It's 8:30 in the morning

and it's still dark, dark, dark outside, with moonlight streaming through the living room windows! I see no sign of the sun yet. I must admit: I love this! If you've been to Alaska in the summer, especially in June, you realize how different this is from our summer life. I love change, I love extremes, so I love these moonlit mornings. I'm sitting here with wholegrain toast, a wheat-germ fruit smoothie, green tea, and some ready rip-roaring energy. We've only 3 more days left in Paxson before we head Outside for a while, so lots to do!

Our winter renters arrived last night

and are getting nicely settled in to their new houses, enjoying our fine snow and beautiful views:


We have two long-distance racing mushers renting cabins from us this winter while Audie and I travel south. Sebastian was here last year as well, and it's wonderful to see him, his handlers, and racing clients back again, and especially his dogs. This will be Rich's first winter here on the Denali Highway, and we're so happy to meet him and his ebullient enthusiasm. 26 dogs arrived last night, but Sebastian will have a total of around 65, and Rich with a total of 20 or so dogs, brings us to a grand total of 80-90 dogs here this winter! Both Sebastian and Rich, as well as one of Sebastian's clients Rudi, will be running the Iditarod this year. THREE Iditarod human racers staying on our compound this winter....wow! And 80-90 of some of the finest athletes on the planet:


I went out to meet the dogs this morning and am always surprised at their extreme attentiveness. All eyes follow my every movement. All ears respond to any sound. Most of the dogs are very much "at attention". And while some are young, and a tad shy, most are extremely affectionate and begging for ear rubs and some lovin'. Here's Audie making a new friend:


Some are more mellow, and nestled in the snow, waiting for their run:


These are eyes you can't take your eyes away from:



Heading out for the first Denali Highway run of the winter:

auto transport

hmmm...I realized this morning that our trip to the lodge yesterday for Thanksgiving was the first time I"ve been in an automobile for over a month. We usually walk to the lodge, but drove in the truck because we had a number of hot casserole dishes to take over. A few weeks ago I went on a 10 minute snowmachine ride, and that's it....for a month! I kinda like that. We're pretty happy to be nestled on this compound, with wonderful walks in every direction. No reason to go in a car. We have lots of food...still some fresh, growing here in the house. I'm pretty sure this is not the longest time I've abstained from vehicle travel while living here in Paxson, but still, a month is a good long time. We're pretty serenely set in nature's ways here....and it's great to feel I'm not contributing vehicle emissions to global warming, especially as I listen to the drip-drip-drip coming off the roof this morning.....34 degrees! unheard of...

Giving thanks

Belated Thanksgiving wishes to everyone!

Here in Paxson we had a most authentic Thanksgiving. What do I mean by that? As the first Thanksgiving was a gathering together of families, friends, and members of the wider community, so was our Thanksgiving here in Paxson. The first Thanksgiving was not exclusively a "family" affair, but was an occasion to establish peace and trust and understanding in the community. Same here! With about 20 people in attendance, it was a dinner to bring together the community of Paxson. The exceptionally hospitable and kindly folk who are now running the lodge next door to us organized a pot-luck Thanksgiving dinner, to which each guest brought a dish to share. Audie and I made homemade stuffing and a sweet potato casserole. We chatted and socialized for hours, and when the long table was spread, all were grateful for the food and fine company.

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays: giving thanks is a daily practice for me. I am thankful to be alive. I am thankful to be well-educated, well-loved, and with grateful eyes do I view the sunrise and sunset each day. Thanksgiving, to me, is not about the turkey. (In fact, this annual turkey killing is a deplorable act and one that should be culturally changed. At the first Thanksgiving they ate a turkey because that is what was around. It's fine to carry on tradition, but too many turkeys lead dreadful lives just so we can sink our teeth in their flesh once a year....anyways..off topic). It's about being thankful that we have this food to eat and that it will nourish our bodies. It's being thankful for the comraderie and companionship of the day, for the fun we have while cooking, and the conversations we have while eating.

We give thanks today, as we should.....every day.

Invierno sonoliento

Winter is death, there is no more succinct way to say it. It's the long sleep, from which some awaken and some do not. I don't deal with death well...I've already lost too many loved ones, and been too close to death myself, for it to be a romantic event to defy, to not fear. Around the first week of October, I was in a pretty foul mood. All my plants were dying....all the life I had started, propagated, tended, and pampered was shriveling, withering, and saying their last farewells. And I was powerless to stop it. During my formative, growing-up years in Arizona, I didn't know winter. I didn't know the four seasons, so I didn't know the annual cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. In Arizona, there is only life. When I was in New York, one of my friends tried to convince me of the beauty of the annual cycle, knowing my proclivities towards romanticizing nature, and intellectually I see it, but emotionally I still see death, and it just comes too soon, snuffing out young lives that were just beginning to bloom.

Yet winter is not death for every living thing, I do know that. It it also the long sleep. It is the rest time...and that is exactly what Audie and I are doing. We're resting, we're slowing down. I wonder if winter is more difficult for those who must continue a frantic, workaholic pace even through the slow, dark days. Audie and I are in touch with the sedateness of the season. It's not only the pitch dark ebony blackness that envelops the land around 5 pm that slows us down. Or the leisurely mornings, the sun so lazy to make his rise, clinging to the horizon til 10 am until making a half-hearted attempt at traveling across the sky and warming the frozen world. We have fewer guests now, too. Fewer demands. Of course, this all changes for me in a few weeks, as we head Outside, because Outside time is always frantic time. But for now....we rest, we meander, we sleep.

More dinner-time adventures

Pizza! Homemade....dough & sauce. With homegrown basil. Have never had better. I'm no Chris Bianco yet (Pizzeria Bianco in Phoenix...NYTimes calls his pizza the best in the country), but I feel proud to walk in Chris's footsteps and learn a bit of his craft. And we finally have pizza in Paxson!

It just isn't cold enough...

....for the bears to go to sleep!

Audie and I have been taking long walks every day, over an hour, usually in the late afternoon. Today, and yesterday, we saw bear tracks. One would think the bears would be asleep by now. I thought that by mid-October my constant paranoid self could relax and skip happily through the forest trails, without listening for that crack of willow branch that signals a large, predatory body. But it just ain't to be...not yet.

We're not sure what makes a bear decide it's time to sleep, to cast aside its roaming days and slumber til the spring. Is it cold weather? Because it hasn't been cold here. Is it the daily amount of sunlight? We're losing many minutes of light each day. Or is it something else that signals them?

Whatever it is, it hasn't happened yet. They're still roaming around...at least one bear is.

Trying to get that winter rhythm

Ah...winter. I"ve been away from the blog. Just haven't felt like writing. This is a time of great transition here. While I've felt incredibly peaceful and content with the oncoming of winter and this feeling of burrowing-in and hibernating, I've been having problems adjusting my energy levels to the decreasing sunlight. It's not a problem with depression or lackluster-ness, which is associated with SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder), but is a problem of adjusting my hyperactive self to the winding down of nature around me. I don't feel sad....just out-of-sync.

So many visitors to the cabins during the summer ask me what winter is like here. And their standard response to me is, " I wouldn't mind the cold, but I couldn't stand the darkness." I find it's exactly the opposite for me. I DO mind the cold...not the 20 degree temps we're having now, which is very pleasant, but the MINUS 20 and beyond. While still exotic for me, it's still unpleasant. I still have thin desert blood coursing through my veins. My constitution still enjoys a thorough 115 degree heat. And while I've adjusted to cold a lot since I first came to Alaska (I don't need a sweater anymore once it hits 60 degrees!), I do require many, many layers when the temps dip below freezing. So yes, the exreme cold bothers me. It is a tad annoying, in January say, that when I want to go out for a short walk, it takes me 15 minutes to get dressed for a 10 minute stroll. Although I do exaggerate: I remember the end of last winter, I was able to go skiing with just one layer and a heavy wool sweater, when the temp was hovering around -15. How liberating it was not to waddle around in five layers of clothes! Perhaps it's not the cold that exasperates me, but my desert body that refuses to become completely arctic-proof.

I think the key to keeping energy high and spirits afloat during these dark days is to monitor our expectations of light. If we miss the light, it we moan that it's still dark out at 10:00am, we are not in-sync with our natural surroundings. I don't advocate waking up with the sunrise at 10 am, but wake up at a normal hour and be thankful you are awake in time to watch that low and slow sunrise. Embrace the darkness!