February 15, 2003

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  It’s winter again!

  
  

  After weeks of cold rain, just far enough above freezing to be wet but not warm, and no sunshine, last night the clouds cleared out.  The temps dropped into the teens, Fahrenheit.  Today, the sun is shining.

  
  

  The surfaces of the driveway and roads are slick new ice with a light dusting of the frost that condensed out of the air when the clouds moved out.  Greyfox‘s new used car has two of its tires frozen into the puddle in our driveway.  It would have been worse, but he went out yesterday evening and backed it and the other car up to the end of the driveway, out of the deepest part of the puddle.

  
  

  It’s no problem, his car being frozen in.  He’s in Talkeetna today, in my car Streak, back at his old stand–first time this year.  His car is going to need some serious work before it is roadworthy.  Not surprisingly, the shimmy wasn’t a bad CV joint, as Jack told him it was, but is a combination of tires and alignment.   Also, when the mechanics inspected it, they found a cracked axle.  He will try to earn enough money to get it fixed before the tourist season begins, or else he will bend a little and suggest we put it on my credit card.  Then he will drive it back to town to be repaired.  It will add another $1,000+ to the price of his “great deal”, that bargain he bought, taking the final cost well over the bluebook price.

  
  

  I do not feel at all triumphant about having been “right” about the deal, the dealer, and the car.  I have not said, not even once, “I told you so.”  I don’t have to.  I can see by his face that Greyfox feels as sick about the whole thing as I do.  I just wish he’d had some better answers for me when I asked him what he had learned from the experience.  Some people never learn.  I’ve been one of those people when it comes to the men in my life.

  
  

  I have, however, learned a thing or two about living in the subarctic woods.  Today, after I picked myself up from a slip in the yard, I shifted to the flat-footed gait we call the Eskimo walk.  The steps are shorter, but you end up covering more ground faster than you would if you were continually picking yourself up off the ice.  My usual natural gait, the one I learned as a kid, goes heel-toe with long strides.  I cover more ground more painlessly with the little waddling steps I learned by watching the Inupiat ladies.

  
  

  I headed out to the end of the cul de sac with the thought of taking off through the woods toward the railroad tracks on a little game trail there.  I thought this would be a good time for it, with no big clumps of snow and ice hanging overhead in the trees, and the snow pack having been knocked down by the rain.

  
  

  Two things deterred me.  One, there was still a lot of punchy snow on that trail.  “Punchy” is a term I learned from dog mushers.  It means crusty snow through which feet, paws and hooves punch.  Depending on the depth of the snow and the cold hardness of the crust, you can get either a boot full of granular snow, or cuts and bruises from the icy crust.  The tracks of every creature who had trod that trail during the warmer days are now frozen hard, an icy obstacle course.

  
  

  I might have tried it anyway, staying in the deeper tracks, except that two sets of those tracks belonged to moose:  a big set and a small set.  That’s mama moose’s track in the shot at left, just below and right of center.  Another of the things I’ve learned is to avoid little moose when there’s a big one around.  In its “right mind”, when a moose is just being a moose, it will move placidly away at a human’s approach.  When she’s got a baby with her, a mama moose is never in her placid right mind.

  • 6:54 pm
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