wolverine or pine marten....i had no idea....the winner is....

pine marten. i've never seen a wolverine still out in the wild. i had thought the ears were too perky and the size a bit small. there was some discussions on facebook and in the end someone confidently said pine marten. of course, men have a way of saying things that they have no idea about confidently and making you totally trust that they know of what they speak. i was rather excited for a while thinking i'd seen a wolverine finally. oh well, another day. it was cool to spot this guy though.
at first i was tired headed to the monday walk after only a few hours sleep. (after 4 night shifts). then nobody showed up. tanya had lost water and lena had flooding, so i was alone and feeling bad for myself. then i see this guy with something in his mouth in the distance. lucky for me he darted up a tree with it, thus allowing me to get my camera out. up in the tree though it turned out to be difficult to get pictures. the auto focus kept focusing on the branches around the marten. always frustrating...so i put it on manual focus. fine except the marten was very quick. to put it on sports mode. the above shot is the only really decent shot i got off.

he came quickly down the tree and headed off as fast as those feet could carry him with his squirrel treat.

hard to see, but you can see the squirrels head between his back legs. happy i didn't scare him enough to drop his food source. that would be tragic.

later at the grocery store i spotted a wild animal of another sort, a rat!! the thing darted out in front of my cart. when i mentioned it to a worker there, he casually said the store was filled with rats. i might suggest that grocery stores instruct thier employees to look shocked and promise to inform the management immediately. i mean, it doesn't make one feel too good to know that there are rats crawling all over ones food. sometimes a nice little lie is okay. looking over the foods after this i pretty much lost my appetite.

this is a glimpse of the marten in the tree. what it does show is how big his ears are. the wolverines are much closer in to the head.

tried to take the side trail from the moose ridge trail back to the tank. it's always pretty through there, but as you can see in the picture below i ran into a few wet obstacles. the creek is not frozen and so, though i could see the trail connection in the center of lower photo, i was not going to get to it. so i had to back track. sadly, this meant rio had to hoof it through some deeper snow and she is now limping a bit. it's probably good for the dogs for me to go on vacation for time to time so they can rest and recover from all the walks i take them on. they are both once again, exhausted.

so three hours sleep, 5 miles walking and 30 laps of swimming. not bad for a day. my body is a bit wiped out so i thought i'd try and get in bed a little early. doubt that will actually happen though as i have the insulation guys coming tomorrow and got to organize for that and also for my day away from the home for the most part. i think it gets messy. they have a rebate program going up here where you get the house energy rated, do some repairs to improve that, get in energy rated again and hopefully improve and get money back from the government. i'm not excited about insulation. i much prefer more visible home improvement projects. surely it will all be for the best. hopefully, i can get all or most of my money back and use that for more visibly appealing projects...like flooring.

always love the dried up plants. they make for fun pictures and i can't wait to purchase a macro lens so that i can even have more fun with those little details of life.

just two nights of work to go before i have my vacation. need to clean house, pack, get a list ready for the dog sitters, try and do some of my california christmas shopping done...anything to avoid post offices during the holidays.

work wasn't bad this week. my patient load switched around almost every night. we seem to have an inordinant amount of patients on big boy beds of late. seems the patients are getting larger and the staff smaller. it's forever amazing to me how people can get those ginormous sizes. i feel badly for them as life at that size must really be tough. just every day things i take for granted are huge events for them, riddled with pain and shortness of breath. they also just end up with some many medical issues. it does keep me walking and swimming though. not that any of us can totally be protected from health issues, but it can't hurt to try and do what you can to not hasten your demise. still, our bodies are all time bombs. you never know what is brewing inside. i had a fairly young woman who coded my 3rd night. if it's going to happen it's best to have it happen in a hospital with medical staff right there. i think she'll be okay, but how frightening for all her family. one tiny clot can take out a seemingly healthy person. i'd helped check her in a few nights before and she looked great, then bam!

my last night in pediatrics icu i was given two very easy patients and an orientee. a travel nurse gets very little orientation. they really should just be ready to go. for one day orientation it's really best if you give them to someone with an actual sick patient. in the end i kept her for half of the shift and then turfed her over to the other nurse who had a more ill patient so more stuff to orient to. they probably should have either given me the more sick patient with the orientee or given the orientee to the nurse with the really sick patient. i mentioned to the charge the idea of her switching part way. she never really said yeah or nay. at one point she went to help the other nurse with linen change and such and never came back. i wasn't sure if i'd upset her, or if the other nurse had just taken her, if she was coming back....crazy. communication is always vital to any nurses night. i was left out of that loop for sure. it was fine, as i had suggested it to begin with, just all so strange.

the gym is remodeling the main womens locker room. so today i had to use the family locker room by the pool. i knew i'd better just get there for a swim. sometimes things such as a change in the locker room routine can throw you out of workout mode. now i've done the change and i'll be fine. since it's the family locker room though the bags for you swimsuit are located out by the pool as you walk back into the locker room. (something about possible suffocation risk for the kids) anyway a little old naked lady asked where i got my little bag and she started heading out there to get a bag. i offered her mine ( as i was still in my suit). she initially said no thanks and started again heading for the door to the pool. i quickly reminded her that that was the pool and that she might not want to go out there undressed as she was. she started to laugh at that point, realizing what she'd almost done. she took my bag...i got another one.

blossom was noted to have bloody urine from time to time on hikes last winter. seemed like when she ran and played hard her urine would get bloody. when i got home and she had rested her pee outside would again be yellow. i must have worked her too hard again. poor girl. she had lots of blood in her urine. i took her to the vet about it last year. i alway think the worst, that is a common nursing problem. we see the worst and so we jump to the worst at any symptom. i still find it worrisome. i mean that is pretty bloody. my apologies for the squeamish out there, but i cruise blogs and there are people putting pictures of thier kids on toilets so what is wrong with my dogs piss. they say to avoid yellow snow, but i'd avoid the red snow as well. my finger started bleeding out there on the trail as well. i must have banged it into something. i didn't notice. that is what happens when you are cold, the sensation is lessened and then you just see blood.

went to the dog park in between shifts saturday. ran into a friend from work, semi planned, but not really. hmm? i don't even know how to make sense of that. it was a pretty day though and i think the dogs were happy to get out. blossom went swimming by the creek.

the lake isn't frozen enough for my comfort yet. it's supposed to get very cold this week so that should take care of that for the winter.the darkness is definitely coming over us. this next month is probably the toughest in that way. once solstice hits i know the light is coming. i just combat the light being gone by getting out into whatever light we have. frequently that means i will wake up after a few hours sleep on days, go for a walk and then come home and sleep a few more hours. gotta get your sunshine. i hopefully, will get some in california next week.

i also bogged it on another day between shifts.

so these two are bog shots. love my bog! i live 1/2 block from baxter bog. it's such a great little stroll.

must have been thursday that i wandered around the trails of north bivouac. the snow has melted back a bit. that doesn't mean the streets are clear at all, it just melted enough to turn to ice and ruin any possiblity of skiing.

thursday hopes were high though and the trails up campbell airstrip got a nice grooming. should be a great base coat.

a minor rant....the word stupid is in the dictionary still. it's acceptable to use it. it's not nice to call someone in particular stupid to thier face, but some people are in fact, stupid. we have just gotten way to sensitive with some of our words. for some people saying stupid has now become the equivalent of dropping the f-bomb, they are that offended. retarded is now going the same way. retarded is again in the dictionary and used in the correct context there should be no offense. just as a female dog is a bitch, even the f-bomb itself is in websters. they are words.....words are only offensive if used offensively. you can take any word in the language and put a negative spin on it and it could be offensive. lighten up. that is all i have to say on that.

our election is still up for grabs. last i heard murkowski is still looking to be ahead with her write in votes, but miller and his people are trying to get every voter and their vote to not count...how good of him. not sure why anyone would want to win an election because they were able to make the peoples votes not count. seems a bit shady to me.

it occurs to me that i have this semi fancy dinner to attend on friday and i have nothing to wear. if i'm not going hiking or to work i have nothing. don't think this is the sort of affair one wears snow boots to. i may have to add shopping for appropriate outfit to my to do list. friday is the march of dimes nurse of the year or something award night. i was selected for some reason in one of the categories and it's at the captain cook hotel. my dinner is free as is my guests, but they are charging $75/plate so that sounds kinda fancy. i'm taking my buddy, sandra. my friend sharon was also selected so we're making it a girls night out. i may have to scan the wardrobe and see if anything fits, how depressing is that!! if not...shopping!!

these last pictures are from rovers run at campbell airstrip trailhead.

the ridges are the tracks the groomer machine makes. once it gets a wee bit deeper they will groom in the tracks for classic skiers. right now it's groomed more for skate skiiers or skijorers.

blossom takes a break on the black bear trail off the rovers run trail. well, off to load dishes, look at the wardrobe and eventually sleep.