Inktrails from Alaska

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?

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?

 

 

We Are Good. We Want a Cookie.

 

Have You Turned Alaskan?

There are ways you know you have turned Alaskan. For one thing, when the weather goes strange on you, it can be perturbing. For Fairbanksans, a winter where the temperature stays above zero most of the time creeps us out. It's not natural. It's just plain wrong. We have had perhaps five days total where it was -20, and nothing colder than that, here, in a place where you can expect at least a week or more of -40, and some weekends of -50 or more. Not this winter. The squirrels never hibernated, and the birches never dropped seed. Sure, it was nice to just stick boots and coat and hat and gloves but stay in my pajamas underneath when I went out to walk the dogs. But it was weird to do that all winter. Or should I say "winter."

So there is one sign of being an Alaskan: you go out in your pajamas to walk the dogs when it's 20 degrees out.

Being obsessed with weather is another Alaskan trait. Sure, people talk about the weather everywhere, but up here we can go on for hours.

I'm a real Alaskan because I can step outside with two dogs on a leashes, while wearing pajamas and boots (and no coat, maybe a hat, probably not) and plug my car in while they go pee. And not get all tangled up in leashes and plug-in cord! That last is the real accomplishment! While I'm out there I can tell the temperature by the way my plug-in cord behaves. Then I can check my outdoor thermometer to see if I am right. I'm always right.

Live here long enough and you'll become a Salmon Snob. Copper River Red salmon is, in my book, the most delicious of all, though I've been told king salmon is even better. I have not had the luck to taste a king, but you won't see me getting excited over a silver. When the Salmon Bake down at Alaskaland started using silvers, I was angry and insulted!

When it finally snowed after around two months of weird winter and no snow, it made me unreasonably super happy. I posted on Facebook and Twitter about how happy I was about the snow. Out of ten people I asked, nine replied that they felt the same way. Most people outside of Alaska would think we were all crazy that we loved it to snow in March. My dogs were certainly overjoyed!

A given: in your freezer you have salmon, halibut, and moose, all wild caught/hunted. Bonus points for caribou, grouse, and beaver tail. And I'm not a hunter. People are generous and share. It's what we do.

I have at least six coats, three of which I should donate or give away because they have so much dog hair in the lining that it's like an extra bunch of insulation. The two coats I use are several years old and the zippers have become contrary, and tend to unzip from the bottom if I don't do it just right. I spent three weeks fixing the zipper on my biggest, warmest down jacket by a combination of using various pliers and other implements to squeeze the zipper parts back into some semblance of usability. Nothing would work until I added duct tape to the bottom zip holder to keep it in the right place.

I need that jacket! It's a survival issue! Parkas cost at least $200 and putting in a new zipper costs at least that much. I've resolved to buy what I've wanted for years, a Canada Goose parka. I think they cost about $600 now. Unless we start having stupid winters all the time. Then I can wear layers of flannel/wool or my crappy-but-expensive Columbia jacket. You know that commercial where someone is dunked in ice water and then they get "warmed up" by putting on the Columbia jacket with the shiny lining? Total crap. That coat is only good down to about zero, if that. If you aren't warm already, there is no way it would warm you up. Oh, and the zipper on that one has gone south, too. Definitely time for a new coat.

Gear: you'll buy it, lots of it, boots and gloves and hats and scarves and balaclavas, snow pants, carhartt everything and yes, coats and jackets and you'll have serious opinions about them! You'll have Stuff I Wear On The Snow Machine, and Stuff I Wear For Work, and Stuff I Wear for Skiing (or skijoring), and then there is the Emergency Clothing box in the car.

Another way you'll know you are Alaskan is you'll have a tiny house with way too much stuff in it. Accept it. Zen is not going to work in Alaska. Did you SEE the list of clothing above?

There are lots of key things that Alaskans say or do or have, but this isn't meant to be a comprehensive list. Just a Sunday meandering on the fact that I never want to move away from Alaska. When I went to New Mexico to visit my kids, I had this strange urge to wear my snow boots on the plane. I should have done it. When I got there it started snowing, snowed almost three feet and we were snowed in for four days. How did I know?

 

Now You Can Buy Art Prints From Alaska

Announcing "Alaska Different Prints," a new site devoted to my art prints that aren't the usual big game fare. Oh sure, eventually there will be a moose or two, but I see beauty in some of the smallest things, and often in woman's Best Friend.

All prints are original work, printed on letter size heritage quality photo paper and mailed via Priority Mail. Realize that even Priority Mail takes five days to get to the Lower 48 from Alaska. I'll cease mailing orders from Dec 19 to Jan 30 to visit with my children, so the sooner, the better, if you want one. Cost is $40 and includes free shipping to anywhere in the USA. Folks in other countries will have to pay for the postage. If you are in Canada it won't be much more, other countries email me. (My email is on the site.)

Enjoy! Alaska Different Prints

Dogs Taking Their Jobs Seriously

I've had mostly smart dogs. I've had some average, but trainable dogs, and I have two right now who are what I affectionately call Inconveniently Smart Dogs.

Sofia gets up on my desk chair and puts her paws on the keyboard. When I do floor exercises she gets down on the floor and tries to do them, too. But this isn't a story about Sofia.

Ole takes his job as a therapy dog seriously. Most dogs need a job, and his is a) barking once every time he hears my neighbor slam her car door, and b) visiting people, doing tricks for them, and letting them pet him.

He will do this whether it's a therapy dog situation or not, which is why he is such a great therapy dog in general. When Sofia was being worked on at the vet clinic, Ole and I went to the waiting room, and before long, every single person, employee, customer, whomever, had received a good amount of dog therapy, plus other people were starting to have him do tricks.

Today was the Raven Jam, a community jam I started at our local retirement home. The place, coincidentally, where Ole has visited a total of TWICE in about four years. But an Elkhound never forgets.

The jam is two hours long, and the dogs wait in the car. They have a nice dog area in the back of my Flex. After the jam today I knew that both of them would appreciate a little walk outside to stretch legs and go pee. I always grab Sofia first, since she is a Houdini Husky, albeit at 15 she can still go like the wind if she feels like it. Ole is generally the good dog who waits a second for me to grab their leashes, and then they both jump out and all is well.

Today opened the car's hatch, grabbed Sofia as usual and before I could even take half a breath Ole was out like a shot!

The place is like a park, with snow (which Ole adores) and several acres of woods, and a very busy road not too far away. But where does Ole go?  Straight into the retirement home and within seconds the automatic doors open and shut and I know he's gone in there to To His Job! I called out, "Don't worry, he's a therapy dog, he won't hurt anyone!"

 

Ole at Read to the Dogs Day, at Barnes and Noble

I had Sofia out on a leash already, and she's not a therapy dog, so I was lucky that a friend of mine was able to run in there and try to catch up with him.

She found him visiting people in the dining room. No surprise there! No one was upset, least of all Ole. I guess he came right to her, even though she didn't know the magic word. ("Cookie.")

 

 

 

 

 

Live Bear Cam at Brooks Falls, Alaska

There is still very little night here in Alaska, so you can tune in to this live bear cam and watch grizzlies fishing at Katmai National Park.

This is my favorite web cam, and my favorite way to see bears up close!

Explore.org Brooks Falls Bear Cam

Enjoy!

What a day!

Teaching Young Native Fiddlers, Inc.​, then lunch with a friend. I went home but wasn't there long when Scott called. He'd given his cat too much insulin and she was crashing, was dying! This little kitty is 17...and diabetic.

So he starts trying to give her some honey, which revives her a little but after much discussion and me calling two different vet hospitals, we take her to the E-Vet. I drive all the way to Ester because his car is out of gas. It was a good thing we did! Her sugar was 21, and it should be 100!

So the vet wanted to keep her for three hours to work on her and help her get back to normal, so Scott and I went and ate dinner, and then did what any Fairbanksan does when you are stuck in town and don't have anything in particular to do...we hung out in Fred Meyer. Yes, Fred Meyer is the Social Hub of Fairbanks!

As Scott said, "Well, there must be *something* you need, right?"

After about an hour at Freddie's the vet called and said she was good to go home.

We picked her up. As we walked back to the car with the cat in the carrier, I accidentally pushed the OPEN HATCH button instead of the Unlock Doors button and suddenly both Sofia and Ole are out, just yards away from an extremely busy street. Ole came right to us, all busy busy and happy, and Scott walked up to Sofia and grabbed her leash because, like any old lady, she REALLY had to pee!

This whole time it's raining, and the temperature is iffy. Are we going to have black ice and me with miles and miles to drive? Well, it's rain most of the way, to and from Ester, and as I head to Goldstream it turns into Snow Blechh, but it's not too bad and I made it home just fine.

But the weirdness with animals isn't over yet. When I walk the very good dogs (who didn't even make a peep even though there was a CAT in the car meOWing pitifully) after their dinner, Ole goes into the woods (they are on long leads) and does his bidness, but decides to try to come back to me via the wrong side of the tree. I'm calling him, calling him, it's pitch dark and snow blecching outside and suddenly I'm holding a leash with a harness attached and no dog!

Of course Ole is dancing around next to me all silly and happy. So I snap the leash to his collar and a very long day is finally over. And I have very, very good dogs!

Long Term Healing in Adopted Dogs

I am in shock.

Last night I made myself a lovely T-bone steak for dinner. While I cooked it I also had the undivided attention of my adopted Norwegian Elkhound, Ole. Sofia, my other dog, has always respected my food and would never dream of counter surfing...until Ole taught her how to do it.Yes, at age 13 Sofia finally learned to counter surf. Thanks, Ole.

I carried my dinner plate upstairs, put it on the TV tray and settled down to enjoy some TV and some food. Of course Ole was right there, watching, watching, watching...

When Ole first came to live with me, what was it? In 2009? Anyway, it was years ago. When he first came to live with me he pulled an Elkhound Maneuver I just had to admire. It was the same situation but it was a hamburger patty instead of a steak, and some vegetables. I was upstairs, watching TV, eating dinner, when Ole suddenly jumped up, barked very loudly, and then thundered down the stairs. THERE IS SOMETHING OUT THERE, QUICK, GO LOOK, he said. So Sofia and I jumped up, ran downstairs to look out the front door and Ole ran back up the stairs and ate my dinner.

I never let him pull that one again, though he did try! I realized I would never be safe from his marauding so I built habits that included putting any and all food very high up, out of elkhound reach.

But we all make mistakes. Last night I had to use the bathroom, which is downstairs. I left my plate upstairs and while downstairs got sidetracked onto the interenet. For an hour. Or more.

Starting to feel hungry again and knowing I hadn't finished quite all of the steak, I went into the kitchen to my usual "safe" place to get my plate and realized, horrified, that I'd left it upstairs, well within reach of Ole Ginsu Mouth! A steak, and what was worse, a cooked, delicious, dangerously splintery BONE.

Sick and with visions of hours at the e-vet and a huge vet bill in my head, I ran up the twisty stairs to find Ole sitting on his bed, licking his lips nervously.

Uh oh.

I scanned the floor for a super clean plate. No plate. I looked at Ole. He licked his lips again. I lifted my eyes to the TV tray.....and there was my plate, steak intact, UNTOUCHED and even unLICKED!

I checked him over. Was he ill? Cold nose, just a little nervous...WOW! He chose not to eat my food! And such high-value, yummy food that I'll say it again, I'm in shock!

It has been years, as I said before, since I adopted Ole. He was in the dog pound down in Oregon and we have no idea what his life must have been before I got him. He's sweet, submissive (but has elkhound stubborness if you train incorrectly, no force methods work beautifully, force methods fail), but a little head shy. And smart, smart, smart. Plus I suspect was raised and held in a crate most of his life, because he will "hold it" for twelve hours at a time.

Whatever he's been through, it's taken him this long to finally adopt ME. By not eating my food he told me, clearly, "I respect you. You are my leader."  Don't get me wrong, he's been my dog all along, but it has been a long road to this day, where he has decided that we belong together. There has been a subtle shift in his attitude over the last several months. He looks me in the eyes more, he lets me kiss him on the nose (normally he averts his head and I don't push it).

Not that I'm ever going to assume he won't eat my food. He IS an elkhound, after all. But the point is taken: Ole has decided that I am really his person.

For all of you who have adopted dogs as adults: you never know how long it will take for a dog to heal from whatever happened to them before. If it were a person, you wouldn't expect him or her to become psychologically healthy after say, six months, if he/she had gone through some kind of severe abuse or neglect, would you? I can say with total surety that child abuse is the "gift" that keeps on giving. It has affected my entire life.

I'm so glad that Ole has been able to feel safe with me.

And yes, he got little bits of steak to eat last night as a reward! Good dog, Ole!

People Being Stupid with Dogs

I really should start meditating again. I'm all wound up because of my recent visit to the laundromat.

I could go on and on about laundromats (and have before, undoubtedly) but every visit has a different theme. This time the theme was dogs. That, and always hitting every single traffic light all day long. But that's just being Cursed For A Day. We all have those days. You know, Mercury in Retrograde and all that.

I do think Mercury is in retrograde because one of my dryers would not turn on, even though it ate my token. The attendant got another token and put it in and twisted the knob and the dryer went on. "You just have to do it like that, real fast," she said. Okay. Well. I did it exactly like that, but it didn't work for me. I think it knows her better.

I turn around and there is a darling little teeny tiny shihzypoodlything. He's got his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth. He must have weighed all of three or four pounds soaking wet.

I asked his owner if I could give him a dog cookie. She thought I meant a people cookie until I showed her that yes, I carry dog cookies in my pocket. She said he might not eat it because his jaw is deformed. Poor little guy. He carried it around and poked at it with his nose but he didn't even try to eat it.

While my clothes were drying and she was folding hers, I asked where she got him.

"Well, a friend of a neighbor was breeding them, and the female had six litters in a row and that was too much, so they decided they'd better separate the pair."

"That male was the stud? With his jaw deformity?" I couldn't disguise my shock. She shook her head and said, "Yes, and they were selling the puppies! They have some cute name for them..."

"Oh great, designer dog stuff too?" Facepalm. (I did, I did a facepalm.)

Oh yes. And so they told me I could keep him on a time-share basis, as long as they could have him back to, you know..." She raised her eyebrows.

It was at this point I said that I needed to go check on my clothes and got out of there for a few minutes. The lady with the little dog disapproved of the backyard puppymill as much as I did, and said she didn't see how she could ever give him back. I hope she doesn't. And I hope she gets his little nuts removed, too!

So while outside to get a breath of fresh air and to rid myself of the horrid puppymill story (in my own town!) I heard a dog barking. And barking. And barking. You know that desperate bark?

I looked across the way to the Natural Foods Co-op and the dog barking was coming from there. I crossed the street and sure enough, there was a dog in a car, with the window rolled down about three inches, barking and getting more and more desperate. Last time I'd checked the temperature it was 83. Not good. In fact, I'd taken my dogs to my studio to hang out while I did my laundry, because there is an airconditioner there. The house at home was really hot, I figured they'd be better off cooling it at my studio.

The dog wasn't fainting, but it had already been about ten minutes and in another ten it was going to be about 120 in that car, which was parked in full sun.

I went into the Co-op and told an employee that there was a dog in a hot car and gave her the license plate number. It took them another fifteen minutes to get the guts up to say something over the PA. I waited outside while chatting with some nice folks who I think were waiting for a cab.

About five minutes later an older woman came out, looked at her dog and started coming back into the store. I yelled across the parking lot that the temperature was probably about 120 in there. She insisted her dog was "fine." I asked her to please turn on the car and start the air conditioning. She refused, and said that she keeps a "sharp eye" on her AND that she had only been in the story for ten minutes. Which was a lie, of course.

I came *this* close to calling the cops. Even if your dog isn't passed out in the last stages of heat stroke it doesn't mean they aren't suffering and getting sick!

About five minutes later the woman came back to her car and drove away. I know, because I was watching from the laundromat. I was going to call the cops if another ten minutes had gone by.

I think she was embarrassed, and will think twice about doing something like this again. She was clearly richer than most and certainly had a safe place to leave her dog at home next time she needs to go into the store when it is hot. For "only" ten minutes.

On my way home my thermometer read 88°.