Oh say, can you sing that a different way?

 

Volunteering in school has its rewards, chief of which are hearing a room full of 7-year olds, with their hands over their hearts, sing to José in the morning. “José, can you see, by the dawnzerly light?” Somewhat further down the list of rewards in no particular order are: being sneezed on full in the face, being touched by fingers that were just in a nostril, and being kicked in the shin repeatedly.

Also, you may not know this, fellow Americans, but we do not sing the *Star-Spangled Banner. It is the “Star Sprinkled Banner”. With difficulty, I managed to choke back a laugh when I heard that phrase belted out in the classroom. (Considering 98.5% of Americans think a “spangle” is a member of Ghostbusters, this is one change that Francis Scott Key could endorse.)

But it’s not the kids I want to write about today. No, no, they are earnestly singing their little hearts out, unselfconsciously and delightfully. No, I want to offer some friendly advice for those good souls who sing our national song at sporting events.

A few tips, from the captive audience:

1. Read the music through. Knowing the words to the song really does help.

2. There are no vocal talent scouts or studio execs in the stands in Anchorage, Alaska, so proving you have a 5 octave range is unnecessary.

3. Vibrato is like wearing perfume. A very little will do.

4. Random pauses, unless one is choking (up), are just annoying. If fans have time to go for a beer and get back before the song resumes, consider taking fewer breaths.

5. Spectators pay to watch the game, so don’t go too long. (National anthem pace is more sprightly than funeral dirge pace, at least in the USA.) Some YouTube videos of the song clocked in under a minute. Let that be your guide.

(My editor/Last Frontier Garden attorney wants me to add this list is not meant to castigate any particular performer.)

*The Star-Spangled Banner:

“O say can you see by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?”

written by Francis Scott Key

 

Heard any good renditions of your national anthem?

A rip roaring good time with the sod ripper

I don’t understand how “sod off” got to be an insult. In my experience, not having to deal with the back breaking work of sod removal in the garden is a sublime, yet too infrequent situation. In my Little House on the Prairie phase, I removed turfgrass with a shovel. I felt really bad for Pa and whatever horse helped him turn over all that prairie sod.

That phase ended September 5, 2013. On September 6th, the sun shone, the birds sang, the dandelions withered, and I rented a sod remover and joined the Machine Revolution. Hallelujah!

You might be wondering if it is worth the $. My roommate of 15 years, who shall remain unnamed, did indeed wonder this very thing. After watching me remove about 20 square feet per day, the proverbial snail’s pace (see pic above for messy results), unnamed roommate realized one of two things would happen. Thing 1: it wouldn’t get done before winter. Thing 2: it would get done but I would be a cripple.

Since regular readers know my fondness for lists, this post has two. If you answer yes to more than one question in the list below, the rental is worth the money. You’re welcome.

Reasons to Rent the Sod Ripper

1. are you over the age of 20?

2. do you feel arm wrestling Conan the Barbarian or Zena, Warrior Princess would be a challenge?

3. do you have more than 200 square feet to remove?

4. are you pressed for time, perhaps the season’s first blizzard is upon you or the crew delivering 10 tons of (fill in the blank) hardscape product just called and will be there tomorrow for sure by 3pm?

5. is there a slight incline involved anywhere in the removal or disposal area?

Since I feel sure all but one or two of you qualify for the sod remover rental, a few friendly words of advice. Words of advice that should be laminated and clipped to every sod ripper in the world, I humbly add.

Tips for handling the Ripper

Tip 1. In my opinion, anything called a “ripper” should be handled with caution. (I think rippers are close cousins to mangles. If handling a ripper scares you, they are also called sod cutters. Would you rather rent a cutter?) If you are tiny, frail, clumsy, weak, or just plain intelligent, get a friend to help. (If nothing else, they can call 911 when the ripper jumps out of the ruts and cuts your toes off.)

My partner in sod removal is 6 feet 4 inches and 180 pounds. He couldn’t have ripped our yard on his own, considering our particular brand of ripper weighed more than 300 pounds. We barely managed it together and I’m not much smaller than he is. How we got it back into the truck to return to the rental company is a tale for another day. I will only tease you with this: hill, ramp, pulley, bad language. 

Tip 2. Flat land is best. Hills are tricky. If your land requires grappling hooks, crampons, or rope to traverse, forget it. If your lawn mower regularly gets away from you and propels itself like a runaway train down your hilly sward, just get your shovel out. Sorry. Our land is sloping and it took two large adults to steer the machine down the hill and around a corner without losing control. Up the hill was almost impossible.

Tip 3. Is it the rainy season? Would mud be an apt description of the soil? If you were to stand on the bare soil, would it swallow up your foot? The Ripper doesn’t like mud, at all. Dry or average soil is best. Proceed at your own risk if the soil is very wet.

Bonus tip. Your toddler or pet should not be around while the Ripper is ripping.

Yet another bonus tip. Safety glasses, gloves, sturdy boots, and a sense of your own mortality would not be excessive in this situation.

Last tip for now. Any shallow cables or utility lines should be marked. We ended up nicking the phone line and had to have it repaired. Whoever heard of burying a line an inch below soil level?

Good luck with the ripper. You won’t regret it, and your back will thank you. It was $60 well spent. And yes, my sod removal job was completed before the blizzard, if you were wondering.

Done any sod ripping in your day?

Tips for attending the downtown Fur Rondy events

I know what you’re thinking. This tip sheet would have been a lot more helpful a couple of days ago. Well, now you plenty of time to plan for next year. It is Fur Rendezvous time in Anchorage and that means lots of events all over town for a couple of weeks. If a previous downtown Rondy experience left you disenchanted or you have never gone, you’ve come to the right place. Read on!

1. It is always, always cold at Fur Rondy. Somewhere between 0 and 20 Fahrenheit. Plan accordingly. And for new Alaskans, “accordingly” does not mean a hoodie, jeans, and cheap fleece gloves. I’ll spell it out for the sake of the kids: snowsuit or snowpants and warm coat, hat, gloves or mittens (see number 4), warm snow boots. Optional: neck gator, scarf, snow skirt, warm non-cotton socks, long underwear, sunglasses.

2. There is always a cold wind downtown for the parade and dogsled race. I promise. Sometimes the wind is very bad (2012) and sometimes it merely makes things a little colder (see number one). If we ever get a Chinook (warm wind) for Rondy, I promise to turn to dust.

3. Please leave your dog at home whilst attending the World Championship Sled Dog race. It says that right in the official Rondy brochure, page 48, under the “Be a Good Spectator” section, and I quote “Your pet dog will not enjoy watching sled dog racing events. A fast moving team will frighten most dogs. They are also a distraction to the racing or training dog team. Do not bring your family pets to dog mushing events.”

I am seeing more and more people bringing dogs to this event, so the Rondy organizers may want to promote this tidbit more prominently than a burial on page 48. I happened to be on hand for an instance today (2013) when the dog athletes got distracted by dog couch potatoes, and it was dramatic. Check out the pictures below for a team that decided to go off the trail and visit a dog that was barking at them. The quick thinking by the trail monitor in yellow saved this musher some time sorting things out by himself. The purse for this race is $70,000, so you can imagine that the sprint dog mushers dearly want to take home a piece of that pie.

4. If you are bringing young children who are not walking themselves around the festivities, bundle, bundle, bundle. Those fleece gloves from Old Navy are not going to cut it with the stationary set. If the kids are strapped to your chest, riding a sled, carried, or in a stroller they will be colder than you. You are walking around working up a sweat, they are motionless, getting cold.

Alaska is “mind your own business” country, but I did break this old adage a few years ago when, milling about the dog race spectators, I spotted a very young infant with exposed hands. The (who I assumed to be) parents were facing away from the child in an infant seat stroller, quietly wailing in the frigid temperatures. I tucked a blanket over the kid and told (who I assumed to be grandma) that the baby looked cold. She stepped in and took charge of the underdressed baby.

Unfortunately, I see cold children every year at Rondy. Here’s a lifelong Alaskan’s take: if you can only invest in one really nice outerwear item for your kids and everything else has to be cheap, let your investment be gloves, or even better for young children, mittens. (Knit gloves or mittens just don’t count, except maybe as something to wear inside the “real” mittens.) If their hands are cold, especially young kids and infants that haven’t figured out pockets or speech in complete sentences, they will be suffering from the cold and you will be miserable trying to placate their crying. You can quote me.

5. Watch the dog races from Cordova Street. That is the best kept secret around. Milling around 4th and D Street to watch the start is fun if you are tall like me. If you are petite or a child, heaven help you if you show up after the race starts and expect to see anything. It is really crowded at the start. Just walk down the street ‘til you hit Cordova and turn south. There! You have a whole street to yourself. The kids will love it, and will actually see something. You’re welcome.

6. Plan ahead. Downtown is pretty much a nightmare for driving on the Saturday of the race and parade, so leave early, pack light, and park far away. I took my own advice and parked on 15th Avenue this year. That might be taking things a little too far, but I got a great walk out of it and didn’t have to battle road closures, police cruisers everywhere, and confused traffic patterns.

7. If you brought kids, bring a backpack or bag. In mine this year: an extra set of gloves for all, a scarf, and some snacks and water for the kids. Sometimes I put in hand warming packets if it’s a particularly cold year or a particularly whiny child.

8. The parade is about a 1/2 hour. Why this fact is not more publicized, I’ll never know. And while normally I don’t advocate spending lots of time in shopping malls whilst clad in full winter gear, after the parade is over, duck into the 5th Avenue Mall to warm up. Another plus, the mall has a bathroom and your kid has to go. You can hang out until the dog races start around noon or until you can’t stand the kids begging for another pretzel with cheese.

9. If you have young kids and watched the parade and dog race, do yourself a favor and save the carnival and snow carving competition for another day. They are ongoing every day for all of Fur Rendezvous (this year February 22-March 3). If you do not choose to heed this warning, I will not be responsible for the adult and/or child meltdowns that occur.

These tips are guaranteed to cut down on the whining and increase desire to return next year and do it all again. Which is good, because what else is there to do at the end of February in Alaska? Go Rondy!

 

Been to Fur Rondy? Have a tip of your own?

Hoarfrost: not a moral judgement

I noticed two things when I woke up this morning.  One, it was way too dark to be time to rise and shine.  And two, it was so darn cold that there was hoarfrost on everything.  Of course I felt duty bound to snap a few pictures even though the indoor thermometer read 6 degrees F for outside.  Ugh. 

Just what is this mysterious and beautiful thing we call hoarfrost?  I have included a link to an article published by University of Alaska Fairbanks by T. Neil Davis if you want the details, otherwise a quick summation.  When air cools down it does one of two things, 1. turns to dew if the dew point is above freezing (32 degrees F) or, 2. turns to hoarfrost if the air is dry (the dew point is below freezing).  Davis mentions in his article that it occurs in different forms, including needles, plates, cups, and feather-like.  My second question, just why is it called "hoar" frost?  I flipped open the ol' Funk and Wagnells dictionary and found that "hoar" means one of three things, none of them about prostitutes.  Number three definition: "White or grayish, as with frost."  My eye went down the page a bit to "hoarfrost," which is "frost whitening the surface on which it is formed."

Part of enjoying a garden year 'round is appreciating the strange and wonderful things cold weather does to our plants.  Hoarfrost might be the only thing I can appreciate about my garden in 6 degree weather.  That and the lack of chores to do out there.