My first clue that we had uninvited guests in the Garaj Mahal was when our friend Julio from Bisbee reported that there were some little turds in his bed out in the garage.
He even felt some scurryings as he turned down the sheets one night.
Then I found some lovely rodent confetti in my paper ephemera drawer. It was comprised of some shiny silver bits tastefully combined with specks of color. I wasn't sure of its source until today when I dug deeper into my drawer and found this. I had saved this bag of "Happy-tos" from a trip to Bali years ago and apparently there was still enough oily salty goodness to attract a little vole.
For those of you who aren't familiar with voles, they are a tube of brown fur that can fit through a crack narrower than you could ever believe and they are little black sesame seed factories that particularly seem to be attracted to my silverware drawer.
They can be problematic. I once found dried mushrooms in my bed after being gone over a weekend. Even more disturbing, I once felt one scurry across my legs in my own bed.
The most bold one I ever witnessed was in my liquor cabinet feasting on some dried up Creme de Menthe that had spilled and crusted up. When I opened the door it just looked at me and kept munching away.. the little addict!
I had meant to do a post about my marathon salmon fishing trip but now I've mislaid the disk that my fishing partner so thoughtfully made up for me.
I just know you wanted to see those photos and even a short clip of the fishwife in action
My husband returned home to 39 Copper River Red salmon that were already filleted that I had caught by dipnetting which is hard enough work as to make my wrist swell up for the past two weeks.
It seems to be healing now and my husband Archaeology Man is back out in the field for another couple of weeks so I'm hoping it will be productive for me.
We're waving goodbye to the little bit of summer we had here in Alaska. Leaves are turning and the blueberries in the low-lying area are showing signs of having been through a frost already.
