Why I don't own dogs

Joanne and I decided the weather was nice enough yesterday afternoon to take a hike up Rabbit Creek and pick blueberries.

"We'll take a few of the dogs," she added. Sure, why not, I thought.

She's dogsitting the Mcloughlin Group for one more week, as Simon decided to return to Galena for a few more days on that post-flood construction gig. He's supposed to return home next Wednesday.

In the meantime, I haven't picked blueberries in Fairbanks for a couple of years, and having a girlfriend to go hiking with is also a great bonus. She decided to load up Porky, Brownie, Jasper and Cowgirl in the bed of the Toyota so they could roam and get some exercise while we picked berries.

Simon and Joanne seem to think it a great idea to drive up Moose Mountain with a load of dogs to accompany them. They clip their collars onto a short length of chain anchored in the pickup bed, where the dogs are then supposed to stand or lie down quietly and dutifully for the duration of the ride, and not be tempted to lunge out at any passing moose or squirrel or dog or leaf or god knows what. Shortly after we got underway, Jasper leapt over the side where he hung briefly by his collar like a side of beef before Joanne screeched to a halt, ran around to the side, and lifted the 80-pound dog back in.  You would think Jasper learned his lesson to stay put in a moving vehicle. But did I remind you these are sled dogs? For the rest of the short ride it was: JASPER, STAY! BROWNIE, NO!! COW--QUIT IT!!!

Thus arriving without further mishap, we parked on the side of a dirt road and unclipped the dogs, who immediately flew out of the truck like unguided missiles straight into the road as speeding trucks whizzed by. HEY GUYS, OVER HERE! Joanne called out as we marched to the trailhead.

Once on the trail, all we had to do was look for berries, and keep an eye on the four huskies, who had a tendency to disappear off the trail now and then.

I guess the big mud puddles on the trail were a blessing to distract them. That, and the fact that they would be in the back of the truck to air-dry/de-stinkify on the way home.

Before

After

As we hunted for berries, we found many more mushrooms, including one magnificent coral mushroom that I pointed out to Joanne. "What a find--this species is a real delicacy!"  As I said this, Jasper slid down the hill, right into the prized delicacy, and smushed it into a million muddy pieces.

But the piece de resistance? It began with much barking as the dogs chased something just off the trail. I was wearing my bear mace on my belt. There had been reports of a grizzly on Goldhill Road a couple of weeks earlier. I braced for the four dogs to explode out of the bushes with the enraged bear close behind. Instead, the dogs emerged onto the trail sporting long white tusks.  They'd chased a porcupine, and now the blueberry picking trip was over. We turned around and marched back to the truck. We loaded the dogs, clipped them in, and Joanne got out her leatherman tool and pulled the quills out of Porky's nose and Brownie's muzzle while I held them. Jasper by some miracle had managed to stay out of the fray and remained quill-free. Cowgirl, on the other hand, got the worst of it--fifteen or so quills deeply embedded, and she pawed at them, driving them in deeper.

We got home and tried to hold her to remove the rest. Joanne was quick enough to get one or two, but Cow resisted and bucked and jerked away the minute she got close with the needlenose pliers. I went over to Simon's nextdoor neighbors Glen and Joanne, and got Glen to come over and hold Cow's jaw open with leather gloves while Jojo got a couple more out. The rest were just too deep, and Cow fought the whole time.

So, to the vet we went. Cowgirl was given a sedative, and thirty minutes later we had a meek and woozy dog sporting no more quills.

Duration of the expedition: all goddanged afternoon

Cost of expedition: $88 in vet fees plus $20 for two bottles of much-needed wine for the two dirt-and-doghair-covered women.

Number of blueberries picked: ZERO

Doofus #1 (Brownie): nine quills

Doofus #2 (Porky): one on the nose and one below. Joanne somehow manages a smile.

The Queen of Quills: Cowgirl, showing off her new Billy-Bob teeth!

Sourdough bread, step by step

My friends have asked me for my sourdough recipe.  It took me about four years to learn to make good bread. It is actually quite easy if you keep making it. Things you will need: a glass jar (25 oz or bigger), good white bread flour (I use King Arthur brand), salt, water, a large plastic or wooden bowl w/ tight fitting lid, a dutch oven, cornmeal or oatmeal, and a hot oven (a pizza tile in the oven is better if you have it).

  Step 1. Make the sourdough starter.  Mix flour and water in a glass jar, stir together with fork, cover, let sit a day or more until bubbly. Keep it in fridge, feed and water it about 1 x per week with 1/4 c flour (use white bread flour only) and a little water, stirring it with a fork until well mixed.

The starter lives in your fridge. It only needs a small amount of white flour and water given weekly to be happy and healthy.

To store keep it on the dry side

to bake, add enough water to make a thick, pourable batter.

Step 2. Make the bread dough. Mix together 2 cups white bread flour...

...one teaspoon of salt...

...one full dry measure cup of the liquid starter thinned as stated above...

...and enough water (about one full dry measuring cup of water) to make a rough shaggy dough that sticks together with a fork. One option: you can add with the dry ingredients 2 heaping tablespoons of whole wheat flour for a nice flavor.

Step 3. Cover with tight fitting lid...

...put in warm place several hours or overnight. This is one of my good spots. The other is the inside of my oven (unheated, but with the pilot light on) with oven door closed. Write yourself a note to check the dough. You don't want to forget about it!

In several hours it should look like this: bubbly, sticky, full of air holes.

Step 4: scrape out risen dough onto floured surface. It will be very squishy, sticky, soft. Fold several times with more flour. It should feel soft yet firm (I always say like a baby's bottom). If you poke it, it should spring back.

Step 5. Flour the bottom of the rising bowl generously.

Dump the dough back in, close the lid...

 ...put in the fridge for several hours or overnight. The dough will swell and expand somewhat by then.

Step 6. Baking the Bread. Turn the oven to 450F. Place the dutch oven w/ lid inside (preferably on a pizza tile). Close oven door and preheat for 10-15 min. While the dutch oven is preheating, remove the rising bowl from the fridge and let the bowl sit on the counter to warm the loaf up a bit. Don't take off the cover of the rising bowl until you are ready to bake.

Transfer preheated dutch oven to stove top. It will be very hot! 

 Coat the bottom with cornmeal, oat meal, oat bran, whatever you like. You can cook the toasted oats later as hot cereal. 

Carefully scrape loaf from bowl with spatula. Dump into hot dutch oven, flour side up.

Looks good!

Step 7. Cover and bake 30 min at 450 F.

Step 8.  Check the loaf. When the crust is golden brown, transfer the dutch oven to the stovetop.  Remove the loaf with a wide wooden spatula. It should come out easily. Tap the bottom of the loaf. It should sound hollow.

If the crust is still pale in color, put the cover back on and bake another 10 minutes and check again.

 Step 9. Cool the loaf. Transfer the loaf to a wire rack to cool.  It will start to crackle. Let it cool until it stops crackling (10-20 min). Although the loaf is really hot at this point, it's also really cool to hear it crackle!

Step 10. Slice carefully. The bread will be very soft and fragile. The crumb should be full of airholes. Use a long bread knife.  If you keep feeding your sourdough and baking, you will have lovely bread whenever you want it.

I have a great, authentic Alaskan sourdough starter that a friend in Fairbanks gave me. It originated in Arctic Village and was given to a Native family by Hudson's Bay Company traders many generations ago. If you would like a sample I would be happy to send you some dried starter and instructions to revive it.

Happy Baking.

“we are all just small, sensitive people trying to get the best out of the time we have.”

I just returned home from a month-long field season in the Arctic. Early on, I met a remarkable man who said these wise and beautiful words to me.  In my mind, the word "people" became synonymous with "beings." 

 I have spent my whole life trying to shape a thought in my head and heart that both explains everything and allows everything. At last, someone spoke it into being.  I haven't words to express my gratitude.

Logged in

BEHOLD MY VAST WOODEN EMPIRE!!!

This is next winter's heat. The pile further back is this winter's heat. 

No Problem!

There are problems, and then there are problems.

I came home last night after a great ten day visit in the L48--my family celebrated my dad's 90th birthday, I had fun with my friends, I marched in the Gay Pride Parade in Columbus, Ohio with Eric, and I got my first (and probably last) tattoo. My neighbor Joanne was kind enough to pick me up at the airport last night.

She almost didn't.

While I was up for 20 + hours, traveling from 5 AM EST to 9:30 PM AST (Columbus to Dallas-Ft. Worth to Seattle to Fairbanks), she was up for 24 hours, dealing with two trucks that broke down one after the other, a bunch of Simon's dogs that got loose and disappeared the day before, 450 gallons of water on the back of one of the broken trucks, sending an emergency shipment of food to Simon who is in Galena doing flood reconstruction work, and retrieving her purse in the mail after she found out she left it in a bar in Copper Center on the way to go salmon fishing in Chitina with Simon last week--that was after Truck #1 broke down and Gareth drove down in the good truck with the trailer on his day off to haul it home, where it now sits, utterly useless, because it's way too expensive to fix.

After she texted me that she'd come get me, the "good" truck broke down. She had just gotten 450 gallons of water at Water Wagon, the tank was on the truck bed. With Simon away, the only person she could think to call was Dale, who determined it needed a new alternator, so she bought one and Dale installed it just 15 minutes before I landed. Lucky for her it worked--she would have had to dump all that water (8 cents a gallon) to put it on a trailer to haul it to a garage.

On the way home I bought her some wine. It was the least I could do. As I rummaged around their kitchen to make us something to eat, I was struck with how much she resembled Simon in that moment--instead of sitting down to eat, she still had a bunch of things to do. She had to feed the dogs, and still hadn't pumped the water off the truck tank yet into their reservoir. Wisely, she decided to leave that chore for today.

When I was at Eric's, we spent a lot of time sprawled in deck chairs on his patio in the shade of a pear tree drinking in the lovely summer weather. He recently complained to a coworker about his new neighborhood, which he refers to as "the holler" because of its remoteness from downtown Columbus. Unlike downtown, it lacks the requisite Starbucks and health club on the corner.

She just looked at him. "Those are first-world problems," she said.

Whatever he thinks he lacks, he has central heat and air conditioning, running water, garbage and recycling service, and bus lines (and a pharmacy and a wine shop and a really nice steak house) within walking distance.  Today I can't boil water because Joanne had to replace the empty propane tank for the cook stove on the vacation rental cabin with a full one, so she borrowed my spare which was full. If I want to make a hot meal today, I have to go 12 miles into town to refill my propane tank.

No problem!

I'm getting a firewood delivery this week---not this winter's wood, but next winter's. I'm buying green birch because it's cheaper than buying seasoned wood, and wood is the primary way I heat my home. So, you plan ahead. You buy green wood and let it dry out for at least a year.

No problem!

On vacation, I'd taken long hot showers every day (here, a shower three times a week is a luxury) and used, without reservation, whatever skincare and haircare products were in my hosts' bathrooms. I had gotten so used to smelling air freshner, scented soaps, fabric softener and kitchen cleanser for the last week or so, I was not prepared for walking through my own front door last night and smelling old canvas tent smell.

Maybe it's the old quilt I tacked on the wall before I left. I got the quilt from a friend who had it in a storage shed for who knows how long.

Today, along with cooking gas, I have to go to Water Wagon and get a few gallons of drinking water. No problem! Hopefully I'll get 'er done before the wood guy comes.

Chop, chop

I never quite got Alaska. 

 I lived here for four years, and all that time I never quite felt at home here.

 And then, in the fifth year, something changed.

 Without realizing it, I find myself at home here.
I have learned many things in five years. I'm still a terrible skier, but I love the winter trails. I love the stillness and the low-angled sun of winter.

 I learned to bake really good bread here. And can berries that I pick myself. I can pick wild mushrooms in my backyard and eat them for dinner and know that I will be fine.

 I can walk through the Arctic tundra in summer without fear. I know how to use bear mace, a compass, a satellite phone.  I am learning day by day what it is to be an outdoorswoman and a scientist. I may never be a dogmusher or a kayaker, but I don't really know that yet--I mean, it could happen!

 All these things were not anywhere near my hopes and dreams a few short years ago. I didn't know I was on a path to find them, but they are all so much a part of me now. I could easily see myself living out my days here. I never expected that.

How did I finally get it? I bought a brand new axe today. In Alaska, that is a form of love.