Good Morning! Surprise, I pop out the door. Brisk. Refreshing like a dive in the ocean, but ninety degrees colder. Waiting for the warm, but no.

The cold isn’t my real problem. I’m stuck with the image of my beautiful CSA box of organic, free range vegetables decomposing on a far flung tarmac. Full Circle Farms assured me that my veggies, due on Wednesday, were coming. When? Unknown.

You find out about deliveries to the McGrath Terminal on the online message board which you should check every time you hear a plane fly over. For me that’s all the time because I often think a snow machine is a plane.

Oh, I hear the 727 fly over. It’s 6:30 pm.The sun is down and it’s approaching darkness. I really don’t want to drag my sled a mile down the road in this dark frozen night, but I really want my veggies. I must check the board of disappointment again.

I text my landlord to see if he can pick them up. He sends a text that he is flying his plane and heard on his radio that the cargo plane had landed. He would check when he was on the ground. Unfortunately, he needed to go to the terminal three times. Unloading the pallets takes a long time. I can’t image how large a shipment can fit on a 727 cargo plane.

He arrived maskless. He stayed outside. Under the porch light, I was shocked how different he looked without a mask. He had a big mustache. I would have never picked him out of lineup.

I was thinking about pissholes in the snow. I told Terry a few weeks back, that Frank McCourt in, Angela’s Ashes, wrote that his inflamed eyes we’re like pissholes in the snow. BTW, my inflamed eyes are much improved owing to the good advice from my readers. In the snow, I’m reminded of the literal piss holes. After hearing the term again on an audiobook today, I looked it up. It refers to a hangover. I will not add a photo here.

We had a gorgeously perfect snow-covering this morning. I delayed the start of my run to continue reworking chapter one. By 10:00, I had completed the end of this three-day total reconstruction of the character, motives, and plot of this one chapter. A run was needed to ponder the effects of these changes on the next eighteen chapters,

Perhaps it wasn’t far enough to work out problems in my novel, but it was looking grim. Now I have grave doubts about the novel. I’ll work on some of my other work for awhile.

I was glad to see the sun return and bring features back to the sky.

My farm box didn’t arrive yesterday or today. The groceries I bought on Tuesday were to enhance my farm box order. I was hungry. I needed to pick through the fruits and vegetables at the store.

And the answer is? My groceries yesterday cost $144.00

I talked to Kellie the director and the one and only employee of the 3,000,000 acre Innoko Nation Wildlife Reserve. It’s headquartered here in McGrath. She identified a bird I wasn’t sure we would see here this time of year as a pine grosbeak. She also told me that as spring arrives earlier low bush berries flower before the pollinators arrive. Hence they don’t produce. 😢

These are the only two street signs I’ve seen here.

The sky has been featureless on these snowy days. It’s hard to run before they plow.

I needed another Covid test. I went to the clinic and waited outside to get a test kit and use it in front of the nurse. A man was also getting a test. He waited for me so we could walk together. He wanted to tell me his story. New people are always popular because they don’t know your story. He had just finished writing a book and wanted to find someplace to get away and write another one. We’re a dime a dozen.

Closer to my house, I saw my dog. She was playing with another dog and hanging with some guy as he walked. The man claimed he didn’t know my dog, but the other one was Gina’s dog. She’s on the Tribal counsel. Why does she let her dog run free when his is always on a leash?

And my dog? She pretended she didn’t know me. What a Bitch.

It took 2 hours to complete my errands today. I made it to the post office and the grocery store. Round trip it’s 2.7 miles. I went on foot pulling my sled with a tub to protect groceries from the cold.

Breakfast was good. Mush, dried fruit, and “grit my teeth” powdered milk. I made a loaf of bread, but had no butter, so I toasted a slice and dunked it into oil and vinegar for lunch. I dressed it up with two pickles left behind in the refrigerator. For dinner I’ll have PB&H on fresh bread. The piece de resistance will be the whipped cream.

I have not been inside anywhere but my house for 14 days. My landlord came by to give me verification of renting, so I can get a PO Box tomorrow. He is a State Trooper and he banged on the door just like the cops do on TV. It was mighty exciting. I wanted to tell him that the mayor flicks his cigarette butts onto the ground. I feel desperate to stir something up in this sleepy town, but I didn’t want to appear petty.

In anticipation of the end of my incarceration, I perused an online list of goods that MIGHT be at the store. Every third item was a different brand of cigarettes. Who knew?

The sun seemed to be pushing up sooner this morning. Before 9:00, the mountains were pink already. At -25, I wrapped myself up leaving no skin exposed, and headed down to the staging area of the Iron Dog Race . They have a mandatory 14 hour layover, and all twenty, 2 person teams, had pulled into McGrath last night. I knew some of them would be ready to pull out by 9:30.

This was a different world from the Iditarod sled dog race, which we saw twenty years ago. When mushers pulled in, they were disheveled and ragtag. On arrival they needed to make a fire and cook for the dogs. Then they inspected all of the dogs as well as their leads, harnesses, booties, sled etc. They lay down straw for the dogs’ beds. Then they take care of their needs.

The Iron Dog drivers left the restaurant with coffee mugs heading to their neatly lined up machines. The pairs had their matching fitted suits with matching sleek helmets with little ear buds and microphones like FBI agents. You could make out their fine physiques. They had swagger.

This photo shoot would be splendid with the sun rising, smoke and fumes billowing, and the racers pulling the recoil starters with their whole body. When I removed my mitt, my finger froze. My goggles were steamed making me blind. The hazards of an arctic photographer.

Some pickup trucks were idling with spectators inside. Enterprising kids had a Loco Cocoa Wagon, a walled tent stand selling hot chocolate. A couple groups of dogs were tussling. A huge fire was stoked by some men. A couple of officials and a cameraman, all underdressed, we’re scurrying and looking busy.

From a distance bathed in the sepia of orange smoke and fogged goggles, it looked like a Bruegel painting. I could see someone throwing up in a corner, a fist fight, a procession of priests, a couple petting, and even Icarus.

Then the racers gunned their engines, made a sharp jump out of the staging area, and catapulted down to the River. It was a ballet of sorts.

At 4:00 am I noticed the good morning message from Siri. I asked him what the temperature was. In that charming Irish accent he replied 16 below. I searched my Aurora app to find that on a scale of 0-9 it was a four. I suit up and head out. My only enemy was the street light. Not great but after not seeing them in years, it was thrilling.

At 9:30 I headed to the dump with my sled and the garbage. It was minus 20.

The Iron Dog Snow-machine Race is a arriving tonight. I really wanted to see them speeding up the River at 100 MPH. But not enough to stand out in the cold and dark.

I stopped to talk to a man who was overlooking the River while smoking a cigarette. When I told him I was from CA, he said he had a son and a couple grandsons in Sacramento, along with three ex wives, and that’s why he’s living here. He’s the mayor. Name’s Ralph.

I’m up each morning well before the crack of dawn. I check the Aurora forecast on my app. It was active on my second morning here, but the skies were cloudy. My next move is to step out on the deck into the freezing cold air. I look at the sky. I’ve had a couple of clear mornings and viewed The Big Dipper and the tree tops. Unintentionally, I excite all the neighboring dogs from their sleep in their doghouses. They bark and howl and spread their contagion to the next block and on it goes.

At 19 degrees above, I was over dressed for my run. I don’t know how I’ve acclimatized so quickly. After three miles, I sensed something was just behind me on my left. I had a little start when I glanced and saw something black running along side of me. It was a dog. Just yesterday I said I needed a dog. It could’ve been a puppy. It seemed pretty playful. She jumped on me and tried to get my mittens off. She ran around me playing and acting puppyish. I turned around to head for home and she turned around with me and stuck right by my side. At one point I stopped a car and asked the guy if he knew who the dog was. He said maybe she came from the house that was down by the 3 mile mark. I suspected that, but I was hoping the guy would know the owner and contact him. He said don’t worry the dog will turn back.

When I reached my block, the dog decided to visit my neighboring dogs. From inside my house, I heard the contagion of dog barks starting. Good Morning.

I’ve heard this ad on the radio over and over this week for the movie Land. “One woman travels to the wilderness and dares to imagine a new life.” Don’t we just imagine things? Where does daring come into it?

I’ve been in quarantine for 10 days. This is what I’m imagining. In four days I won’t be in quarantine anymore. I can go to the grocery store for the first time. I have never stepped foot in the grocery store, and I don’t know what it looks like or what they have. It will be an exciting day for me. I’m going to the post office, and I’m going to get a post office box. On Wednesday, I am expecting my farm box to arrive. Also I ordered a humidifier which should come on Wednesday. And I get to go to the clinic and have another Covid test.

The only thing I’ve been able to do is go on my runs. Today when I ran I saw absolutely no one except Yeti. I have not looked at another person today. I haven’t seen anybody walking. I haven’t waved to anybody. There’s no loneliness like mine.

I’m thinking of trying to capture a dog. I see the dogs on the street by themselves. They would probably like to spend some time with me. Nobody would think that I stole a dog. I’m not sure anyone knows I’m here.

I’d like to say that my writing is going well, but now I’m mad at one of my characters. She’s turned into a bitch. I not taking it personally. I guess it’s part of the fun.

If some item is getting low in our house, we replenish it before it’s gone. If we see that something is gone, we run out to the store and get it. Months ago my prospective landlord here said that while I was in quarantine, he would get food for me. I tried to plan by sending some staples to the cabin and getting a fruit and vegetable box from the CSA. Right now my supplies are low, but I decided to make due. Of course, when backpacking we can only eat what we can carry. But at home, I might run to the store just to replace a spice. How long can you go without going to the store? How creative can you be? What do you really need? I sure thought I needed a pizza cutter tonight, but I didn’t.