Not Scared. Not Scared At All.

This is what my sister says. What she means is: "This situation is not at all to my liking and there is a heck of a lot that could go wrong, but I've assessed all the factors and feel I can keep rising panic at bay."

This pretty much sums up my night. (Except I picked the situation because it was very much to my liking. But still.) The wind was making my tent scratch in such a way that I was constantly assuring myself it was not animals. The cold was threatening me from every angle but I kept repeating to my limbs: you are warm; you are warm. Etc. etc.

The nice thing about being on edge all night is that when it's over, you feel very much like you've conquered something. Even if all you did was sleep through it.

Especially when you wake up to snow landing on your tent but the fire starts up anyway. And you sit there waiting for the water in your bottles to thaw (frozen solid, even though I kept them inside my tent all night) watching seven swans take off up the slushy river, land, float back down, and repeat. It was their honking that told you to get up in the first place, since it's always dark deep inside a mummy bag.

Alongside the Nenana River, for a night of reflection and fulfilling self-challenge. Brr, it was cold. Overnight low of 12, I'm told. I feel ready for winter. Haha! no winter for me! I needed to experience at least a taste of it before heading off to Hawaii.

And hiking Mt. Healy the next day (after it stopped snowing) was perfect. Up at the top it was sunny - above the clouds - and warm. Well, warm is a relative term. But I felt toasty, heated as I was from the hike. And no wind. And lots of sheep.

The drive back was harrowing at times - 4 inches of slush on the roads that were clear when I drove the other way. But I made it. And loved it.

I will be back.

You Eat Funny Stuff when...

...you are leaving town and trying to finish the last odds and ends of food. Especially when you didn't buy much of that food yourself, but it was bequeathed to you when everyone else left.

For example:
black bean-butternut squash-chipotle wraps
beer-buttermilk-lemon crepes
lentil-squash curry

It's actually been surprisingly good. I made some regular crepes and was so disappointed in them that I went back to the beer-buttermilk recipe. And who knew that you could put butternut squash in everything?

Of course, there's also those splurge meals where although you've vowed not to buy any more food, you suddenly find yourself at the farmer's market in Homer with the best looking fresh vegetables in your hand and it suddenly turns itself into a gourmet, $80 a plate meal for 5.

Kachemak bay oysters on the half shell? Yes please. Especially ones bought that day from the grower's association on the Homer Spit.

Seared blackened tuna? Yes please. Especially when it's hand-delivered by the woman who caught it in Mexico and served up with bleu cheese.

A bed of organic greens? Oh, yes please. I also won't complain about caramelized carrots, delicious organic strawberries, or organic lemons.

Clos du Bois merlot? Ok, if you insist.

Cranberry Pear Crisp with Vermouth and sweetened milk? Oh, you want me to have indigestion, do you? Well, lucky for all of us, such fresh food doesn't weigh us down even when we do overeat.

And to top it all off, a night of wonderful company with three old Bohemians and one young one too. Hooray for me.

It looks like a cute fuzzy bunny.

Well, it was a cute fuzzy bunny. Until it got eaten. Now it’s a pile of guts that have sprouted inch-long white tufts of fine, fibrous mold. And I get to walk by it every day on my way to work.

I love living here.

I Couldn't Let It Conquer Me

So I went back.

Back to Skyline Trail, where I fell off a cliff and ruined my body forever.

Okay, melodrama aside, I fell off some rocks I was scampering on and sprained my ankle. But it was a really bad sprain - 3 torn ligaments. I was on crutches for 3 weeks and it hurts even now, 12 weeks later. It definitely put a damper on the second half of my summer. I refused to let it get me down mentally, but it was a bummer not to participate in all the hiking and backpacking I had planned.

Fortunately it didn't stop me from leading the fall fire field trips - a 2.5 mile hike - though it was a challenge at times. Now, even though my ankle aches and stiffens up at the slightest exercise, I feel confident that I can do anything on it. Gingerly, but anything.

So I knew I needed to conquer Skyline before the summer ended. Columbus Day, a day off that dawned a magnificent sunny blue sky and an unheard of 50 degrees: a day to hike! To put old adversaries to rest!

Rachel, Emily and I hiked to the tippity top of the trail. From there the view is spectacular. Could we see Denali? Maybe that huge white beast way past Anchorage is her, visible 700 miles away only because of refraction.

The recent wind storm knocked all the leaves off the trees, and even knocked a huge cottonwood across the trail. Despite the bizarre warmth and lack of snow at the upper altitudes, fall has indeed passed us by. Only the last vestiges cling, a few moldy spots of yellow in an umber landscape. It feels like resolution; it feels like time to leave.

Dried seed pods and crisp brown flower petals crinkle along the trail and invite thoughts about fertility, decay, cycles and seasons. It feels right to be a woman today. It feels right to be three strong women on a mountain top, bareing ourselves to the view and the wind and the turning tides.

From my ankle's point of veiw, the exercise was anticlimatic. The way up presented no challenge. On the way down, thanks to the tension and precision needed to keep myself from waah-tumbling down the mountain, both feet cramped up, but I kept moving, and soon we were eating yummy veggies, homemade hummus, and green hempseed butter. Our bodies felt good! fresh! alive!

It was a good day.

The Paths Are Paved With Gold

The multi-hued yellows from aspen, birch, and cottonwood adorn the trails inches thick under every tree. When the leaves land this way, the winking yellow glitters; when they land that way, the pale underbelly gives depth to these alchemist's cobblestones. Gold!

The spruce trees - greedy bastards - not satisfied with keeping their green, also want to adorn themselves with yellow and gold. Jealously they cling to leaves spurned by their deciduous counterparts. Now evergreens boast, as well as needles, leaves plastered to their boughs.

It reminds me of hair, wet blond hair stuck to the ruddy faces of shivering fourth graders learning about pH and macroinvertebrates hiding in 41 degree water.

It's the kind of weather we love to hate: grey, drizzly, winter's coming sort of weather. Leaves shake off the trees as if a gale blows them down, but really it's just grey that whips their frenzy.

The leaves look like the gulls hovering in the air, catching the updraft, testing it for temperature and moisture content. Is California calling them yet? Is it time to wing it outta here? Are we blowing the wind or is the wind blowing us? Who knows.

A Tale About Smoking

Smoking fish, that is.

My dad had a smoker that got used a handful of times during my childhood. I have vivid memories of seeing it chugging away in the back yard, covered by that old quilted blanket, but I don't remember ever liking anything produced from its smoky belly. Dried out hams and turkeys, I think. My poor father - generally an exceptional cook, but always the experimenter. One too many failed smoking projects and he lost all support from his family to attempt again. We wanted a dinner we could eat, after all.

Here in Alaska, smoking fish is a perfected science. It provides an easy way to preserve fish or use up those not-quite-grillable pieces. Last week a friend had some lingcod belly pieces left over from a deep sea fishing expedition. We smoked them up in some coconut rum-ginger-lime brine with hickory chips, which gave it a very smoky, vaguely sweet taste. This week it was some fish I found buried in the back of the Common's freezer. Now that everyone is gone except me, all property reverts to the last man standing.

With my not-so-grillable salmon rescued from the freezer coils, I made a brine of coriander, black pepper, dill, yellow mustard, celery (all in seed form), crushed bay leaf, and fresh garlic. These I heated in some water to release the aromas, then added to a salt, lemon, brown sugar and water marinade.

The salvaged fish went into the brine, and was forgotten for a while. In the meantime we ate a feast:
Lingcod steaks grilled with lemon peel
Home-grown oyster mushrooms sauteed with soybeans and garlic
Caramelized dill carrots
Brown rice with tomato and parmesan
Homemade wheat bread
Red wine (of course)
and for dessert, my absolute favorite, Flan

Ok, now that you're drooling, back to the fish. After brining for 3 hours, we laid the pieces out on the smoker rack (my pitiful salmon scraps only filling one shelf - compared to Rachel's lingcod which needed two batches to fit it all). Then the serious business starts: smoking.

I used alder chips for a more mild smoke flavor (and because the bag said it was the best for fish) and Dominic's hot smoker. The coil in the bottom of the smoker (a metal box about 3x2x1 ft) heats up a pan of wood chips sitting on top of it. The chips slowly smolder and fill the box with heat and smoke. Every 45 minutes to an hour, the blackened chips must be tossed over the deck railing and the pan refilled with fresh ones. We started smoking at 10:30. I was up all night.

Ok, that's a lie. The hot smoke works relatively quickly, and by 2:30 I was done resetting my alarm and snuggled down on Dominic's couch to sleep the rest of the night. The salmon sat outside on the deck in the unplugged smoker until morning, inviting all sorts of creatures to investigate and steal it. Fortunately it was still there in the morning.

And delicious! I'm so proud of my little fish babies. Now I just have to figure out what to do with it, since I can't take it with me...

How to Make the Best Raspberry Jam You've Ever Had

1. Get to Homer, Alaska.

2. Find the "Seaside Farms" campground and pitch your tent in the horse field. Be sure not to step in the horse poo. And don't mind the horse; he won't bite.

3. The next morning, walk out of your tent and into the organic raspberry patch. Pick to your heart's delight. Be sure to get low and look under the leaves. It's rude picker's etiquette to only pick the easy-to-reach berries.

4. Eat lots of berries as you pick. But also pick a lot and put them into your bucket.

5. Be sure to observe the epic view across Katchemak Bay to the mountains and glaciers on the other side of the sea. The berries have spent their whole lives imbibing the view. This makes them taste extra spectacular.

6. Carry the berries with you the rest of the day to make sure they stay safe. Whatever you do, don't let them out of your site. Berries tend to disappear that way. They also tend to disappear into bellies, so keep an eye out for snitching fingers too.

7. Purchase Certo liquid pectin, sugar, and canning jars at Fred Meyer.

8. Back at your trailer, mash the berries carefully. Be sure to say, "Smash smash" every time you make the mashing motion.

9. Follow the recipe inside the Certo package for making raspberry jam.

10. Make a big sticky mess.

11. Clean up the big sticky mess.

12. Eat delicious jam!

Mushroom season

Mushroom season is progressing very nicely. I would post photos if it weren't so darn difficult around here.

The warm summer and recent warm showers have created perfect conditions for a generous mushroom year. I am in heaven just walking the dog (yes, dogsitting again) and observing all the beautiful - and not so beautiful - varieties in abundance.

I've also been eating them. I've tried 5 varieties, a not-at-all shabby number for my first ever season of wild mushroom collecting. I'm impatient, but slowly I'm learning how much I can add to my cache of experiences and skills with time - and only with time. I can't expect to do everything at once.

So far, I've had: brown and orange birch boletes, honey mushrooms, gypsy mushrooms, and puffballs. My favorites is definitely the puffball - sliced thin and fried until crispy, like a mushroom potato chip. And conveniently, puffballs are among the most numerous and definitely easy to identify. The brown birch boletes are also numerous, but the flesh is often mushy, they are always infested with fly larvae (read: maggots), and honestly, they don't taste better than store-bought canned mushrooms.

"Do you want a coloring project?"

--my boss asks me today.

Oh yes. That is, if I can fit in in between sticking labels on notecards and moving photos around in Corel.

A nice day to welcome me back to work.

Last week, my mom and sister visited me while I took annual leave.

We went clamming in view of Redoubt and caught more clams than we know what to do with. They squirted us.

We went to Homer and picked raspberries and made jam. The best raspberry jam I've ever tasted, and I don't think it's just personal bias.

We stayed in the brand-new Kelly Lake Cabin (and managed to survive on only one match).

We altogether found much diversion and much conversation. Hooray.

Fungus are EXPLODING all over the Peninsula. I'm getting ready for Mushroomania Fair numero uno in a few weeks.

Ok, that's the life update.

Photo Essay

This was my fun fun appetizer dinner. Why yes, that is avocado, artichoke heart, kalamata olive, green olive with garlic/habanero stuffing, hot peppers, vermont extra sharp cheddar, two kinds of bleu cheese, and gruyere, jalapeno jelly, raspberry preserves, and whole grain mustard. Oh, and triscuits. Heaven.


Killer weekend.


Thursday a.m.


Thursday p.m.




Got carried away with the grass and the mud.


Mt. Redoubt: view from the Kenai flats




Sunset: view from Cannery Road beach

me and anna

Mushroom Mushroom Mushroom

Today I joined the Kenai Peninsula Mycology Society's Google Egroup. Maybe I will join the actual society --and maybe I will help out with their first ever Mushroomania Festival in September. I am as happy as a clam-stuffed mushroom cap.

Also, I got to read their April edition of The Spore Print, which is full of amazing and delicious information about How Mushrooms Can Save The World (if I could access Youtube from work, I'd post a link here to Paul Stamet's lecture with that title - you'll have to do the leg work yourself).

I would copy and paste it all here just because I'm so pumped to share it with everyone, but I don't know how kosher that is. Instead I'll just post the link and let you read it yourself. Trust me, it's Ahmazing.

Mushroom of the Day

or try, Mushroom CLOUD!

beat that, hoboman.

In Confirmation of My Earlier Theory

I was walking between the Enivronmental Ed Cabin (where I work) and the main office, paying special attention to the changing sounds. I heard a bird call that I'd not heard before. If there was a way to write bird calls so that you could hear them, I would do it. But I'm not going to try. All I can say is that it was different, probably belonging to a songbird that has recently migrated back into the area or else is trying out his mating vocals.



Then I heard another bird sound which is (but only recently) familiar to me: the Bald Eagle. The first time I heard it I was amazed that such a beautiful sound could come from such an ugly bird. No, I do not have any aesthetic loyalty towards our national bird (speaking of which, is there a national any other type of animal?).



The cry is exotic, expressive, untamable.



I heard it again today in close vicinity and looked for its source. On several occasions I had seen an eagle sitting in gnarled yet vertically-giften aspen(?) near the parking lot, so I was not surprised to glimpse, through the branches, the brown, white and yellow bird. But wait-- there were two birds. And they were-- oh ho! They were, um, shall we say, Celebrating Spring.



We all need to celebrate spring now and then. And what better place to do it than at the top of a tree?



In any case, it reinforces what I said before. Despite four inches of new snow last night, spring is upon us.



(ps- !!! I got to see Bald Eagles mating??? I even brought my camera to work today, but of course I wasn't carrying it back and forth between buildings, and I can't just leave work to sit in the parking lot and hope they do it again, can I? Can I??)

So Glad You All Saw That

All of these photos are shamelessly stolen from http://www.avo.alaska.edu/activity/Redoubt.php where you can find other imformation about Redoubt, other Alaskan volcanos, photo credits and time stamp. All of these are from this week.


The eruption monday morning.


What they don't want us to breath in. Yesterday we got a teeny tiny bit of ash fall in Soldotna. I had to be told to look for it. Its color was light enough that you couldn't see it on the snow, and its content was so meager that you might think it was just dust or pollen.



Risk of flash floods and mud slids when volcanic heat melts the snow and ice on the mountain.

This one is actually from 3/15. Look at that steam wisp. Clearly a dragon lives in that volcano.
Yes, she is still erupting. At the website listed above you can track seismic activity levels and actual eruptions. Several occured overnight again last night. Seriously though, if I wasn't told there was a volcano erupting a few miles away, I would never know.

In other news, I got to go cross-country skiing for the first time today. It was much less scary/difficult than I'd imagined it would be. In fact, it was quite easy. I wish I'd figured that out six weeks ago.

It is spring in Alaska, which does not mean daffodils and crocuses.

Instead, spring means that the snow comes down in big fluffy chunks instead of tiny frozen crystals. Yesterday I left work, looked up, and said out loud: "It's raining snowballs." The snow looked like those tiny styrofoam balls you sometimes get instead of packaging peanuts.

Spring means that during the afternoon, the temperatures rise to the upper 30's (think 2-4 degrees C) and everything gets slushy and slooshy and yuck. Then the temperatures drop overnight and everything becomes a slick layer of ice. In some places the ice is black and smooth where there was actual standing water. In other places it makes frozen chunks where the slush resolidified. On my walk to work this morning I suddenly found myself sitting on the ground over a particularily deceiving patch of ice. I looked up to see three of the maintenance guys standing in their yard across the street watching me.

"So glad you all saw that!"

Spring means that we have to be on the lookout for bears. Any day now they will start emerging from their winter dens and eating people left and right. Soon I won't be able to go outside anymore because the grounds will be swarming with starving, snarling bears.

We'll see what gets me first: the volcano or the bears. Or the ice. Or the small town boys.

I lead life on the wild side.

Two Pieces of Good News

1. Girdwood Forest Fair, which was cancelled last year thanks to too many rowdy partiers, is scheduled to be BACK ON this year. Nothing can keep me away. Not to mention it's on my birthday ^_^

2. FUNGUS FAIR. 'Nuff said, right? Check this out. Oh, I so can't wait till September.

Thar She Blows!

Or rather, belches a few times unattractively.

Yes, ReDoubt has turned active.

Yesterday morning the power went out so I took myself down to maintenance to check the situation out.

"Any news on the power outage?"

"Nope, nope. Apparently it's out all over except Anchorage."

"Yeah, of course they keep Anchorage safe. Can't afford to let her go down."

"Last time it was out for three days. Good thing we installed that generator at the pump house last week."

"Yeah, just in time. This power stays out for long the thing will have paid for itself in no time."

"Well, I can't do any work without power. I might as well go home and put steaks on the grill."

"Heck, I'm coming to your place. Better call your wife and tell her to put on a steak for me. A big one."

...and so on. Maintenance guys shooting the shit.

After half an hour of this, Ryan came in. "So is this power outage because of the volcano eruption?"

"What!!?? The volcano erupted?" I couldn't believe that I'd stood there for half an hour and heard not a peep after so many weeks of edge-of-my-seat anticipation.

"Yup. Blew last night. Several belches of ash starting at ten-thirty until four this morning."

"I was sitting in my living room looking out the window at it and I didn't even see a thing. They say there was a big rumble and shaking and all that, but I don't even believe it."

"It's the piretic, bombastic-- what is that?"

"Pyroclastic."

"Yup, it's the pyroclastic blast you have to really look out for. 10,000 degree wind that comes at you. Burning gasses and all that. Melts everything in its path - trees, buildings, people. One minute you're standing there, the next you've been liquidated like an atom bomb hit."

I went back outside and looked around. There was nothing to see. It was overcast, but the forecast had called for that. No ash, no clouds. If I inhaled deeply, I could just make out a charred, ozone scent in the air.

Altogether anticlimactic.

I talked to Shane on the phone, who's up in Anchorage and has been on-call to zip down here in the event of a picturesque or adventure-worthy eruption. He says that all the ash is landing in Talkeetna, several hundred miles north. The wind changed at just the right moment - usually prevailing winds would have blown the ash fallout right onto the peninsula. Talkeetna must be pissed. They don't even get to see ReDoubt from up there, but they get the ash dump anyway. Neener neener.

Shane also says that we can expect continued activity over the next indeterminate period of time. He remains on call in case something happens that can be seen. My boss says that what really turned pretty during the last eruption in 1990 was after two big ash belches, there were steam clouds that hung out about the mountain and caught the morning alpenglow and ended up in everybody's photo albums.

If I get pictures, I'll post them, I promise. That's assuming the pyroclastic blast doesn't get me first. Stand by.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/03/photogalleries/mount-redoubt-alaska-volcano-pictures-2/

The Alaska Meth Education Project is offering free drug

no kidding. that's the headline at http://homeralaska.org/
it would be Homer. buncha' crazy hippies.

of course, if Paul Harvey weren't dead (*sniff), he would tell us The Rest of the Story:

The Alaska Meth Education Project is offering free drug
prevention and awareness presentations to businesses and organizations.

Just unfortunate titling, that's all. It's like those church bulletin bloopers:

"Weight Watchers meeting Tuesday night. Attendees please use the wide double doors at the side of the building."

Something's Changing

A few days ago, vole tracks appeared.

Since arriving, I'd seen maximum two trails left by subnivean creatures. In the last few days, they are suddenly everywere: around the office, around my cabin, doodling around the commons in loopy trails from under one building to another or in fairly straight lines across the road.

Subnivean creatures, by the way, are the tiny rodents: mice, shrews, and voles. Subnivean (for those of you who weren't in any of my field trip classes this year) means "under snow." Under the deep snow is an insulated layer where these animals build tunnels through the dead grasses to stay warm, find food, and hide from predators.

Shrews have long pointy snouts and can be aggressive insectevores. I'm hoping to find evidence of the water shrew this summer in our wetlands and lakes. Water shrews are badass.

Mice and voles are basically indistinguishable. I've heard contradictory evidence as to whether mice are actually native to Alaska or have been introduced, but there are a vareity of vole species native to, and even unique to, different regions of the state. They look cute and cuddly and they can be serious pests to home owners.

Usually these animals stay in the subnivean all winter except maybe to reach grass heads above the surface or if they are forced out of their tunnels by packed trails. In our field trips we talk a lot about how trails negatively impact subnivean residents with an aim to promote lower impact recreation (for example, using established trails for snowmachining or using a frozen lake area).

Trails can also impact plant life, partly because packed snow takes longer to melt -a big concern in an area with such a short growing season- and also because packed snow reduces light cues that reach the soil.

Plants rely on light cues, rather than temperature, to initiate their growing cycles. Thus, even with a cold spring or warm fall, deciduous trees will still grow new leaves or display fall foliage and eventually go dormant. There are still temperature considerations, of course; nothing can happen while all the water in the ground is still frozen.

Trails aside, what has sparked the sudden infusion of tracks? What has happened to make all these voles suddenly appear out from their safe, warm, food-filled subnivean tunnels?

The temperature hasn't changed. The range has been the same since I arrived: nights down as low as -20, days up to 30 or 35. The snow hasn't gone away. There is no new food source that I can think of.

Today I actually saw some voles. I glanced out at the bird feeders we keep on our windows. The chickadees, red poles, and nut hatches use a few nearby spruce trees as their access point to come to the feeder, grab a sunflower seed, and return in order to eat it. Under the trees where not as much snow has built up there is a patch of dead grasses. The voles were darting in and out of view through the grasses, eating bits of dropped sunflower seeds, I suppose.

The presence of dropped sunflower seed hasn't increased. It's possible the voles have been doing it all winter, but I've spent a lot of time looking out that window and today was the first time I've seen it. That, combined with the sudden profusion of tracks, makes me thing something has happened to encourage these creatures to emerge from their subnivean world.

I look to the light. Today is the first day of spring. This week we had our twelve-hour day. Like the plants, I imagine these creatures take their cues more from light than temperature as they prepare for the growing season that will come.

Predators still abound, so whatever could encourage them to seek out food sources that expose them to eagle eyes (literally) must be pretty darn important. More important than keeping themselves alive, which they've already been doing just fine all winter long. My guess: babies.

Mating season is upon us, folks.

There's a reason Bambi's friend Owl talks about twitterpating. In other places it corresponds to the melting snow and emergence of new plant growth. In Alaska, waiting that long to get it on wouldn't leave enough time to adequately reproduce in number before temperatures dropped again. So the mice, shrews, and voles sense the stronger, longer rays of sun filtering through the snow to their tunnels and say to themselves, "hooray! spring is coming! time to make babies!"

At this point, I don't know if those babies already exist (if so, Round 1 of several for the year, I'm sure) or if the voley-poos are merely preparing themselves physically to be able to reproduce, but either, way, I like seeing their tracks everywhere. They're pretty cute.

Green Beer It Is

Kind of a weerd picture, but hey. Green beer is green beer.
(By the way, I've decided to start spelling it weerd instead of weird. Easier to remember - wierd? or weird? what about i before e? - and uses the same delicious vowel combo as green. and beer. and other words that have ee.)

Dexter and I went for a long walk yesterday in the brilleeantly sunny afternoon. The snow was perfect, the trees were perfect, the mountains were probably perfect except I couldn't see them thanks to fog.

Oh ReDoubt: when are you planning to erupt? You crazy teese, you.

Dexter was thrilled to get some Exercise after spending all day sitting in the car waiting for me to finish work. If this sounds cruel, let it be understood that this dog has an anxiety disorder and can't be left home alone because he goes mental. (The door has the gouges to prove it.) On the other hand, he happilee (if somewhat bored-looking) sits in the car for hours on end because he does not feel abandoned inside a vehicle. So by far the less cruel method.

Down on the wetlands, the snow moves like sand into drifts and dunes. Even with the bright afternoon sun it never warms up enough to stick together. Each snowflake remains at the mercy of the wind to pile up in shelves and pyramids around the stubbee black spruce saplings.

Black, green, brown and dusky blue lichen wrap around tree trunks and hang from branches. They call it witch's hair and old man's beerd. If you see it or feel it, you know why. It's alive, but its draping fibers crumble between rubbed fingers.

Yesterday was our 12-hour day: Sunrise at about 8:12 am, Sunset at 8:12 pm. With Civil Twilight, which extends the day an easy hour in eech direction, no one can think of me living my days in the dark. We gain five minutes every day - that makes over 2 hours a month - rushing towards summer when the sun never seems to set. So long as the sun is shining, I am just as happee with the cold.

Moose Caboose

I almost walked into the back of a moose yesterday. Ha! Ha!

I was walking home from work and I noticed moose tracks going this way and that way all around in the new snow. I hadn't seen moose tracks on that trail since my first walk to work. I thought to myself, I wonder if these are the same two moose that I saw down in town yesterday when I was walking to the library? They were in James' backyard hiding in the trees, standing very still and munching trees.

I looked here and there amongst the trees, wondering if perhaps they were still around and I could see them standing amongst the trunks. Moose are hard to see because they stand very still and they are the same color as everything else that is brown, but they are not shaped very much like tree trunks, so if you look for shape instead of color, you might just spot them.

Michelle drove me to a party out K-Beach on Wednesday and we passed moose grazing in the frozen wetlands. "I hate driving in winter at night," she said, "because of the moose. They come out of nowhere and you can't see them. Often people hit the babies because the mama crosses the road, and then just when you think nothing is following her, the baby runs across. And then after that, the twin will run across and the twin will get hit, because people really aren't expecting that.

"The way a car hits a moose, the bumper goes right into the legs, and it flips the moose over and onto the hood. It goes through the windshield and you basically get kicked to death. The moose doesn't usually die; it limps off with broken legs and then they have to go after it and shoot it.

"There's a list of people who get the meat. The next person on the list gets called when a moose is hit, and they have to come out, shoot it, clean it and everything, and they have to donate half the meat or something, but they get to keep the rest. There are rules about how far away from the road they can dispose of the remains and all that too. I just hope I never hit one."

At this time of year, the moose are pretty tame. They are morose and hungry. Once the mamas drop calves in spring, they get fierce, and a rutting bull in the fall is downright dangerous, but these days they just do a lot of munching and hunkering in the trees out of the wind. They walk into town where the roads are plowed - even with their long legs it gets pretty tiring to manage the deep snow. James says that in his childhood when they regularly got significantly more snow than we have this year, there were way more moose in town than there are now. Maybe they find a warm dryer vent to frequent, and certan moose get reputations as bothersome loiterers.

This morning at the Eagle Lodge where Tracy took me for breakfast, an old lady was tattling on a know-it-all neighbor who told them not to feed the moose.

"This nice lady moose wandered into our backyard and she was so sad, so we fed her and she started hanging around. But you know she had lots of relatives that she invited along and pretty soon I wondered if we were in the restaurant business or what. The neighbor came by and said not to feed the moose, and I said, 'I don't. I feed the birds.' Heh. But then we got neighbors next door. Kids, you know. We had to stop then."

Tracy asked, "How long did it take after you stopped feeding her before she stopped hanging around?"

"Well, she stayed around for a while, and then one year she didn't show up anymore. I don't know what happened to her."

"She probably ended up in someone's freezer."

"Eh, it's Alaska."

So, back to the story: I was peering into the trees on either side of the path and I thought I saw the bumpy silhouette of a moose sitting down in the snow about thirty feet off the trail. I wasn't sure, because I couldn't see her head, so I wanted to take a better look. I found a set of moose tracks pointed that direction diverging from the trail, so I decided to follow them. The snow was a lot deeper than it looked. I suddenly realized the severe advantage moose legs give them in the winter drifts. I tried to follow directly in the footprints left for me, but this required an awkward hop up and out of the snow and I missed a lot of them. After a few yards the footsteps turned in a different direction than where I'd seen the moose, but from there I could look and see the distinct shape of its head and my curiosity was satisfied. The trail I followed must take a sharp turn and lead to her, but who accuses of a moose of not walking in a direct line? Where's it going anyway but where it wants? Except for the fact that it is starving and must live in the cold, I kind of like the idea of aimless wandering. A moose would make a good minstrel. If it could sing.

I turned around and hop-shuffled back through the snow to the path and continued towards home. As I turned to take one last look at the moose in the trees (I was rather proud of myself for spotting it from so far away), I suddenly saw the bulk of another moose lying down in the snow much, much closer to me. The footsteps I'd found did not lead to that other moose at all; in fact, if I'd followed them about ten feet further, I would have found myself struck smack into the backside of a big ole' moose. And I had just finished congratulating myself on my powers of observation....

The moose moved not at all. Neither moose had twitched so much as an ear in all the time that I'd watched them. I guess they figured someone as bumbly and noisy as me couldn't possibly pose a threat to them. Lucky for them I'm not a hungry wolf pack. Lucky for me they aren't a hungry wolf pack.

Yup, I live in Alaska. Yup, there are lots of moose.