And Winter Came

  

      I don't know if I'm allowed to use this title for this post or not. It's the title of an album by one of my favorite musical artists, Enya. I happen to love the name  and I just happen to love the music as well.  The statement pretty well sums it up. Although we had a pretty mild fall overall, and I guess according to the calendar it's still considered fall, by the time November arrives I usually consider it winter. It really wasn't all that bad until recently. As you can see, we've got a little snow and ice, and believe me, the water is cold enough to steal your breath away should you happen to fall in. As unpleasant as it is, this is the kind of weather that these salmon need. Today it actually got fairly warm- into the mid thirties, but tonight under clear skies it's pretty doggone chilly. My brother used to say that it was as cold as a nun's buns. I don't know how he would know. To the best of my knowledge, he never even knew any nuns, although we had several friends who were Catholic. I think he just needed something that rhymed with buns and nuns fit the bill. He used to mention certain parts of  a witches anatomy and their lingerie as well, but again, I don't believe he was speaking from any practical experience.
  I was supposed to be going to Juneau today on the ferry for a doctor's appointment, but the ferry is broken down- again. It happens with alarming frequency, although amazingly, it never seems to happen during the tourist season. I don't understand that at all. I contemplated flying over, but when I got on the NOAA website, it looked like they were calling for gale force winds with gusts to sixty knots. I hate flying in the winter. On days when it's cloudy, there's always the chance of getting caught in a snow storm or fog, and on sunny days the wind blows something fierce so you get bounced around like a bead in a baby rattle. It's a no win situation.
  I was kind of hoping that the snow would stop right at the bottom of the mountain and not continue on to the valleys and flat lands. The roads out of town are pretty much impassable now for all practical purposes. I guess if a person has four wheel drive and chains he might be able to get a little way out of town. Several weeks ago a hunting party from Juneau or Anchorage or some such place got caught on the wrong side of the pass that leads out to Freshwater Bay and the trooper had to go rescue them. They were lucky they had cell service. I spoke to one fellow who ventured out of town in an effort to do some hunting, but there are ruts in the road that are frozen in and it's almost impossible to steer outside of them, so if you have a car coming from the opposite direction, it's darn hard to get out of each others way. I'm not sure how you get turned around when you want to go back the way you came from. I guess you could just put your vehicle in reverse and let the ruts guide you home.One nice thing about the roads being pretty well impassable, it cuts down on the boneheads who like to go out spotlighting for deer. I don't know why anyone would do that. Our deer season lasts from August until December 31, with a special federal January hunt that they consider subsitence.  That sticks in my craw. For one thing the deer aren't that good by then, and for another the does are all bred, so hunting them wipes out future generations of deer. In any event, I'm happy to report that the troopers recently caught two local fellows who were spotlighting. I'm quite certain that they aren't the only two doing it, but maybe it will send a message to some of these idiots. Personally, I'd like to see some more robo deer set up to catch those fools. I'd like to take the ol' Crocodile Dundee approach and arm the robo deer with perhaps laser sighted automatic weapons so that when spotlighters shoot at the phony deer, they shoot back. Talk about poetic justice!