Random thoughts on the advent of autumn

All the weak stuff is done, time for heavy equipment.

It's been overcast and raining for most of the past two weeks.  Some folks near Anchorage reported a moment of clearing one day and saw snow on a couple of higher peaks.  It's way late.  Usually we see some of that termination dust by mid August and at least once on this blog there is an image showing new snow on the mountain in the front yard in July.  So I have been watching it since that first report.  However, a cloud lingered at the peak through most of the rainy period and never cleared at least when I was around.  The Weather Service reported snow down to the 6,000 foot level so with  the mountain here standing at 6,398 feet tall, the reasonable expectation was there would be snow up there when the clouds cleared.  Well, today the clouds cleared.  Guess what. No snow!  That's right: Sept. 3 and a 6,400-foot peak has no new snow on it.  What that holds for the coming winter is uncertain.  Probably going to be late though.

But high snow or not, the firewood splitting continues.  Today all the easily split stuff was finished and stacked.  All that remains are the huge rounds that are going to take more than the little maul I have been using.  I have been able to split a couple of the smaller ones with a wedge and a sledgehammer but that is slow work, especially when I know that 16-pound monster maul is available at the East Pole.  Give me a couple of nice days and I will go get it.

The Finder.

And now making a new addition to the family.  A couple of weeks ago I put down some money on a puppy of a type I have been looking for casually for a couple of years.  He's 3/4 bloodhound and 1/4 black and tan coonhound.  Perfect.  He was only four days old then, and now only about two weeks when I visited today.  I can bring him home in early October, but in the meantime the woman who owns the litter said I could come by any time she is home to play with him a little. I figure that is a good idea and will make visits closer together when the time gets near.  That way he will be used to me when he has to leave his birth home.  Today his eyes were open and he mostly slept in my lap except when his mom, a full-blooded bloodhound, came up to lick him all over.  Nice that the mom thinks it is ok for me to handle him. This should make the winter a little more interesting.  

Walter's mother Gus.

Oh, I have named him Walter. The history of the name is this: There was a great TV show called The Finder, which of course, Fox cancelled after one season. It was a sort of a mystery show but with fine twists. The main character was Walter, a veteran damaged by war who made his living finding things that were difficult to find.  He lived at a rundown gin mill in the Florida Keys with the bar's owner and lawyer played by Michael Clarke Duncan, and a gypsy teenager on probation for all the kinds of crimes people expect gypsies to be guilty of.  I thought, considering I want to train this dog to search, something bloodhounds are famous for, he is something of a finder himself, so the name.  In addition there is something about calling a dog named Walter that brings a smile.  I am sure there will be more posts about adventures with Walter as time passes.  As the saying goes, watch this space.

The Finder