Shiver My Timbers!

I thought about titling this “The Winds of November”, but it sounded like some epic novel. Besides; it’s not really about the wind – although I’ll admit, the wind has been substantial last night and today.

The gusting winds woke me up just past dawn this morning, literally shaking the house. For you non-Alaskans, that was between 8:00-8:15 am, I think.

The temperature reading outside was a [relatively] balmy 15F, but the wind-chill factor from the high winds brought the actual temps down closer to zero (Fahrenheit). Brrr!

I have a large, north-facing picture window in the bedroom, offering a view from my bed of the trees, the valley below and the Talkeetna Mountains in the distance. I love watching the sun come up through the trees, and this time of year, the sun rises late enough for me to fully appreciate it. 😉

Sunrise on the Talkeetna range, winter 2019

What caught my drowsy attention this morning were the birch trees nearest the deck. They were shivering.

Birch trees shivering in the morning wind.

As I lay in bed, all warm and toasty between fleece blankets and a warm dachshund, the whimsical thought flitted through my mind that maybe I should knit them “trunk warmers” or something. Maybe little “branch blankets”?

Seriously, if you think about it … all summer long, the trees are fully gowned in a plethora of sun-drenched green leaves. In the fall, they change into even more glorious finery, showing off the warm yellows and golds of the season.

But about the time the temperature really starts to fall, it gets frigidly cold and snow covers the ground, what happens? All the beautiful leaves skitter off into the wind or drop to the ground (where, admittedly, they do serve as a blanket for the tree’s roots), leaving the poor trees … naked and shivering! It really doesn’t seem quite fair.

Naked trees!

Speaking of keeping warm in these frigid climes, check out Rhonda’s new winter coat! It’s a double-layer of red, blue & green felt on top, with a warm, dark-blue fleece under-side and comes with a separate (matching) neck-warmer for those super chilly, mid-winter cold snaps.

One of the best parts of this custom designed little coat is the extra warm, full chest and belly protection – measured and sewn especially to fit this deep-chested, low to the ground dachshund, without interfering with her busy little feet. The chest/belly section extends into straps that snug the coat up to the body and Velcro across the back. A perfect fit. ❤️

  • Baxter’s coat 💙
All set for winter!

Rhonda’s coat, the same general design as the winter coat [also] custom-designed for Baxter several years ago, was a gift from good friend and wonderful seamstress, Ruth Hirsiger. ❤️ Thank you, Ruth! Ronni loves it (and Mom especially loves the cute, decorative little red buttons sewn onto the front – such a girlie touch! ❤️❤️), and Baxter’s coat, as you can see, is still nearly good as new!

Well, the wind is still blowing and the trees are still shivering, so I’d better get to work on my knitting.

Oh, all right. Although I am going to take advantage of this chilly November day to get some knitting done – the results are not likely to end up draped around a birch tree. 😉

Shades of Pale

Gazing out my window this morning, I was dismayed to see the sun rise dimly over yet another dismal day filtered through mists of fog and hoar frost.

Not wishing to spend the day disheartened, I put my mind to work finding snippets of beauty in my pale, drab surroundings.

I often snap photos as Mother Nature whimsically changes my view from day to day. Tired of fog, I resolutely flipped through shots I’ve taken over the past three days, wondering if anything had actually changed.

I was surprised to see that even fog changes throughout the day, as well as one day to the next, even though it doesn’t seem so at the time. In the moment; it all just seems like nondescript shades of pale.

However, when I looked more closely …

Three days ago – the deep fog of early morning had no need of digital enhancement to be made into a true “black & white” image. The branches of nearby white birch trees stood out in dark relief against the white-shrouded background.

It was purely fog that first day. Temps were in the upper 30s and low 40s. Chilly and damp.

The following day dawned equally bleak and gray. In mid afternoon, the sun tried to make a break for it, but the pale blue sky only managed a weak appearance overhead, leaving the fog still clinging to the ghostly outlines of the forest around our home.

This morning, with temperatures having plummeted, the mist-laden trees had indeed taken on a new appearance. Although we hadn’t receivable any new snow, the trees had all been silently frosted overnight with thick, silvery-white hoar frost.

I found myself humming an old 60’s tune … seeing all around me “a whiter shade of pale”.

These pictures, capturing the pale wintery landscape, beautiful in its own way, caused me to wonder how many other photos I might have taken – and overlooked as drab or colorless – during my travels around Alaska.

I spent some time this morning shuffling through my photos from this past summer, happily recalling awe-inspiring rainy days, intriguing low tide mud-flats, mountains, inlets and bays enveloped in part or in full by rain squalls, thunderstorms and quiet fog.

I found a beach scene along Cook Inlet where I could see little beyond the nearby sea grass, and a surprisingly pale opal-green shaded glacial lake. I found a plain gray-brown tabby with the same pale glacial eyes.

Shades of gray are too often ignored, thought of almost as a non-color … falling somewhere between black and white and barely worth mention.

But if you truly look at them, each shade is unique; the almost white, blue-grey, green-grey, grey-brown … all the quiet, peaceful, impossibly different pale shades of nature.

It seems only fitting that I finish today’s thoughts with a photo of the scarf I finished knitting last night … in shades of pale grey and charcoal.

I’ve Been Hypnotized!

OK, lets start the day with a little silliness.

“I share my life with a young lady named Rhonda. Of whom I am unabashedly fond of. She’s as agile as a cat, can be sneaky as a rat – has me wrapped around her paw does my Rhonda.”

  • 9 weeks old
  • 1st puppy Dino-chew!
  • 10 weeks – ready to swim!
  • 12 weeks old – Coming home from puppy class

I found myself going back through puppy pictures taken over 2 years ago … time flies by so quickly in the life of a dog. It seems only yesterday that Ronni was a wiggling little puppy, newly arrived from Oregon.

But now … I just don’t know. think I might have bitten off more than I can chew.

As I was drinking my coffee this morning, with Rhonda snuggled warm on my lap as usual, I could’ve sworn I heard a soft, seductive voice in my head.

“Stare into my eyes …” said the voice. “Deep into my eyes. I have you under my spell and you will do as I command.”

Give me the TOY …

Risk Management 101: Everyone is Different

Only time will tell whether our decision was right or wrong.

No … wait, that isn’t true, or even a realistic way to look at the big picture. We’ll probably never know if following another path would have made any difference, for better or for worse. And I guess I’m OK with that.

In any case, I’m not prepared to second guess my choices at this uncertain stage of the game.

Let me go back to where this ramble began and see if I can make sense of my musings.

Sometimes the simple process of putting my thoughts into typed words; shaping the paragraphs and pulling order out of the chaotic heap of random letters and half formed images in my brain, helps me sort them all out – and lately, I could really use some sorting out.

This morning, I awoke early after a restless night of tossing and turning. I was tired, sleep-deprived, very much out of sorts, and it was only 6:00 am. Not a great way to start the day.

My fibromyalgia acts up when it chooses and the resultant discomfort can defeat any thought of sleep. Sometimes the cause is weather related, sometimes it’s due to stress or just physically overdoing. At other times, there seems to be no rhyme or reason.

In any case, I was up quite a bit last night. At one point, I was indulging in a 2:00 am cup of soothing cocoa while pacing the floor, trying to convince the muscle aches and pain in my legs to ease. I happened to look out the living room window and was rewarded by the eerie, pale green beauty of a ghostly northern lights display dancing in the night sky.

Like any good ghostly apparition, this one was almost as quickly gone, but it caused me to stop and think. Something wonderful can happen at any moment. You just have to be present.

Maybe I should be searching for the beauty in my life right now, rather than dwelling on the negative aspects.

My husband, Jerry, and I had discussed our own personal comfort levels regarding the COVID pandemic fairly early on, and of course those conversations have been repeated, reassessed and reconsidered as the world around us did the same all summer.

Being in a high risk category age-wise, and with Jerry checking off high risk markers in several serious health categories on top of that, we chose together what we thought of as a moderately conservative approach over the summer.

We limited our shopping trips, moved what prescriptions we could to a drive-up pharmacy and cooked most meals at home. We donned masks in public, switched to online church services and tried hard to train ourselves to observe the 6’ minimum social distancing. This was harder than expected.

I believed (and still do) that traveling and camping in my self-contained RV was a relatively safe, low-exposure activity – one I was comfortable continuing throughout the summer.

Jerry accompanied me a few times, but was mostly more comfortable staying home, where he had his shop, computer and TV. He was in “hunker down” mode.

Although age is pretty much my only risk factor; the same can’t be said for Jer. I might well have chosen differently for myself, but we agreed that it wasn’t going to work for one of us to be super cautious and the other not be.

After much deliberation, and understanding my husband’s legitimate concerns about group events, I made the painful choice to seriously curtail one of my most valued extracurricular activities, my dog sports trials. Oh! That was hard.

Personally, I thought these [mostly] outdoor events were probably safe – especially after hearing from participants about how well-managed the early ones had been. But I also *heard* Jer’s worry and mostly tried to respect his comfort zone.

In the end, we compromised. The pups and I attended three events (out of more than a dozen offered this summer and fall) that I wanted badly to participate in and felt particularly comfortable with.

I’m glad I was able to do at least that much, and more glad that no harm came from it. I can only imagine how I would have felt if I’d inadvertently brought covid home and infected Jerry.

As we moved into September and COVID numbers began to seriously rise, I’ve had fewer qualms about staying home.

Still, looking back at the entire summer and seeing how many of my friends went calmly forward and had pretty near to normal summer trial activities with their dogs … I can’t help but grieve a bit for all I missed out on because of our [possibly] overly cautious decision.

This was supposed to be a big year for Ronni, who at 2 1/2 years old is just reaching her prime and was poised for a very active, competitive year in Nose Work/Scent Work, Barn Hunt and Fast CAT. I was SO looking forward to this summer with her. The three trials we made it to, she did awesome in.

Ronni should have been able to do so much more … WE could have had such a fun, busy summer. I’m really sad about that, but I’m trying to let go of regret. It was my choice; I believe it was the right choice for us with the information we had, and summer is behind us now.

Missing this season with Baxter was even sadder in some respects, since due to health issues – it may prove to have been his last truly competitive year. ☹️ Then again, as long as he wants to play, I’ll be there with him. ❤️

Do I wish I’d decided differently? No, not really, because in the end, Jerry’s life is more important than one trial season. They are games – and God willing, we can play them all next year.

Jerry and I sat down together again recently and had a long heart to heart talk about the Covid situation and how we felt we should proceed from here.

With COVID numbers in our home state at record highs, I can find no justification for changing course. Which I find pretty depressing, all in all.

Still, as I stood at my bedroom window this evening, watching the last rays of the setting sun play across snow-capped mountains across the valley from my hillside home, I had another thought.

The sky was fading from a clear, crisp blue to a sun-kissed salmon-pink, and the snow glowed a pale, icy blue in the distance. I said to myself, “Well, if I have to stay home this winter, I could sure have a worse view. It’ll do.”