Twins!

I was up before five this morning and spotted twin calves in the yard. They disappeared down the slope before I got the camera. The moose are still shredding bark off the trees to eat and it's awfully late in the season for that. Poor things.

Cold and cloudy again today. We're picking up the lumber now to finish the siding on the garage. Need to stack it and let it dry a bit more before putting it up.

One of the disadvantages of living in two seasonally different locations is that it doubles the allergy potential. With spring just beginning here Bob is going into allergy symptom overdrive, and he's only had a few months of relief after suffering horribly earlier this year in AZ. He needs to live in  a permanently frozen land -- but I do not!

Tux got an ouchie on her paw. She's so cute...

A Bird Day

Another sunny day. Funny how temperatures went from record cold to unusually warm, bingo bango, with nothing in between. News called it an Alaska heat wave last night. Of course, rain and cooler temperatures return tomorrow so we've been taking advantage of the good weather to walk the dogs down on our beach. Birds are enjoying the weather too. (Pictures below.) Moose babies are showing up all around Homer but we haven't seen any here yet. Things are slowly greening up.

Eagles

Kingfisher

Yellow rumped warbler

Yellow warbler (?)

Good Weather

It's been sunny and warm. No moose have been around for a while, a sure sign the cows have given birth A neighbor told us about a cow with twins over the weekend on the lower part of our properties. Still not much browse but these warmer temperatures will help. Maybe she will bring them up here soon.

Tux and Hoop

Scaup

Tux on the Spit

And the Winner is...

For "First Flower" of the very late season... one not even considered in the running... the dandelion! Three of them blooming in the lawn today. The rest of the garden is slowing awakening. Tiny spots of green can be found if you look hard at shrubs that still appear dead. Horsetails, unstoppable and unlike all the slow perennials, are popping up everywhere. I should just leave them be as they are kind of attractive in a thick stand. I have pledged not to spend another cent on plants for the cabin and it is killing me. I'd better start seeing green soon or I'll be hanging out at the nurseries looking like a lost puppy.

Bird talk around Homer is that a group of Whimbrels being seen around local beaches is actually Bristle-thighed Curlews! This calls for diligence in carrying binoculars to spot the telltale buffy-orange rump and unmarked light belly. No sign of them this morning on our Spit walk, but the Semi-palmated Plovers are finding nesting areas on the rocky ground above the high tide line and making a big show of leading us away from them.

The grass seed we spread on the bare areas of the yard last week is quickly being consumed by Golden-crowned Sparrows. Here is a shot of them under the spruce outside the kitchen. Little devils.

 Another low tide today and people were clamming in Mud Bay. The limit for razor clams is down to the first 25 dug. No picking out the big guys. There has been a serious decline in abundance of razor clams, the lowest on record at Ninilchik Beach since 1990 when the surveys began. Not very good news. 

Then there was this surprising photo of a ten pound fish leading the Homer Jackpot Halibut Derby! I don't know whether to laugh or cry. Do we have a replay of the collapse of the Atlantic Cod fishery here?

Photo from the Homer Tribune

House selling and sunny days

Memorial Day weekend 2013: sunny weather, good clamming tides, opening day of Saturday Market and a three day weekend. The perfect storm for tourists. Sunny, but still a chilly 48 with cold north winds on the Spit. Who cares? Not Alaskans!

House For Sale

Today was the first showing of the cabin, and it was 60 degrees here! We worked our butts off getting the place cleaned up and cleared out, and it looked pretty darned good when we were done. This need to maintain cleanliness for short-notice showings is the hardest part of selling and stresses me the most. If the temperature were warmer I'd suggest taking the trailer camping somewhere until a good offer comes in, then we could go back to living like normal slobs. 

Tux's Eyes, etc.

 Good news from the vet. Tux's eyedrops are working and the pannus is in retreat. There is still some blood spotting visibile in the corners but it is not advancing and may recede further over time. She'll need the drops twice a day for the rest of her life as even a few weeks without and the pannus will rapidly return. Tag and Hooper are scheduled for a visit later this week to go over their meds. They are all on basically the same stuff just different dosages and keeping it all straight is sometimes a challenge for my aging brain.

 We stopped at the Cosmic Kitchen for lunch. When they say Salmon Burgers they mean a real hunk of salmon. Delicious! The corn chowder was wonderful too. It had a nice zippy flavor that tasted like ginger.

Salmon burger and corn chowder

We're able to buy local eggs and have found a source for duck eggs. My favorite ducks are the Indian Runners, of course, but these are close: Khaki Campbells, a cross between Runners, Mallards and Rouens. We gave turkey eggs (below) a try too. Living dangerously. They were very good.

Turkey eggs

My favorite place to shop: Redden Marine. They have the most helpful staff...

Bob at Redden Marine

A snowy May morning

It is snowing this morning. We walked in a blisteringly cold north wind yesterday, dressed in winter gear. The moose must be feeling worried. They'll be dropping calves soon and there is nothing for them to eat. Not a single leaf on the raspberry plants, no grasses, nothing. Things grow fast once they start, but it is sure bleak right now.

We should have the cabin up for sale before the end of month. Bob has been working on little detail projects ( two below) while waiting for weather to warm so we can finish siding the garage. We'll need to tackle clearing out the construction messes left in the water shed and garage today. Oh well, there isn't anything better to do with weather being so bad.

Shelves for the bathroom

Filling the gap at cabin/addition interface with rope

A mighty big rope

Earthquake

We just experienced a couple of house rattling jolts. Epicenter of the quake was 30 miles south of Homer. Magnitude 4.4. Not so big but it sure made the logs move. There has been some volcanic activity recently. Wonder if they are connected.

Weather

Enough is enough! Another cold front is moving through. Our temps will be around freezing tonight. Interior Alaska is experiencing record cold. It is still in the teens in the Brooks Range, 22 at Fairbanks! I am not expecting a summer this year.

It's cold and raining this evening so we don't plan to check on the shorebirds at high tide, but this afternoon the semi-palmated plovers were back on the Spit. We'll need to watch our step so as not to crush their nests. These plovers lay a few eggs right out in the open rocky areas away from the water and are so well camouflaged you cannot see them if they sit still.

Only one day for mothers?

In a just world every day would be mothers' day. We went to Captain Pattie's on the Spit for a late lunch. Holy cow, the prices are sky high. The clam chowder was very good though and all the mothers were given a rose and a raspberry chocolate mousse heart for dessert. Yummy! We also had halibut, red salmon, white King salmon, Kodiak scallops and shrimp for a high protein main course.

The tide was coming in when we left Pattie's and zillions of shorebirds hugged the beach along the spit. I recognized dunlins, but didn't have good binoculars to spend more time watching. We must go back prepared tomorrow!

Dogs at play on the Spit. Tux, feeling full of piss and vinegar, grabs the biggest stick around. I wonder if the steroidal eye drops are making her so crazy.

There must be three or four cow moose hanging around our place. I'll call this one Belle because she has a nice full bell, for a female, hanging from her throat. She stopped by to strip the bark off one of the trees. The browse really needs to get growing. These moose are hungry.

A moose eats 40 - 50 pounds of vegetation a day!

Function of the bell is unknown

Moose have a velvety soft upper lip and no upper incisors

What's Growing Now / Tux's Eyes 2

Its rainy weather, just in time for the shorebird festival. Dedicated birders are bundled up and camping out on the beach regardless. News report yesterday was kind of disappointing for the festival saying the shorebirds are coming in late. The geese that were here in big numbers last week have moved on and the cranes have retreated to their nesting areas so there are no big flocks to see at the moment. That could change overnight though.

The temperature is approaching 50 F daytime, and staying above freezing at night so I am seeing some plant growth around the yard. Tied for absolute hardiest plant: chives and rhubarb. Both were pushing up long before the ground thawed. The trollius wasn't up first but is gowing vigorously now. The Himalayan blue and Oriental poppies are making up for lost time and also growing like crazy. Roses aren't quite ready to commit to growing yet but have tentatively put out a few tiny branch buds. I wasn't sure they had survived the winter. Not much activity in the trees except for the elderberries (are they shrubs?). What will be the first to flower? I am betting on the trollius but the chives were forming flower buds almost as soon as they broke the ground!

Blue poppies

Chives  

Elder

A tight fist of fiddleheads breaking ground

Iris

Oriental poppy

Rhubarb

Marie Bugnet Rose

Sedum

Trollius with moose poop 

Update: Tux's Eyes 

Tux is not quite two weeks on the eye drops. We are figuring out the best way of administering them and she is, as always, tolerant of our clumsiness. I managed to do it alone, without Bob holding her down, the last couple days. We think there is improvement in the cloudiness but maybe that's just wishful thinking. The red lesions in the corners are still pretty prominent. She sure has been playful the last week, romping with the other dogs and challenging Hooper over throw-sticks, so she is feeling good and not holding grudges about all the manhandling.

Weird Thing

A test of video embedding....

Weird Things

Giant water bugs! The water tank was dry and empty over winter, filled with roof water run-off after the first spring rain, and then I found these guys in the water. Very weird.

Well I have a little video of a weird thing we saw on the beach today but I'm not having any luck getting Blogger to recognize it on my YouTube channel. Maybe I'll get it working later. In the meantime, here is the link: 

Weird Thing

The Daily Moose

We have a new moose this morning and I do believe it's the first time we've seen a bull up here. He is scenting the air from the direction of Mega-Moose's calving area. Wonderful to think how those nubbins will grow to a nice rack of antlers by summer's end. A big bull can carry an eighty pound rack!

Plovers

 I was able to snap a shot of four plovers on the Spit. It looks like three males and a breeding female. The second picture is an enlargement of the two birds on the left in the top photo. So which is it, Pacific or American Golden-Plover? Damned if I can tell.

Mega-Moose

Here is Mega-Moose. Besides being quite large we know her by the white scar on her right side. Grass is just beginning to grow and here she is taking a few nibbles. She strolled through the yard leaving footprint holes in the soft ground that we will need to fill with dirt later. In the bottom picture she is a approaching the ball she kicked the daylights out of some days back and you can see the tension in her flared nostril as she smells for danger. Thank goodness the ball behaved and all was well.