a stop at the coastal refuge..

 3 nights of work down.  slept today well, but still managed to get the dogs out for a nice relaxing walk.  Rio came along.  first we went to the Jodphur trailhead in Kincaid park and did the big loop.  took longer than it did a few years ago.  Rio takes her time...as do i it seems some days.

 i need to improve my fitness and flexibiliy.  yoga, swimming, weights..and of course, walking.  hope i can continue to walk for years.

 stopped by the campbell creek estuary after the walk . the dogs aren't allowed to walk there so i just let them chill in the car.  nice group of sandhills out there flying about.  that call is one of the best...love it!!

 ran into one of their volunteers in the parking lot after i returned.  she said something about my license plate, which is DOGLUV, and how so many break the rules about no dogs allowed out there and thanked me for the fact that i hadn't.  i'm fine with some places being dog free.  this place is for birders and birds mostly from what i can gather.  i enjoy watching birds and the place is peaceful.

 so it was a day to get a few of those things done that don't always get done.  laundry, dishes, trash out....

 my plan is tomorrow to make the mad dash north for the day.  the dogs are always game for that.  will just load their dinner in the car with me.

 beautiful day out there today.

 my three nights of work went fairly well.  ER, CCU,CCU.  i always joke that i am a jinx with those post cath patients in CCU.  mentioned it as i went to do our safety check in a pt with a fem stop on.  we took the thing off together...not 5 minutes later that poor patient was bleeding.  we had to hold manual pressure in her groin for an hour and the fem stop for another hour.  she finally stopped, but it did prove my point, right?  i should not be given fresh cath patients. haha.

 the night before my one patient went into torsodes.  that is an irregular ventricular tachycardia.  i'm sure her pulse was going as was she.  she came out of it and the doc was right there as he'd come in to see my new admit. the crew i was working with was helpful both nights.  my ER night i also had a good partner and it was a decent night there.

 Did have one family one night in CCU...OMG.  people can be nuts and their families are just as nuts.  you see some strange family dynamics working this job. drama and i can assure you my charting had the word histrionics in it several times. i've taken care of toddlers that behaved braver and more calmly.

 one day i slept very little.  woke with those knee spasms...man is that painful.  i have scheduled a massage for friday.  of course, i'm convinced there is something more going on. i was looking it up one night. i think there must be some small tear in the medial ligament.  can't remember the name of it.  didn't sound surgical but could take some time to heal.  started with spasms again the next morning after work. what worked for me to finally take the pain level down was a combo of half teaspoon of my stronger cough medicine and a robaxin.  may stop by that ortho place again this next week.

 hit the bog with the dogs yesterday after my sleep.

 it was funny, this retriever like dog with one of those cones came rushing the pups and I.  The owners started to frantically call the dog back to them and i was sure they were calling the dog Indy...so i hollered back, "did you say Indy?" and they said yes...so i called back, "did you just adopt him?" again yes....so i told them he knew my dogs and it was fine.

 super nice people...i think it will work out well for them all.  Indy needed a good place where he could gain confidence.  they were doing some training with him and were finding that he learns quickly.we ended up walking the loop together. of course, the one lady in this pair used to work for fish and game and has been out to Round Island...so of course we spoke about that.

 Friday another really good article came out about Round Island in the ADN.  it was like a whole page spread with two large pictures of walrus taking up half the page...they were both pictures i had taken and submitted to the reader photo's.  fun and strange to see them there.

 the funniest thing was that in the online version DVL had actually made a comment..he said he was working with a newly formed friends group....more like trying to just ditch the place on a newly forming friends group...but i'm thinking the fact that he mentioned us and that he's working with us could be used to our advantage...clearly he's seeing that people are not happy with his choice and he's trying to use us to soften people's view of him.

 i didn't want to make the comment so i called a friend and had her go on and mention the name of the newly forming friends group...thanks sandra!!

 i have a great idea for a political cartoon but sadly i can't draw.  box one is DVL sitting at his desk at fish and game in Anchorage with binoculars looking out his office window...his thoughts, "looks like everything is going fine on Round Island" the next box would have several distressed and sad looking walrus on Round island with planes flying over them, boats encroaching, people trying to take selfies with them and others eyeing their tusks...

 no way to monitor those walrus from Anchorage..

 supposed to be a good night out there for northern lights.  looks like they are getting started as some posting are showing up on facebook with new photo's.  i've been peeking outside but haven't seen any yet.  if i see some i may wander out to have a look, but i'm getting pretty sleepy so i suspect i'll crash and hope to have a fun day tomorrow.

 still finding lots of fun mushrooms to take photos of.

 seasons change so fast in these parts that you can find cool stuff to take pictures of all the time. the same trails look very different a few weeks apart.

 no moose spottings in the part today which was fine.

 figured out how to get my schedule loaded up finally.  we are requesting all of our shifts on line now.

 today was the first day you could put in your requests and it's first come first serve....not sure who thought it would be a good idea to start something new like this on a holiday weekend?

 love villages of shrooms...so cool

 had to do a little mushroom art.  it was rainier earlier this week, now the sun has been out there.

 thought this mushroom below needed a little fall color.  it kind of looks like a pumpkin pie

 these are from my prewalk out North Bivouac.  haven't seen any signs of bears and so i have ventured out a wee bit further each time i've gone out there.  should hit spencer loop at the south bivouac end next stretch off at some point.  always love that loop too.

 a little pink action.

 and reds...hope to see some fall colors on my trek north and back

 saw another tiny frog this day out there.  today i got the crap scared out of me by a grouse that i must have scared out of it's little spot.  those things freak you out when they burst out of the brush right beside you...i always think a big bear is coming at me.

 can't believe this is the last day of August.  no idea where this month has gone.  fall is fast coming and i've even heard of snow fall across the denali highway already.

 the temperatures have dropped.  there is that fall crispness in the air.  the heater filter is changed and the heat has come on a few times.  i even got my electric blanket out the other day to prehead the bed a bit.

 cool fungi.

 so tomorrow i will try and have a WARIS free day to relax.

 gotta do that every so often.

 so far my closing of the bedroom door has worked to keep the dog accidents at bay...maybe Q is correct and whoever has been doing it has been resenting my spending so much time at this computer with all this WARIS stuff.  of course, they don't know what i'm doing, but this room does cut into my dog time.

 looking forward to that massage this week...!!!

 i always say if i won the lottery ( of course, i'd have to play to win and we don't have a lottery in AK), but if i won.  i'd for sure want a personal massage therapist.

 my sweet girl. i trimmed the hair around her face a bit so i can see her eyes again.

 today she happily found a few mud puddles.

 there are some really big mushrooms out there so i put the tennis ball in front of it to show how big it is.

 the lycras are getting ready for winter skiing!!

 will do one last aurora check and then head to bed...

grateful for....1.  that i was able to not say all the things that i wanted to say to that crazy family the other night...it's so hard to hold back sometimes... 2.  the crane sightings...always love those. the geese are gathering as well.  3.  that everything worked well with great teamwork to prevent my patients situations from getting worse this week.  good night.