And Now We Wait …

The golden beauty of Autumn in Alaska is behind us now, although the season itself draws on.

Most deciduous trees and bushes are bare of leaf, turning all energies inward towards survival of the long, cold winter ahead. Spruce trees add the only touches of green to the landscape, as well as safe haven for winter-hardy birds.

We’ve had several crisp, sunny days this past week, enticing me to bundle up in hoodie, gloves and thick socks to take the dogs for outings at our local parks and walking trails. They enjoy mixing long walks up with nose work practice. We’re also loading up on natural vitamin D while we can!

  • NW hide by right foot!
  • What’re we waiting for?
  • Riding to the park.
  • Let’s go! Let’s go!

We had an afternoon of heavy dark clouds obscuring the local mountains yesterday, along with periods of light rain. As expected, this morning’s chill sunshine exposed fresh snow, “termination dust” as we call it here, nearly halfway down the flanks of the Talkeetna Mountain range to the north of our house.

“Termination dust” creeping down the mountainside.

It won’t be much longer before we have snow here in the valley too, and I’m OK with that. Snow at least adds its own touches of fresh beauty to a landscape otherwise painted with a broad-hued brown brush this time of year.

My goal for this next week is to plan activities geared towards keeping me active, while still social-distancing, over the next few months. Once cold weather sets in, my smooth-coat small dogs are no more eager than I am to venture outside for long walks – an activity we count on for exercise the rest of the year.

Well, what a difference a day makes. I was going to post this last night before bed, but drowsiness and a compelling Audible book overcame my good intentions.

I awoke to THIS. It’s not much [yet], but officially, the wait is over. Baxter and Rhonda are not overly impressed.

First snow. I wonder how much we’ll get this morning!

Realities and Wishful Thinking

My bedroom is still too darn small! I don’t know why it seems to shrink every year at about this same time.

Even with my puzzle board doing double duty as grooming table and desk, and my spinning chair foldable (as is my wheel), there’s just no place to truly put enough things away.

Why is it I can fit all my hobbies, along with my bedroom, bathroom, dinette and a kitchen in a 27’ long, 8’ wide motorhome (including the cab!) and everything seems to fit fine without feeling crowded … and yet, finding room in my 22’ x 16’ bedroom at home for just my spinning wheel, laptop, knitting paraphernalia and puzzle board seems so cramped after having them absent from the room most of the summer?

Maybe it’s partly knowing I can’t just open the door and set my spinning wheel up outside in the grass this time of year. Brrrr!

Speaking of my RV; I brought “Roada” home from being winterized this morning. What a beautiful if bitter-sweet drive.

Up here in Alaska, autumn is still much in evidence today with brave clusters of bright yellow and dusky gold holding out against a gray sky.

There are certainly more golden leaves on the ground than in the trees in many places, including my driveway, but those still clinging to the trees dance and swirl in the crisp breeze, enjoying every last bit of life before the inevitable final flight to join their companions on the chilly ground.

As I drove home, I found myself wishing I’d planned a couple more short trips before first snow. Sort of impractical, since I’ve completely emptied out the RV, stripped the bed and turned off the refrigerator, but I couldn’t help being wishful. 🍁

Its All About Time

I’ve about had it with this year. Let’s think about next spring. Let’s dream dreams and make plans. Heck, maybe the Canadian border will even be open.

I realize I’m getting well ahead of myself here, but I’m betting a lot of my followers are also, in one way or another, looking forward to putting 2020 behind them.

So … what are your plans for spring? Here’s mine!

Time is finite. The older I get, the more crystal clear this notion becomes. I am cautiously hopeful that 2021 might be a little better than this current year, but only time will tell.

Towards that end, I’m going to start creating a wish list of places I’d like to visit and things I want to do while I still have the time.

Being realistic, I admit that some of my “Bucket List” items aren’t likely to happen in the coming year. It might take longer, and some may not come to fruition at all – but seriously, if I don’t even TRY, I’ve got no one to blame but myself.

Funny, isn’t it? When you are young, you might have a 5-year plan, a 10-year plan and then a long-term plan … and you feel like you have all the time in the world.

Right this minute, I feel like I can optimistically work on a 1-year plan and maybe a 5-year plan if I’m lucky. But long-term? Well, “long-term” seems to take on a whole different meaning after you hit 70. Especially in the midst of a world-wide pandemic.

I have a new motto this year …

I have all winter to come up with a new plan. The goal is still to get behind the wheel of my RV and drive. Who knows where I’ll end up.

In the meantime, as I tweak both my Bucket List and daydreams of future travel, I’ll leave you with this last quote.

Tick tock. Tick tock.

Turned Leaves and Closed Doors

Autumn is a lovely time of year and I enjoy the sheer beauty of the changing seasons. What I have yet to come to terms with is the necessity of winterizing “Roada” and closing her up for the winter.

Autumn pictures around our property.

Sadly, the time for this fall ritual is fast approaching. In order to spur me along this reluctant journey, I finally went ahead and made an appointment for winterizing on October 1st. Sigh.

First things first; I spent a full day cleaning and rearranging my bedroom (in the house). I admit, I’ve been using about half of it to store nose work supplies over the summer.

These supplies needed to be rehoused to the barn so I’ll have room in the bedroom to set my spinning corner up once again.

Hmm … I need to bring my comfortable canvas glider-rocker in from the RV. It’s proven perfect for spinning and conveniently folds up out of the way when not in use.

I’ve enjoyed having my spinning wheel, a portable Lendrum double-treadle, in the RV for a couple of summers now. I didn’t actually get as much spinning done this summer as I’d hoped, but what I managed was joyful and should make for good knitting this winter.

Spinning in the sunshine of a beachside campground in Ninilchik, or warm and toasty inside, while listening to rain on the RV roof in Seward, was peaceful beyond measure.

Now it’s time to come back in out of the rain (so to speak), so the wheel is upstairs, waiting to be used.

Another day disappeared; filled with moving all my toiletries from RV to upstairs bathroom, stripping the bed in the RV and changing sheets on the bed in the house. And knitting …

I’m going to try hard to limit the number of times I must traverse the staircase this winter. One thing I learned, somewhat to my dismay, is that my “bad knee” recovered to a good degree over the summer – it seems having everything on one level really does make a difference.

To this end; I’ve set up my RV coffee maker on the dresser for morning coffee, and cleared a drawer to store coffee supplies, biscotti, bottled water, snacks, etc.

Most of my winter hobbies are based upstairs anyway, so being comfortable there and not constantly running up and down should prove helpful.

Today was sunny, if chilly, so “Roada” was given one last thorough wash & wax to hold her over the winter. I ended up with slightly blue, cramped, cold fingers by the time I was done, in spite of heavy rubber gloves, but needs must.

Shiny, clean “Roada”.

Now that the big wash is done, I need to clean out (and clean) the frig, freezer and pantry. Nothing even slightly resembling food remains in the RV over the winter.

Tomorrow is designated for overall interior cleaning. It’ll be a long day and, for me anyway, a sad one.

I purely hate putting my beautiful toy away for the winter.

This coming Thursday is winterizing day. Technically, that doesn’t mean I can’t still use her, until snow drives me indoors for good … but with the water turned off and drained, it’s just not the same.

Tim to start dreaming of spring, and next year’s RV adventures.