Today is St. Patrick's day. For most people it's nothing more than an excuse to drink green beer and Irish Whiskey, eat corned beef and cabbage and be Irish for a day. For me its something a little different. Today marks what would be my 14th anniversary of marriage to an amazing girl who changed my life in more ways than I can count. Neither of us was 'pure' Irish, bit we both had a significant amount of it in common so we seized on this day to have our wedding. We have matching tattoos, a very cool celtic knot design of a four leaf clover. She got hers on her ankle where everyone could see it, mine is on my chest, close to my heart where I will keep her always. We made it through a lot of life together in the almost 13 years we were married and we planned on having many more great adventures. We had talked about going to Ireland for this anniversary, begun saving for it. Well, Life has other plans sometimes. The savings got spent last year when the kids and I flew down to Illinois to bury her. It was a freak accident, something that shouldn't have happened, but it did. I've spent the last year in mourning. It wasn't until last week, the one year mark of the day that she died that I looked into the sky and saw the Northern Lights above me that I finally knew it was alright. I can't see my wife anymore, but I know she's still there, standing beside me, encouraging me to move forward with my life, to spend it living and striving to become something better than I already am, just like she always has. I love you, Glenda, and I miss you and always will. If I do manage to do great things it will be because of you. Happy Anniversary!

I watched "The Patriot" last night. It's a great movie with Mel Gibson. It's a fictional film revolving around a revolutionary war hero. Although its a work of fiction it does a great job of portraying what the feelings of people must have been back then. The reluctance of some to fight against British rule, the fiery patriotism of others and finally, how some people had just had enough and so, unwillingly, they went to war against a tyrannical government. The entire time I watched it I couldn't help but think how this movie might as well have been about an entirely different country than the one we're living in now. I'm not a terribly political guy. Usually I try to stay away from politics as much as possible. It just strikes me as sad, the idea of Freedom and Liberty, what those men fought for so long ago, the things that they wanted so badly that they were willing to sacrifice their comfy way of life, their houses, their families and their own lives to get, they finally got and then, over the generations we've squandered it, wasted it like a kid with a dollar in his pocket at the candy store. I wonder what it would look like if we did a comparison of the taxes that they paid in colonial days to the taxes we pay now? It's really tragic that all of those beliefs they had back then have been reduced to being a pretty damn good movie. Today, not even 300 years into the bright, shiny new country that those guys gave everything they had to create, the President signed Bill H.R. 347. This bill makes it a felony to hold a protest in an area that the Secret Service decides they don't want a protest in.(Peaceful or not, By the way, for anyone who happens to be reading this who is more of the peace/love mentality) Hmm...now we can go to jail for actually using our 1st amendment rights. Its not even a democrat or republican thing anymore. Members of both parties overwhelmingly supported it. I find it ironic. The only thing that the members of both political parties have been able to agree on for a very long time is that it is perfectly fine to violate some of the rights granted by the document that this country is supposed to be based on. This is why I typically snort in derision any time politics is mentioned. I'm not going to go on a huge rant about this. Yeah, I know, I've already been ranting, Right? well, I'm sorry. I go on tangents sometimes. I'll leave you with this thought. When I was growing up I was proud of our country. I was a child idealist. A patriot's patriot. (I may have watched to many John Wayne movies, I'm not really sure) I viewed the Statue of Liberty as a beautiful thing. A gleaming, shiny monument to a great country and the Freedom of its people. I was proud to live in the greatest nation on earth! Now I see the Statue of Liberty more as a poor, beaten woman sitting in a rape clinic with a torn dress and bruises all over her body. Her torch is flickering and about to go out. I hope she can find the strength to stand up, lift her head again and go on with her life.

Well, Aoibheann and I just went and visited what will be our newest tenant, Eddie the goat. I learned some basics of goat care (I had NO idea you had to trim their hooves) and got the phone number of a reputable goat supply house. WHAT have I gotten myself into this time....Oh well, it will be interesting, at least. I think a couple of hours of internet research on goats will be in my immediate future. On the walk down we saw 2 voles out sunning themselves on the snowbank. Cute little things as long as they aren't running around in your house or laying on the deck missing their heads after the cat finds them. Its 41 degrees out today, the sun is shining and the sky is a brilliant blue. On days like this there is no place in the world I'd rather be.

We got to go out snow-shoeing last night. We always go at night because there's something amazing about being deep in the woods with only the light of your head lamps. It adds a surreal quality and a sense of magic and mystery that I've never really seen anywhere else. The snow gleams in the light of the lamps, every lump in the snow throws weird shadows. The simplest track of a rabbit becomes something sinister that must be followed to make sure it isn't heading toward the village. Nick, Aoibheann and I went out around midnight. Corbin decided to stay home and sleep instead, he left early today for a friend's house. It's amazing how comfortable all of us are getting on snowshoes. When we first started it was like watching a bunch of baby ducks walking around. Now it's second nature to be on them. I guess practice really does help a lot.

I've been watching a lot of old movies lately. I like the classics, I always have, but now since I've been doing more writing I realize what an art form these old shows really were. The subtleties of a lot of the scene work is pure genius. You really don't see much of that in modern film. I guess it gives me something to strive for in my writing. "The Longest Day" is an awesome example. There were things in that movie that really had nothing to do with the main script, but their addition added an amazing depth to the movie. If you haven't seen it I highly recommend it. It's a 3 1/2 hour black and white film which is about half subtitled, but it's definitely worth watching! "Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid" is another good example. Wow- These guys could WRITE! Someday I hope to be half as good as they were. If I can bring even a touch of that magic into modern films I'll be a happy man!

And so, gentle readers, yet another new chapter is about to begin in the odd and unusual life that I call my own. Sometime soon, This week or next, the new member of our family arrives. We're getting a 2 year old goat from some neighbors down the street. They're moving down to the lower 48 and the only other people they could find to take it were more interested in it's culinary qualities as opposed to its pet qualities. Having never had a goat and knowing nothing about them it's bound to be an interesting experience. Up until now my only experience with goats has been from the Woody Woodpecker cartoon show. If that's any indication all should be good. I can feed him railroad tracks, cars, houses and the odd wolf. Somehow I'm guessing they aren't really like how they're portrayed in cartoons, though, so if anyone has any ideas about proper goat care feel free to chime in! See? In my last entry I said I was feeling optimistic and that things would be changing and here it is, not 3 days later and I have a goat coming. It just doesn't get any better than that, does it? I was reminded again yesterday how fast life can get very real up here. I was cutting a tree, nothing unusual except that this particular tree was growing in a gentle arc like a lot of them do up here. They get bent by the weight of snow on them and they end up growing like that. It's kind of an odd site. Anyway, this one was growing over the roof of my porch and was starting to think pretty seriously about falling down and taking the porch with it, so I decided it looked like good material for the fire. Now- Here's the lesson: When you cut one of those bent trees they are apparently under an amazing load of pressure and when the base snaps the little suckers take off like an arrow shot out of a bow. If you've  never seen the trunk of a 6" diameter birch tree launch at you at somewhere around mach 2 you just haven't lived yet! I got close to having it cut down when it splintered and launched about 15' in a direction I really wasn't planning on it going. I felt the base JUST brush my leg as it whipped past. Every time I cut a tree down I get more and more respect for the guys that do it for a living. Anyhow, New goat and renegade tree, I think that's about all that's been interesting in the past few days. Have a good one everyone!

I actually slept last night, it was AWESOME! I had sort of forgotten how nice it is to sleep. I'm not entirely sure what's going on, but after watching the Aurora for a couple of hours the other night I feel like a massive weight has been lifted from me. Everything is still technically the same, I still have the same problems in the world, but I don't feel like they're dragging me down anymore. I feel optimistic for the first time in a really long time. It's odd, but I like it! I spent a couple of hours yesterday shoveling a couple of tons of snow off of a friends RV. They bought land up here and we spent some time standing on top of the motor home once it was clean, discussing the new house that's going to be built, the way the land is going to look when its done. It was pretty cool. I've decided that we have started breakup up here. Sure, it's only 8 outside right now, but it's staying light longer, getting warm during the day. Oh yeah- Its on! I love breakup. It's messy, wet, dirty, and kind of a pain, but it's an amazing thing. WInter finally lets go and things finally begin to live again. I guess that's sort of symbolic for me, especially this year. It reminds me of how I answered Glenda after Corbin was born. I was with her the whole time she went through his birth, which had some definite rough spots. The next day as she was recovering she asked me what I thought. I told her it was the most nasty, gross, disgusting, incredibly amazing miracle I had ever experienced. In a way that's what breakup is like. The days begin to warm up, the nights are still cold. The snow turns to slush, then water which sits on top of the still frozen ground until it finally breaks through and you have an endless sea of seemingly bottomless mud. That's the BAD part. The good part is  all the cool little miracles that go with it. For anyone that doesn't know, I live on a hill above what can only be described as a swamp. In that swamp, at this moment, is what has to be about 15 million tiny little frogs which are our only Alaskan amphibian. When the temperature starts hanging in the 45-50 mark and the swamp begins to thaw these little frogs all wake up at once. Like everything else up here, once they feel warm they start getting busy right away. There will still be a couple of feet of unmelted snow on the marsh and they will start singing, cruising for their annual mate. They sing like mad for about 48 hours. After the complete silence of winter it's honestly nearly deafening. it echoes through the trees, we hear it in the house. The volume of these tiny little 1" frogs is unbelievable. And then, all at once, they stop. You won't hear another chirp from them until next year. That's like everything up here. Spring doesn't sneak into Alaska, it bursts in in a wild blur of color and life. The birch trees go from stark white skeletons to being able to see JUST a hint of green at the tops, to fully leaved out, all in less than a week. The growing season isn't long here, so life doesn't take its time. It explodes in a wild blur of being. The best way I can describe the experience of living here is like this- Everywhere else I've been has been like looking at life through a pair of dark sunglasses that are slightly dirty. You can see okay, but sometimes you have to squint and look really hard to make things out. When I got up here it was like removing those sunglasses on a bright, sunny day. Everything was dazzlingly clear and bright, a little disorienting, and somehow far more real without that filter. On that note, I think I'm going to have to get going, I have a script to write for school today, wood to cut, and I'm heading over to my friend's house later to attempt to remove his tractor from it's snowy womb so we can start moving some snow around in preparation for the big thaw. Have a great day everyone!