Skating on Wasilla Lake; a wayward puppy goes beneath my car; Kalib; full story of the dog that almost killed the rabbit at the corner where the chicken crossed the road and the rooster got shot

I was driving by Wasilla Lake when I noticed some little kids skating, and two bigger ones practicing hockey. So I decided to stop for a few minutes and take some pictures.

This is Shane, one of the older two. He is in the seventh grade and played on a hockey team for four years - in Kansas. After his family moved to Wasilla a few years back, he stopped playing organized hockey, but still enjoys getting out, skating, and knocking a puck around.

This is Shane's older sister, Amy, a freshman at Wasilla High. She plays for the Mat-Su Ravens, a high school team that combines girls from schools throughout the valley, as no single school has enough interested girls to put together a team of it's own.

She is doing a face-off with her brother to see who will get the puck.

And off they go - brother and sister, fighting for the puck. My camera battery was dying and I needed to get back home, so off I went, too.

I should note that they both like Wasilla way better than Kansas. No offense to any Kansans who might read this.

Their mother Lisa watched as they skated. "Oh, yes," she agreed. "We love it here."

This was the first picture that I took when I stepped onto the ice, just before I met Shane and Amy. The man is Gregory and he is photographing his daughter, Korynn - the one who is still on her feet. The one who has fallen to her knees is Korynn's friend, Roslyn, and this is her first time on skates.

It's Korynn's second.

Roslyn climbs back up, takes hold of the walker and skates just a few inches. "I think I can do it without the walker," she says.

Roslynn leaves the walker behind.

She soon falls, but she smiles about it and then gets right back up. Had I stayed longer, I feel confident I would have seen her skating with confidence.

As I neared home, I saw Becky, Danny, their mom and their little dog, Toby. I stopped the car and tried to take a picture through the window, but my camera battery was dead. So I pulled it out of the camera and warmed it up in my hands, to see if I might coax one more shot out of it.

I did. One more shot and then it died again. I had to bring it home and recharge it.

Melanie and Charlie arrived in the early evening and they had Kalib with them. They were baby-sitting him so that Jacob and Lavina could go out with some friends who had returned from Outside for a short visit. Charlie stepped out of the house to get some firewood. As he was loading up his arms he thought he heard someone crunching about beside him. It was a moose.

After Charlie returned with the armload of wood and the moose report, Melanie went to the window and quickly spotted the moose. She called Kalib over to the window to see.

"Moose," she said.

Kalib peered out the window.

"Puppy!" he said, excitedly. It seemed that the poor little kid was confused.

We then had a debate about what to do for dinner. There was really nothing in the house to cook, so we decided to go out and grab something, somewhere. I auto-started the car so it could warm up. After a bit, Charlie went out and strapped Kalib into his car seat.

Then I climbed into the car and waited for everyone to get seated. "Dad!" Lisa suddenly warned. "Don't back up! There's a puppy under the car!"

Sure enough, there was. This little fur ball. And I might have squished it, had not Charlie spotted it and then pointed it out to Lisa.

Now we faced a quandary. What to do? I decided that the puppy should go into the garage until we got back from dinner. So we put the puppy in the garage, but then the cats freaked out. Their main litter boxes are in the garage and I did not want the puppy to scare them away.

Charlie had temporarily traded his car for Jacob and Lavina's Tahoe, as it has a car seat for Kalib. Muzzy rides in that car all the time, so it is already rich in dog odor. Lisa went into the house and came back with a flattened carbboard box. She put it in the back of the Tahoe and then puppy was put in on top of it.

And then we all went off to eat, Melanie's treat, at Señor Taco. Of course, I took pictures and got some good images, but this blog has had many eating pictures lately and so I will not post them.

We probably would have lingered longer at Señor Taco and visited more, but we had to get back to that puppy. I feared that the night was going to be long and miserable - disrupted by the combination of puppy whines and cat paranoia.

After we returned home, I sent Charlie walking one way down Sarah's Way and I walked the other. I knocked upon door after door and then showed whoever answered the picture of the puppy on the LCD of my pocket camera. Nobody knew where this puppy belonged.

I returned down the other side of the street and then walked up Brockton just a short ways and then turned back. Now, there was just one nearby house left to check: the corner house - the one where the chicken crossed the road, the rooster got shot; the one where lives the dog that nearly killed the rabbit.

I did not really want to knock on the door of that house. Shortly after the family that lives there moved in several years ago - long after the drunken ice cream lady had crashed her good humor vehicle on that corner - I walked by to find the woman of the house outside with a beautiful orange cat.

I stopped introduced myself, told her I was a photographer and loved to photograph cats. She was happy to have me photograph her's. I then told her that I photographed not only cats, but all kinds of things, from life in Rural Alaska to what I saw in Wasilla and the neighborhood, children playing, whatever.

She reacted with paranoia. "You can photograph my cat," she said, "but don't you dare photograph my children. That's just weird, that you would photograph children."

After that, if I walked by that house and the children were out playing and they spotted me, they would shout a warning to each other: "It's the camerman! The weirdo!" Then they would flee.

If they had friends over and saw me coming, they would shout to their playmates, "That's the cameraman! Watch out! He's a weirdo! Run!" And then, just like when they were playing alone by themselves, they would flee. When the husband would be out in the yard and I would walk, he would glance at me with cold, hard, eyes. He would not return my nod, nor my smile, but would turn away.

When you are a photographer whose pictures of children have been published and enjoyed far and wide, in newspaper, book, and magazine form, including National Geographic, it is quite a thing to be labeled a weirdo because you like to take photographs of children.

Then they got some chickens, including the one that crossed the road, and a rooster. In the summertime, when it never gets dark, that damn rooster would crow all night long. There was no getting a good night's sleep. It just couldn't happen.

I began to get desperate for sleep. I knew I had to talk to them about the rooster - but my experience so far with them did not leave me feeling optimistic about how that conversation would go.

Then, one day, before I could find out, I answered an angry knock upon the door.

It was the woman. "Someone complained about our rooster," she said angrily, "was that you?" It did not prove to be a moment of calm and reasoning.

The rooster crowed on for about three, maybe four weeks after that. Then, one morning, about three or four AM, as I lay awake and aggravated in bed, that rooster was crowing away shrilly as usual. Suddenly, I heard a gunshot.

The rooster never crowed again. No ruckus was ever raised about that gunshot. I do not know, but I had a feeling that it was not taken by a neighbor, but by an occupant of the house who choose a gun and not an axe or a wring of the neck in order to make a statement to the neighborhood, to whoever had complained about the rooster.

I could be wrong. But that was what I suspected. Maybe it was an aggravated neighbor who shot the rooster, but I don't think so. Had it been, I suspect all hell would have broken loose.

Instead, immediately after the gunshot, the neighborhood fell into peace and quiet.

Then, a couple of weeks after I fell, shattered my shoulder, lost it, and got a titantium one instead, I had just turned the corner by that house when I saw the dog that appears in yesterday's post, happily running around a rabbit pen with a single rabbit inside.

I could also see the children at the side of the house, laughing and bouncing off of a trampoline. They were completely unaware of me and of the dog, running around the rabbit pen. Then, somehow, that dog found its way into the pen.

Looking as happy and ecstatic as a dog can look, it grabbed that rabbit, carried it out of the pen, took it across the street and then began to maul it to death.

My shoulder was extremely fragile and I was helpless to intervene. I could not pick up a rock, I could not run and chase the dog off the rabbit.

I shouted at the kids, as loud as I dared. "Your dog is killing your rabbit!" Even the effort of shouting brought added pain to my already hurting shoulder. The kids continued to bounce and laugh. They did not hear me. In sheer delight, the dog continued to maul the rabbit. 

I walked as fast as I could, but that was not fast. "Your dog is killing your rabbit!" I shouted again. The kids bounced on, laughing.

I walked a little closer, shouted again, same result. A little closer... finally the kids heard me, but they did not understand.

They quit bouncing and looked at me. "What?" one of them shouted back at the man who their parents had taught them was a dangerous weirdo. 

"Your dog is killing your rabbit!" Finally, they understood. The girls and younger boy started to scream. The oldest boy, who had been truly vile towards me in the past, charged over, and drove the dog from the rabbit. 

The rabbit was limp and still. It looked dead. The girls and the smaller children were weeping. The mother came out, saw the rabbit and looked at me suspiciously. I told her what had happened. She told the children to gather up the rabbit and they would take it to the vet.

Then, an amazing thing happened. One of the girls walked up to me, looked up into my eyes and said, "thank you, Cameraman." Then, one by one, each child - including the oldest boy who had been so vile toward me, walked up to me and said the same, "Thank you, Cameraman." 

The mother watched, but said nothing. She did not smile. The suspicious look never left her face.

And from that day to this, those children have continued to avoid me. And although the First Amendment to the United States Constitution gives me the right to photograph anyone and anything that I can see in public, I have taken no pictures of those children - even though I have seen wonderful ones, ones that I knew that parents would have treasured.

But it just wasn't worth it.

Yet, the kids and I - we did have that one moment, right after the dog almost killed the rabbit.

I decided to knock on the door, anyway - just in case they had gotten a new puppy.

They hadn't, but when they learned my mission and I showed them the picture of the puppy on my camera, they reacted in a friendly way. The husband told me that he had seen it, running with a big dog that lived on a corner three blocks away, where a tire swing hung from a tree.

So I walked back to the house, got the puppy, Melanie joined us and I drove to that house.

And that's where I took this picture, right after I reunited the puppy, Kuna, with this man, who had been very worried about it. "You little turd!" he said, affectionately, as he tousled Kuna's fur.

If you look closely at Royce's chin, you will see that there is a bit of drool smeared into it. Even so, he has been a little better today than he was last night. Melanie, who had not seen him for two weeks, was pleased with what she saw. "He's definitely gained some weight, Dad," she said.

So maybe the situation is not as grim as it seemed last night. Still, he is light and frail, but Melanie is certain that he is doing better than when she last saw him, before I started giving him his medication, before I began to feed soft food to him.

The two buddies, Kalib and Royce.

Kalib, Royce, and Melanie.

Lisa and Royce. See the drop of drool on his chin?

Still, this was a good moment for him. You could call it "a good quality of life" moment.

Bad news and good hash browns at breakfast; cruising down Wasilla's snow-blown roads with Steve Heimel; Royce, Melanie and coffee

I just about stayed home to eat oatmeal for breakfast, but then I would have had dishes to wash. Plus, it was a Sunday, I had slept in and it just didn't feel right to stay home. So off I went, not knowing if I was headed to Family or IHOP.

I wound up at Mat-Su Family Restaurant, where diners were reading about the police officer in Anchorage who was ambushed in his patrol car Saturday and shot five times. He survived, perhaps because he was wearing a bullet-proof vest. According to the Anchorage Daily News, he is in pain but is going to be okay.

Troubling thing to have happen in Anchorage.

I was surprised when Jolene showed up at my table to wait on me. It has been many, many, months since I have seen her waiting tables at Family and she was pregnant last time. I meant to ask whether it was a boy or girl and what the name is, but she had many tables to wait on and we spent our limited talking time discussing hash browns. 

She said she would make certain the cooks did my hash browns right. And she did. The hash browns were excellent.

I'm sad to say that Jolene is only working temporarily.

Hungry people, pouring into the Mat-Su Valley Family Restaurant.

She stood there for awhile, waiting for someone to join here - and there he is, coming through the door.

It was blustery outside, but something made her smile.

I can't say for certain, but it looks to me like a grampa, carrying a little teddy-bear boy from the restaurant to the car.

After I finished my breakfast, I got into the car and tuned the radio to 90.3, KNBA public radio, the Alaska Native station. I tuned it there because I knew that Steve Heimel would be on the air with "Truckstop," his program of old-time country and folk music, with a bit of Gospel and Blues thrown in.

This was a big mistake on my part, as I had many things I wanted to do back here in my office, but I was trapped. I could not point the car towards home as long as that great music was playing.

So I would waste time I could not afford to waste, burn gas I could not afford to burn, and pump greenhouse gases into the air that I should not have putting there.

I think it would be safe to say that Steve is a conscientious, environmentally conscious, green-oriented person. Yet, I can assure you, he causes many people besides me to inject the atmosphere with greenhouse gas.

I circled around and found myself stopped at a stop sign before I could cross Wasilla's famous Main Street, and drive past Wasilla's famous library.

Then, captivated by the music and unable to go home, I returned back to the Wasilla portion of the Parks Highway.

I had thought that I would go to KNBA's website and pull up a playlist of all the songs Heimel played today, and then I would note some of them, link to them, and then tell you where I was at the time and make some other commentary.

But, sadly, there was no playlist and a good many of those songs are obscure enough that I can not remember their titles.

Sure, I remember some of the obvious ones, like "The Battle of New Orleans" by Johnny Horton and "Tom Joad" by Woodie Guthrie, but some of the others just escape me.

It's okay, though. Truth is, its late and I am too tired to go find all those songs, make all those links and write all that narration.

Heimel is a very smart and knowledgeable guy and every now and then he drops in his own narration. Like just before playing a good gospel song that was all about Jesus being on the radio before there was radio, he recalled an experience that happened many decades ago when a man asked him, "are you saved?"

"Saved from what?" he responded.

As to the Battle of New Orleans, he gave an off the top of his head summary of the events that led to it, including the fact that it was fought after the war had ended but the poor Brits who went on the attack did not know it and they got slaughtered - 214 dead to 14 Americans dead.

And all this for a war that had ended.

At the end of Horton's piece - and I wish I could quote Heimel, but, damn, his exact words have slipped my mind, he said something like this: an alligator canon is a mighty effective weapon.

"What's your dog's name?" I shouted as we were stopped at the light.

"Annie," he said.

"I bet lot of people take her picture."

"Oh yeah," he agreed, "you wouldn't believe how many people have cameras."

And then the light changed and the interview ended.

I need to get another beaver hat like that. That looks just like one of my three that have disappeared.

I'm not accusing anybody of anything, because I'm pretty sure Annie keeps the man honest. I wouldn't be surprised if his hat was made by the same guy who made mine. The hat maker lives just up the road in Trapper Creek area - or at least he did at the time.

He would go to Barrow to help count bowhead whales and that was how I met him.

Here I am, stopped at another light - and here is the guy behind me.

I turned off the Parks and drove down the Palmer-Wasilla Highway for a short distance.

And to my amazement, even as Heimel took a break to say, "KNBA, 90.3," there was a KNBA Volkswagen right in front of me, with the call letters, 90.3 emblazoned on the back.

What are the odds?

This kind of thing happens all the time to me.

Finally, I knew I had to go home and so headed in this direction. As I drew near, I saw this stuck vehicle on a side street, with this guy trying to help push it out.

I thought about turning around and going back to help, but the song that was being played was too good.

Plus, with this artificial shoulder of mine, I must be very careful about such things.

As I continued on Seldon, I saw three snowmachines ahead of me, on the same trail that I photographed the kid yesterday as he sped along in careless disregard for the mothers and babies who use that trail. This time, I was going 25 mph and I passed all three snowmachines.

So, you see, not all snowmachiners are wreckless and irresponsible.

The street this snowmachine is crossing is my street. I finally turned down that street and got to my house, about 10 minutes before Truckstop ended.

Melanie showed up not long afterward. She expressed great concern about Royce, who is losing weight at a horrifying pace. She said she was going to run to the store to buy him some soft cat food, because she hadn't seen my blog lately and did not know that I had already done that.

I am pretty convinced, though, that the problem is not that Royce is not getting enough to eat. He eats all that I give him and more, voraciously, but still the weight is melting off him.

He has thrown up a lot the past few days, and not hairballs.

I guess I had better take him into the vet.

He seems energetic and bright, but he grows so frail.

Melanie suggested that maybe I am letting him eat too much, too fast and that I should give him smaller servings, more often.

She may be right. 

I am trying that now.

"He is a special, special, cat," she said.

Then the two of us went out for coffee. She brought her mug and ordered her's black. I ordered mine with cream and two raw sugars.

Mine wasn't very good. Her's was better.

I will not say where we got them, because I don't want to make the poor barista feel bad, but it wasn't Metro Cafe. Metro Cafe is closed on Sunday.

And Metro Cafe has spoiled me, because their coffee is always good.

Now - I've got one week before I leave to join Margie in Arizona for two weeks. I have about three weeks worth of tasks to do in that week, so I expect the posts between now and when I leave to be brief - although I never know for certain until I do them.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, from Wasilla, Alaska

The day of Christmas Eve has been a mighty busy one and I took several pictures that I thought I would share, but I have been going non-stop, day and night and then the next day and night and the day and night after that. I am exhausted and if I don't get to bed right away I will die and then Santa Claus will not bother to visit me.

"What's the use?" he will say.

So, I am just going to post this picture of a Nativity scene that goes up on the shore of Wasilla Lake, every Christmas season. It's not a great picture. It's not even a good picture, it's a crummy picture, but it is what you see as drive by and it was put there by someone who wants to share the spirit of Christmas. I took it as I passed by so that you can see it just as you would have if it had been you passing by instead of me.

Have a Merry Christmas or a happy whatever kind of holiday it is that you celebrate this time of year.

I will be back before Christmas Day is over, with Kalib, and all of us up here, in the hope that we might bring you a little cheer.

The man who owns a '56 Chevy; a school bus goes off the road; dusk horse raises its tail

This is Bill, who lives two houses down Sarah's Way in the opposite direction from the one I took yesterday. Bill owns, rebuilt and maintains a very sharp looking, smooth-running, classic 1956 Chevy that he bought for $100. He painted it black and red/orange and when you see it coming down the road, it catches your eye right away and you wish that you were riding in it, Buddy Holly on the radio, that you were young and had a pretty girl clinging to you, nibbling at your ear, giggling each time she almost makes you crash.

Perhaps next summer, I will build a blog post around that Chevy. I know there is a good story in it.

Almost nine years has now passed since my first black cat, Little Guy, the one who passed straight from his mother's womb into my waiting hands, stepped out the back door on a day with three times as much snow as this one and disappeared.

I was devastated to lose that cat and I went up and down the street, knocking on every door to see if anyone had seen Little Guy.

For weeks afterward, whenever he would see me walking past, Bill would ask me if I had found my cat. He always looked very concerned. I know he was keeping an eye out for that cat.

I still appreciate that.

Bill blows the snow off his driveway.

A cottonwood tree, bent down toward Tamar.

Muzzy and a snowplow.

As I walked one way, this school bus came driving the other. Shortly after it passed, I turned just in time to see its right wheels slip off the shoulder of the road and then slide right into the culvert. 

Anyone who lives up here long enough will do this kind of thing sooner or later, probably a few times.

It can be embarrassing, but it must be worse when you have a busload of students.

One of the students looks out at me.

As St. Bernards do when people get into trouble in the snow, Muzzy comes to help out. Unfortunately, he forgot to bring his little barrel of brandy.

It's a good thing, because the driver shouldn't be touching brandy and the kids were all too young.

If someone had brought a dog harness, we could have hitched him to that bus and he would have pulled it right out.

But nobody had a harness.

I walked on, leaving the bus and kids in it to be rescued by the school district.

Margie is in town with Lavina and Kalib and will be staying with them overnight in their new house. She left some bills on the counter for me to pay. Along the way, I saw this guy on a green snowmachine waiting for a green light so he could cross the road.

When the light changed, the left turn arrow turned green for me, which meant this guy's light was still red. As I began my turn, he gunned his throttle and shot straight across the road directly across my path. Maybe he was not waiting for a green light at all, but only for a gap in the traffic passing in front of him so that he could run a red one.

I believe this falls into the category that Melanie AND Lisa* calls, "soooooo Wasilla!"

This is what it looked like in front of Wasilla Lake. 

This person got stuck on the divider.

A school bus passed by without mishap.

I took my coffee break at the usual time. After I stopped at Metro Cafe, I took the long way home and passed by this horse as darkness drew down. The horse raised its tail and then dropped something.

*updated to include both coiners of the phrase: see Lisa's comment

Kalib golfs, vacuums, gets under the weather, goes to the doctor, reunites with Royce; Various and insundry Wasilla scenes

Ever since Kalib moved out, the house had been a quiet and empty place. After he returned, he resumed his golf game. This made life in the house much better.

And then he vacuumed the floor. It really needed it and we were grateful.

Kalib and his vacuum cleaner.

It was a foggy day. I took only a very short walk - not because of the fog, but because I left at 11:45 AM and I had a phone interview scheduled at noon.

I hated to take such a short walk. I guess I should have left earlier.

After I hung up the phone, I wanted out. Caleb was awake to watch Kalib, so I took Margie to lunch. Along the way, we passed by this guy walking the shore of Wasilla Lake.

Regularly readers will instantly recognize this as the intersection that provides an excellent view of Pioneer Peak above the maddening traffic of Wasilla's main thoroughfare. But you couldn't see the mountains today.

We ate our lunch in the car, as these ravens flirted with each other nearby.

As we ate, this was the view through the windshield. The tower rises out of the Wasilla Police Station. I was a little worried that someone might come running out of there, think we were someone else and try to arrest us, but no one did. 

The radio was on and a restaurant reviewer was talking from Cleveland. He had moved there from the East Coast, where he said he had been a food snob and had not expected to find any good food in the Midwest.

Boy, was he wrong, he said. The dining in Cleveland was the height of gourmet sophistication. Not even New York City could beat it.

I thought maybe I should start doing reviews on all the sophisticated, gourmet, dining to be had right here in Wasilla, Alaska. I could start here, in the parking lot alongside Taco Bell.

So... Taco Bell has a new item on the meno called a cheese roll, or something like that. It is a flour tortilla rolled around a glob of melted cheese. I bought one, tore it in half, gave half to Margie and ate the other myself.

"What do you think?" I asked Margie.

"It's okay," she said.

"I find it quite excellent myself," I told her. "Nice, sophisticated, piquant, gourmet taste."

She said nothing more at all.

I also had two original crunchy tacos. Indeed, they crunched very well and, after I squeezed a packet of mild and another of hot sauce into each one, had just the right touch of spice to add a decent kick to the meal.

I also had a bean burrito with green sauce.

These are superb when done right, but this one was too damn salty.

The Pepsi was just right - not too sweet but pleasantly carbonated, so that I could be assured of a little burp later, the flavor of which would remind me just how excellent the meal was - except for the bean burrito, which could have been better.

Back at the house, Margie sits with Kalib, who was once again feeling under the weather. While we had been out, Caleb had observed something that frightened him terribly, as Kalib seemed to be disoriented and frightened. Kalib had reached for Caleb where Caleb wasn't even standing. Margie called Lavina at work in Anchorage and she made a doctor appointment for Kalib here in Wasilla at 4:30, but we were advised to bring him in a bit early.

We left the house at 4:00, but stopped to go through the drive-through at Metro Cafe to get Americanos. No, I don't buy Latte's and Mochas everyday.

We continued on toward the doctor's office. As you can see, Pioneer Peak was now visible in the twilight sky.

Lavina had driven up from Anchorage and was already there to meet us.

The rest went inside, but, as I had much to do, I headed back here to my office, slightly worried but pretty confident that Kalib was okay. Lavina would bring them all home.

This is what the Talkeetna Mountains looked like as I drove home.

I passed by a fence decorated with large, candy canes wrapped in green and red lights.

Kalib was fine - but better to be safe. Here he is, reunited with his buddy, Royce.