Sept 30, 2004: It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like…

    Hi all!   
    Well, it’s nearing the end of September, and autumn is over in Fairbanks!  It’s been snowing all week, and the beautiful golden birch leaves are all just about fallen. It got down to 6 degree F the other night, still warm by arctic standards. I’m leaving Mary’s warm comfortable house to move into a cozy little hobbit cabin in the woods, heated by its big wood stove and lit by candles and propane lanterns.
    I’m really looking forward to winter (even though I’ll miss part of it when I go to South America next year). I’ve never lived in a cabin in the woods before and I’ve never experienced an arctic winter. It’s actually a lot of people’s favorite season here. The rivers and lakes all freeze solid (they’ve already started!) and people ski, skate, or mountain bike all over the place. It gets to -60 below and roads that dead-end at the river suddenly become through streets, and stay open until late spring when some car falls through the ice and they close the road for the summer. (Really! but don’t worry, everyone’s lived. Usually only part of the car falls in.)
    I’m going to try not to use the car at all, since there are trails everywhere. I volunteered at the Catholic thrift store for a day (where they answer the phone, "Holy Angels?” – !)  and they hooked us up  with well over a thousand dollars worth of cold  weather gear, plus skates, skis, and a bicycle have all magically come my way too. So I’m ready!
    I realized I’m starting to get adjusted to Alaskan life the other day when someone made moose lasagna for dinner and it didn’t strike me at all as strange. Here in Alaska the government keeps a roadkill list. You can put your name on the list and whenever a moose gets hit, they call up whoever’s next and they can come get it for meat.  There aren’t too many vegetarians around here. I’m not quite ready to put myself on the list yet!
    I’ve been thinking about throwing myself into another big project-  starting a Fairbanks branch of the wonderful  nonprofit I was working with in Homer and selling bulk organic foods to raise money for the orphanages they support in Nepal, Africa, Afghanistan, and possibly soon in Iraq, if my friend’s project goes through. It would be a lot of work to get it solid before I leave, but there are a lot of people who are really sick of shopping at Fred Meyer, which, aside from an overpriced supplement store, is the only option for organic whole foods. Most of the last couple weeks have gone into researching it.
    So maybe I’ll do that, or maybe I’ll just slow down and watch the winter move in, skating and skiing with Bella and watching DVD movies in Spanish at Mary’s house.  We’ll see.
    Much love to you all! Keep in touch!  
Love
asha   
PS – Before I go to South America I’m going to delete all the addresses of people I haven’t heard from since I started this list last year, because I figure either the addresses are no good anymore or you don’t want bulk mail. So if you want to keep getting letters, write!