Best Cranberry Sauce Ever!

Sine made the best cranberry sauce EVER for Thanksgiving dinner today! These were the last of the cranberries I had picked in September. We'd saved them for a special sauce on Thanksgiving. This sauce was certainly worth the wait! Sweet, tart, and so flavorful. Nothing is as good as Alaska cranberries saved for a special treat with Thanksgiving dinner. Wish ya'll could have been here to share in the feast, especially the wild Alaska cranberry sauce!

Toklas 1992-2009

Toklas, beloved kitty, left the planet this day. He was the center of our household, the heartbeat of our hearth. He was intelligent, loving, talkative, and a bit of a bed hog. His six-year experience with diabetes meant that we structured our daily lives around him. I cannot envision a tomorrow without him. I'm sure that the sun will rise tomorrow, but I can't imagine it now. Toklas--we sang you out with your theme song. I can hardly wait until we meet again at the Rainbow Bridge. Thank you, my little orange and white furry companion, for 17 good years together.

Red ruby berries

Hmmmmmm.... cannot resist those little rubies nestled among the tiny bright green leaves. They are sour, bitter, tough, and seedy. And in November, after stewing in their juices with just the right amount of raw sugar, they transform into the most delicious sauce on the planet. I am, of course, talking about Alaska homegrown wild lowbush and highbush cranberries. The season is NOW. Don't believe those who claim the berries are better after the first frost. They are just trying to get you to wait to go picking until after they have snagged all of the berries.

We went picking today. My role was to keep the dogs out of trouble, as they've been eating grass and berries and generally annoying Kayt while she picks. Kayt's role was to bring back a few berries for us. She picked over a pound of delicious, tiny little ruby fruits!! The dogs and I skipped down the path to the bottom of our property and Ursa found a wet pond puddle. Borealys was shocked to see Ursa dripping and promptly went scouting to find where she had gotten wet. She came back grinning from ear to ear and running figure eights around us in and out of the pondlet. We finished off our evening with dinner on the porch while the dogs tried to stay awake enough to pretend they were watch dogs. At the last night night potty we heard a fox sing/bark in the southwest corner of our land where it turns to tundra. The full moon has a tiny slice from its side. Still lovely and silvery white with dimples. Happy fall, everyone.

Moon hooting

I know it's embarrassing, but I can't stop. I'm a moon hooter. I grew up hooting at the full moon in rural North Carolina. Hooting surges through my blood. It's in my genes. Built into my DNA. I'm a sociologist, so I don't really think these things, but I really did, honestly, grow up hooting at the moon. It's something I can't really control. When I see the full moon, especially after months of infernal light when there are no moon sightings at all, joy wells up, surges past my sense of propriety, and spurts out my throat. Really, I can't help it. It's a southern thing. My friends BeJae and Jackie admit to moon hooting. Kayt claims it scares the dogs and cats, and perhaps it does. But mostly I think she's ashamed of me, worried that the neighbors will think they let a bunch of country hick ruffian pagan moon hooters move into the neighborhood. Well, and they would be right. Early early this morning, about 4:00 AM, the puppy and I were outside for her early potty. A fox was barking from way down on the tundra below our land. Now why would a fox be barking at that time of night? The answer seems obvious to me--she was hooting at the moon. Moon hooters unite!

Farewell

On Wednesday, the sandhill cranes and the Canada geese left Interior Alaska. For weeks, the fields around Fairbanks had been filled with tall, lanky cranes and squat geese gorging on greens, grain, and bugs. Creamers Field swarmed with birds--ducks, geese, swans, cranes. We humans watched as entire fields of birds wheeled overhead, circling and calling, exercising their wings.

MP at Mattie's Pillow speculated that the birds were calling to each other in confusion--"which way? I thought you knew!" But I think the birds are saying something different: "Hey, this feels great! You're doing good! That's the way to do it! It's a long way South! Let's get going!" The skies have been filled with cacophony for days--sqawks, honks, calls, trumpets. Dozens of clumps of birds, heavy and awkward on the ground, but graceful in flight. And then, suddenly, sometime around noon on Wednesday, the skies fell silent. We went outside to notice the quiet. Nothing on the horizon but blue skies and lumpy clouds. Farewell, birds! See you this spring! Fly safe, be well, and come back to us.

Just passing through

A handful of Wilson's Warblers visited Beyond Ester last weekend. They were only here for a day, apparently just passing through on their way south. We read in one of our bird books that they often flock by the dozens with other migrating birds. We first noticed that we had new visitors when one by one, the raspberries in the yard waved furiously. Then we saw the brilliant flash of yellow and realized that we had never seen these birds before! The WWs were busy snatching bites of the raspberries, which have dried on the stalks. The bird book says they also enjoy insects, so perhaps our strikingly yellow visitors were grabbing some protein along with their fruit. We spotted both males and females--the males with their perky black cap, and the females more subtle with their streaked olive feathers.

Foxtail warning

Dog lovers, beware!! It's foxtail season. A beautiful grass, foxtails are extremely dangerous to dogs and other animals. Our beloved elder dog, Ursa, occasionally has a bad habit of eating grass. While Kayt was in Madison, WI, for the Rural Sociological Society, Ursa started coughing and gagging. She drank bowl after bowl of water, seemingly trying to dislodge something from her throat. After watching her struggle, I took her to the emergency vet in town. I was so relieved to see Dr. Pinto, one of our most trusted docs, was on duty that night. The emergency vet often seems like rolling chaos to me, and this night was no different. Dr. Pinto, though, like the other vets and techs who work at the clinic, is always calm and steadfast in the face of the revolving crises, deaths, and high emotion. After she examined Ursa, Dr. Pinto suspected foxtails. She sedated Ursa and removed about a dozen pieces of foxtails that had lodged in her tonsils. About two hours later, the tech helped me load a heavily sedated and woozy Ursa into the car and I drove home. Somewhere along the way home, I passed a porcupine and the feeling of panic and disorientation overwhelmed me. How was I going to manage Ursa alone?? She weighs 76 pounds, and I felt every ounce as I picked her up from the car seat and set her on the ground at home. Her legs immediately went limp and she fell to the ground. But she's very brave, and with me holding her up, she peed and let me carry her into the house. She slept through the night, but I don't think I slept a wink. The next morning she was woozy and exhausted, but hungry for her breakfast. A week later, most of the inflammation appeared to be gone and she was back to normal. But please--let our horrible experience prevent your own dog from exposure to foxtails! Cut them down in the spring as soon as you recognize them. Ruthlessly exterminate them from your yard. Pull them, mow them, dig them up. Whatever you have to do to eliminate them from your environment, do it.

Boring

Yawn.

Another earthquake. Part of the continuing Ester Swarm. I'm over it. Time to move on, Mama Nature. I don't recall the name of the Earthquake Goddess, and maybe that's part of the problem. Maybe we need to make some kind of pact with Her, like remembering Her Name and placating Her with wine or berries or blood sacrifices or something. I'll say it here: Hey, Earthquake Goddess! Name Your terms. What will it take to get You to stop rattling us here Beyond Ester?

The graphic above places the latest Ester earthquake on the world map. Note the red blocks are earthquakes that happened within the last hour. Note also how they cluster in Alaska, and tumble on top of each other in the area Beyond Ester.

Thanks, as always, to the Alaska Earthquake Information Center. You guys rock. Sorry, I couldn't help it :)

Thrill

"The thrill is gone, baby. The thrill is gone away. Oh yeah, the thrill is gone, baby."

Another earthquake. This one is the largest yet. I was actually online reading about yesterday's earthquake when this one hit. Kayt was out walking the dogs and said that she felt like she was being shaken from above. Like the others, this one is centered only a couple of miles from our house. Three of the cats scrambled and stumbled over each other trying to run upstairs to hide. Sadie is still missing, but Kayt reports a pair of wide eyes under the bed that might belong to her. The thrill is definitely over, and the tremors can stop now.

Read about the latest on the Fairbanks News-Miner here:
http://newsminer.com/news/2009/jun/01/another-earthquake-rocks-fairbanks/

She's got personality

A swarm of earthquakes have rattled us here Beyond Ester. On the map, you can see the dozens that have hit Alaska in the last 24 hours. The red ones are less than an hour old, the orange ones are 1-12 hours old, the yellow ones are up to 23 hours old, and the white ones occurred within the last day. You will note the cluster of red and orange in the middle, which is approximately where Beyond Ester is located. Two in the 3.5+ range last night, two more at 6:00AM this morning, several small ones since then. Kayt suggested that the one last night at 9:00PM felt like someone shaking the house from the top. The one at 6:00 AM creaked the logs, but the ones at 7:30AM just felt like we were swaying. Each quake has its own personality. All of these recent ones are centered near Ester.
Here's a Fairbanks News-Miner article about the quakes. Like some of the posters on this article, these quakes are getting a bit freaky in their frequency. I told Kayt last night that I've had my big earthquake adventure in Alaska and that I don't need to experience any more.
Here is a link to the Alaska Earthquake Information Center (AEIC)--one day when you're looking for something to jiggle you out of complacency, do some serious cruising of their site.
Thanks to the AEIC for their constant monitoring and automatic data generation, as well as for the map above.