After a couple of cloudy, cool and windy weeks summer finally arrived, just in time for the annual Anderson Bluegrass Festival!

For three days each July, 600-acre Riverside Park in Anderson fills with campers, tents, RVs and motor homes as bluegrass fans flock to this otherwise sleepy little town.
We decided to go Saturday night, which is the main attraction, with bands taking the stage to past 3 a.m., only stopping their performances at midnight for a surprising massive fireworks show.

We arrived around 6pm and listened to a few local bands who, to say it gently, could do with a little more practicing but around 8 pm the better bands took the stage and we enjoyed some rally good bluegrass music, and dancing, from than on while having some nice beers in the beer garden.

Bluegrass music, by the way, is a form of country music, originated in rural dance bands, has mixed roots in Scottish, Irish and English traditional music, and also has jazz elements.

It's traditionally played on acoustic stringed instruments like the fiddle, banjo, guitar, mandolin and bas and (occasionally) harmonica.

The pic on the left was taken at 1 am, notice the light!

It attracts a lot of 'free spirited', 'flower power' hippies from the 60's with lots of tie-dye and Birkenstocks and a swarm of bare footed, very dirty little children running around. Peace man!

How about these tie-dyed long johns on the right!






The fireworks at 12 midnight were huge for such a small village. Despite the light sky it was very visible!

When we got home around 2am it was finally getting darker:

Most of the wild flowers have come and gone, there's still some Fireweed and Monkshood flowering together with Arnica and  Yarrow and this fluffy Cotton Grass in the 'moose-marsh' in front of us.







I'm trying to keep the hanging baskets and wall boxes of the hotel alive although the wind does a good job breaking off stems and drying out the soil.
They're still looking good though, I think!

James has started the job that's probably going to take him the rest of the time we'll be here; the painting of all 3 train cars! He's started with the roof of the lobby:

As you can see by the clouds he has to fight the rain....

And while some of us are working for a living , others are just laying around doing absolutely nothing.....

       

Well....be that way Merlin, you're missing out on some good tips driving the shuttle. Yes, that is a $50 (!) dollar bill in there! Not bad for 'volunteering' !

One of these days we're gonna make it into Denali Park, I swear! Can you believe we still haven't gone there! We're still waiting for a nice, clear and sunny day  (yeah, good luck on that one) so we can see the elusive (because often in the clouds) Mount McKinley!
Next Monday so far looks good or maybe Tuesday, we'll see.

In the meantime I'm watching the Olympics. Once I start watching I just can't walk away from it!
Oh, and I bake. Banana (mini)muffins anyone......?

 

This is the Nenana River as seen from the Parks Highway as it borders the Denali National Park on the right.

I pass this spot almost every day to the train station to pick up or drop off guests and it still takes my breath away. Not only because of it's beauty but also because at this point I'm on a very high and very narrow bridge spanning the river. Looking down at the fast rapids gives me the chills!

This is my pick-up Van, looking cool there eh?

And this is my destination, the Denali Railroad Depot where I pick up or drop off guests.

The trains arrive and leave twice a day, at  3:45PM from Anchorage, leaving for Fairbanks at 3:55PM and at 12:15PM going to Anchorage at 12:25PM.

In the winter they only go in the weekend, one on Saturday going up to Fairbanks and one on Sunday back to Anchorage!  

Yep, that's Alaska!

Since the little pond/swamp behind our RV has almost dried up for the summer we don't see as many moose anymore. The only 'wildlife' I could find this week are these furry creatures that showed up around the hotel and are munching their way through the willow shrubbery. 

  

 

This is a  tussock moth (Orgya antiqua) caterpillar. 
The reddish-brown male moth he'll turn into flies during the day but if it turns out to be a female she's in bad luck since the female moths are unable to fly because their wings are much reduced.
They get their name from the little tufts of fur along their backs; apparently these are called "tussocks" in some parts of the world.

 

  

I've been searching for the name of this very furry dark brown/black beauty but haven't found it yet?

On my daily walks with Sadie I sometimes follow a narrow ATV trail towards Healy that brings us high on a hill overlooking the valley and the village itself.

Healy is a very, very small village, one of those 'don't blink or you'll miss it' ones which is maybe why you barely see it in this picture, that and I was a little far away for my camera off course :)

Nevertheless there's a high school with a library, a chamber of commerce, 2 gas stations, 3 restaurants and one liquor/grocery store.

 

As for what seems to be my weekly flower update we now have these beautiful wild monkshood popping up (left) and lots of fireweed (on the right).

                                                                                                                                                                        

The weather has been cold and extremely windy, almost stormy I'd say, which brought in the dreaded 'chill-factor', brrr...

On the bright site, there were almost no mosquitoes at all! 

Other than working quite a lot in the laundry room I've done a lot of reading. For fun but also to find out more about diabetes in cats. Merlin is finally reacting very well to the new insulin, his blood sugar values are almost normal, he's drinking and peeing much less and is reverting back to his old habits of yelling early in the morning because he wants out and sleeping on the keyboard of my computer...

 He eats like a pig, loves his wet food (doesn't want to eat any dry food anymore off course!) and isn't loosing any weight any more.

We're both getting into the routine of testing and shooting insulin and are starting to feel much more relaxed about the whole thing.

Hopefully his pancreas is getting some rest and will start functioning enough again to get him 'off the juice' in a while!

I've been baking too, here's some of  the delicious home made 'no knead bread' I made and some brownies that came out real good for once!

For years I've tried my hand on brownies but never got them right, biggest problem being, we lived at 5700 feet. Now they came out beautifully! I see a lot more brownies in the future!

The bread is from the Internet at http://steamykitchen.com/168-no-knead-bread-revisited.html, 'so easy a 4 year old can do it'! She lets her 4 year old show you step by step how simple it is.

I just 'free bake' it on a cookie sheet instead of in a pot which makes it even easier!

As it says, no kneading involved, very few ingredients and it is delicious! Crispy crust and nice soft inside. Try it, you'll like it!

Due to a very slow Internet connection and a very busy 'laundry-duty' week this post is way overdue ! (again)

The hotel has been full almost everyday and we were literally drowning in dirty linen. Piles and piles of it! I'll never take those clean towels in my clean hotel room for granted anymore!

There wasn't much time for any sightseeing and we had a week of rain on top of that so I don't have too many pictures to show or stories to tell this time.

On our daily walks with Sadie we do still enjoy the beautiful surroundings of the hotel and the rapid succession of different flowers blooming. The wild irises you see here are almost done now but there are a lot of others showing up each day.

On the days that the sun was out we reached temperatures of  75F which brought out clouds of very hungry mosquitoes. We all agree that they seem to get bigger and bigger! Here's one on my sweatshirt, trying to poke through. She never made it :)

We are (somewhat) prepared though! The Thermacell we bought works really well. We just have to remember to turn it on about 10 minutes before we sit down but than we're bug free!

For our walks we use a combination of a good spray and these flattering mosquito hat-nets. How cute!

Merlin found another favorite place to sleep: in the picnic ice-box! 

Unfortunately his diabetes is still far from under control . It turned out he did need insulin so we started him on 2x a day about 2 weeks ago. His blood sugars have not come down very much since.

I've searched the web all over and found that the insulin he's getting is a rather old fashioned fast working one that doesn't stay in his system long enough so we had to start giving him a little bit 3 times a day!

Before each shot he has to be tested and also about 3 hours into it so his pour ears are starting to look a little battered. He doesn't seem to feel much of it, the needles and lancets are very, very thin, but he starts to get a little irritated by all the fumbling and handling.

He still has a great appetite and his weight is stable now but his blood sugars are still very high.

Our vet is back from vacation and she'll let us know tomorrow if we're gonna have to change insulin and or increase the dose. We'll see!

Aren't these grasses pretty? Foxtail barley (Hordeum jubatum) or Squirrel grass. The only problem is that I think they're the cause of a nasty, itchy, red bumpy rash on Sadie's belly.

She walks through it and apparently is allergic to it prickling her skin.

Pfffff, animals.....worse than kids sometimes......

Lets do some more flowers:

   

The left one is a yellow kind of Indian Paint Brush, I cannot find which one?                                              

The one on the right is Broomrape or Ground Cone or Boschniakia rossica. Take your pick!

It is a parasitic plant that is hosted primarily by mountain alder or willow. Short tuberous parts attach to the host roots after which it robs its host of water and nutrients.

Bears feed upon B. rossica, and it has been determined that this plant is attractive to cats, much like catnip.

                                                                                                                                                                                          

The blues are Harebells, the pinks Dwarf Fire weed while the tiny white one is a Large flowered Wintergreen.

Last week we saw our first male moose who was actually showing  some antlers!
They're not very big yet but supposedly will grow until the fall when they'll loose the velvety skin as they sharpen them for the coming fights about who's boss and gets the prettiest girls.











This was a beautiful young animal, his coat very glossy and very dark. To everybody's delight he also walked right between the hotel buildings. Look at his long goatee!

Since we are constantly out of cookies (somebody likes to eat them) and every thing's so expensive here I'm baking a lot myself. These are the best oatmeal chocolate chips cookies, made with dark chocolate chips.
I baked them before I took Sadie for a walk and when I came back already one was missing!
I bet it wasn't the cat......

Well,.. that's all folks. Until next time.
Oh, by the way, I fixed the 'comments-link' so they will show up now! Hint,...hint...

With such a short season to grow the wildflowers are exploding everywhere! Our manager, Greg, is a wildlife photographer and keeps me updated on everything 'new' he discovers.

This was a very special find; lady-slippers (orchids) right next to the hotel!

But the biggest news this week is about Merlin. It turned out the poor baby has diabetes!

The vet took a little blood sample and his blood sugar was a whopping 374! Normally a cat is in the 80-120 range...

Fortunately they take high blood sugars a lot better than us or even dogs but it certainly had to come down somehow.

First we had to change his diet to a low carb(ohydrates) one, easier said than done when you're nowhere near a pet store so we ordered a special food (Evo) from the feed store in Fairbanks and cooked up some chicken (his favorite of all foods) to give him in the meantime.

The food arrived the next day (wow!) and after he had been on it for 4 days we took our first at-home blood sample (from the edge of  his ear, ouch....) with the gluco-meter we had ordered in the meantime from Walmart.

It had gone down to 192! That is awesome! Maybe, just maybe, he will be in the 30-50% group of cats that can be regulated, and actually reverted to normal, with a diet alone!

We'll give it another week. If he goes down to somewhere around 150 he probably won't need any insulin and his blood sugar (hopefully) will come down further over time as his pancreas continuous to heal.

If not, we'll pick up some insulin at Walmart next week when we go shopping and will have to start giving him very small doses twice a day just to help his pancreas along a little bit.

Merlin, our traveling cat

Always something with that cat! He's our special child!

He'd lost weight steadily (2 pounds) in the last couple of weeks but when I weighed him this morning he was the same as last week, so that's good news.

All in all, we're very happy and relieved. That sounds weird but at least we're not going to loose him anytime soon as would probably have been the case if he'd had kidney failure.

After all that we thought it was time for something fun so we visited the dogsled kennel of Denali Park!

Denali is the only national park in America with a working sled dog kennel.

During the winter the dogs help to patrol the inner two-million acres of designated wilderness where mechanized vehicles are prohibited. 

The dogs make it possible to contact winter visitors, haul supplies, transport wildlife researchers, and help insure that there are not illegal activities happening within the park, such as poaching or snow machines entering into the wilderness area.

There are approximately 30 dogs which is the number that works best for the winter patrol needs.  It allows them to take three sleds out on patrol if necessary. The number of dogs varies slightly from year to year depending on how many dogs retire in a particular year and how many puppies are born in the one litter they breed each year.

This year they had 3 puppies. Since today was a real warm day they were all conked out and didn't move a muscle.

The dogs are not a particular breed nor are they crosses of purebred dogs.  

They are called Alaskan huskies or just simply sled dogs. They are the product of hundreds of years of breeding dogs that are great at what they do--running and pulling sleds, and dogs that have adapted to cold weather. The Alaskan husky is a dog that has a strong desire to run and pull, has a thick two-layer coat of fur, a bushy tail, long legs, and great demeanor. Since they are not breeding for any particular look, but rather for performance the dogs have a wide variety in their appearance.

After roaming the kennels for a while and a little talk by the ranger we got a little demonstration of how much they like to run as the ranger drove a team around a track!

The whole kennel erupted in howls and barks when only 5 of them were chosen to run today!

.....'Pick me, pick me'!!!!......

The ranger explained they're so strong they have to lift them a little from the ground in the front, to take them from 4-'wheel' to 2-'wheel' drive, in order to not be pulled over!
 

 

And off they went!!

After the show you could have your picture taken. Too bad the dogs were all dead :)!

                                                                                     

It was a lot of fun. I could totally see myself have a 'team' if I would live here!

We're working a little too off course.

So far we're very happy with the work load, we can practically pick and choose what (and when) we want to do, on top of the hours we're working for the site. 

Driving the van is the most fun to do, you meet people from all over the world, have interesting conversations and get tips on top of that!

James had to dig some ditches since part of the employee yard was under water after a couple of days of heavy rain. I forgot to take pictures when he was wallowing in the mud but this is how it looked like after it dried up.

 

He also installed several fly screens in the lobby and living quarters of the staff.

And some little paint jobs here and there.....

I'm helping with the hotels laundry when they have a lot of check-outs....

And here are the newest residents of the hotel grounds:

Aaaawwww........, soooo cute!

Momma led them straight in between 2 of the hotel buildings. All guests were snapping away with their cameras but she seemed pretty much undisturbed. Just passing through!