With all those big spruces, I remember the owls being hard to spot. That said, I could “see” them in other ways in winter - small mammal tracks in fresh snow, ending in a disturbance, with the imprint of owl wings descending and beating to ascend quickly again. Likewise with lynx tracks in the snow. Follow them far enough, and they often intersect a hare track that ends abruptly in a bit of blood and fur. That place is magic, and your excellent photograph captures it well.

Spent a night solo in that Yukla yurt around the winter solstice a decade ago. Snowshoed back out to the trailhead next day at noon and car thermometer read -20F. I have no idea how cold it was overnight. In the Midwest now, but would always prefer dead still sub-zero AK air to the sub-zero wind chills we get down here.

As a dood who went full Howard Hughes in quarantine, grew out his nails and picked up finger style guitar without fingerpicks (learning Jolene and Coat of Many Colors in the process), I only discovered additional bits of Dolly (real, fake, whatever, your body/not mine/who cares) that I love in those nails. She’s one of the lights I guide my ship by.

Downvotes without refutation are Redditspeak for “tell me I’m right, without telling me I’m right”, lol. Sounds like someone got called out on a bad faith argument and knows it.

that’s technically correct but not practically correct. These governors, pundits, propagandists, etc. have whipped people into such a frenzy, that specific US localities have entirely defunded specific libraries beyond operation to limit access to “certain” materials by limiting access to ALL materials. Technically speaking, a false equivalency; practically speaking, not at all.