I am in Alaska, still. I have been here going on a month now and I am very, nay, absolutely ready to go home to Oregon where I will never have to shovel more than the odd bit of potting soil.
My sister fell, broke some ribs and didn’t bother to let me know until the day she was to be released home, how rude! So I hop on the night flight to Anchorage, rent a car and head North.
The scene that I walked into was right out of a movie, a movie like Animal House after the food fight scene. The dogs (2 rather large ones) and 20 plus birds had been fending for themselves for 5 days thanks to the person that had promised to take care of them never bothering to show up (does Karma mean anything to you Chet?) The upstairs was a sea of feathers, bird seed, bird poo and the remains of an overstuffed cushion that had been the object of a tug of war session between the dogs. Did I mention they were enormous? I still can not believe that three, count em’, three kitchen sized garbage bags filled, no, packed with fluff actually came out of one cushion!
The garage was filled with…well…shall we say, doggy debris? The smell was horrendous and since the laundry room was in the garage I could not just close the door and hope for a localized tornado to remove the carnage. Out came the snow shovel. I shoveled and shoveled, surfacing for air periodically and shoveled some more. I shoveled a path to the wood stove (remember, this IS Alaska and it IS still quite cold here) and I shoveled a path to the wood pile. I shoveled a hole to shovel the debris into. I then shoveled the semi frozen dirt back into said hole. I shoveled the remains of a 25 pound bag of sugar that had been in the path of a small river, complete with snags from the wood pile, of the liquid doggy debris. Have you any idea what happens to sugar that acts as a dam? Stronger than concrete thats what! Out came the ice chipper which turned out to be a huge mistake and I really can’t talk about it yet…perhaps with a bit more therapy.
Days pass and I have the place mucked out, disinfected and smelling like the great outdoors, aka pine trees. I now venture out to replenish supplies and I begin with a 35 pound bag of dog food. Now, mind you, I had to do some serious talking to myself to actually be the means to filling those critters up again!!! Reason and the RSPCA prevailed and I bought the bag of food and tossed it in the back of the truck. After a stop at the pharmacy to replenish sis’ assortment of pain pills I come out to find about a million ravens all over the truck. They were busy shredding that bag of food and gorging themselves while simultaneously calling for every raven from every neighboring continent to come and join in the feast.
I run at the truck waving my arms and shouting “shoo, shoo”. These are, after all, Alaska ravens so they just give me ’the look’ making sure I am well aware of the impressive size of their beaks and continue stuffing themselves.
I, too, am from Alaska and realize (after the laughter of everyone in the parking lot) that I am not in the least bit intimidating to any form of Alaskan wild life so I just get in the truck and drive. After I hit 50 I lost all but one die hard raven who then gave up after I pulled the brake and hit the gas ploy! Is it wrong to feel superior to one gigantic raven?
Arriving back at my sister’s house I can not get the gosh darned (yeah, I did use other words) tail gate down on the truck so I left it intending to come back later and get the shredded bag out and inside the now shoveled clean garage.
I forgot.
Overnight it snowed. You know, those big fat fluffy wet flakes of snow….wet being the key word. I woke to a gorgeous site of falling flakes and was really enjoying the peaceful morning until I remembered that bag of dog food in the back of the truck.
Down I go….in my jammies, a pair of snow boots and a coat (standard Alaskan attire I assure you) to find that a 35 pound bag of dog food expands to at least double it’s size when wet. I still can’t get the dang tail gate down and is there one stinking raven anywhere? Even a chick a dee? No.
Now, where did I leave that shovel?
