squatch and gobble...

 party in the making. time to clean house and make some plans!  parties always force me to clean.  now my clean is marginal compared to others ideas of clean.  i think my friends are accepting of my semi clean state.  at least they don't have to worry about spilling anything, right?  sent out the word, which is the first step.

 the sunset shots are from today.  i took the dogs to the coastal refuge.  these other shots are from a foray out into north bivouac the other day.  just realized that there are more photo's from that.  at some point once again.  blossom made a water entrance through the ice. we are not having much luck with this so i really have decided that i need to be super cautious for a bit. i tossed her frisbee out by stumphenge and it found the only open water. blossom cracked through trying to get to the frisbee.  rio cracked through while i was trying to help blossom.  all made it out safely. even the frisbee was rescued with the aide of a long stick! guess i'll check out those other pictures tomorrow.

 my battery died on the one little camera and i happened to have a spare mini camera.  of course if i go through the water i will have no camera left.

 blossom looks so cute in the snow.

 she enjoyed her frisbee chasing.  winter tends to be more frisbee and less tennis balls for her.  the tennis balls sink into the deeper snow.  she is pretty dang good and sniffing even buried balls out, but even blossom has her limitations.

luckily, none of us went through on this boggy pond. it's much deeper.  the first year i lived here in the spring i think my foot did slip through out here.  i had no idea at the time that there was actual water under here.  living in the land of cold and ice is a learning experience.  some don't survive it.  most of us do survive our stupid decisions.  the gods are good to us!

 even let rio run around for a bit....such a fool i am.  blossom has now broke through ice 3x in a matter of 3 weeks i believe.  the odds seem to be against me.

 should have bought some sasquatch slippers before now...what to wear that is squatchy or thanksgivingy.

 this hill heads down to the coastal refuge.  there is a house for sale right there...such a view!!  later in the winter this will become a fabulous sledding hill.

 i have decided to begin taking pictures of these random shoes i see all over the place.  it's always one shoe and i'm always left wondering where the other shoe is, how the person is getting around with only one. why did they abandon this shoe?

 anchorage is again recycling glass....yippee! i no longer will have to drive my glass to homer or take it to the small bin at target to recycle.

 blossom stands next to hole that she cracked through the other week. of course, she has learned nothing from that experience and immediately ran right over to the hole.  silly dog!

 hostess is apparently going out of business.  i guess their employees have been striking and complaining so they said come back to work or we'll just quit.  of course, i do not have all the details but i heard about it on NPR as i was driving from the refuge and stopped at the grocery store for some food items...not twinkies by the way.  the twinkies were all gone...raided.  panic...life without twinkies is apparently too much for some to bear and they are cleaning out the shelves of the local grocers.  at the end of the world there will be dandilions, cockroaches and twinkies.  my theory is that hostess will just outsource their jobs to china or india and soon twinkies will return to the shelves with the possibility of mystery ingredients never seen before.    even if this never happens i believe i will be able to live knowing i may never eat a twinkie again.  now hoho's could be a greater loss.

 wore my cleats out there.  still breaking through the icy bits next to the trail.  just into plant matter though.

 i didn't go too far out today as it looked like the tides had been coming in pretty far and there was ice pancakes pretty close in. if i hadn't have taken blossom and was with someone else i may have wandered a bit further, but solo one has to be more mindful and just turn around rather than be caught doing something that will make you look the fool in the article reporting your demise.

 2 easy nights in the peds icu.  sweet!  makes you almost more tired though.  thought of heading to a hockey game tonight, but i hit my wall and chilled at home instead.

 bears are still out there...2 trappers got mauled out on the kenai.  sounded like both were going to be fine.  would be a terrifying experience.  other news...off of st lawerence island animals have been found coated with oil.  so far no source has been found for this.  it's been a variety of animals from a fairly large area.  birds, seals.  a mystery. hopefully they find the source and contain it.  it could be related to the big tsunami in japan still.  lots of stuff out there making it's way around the globe.  what a mess....so sad for all, human, animal and the planet.  we are just all so much more connected that we ever know and a disaster in one part of this earth eventually finds a way to impact us all.

 the states that generally vote republican, which means they are generally also for more states rights have been fighting the healthcare reform.  it's kinda ironic that since they have planned to be able to find a way out of the healthcare reform they haven't made plans for their states.  now if they don't come up with a plan the federal government will take over. i like the idea of more states rights and less federal intervention overall, but i do feel we need to do something to fix our healthcare system.  have no idea if this will help or hurt, but it's coming so states should find some way to cope.  some states had moved forward and are in a better position.  wise leadership i think...it didn't mean they agreed, but they were wise to formulate a plan.  of course, it appears that alaska's leaders have been on the side of doing nothing so the federal government will.  

 the whole gaza/israel thing is a bit frightening.  you'd think those folks would learn you hurl one thing towards israel you will get 100 more back at ya.  they are in a pretty vulnerable location surrounded by foes so i can't really judge them for being proactive.  that whole region is a mess.  the hatred is generations old and it doesn't seem like any amount of discussion will ever fix it.

 that white patch is a big slab of pancake ice...pretty far in from where i generally walk out to.  the cool thing about these beaches is how totally different it can look year to year and week to week.

 a close picture of this ice slab.

 the sun sets pretty fast around here.  these were taken around 4-4:30pm this afternoon.  we are down to some 7 hours light.  it will continue to decrease about 5 minutes per day until we get to solstice in december. from there we get a lag time and then the light will slowly return.

 blossom on the trail...which is mostly ice.

 have been wanting to attempt some ice decor that i've seen.  filled all these balloons with ice and food colouring.  it was a messy task as it turns out.  it's been awhile since i've filled water balloons apparently.  luckily, it's like riding a bike.  after they freeze you somehow cut away the balloon.  that part could get dicey.  my bucket was frozen so i've made some other attempts at ice candles.  if these go well i'll do a few more tomorrow.  then the deck should look festive for the party on tuesday.

 printed out some of my sasquatch prints for a game i'm trying to come up with.  how to prepare for a sasquatch themed party.  thought i would also do a thanksgiving theme since it's next week and i'll be working the actual day of thanksgiving.  may be nice to eat some turkey and fixings before the big day.  you can never get too much turkey, right?

 usually go out to at least that tree. you can see all the big ice chunks all over. the high tides have been high from what i've seen watching the paper.  better safe than sorry.  still pretty pictures.

 love going to the waters edge for sunset.

 the last few were taken across from potters marsh.  it sure gets cold as soon as that sun drops down.  i wore my regular hiking boots, which aren't very warm.  the cleats fit better on them.  was thinking of taking my old, old ice bugs in and seeing if they can reline the inside and then maybe just cleat those up.

 redoubt in the distance.

 moon over turnigan arm.

 more ice at low tide.

it's 1 in the morning so i believe i will hit the hay.  no idea what my plan is for tomorrow. swim for sure.  maybe movie, maybe aces game.  the people that were going already had seats so i would have been by myself anyway. they had bought seats for the game, but when we were chatting at work i suspected they seats were on the dry side of the stadium.  they were.  i think they got them changed.  i've never known a sporting event that had a dry side and a wet side.  you can't buy alcohol on the dry side.  i tend to sit on the wet side, not to drink so much as the dry side tends to be loaded with screaming kids....as if hockey isn't noisy enough.  anyway...i'm sleepy so off to bed i go.