The weather app shows visibility in Anchorage at 1426.7 meters, and McGrath at 3 miles. Not good enough. It must be at least a mile in both Anchorage and McGrath simultaneously or the little planes don’t fly. So we wait. In the tiny shed of a terminal. There are 6 of us, plus the pilot and one helper. The pilot is Mike Reeve, owner of Reeve airlines. The plane waiting in the hangar is a shiny King Air that normally seats 10 passengers, but on this trip, 4 seats have been removed. Three of the passengers weigh over 250 pounds, precluding the normal passenger load. From around 1:00 until 3:15 the pilot monitors the weather. Suddenly, visibility is 1.1 miles in both places, and we quickly board and race down the runway. For the next 20 minutes visibility is near zero as we climb just over 19,000 feet where the sun appears. Thirty minutes later the process is reversed until McGrath appears with just 3,000 feet of descent remaining. In the terminal Deb stands beneath the wolverine, smiling brightly. I see good times ahead.

By Terry Miller

Moose lose their antlers in late fall and regrow them in spring time, of course. Calves stay with the cow until she comes into estrus 18 month after the birth of the calves. Then she chases her calves away.

Moose are huge. Their height is 4.6 to 6.9 feet at the shoulders, and their weight is 840 to 1545 lbs. Their proboscis is huge and the nares, nostrils, can seal shut for aquatic grazing. Other than the time a calf shares with their mother, they are solitary and slow moving. Just don’t run into them at high speed, and don’t piss them off. Because they are lethal.

Tomorrow my prince will come. I know it sounds like a dog. There is something better than a dog.

Planned to get out earlier this morning. The sun rose at 8:28. Under snowy skies, I ventured out at 9:20 for a run. At the road, I looked right and there was a moose down about 1/2 a block. I walked a bit closer, and she just looked at me. The snowplow was soon on the scene. And finally she retreated.

I shoveled for about an hour, when I noticed a moose bedded down in my back yard. She got up to eat, I took pictures, talked to her and continued with my shoveling. When it was clear she wasn’t leaving, I decided to get a good view from the loft and show her off on FaceTime. Eventually her two young ones joined her. What a blessing to have the time to watch a moose’s ear.

I’m sure you’ve heard writers say their book wrote itself. I say, I have no problem with that. Go for it. Ask Siri for help. He’ll show you the ten tips he found on line.

Snowed all day. The plow didn’t quite keep up, so it was a good day for errands. I started with the dump. Can you be nostalgic for something you’ve never done? My grandmother was impoverished. She didn’t drive. My brother told me she pulled her groceries in a wagon. I have my multipurpose sled. Both my brother and I talk longingly of our weekend trips to the dump with our dad. Unfortunately, my brother couldn’t join me on this one. Sorry, Bro. This is the way we always talk to each other.

I was dressed for falling snow. I was focused on contours of shades of white. In the distance the white looked like a sheet of silk floating toward me. And then there they were, in front of me. Two huge moose. They picked up the pace and in a few steps they were in the woods. I took my camera from my jacket pocket and walked up closer. The largest one was waiting for me to catch up. I snapped two shots. We blinked a few times. We looked at each other long enough to know we have no relationship. He went his way, and I went mine.

Woke up to temperatures of +19 and by 10:00 +30. I headed off to the store and was their first customer of the day. Terry will be here on Monday, and I feel I should quarantine with him. The store is small and people are close, so I must avoid the store. Time to stock up.

I met up with Elsie on the street. I wanted to know why I haven’t see any animals. She said she saw moose tracks, but they’d been gone since fall. She saw a fox on the other side of the River, but she didn’t really see it a friend did. The rabbits are gone. The one wolf had an injured foot. And the “chickens”, spruce grouse, are all skinny. She didn’t give me much hope of seeing animals, but at least she gave me assurance, I wouldn’t be attacked by a moose on my run. It was so hot today, I didn’t need my mask, goggles, down jacket. Freedom. But I swear those were moose tracks I saw. And two guys flew out the road on snow machines dressed in camouflage with rifles slung across their backs.

Back in town I met up with Maisie and David. He said he had two moose in his yard yesterday. But then he lives across town from Elsie a good quarter mile away.

Last night around 7:30, I was talking to Terry, on the phone, when I heard the Northern Air Cargo jet leaving. I wondered if they had left my Full Circle Farm box due the next day. I pulled up the message board to check. There was no message about it. I was happy. I didn’t need to drag my sled out in the dark. The next morning, I saw that they posted at 8:05 pm that the boxes were, in fact, in. I wanted to head out with my sled and pick the box up. But there was no way to find out if someone was there to allow access to the box. As every one says, it’s a loose system. It’s easy to accept if you have a vehicle. Which I don’t. So the kind daughter of my landlord delivered the box. Her hair is now purple at the ends, and it is long enough to fall over her turquoise jacket. It’s nice to see her smiling eyes and her color combination.

It snowed most of day. Perfect for writing and watching through the window as it falls.

I was surprised to see a snowplow buzzing around my driveway, but I was wondering how I’d get furnace oil without the drive being plowed. Someone heard me wonder.

.

I alway support public radio. I listened to KSKO, the station here in McGrath, when I lived in Graying AK twenty years ago. Then I realized how important public radio was when you’re cut off from the wider world. So I called KSKO and became a supporter. Paul asked me if I could come right in and get my thank you gifts. Usually I forgo the gifts, but I didn’t have any tote bags here, and warm hoodies for both Terry and me were needed. It was 9:00 am, about four hours earlier than I usually leave the house. The reason for that is -9 degrees VS -29 degrees. I threw my outer clothes on cutting my dressing time from 25 minutes to 20 minutes. This was an epic outing to this real, live two-person radio station consisting of Paul the program/general manager, and Ralph the volunteer and mayor.

I also got my first two pieces of mail in my new PO Box 23. In case you want to add to that box at 99627.

One of a number of reasons I wanted to come here and isolate was to see what I could learn from it. #1 I gripe a lot. But having no one to gripe to, helps me let things go, or not even get things started.

I listened to an audiobook as I ran this afternoon. This is something I mostly do when I run by myself. As I went out the road, it felt colder than -9 had been feeling. It was cloudy and spitting snow. It looked cold. I met no cars or snow machines. I’ve etched this 6 mile route into my mind and body. I see, in my mind’s eye, all the curves in this white road-to -nowhere. Not my term but their’s. Because my goggles iced over, I ran with the goggles pushed up above my eyes. They iced over too. I closed my eyes and ran blind. When I heard my foot falls, I stopped and the world was quiet, so I quietly listened to Robin Wall Kemmerer read from her book Braiding Sweetgrass. It’s contemplative and beautifully read. Everything was peaceful.

Back into town, a new dog welcomed me.

Well that’s not true. It seems that one sound bleeds into the others: heater, refrigerator, water heater, wall heater. It’s a noisy little house in one of the most remote places on earth. If you were flying over right now. You’d experience this huge mass of dark and there’d be little pods of lights, spaced far apart and one of them would be McGrath.

Today I realized I’m not lonely, and I’m content. I miss people but that’s different. I’m happy not to be in traffics or lines at stores or on a beach or state park with throngs of people. “Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is richness of self.” May Sarton

I don’t watch TV. However, I watch the Great British Baking Show on the Netflix app on my phone. One episode per night while dining.

It was the coldest it’s been so far -35. The rest of the week is predicted to have much higher temps because it will be snowing. The full “snow” moon is on Saturday. I took a picture of the moon this afternoon in case it’s snowing and I miss it.

Today when I ran by the in-town house where my dog stopped yesterday at the end of our three mile run together, she was still sitting on the stoop. She knew she was hurting my feelings. She’s just stringing me along. Bitch.

My UPS package was not delivered last night. When I checked the board of disappointment today, they reported that everything they received had been delivered. I must remember if I think I should order something DON’T. I really don’t need anything.

For over twenty years, I’ve had leg and feet cramps usually related to marathon training. I woke last night with perhaps my most painful leg camp ever. My calf was still painful in the morning. I thought it felt warm compared to my other calf. So I spent part of my morning researching DVT (deep vein thrombosis) VS leg cramp. I elevated my leg and put a heating pad on it just in case it was DVT. By 2.30 I lost interest and went for a run. Alls well. I’ll see what tonight brings.

Out the road, there was my dog. She ran into town with me three mile just like before. When she got ahead she’d sit on the side of the road and wait. She’s trying to make up for her fickleness.

It’s 4:00 am. “Hey Siri, what’s the temperature?” “I’m on it. Just a sec. It’s -33 degrees outside. With a 10 percent chance of rain.” “Holy crap. That’s worse than Texas.” I reply. “That’s not nice.” He scolds.

As I do every morning I step out to look at the sky. The lights are out. I layer on clothes. The lights cover a large swatch of the sky dancing, bouncing and swirling.

It remains in the minus double digits until 2:30. At -9, off I go. When I “run” people stop and ask me if there’s something wrong. So I decided to make a sign to put on my back. It says:

Getting something delivered here is a challenge, But figuring out how to get it once it’s here is an even bigger problem. Last night when my landlord was at the terminal, he saw a package I was expecting to get last Monday. It was with the big shipment It’s a UPS deliver. Tomkat posted on the board of disappointment that UPS would deliver this afternoon. They do actually deliver to your house. Which means they take a snow machine around town with the deliveries in the sled. It’s 8:30 PM, and he hasn’t arrived. Should I put a candle in the window for Tomkat?