Tuesday, March 20, 2012

my fair city...

taken from the coastal trail area, after once again, unsuccessfully seeking out owls. it's just not to be. kinda like my ever present hope of seeing a lynx out on the trails. oh well. anchorage is a beautiful city. it's got the advantage over so many communities of similar size. i also loved living in ketchikan. i know if i moved back there i'd totally miss the awesome trail system here, the activities, shopping and the ever present moose. still have loads of photo's to add back from the days i was posting iditarod. not too concerned. break up is messy and so picture taking takes a dive. after i'd driven around the airport looking for owls i figured i'd stop by lake hood and take a peek at airplanes. i thought i may get lucky and see an owl here maybe. though they have been sighted, i was not to be lucky that day. i do love all the planes though and always enjoy getting a few photo's of them out there on the lake. the day was beautiful so why not.today was monday walk. i felt fine when i woke, but my belly was not happy most of the day. not sure why, perhaps it was the cookie dough i consumed the night before. generally i can eat cookie dough (with those raw eggs) without any issues, but occasionally, it does bite me i guess so perhaps it was as simple as that. was planning on getting back on swim track, but curled up in bed with a warm blanket on my belly instead. wasn't totally a wasted day though. i have shredded lots of old piled up papers and went through some kitchen cupboards getting rid of old and outdated food items. gotta do that every so often. wanted to re-organize a bit. old habit. i like to get in there and purge crap every so often. it just weighs on me. i now have a shelf just for chocolate. hopefully, this will help me manage that space better. kept shoving it in the container cupboard and then i had no idea what i had and just bought more. now i know what i have..too much...and can stop squirreling away chocolate. in the event of an emergency i won't starve to death. i won't eat healthy, but i'll survive. ski/wheels. the plane can take off on wheels and land on skies or vice versa. tonight i decided i needed to refil some of the blank spots left in my kitchen by going shopping. ate a late night dinner as well. steak and steamed zuchinni. love zuchinni. don't eat steak very often, but occasionally it sounds great and it gives me a chance to use my griddler. i like it so far. much easier clean up than other similar products i've had in the past. the floats are left behind in the winter and changed out for ski's. love flying in the smaller planes. oddly, i prefer them over the big airliners. i know more little planes crash, but these seem like they should be up there. they also don't fly so high up so i feel like i have a fighting chance of survival. besides, float planes and ski planes are just cool and fun! landing on ski's is so smooth, it's like you haven't even touched down at all. this summers plans will include a ski landing and a float plane landing. liked the dog out there playing on the lake while the family got ready for a flight.got those wedding gifts bought as well today! still much more on the to do list, but at least i got some stuff accomplished. tomorrow i should try and get the pictures up on the wall in my guest room. kinda strange to not put photo's in books anymore. i take way more than years past. that is what digital does to you. with film you were limited, but now i can snap away for pretty cheap. have kinda wanted to make a photo album of the annual trip and probably should. i think i may be 2 years behind on that project now. the blog has just become my photo album. the blog and my shutterfly page. i'm behind on shifting photo's over there. that is my back up plan for saving my pictures. i guess with the blog i also have a picasso page as everything i put on here automatically goes there i think. nice to have it online. always feared the big fires. a gift from my mom who instilled paranoia of fire. it's a pretty wise thing to fear. when i've had patients from housefires, i just want to cry with them all night. such a huge loss. at least these days things like photo's can be out there in computer land so not lost. monday walk was fun today. just me, tanya and lena. meant to text amy and see where she is at. slacker!! anyway, beautiful day, small amount of snow. not enough for the record. of course, the area they collect stats for this record is probably close to the coast and therefore, gets less snow. the eastside and hillside have beat the record by many inches already i believe. was going to stop by and see the boys, but lena said linda was planning on it so i'll try and cruise by tomorrow. andrea, nash and sandra met up with us post monday walk for some hot cocoa and cookies. i sent the leftover cookies with tanya for maddie. maddie appreciates real sugar snacks. i'm a purist. i mean if i'm going to eat crap, let me eat crap and not some granolay item that is trying to pretend to be snacks. for me, i'd rather not eat "healthy" treats, unless it's fruits and veggies. of course, i am also a person who can easily eat one or two cookies and walk away so i get why people don't all share my purist philosophies when it comes to junk food. junk food tastes good, that is why i eat it. my taste buds are not fooled by healthy food disguised as junk food. floats wait out the winter.we seem to be getting closer to meltage. the streets are coated with months of dirty snow. it actually lookes kinda cool, with icicles from daily meltage and then an occasional dusting of fresh snow. i'm calling it road art. may try and capture a few more pictures of it before break up happens.break up is the official 5th season in alaska. i'm sure other northern climates experience break up. not sure if they call it that or seperate it out like that. before spring can happen though all this snow must disappear. this year we are talking about 11 feet of snow. streets will become lakes, it will be icy and sloppy and just a huge mess. this will last for probably a month or more. they are saying that with all this snow the ground below may not be as frozen as usual. my first spring up here i went to dig up a bed to plant something only to discover that only the top 1 inch of dirt had thawed. these are from gasline-powerline-tank trails one day out there. not sure what little critter made these tracks, vole? this is the "fence" seperating the public tank trail from the military base. they were kind enough to not put 8 foot fencing around base property. you are suppose to get a permit to travel over thier land. i just went to the bridge and back so not far. the snow has made the fencing seem a bit of an unneccesary expenditure at all. i think it's usually about 4 feet high.pretty trees....look like they should house an owl or two.today at the coffee house i brought up the organ donor thing with someone from another nation. i think they agreed that it may not be something that would be recieved well in some circumstances. not sure what people of hindu, muslim or buddhist philosophies feel about organ donation. maybe they are cool with it. though, i'm not sure how most americans would feel if their kid was declared brain dead in say a muslim nation and the organs went to someone there. does it make a difference? to some i suspect it may. guess in any case you may as well ask. hard to say. death is such an emotional state. i know people who work with families on these sensitive issues are no doubt trained on how to tip toe around the delicate issues. would hate to be accused of procuring organs from international students for the benefit of americans. not that this is happening in the case i originally worked on, just that it led me to ask the next questions which i just had never thought of before. medicine is full of ethical issues. i find them fascinating. so i tend to take a simple event and stretch it to the next levels to see what issues may arise. this one day out n. bivouac i took some off beat trail that it looked like someone had snowshoed on. gave me powerline free views. sadly, the big mountain was out, but not crisp looking.blossom is princess of the mountain!rio was a bit sore on todays monday walk. was tempted to turn around. she did okay, we went a wee bit slower to accomadate her. guess boddhi weighed in at 105lbs, rio still has him beat by over 10 pounds. gave her pain meds with her dinner. these larger dogs just tend to get joint issues at an earlier age. she takes glucosamine as well. she's a tough dog though. may leave her at home tomorrow and let her rest up.i'm back to work for the next three nights anyway. guess it's crazy busy again in the peds units. these are from todays monday walk. lena was popular and i'm sure it had nothing to do with the treats she was carrying around with her.just the four dogs out there. we didn't see anyone else out. boddhi has been wearing a muzzle on our off leash walks. he isn't too thrilled about it, but overall he copes with it and i think it's been good for him and tanya both. i'm about ready for bed. iditarod is over, all are safely to nome and headed home. the awards banquet was held. as soon as we returned from the walk today blossom's buddy, breezy joined her. that cat loves her dog!! have been happy to see that the cat is interacting more and more with me. have been trying to make sure and give the cats daily kitty toy playtime. they seem to love it. my goal is always to get pogi to get both his front paws off the ground. he needs to lose a few pounds. they both have enjoyed their playtime. read, crosswords, boggle on the iphone...goodnight

2 comments:

  1. Is breakup noisy? We just had two days of snow here in the mid-Willamette Valley in Oregon. Of course, today it was almost 50 degrees. When I opened the door this morning, you could hear the snow melting, it was a mild roar. And where I live we had about seven inches, so this was not just a dusting of snow. Made me laugh, we are really snow wimps here! No we will have flooding? Do you have flooding during/after break up? Sorry for all the questions! Love your photos and reading about life in Alaska!

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  2. lots of dripping during the days. this morning it was 0F so a sun stays out longer the dripping will increase. the big rivers get huge ice jams and flooding. the streets will be ponds as will the trails. will take many weeks to melt away the 11ft of snow we've gotten so far!! questions and comments always welcome, thanks for stopping by!! betsy

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