Wasilla today: Three dogs act tough from the other side of the fence; Alaska awaits; car crash. Kalib moves out, part 3: Lisa amuses him with the big, red, inflatable ball

As I went walking today, these three dogs bravely threatened me from the safety of the other side of the fence.

Oh, was he angry!

"You're damn lucky there's a fence between us!" he barked.

And then I came to the muzzled dog, who bluff-charged me, then, growling, barking, ran a couple of circles around me, threatening that he would rip me to pieces, if only he wasn't wearing this muzzle!

But you know what? I don't believe any of these dogs. They just act tough, because they think they've got to. Take away the fence, take away the muzzle and they will be whimpering and wagging their tails lowly.

The good thing about living in Wasilla is that, even when you are trapped in a rut like I am right now and you are stuck in the midst of the overrun, wantonly developed, much-marred valley and town and you can't get out and do anything, all you have to do is just lift up your eyes and... there's Alaska, lifting itself up and stretching out in every direction.

Quiet, beautiful, harsh and still.

I can't tell you how good it feels - just to know Alaska is all around you.

As I neared my house, I saw that there are been an accident on the corner of Lucille and Seldon. It did not look that bad, but there was an ambulance, so I don't know.

They flagged me right through and I didn't have to wait at all. Maybe there are some people doing a lot of waiting, right now - maybe these kids, being ushered into the truck. I don't know.

Just another one of life's dramas that one passes by every day, sometimes seeing, sometimes not, not knowing how it happened, never knowing the outcome.

Now, back to Friday night, when Kalib moved out. You will recall that he was screaming and crying, but Lisa helped to cheer him up with this ball. He then followed his mother into the kitchen, but soon turned back toward Lisa and the ball.

He grabbed it and threw it to her.

As she propped herself up on the ball, he began to push his way beneath her.

He emerged with a smile on his face.

Then she lay flat on the floor and he put the ball on her ankles.

He rolled the ball up her legs.

She juggled it on her feet. You will notice a fog over Kalib. That is because as I was taking another picture of him, he reached out and smeared my lens with his finger.

Kalib moves out, part 2: He screams and cries; Today, I walk about lethargic in Wasilla and refuse to write about Sarah Palin

"Grampa! Grampa! Don't go, Grampa!" Kalib screams. "Take me back home with you!" Actually, he does not call me "Grampa." He calls me, "Gabba." "Don't go" and "take me back home with you" are phrases I have yet to hear him speak.

He was just upset because something didn't go quite right, in his mind - and he was tired. He had missed his nap and would not sleep for many hours yet to come.

This is from last night, as he moved into his new house.

As I mentioned, I took a great many pictures last night and I know that there are a number of people who love Kalib and who come here just to see him, so, what I have decided to do, is spread those pictures out in a series over the next four or five days, so that those who love Kalib will have a reason to visit.

After that, maybe I can see him again, shoot a bunch more pictures and have a new series for next week.

Yet, I will also run something current from each new day.

So here I pick up right where I left off last night - with Lavina vacuuming the rug as Kalib stands by, a little perplexed.

The man they bought the house from was a heavy smoker. Lavina and Jacob had already taken steps to deodorize the place, but they are not done yet. Lavina does not like the rug at all and plans to soon replace it. 

The next step will be to paint the walls and this will create fumes that may drive Lavina and Kalib out of the house for awhile, so they may be back here tomorrow night.

I'm not sure.

Lavina is not one to leave Kalib standing forlorn and crying, so she stands up the vacuum and heads toward him.

Kalib rushes into her arms.

Mother and son sit on the couch as grandma takes over the vacuum. She tries to vacuum up Lavina's feet, which makes Kalib feel a little better.

Then Auntie Lisa comes along and tosses a big ball into the air. That makes Kalib feel better, too.

In part 3 of this series, we will see some of the other exciting ways Lisa was able to use this ball to amuse her little nephew, Kalib.

I spent today alone, except for a short time this morning. After breakfast, Margie headed into town to help Lavina out around the new house. She plans to spend the night and help tomorrow, too. Given the fact that she is still limping about and is a bit fragile, what she can do to help is limited, but she loves to hang out with Kalib and that will help quite a bit.

I have been extremely lethargic all day long. I always go through this in the winter, when daylight is dim and short.

I should have taken a long walk, but I took only a short one. I left the house at 3:30 PM with my pocket camera and came back at 4:03.

I hadn't walked far before these two scooted past on a snowmachine. I had to turn around to take the picture, because I was walking in the opposite direction, away from the road they followed.

As you can see, I have progressed further, but see that man down the road? That's the same fellow clad in the blue jacket in the previous picture. He has not made much progress at all.

What a slow poke!

This must be what they call, "dusk."

A car comes up Tamar. Actually, it's a truck - a pickup truck, but "a pickup truck comes up Tamar" has no rhyme. 

That's the Chugach Mountains in the background.

Russian immigrant children play on a fourwheeler.

A man named Buck drives his snowmachine home to his wife, his dog, his cat and the kids. Tequila is the dog. Some of you will remember her.

The first time that I met her, I put the word, "pitbull" in my title and I got a huge number of hits above the average, because readers thought I meant Sarah Palin, of course.

If I were to write about Sarah Palin every day, I could have a huge number of readers, but I refuse to do it.

Some of you - admit it, now - you came here today just because I said in the title that I refuse to write about Sarah Palin. You saw that and you wondered what I would write about her.

Some could argue that, by writing her name, I just wrote about her, but I disagree.

I merely set a lure, to see how many might bite.

I won't do it everyday, either.

Yet, I bet if I did, some of you would come, every single day - even though I fooled you the day before. You would see the name, "Sarah Palin," and you just could not stop yourselves.

You would come.

Yes, you would.

Kalib moved out tonight

This is the first image of a great many that I took tonight, as Kalib moved with his parents into their new house in Anchorage. Of them all, it is the only one that I have even looked at so far. I am exhausted - too tired to look at even one more image - it is completely beyond me right now to sit down, edit this take, prepare the images, post them and write whatever nonsense comes into my mind.

I can't do it tonight. I can't tell you anything about it.

I must close down, go to bed and see if I can get some sleep.

I am most happy for my son, his wife, their son and their unborn baby, who now have a home all of their own. This is what I want for them.

Yet, my arms feel heavy, and so does my heart. 

A wonderful period of my life has come to an end.

No, not an end - but a change, and in a way, a change is an end.

And I am so exhausted. I cannot tell you how exhausted I am.

I cannot edit pictures tonight.

Can I call 1:00 AM tonight?

To me, it is tonight, although, technically, it is tomorrow morning.

Yet, it is never tomorrow - not tomorrow morning, not tomorrow afternoon, not tomorrow evening. 

It is always one moment - right now - and at the very moment that we perceive the moment, that moment is gone.

So I think I will go to bed and try again, tomorrow.

There is no one here to feed my fish.

Will my fish starve, now?

And what will a little boy do, if he can't feed his grampa's fish?

I answer a knock upon the door to find two Mormon missionaries standing there, looking back at me; Kalib and Caleb; Breakfast at Family; Talkeetna alpenglow

I was in the bedroom, trying unsuccessfully to log onto an Apple help forum on my laptop, when I barely heard a knock upon the front door. Everyone else was gone, so I went to the door to find these two, Elder Smith of Nevada and Elder Wadsworth of Utah, standing there, looking back at me.

I was not interested in getting into any kind of religious discussion, but, having stood in their shoes, I have a great deal of empathy for these guys, who I know for a fact are really just young men, who want all the things that all young men want, like freedom and female companionship, but they can't have these things for awhile.

I also thought they might like to meet the cats. I invited them in. They posed with Royce.

Muzzy wanted to get into the picture.

He headed toward the missionaries, but this did not please them. In fact, it scared them. They did not think Muzzy was vicious. They thought he would mess their suits up. So I sent Muzzy to the garage.

Elder Smith, Martigny, Royce, Elder Wadsworth. 

Kalib and Caleb on the computer, where the missionaries sat not so long before.

I got up very late today. Very, very, late. It was necessary, though, because I had gotten up very early yesterday and had then worked until very late, not going to bed until about the time that many of the early risers among you were already yawning, stretching as you prepared to leap right out of bed.

How do you do that? How do you leap out of bed in the morning?

Margie had already eaten her oatmeal and so had Kalib, so I went to Family Restaurant by myself.

There was a man there who still reads the newspaper. Sometimes I do, too, but mostly I read it online. By the time the paper version reaches our house, I have usually already read everything in it that I am interested in.

I am part of the reason that newspapers are dying.

And the slow death of the newspapers makes my profession all that much more difficult. But new avenues are opening up. It's just a matter of figuring out how to go down them.

My waitress, who generally knows what I want before I order it. She is very good about not bringing my toast until I have eaten the rest of my breakfast.

As I paid my bill, this guy came walking by, aided by a walker. In my head, I saw how to make a good portrait of him and I decided to ask, but you see that little paper the lady at the cash register is taking hold of? That is the credit card statement that I have to sign.

I did not think the man would move that fast and I figured he was probably going to get in line behind me, anyway, so I sat my camera down, wrote in an extra two dollars for the tip, and signed the bill.

When I turned around, he was gone.

I wonder how he did that? I'm sure no one went out the door. I would have heard it.

I will see him again sometime, but he might not be wearing the "these colors don't run" shirt.

I was busy working away at 3:30 PM, absorbed in what I was doing, when I realized that I had not yet taken my walk. If if I didn't take it soon, it would be dark. So I took it. The sun had gone down, but alpenglow lingered upon the Talkeetnas.

A few days ago, one of my readers left a comment that said my blog makes her glad she doesn't live in Alaska.

I love living in Alaska! If I had to live anywhere else, I would damn near die.

The only thing that bothers me is that ever since I fell and got hurt 17 months ago, it has been one damn thing after another that has kept me from getting out and enjoying the country - except for a few work outings last summer on the Arctic Slope.

But I will get on top of things and I will take you out there and then you will see why I would not want to live anywhere else.

Except for Hawaii, maybe - but just for short periods at a time.

A school bus shoots down Seldon, the glow of the set sun behind it. Now the Talkeetnas are behind me. 

Kalib turns away from his oatmeal; a snowplow roars down Seldon; I exceed my limits

Margie tries to feed Kalib some oatmeal, but he does not seem to be very hungry.

On my walk, a snowplow came grinding and banging past. We got two or three inches of new snow overnight. Further up the Susitna Valley, 30 inches fell. It's still pretty warm, but not as bad as yesterday.

As I walked on, this man zipped past me on a snowmachine. He was going a little faster than me, but I'm pretty sure that if I had put my mind, lungs and legs into it, I could have sprinted right past him.

I just didn't want to, so, as he sped by, I walked casually and nonchalantly on.

I did wave, though.

It's good to wave at strangers driving snowmachines.

You might need their help one day.

As I neared home, this dog charged me, growling and barking under its muzzle. It hit my wrist with its muzzled snout and then charged past, still growling, still barking. I wasn't worried, though. I have known this dog since it was a cute and friendly pup and it has charged me many, many, times - even without a muzzle.

It's just a show he's got to put on.

This is what Pioneer Peak looked like at 9:00 AM.

This is what Pioneer Peak looked like at 2:30 PM.

This is what the Talkeetna Mountains looked like at 10:00 AM.

Kalib drinks his juice.

Well, I see that I have exceeded my self-imposed limit of one picture each of Kalib and the outside world.

Oh well.

I got a significant amount of work done today, anyway.