Snow and the morning commute

            When I lived in New Jersey, my morning routine went something like this: coffee, shower, dress (professional attire), wake, feed, and dress children. Then into the minivan, off to daycare and to the high school by 7:10 a.m. Traffic at that hour was minimal and my route to work involved as few stop signs and traffic lights as possible.
            Living here, my morning commute has taken on several new modes of transportation. A mile ride on the snowmachine to the truck parked next to the highway. Of course this usually involves about a half hour of trying to pull-start the snowmachine in subzero temperatures (interject lots of unmentionable words and phrases) prior to the machine actually starting.
           For the past two weeks, my commute has involved cross country skiing. Our side road has literally become impassable. The snow berms rise four feet on either side of this narrow tunnel. My neighbor tried to plow but, despite a one-ton truck with chains, he got stuck and had to pull his truck out with a bulldozer. There is simply no place left to push the snow.
          So, we are skiing to the end of our street where I have parked our truck. It's not far, about a half-mile. But it is dark. We are sharing the road with half-starved moose.  A cow and her calf lie under a spruce tree just off the road. They watch us pass with disinterest and then resume their conservation of energy.  Despite our best efforts, the cow and her calf come up to our house to eat hay off the deck.  We have banged pots and pans, yelled and waved our arms, and even fired shots to scare them off.  The cow simply walks a few steps away and waits for me to return to the house so she can make sure her calf gets to eat.  I feel bad, so I bring a bale of hay down the road, away from the house so they can eat. The snow is so deep it has covered the alders and brush that is their normal food.
          I like to think that the moose and her calf know we mean no harm, but the reality is, she is probably too starved to really care.  But we speak softly as we pass her, letting her know that we are not a threat, and all of us are just waiting for spring.

Endless days mean thawing bones

The sun rose at 3:45 a.m. this morning. It won't set until after 11 p.m. tonight, and I want to soak every single moment up until the ice in my veins thaws.  For this beach girl, the move to Alaska has been the hardest during the summer months.  On our first visit to Alaska, we had two weeks of glorious sun and warm weather. Naively, I thought that was how every Alaskan summer was.  The first summer was beautiful, warm, and everything I had expected.  The next summer, I spent four days camping in the rain when the temps never made it above 45 degrees. Last summer, it rained for two months. In September, it rained even harder. Our road washed out, the creek rose and flooded, and then the temperatures dropped and everything froze.
The winter seemed to hang on forever! When I saw snow flakes on Mother's Day, I almost cried. It didn't seem like the grass was ever going to be green or the thermometer ever hit 50 degrees. I looked at pictures from the same time last year - a Mother's Day trail ride with lush green grass and me in a tee-shirt, and wondered why the hell I ever moved to Alaska.

The last three weeks have reminded me.

The clearest of blue skies and warm breezes, and that glorious sun at 10 p.m. that makes me want to get out and go!  I sip my coffee on the back deck every morning and just listen to the rustle of the trees and the buzz of the mosquitos.  I can hear the soft clucking of my chickens and Riley tossing a water bucket in the horse pasture.  It's a soothing start to the day, and I am so thankful to have these moments to save in my memory for those dark mornings when its 20 below zero.

Silent Night

The dogs began barking.  I tried to ignore them and the blinking red digits on the clock. 2:15 a.m. by pulling the blankets back over my head. It didn't work. The four of them were just getting warmed up. I groaned. That meant either moose or horse. A cow moose and her calf had walked past the house earlier in the evening, so they may be wandering back down the road. Or, I sighed as I got out of bed, one of the horses had decided to come up to the house for a midnight snack. Sure enough, Hot Shot was standing in front of the porch steps. We keep the grain locked in the mud room but a bale of hay was still on the deck. I pulled on my boots and a coat and went outside.  I threw the hay into the pen where the other two horses waited, Red stamping his feet impatiently as I struggled through the snow.  I led Hot Shot back through the downed section of fence and he went over to his hay pile. I rigged downed fence pole as best I could.  Last winter's heavy snows played havoc with our fence posts, and this year, an entire 75 foot section of fence is down. The horses don't wander outside of the pen, although Hot Shot will come up to the porch for the occasional midnight snack.
       I looked around.  It was one of those nights where you want to sit outside for hours just listening to the silence. The full moon glowed silver, reflecting on the new snow.  Everything glowed like the snow had millions of tiny lights. There was no wind. I just stood there in the driveway, looking out of the muskegg. The sky looked like the planetarium at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia.
         Even out here, in the middle of nowhere, silence is often hard to come by.  But last night, the silence enveloped me. It was peaceful. Beautiful. And for a few minutes, I remembered what had attracted me to the beauty of Alaska. Peace comes at strange moments. Like at 2 in the morning when the horses decide they want a snack.