busy as a beaver!

Winter in Alaska this year has had its extremes. No two days have been alike, from our first termination dust that sprinkled the mountains, to minus 50 below temperatures, and winds that blew at a peak of 138 miles, coupled with our regular January thaw (while all you Lower 48’ers/Outsiders took ALL our snow!!).  We marvel as our property sits at the base of the Talkeetna Mountains with Government Peak, the gateway to Hatcher’s Pass, towering outside our front door and graces our picture windows.   From Care’s Corner we  can look over to Pioneer Peak, part of the Chugiak Mountain Range, and Bill’s frequent drives to job sites in Talkeetna (2 hours away) bring delightful photos of Denali like the one above.
Even with that incredible view that surrounds me, I have found myself caught up working at a frenzied, feverish pace,  (with a steep learning curve!)  learning what it means to REALLY be a published author, and feeling well enough to tackle the projects. But have found I really need to pace, and to take a break each day.  Like many of you, today I  treated myself and went “out” for lunch!  It was WONDERFUL!!  Kula and I grabbed the frozen tennis ball and launcher, and we hiked out in sub zero, crystal clear, robin’s egg blue sky and crunched through the snow, cleated our way across the frozen river (praying we wouldn’t find any soft spots covered by snow! BRRRRR!) climbed on all fours (BOTH of us!)  up the embankement, and followed moose nugget lined trails sprinkled with freshly gnawed wood chips to the beaver dam that some very busy critters have been building, on the back of our  20 acre property.  I counted 12 more spruce and cotton wood trees they are munching on, to add to their already humoungous den and dam……While we enjoy watching their work and marvel, we also are wondering how we are going to manage the trees in our forested area of acreage…..creative nurturning of nature I think…..(smile…. I’ll  leave that to your own interpretation!)
So, don’t think I’ve disapperared just because I haven’t been blogging recently!  I’m just busy like the beavers, chipping away, shipping out books (thanks for checking out book site at  caretuk.com!), working on speaking presentations (first one tomorrow night!)  and prepare for book signings and our first “official whilwind book tour” March 17-29 in the Pacific Northwest. We’ll be visiting and sharing this new “baby” with our family and frontline friends. 
I really hope you will find your own “Denali” to marvel over today…..do something different – instead of lunch in your office, or grabbing that PBJ at home or zipping through a ‘drive-thru’ – why don’t you go “out” like I did? Stop to breathe in the fresh air! Let the rain drops hit your head or the ice/snow crunch under your feet, or even feel the AZ/FL sun like so many of our friends!! Even five minutes in that setting and you’ll be set to dig in for the rest of the day, energized to keep working, busy as a beaver!! (But save the trees, PULEEZE?!!)