each day an adventure in alaska: rain...is snow in forcast..not yet, but soon

more from yesterday and again general walks and hikes. since my new caribou friend was sticking close to me i used his lovely rack in my photo's. so kind of him to assist me!!!

didn't make the run north. snow is in the forecast for up there and i heard the valley may have even gotten some snow..no doubt non sticking sort but still perhaps some flakes.

don't think those paw prints on my car will last through much more weather. fading fast.

did love all the reflection shots. such a great place. i will have to sign on as a member and donate more to this place.

a few with the little camera of the grizzly bears. they come so close that the zoom becomes useless actually. they were munching on some fresh veggies that had been left out earlier. look at those paws...seem huge to me!!

the memory that seems to stick with me from my bear encounter is those claws. so long and clicking/scratching at the window. i must have been focused on the nails. worried they'd get a good catch on the open window and yank it out.

they do seem rather happy in their 18 acre home. pretty sweet. sounds like it's one of the largest enclosures for bears in the nation. maybe the largest...not sure. it was crowded when they were feeding the bears and not as fun to take photo's of as it wasn't chunks of moose like the last time i was there. hamburger meat, chicken, leftovers from the double musky and not sure what else. they seemed to prefer the hamburger from what i saw..not as excited as when moose bits were tossed over the fence.

that is one large rump!

they all seem to get along quite well. bears don't generally live in groups, but they seem pretty adapted to the chill life they live.

since i didn't make the drive north i went to kincaid and took a walk down to the beach. worried it would be super windy on the beach as the weather seemed not so great today. the wind was there but not too bad. blossom enjoyed chasing her toy. she must have twisted her front leg on some rocks as she started limping. she can be mildly dramatic so hard to tell how bad an injury really is. i gave her lots of lovings and she hobbled back down the beach towards the trail. by the time we hit the main trail she was looking like she was fine. happy for that...would hate for her to be injured.

both dogs seemed happy with the halibut tonight. i thawed out a piece and they got what i didn't consume.

started working my way to getting stuff onto shutterfly. seems daunting at first, but i know i'll get it all in there and then start working on christmas cards, the calendar and some gifts with the pictures perhaps.
this is a hut they can bed down in if they want. they do hibernate to some extent in the winter. not sure they use this for that purpose. sounds like they happily did other resting places on the property. they had another bear there a few years back. it was the year we had so much snow and the bear was able to escape. i think it ended up killed.

wood bison..that big guy kept kinda charging the fence. could be pretty terrifying having one of these super sized bulls coming at you.

he for sure did not like me.

pampering patients pays....that was one of the articles i read in the paper this morning. i am attentive to my patients...i find that if i can make them feel secure early on in my shift, they rest better...so really this benefits me as well. if they rest they don't bother me so much. if you don't settle people in to a happy place they will hit that call light all night and be quite bothersome. i know i'm a total bitch, but i'm nice about it so who's the wiser. i do remember noticing that the patients in the more pampered hospitals were less motivated to get out of the hospital. most of my training was at los angeles county hospital. they had 6 beds to a room with one bathroom. the jail patients were usually closest to the bathroom because they had a tether from the bed to their ankles if i remember correctly.this was before cell phones and there was no phone in the unit, it was in the hall in between units...those people were often quite motivated to get out of there.

musk ox skull at the center.

this is the fence between the grizzly's and the humans. there are little electric fences in there as well.

so you can get super close to the bear. the electric wire is right above the bears eyes in this one. they have a few of those.

haven't looked to see what the latest is in the kenya mall shooting. last i had heard was what i read today. 39 killed at the upscale mall for not being muslim and many more still being held as hostages. very sad...those poor people. must have been terrifying. what a sad, sad world we live in sometimes.

all these chemical weapons that are supposed to be destroyed in syria. an article was addressing how difficult and dangerous it can be to destroy these weapons, especially if they are already embedded in other secondary devices. it can take years to do properly and safely. i've my doubts that will happen in syria. what danger to environment and both human and animal populations if it is done improperly and hastily. nice to know that our country also has loads of chemical weapons that they are trying to organize the safe destruction of..supposedly anyway. we apparently have over 30,000 tons left to destroy...nice. always good to know. with the money we seem to spend on stuff to destroy each other we could save the earth and all the creatures on it. what a huge waste of resources and funds.

a few from portage valley. loved the glacier colour out there and of course, more reflections.

had to watch out as i wandered around this area. there were several dead salmon laying about. rio and blossom both wanted to take some home i think. those are some stinky fish...yuck. best for me to find the dead fish before the dogs did.

more reflections

the fireweed is seeded out and soon this white fluff will be blown off to seed the area. thought it was kinda cool looking

a hanging glacier in the background isn't bad either.

while i was wandering around the beach area along the shore...some tourists stopped by down the beach. blossom was closer to the water and i was not visible yet to the people. i heard one call out, "there's a sheep, there's a sheep" then she said, "oh it's just a dog". blossom was mistaken for a wild alaskan sheep. i had to laugh.