a Murre and Me...

 always trying to fill my Kharma bank.  doing good is the best way to do that.  saw this guy on the road by Potters Marsh.  i turned around to investigate and this other lady pulled over at the same on the other side.  she scared the bird into the street.  thankfully, he crossed over behind my car.

 a few bog shots from this morning.  ice, more ice.  no break in site.

 anyway. apparently Murres can't take off from land.  they nest on cliffs so i'm guessing they just jump and then they are flying . they can dive in the water down to 600 feet.  hunderds have turned up dead on beaches in Whittier and Prince William Sound.  they are not sure what is going on with this mass death.  there were some pretty massive storms in the Aleutions these past weeks so perhaps they were tossed off route.  many are thin/starving. disease?

 before i got out of my car that lady had caught the bird and was trying to give him to me.  i had nothing to hold him in while in my car so i just put him in my coat and headed for the Bird Treatment Center in Anchorage.  i got nibbled on a bit, but nothing really painful.  mostly i think he just snuggled in to my coat and chilled.  letting him loose in the car with Blossom would have been a disaster i fear.

 apparently, Blossoms Kharma bank does not need filling when it comes to birds.  they got a laugh at the center with me rushing in with him . he did feel like he was meaty and did have some energy which they agreed was true and a good sign for him.  they were hopeful they could release him tomorrow some place more appropriate.

 there are no normal days it seems.  haha.  work called late to see if i'd work but i was at the pool.  yes, day 3 at the gym.  figure a reasonable goal is 4 days get to gym for some activity, 2 days i must do laps in addition to whatever else i did.  today, i just did the laps.  20 laps...which is 40 lengths.  not a bad run of it.  my walk today in the bog wasn't that long, but steps wise with the swimming i suspect i'm fine.

 had to re sign up for the Alaska Geographic, after i did that i  signed up for the mushroom course.  that should be fun.  it wouldn't let me pay so i'll have to check in during business hours tomorrow when i wake up. they open up the classes to members the day before they open it for everyone else.  a few of the other classes were already full.

 after the bog walk i thought i'd head out for a drive.  looked like a pretty day.  sometimes in winter the place gets feeling a bit closed in and hitting the road can help.  was thinking i'd get to the Wildlife Conservation Center but the sign said closed..only open on weekends in the winter?  guess i forgot that part.  i did see a bus that looked like it had tourists in it that seemed to have come from that area.  i'll have to look that up.

 still waiting to hear back about the bear trip.  been awhile since i communed with bears out there in the woods.

 so working on the summer trips.  above and below you can see the lights of the ski runs at Alyeska.  looks like they still have some snow up there.

 pretty sunset before i saw the bird out there.

 blurry but there he is...at risk of getting clobbered by traffic.

 lots of Murres chill out at Round Island in the summers.  with this huge die out it will  be interesting to see if the counts out on Round Island are impacted by this and what if any other birds show up out there.  poor murres...such cute birds.  it's a bummer.  the fox out there live on their eggs quite a bit so that may make it tougher for the fox out there as well.  crazy how everything is connected.

 finally have finished loading pics from Sept and gen Nov (not done with CA yet though) so i am catching up finally.  icy weeks make that easier.

 these are from a hike out in Eagle River towards Hanging Valley.  that is probably pretty icy right now.

 beautiful day out there.

 there were lots of Murres out in St Paul and St George. i remember them especially out on St George island in the Pribilofs.  we were walking along these amazing cliffs out there and they almost sounded like they were laughing which,of course made us all laugh more and more.

 with all these strandings if any of you have time to kill, the Bird Treamment and Learning Center is looking for volunteers to help out with the Murres.  i am tempted to sign up.  they seemed nice when i came in with a bird in my coat.  i figured that bird would have crapped all over me, but he didn't.  not even one feather left behind.  they are lovely birds.

 she asked if i needed a towel for this possible crap and she laughed when i told her i was a poop expert so not afraid of a wee bit of bird poop.  everything washes.  she liked that i was a vet tech and trained as a zoo keeper.  i even did some volunteer days out in Ketchikan at their bird rescue place.  didn't know it existed until like the last year i lived there i think.

 always good to volunteer with animals.  i have always had that connection with animals so it's a good way for me to fulfill that need in me.  there is the walrus as well.  no word back from fish and wildlife by the way.

 i am a wee bit sore from this week...it's that good sore though. i am a happier and more vibrant person when i am working out. it's always amazing that it gets hard to get motivated when i get off course, i love it when i do it.  it's hard to brush aside that lazy side in me though.  the one that wants to curl up on the couch under the heated throw.

 i've always found in life that the busier you are the more you get accomplished.

 trying to eat more stuff that is good for me.  still gotta get my chocolate fix and chips on occasion.

 aww...Manni.  he is no longer with us.  cancer...hate cancer.  Blossom above.  she was entertaining us on the trail yesterday by laying down in every puddle she could find.

 Gail comes up from behind with her pup, Leo.

 still have our WARIS stickers and calendars.  never too late.  :-)

 i don't have the sales skills that some others have.   never been keen on asking people for money or asking people to spend money...it's not for me though...it's for the walrus.  it is easier doing this stuff for a cause that i can get behind.  nice to have some experiences behind where i can feel like we have already made a positive impact.  it helps.  at first i was just this random person trying to make stuff happen.  totally unknown...now i'm still mostly unknown but we have gained some credit for what little we were able to get accomplished.  everything starts somewhere and with someone.

 still love a few quotes that spurred me along...from a friend, Scott, "you can't make it worse" and from Readers Digest...something about.  you do something when the fear of doing nothing eclipses the fear of doing it badly.  totally messed that up, but i think you get the gist.

 these are from a sunset walk with an old friend, the first friend i made in Anchorage i'd say.  KR.  we don't get together as often as i'd like, but we pick right up where we left off.  great friends like that are the best.

 it was a beautiful sunset.

 was just thinking i should get rid of Rio's bed by my bed, Blossom won't use it.  then i just walked in there and Pogi is happily stretched out on it.  no hurry.

 apparently a Ketchikan guy beat a dog with a baseball bat.  it was a little cocker spaniel and it has head trauma from the beating.  there are new laws out that will make these animal cruelty acts put on some sort of national data base so, like sex crimes, you could check it out. hopefully, this starts to decrease the people who have access to animals in the first place if they are known for cruelty to animals.

 research has long shown that people often start with animal cruelty and move on to more violent crimes inflicted on other humans.  better to get on it earlier rather than let them get away with cruelty towards animals and wait until they move on to people.

 some poor person got in their truck in Stebbins on New Years Eve and ended up running over and killing a 3 year old who had crawled under there.  what an awful feeling that would be...sounds like the kid died pretty instantly.  horrible though for everyone.

 weather forecast for today was mostly cloudy with scattered rain/snow.  didn't happen...just saying.  they seem to get it wrong way more than they get it right.  would love to have a job that you could screw up so often and nobody would really care.  i do not have that job at all.  haha.

 Blossom and her friend Mandi enjoy the sunset...ok. it's doubtful they even noticed the sunset.  i've never known dogs to really appreciate the sunsets.  tennis balls, yes, sunsets..eh.

 i enjoyed it...beautiful, right?

 North Korea exploded another tester bomb...so nice to have them with such capabilities so close to Alaska.  guess our seismic testers picked up the vibration from the test as did Japans seismic testers...and others. i'm sure South Korea is thrilled each time this happens.

 so beautiful....

 totally remember that day.  will have to text her and walk again soon.  tomorrow i'm meeting another friend at a dog pool.  Blossom went when i was away one time, but now i'll get to go and see how she likes it.

 last two...moose crossing as i drove from that walk.

 he turned out blurry here, but i actually liked the effect.  good night.

thankful for:  A.  the Bird Treatment Center and folks who volunteer their time to help animals! B.  swimming..man it feels great.  C.  making plans for summer.  :-)