another human conned by the dog

Dog to vet: I'm just here for the drugs, don't try to be my friend. Oh! You have treats. (sit) *crunch crunch* So...what else have you got here? You don't have any really long thermometers do you? Oh! You have treats (sit) *crunch crunch*

Vet observes dog, dog observes vet. Dog sits in front of shelf with jar of treats. Dog looks at vet, looks at jar (ignores me because I don't own the jar). Vet laughs. Vet sits in chair next to treats on shelf. Dog glances at vet, looks at jar, looks at vet. Vet gives dog treat. Dog wins again.

I warned the vet that the dog is...well, her own royal self and humans are just tools with thumbs. We got the drugs, the dog got more treats then she deserved and the vet laughed a lot, it was a good (expensive) 20 minutes.

one day at a time

Day before yesterday it was a close encounter with a moose, yesterday it was a blizzard and today it was cold water coming out of the hot water tap. The moose was dissuaded by a tree, the driveway was mysteriously plowed and the water is getting hot. At least I hope the water is getting hot, I just put the element in a few minutes ago.

Pretty sure I'll be replacing the water heater this year, it's huge and I'm pretty the bottom element is completely corroded, maybe buried in sediment. I'd rather have a smaller more efficient heater...best of all would be an on demand unit, but balancing efficiency with cold water wasted before hot comes out the tap is tough.

A day off that involves plumbing is better than a day at work during a blizzard. The snow was about 2 feet deep after about 8 hours. There's a heli-skiing industry here that brings in extreme skiers and boarders to enjoy our wilderness. Well...they come to pass through our wilderness and if they can't do that they get bored and petulant. The snowstorm kept the helicopters grounded and the boys had no entertainment beyond going to the market. Bored jocks are so much fun! (insert sarcasm, please) I remember acting like that when I was about 12, annoying grocery store clerks by acting up in the aisles, messing with packaging and giggling behind my hand. yuck.

So...the drive home looked like a Subaru commercial with waves of snow flying off the car like a boats wake. The car gamely plowed through the drifts and up the hill to our street... where much to my wondering eyes should appear a nicely plowed road and driveway! What a lovely end to an unlovely day.

Kelly is...

Amazed at how Facebook takes over people's lives so quickly. Rice at Voodoo Cafe posted about the weirdness of constant status updates. I find myself clicking my way over to the collective for no known reason. My sister in law spends a lot of time collecting Groups that Matter there while my sister fights a massive FB war against California's prop. 8. I find myself caring (way too much) when someone I'm "friends" with "friends" someone I don't like. What the f-? How very jr. high of me. I'm going to try no to spend my days playing with my fake Facebook farm: my new sprung-ahead (hate daylight savings much?) resolution.

I'm going to Vegas (gods help me) again. It's cheap and easy...so that's where bead conventions are frequently held. This time I'm going to learn how to use PMC and how to make a couple of different kinds of rings. Metal working and precious metals clay manipulation are two of the things I"ve been wanting to learn about so I'll go to the city I hate the most to do it. (I hate LV because it's a windblown waste of water in the desert ) They sent the materials lists for the classes...

It's not a lot, but it's seriously dense and full of stuff TSA will not like so I get to take a checked bag. Might make that a checked box because my usual duffle bags won't stand the weight. I hate to put all my tools in a checked bag at the mercy of a trip with 2 legs and 2 airlines, but it's a risk I guess I have to take. I think I'll mail it back. The tool box on the right weighs about 10 pounds right now.

I hate my very white straight from Home Depot kitchen cupboards, so I've decided to paint up some canvases and stick them to the front of the doors. Usually I don't get all woo woo about what the Muse requests of me...but really, a house fly?


I got all excited about how lovely bugs are when I was doing the wings of the last BJP cuff, thinking I'd bead some beetles or something for the March cuff. Instead it came out as a cupboard painting of a fly. I don't pretend to understand...

more of that small northern town thing...

Doo doo doo lookin' out my back door...

Spring is coming, you can tell because the days are getting longer by leaps and bounds. It's easier to get up early now and sun comes through windows it hasn't touched for months. It's still very white out there so I thought the flower in the header would be a nice addition until some real ones appear.

Interesting dilemma here in the Chilkat valley, in this great big temperate rainforest that we call home. We're running out of dry firewood. The woodcutters were selling the beetle kill trees as dry seasoned firewood and we've run out on the U.S. side of the border. Now they're driving into Canada to harvest the trees killed by the spruce bark beetles up there and bringing that wood back to sell. The price of wood is skyrocketing and there are two major projects in the works to use wood as the primary source of heat for large buildings. What will the small time wood users like me and my neighbors do? Will the price of wood be higher than the price of heating fuel? When I build a fire in my woodstove I wonder if I should switch my thinking to 'conserve wood' instead of 'conserve oil'. Do I have enough wood to buy green wood for the lower price and season it for a year myself? mumble mumble...buy a cord of really expensive Canadian wood and 3 cords of cheaper green wood...and plenty of fuel oil. Thank goodness I have Toyo stoves!

laughing...I just clicked on the picture to biggiefy it: the stove is burning in the yellow zone, according to the gauge on the chimney, so there's no creosote building up. That's what having seasoned dry wood is all about, no build up and no chimney fires.

BJP for February, keeping up with the cuffs

I don't "do" Valentine's day stuff often...single with out Mom to send me the annual heart card makes the day a little not-so-much, ya know. This time around I felt the urge to make something with a heart on it and although I like that typical winged heart image, it's a little over done. I changed that image up a little and came up with this:


That's a bus token from Juneau (the old home town) in the middle. I like the "Good For One Fare" words...take them as you will, I've got a couple of different ideas of what they mean here.

Since the wings extend above and below the line of the cuff, I needed to line it with something that doesn't fray or do some seriously fancy needle turning on fabric. I chose the "doesn't fray" option and went with some nice soft chamois leather ( found in the auto parts store under 'buffing up the shine')

I like this one a lot. I like the bug wings, the breaking of the frame and the sort of super-hero look feel it has when it's worn. The bus token gives it a sort of steam punk touch too.

Weather or Not

Sitting in front of the woodstove thinking about this blog and how I've sort of let it turn in to just where I show my bjp stuff. Thinking about life in a small northern town staring at the flames licking around the wood I realized it gets sort of mundane mid winter. There is a lot going on but it's hard to share my daily 'geez it's beautiful here' with out repeating myself over and over.

The big thought I had was this: (for me at least) Summer weather makes a person while winter weather breaks them. Sort of drastic but here's the rest of it...I can handle a crappy summer as long as the winter isn't totally dark and rainy. A rainy summer is tough, but dark and rainy in the winter is wrist slitting bad. Weather in a small northern town is what we have in common, it's our conversation at the store, it's our answer to "hey, how's it going", it dictates our clothing, the car we drive and the distance we walk each day. We may or may not know what's going on in Washington D.C., but we certainly know which way the wind is blowing...from the southeast brings warm rain from the north (that's Canada!) brings cold sunshine. If there is a high pressure zone over the Yukon, we know it.

Paddling back over to the "big thought" lots of people leave town for the winter, but this winter makes me want to stay here. It doesn't rain as much as Juneau, but there's enough water to go around.

catching up with myself

I got my January Bead Journal cuff done today. People that know me even just a little shouldn't be surprised at the subject, you probably expected a fish sooner than this. I kinda like this one, but the face of the fish is too square and the finishing totally challenged my hand sewing "skills". The inner fabric reminds me of fish eggs even though the dots are the wrong color.

I did a fish because they really matter to Alaska's economy and to me personally (I just really like fish). There are some villages up in northwest Alaska that are having serious hunger and heating problems right now because their fishing season was cut short by regulations and overfishing by big trawlers. They need their salmon season to pay for heating fuel and to provide food for their families.

more bead storage

I'm getting faster at the shelf building, the edges are nearly straight on the 3rd set too! I think one more set will finish the project until I go shopping again.



With this wider angle shot you can see a few of the empty plastic drawers and a few that will be empty soon. I like getting my beads out and available to inspire and intrigue me!

Hey, see that orca painting up above the right corner of the blue and purple shelf? Dad did that when he was in his early 80's, just goofing around at a little class they had at the old folks' home. It's awesome, I wish I had more of his paintings.

hack carpentry and happiness

Jill of all trades, master of none? I can thug my way through a lot of stuff, but that doesn't mean I'm good at it...the right tools would help, but when I have an idea I just want to DO it. Bead storage where I can see the colors has been on my list for ages. I've been using those translucent plastic drawers for ages, but they're not very good at holding heavy loads (yeah, I have a lot of beads)


I built the shelves I've been imagining! The cut edge on the plywood isn't straight and a few of the nails are poking out, but the wee shelves are level and I can see the colors! Now I need to make about (guessing) 3 or 4 more of these to get the whole array out in the open. Magic is afoot!

Spring is over but it was terrific while it lasted.

It's back to fairly normal here in terms of the weather, down to 10 last night and the wind is whipping down from Canada again.

While it was still warm, I decided to get the oil changed in my faithful car steed (who refuses to be called "Daisy"). I wanted to do it while the weather was decent because there'd be a couple of miles of walking involved in dropping it off then going to work. I also decided to have them put in a block heater so I wouldn't have to bundle not "Daisy" up with blankets and a heat lamp when it gets cold.

So...Wednesday came along and I dropped the car at Bushmasters, the local trustworthy mechanic, walked home with the dog then walked back to town to work. If this is starting to sound like the short story made long regarding the magnetic block heater, you're on the right track. So...I walk over to Bushmasters during my break, expecting to fork over some 400 bucks for a newly oiled and electrified car. The (very) nice lady at the desk said..."you already have a block heater" to me! The cord just wasn't routed out the front of the car. Yes, after ALL that drama and worry...the car already had a block heater where its frost plug would be found somewhere deep with in the bowels of the engine compartment. Mmmhm. I got out of the mechanics shop for $102 bucks, about 1/4 of the amount I was expecting to spend! Crazy. Any embarrassment was wiped away by the savings.

Today, I was hoping to go to Juneau again for a visit and a little side job as a sewing machine courier. My former landlords down there run an electronics store with sewing machines as well as audio/video equipment. I was getting all excited for a round of thrift store shopping and some drive through coffee. Was. The fast ferry that's really for tourists in the summer couldn't sail again today. The same wind that brought the cold weather back stopped the boat...again.

Here's how I feel about having to stay here because the ferry can't sail: