Inktrails from Alaska

Confessions of an Anemic Procrastinator

I can only write this now that I have finally, at last, accomplished the task I least wanted to do. If I hadn't, I wouldn't be writing this, rather, I'd be squirming in guilt and having nightmares about that One Thing that I really, really didn't want to do. And probably watching something from the BBC on Netflix, or playing Castleville.

The more I didn't want to do it, and the guiltier I felt. And the heavier and heavier it got, until That Thing had the mass of a Black Hole. Approximately.

Some of you know me, and may recall that I've been struggling with anemia for a long time. This came to a head when, on Dec. 23, 2011, I was so low on hemoglobin that I was having chest pains and could barely walk across the room. I ended up in the ER getting two units of blood. I could have used three. I was this close to a heart attack.

Having anemia that severe made getting anything done a Major Task. Even just walking up and down my stairs was a Major Task. Cutting toenails, brushing teeth, washing dishes, and squeezing a pimple: there were no Minor Tasks. Everything was so hard to do that it was all a total effort not to fall down. Which would have been embarrassing, plus would have made the dogs worry.

Actually, the dogs were worried, and followed me extremely closely for months. They knew how sick I was before I knew.

So the fact that I made some chicken soup the week before my blood transfusion was a big deal. I had eaten up what meat I wanted on the chicken, and put the bones in a big pot with some carrots, onion and celery and simmered it for a while. And then OOPS time for work! So the pot went into the refigerator to be finished later.

And there it was until today.

You see....at first I forgot about it.

Then about a month later I remembered.

I was amazed for a long time how it wasn't being stinky. Then I forgot about it again.Time went on, and I steadily made progress on feeling a little better and looking less like a vampire.

Towards the beginning of March I realized that it was indeed, very stinky. I began opening and closing the refrigerator door with the least amount of gaping. I bet I saved on electricity.

But it preyed on my mind, as well as my nostrils.

I began being afraid of the refrigerator. The smell wasn't good. My ice cubes tasted funny. I pretty much stopped eating anything out of it other than half and half for my chai.

By the end of March I held my breath when I opened the door. I was beginning to live on Japanese microwaveable noodles, canned baked beans and quesadillas. I did get some frozen chicken sausages out of the freezer, too. That was a good day.

Every single day I was telling myself, "I'm going to take that nasty soup out of the 'fridge." And I'd then go play Castleville, which doesn't even have refrigerators in it.

I know the Stinky Soup appeared in several dreams and it was never good.

Until last night! I dreamed about how EASY it would be to get the pot out, pour the liquid into the toilet, and then put the rest in a big, black plastic bag. Then, one morning while we still have overnight freezing, I'll take it along with some other garbage to the dump. I've already made two trips to the dump this Spring. See how much better I feel?

I woke up this morning feeling energized and ready to deal with the issue. Not that I didn't play at least two games of Castleville first. But I did it! The Stinky Soup is now history, my refrigerator is free of ANY Scientific Mold Experiments and BOY do I feel better! Now I can make ice cubes again!

Of course it helps that in January I embarked upon a regimen of iron, B12, Folic Acid, and Vitamin C. According to the health people, it would take me 6 weeks to rebuild my iron. It's been about that long and I can safely say I'll procrastinate no more. I think.

One more thing: I think you should be very happy that this post has no pictures.

It's a Plaid, Plaid, Plaid Plaid World

My birthday is tomorrow, August 8. What do I want for my birthday?

Plaid. I love plaid. If I had a pair of plaid pants that were not some hideous plaid (such as purple and yellow, for instance) I would wear them. Plaid shirts are a dime a dozen and are useful, too, but good plaid pants are hard to find.

I don't have enough plaid skirts, and no plaid vests at all. I have only one very silly plaid Yukon hat, which I wear in the winter to cheer people up. SOMEONE has to be the jester. Purple, green and red plaid will do that.

I'm about to turn over a new motor vechicle page in my life. It's time for both the car and the truck to go bye bye and find new homes. Whatever I get, I am seriously considering having a plaid wrap done on it. I'm done driving little invisible silver cars. No one sees them. I have to honk: I'm here! I'm here! Don't pull out in front of me! Don't squish me!

This does not work with mooses.

No one would pull out in front of a red plaid car. Probably not even a moose. I'm thinking the Bruce tartan, as that is my family heritage. I think it would be just the best! Can't you see me motoring down the road in a red plaid car, two Scottish flags flying out the windows?f

So I suppose I could ask for a van or car or SUV for my birthday. Okay. I am looking for either:

1. Some kind of van, must have 4WD.

2. SUV: Honda, Toyota, Subaru all possibilities. I don't want to have to buy another car a year from now, so I'm not considering American cars. They barely run past 100,000.

3. Camry or Legacy Wagon.

4. Anything I get must be no older than the year 2000. I might make an exception for something that you only drove to church twice a year. As long as it was garaged. But the chances of finding that are slim. I'm done with cars older than ten years!

Whatever I get, it's going to look great in plaid. Maybe I'll two-tone it, with plaid on the bottom and as solid color up top. It depends on what I end up with.

If you feel slightly nauseous that I might convert your former car or van into the Plaidmobile, rest easy. It's much better than being the Hairmobile (I have two of those right now) or the famous Fishmobile, which I had to endure all winter until it was finally cured. Click on that link to be illuminated.

Of course there is one other possibility that doens't involve plaid, and that is making sure I have a TARDIS-blue vehicle and making it look like the TARDIS. That would be awesome.

I do want an iPad rather desperately. If I ever get one, I'll put a plaid cover on it. Wouldn't you?

I have plaid socks, but not enough. And plaid hairbands would be really nice. Men have plaid underwear. Why can't I find any?

If there was plaid lipstick I would use it.

You know those tattoo sleeves? Don't they make those in plaid? I'd LOVE some of those!

Remember the cartoons where a bucket of paint could be a pattern? You could dip the brush in and paint plaid on the walls, house, Elmer Fudd, the Pink Panther....I'd like a bucket of that stuff.

There's a reason I named my business Tartan Tundra. I imagine plaid mooses and ravens wearing tams. The ground hogs in my imagination wear little plaid scarves and mittens. They golf out there. I'm sure of it.

Plaid clothing is almost always considered dorky. Sigh. I've always been on the fashion frontier.

Packaging Fail

Whose idea was this? A tiny cup of fruit, swimming in sticky juice, lid vacuumed on. These are impossible to eat.

I'm hungry. I just got these fruit cups so I'd have something healthy to eat at work. So I grab one and rip the top off. Juice and fruit squirt EVERYWHERE! Like, on the computer screen, the iPhone, the desk, my shirt, my pants, etc. Ole dog is thrilled.

I'm still hungry. So I hold it c a r e f u l l y  by the sides and try to pull off the lid. My fingers push down on the top, the vacuum pops open and juice goes everywhere. Mainly down the front of my shirt.

Since I didn't even get to eat a whole fruit cup yet, I decide to be even more careful.Feeling that I'm pretty clever, I tilt the darn thing until what air is in it is underneath the plastic pull top. Gently, I ease the plastic top up, oh so delicately, and delicately get juice down my front, leaving a nice dark splotch on the crotch of my pants.

Yes, but at least I got to eat most of the fruit!

I've gone from having the whole thing just explode to actually being able to eat some. But dang it, there has got to be a way to open these without painting the world with sticky!

Let's see, it's in a vacuum. What if I poke it with a push pin before I open the top? It would break the seal and possibly make it safe for human consumption. Oh, I'm feeling way too clever now!

Voiding the vacuum had no effect on how messily the cup opened. Sigh.

Moms send their kids to school with these things! Do they send scalpels with them? I think that is the only way to open the lid. That is, don't open the lid. Excise it with a scalpel. If someone has a scalpel and can try this, please let me know what happens. Just don't try it during an operation.

I am of the opinion that these are just booby traps to make fools of us. Inedible, possibly. Wearable, for sure.

Being Queen of My Castle

Being Queen of my Castle has good points, and bad points.

Good: I can do anything I want to and at any hour. Just the other night I practiced fiddle music at midnight, to the complete and utter joy of Bucky the parrot, who goes through wild birdie gyrations and yells, whistles, sings, and hollers in different timbres: Wow. WOW. WOW!!

Bad: If I want to eat something, I have to cook it AND wash all the dishes. There is neither the room or the plumbing for a dishwasher.

Good: No one in my house cares if the dogs are the "prewash" cycle.

Bad: If the dogs (OLE) decide that the taco bell wrappers are priceless treasures that must be unearthed time and again from the trash, I'm the one who has to put the garbage back, clean up, and take the garbage out. By which I mean bagging, (gagging), and taking the whole shebang to the dump.

Good: I never have to wait for the bathroom!

Bad: You know those new moisturizing lotions that also impart a "healthy glow?" I'd love to use those since most of the year I'm toad-belly white. In all the commercials they show a woman alone putting on this lotion, but they never show how she puts it on her back! It's impossible! And if you don't put it on evenly you look diseased. So teaching Sofie to put it on my back is out.

Good: I don't have to pick up and clean up around the house unless I want to.

Bad: I don't have to pick up and clean up around the house unless I want to.

Good: I can eat whatever I want to. This is the best part of being a grown-up. If I want to have ice cream for dinner, I can!

Bad: About 30 extra lbs.

Good: I can plant and arrange my yard any way I want to.

Bad: I have to hire guys with muscles and tools to get some house/yard things done. Like cutting down trees. And going up on the roof to close off the dead stovepipe so it doesn't rain in my house. I found out about that after it DID rain in my house. I *could* go up there, but I advised myself against it.

Good: I don't have to listen to snoring, clean the bathroom/toilet WALLS (seriously, why don't they just freaking sit DOWN?), have dinner ready, smell stinky farts, have someone say, "I told you so," or "You're just over-reacting again," or being asked, "Are you on the rag?" anymore at all. Which is good, because them's fightin' words.

Bad: I still need help with heavy stuff. Or let me say, I can do pretty much anything, but it takes a lot longer than if some person with muscles was available. When I say a lot longer, I mean moving a dresser, for instance, might take a guy 5 minutes. It might take me half an hour or longer. You ever done this? Scrooch the Big Thing about three inches. Pant. Scrooch it a little more. Breathe. Push on the other side three more inches. Shake out your arms. Turn around, put your back into it, push with your legs, and it goes about five whole inches. Pant. Repeat.

Good: Peace and quiet!

Good: I don't have to share my computer. And if there was a mate in my life, he or she would have to get their own computer. It's not happening any more than I'd share my violin. Not gonna happen!

Bad: You know when you have a bump, or an itchy spot, and it's in a place where you just can't get a good look at it? If it is on my back, I can put on a tank top and have my neighbor take a look, but elsewhere? No way, José. And I'm not going to pay $200 to go to the doctor and say, "Hey, can you take a look at this thing on my ass?"

Good: I am in control of everything around my personal domain.

Bad: Ack! I have to find the title to the truck and the divorce papers and I have to write to the Department of Redundancy Department about this and that and my shoe size and the government and ACK!

Good: All in all, the good outweighs the bad. And that's very good because I don't think another person could fit in my teeny house, anyway! However, this place is eminently expandable, which is yet another good thing. So no limits!

Come play music with us! Music Mondays at my studio!

I don't usually cross-post my music stuff too much, but this is a free community jam just for fun. All ages are welcome (kids must have parents with them). If we overflow my little studio there are bigger rooms available, and the skeeters aren't so bad, maybe we can play outside. All the information is HERE, at the Tartan Tundra Music site.

We alternate between song circle and acoustic jam. And both at once, if people get confused. :D It's all good.

Summertime Skin

With all the nice, warm weather, and all the bathing suit photos on Facebook, I think it's time for my favorite beach cartoon. It just says it all.

Alaskan Summer 2011

Last year, if you recall, we kind of skipped most of summer. Instead we had rain, rain, rain and more rain. There was fungus growing on mushrooms. It was bad.  I was worried that all that precipitation would mean we'd have another winter that was skanty on snow, but luckily I was wrong and we had a very nice three or four or five feet of snow altogether. The skinny trees either side of my driveway were bent down so far with snow that the water truck couldn't make it in to fill my water tank. So they got whacked down and stacked to the side of the driveway. There they remained, covered in snow and pushed back by the snow plows. We will return to this, anon.

Right now it's summer. Spring doesn't really exist in Alaska. Have you heard Johnny Horton's song, Springtime in Alaska? The songwriter, who was clearly clueless, claimes that "In Springtime in Alaska it's forty below." It is if you consider February Spring. Otherwise, when Breakup comes, and the snow melts, that's when it's Springtime in Alaska and it's certainly not forty below!

So Springtime in Alaska looks like Last Fall Revisited. There are no leaves, all the brown grass and fireweed is still sitting there, crumpled and mushed. Some of the Fall colors are still around in the tundra, reds and yellows. That's Spring. Not much of anything, really.

After the snow melts we all wait extremely impatiently for the trees to leaf out. This generally happens about the second week on May. This year it was late and some of us were thinking, "Uh oh. Maybe they aren't going to leaf out! Aaaack!" I kept scanning the hills, looking for the tell-tale reddish color that is the harbinger of new buds that produce leaves. Day after day they were brown. Dull, ugly brown.

Then finally, on May 18th it happened. Leaves were visible at my house, albeit teeny-weeny! It took them a long time, more than a week, to fill out and grow to full size. Once the leaves are in, it's SUMMER!

 

Instead of a bunch of nasty rain, we had gorgeous blue skies and puffy lamb clouds. Gentle breezes wafted my flags and chimes.

There were no mosquitoes at my house for almost two weeks! It was wonderful!

Before the mosquitoes were out, the fires started. That's the price we pay for dry weather here in the boreal forest. At one point a forest fire was two miles from my house and my truck was loaded and I was ready for evacuation. But the wind was with us and blew the fire away from my neighborhood. That fire, the Moose Mountain fire, is now contained. It was a close and scary call. Since then we have had days of smoke, but haven't been in danger. This is all a part of summer.

The sounds of summer are birds, oodles and oodles of birds. Ravens, whiskey jacks, chickadees, so many warblers that I just call them the Teeny Green Birds. Magpies, who have moved up from South Alaska what with global warming. Moose start appearing with calves in tow. The sounds of Spring include screeching brakes as people attempt to avoid hitting a 2000 lb. moose, or god forbid, her calf.

Sometimes it sounds like the world is taken over by dinosaurs, as heavy equipment roars to life again. I hear big thumps and booms as the lumber mill goes into action, the rumble of diesel engines, and the thunder of big tires on dirt roads. Large trucks towing giant yellow iron, some with buckets, some with blades, block roads and make kids go, "Wow!"  All this activity happens when the ground unfreezes enough to build something!

Summertime you can't get there from here. In a place where the temperature can swing 70 degrees in one day, the roads go through hell. As the sun gains ascension, the warmth thaws the ground and roads sink. Work that has needed to be done on city streets is once more do-able. Orange cones rule the day and Fairbanks can become a Disneyland of Detours.

I've memorized all the lumps, bumps and sunken spots on my road home. Alaska can eat up a vehicle pretty quickly if you aren't proactive about things like that. It's not just the cold that's hard on your transport!

One the thaw is over, I've got a lot of work to do, even around my small place. For one thing, there is an entire winter's worth of dog poop to scrape out of the dog yard. There is no way to clean it until it thaws. If you've ever tried to pick up dog poop that's frozen to the ground or to the snow, well, it's impossible. I'm not going to stand outside in -40° to chip poop out! Luckily I always have a music student who is young, strong and who wants to make some money by cleaning out the whole yard for me and the dogs. This is a good thing!

When the trees got whacked down because of the heavy snow, (I bet you were wondering if I'd ever get back to that, right?), there were some birch trees that I had my eye on. Bucky needs new perches, and birch is ideal for that purpose. So once the branches were free of snow, I dragged them back to the front yard. I plan to borrow my neighbor's loppers and cut Bucky some nice, clean perches.

I went out to do this the other day, and what do I see?

 

They just couldn't be left out of the greening up! No matter they were just sticks lying on the driveway!

Let me remind you, those trees were cut mid-winter and frozen at sub-zero temperatures!

There is one thing for sure: Alaska always surprises me!

Alaska: The S-Word

It started sneakily about a month ago. On my way to work over a snow-packed road, I had to dodge an invisible bird. I'm just driving along and suddenly I notice that a big hunk of the snow in front of me is walking! Up north there are signs that say "Watch For Invisible Birds." A winter-white ptarmigan on a snow-covered road is absolutely invisible, now I can say that for sure! At any rate, I don't usually see ptarmigan or grouse out on the roads until....well, let's just say a certain time of year.

Two weeks ago I came up over the top of a big hill and was zooming down the other side when a smallish red squirrel decided to run across the road about six feet in front of me. I straddled him with my front tires but I don't know if Mr. Suicide Squirrel knew to stop where he was. I didn't look back. On the way home I didn't see a little squirrel rug in the road, so I think he made it. We'll all hope so, right?

Squirrels are awake. Check.

It hadn't snowed for a while, so last week a friend came with this front-end loader for another yearly ritual: removing the hard pack from my driveway and parking areas.

It warmed up enough that my gnarly, toothy icicles melted off my car. In fact, all the ice melted off my car!

I found the bottom step of my porch!

Extreme happiness was mine just a couple days ago when the Jesus ice melted off the road. You all know what Jesus ice is. It's longer than your car, and this year, because of a horrendous ice storm it was even  now half an inch thick! (It started out at 3 inches thick.) There were several places where I had to cross huge swathes of ice. It's Jesus ice: you hang onto the steering wheel, you don't DARE touch ANY pedal, or even blink, breath, fart and God forbid SNEEZE because if you do your vehicle changes direction, and suddenly, too! And you hang on and say "Oh Jesus!" and HELLO ditch/tree/pond etc.

Jesus ice is a naturally occurring phenomenon, though there are those who suspect that someone goes out at night with a Zamboni... There was one bit right by Farmer's Loop that was a huge dipping raceway and it made my day when pavement stripes finally showed up. I've had moose cross right in front of me more than once right there. That's when Jesus ice turns into oh-shit-ice. The disappearance of the Jesus ice on a curve on a hill by the pond was also completely wonderful. All winter I used my excellent superpowers to keep from ending up in the pond.

This is Break Up season (ice, not relationships, although somtimes they do go hand-in-hand), where you never know what will happen next. Invisible birds, marauding squirrels, moose, foxes and all manner of critters are now out and about.Yesterday there was a muskrat, of all things, toodling around in the middle of the road.

The bears are waking up. Why don't you non-Alaskans just sit and think about that for a minute.

I was almost silly with happiness just the other day. Daylight is up to 13 hours a day, the snow is a foot less deep, I had water dripping from my balcony and roof! Most of the pavement was dry! I could almost drive like it was summer. Operative word here: almost.

Less happy but a harbinger of....um.....S.....is the re-appearance of all the dog poop in the back yard, no longer frozen to -30. Ah....the s-word goes along with the S-word every year.

I've had to plug in my freezer (which is in storage shed) because of warm temps during the day, but unplug it to plug in my car because it was 20 below first thing in the morning. Then start the car and remember to plug in the freezer before I left because during that day it would go up to 32 above!

I haven't taken the cardboard out from in front of my radiator yet. Not until it's above freezing all the time.

S***** is almost here. Some were saying so, and often. You could feel the party atmosphere just walking around town. People were going around in light jackets and even some with sandals on (there's still ice!). The joy was palpable wherever you went.

Then some people, too many people, used the S-word too many times in the last week and of course Mother Nature fought back. Spring has been temporarily canceled while it SNOWS AGAIN. Party over. Everyone is BUGGED and rather disgusted. It's rumored that several people shoveled the snow off their roofs this weekend, and that's why it snowed again. Could be. All I know is that I'd better watch out for Jesus ice.

Doing Laundry Alaskan Style

No matter where you live, there is no such thing as a nice laundromat. They aren't clean, and I'd estimate that most of them have at least three broken washers and generally 5% or more of the dryers are either broken, or should be called "dampers" instead of dryers, because that's the best you'll get out of them.

Right now it is -25F or so, and the dogs and I are sitting in my running car. My clothes are in the wash and when the cycle is over I'll run back inside and put them in the dampers.

Most of the vehicles in the lot are running because there are no plug-ins here and once my clothes are the least damp I can get them--which I estimate will take at least 12 quarters for two "dryers"--I will want to be sure my trusty old car will start again. Besides, this way I will also avoid having to scrape the inside of the windows from all that dog breath.

I already had to move the car because there was a dog in the vehicle next to mine, triggering Sofie's insane desire to dig through the car door to get to him. We spent a good ten minutes training that quiet, calm dogs who lie down and ignore other dogs get cookies. Then I ran out of cookies and had to repark. Yes, people in Fairbanks take their dogs with them even at -25. Our dogs go everywhere.

My twelve quarters have been paid and I now have 36 minutes to finish this post. Then I'll have to go inside and fold my clothes because I'm a woman and don't use the special, patented wrinkle method all these cabin dudes use. Yep, your basic guy, whether he lives in town or on a dry cabin, is happy to take his clean (sorta dry) clothes out of the dryer and jam them tightly into a duffle bag. The really classy guys use black trash bags.

No, I eschew the exquisite wrinkles offices by that method and I actually fold clothes. Of course that means I have to mingle with those same dry cabin folk who are there to take their weekly, monthly (some smell like yearly) showers. Oh don't get me wrong! I was one of those people for two years! And that is why my house has water, or at least one of the reasons. Pooping at -40 in the outhouse was also a big motivator for plumbing.

Getting ready to go to the laundromat was also not what most of you do. First I had to plug in the car for three hours so it would start. Then I carried laundry out and put it in the trunk because the interior is, well, a Hairmobile. I had to judge when to put the liquid detergent bottle in the trunk so it wouldn't freeze before I got there. I wasn't going to put it in the interior because I experience has taught me that Ole might decide it was delicious. Since the kippered herring incident I am rather cautious.

Well, typing this on the iPhone has been fun, but it is about time I ventured into that hot room to fold my clothes. Wish me luck. I hope only for good smells and no screaming children. If I'm out of luck, I may yet be converted to the wrinkle method!

A Non-Typical Alaskan Winter Day

I am still waiting for winter. Disregard the fact that I have about a foot of snow and more at my place. Other than that, this does not feel like Alaskan winter. I think we've imported Michigan winter. Granted, it might not be winter in Michigan yet, but the winters of my Michigan youth seem to be appearing here, in present-day Interior Alaska.

It's been above zero most of the "winter." This, in itself, is creepy. When you are used to temperatures of -20°F in November, or at least -10°F, you begin to prepare yourself in August, when Alaska has its Fall. Often we get a Test Snowfall mid-September, where a foot or more of snow might suddenly dump on us, and we all sort of freak out, because winter is a long endurance test, and we don't want to endure it more than usual. However that snow invariably melts away and we all give a collective sigh of relief, but go back into our homes and unpack our winter gear and mentally prepare ourselves for the long, dark cold.

A few years ago I was standing around at a friend's outdoor birthday barbeque in full winter gear and three feet of snow on April 10. That was the year we thought winter would never end.

This year, however, it seems as if winter will never start. I think we've had about five days, total, and not all in a row, where the temperatures dropped below zero. I have had to plug my freezer back in while at the same time having to plug in my car so it will be warm enough to start. This is just plain wrong! Not to mention that most of the time I don't even have to plug my car in at all.

My freezer is in my shed, where all good Alaskan freezers are. I unplug it in the winter because why waste good electricity when it's -10 outside? I only plug the freezer in when it gets to be around 30°above. So far I've had to plug it in and then unplug it a bunch of times.

Yesterday it was supposed to be 32° and I am extremely happy to report that my freezer is still unplugged and it never got above 21° yesterdays.

This warm weather is making everyone nervous now. However I have had a nice day outside, anyway. Chores accomplished incude:

1. Burned all the paper trash in the burn barrel.

2. Took the dogs out for deep snow vole hunting, and basic snow frolicking. (I know you all want pictures but it is impossible for me to hold a camera and two leashes while navigating deep snow. I need a headlight cam!)

3. Finally got the box of meat I bought from our local butcher (Home Grown Market) and put it in the freezer. At least it's been below freezing so that it was safe riding around in my trunk for two weeks. How many of you can say you can put off putting meat away like that! Ha!

4. Hung up two suet feeders on trees so that the woodpeckers will go for those, instead of peckering away at my house. Actually, it might not stop them, because they are hiding sunflower seeds in my siding. And no, there aren't any bugs in my walls.

All in all I was outside on and off for a couple of hours and wore only one layer and a coat, hat and gloves, and took the gloves off a lot, in the interest of not setting myself on fire when I lit the matches for the burn barrel.

Despite having fun today, I remain nervous about this weather. They guy who fills up my water tank called me, and told me that it was raining at his house. This is NOT good. Plus he only lives a few miles away. We normally don't have to deal with freezing rain after Freeze Up.

Wait. I don't think we've finished with Freeze Up yet! Bizarre, truly bizarre. The dogs can still dig holes i the back yard. I was digging the gate out with a shovel just this morning!

If it doesn't get cold enough to kill the main population of hibernating mosquitoes and hornets, we will be in for an unbearable and frighening summer.

If it doesn't get cold enough the bears will wake up and be hungry. Not a good thing, either.

This entire ecosystem is adapted for intense, deep cold. The winters have been warming now for a while. The pioneers who are still alive tell me that it used to be -40 most of the winter. Now we only get that a few weeks of most winters.

The advance of the bark beetles and leaf miners has everything to do with global warming and they are destroying and injuring millions of acres of trees. Whole forests are dead.

If you are a woman you might understand how I feel about this winter. It is like when you miss a period, and you know you aren't pregnant. It might be because you are ill, or stressed. You think you ought to be happy to be spared the agony of cramps and all that just for once, but there is this nagging, weird feeling of being out of balance, that something is wrong, not right, of kilter... and you can't really enjoy the respite.

It will be interesting to see how winter finally comes in this year...if it does....