Inktrails from Alaska

Dangerous Alaskan Animals

Animals don't have to be grizzly bears, or moose to be dangerous. Sure, you want to watch out for the big ones, and you certainly don't want to hit a moose, caribou or bear with your car. The moose never wins that confrontation, but sometimes the people don't survive, either.

Consider the lowly mosquito. You can drive into and through millions of them with no effect except a really messy vehicle, and you have to get out and clean the windows periodically. But how many times must I almost drive off the road because I'm trying to whack the little sucker? I'm an idiot, of course. I can ignore a mosquito when they are batting against the side window, I can ignore them when they are behind me and I can't see them, but if they are right in my viewing area they are dead meat. Unless I crash while smashing them. Then we are all dead meat.

It's been super hot here in the Interior, have you heard? Wearing long pants into town is not gonna happen. I'm wearing shorts because there are no mosquitoes in town. They are all waiting at my house to get the drop on me when I arrive at home.

I'm not making this up.

I just got back from town, started to get out of the car and WHAM a mosquito flew into my EYE. So of course in reaction to this I banged my knee on the car frame (emitting the appropriate words) and managed to stagger to the front door and slap about twenty mosquitoes off my arms and legs and feet and then fall into the house and slam the door.

Five minutes of further slapping and swearing and I'm mosquito-free. For now.

Of course it's too hot to leave my dogs in the car. They have to come into the house. They can't stay out there. I'm tough, I say. I can take it, I say. I'm an Alaskan, I say. I don't have to put on long pants. I can do this! I put down my purse and packages and prepare to dash to the car and get the dogs.

Only to see, just as I reach the back of the car, a HUGE hornet zoom up and start "smelling" the hatch that I have to open to get the dogs out. I wait. Doing the Slap Dance. Hornet is still sniffing sniffing. I know better than to wave at a hornet. Waiting and slapping, dancing, going ARRRGGHH and SHIT and DAMMIT and still the hornet is fixated on the SUV door hatch. Wait! It's landing and....trying to crawl under the crack of the hatch. Oh God.

RACE back into the house. Grab the household cleaner (Fabuloso!) in a spray bottle and sprayed that little fucker! He went, WHOA, what the heck? And fell off the car, got up and zoomed BACK TO THE CAR and I just let him have it a couple more times and he FINALLY zoomed away. Meanwhile my arms and legs are getting whiter from the amount of blood I'm losing to mosquitoes...

Grab the dogs and RAN back into the house. Smashed a lot of mosquitoes. I'm sure there will be more wandering around the house that I'll have to get.  I hate those little suckers!

If you wait around long enough I'll tell you what it's like to be in a vehicle with two predatory dogs and one very angry hornet.

Midnight Sun Festival 2013

As I finished my second cup of coffee Monday afternoon, and geared up to unload the van, thoughts of the previous 36 hours rumbled around my brain.

Every year we have a massive festival here in Fairbanks to celebrate our almost 24 hours of sunlight that peaks on the summer solstice. You can go to a high place and watch the sun go around in circles, if you like. It doesn't really set. We have a sort of twilight/early evening type of "night" for a few hours and then we are back to daylight.

The celebration starts with a midnight baseball game on Friday night, then a Midnight Sun Run on Saturday night, and on Sunday the huge, crazy, noisy, chaotic spectacle that is the Midnight Sun Festival.

The entire downtown area is blocked off, stages are erected, banks of port-a-potties trucked in, tourists, villagers, vendors, musicians, artists, descend to do their thing. And about every third person has a dog! I always take Ole dog with me and he usually has a great time getting petted.

On Saturday I picked up the UHaul cargo van, and with the help of a young man got most of it loaded. Of course I forgot the sand boxes, which are very heavy. Later on I lugged them into the van one at a time and carefully slid them in. These are kitty litter buckets filled with sand, and often topped off with a few inches of water, too, from all the snow melt. I pour out the water and end up with buckets that weigh anywhere from 30 to 40 lbs. These get tied to the canopy so that a big wind won't blow the whole thing away. This is a definite possibility, especially when you have big flags tied to all over the tent! Wings, anyone?

I got everything done by 11pm on Saturday night, a real record. This included sandwiches, so that I wouldn't be living on elephant ears and ice cream all day. Plus a huge jug of ice water. When it is 90 degrees and there are thousands of people, the port-a-potties get rather, shall we say, unpleasant? Add in the drunk people and, well, blarg. So the last thing I needed was to drink a lot of caffeine.

I wish I could have run around gawking at all the dancing, gymnastics, fools and dogs running around but I was stuck in my booth for the duration. I got out to use the potty twice, and they were surprisingly clean, or I lucked out. I walked Ole to "his" tree four or five times, and we visited the Yukon Quest log cabin once, where Ole did tricks and got treats.

The weather was gorgeous! Blue skies and some lovely, puffy cumulous clouds in the distance. The wind came up and cooled us, but don't get me wrong, it was bloody hot! Still, when you live with -40 during the winter, as I do, you may revel in the extreme heat of 90–100 degrees! Enjoy it while you have it!

We were busy, the wonderful teenagers who were helping me were sad that I couldn't use and pay them more. Ah well. One of my other students, a GI, came and stayed all day just to be helpful. Thanks, Steve! It was so nice to have so much help.

When I wasn't busy selling things or running Ole through tricks, I got to watch the moving circus as it flowed by my tent. Oddly shaped people with oversized rears, little kids "killing" each other with inflatable medieval weapons, or one lady who I will never forget who was wearing a T-shirt from a local gym: she was really, truly built like the mythical brick shithouse. She had no neck! She was a GIANT SQUARE! She was followed by her husband, who looked like a giant bubble. I was looking to see if she had kid, because if she had, he would have been Sponge Bob for sure.

There was the usual stream of young, white males who asked for "rebel" flags. No, I don't carry those, I'd say. They'll have them at the fair, I'd say. No, I don't sell flags of hate, I didn't say. But they knew. Oh they knew. Because one of those young men came back later and said, "I'm sorry for asking for a rebel flag. Sorry." Now that has never happened before!

It was the doggiest Midnight Sun Festival EVER. Ole dog got so many treats for "No Bark" that I thought I wouldn't have to feed him dinner. At one point we were so totally surrounded, five or six dogs on each of the four sides of the tent, that I saw him sigh and then he laid down under one of the tables. Poor guy, between the heat and the hundreds of dogs, it plumb wore him out. Next year I will leave him at home. The last few years it's been fine, but this year it was exhausting.

There were some lovely dogs, some lovely, smart, together dog owners, and there were some really awful people who shouldn't have kids OR dogs. YOu know, the guys all covered in tattoos and who were being led by grotesquely-bred pit bulls that they put on chains heavy enough to tow a coal car with. Spiked collars, and little control. This is not the same as the nice family pitty that was across the way, to whom a brought a cup so the owner could give her a drink. She was trained, polite, sweet and "her" kid obviously loved her. Good parents, good kid, good dog.

It's not the dog, folks. It's the owners. WHY why why why WHY do people bring unsocialized, unfriendly dogs who BITE dogs or people or both---WHY do people bring these animals to a festival that has thousands of people and other dogs? (You know I can't go to an event like this with all these dogs without going into a dog rant, don't you?) I'm actually going to recommend to the organizers that they ban dogs other than service or therapy dogs. I heard and saw two dog fights, and I'm sure there were many more. It's so stressful for all concerned, especially the dogs. Why do you need to bring your dog to a festival like this, anyway? Well, it's what we do. Fairbanks is a dog town all the way, and that's one of the things I love about it. Were you there? What do you think?

I wish I'd had a chance to see and hear some of the musicians. I've been one of those performers in the past, but not this year. I'm sure there were some great ones. Unfortunately the nearest stage was just far away enough that most of what I could hear was drums and bass and background noise. We were playing the "What Song Is This?" game for a while, just guessing from that.

It was all okay until late evening when a punk bad a la the 70s started up with hoarse screaming (that I hoped was just the fellow"s voice through an effects box) and pounding pounding everything else. Even the Ramones actually sang. I love the Ramones. This was more hard core. I could see the mosh pit in my mind's eye. I wanted to plug my ears. Been there, done that, seriously. But there was no getting away from it, and added to that, the sun was low on the horizon PIERCINGLY BRIGHT into my eyes and there was no way to get away from it. It was agony. The punk band went on for at least an hour. And the sun did NOT set, because, after all, this is Midnight Sun Festival! Between those two things I ended up with a wicked migraine.

Finally it was time to start packing up. My friends started showing up to help me pack up, load up and get outta there.

The cops had all the drunks lined up against a wall and were breathalyzing them in sequence. Volunteers with the festival armed with push brooms spread out in a line and started cheerfully cleaning the plaza. The recycling people picked up all the bottles and cans that folks had put in the correct bins. I washed my face and hands with a wipe and OMG--the dirt!

We weren't allowed to bring the vehicle back in until after midnight. Everything went pretty smoothly, I didn't barf, which was good, and I managed to drive home and feed and walk the dogs, and talk to Bucky Bird, who said, "Rrrrrk," very quietly.

Dogs Who Eat Oranges

I'm not surprised that Ole eats oranges. Ole would eat rocks if I put butter on them. But this whole thing of eating oranges started with Sofia. Yes, Sofia, the husky/coyote dog who is one of the most carnivorous dogs you could imagine.

One day I left some little oranges on the windowsill to keep cool at work. Before the end of the day, Sofia had stolen one and was busy playing with it, and finally killing it and eating it! She peeled it quite deftly, and ate the fruit. She then graciously allowed Ole to eat the peels.

The video here is of the third orange she's eaten. I guess this is her new, fun toy that turns into a snack!

Alaskan Spring: There's No Such Thing

We obsess over "Spring" as no other state in the union does because in no other state does winter last nine months. We don't really have Spring. We have Winter, Summer, and Breakup and Freezeup. There are no early crocuses for us. It's mid-March and I still have at least two feet of snow everywhere. I'm still wearing my winter boots and down jacket.

It's time for it to be over! For one thing, my fingers are starting to poke out of my little red, knit gloves with the texting fingers.

We've had a week of wind, and all the snow is off the trees now. I no longer have to go out with my hood up to avoid a big glob of snow down the back of my neck. Wind in Fairbanks is uncommon and also uncommonly nasty. Today there is yet again wind. Temperature: 1°F. Wind chill: -12°. Looks like I'll be dressing ludicrously puffy again.

It would be nice to see my front step again. And open the gate to the dog yard in both directions and more than just a little 30° swing that allows us to squeeze in and out.

All the snow and ice has melted off my car! Yay! True, there is still one glob gluing the aluminum-covered cardboard onto the front, but if I park facing the sun, that will go, too. As soon as it is regularly above 20° all the time, I can take that sucker off! Plus I can start saving on my electric bill by not having to plug in the car, too. We still aren't hitting that yet. I'm getting impatient. Everyone in Fairbanks is getting impatient. 

We have about twelve hours of light a day now! Mind you, the angle of the sun as it grazes the top of the world here means that compared to you in lower latitudes, our sun is wimpy. But for us, it's glorious!

Another Rite of Spring is having the hard pack (snow) removed from ones driveway. This will happen soon, and will result in mountains of SNIRT (mixed snow and dirt) everywhere. The dogs love this. It always turns into a huge sniff-fest, as dirt that has been under the snow for nine months is suddenly revealed.

This is from a couple years ago. I'm hoping I'll have huge piles of snirt sometime this week. Ole is doing his best to remove the hard pack from the dog yard.

When the snow goes away we get to revisit Fall, and see all the dead plants and even some of the Fall colors. The trees will be bare, and everything will be rather brownish-red. We'll be able to look into each others' yards and see all the junk the snow was covering up: cars, trucks, wrecks, garbage of all sorts, lawn furniture, toys (of all sizes) and so on.

The retreat of the snow is hard on my dogs, as they live for winter and love snow, both playing in it, on it, and through it. And peeing on it. We are approaching the season where they frantically search for a bit of snow to pee on. It takes them a while to get used to dirt again, and it is funny to watch Sofia find a tiny spot of snow and try to fit herself on it just to pee.

When the snow goes away all of Ole's fur rubbings on the fence are taken away by birds, who then build fuzzy nests.

Unfortunately, retreat of the snow also means emergence of the all the poop that has been frozen all winter. I don't want to elaborate further.

Right now people are looking up, squinting at the branches of their trees and saying, "Is that a bud?" It's not, not yet. But soon! One of the most exciting seasonal events here is Green Up. One day all the trees are bare, with tiny green buds and the next day BOING, and we have LEAVES! And once again our junk is hidden from the neighbors.

You could say that for the 6 hours that it takes for all the trees to burst into leaves, we have Spring. But once the leaves are out it's Summer, baby!

But I'm getting ahead of myself here. It still looks like this out there. Sigh.

Spring: Incoming!

Some of you may not know this, but huskies that live in cold climates hang onto their coats all winter and don't shed. Sofia has done a superlative job of not shedding this winter, something I appreciate greatly as Ole is a Shed-O-Matic dog whose goal is to cover every square inch of everything in the entire world with his hair. A little relief from shedding is much appreciated, Sofia!

However there are now over eight hours of sunlight a day and wham! Sofia is starting to shed. Soon we'll have the Fluffy Pantaloons of Spring, something I look forward to every year. Not to mention Dog Plucking Season, also great fun but only tolerated by Sofie, and if you know her, don't try it. I'm the only one allowed to pluck her.

So the very first, earliest sign of Spring has arrived! Sofia slowly turning in to Buffalo Dog!

The second sign is raven mating season, and more importantly, the fact that they are making the Water Dripping noise. Mind you, nothing is melting, nor is it scheduled to melt for at least a month (or more). But it's close, I can tell and so can the ravens.

The third sign is that I can take non-blurry action shots of the dogs with my iPhone.

This also illustrates that it's warm enough to play outside, rather than being -40. I took these pictures today and it was about 0°

We've got solar gain now, which means that some of the strength of the sun is coming back and lingering, being absorbed by the landscape. On the one hand this means the ice that covers the roads (from a rotten freezing rain episode earlier in the winter) is periodically melting on top and getting way too slickety-boo and causing the unaware and just plain stupid to drive right off the road into the ditch, or, unfortunately, into oncoming traffic.

On the other hand, it means that I could park my car with the sun shining right on the back end of it, go eat lunch and come out and take half an inch of ice off my bumper and toss it away! Yes!

My yard still looks like this, it's true. And I love the way snow is so clean and doesn't muck up the house the way dirt and especially mud does. Truth be told, we don't have Spring. We go straight from Winter into Summer. Still, I'm glad it will give way to the green summer not too long from now.

Day 5: One American-Made Gift a Day

 

Christmas presents aren't just for people. Your dog wants a present, too! Because of the toxicity of Chinese toys and treats, it's absolutely great to find a place that pays attention to the safety of the treats they sell. Not only that, but Funtime Dog Shop is a non-profit pet store that allows you to choose which dog rescue will get the profits from your purchase!

I always choose John Nelsen Moosedog Recuse as the recipient of my dollars, but there are many rescues to choose from.

Here are a couple treats as examples.

Ole and Sofia LOVE these, and when you compare the ingredients to Greenies, you'll never buy Greenies again.

The same folks make "Belly Bones" which have probiotics and help keep your dog from that rumbly tumbly (as I call it in my house).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We are going to try these!

Venison Joe's Snacks are bursting with flavor and highly palatable to your pup! Made with a single source protein, Venison, the recipe is not only healthy but mild & easy on sensitive stomachs.

* Elk Antler as a natural source of calcium, glucosamine & chondroitin.

* Made with natural U.S. Elk meat & antlers

* Smaller pieces that easily break into smaller training size bites.

* No wheat, corn or soy.

* No artificial added ingredients.

Made in the USA

Sofia and Athena are Twelve Today

Twelve years ago I was a landlord. The tenant had a beautiful red and white husky, and her name was Blue because of her eyes. Unfortunately this tenant let her gorgeous purebred in season Siberian husky run loose in the Manzano Mountains near Albuqeruque.

Not being all that great with dogs, she couldn't figure out why her dog was eating so much. A week before the puppies arrived she called me to tell me she'd just figured out why Blue was eating so much.

Six weeks later my tenant was at her wits end and wanted all the puppies GONE, they were driving her crazy! So Ole and I went over there with an eye to bringing home a puppy, and to help find homes for the other five or six. What we found were some big, yellow puffballs that somewhat resembled tribbles, and two excited black/tan/white feral-looking puppies who ran right up to us all ready to go somewhere, do something, yes yes yes, where we going? Well, that was easy. We went home with those little wild things.

Sofia and Athena are twins. They are nearly identical. Their tails curl opposite directions. Sofia's coat is a little darker. Other than that, you can't tell them apart. We had to put different colored collars on them or we'd never have known for sure which was which.

Athena lives with my son, Ole, down in Albuquerque. I miss her. Sofia still remembers her name and I'm sure remembers what she looks like.

I can't believe they are both 12 years old today! I'm sure she'll live many more years. I just love her to pieces.

I'll post a video of Sofia later, so you can see how she even fooled the vet into thinking she was seven, not twelve.

Until then, here are some more pictures of my most lovely queen dog. As with all the pictures on my blog, please click to see them full size.

 

 

Sofia and her best friend, Ole, the Norwegian Elkhound

Breakfast in bed. My bed.

See what I killed for you? No. You can't have it.

Summertime on the balcony. Whiffing for moose?

A couple weeks ago.

About a week ago.

Happy Snow Dogs and a Photo Blooper

We got snow and the dogs are happy again. Summer was way, way too wet. My dogs hate mud, I hate mud, they hate rain, and I hate rain, too. The snow makes all of us happy.

As you can see, with all the dog play, the snow has gotten mixed up with the leaves underneath. We want more snow NOW!

We all know that Sofia is gorgeous. She's so pretty. Ole is the purebred, noble and goofy Norwegian Elkhound and I love him dearly. So does Sofie. But Sofia, half Siberian, half who knows what, is so stunning that I can't help taking pictures of her, even after almost twelve years!

Sometimes when I'm taking pictures, there is that other element that walks across the background...

...and dang it!

Still Snowy Up Here

This morning I checked the forecast, which calls for temperatures above freezing for the first time in months. Even better, it calls for temperatures above zero at night. It looks like we are heading into Break Up at last.

This morning the dogs sat and watched through the trees as my neighbor used his front-end loader to rip up the hard pack in his lumber yard. Yes, I have dogs who like to watch heavy equipment. They've learned to associate Big Yellow Iron with Scott, my former Boyfiend who is still a good friend. They seem to think that Scott is driving every dump truck, is riding every grader, and expect him to come ruffle their ears every time they hear the diesel engines.

My whole yard is still white. But there's only about 6 inches of snow left on my roof. I don't have to plug my car in anymore. It's supposed to hit around 50 today. It's still around 20 when I get up in the morning. Which is better than last month, when it was -20 every morning. It's still light at 10 at night now, WHEEE! Midnight sun, here we come!

So before it's all melted, here are some pictures of the last couple months of winter. Click on the pictures to see larger versions of them!

Ole says, "This is MY hole to roll in!"

 

The fascination of a moose antler. This was before it was totally buried in the snow. Right now there is little of it showing above the two feet of hard pack in the back yard.

All that's left of the monkey. Creepy, hunh?

Alaska trash cans wear hats.

 

Fresh moose tracks. Sofie likes.

 

My yard is a moose highway. See previous posts to see the moose.

Not only did we have lots of really cold (-50) weather this winter, but we got dumped on pretty good, much to the joy of the dogs. This is Norwegian Elkhound heaven.

Trying to catch some sun!

As the winter progressed, the snow started crawling down off the trees.

Except when it waterfalled off trees. That was a day I kept my hood up.

The Toyota. Believe it or not, I'd been keeping it scraped off. But winter buried it anyway.

More Moose highway. Yes, those "trails" are moose tracks.

About midwinter this stump had a good hat of snow.

As the sun started coming back, its hat got a little twisted.

A couple weeks ago I took this picture, where my stump's toque looked pretty darned precarious. It was gone when I got home from work.

As it warms up, heavy duty flannel-lined Carhartts give way to.....goth pajamas. It was 20 above that day.

Now that the snow was off the trees I could take my hood down.

Ole does this no matter what the temperature is. He leaves generous fur donations to the local birds.

 

Spring is truly here when you get the hard pack removed from your driveway!

Sofia enjoying the sun, which has come back and is helping melt things!

Can You Find The Moose?

Last night we had to run back into the house when we heard something very large crunching the snow and breaking branches. We RAN back to the house, and the dogs had to hold it until this morning.

I scanned the area for moose this morning, and not seeing any, took the dogs out to their yard and all missions were accomplished, including barking, playing and general running around. We had just gotten into the house when my neighbor texted me that there were two moose in her driveway, which is also my driveway. Within five minutes the mama moose was in my yard, munching on willows. I never even saw the calf.

Then she stepped into the woods, to continue browsing.

Can you find her?

 

Moose think dogs should be destroyed. All dogs are considered "wolves" by moose. And wolves eat lots of calves (as do bears). I've been chased twice by moose while I was with one or both of my dogs.

What's it like to have 2000 lbs. of hairy madness behind you while you run? Well, remember that scene in Jurassic Park where the people are being chased by a T-rex? It's very much like that. Except they had a jeep!