July 5 2016: Fishing is slow but it's Ollie's birthday!

The crew let me sleep out the early morning tide and Ollie started his second birthday by waking me up with his unwelcome barking at about 3 am. I was so frustrated! Finally, a chance to sleep and the dog keeps me awake! I figured he was barking at the crew's coming and going so I told him to stop and when he didn't, I yelled at him to stop. I held his collar so he wouldn't get himself even more worked up and finally, in desperation, I pushed him onto his back with my hand on his little spotted tummy. He was undeterred and kept barking. I tried to think of where I could store him so his barking wouldn't wake me. A crate with a lid? Another cabin? Maybe just his kennel? Remember, that was desperate, sleep-deprived thinking. He finally settled down with none of us the worse for wear.

When I got up in the morning and went to get their food from the porch, I found it gone! Hmmm. He was barking at something. I had looked out the back window earlier and had seen something new in the tundra just a small distance from the cabin. When I saw the dog food missing, I went to inspect the new item in the tundra - the now soggy remaining dogfood. Something had torn a hole in the bag but not eaten it all. Probably a critter. Hope it wasn't a big one.

For Ollie's first birthday present, he got to snuggle with Patrick, while Patrick dozed on a bag of laundry. Then, during their tide off, Oksanna and Jeff cleaned the crew cabin and prepared Moroccan chicken and couscous for Ollie's birthday dinner and we had no bake cookies for dessert.