the sun and marvel. Then the clouds close over, and everyone wonders if it was just a dream, and resolves to tell their children about it. Then they go back inside, and back to work. It could be SIX MONTHS before the sun comes out again.

Later after work, I  would (because all this happened to me) get in my car that had moss growing on all the rubber and the roof, and drive home. Since my car of the time was an old Dodge Dart clunker (one door was so smashed in you had to get in from the opposite side) it had the old kind of windshield wipers. Kids, you may not know this, but cars had three settings for windshield wipers: off, slowish, and way too fucking fast but not fast enough for a real rainstorm. In case of a real rain storm you just pulled over and swore a lot until the rain slowed down.

In Oregon, the majority of the rain was constant little drips, or mist, or something between rain and mist. This meant that the SLOWISH setting on the windshield wipers was actually too fast. I spent HOURS of my life, probably hundreds or thousands of hours, turning the wipers ON and OFF and ON and OFF and ON and OFF because the first swipe would be fine, and the second would be that horrid RRRRRBBBBBBBRRRRR noise. Who can stand that noise? Not me!

I lived in that humid hellhole for almost ten years. I do believe I have Rain PTSD. If it clouds over I get anxious. If it stays cloudy for three days I get REALLY anxious and angry and hangry and frantic and sense Impending Doom! Let it stay gray for more than three days and I'm figuring the world is not living for. We are all going to die watery deaths and I'll never see the sun again.

Now let's talk about Alaska. Winter is 9 months long and summer is 3 months long. Maybe. In a good year. This has not been a good year. I still have freaking piles of snow in my yard TODAY. But for the most part it is finally gone. However, I do not live through subzero temperatures, black ice, and DARKNESS for nine months only to have GRAYNESS and have to wear a fucking coat in MAY! I did winter. BOOM! Therefore I deserve SUMMER! Sure, it comes with mosquitoes but so what? We don't live here so that it can be cold and wet and gray when it is supposed to be 80°! Climate change is voiding our contract with Alaska! FUCK!

So I hate rain! I bought gear to be comfortable in the winter, and I'll be damned if I will buy freaking rain gear! My house isn't big enough for all this gear anyway. Between the parkas and sweaters and flannel lined Carhartt pants and T shirts and long underwear and hats and gloves and breakup boots (and that's an incomplete list, there are coats and jackets of different weight and more)....hell, my house is only 550 sq. ft. Where the hell am I going to put rain gear? My house is too small for rain gear. Not. Gonna. Buy. It. 

We've had a few years where it rained all summer. And folks, if that's happening in Fairbanks, don't bother visiting. Because everyone in town is mad when that happens. We become the grumpiest town in the world. You just don't gyp Alaskans out of their summer. I know I'm not alone!

I will grant one rain day every two weeks to keep us from burning up in forest fires. Okay?  But that's it.

So please don't tell me some la la thing about "Oh, the planet needs the rain," or "Rain is so important for the environment," all that crap. I DON'T CARE. I don't like it. When you say stuff like that (in the silly, cloying, trying-to-guilt-me tone) it is clear you don't get it. I don't like okra, either. I don't LIKE it. I don't HAVE to like it. If you like it, fine. Whatever. But I really, really, REALLY don't like it.

We Alaskans Have Opinions

Before I moved to Alaska, many years ago, I never thought much about duct tape. Duct tape is duct tape, right? No, it's not. That 3M company duct tape is crap! Never buy that stuff, it doesn't stick if it gets wet. The rolls of tape wrinkle all up, and the tape won't lay flat. It's thin. Wimpy. 

Duct tape is on my shopping list right after dog biscuits.

If you live here, you are going to have opinions about salmon. Some people like King salmon the best, some people swear by Copper River Red. I've never had a King before but the Copper River Reds are to die for. I'll be happy for anyone to give me some wild Alaska salmon any time, don't get me wrong! But to go to the Alaska Salmon Bake, a very expensive place, and pay $36 for SILVERS, why, that's a way to piss me off!

Talk to us about snow tires and you'll get some seriously conflicting opinions. Some swear by studs, others by soft snow tires like Blizzaks. I'm in the latter group. I had studs, and the studs wear out really fast, plus you have to change them out right quick when winter is over. I have the Cooper version of Blizzaks. They are a little harder, but just as  nice. 

If you have ever been on the internet at all, you know that driving is one of the most contentious subjects out there. It's true for Alaskans, too. About 60% of the drivers use their turn signals. Which is pretty good. Some people, mostly new to the state, think that they have to have a giant 4WD extra-cab, extra-wheels, extra-glovebox, extra-noisy BLACK pickup truck to handle arctic conditions. These people end up in the ditch most of the time. Which is where they belong until they get some sense. :-)

I drove small, 2WD drive cars here for years. Front wheel drive does just fine, if you know how to drive. Get a good run at hills, and drive like you don't have brakes! My newish AWD Ford is pretty wonderful, though. Heated seats are super great, especially when it gets really cold. 

Really cold. That's what I just said but "really cold" is -20F or colder. Not that I don't heat my seats up even when it is "warm," say, from 0 and on up to 25F or so. Feeling warm at what seem like icy temperatures to most of the world, isn't really an opinion. It's the marvel of the adaptable human body. After a week of -40, 0° is T shirt weather by comparison!

Strong opinions abound about which car is the best, (mostly Subarus, Toyotas and Fords, some Chevys, and the ever-annoying giant trucks driven by stupid people). 

Halibut vs. cod. Once again, Alaskans will prefer Alaskan halibut over cod, and will be insulted to be served cod as a substitute. Some restaurants have started serving cod because it is cheaper. Well, not to me, they won't!

 

 

A Little Bumper Car Episode on the Johanson Expressway

We are losing daylight now at a rate of 6 or 7 minutes a day. The sun came up at 10:11 today, and it set at 3:06. By the time I got off work at 4:41pm, it was night. This is normal, and we are all used to it, except for the military people who are forced to deal with it and have to learn to deal with it very quickly.

Usually, I use my Psychic Barrier Radar to plot my route anywhere. Don't ask me how I do it, but if there is going to be a car broken down, or an accident, or a super slow road grader, or a double-wide trailer going 15 mph, I will somehow feel it. I check, then I choose the route.

Tonight I decided to take the freeway even though my Spidey Sense said that it was not a good idea.

So I'm cooking along,55mph nice and smooth, Balfa Brothers on the stereo, looking forward to getting home a little early. It's -7F. The bridges here are totally iced over but if you know how to drive it's not a problem. There was a car in front of me, and a big, black, extra-cab pickup in front of the car. I always leave lots of distance between my car and the car ahead, and this time, boy howdy, did that extra cushion of safety pay off.

A smaller car, let's say what we used to call a "compact" car, cut off the pickup dude and we were still on a bridge. He could have eased off the gas pedal and remained calm and he would have been fine. But he freaked, pumped the brakes, and started fishtailing. Then he jammed the brakes on full slam and started spinning, one circle, into the berm, bounce off, start another circle, rinse and repeat. He was all over the place across two of the three lanes.

And I was right there. And the truck's front end was coming right at me back from that bounce off the berm guardrail. I eased the car over just about six inches, and he missed me (or I missed him, whatever) by about a foot. Or so. He was still moving as I went by.

And then I was past it and I don't know what happened to the pickup after that. But I'm telling you, there was some pretty good heart pounding for a couple minutes going on in my chest as I drove away! But that didn't last long. That's just winter driving in the arctic. Nerves of steel, people, nerves of steel.

And Ole dog didn't even get jostled.

I Need A New Heater

The Toyo heater that came with this house was old to begin with. Toyos are legendary for being great, not breaking down and so on. But this one has reached the end of its lifetime and of course it is in the middle of winter in Alaska. Figures.

Right now the temperatures are hovering around zero. We had about two or three weeks of -20 (and below for some folks). The electric heater I have can handle keeping us survival warm (in the 60s) but if the temperatures drop again, we will be in trouble.

I need a new heater. Cost: about $1600.

I have a wonderful violin for sale, a 1923 Neuner-Hornsteiner that was the first full-size I ever owned, the one I learned to play on. I'm selling it for the lowest that those go for: $2000. BUT no one is buying.

If you feel you can help me raise the money to buy a heater, I'm putting a PayPal button here for donations. I don't do this lightly. I simply don't have the ability to come up with the needed amount in time for us to be safe when temperatures fall. You can send money to my PayPal account by using my email address: jeanofiddler at gmail dot com.  (Which I spell out so that spammers won't go crazy on me.)

Thank you, bless you, please have a wonderful New Year!

 

Oddjobs of Alaskan Winter

9:15 temperature this morning: -15F

I'm not counting plugging in the car or scraping the windshield. I wish I had snow to push off the car, but sadly, we aren't getting enough snow. We've gotten exactly enough snow to help me see the moose near the side of the road or edge of the forest, but that's about it.

No, this list is about specific dopey things I plan to do, and have to do, in the next week.

For one thing, every winter the frost heaves my front porch up an an angle, a very, very slight angle. You wouldn't even know it had happened except the screen door knows. It starts to scrape at the out bottom edge, and now it will only open halfway. This is incredibly annoying and inconvenient and it pisses me off (!) when I'm trying to get in or out the door with two dogs, a messenger bag and grocery bags, or a violin or guitar. It's freaking annoying even if I'm not carrying a bunch of stuff. So I counted the screws holding the door onto the house. Four. Well, I could probably do that in one go if it doesn't go to -20. I'll have to stop and warm up my hands if it takes too long but that's par for the course. I have an electric drill, and I am planning to take that stupid screen door off and store it for the winter. If it wouldn't stick like that, it'd be nice to keep installed as another layer against the cold. But not if it's going to keep being in my way!

So I'll have to reorganize a bit of the storage shed so I can fit the screen door in there once it's out of the way. Once again, doing this all at subzero...

I have a window that won't close all the way unless I push it closed (using a broomstick to get both top and bottom). I thought I'd gotten it closed before winter but nope. I wondered why I was so cold in that room! I looked at the window and lordy, lordy, there's frost around the edges. Crap! So out into the night with a headlamp and a broomstick! Luckily I got it latched and it's much warmer in here now!

Normally I go around and teflon spray all the locks. I forgot this year so I still have to do that. Don't you hate it when you can't find that teeny tiny straw that goes in the sprayer?

I'm going to reorganize the house a little. I think I've moved furniture only once in ten years. It's time. My bed is next to an old, leaky window. Right now I've got a pillow pushed up against it to block the freezing airflow (and paper towel stuffed in every crevice of the sash and frame). Heck, my bed is four feet from the heater and even so, I'm still cold! So another project is to move my two giant bookcases and push my bed away from the window I'll call The Elbow Freezer.

Back in the dog yard, the cold is slowly but surely moving one of my fence posts away from the others. Unfortunately, it's the post the gate is hinged on. This means that probably by next week, my gate in the dog yard won't latch closed at all. Fixing this may entail dragging logs and/or giant fencing panels just to block it off. Okay, you know how men do those things. They just monster lift things and carry them across the yard (or five feet) and drop them. But I'm not a guy. I can move heavy things like frozen logs or fence panels, I can, but this is how I do it: grab it, lean back and use my center of gravity. Is it frozen to the ground? Yes. Okay, so I go get a pry bar and crack it off the ground. Grab said heavy thing, lean and pull. Move about six inches. Stop. Breathe. Lean and pull. repeat 26 or 48 times until it's where I want it.

Other step I forgot to mention: Go back inside and warm up your hands every fifteen minutes! Even with gloves! So sure, it might take an hour or more. Or I might get it half way and say, feck this, I'm cold and tired! I'll finish tomorrow! But it does get done!

With the bookcases same thing but instead, stand close and shove with hips and pull with arms and slide the furniture.

It takes a lot longer than the Hercules Superman Guy Way, but it still gets done!

Last, but not least at all, are the dogs. Ole needs to go to the poodle parlor to get The Works. He's got about four down jackets full of undercoat that can go. My house is a River of Fur that I can barely keep dammed. And I need to brush out all of Sofia's underfur too, which I can't do outside because it's too cold, but doing it inside is tricky if I don't want to drown in fur. I had her brushed out pretty well midsummer but dang it, fur is breaking out all over! So how will I do it? Verrrrry carefully!

Tiny Snow

Up until now, we haven't really had snow. Sure, we got a dusting about a month ago, but then it warmed up above freezing and most of it melted away.

It's been weird having nothing but a dab of snow in October, and none in September. I'm used to a medium to huge dump of snow in September, which then either melts over a few weeks, or perhaps some of it sticks around. The real snow usually arrives in October.

But not this year. The weather service kept forecasting snow and it kept not snowing. We had some tremendous northern lights! But no snow. Then yesterday it clouded up, and I woke up to persistent snowfall. Not big flakes, but tiny snow, the kind that glitters. It's powder that is deceptively intense. I've taken my dogs for walks several times today, and every time we are glistening and shining by the time we get back to the house.

It's still snowing as I'm typing this. It's been snowing since sometime last night, about 24 hours. I think there is about three inches accumulated out there, maybe more.

When it's tiny snow, you can see where you are going, while walking you can see into the trees to see if there is a moose, and when driving there is none of that hypnotizey-swirly-swirly going on in front of your windshield. The snow blows off the road, for the most part.

All in all, I love the tiny snow. When the temperature drops to around zero, you get the glitter snow, which is even prettier. And if the temps go lower, it stops snowing, because all the moisture has already been frozen out of the air. Snow is, for us, something that happens when the weather is what we call "warm."

Walking the dogs in the tiny snow today was so nice. We saw tracks, the dogs had new sniffing experiences (every change in weather is a new sniffing experience), and Ole had his first good snow angel roll.

I'm glad the snow is finally here.

Why The DAPL Protest At Standing Rock Is Important To All Americans

Every day brings new atrocities to the protestors at Standing Rock, North Dakota. Today the soldiers are chasing women and children into the river. Military and police are shooting rubber bullets and pepper spraying people of all ages, including children. All these Water Protectors are unarmed. They are praying and standing firm to protect the land that was stolen from them, to protect the water that serves everyone, not just the Standing Rock Tribe. I am not ashamed to say this is making me cry.

Why does this matter to you?

Because when you allow innocent people to be brutalized and possibly killed, you are losing your freedom, too. You are losing part of what makes you human. If you can turn away from this injustice on our own soil, and watch our own people be hurt, you are hurting yourself in ways that cut across your soul.

But what can I do? I'm not Indian!

Water isn't Indian, either. And a good heart is a good heart.

Those who would like to help out can buy items on their amazon wish list or the on their site supply list. If you would like to get involved then checkout the “#NoDAPL Solidarity” website to find an action near you. There is a legal fund to donate to at the “Red Warrior Camp Legal Fund.”

Call NBC, CBS, ABC, every news outlet, national and local. Can you go down there and help the Water Protectors? DO IT. Call the President, your Senators and Congressmen. DO IT.

My neighbor, a Native from Alaska, is down there now. She has a son who has a birthday soon. They impounded her rental car this weekend (plus many others cars, too). People were knocked down with batons when they tried to keep the police from taking their cars. Her ID and wallet, and medication are in the car and she isn't allowed anywhere near it to retrieve these items. She is more than willing to talk to any news outlet that wants the inside story. She is staying at the camp. I will send her phone number to people who are serious about helping.

Ignorant white people are still afraid of "Wild Indians." Soldiers are overzealous and brutal. Contrast that with the treatment of the ARMED white pseudo-military men who did serious damage to Malheur Wildlife Center (they started bulldozing!) who were set free, blameless after their ARMED stand-off!

Consider this: When I lived in Albuquerque, I had many Native friends. One afternoon, in a mixed white and Hispanic neighborhood, one afternoon we had a potluck and some drumming and singing. The white next door neighbor CALLED THE POLICE ON US because there were WILD INDIANS. And this is in a place where brown people used to be in the majority of the population, in a place where tribes and Native people are everywhere.

People are afraid of Indians. Native people are seen as dangerous and bloodthirsty, thanks to Hollywood (which didn't even bother to hire Indians to play Indians).

People at the protest are not armed. Alcohol is prohibited. No bows, no weapons. If we get a report of an armed protestor, you will know it was a plant.

We also have reports of police planting illegal items in protestors' cars. If they would pepper spray a child, you know they would plant items, too.

I was last involved in a land struggle on the Navajo Reservation in the eighties, when Peabody Coal Company, (yes, THAT coal company--see the song "Paradise") wanted to mine for coal on the Hopi and Navajo reservations. Peabody found a few Mormon converts in the Hopi hierarchy to champion their cause and managed to turn the tribes against each other. What should have united Hopi and Navajo divided them, due to the dirty tactics of Peabody Coal Company. The struggle was ignored by the media because it was seen as a petty "internal affair" between Natives. (I send peace and honor to Roberta Blackgoat, who, with other traditional Navajo women, worked so hard, and local AIM leader Larry Anderson.)

The DAPL people are severely afraid because they have not been able to turn the tribes against each other. Instead, tribes and indigenous people from all over the world, not to mention non-natives too, are UNITED against the pipeline and the injustice of destroying Native sacred ground. Our unity is our biggest strength! You know there are moles sent in by the company to try to cause problems.

Pipelines are dangerous and they ALWAYS leak. There are ALWAYS spills. Ask any Alaskan. We know. People have to monitor this stuff full time, and they still never get all the spills and leaks. How are they going to monitor a pipe under the river? This is NOT high tech. It's a time bomb, plain and simple. It will leak, and it will poison the water, I have not one doubt. Scientists agree, look it up.

Finally: it was originally planned to put the pipeline through Bismarck, ND. Why didn't they? They thought it too dangerous for the town, and that it might poison their water.

So when people say this isn't based on racism, think again. Racism is a huge part of this.

Stay together! Be strong! Do what you can!

My Lucky Day

The dogs and I walk all the time. On the sunny side of the street there are thick patches of clover beloved of bees, and dogs. I don't know why, but I've always loved clover. As a child I remember lying in the clover and watching bees doing their busy work. I was good at relaxing and being perfectly still. Those clever little buzzers were so busy with the flowers that I was able  watch, close up, exactly what they did.

We don't have many honey bees in Alaska. Those few beekeepers we have provide all the honeybees there are up here. We do have some very nice bumblebees, though. Ole was making a habit of sniffing bumblebees as they worked the flowers. He never got stung, and I wonder if he just liked the way the wings went bzzt on his nose.

A few weeks ago I started glancing at the clover as the dogs and I walked, and I found a four-leaf clover. Great, I thought, I'll press that, laminate it into a card and send it to my granddaughter, Piper. So I pressed it into Sons and Lovers, a horrid book by DH Lawrence. (I actually threw this book across the room. Yes, the writing is good but the story is maddeningly awful. But it's thick, so it makes a great plant-pressing book.)

Today we were walking and the dogs were snurfling some clover and alder, and I thought, I'll just take this chance to look for another four-leaf clover so my other granddaughter, Piper's brand new sister Freyja, could have one, too. And then I found this! If I find a six-leaf clover I'll let you know.

It makes me wonder, if a five-leaf clover is luckier than one with four leaves, would a six-leafer be half again as lucky as a four-leaf? Would an eight-leaf clover be twice as lucky?

 

 

Fairbanks Hits Pollen Record: Excuse Me While I Grab My Face

Fairbanks is famous again. Yes, folks, we are Number ONE! We have broken the World's Pollen Count set in Sweden some years ago. A "high" pollen count is around 475. Just a few days ago the birch pollen count hit 4,439. Even people without allergies were wondering why their eyes were feeling so strange, and people with allergies had some eyes swell shut completely.

I had all kinds of cute and endearing dog things I was going to write about, but since I have to exert IRON WILL not to grab my nose, eyes, and face in general every ten seconds, I will keep my hands on the keyboard and keep typing. Except when I'm putting in two kinds of eye drops and using various inhalers.

This all started with the Winter That Never Was. Last winter we hit 20 below once. That's it. No 30 below, no week of 40 below and certainly no weekends of 50 below. No, we stayed above zero almost the entire winter. To top that off, we had a huge snow dump at the beginning of winter, and then little to no snow the rest of the winter. By the time it did snow again, months had gone by and people rejoiced that it was snowing!

It was exceedingly strange and creepy not to have a normal, Alaskan winter. Some people were really digging it, saying, "It's so nice and warm!" Of course to Alaskans 20 above is warm. Heck, zero is warm! But I only wore my Michelin Tire Man Down Jacket about ten times last winter. My Fall coat got the most use, and sometimes I just wore some shirts and a sweatshirt. Pussy willows were out in March. March. MARCH!

By April 26, the snow was gone, and we had leaves on the trees. The National Weather Service announced that April 26 was officially Green Up. This is two weeks to a month earlier than usual, and yet another record for Green Up in Fairbanks. It's the earliest it has ever been!

Within a week the Allergy Season From Hell exploded. There is gorgeous weather out there and if the trees would stop having sex we could enjoy it!

I have allergies and asthma. Yet I'm doing pretty well, as long as I can keep my hands off my itchy places. Eye drops keep me from waking up in the morning with gashes on my face from trying to claw my itchy eyes out while I sleep. Seriously not making this up!

I have a friend whose lungs are itching. I've had that before. So if you see someone slapping themselves in the chest and ribs,  and scratching in the armpits like a chimpanzee, you can conclude that a) Fairbanks people are crazy (possibly true), and b) they have birch allergy.

It makes me understand dogs better, too, because here I am, sticking my finger in my ear and clicking my throat, which in the end makes my throat more sore, but sort of feels better and why the hell do I feel compelled to put my finger in my EAR? How many times have you seen dogs trying to put their paws in their ears, or making weird throat noises and you never, ever figure it out? It's got to be something like this. (So see? I did get some dog stuff in there!)

So here's my allergy survival plan:

I have asthma and allergies so, as per doctor's orders,

1. Zyrtec and Singular every single day. I want to take more Zyrtec but resist, resist until I can ask the doctor if it's safe!
2. Advair twice a day.
3. Flonase daily until I figure out that it either doesn't work or gives me nosebleeds or turns my nose into a <insert comical side-effect object here>
4. Stuff I figured out works: Antihistamine eye drops, then wait a few seconds, then the gel eye drops (Refresh, etc) and that seems to keep the antihistamine drops from drying out my eyes, plus makes the former work longer.
5. Every time I go outside I: a) wear a baseball hat, b) wash my hands, face and especially my eyelashes and eyebrows in cool water.
6. Wash my hands after petting the dogs. When they go outside I think they become Blimps Of Pollen. And washing the dogs is NOT an option.
7. I cut my bangs short. They were long enough to cover my eyebrows and artistically, if raggedly hang around my eyes, which means they were also filtering pollen right INTO my eyes. Short bangs are now cool.
8. I quit wearing scents in the summer because they tend to attract mosquitoes. And I'm too busy to do the makeup thing except for some lipstick. But the last thing I'd do is put mascara on. Sticky mascara, and sticky foundation...I can just imagine how my pollen would stick to you!
9. I have a light shirt for going outside that I put on, and then take off as soon as I get inside. That way I'm not wearing pollen-covered clothing all day.
10. Things I am considering: a) Buying some swim goggles to wear when I go outside. Seriously. b) Getting out my particulate mask with the two cans on it, that I use when apocalyptic fires come to call. Only downside to wearing goggles and the particulate mask (are you my Mummy?) is that I might feel like I have an alien facehugger on my head. Also, when the mosquitoes get bad, wearing a head net on top of those might bring Men in Black to take me away.

If I see another Alien in Fairbanks I'll know I've helped someone today.