Muse? What Muse?

I've got plenty o' nuthin', this morning. The local news is slim pickings, and the only story anyone really cares about (locally) is the predicted wind & rain moving in late today or tonight.

About 60 per cent of our leaves are down now, and with 40mph winds in the forecast, we probably won't have many at all by Wednesday.

There are plenty of good reads on the sidebar, so help yourself to the free ice cream. Thanks for stopping by.


Meanwhile, the locals are double-checking to make sure they're ready in case of another period of power outages due to downed branches or trees taking out power lines.

Do you have everything you need?

Sunday in the A.M.: There's Good News Today

This morning is a carbon-copy of yesterday: 53 degrees and raining, a steady drizzle falling gently from grey skies which have been our constant companion since August began. The leaves were starting to look a little the worse for wear, after two months of dry, sunny days with more temps in the 70s than most folks now alive can remember.

The last time we had a summer like this was in 1936, and next summer will resound with a constant whine about how last year was so nice.

It's Alaska, buckaroo. Cowboy up.  :)

* * * * *

The news reports are filled with bad things and stories of bad people, as the talking heads gleefully continue their mantra of gloom-and-doom.

So wash your imaginations out with this:

A group of Fairbanks paddlers is being credited with saving the life of a teen-ager during a trip down the Gulkana.
   
Doctors, rescuers and family members say if the paddlers hadn't come to the aid of Kraig Hammond he would have died.
   
The Fairbanks News-Miner reports the group was a couple of days into a five-day trip when they encountered 17-year-old Kraig Hammond and his father, Rick.
   
The father asked for their help, explaining that the teen had injured his knee, but it became swollen and inflamed during their trip and he was showing other signs of infection.
   
They made Kraig and Rick part of their group and then signaled for help with an emergency beacon.
   
The Air Force Rescue Coordination Center on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson sent a helicopter. He was rushed to a hospital, where doctors say he arrived just in time.

You're welcome!

More Flooding, More Evacuations

From the Anchorage Daily News, the flooding of the last 10 days keeps getting worse:

* The National Weather Service has extended the Nenana River flood warning until 12:15 p.m. Tuesday. Water rising in low-lying areas in the town of Nenana.

* Mat-Su Borough officials say Talkeetna residents should continue to boil their water Monday while crews test the safety of water sources. 

* On the Kenai Peninsula, some people living in low-lying areas near the rising Kenai River are being advised to evacuate. The river is expected to rise 6 inches, according to the Kenai Peninsula Borough.
A National Weather Service flood warning has been extended until 10 p.m. Tuesday.

* The Kenai River Special Management Area will be closed to all boating traffic starting at 1 p.m. Monday due to high water levels, according to the Alaska Department of Natural Resources.
State parks director Ben Ellis ordered the closure due to flooding conditions that make river travel unsafe, according to DNR.

* An article about the aftermath of flooding in the Talkeetna area is here. 


There's new flooding in the Nenana area, and near Denali National Park. Thousands of square miles affected, with thousands of homes either flooded or directly threatened. This just keeps going, and we keep getting more rain.

But you won't hear this on your local news; we're not near New York City or Los Angeles. Some producer's home near Hollywood may be threatened by a wildfire, then Katy-bar-the-door, but let homes be washed away up here, and the media can't be bothered.

Brunch for a Rainy Day

Here's your thousand words' worth: bacon, scrambled eggs, and scratch-made rum-orange-apricot-cinnamon-streusel coffee cake.

We concentrated on a good lunch, because this is what was happening, outside:

What a Wonderful World It Would Be

if I had an internet connection. After rebooting the modem, switches, routers, etc etc ad nauseum, I discover that the 2nd PC in the office works just fine .. thus, this post.

Mine, however, remains as unresponsive as Congress facing the healthkare protests.

The computer guru just called to say he'll be here in 15 minutes.

In the meantime, we're on Day 31 of the great Alaskan rain-a-thon. Records are meant to be broken, so they say, but I'd gladly forego the thrill of constant sogginess for a day or two of sunlight.

More Rain .... Srsly?

Yeah, it's still raining. We've had mostly rainy weather since mid-June, with unusually high humidity. Temps, however, have been low to normal (mid-50s to mid-60s) so we're not complaining about that.

A little sun would be nice, though. It's not normal for bears to develop webbed feet ... just sayin'.