Inside, a turkey cooks; outside, snow falls lightly, two moose stroll through the back yard: Happy Thanksgiving!

I had just stuffed the turkey and placed it in the oven when I looked out the kitchen window and saw this young fellow, strolling through the back yard.

His mother appeared, right behind him.

Mother and son strolled slowly off together, munching branch shoots along the way. We could eat branch shoots too, I suppose, but I prefer turkey.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone, whether you be in the US or somewhere else.

May you eat hearty this day and enjoy the company of loved ones, as we few who will dine here will do.

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I pick Margie up at the hospital and then drive her through insane traffic and panicked moose safely to our home

I slept with my iPhone right by my ear and so was awakened a bit before 11:00 AM by Margie's call to tell me that she would soon be released and so I could come in and get her.

11:00 AM - sounds very lazy. But I had not been able to go to sleep until 5:00 and I ran out of Vicodin two days okay and while it is possible that I could call the doctor and get the prescription refilled I have decided that I don't want to take it anymore and will just tough it out. I did not sleep that good. I bet my shingles woke me up AT LEAST 30 times. Maybe I should rethink that decision. We'll see. So, even at 11:00, it was very difficult to get up, but I did not want to leave my wife in the hospital, so I got up.

When I reached her, I was a little dismayed to learn that she has a plastic tube going into the place were her gall bladder used to be. Fluids drain out of that place into a little bag that she keeps safety pinned to the inside of her shirt. She must bear this burden until November 30, when I bring her back to see the doctor again.

Still, you can see that she was happy to be getting out of the hospital and headed toward home.

Anyone who read yesterday's post has probably already figured out that the building seen through the window is the hospital - the Alaska Native Medical Center.

Soon, we were on the Glenn Highway, headed toward the Parks Highway and home. As you can see, the traffic was absolutely insane. For some reason, when I look at this picture, I hear that old TV jingle that used to accompany Chevy commericials on TV: 

"See the USA in your Chevrolet..."

Back then, our family car was a Ford.

And today, I was driving a Ford.

Ford Escape.

"See the USA, in your Ford Escape..."

There were school buses roaming about, packed with studious kids who would have preferred to remain at school, but now had to go home.

About this time, a text came to our phones simultaneously. Margie was free to look at hers. It was from Lisa. It was an iPhone shot of her and Melanie, in Carrizo, Arizona, White Mountain Apache Tribe, standing with their Grandma Rose, Margie's mom.

Finally, we were in Wasilla, headed up Lucille Street. Just before we reached Metro Cafe, this moose crossed the road in front of us. When you see moose crossing the roads right in front of traffic and often dying in the process, they seem like pretty stupid animals. But I think in the woods they are pretty smart. Not as smart as bears and wolves, but pretty smart just the same.

If they weren't, they wouldn't still be here. The bears and wolves would have got them all and then the poor ravens would have had to make do without their moose carrion. It's just that living in the woods for how many tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands or milliions of years, moose had no need to learn about roads so they didn't. They didn't even bother to develop the capacity to learn about roads.

Now they are undergoing a crash course and maybe sooner or later the survivors will ultimately evolve to the point where they figure it out.

They might even start driving cars themselves; they might run over us, sometimes.

I asked Marige if she wanted me to pull into the Metro drive through but she just wanted to go home.

The moment we got home, Margie asked if I would take a picture of her with her iPhone so she could send it in return to Lisa and Lisa could show it to Rose and all present so they would know that their mother and daughter had made it home safely.

So I did.

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The eagle that lost the competition with Jobe; eagle above, ravens below; eagle flies

Three days ago, I posted a picture of Jobe sleeping in the car, and wrote about how he had to compete with an eagle for that spot, and he won.

This is the eagle that Jobe beat.

A raven is perched on a branch below.

I didn't mention it, but on the day before yesterday there was also an eagle in the competiton - a younger one, that I saw in the same tree as I drove by with Lavina, the two of us sipping coffee. This eagle had to compete with two smart-aleck horses and a school bus for the next slot on the blog.

The eagle lost.

I am certain that you already have, but, just in case you haven't, please note the five ravens on the gravel bar below.

So late Saturday afternoon, after I visited Metro, I returned to the same place, this time with a telephoto lens. The light was dim, so I had to push my ISO way up high into the digital noise range. I hoped there would be a bunch of eagles hanging about, but I found only this juvenile.

It was suspicious of me. 

An older eagle, with a full head of white, will generally stay put when you draw near, but you never know about a young one.

The young eagle decided to go.

Bye, bye, eagle - see you in Texas.

If you go to Texas... if I go to Texas.

Why would either one of us be going to Texas?

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Before the game and the landing of two whales, a fox appeared, followed by a snowy owl

This is the fox, as photographed through a multi-paned, dirty window in the hallway of Barrow High School, where I had gone to meet the Barrow Whaler's football team, which on this day would face Monroe Catholic from Fairbanks - the only team that had beaten them during regular season play.

As the Barrow Whalers football team worked to pysche themselves toward the goal of "redemption" and a victory that if achieved would send them to the state championship game in Chugiak next week, Barrow whalers in boats had set out in motor boats to ply the temporarily ice-free waters of the Chukchi on the first day of the fall whaling season.

This is the owl. Some Barrow Whalers ball players standing nearby speculated that it might swoop down upon the fox, lift it high into the air and then drop it so that it might kill it and eat it, but it didn't.

I am happy to report that the Barrow Whalers football players got their redemption - they defeated Monroe Catholic, 28-14, and will be in Chugiak in one week, where I hope they make history and become the first Barrow football team to win the state championship.

The Barrow whalers plying the sea landed two bowheads - the first by the Aiken crew, who I followed in my book, Gift of the Whale, and the second by the crew of Louis Brower.

I did photograph the game and I did get some whale butchering photos, but I haven't looked at any of them yet and am saving them for the printed page.

Carmen rides a little bike; frog appears; in the long but waning light of early summer, one can feel the approach of winter

Yesterday afternoon when I pulled into the Metro drive through, I saw Carmen, pedaling through the parking lot on Branson's bike. Hence, the above study:

Carmen in the Metro Parking Lot, Study, #52: Carmen transforms into a little kid.

I ate lunch in the back yard, so that Jimmy could spend a little time outside. A frog appeared - the biggest I have seen around here in a long time - the body must have been nearly three inches long - and around here, that is a huge frog.

While the frog population appears to be much smaller than it once was, one must still be careful walking in the backyard, because these guys are well-camouflaged and easy to not see and so step on.

It is an awful thing, to step on a frog.

I took this picture well after 10:00 PM, as I was riding my bike down Church Road. When I looked up and saw these clouds, I could feel the impending darkness. This may seem absurd to people in lower latitudes who have never seen the night sky look like this, but up here, many of us get this feelng the day after summer solstice:

The dark of winter, coming on.

Yesterday, I found fireweed in bloom. The blooms start with the bottom flowers and then progress upward as we move through summer. When the top flowers bloom, it is said that summer is over.

Summer is wonderful right now, and yet I can feel its end so strong.

The feeling is made all the worse by the fact that I have a great deal of production work to do this summer, and that work must all be done inside, at my computer.

I have long had this theory that I should not have any production work to do in the summer. Summers should be spent outdoors, shooting. Winters can be spent inside, producing.

Yet, somehow, I always lose a signficant portion of my summer to production.

Right now, I am producing work based primarily on images that I shot during the winter. So, except for a few fleeting moments, I am pretty much stuck inside this summer. Fish are running, animals moving and I am pretty much stuck inside, producing work built of the images of winter.

Everything is backwards of how it ought to be.

This must be the last such summer.

Next summer, I must be free to spend most of my time outdoors, shooting, living. No more of this summer production work!

An hour or so a day producing this blog would be okay, but that's it.

Next summer!

This one is already lost - mostly. I will still ride my bike most everyday that I am home. I might get in a short canoe trip, a hike, I might catch and cook a fish and next week I do plan a field trip north and at least part of that will be outdoor work.

But I should be able to be outdoors, everyday, most all the time.

Here I am, on my bike, late at night, corner of Seldon and Church. A light rain has fallen. The air smells sweet, and fresh. It is wonderfully cool against my skin.

I bike through a late night sunbeam, down by the Little Susitna River. My shadow follows.

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