dogs are washed...

 

my goals most days are pretty simplistic.  today was wash dogs, walk dogs, get a new cat tree...i guess when you keep your goals low you tend to meet them.  so yeah me!!

these are some caribou i spotted..pretty easily...in Denali National Park last spring.  i often make the drive north in the spring before they open it for tourism. this year was strange i guess, but it was nice to do the road trip north and see what is out there. it's 5 hours each way but with long days i do it all in one day.  many stops along the way up..then cruise to the 30+ mile mark where the road is closed. i never made it back up this summer, which is unfortunate as i think you could get permits to drive that far all summer.  that never happens and may never happen again. 

my trek this day was fun and as always interesting.  

there were a few bears out in the distance.

there is one below, zoomed in on. 

i was blessed to see the big mountain.

the animals were no doubt enjoying the return of warmer weather

this evening i also made some manicotti with large shells and for dessert a batch of cinnamon rolls made with puff pastry.  i try out a puff pastry recipe on occasion.  so far i haven't really found any big winners.  it's an interesting pastry though and you can buy it ready made at the grocery so i do at times. 

would like to play with filo pastry as well.  need to just brave some savory recipes and see what i can come up with.  

i have my standard bakes/cooking but it is nice to add a few things to the list.  it gets boring eating the same stuff over and over and it is fun to try new recipes. i have always enjoyed looking for and trying recipes. i do have to alter them for my toddler like taste buds though.

i am a fairly picky eater.  only one of those cinnamon rolls really turned out right but it was kind of nummy.   the recipe was found on pinterest....love that site.  great for craft and recipe ideas.

today i got to walk with LS.  it's been a few weeks.  always a pleasure.  we did the big loop in N. Biv.  loads of bikers out there. 

Denali from the road

these are all from back in May.

the cat tree is super tall.  i spared no expense. Covi deserves the best.  the one on the stairs is now in here, the office. he's gotten kind of big for it.  so the new one has 3 different open places for him to sleep...or Miss Breezy if she ventures that far down the stairs. 

of course at the moment he is in here with me playing on the old tree.  i dragged the new one inside and then went back outside to grab a few other items from shopping trek to PetSmart...when i returned he was already climbing the new tree in the front entry way. 

so clearly he approves. 

the dogs were not all that thrilled to get baths today.  no swimming but we did hit the Monster wash.  it's a car wash but they have two rooms for dog washing. 

moose above, below are beluga whales in the arm

rarely can capture any shots of these whales but it seems like this day i got fairly lucky

there was supposed to be a million maga march in DC today...it ended up being more of a few thousand maga march.  the few who believe the lies and feel the election was rigged. his surrogates don't actually need a million people because all they have to do is lie and say there were a million and his followers will believe.  they seem to believe anything and everything they are told...the bigger the lie the better i guess.

trump seems to be emerging from his lair a bit more.  still believes he has won. his surrogates are humoring him because a man over 70 can't just be told he lost, he needs to be gently let down apparently.  perhaps they can hold a fake inauguration for him in front of that landscaping business. give him a participation trophy and take him directly to a mental institution. 

seems he never learned how to adult. 

adulting means loss, losing and accepting of that.  he has people to deal with his losses so he just moves on and convinces himself he is always successful.  his lawyers and staff are left to try and pick up the pieces.  he's had plenty of losses though.  plenty of failures.  Putin may abandon him at some point...once Biden is in...Putin will have to deal with an adult again who he can't manipulate as easily...trump was a 4 year gift for putin anyway though. we may never know what gifts he received.  what was spoken of during that several hour meeting between the two and the many phone calls. 

i'm sure before they leave they try to purge the place of all their international dealings.  

all day i thought today was Sunday but now it is.  my tasks for today include cat litter cleaning, trash and recycling to the curb.  dog poop pick up...

i really need to do some major cleaning of this place.  rip out some flooring somewhere...gotta start planning for new flooring. it's overdue really. 

our hospital has a new outdoor morgue.  we actually have a small indoor morgue so not too shocking with this that we will need more morgue space. i'm not sure how it goes moving bodies to mortuaries these days with covid.  

i'm sure as the weeks go by i will become more and more familiar with all things covid. 

we all will.  our positive cases for the day were well over 700, close to 800.  over 110 hospitalized and reported a total of 11 vents in the state of AK.  still the deniers out there, though the ER hasn't had as much of the riff raff.  so my guess is more people are avoiding the ER now that the numbers are climbing.  less stupid stuff.

i'm guessing this pair was in Potters Marsh

signs of the times headed down to Homer in May

dogs are oblivious to all things covid. 

home and the pets are my safe spaces.  outdoors feels quite safe as well.  

so some things covid can't change as much as others.

the US stats are fairly staggering.  over 10.9 million have been infected so far, over 245,000 have died and over 67,000 currently hospitalized. nothing will happen during the lame duck with covid.  trump is only focused on himself and his loss and trying to find a way to stay in power despite the actual loss.  

Biden and his staff have still not been given access to the needed transition preparation tools.  trump refuses to concede and the GOP members are seemingly in no hurry to push him to hurry.  

i really wish we could be done with trump but his stain will remain in the white house and our government for some time.  he was left with a very detailed transition and he will leave behind a total mess for Biden.  at least Biden is not expecting of any of the usual niceties that usually come with transitions. 

sadly so many on the right have lost their way as far as kindness, tradition, honor....they are only capable of hatred and anger and rage. 

i do hope they wake up...i know so many who have just allowed these things to infect them.  being so focused on right wing media twists peoples brains....all that negativeness and nasty energy repeated day in and day out.  many have for years only watched fox and/or listened to right wing conspiracy crack by the likes of alex jones and Rush. they have spent more of their hours each day on qanon/8 chan and now there is a newish "social" site that many have migrated to from facebook.  parler or something.  

they are all full of lies and hatred and spur them to act on their anger and hatred. as these things always go the fools at the bottom do the grunt work for those at the top who keep their hands clean and pretend they have no responsibility for the actions of others.

these are in Homer....my go to spot this summer

there were a lot of sea stars again this spring. 

we can all choose to be hateful or to be kind. we can also choose to walk away from hateful.

i've kept hoping that his followers would wake up and see the light, but so far that seems a pipe dream.  no clue how things ever get back to any kind of normal. 

the sea star above clings on to the pole...eventually losing it's grip and dropping to the sand below.  i like the sea star below because it looks to be expressing power...we will persevere. 

life will go on.  the sun rises, the sun sets

well i guess i shall get ready to head to bed.  still coughing...the cold weather. no other symptoms.  

thankful for A.  the positive things in life  B. the beauty that exists no matter what mayhem befalls us.  C.  the animals that share my life and give me a reason to get out and about.