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.

Today, I walked to town. It’s only one mile. It’s much warmer running. I say running but the people traveling past me in cars or trucks or mostly snow machines don’t see me as running. They instead want to know if I’m injured. Or if I know the road goes nowhere. Or if I need a lift. I know they are trying to be kind, but how do they think their solicitousness makes me feel?

My walk was not a run today because I was wearing my boots. And taking a walk. And feeling cold. I took a look around town—two guys standing in front of the store—and there was nothing going on. I’m so glad to be missing nothing.

This walk thing can be a hard concept compared to the snow machine thing.

Here is an interesting fact and concept about the racers.

At night, you cannot get out of your bivy sack to use the restroom. You will risk lowering your core body temperature to a dangerous point. And holding your bladder can actually make you colder. What is the answer? A military invented chemical that converts urine liquid into a gel.

So what do they do with the gel? And wouldn’t that plug things up? It not, I can see many applications for this.

Last Monday in Anchorage, I bought six bagels and ate one for dinner. Yesterday, I ate the last one along with the rest of my veggies. So today I baked bread. Next Tuesday I end my quarantine and on Wednesday I get my next shipment of fruits and veggies from my Seattle based CSA. Until then, I must be resourceful.

I took a photo of the sun getting ready to rise. After it starts coloring the sky, it takes about an hour and a half before it actually rises. This is my picture of the sky over the river at eight. The sun rose at 9:38 this morning.

My time outside has been lovely. Even the temperature. I can’t wait for Terry to come with the skis. That sounded like I just wanted the skis.

But I’ve come here to write and my eyes are so dry they only can take looking at a screen, or pretty much anything for three hours. It’s been a painful and troublesome experience. I been struggling with this for years, but since October, under a doctor’s care it’s . . .

The day was warm hovering just below zero. The clouds made it look colder. I spotted a Gray Jay, Boreal Chickadees, Dark-eyes Juncos, Hoary Redpolls and Ravens swooping and tumbling above the taiga . I ran out the road three miles. It was a joy to experience such silence only cracked by the cries of the Raven. The untrampled snow for my untrammeled spirit. The sun suddenly broke free.

Terry often says about himself,  “What should I be doing now?” I rarely think about that because I run to a mindless schedule. Don’t we all? I could hide all the time pieces here, but I’d still have my devices with lighted time flashing.

Here, I have nowhere to go other than outside by myself. The sun rises about 9:40 and sets about 5:30. Knowing this, makes me look at the clock wondering how much time I have. I always have the same amount. Only now I have no appointments. Light or dark, it shouldn’t matter.

Everyone asked me what I planned to accomplish here. So I set a goal to write 5 hours per day. Other than timing my writing, I have no restrictions. The 8 hours and 30 minutes of daylight should only influence my circadian rhythm not what I do.

The real problem is I’m wasting my time thinking about this. Yet I long to make a schedule. I want to put it on a calendar with time stamps. If I can accomplish anything while I’m here, it is to let time flow instead of putting it into boxes. I have one exception, I must time my runs, and track the miles and my pace. If I don’t have that data, I haven’t really run. . .

I woke up in my new bed right there in the living room. I’m sure this is the open concept so popular today. Hey, the kitchen’s right there too. And the door to the porch must remain open too so things don’t  freeze. The small diesel stove works miracles, no ice anywhere inside. I did find a fly walking slowly near the kitchen window. I let it be.

My writing has been a bit blocked by setting things up, mostly my devices. Hopefully, by Monday I’ll be caught up and my quotidian routine will be established. I am quarantined until February 16^th. I can’t go inside anywhere other than my house or the clinic if I get an appointment for the vaccine. I can be outside. So today I walk/ran out the road during the snow shower. I could manage a pathetic shuffle on the plowed portion of the road. But farther down the road in the deeper snow it was most definitely a walk. The temp was about -11. It’s not cold when you’re moving. I shoveled my deck twice and stacked my wood pile. It felt great and seemed fun owing to the novelty I sure.

At 5:00, I was able to connect to my regular Santa Cruz Zoom group. It worked better than at home. Everything is good. I think I’ll have enough food to see me out of quarantine. If I think I’m sick of powered milk now. . .

I beat my alarm and woke at 3:45.Being in a different place, in a different time zone, and being up late, I thought could be trouble. I was relieved to have the big suitcase off my mind. And everything went well packing up the few things. I Ubered over to Merrill Field for the flight to McGrath.

The small Alaska Air Transit office was the quintessential Ak Airport. Two other passenger were going home to Nicolai. The man had dislocated his shoulder. The woman had been to the dentist . She said her new tooth did not fit. Just after her appointment, she called the dental office who said to wait until her next appointment in a couple weeks. The receptionist had her ten week old puppy with her. Twice she wisked the pup into her arms exclaiming, “I think she has to poop.”

The plane was a nine seater with a good sized cargo area. Everything except me and my three small bags were going to Nikolai a town of seventy-five people, 190 miles from Anchorage. The pilot said, expect windchill of 55 below zero in McGrath.

We flew over the Alaska range and landed about an hour later in Nikolai. People were lined up with their snow machines pulling sleds behind. All were waiting for the door to open to help unload the cargo.

McGrath thirty miles away, was a 10 minute ride. The pilot wanted to know what I planned to do in McGrath. When I talked about writing, he told me he was a published author. So I’m going to order his book and hope he’s the flying pilot. It’s called Finding Carla the story that changed aviation search and rescue by Ross Nixon.

My new landlord was waiting for me. He gave me a quick tour of town. The cabin is great. Even my order from Full Circle Farms, a CSA in Seattle, had arrived a day early. The surrounding woods draped in snow are gorgeous. Welcome to McGrath.