Tundra Medicine Dreams

It is so hard to lose a beloved dog. Two days ago I had to say good bye to Princess, the last remnant of my sled dog team. I have written ...

For several weeks now, a notion has been flitting around in my brain, one that made me a little sad and a little glad. This morning I awoke...

After four and a half months off work—the longest non-working period in my adult life—I was afraid I had forgotten all the medicine I ever k...

Kenai awoke this morning to bright blue skies and temperature almost 20 degrees below zero. The entire range of mountains to the west, incl...

Alaska is once again making the national news , and not, this time, because we are the "Coldest State with the Hottest Governor", ...

Dog mushing is the official sport of the state of Alaska. Does any other state have an official sport? Surfing in California, snowshoeing ...

This morning I was out sweeping snow off the front porch when I noticed movement in the woods just across the small road in front of the hou...

This morning Dutch and I awoke to a welcome sight: the thermometer was reading a warm and toasty +18 degrees! And we got about an inch of ...

About noon yesterday the sky began to cloud up and the wind to blow. "Change is comin'!" I thought. Hooray! By mid-afternoo...

Cold. Damn cold. Freezin’ ass cold (or FAC as Dutch, the retired Coast Guard Captain calls it). It was minus thirty-three degrees again t...

When I awoke dark and early—well, dark anyway; it was nearly 8 AM—the deck thermometer cruelly told me that it was -30F outside. Yeah, minu...

When the alarm woke Dutch and me at 5 AM, the thermometer on our deck read minus 25 degrees F . The sky was crystal clear, inky black and f...

Does anybody ever get used to this? If I live here for twenty years, I don't think I will. I know, I know, it is so common around her...

When my grandmother died this past May, it was only a week before my scheduled trip to see her; I dropped everything and went immediately wh...

A blog I enjoy checking in with, Addicted to Medblogs , has been doing a series every so often called Calendar Docs. The Medblog Addict is ...

For my entire life, I have been blessed by the fact that my mother has always been one of my very best friends. Even during my adolescence,...

My dear friend Joan, who gets periodic mention here on the blog, spent Thanksgiving week in Anchorage seeing friends and was able to make a ...

At the risk of boring you with tedious repetition, I just had to throw up this photo of the view from my deck yesterday afternoon. It is si...

It really is beautiful here in Kenai, both the area in general and the spot where our house is located. I can’t imagine a more restful and ...

The whirlwind that I have lived in for the last month continues unabated, but I am not totally overwhelmed by it so far. For that I can tha...

Packing. It consumes every waking non-hospital minute of my life. I’ve been in full-on combat mode for over two weeks. If I had to make a...