Regarding Heat Waves

It's all relative. (So glad we are not down there.)

Found this tourism video about Oatman at the Mohave Daily News website. Let's see if I can embed it. I don't know when this was taped but BLM wants people to stop feeding the burros. All those carrots are making them too fat!

Another Moose Story

These are pictures of the cow and adorable calves that visited last night. They fed in the raspberry patch while I sat on the porch taking pictures. 

In two of the photos the cow has spotted something disturbing in the lower part of our property. Her ears strain forward as she listens. She gathers the little ones and runs to a safer spot. It might have been a bear or another moose, but she wanted to keep the twins away from it.

Her straining ears remind me of a time I was visiting a cow moose with brand new twins and thought I was in for a stomping. 

The cows were often too exhausted to look for high quality browse after giving birth so I brought an armful of willow, a favorite food, for this one to eat while I sat on a log at the edge of her calving area, a small clearing in the trees and brush, to watch the calves. 

They had been born the day before and were all legs, wobbly, innocent and curious about the world. They smelled and tasted everything around them, cautiously working their way towards me. The little male, the bolder of the two, clumsily approached, sniffing my hands, my cap, my clothes, pressing his velvety soft nose against me. The shyer female kept a safer distance watching with big brown eyes, batting her impossibly long dark lashes. The world was quiet but for their snuffles and snorts, their mother's quiet chewing of leaves and the low hum of insects. 

I was sitting still as possible for fear of startling them, especially the big cow, and all was going well until the little female stumbled with a startled cry. The cow became immediately alert. Recognizing my vulnerability I was trying my best to look as non-threatening as possible but every part of that moose's body now suggested evil intent. 

Her previously relaxed demeanor was gone. Muscles tensed, ears straining forward, eyes beginning to blaze, she took a few threatening steps in my direction. 

I was about to get stomped. I could try to run, an action inviting disaster, or hold my ground and hope for a bluff charge. 

The moose was growing more agitated. I held my ground, sitting absolutely still on the log while she charged straight at me... and flew over the log, nearly hitting me as she hurtled by. She had spotted another moose and was driving it out of the area. I hadn't offended her at all. In fact she left me with the calves while she browsed a bit.

I visited several more times in the days before she finally led the twins away to abandon the calving area. I later saw them out in the bush and the little male walked right up to me. We sniffed nose to nose, then he returned to his mother and all three disappeared into the alder. He would never approach again.

Spit Birds

Temperature hit 70 here at 11 am. Expect it will go up a little by evening. I think it's the warmest we've seen it here yet. Fairbanks recorded a low temperature in the 70's yesterday for the first time in the modern era! Flat Earth-ers / Climate Deniers take note.

We're banished from the cabin for two showings today. Spent the morning on the Spit birdwatching. The cranes sure don't mind us or the dogs being around. Sometimes they even follow us. We are lucky the dogs show no interest in them. The Plover adults are still faking injury to distract us from the little ones that are quickly showing feathers in all the fuzz.

Sandhill Cranes

Semi-palmated Plover

Plover chick

Cow Moose

I was throwing the frisbee for the dogs in the back yard and startled this moose. She must have been in the raspberries and I never noticed her. She lit after Tag who was mid-air catching the frisbee. Lucky the old dog can still run. He made it to the porch (with the frisbee) and the moose  ended up in the front yard. She's pretty skinny and really shedding in this heat. No calves in sight. A barren cow, or maybe her calves didn't survive. Can't hardly begrudge her eating some greens. She was pretty cool with us afterwards. I think the flying frisbee freaked her out.

On Moose and Climate

Found an interesting article in the Homer News re the effects of the long hard winter on moose and fish, echoing some of my earlier concerns about the lack of vegetation. Quoting from the Homer News:

An area biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game said he won’t be surprised if population surveys of moose show decreased survivability among the ungulates, especially among cows and calves.

“Before green-up, many (cows) were on the brink of starvation. We had several cases of moose dying in May and into June right here in town,” said Thomas McDonough, research biologist and moose expert with the Homer
office of Fish and Game.

Normally, newborns arrive more or less coincident with green-up, allowing near-starving cows to replenish depleted stores of energy necessary for their own survival and making it possible to lactate effectively. 

“Without having that occur at the normal time, there’s more stress for cows, and that’s often transferred to calves,” McDonough said. While newborns continue nursing for months, they begin consuming browse within days of birth. Thus green-up also provides calves with plentiful food.

Moose typically mate and conceive during the last few days of September and the first week of October, and give birth in late May and early June.

“The calving peak down here (on the Southern Peninsula) is the third week in May,” McDonough said.

Temperatures in May were often still in the 30s (degrees Fahrenheit), and at higher elevations, snow continued to fall off and on throughout the remainder of the month. Under such taxing environmental conditions, cow moose physiology can cause mothers in poor condition to delay calving by a few days, but not much longer, McDonough noted. But green-up came well after most mothers were due. Thus, many calves were likely born weeks before easily accessible browse became available, he said.

 “We are trying to assess the effect on the young,” McDonough said. “Even in a healthy population, moose calf survival is pretty low. Half will be dead in the first five or six weeks.”

Also, King Salmon returns are running late with local rivers too cold and too high for the fish to swim upstream to spawn.

Climate disruptions appear to be changing all the rules. Today Obama announces his plan to address climate change. We shall see how that goes. My expectations aren't high.

More From the Garden

In the midst of the biggest mosquito outbreak in Alaska ever (maybe), Fairbanks is having a mosquito repellent shortage. Now that's a disaster!

Chives

Oriental poppy

Rhubarb flowering

Tux and Tag

Flowers! Color!

Hard to believe I am saying this... we need a good rain!

Flower bed in yellow and blue.
Oriental poppies with drooping heads wait their turn.

Blue poppy

Columbine

Forget-me-not

Iris

Plover Tactics

 The plovers are keen to protect their young from us. In these two pictures an adult flops around as a distraction, faking a broken wing. After we pass and they are safe, the little ones return to mom and huddle under her wings to get warm.

A raft of otters

99.5% Done

 Almost finished with the garage siding! Just some trim to do, a ledge piece at the bottom of four windows. Second picture below shows two windows with completed trim. Very simple. We're getting bids on hanging sheet rock in the upstairs bonus room. Just too much for us to do ourselves. I think we might pick up this garage and take it down south with us.

Board and batten siding completed

Window trim on four windows left to do

Blue poppy waning

Wild iris in the Trollius

Spider in the Trollius

Homer Spit in 5 AM sunlight

Baked Alaska

End of the heat wave here in Homer. We got some much needed rain and the temperature is down to 55 today. The rain barrel and trough are full again. The mosquito hatch is a big one because of the slow spring thaw. Much worse at interior locations than here though.

The Plovers on the Spit are hatching. They look like fuzzy puffballs skittering around on toothpicks. So cute.

Bear Mauling

A man attending a BBQ at Eklutna Lake outside of Anchorage had a few too many drinks and rode off on a bicycle. He took some of the BBQ meat on a stick with him. Before long he encountered a bear and apparently thought it was a good idea to share his food. He threw some at the bear. The bear ate it. He threw some more. Then something ticked the bear off. The man was found torn up but alive. He was ticketed for feeding the bear that mauled him. 

Which reminds me of the time we had a rather close call with a grizzly. Food was involved but it wasn’t ours....

It was a fall day. We were hiking around Gunsight Mountain hoping to see some moose in rut. We walked a few miles over rolling terrain seeing nothing but birds. Quite a few birds, actually. Ravens, magpies, bald eagles. The ravens were teasing Sam, our blue eyed dog, attempting to lure him off the trail. I mentioned there must be a carcass somewhere with all the scavengers in the area. 

Another mile traveled and Bob stopped to watch an eagle. I was watching Sam just ahead of us. He was air scenting something in the willows next to the trail when a dark looming figure rose up from the brush. It took a moment to recognize that it was a bear. A huge one with little eyes in a big teddy bear face standing on its hind legs. Sam was at its feet looking straight up. A healthy seventy pound dog, he appeared tiny and certainly helpless next to the big bruin.

The dog yelped in surprise and I calmly said “Wow. Look at that.” I was still processing the situation and felt awe, not panic or fear, oddly enough. 

Bob looked then and immediately yelled “Bear! Run!” Well, unless you are sure you can outrun a grizzly that is not the best thing to do. He doesn’t know why that was his first inclination; he knows it is utterly the wrong thing to do. But no one can really be certain how they will react until actually faced with a situation.

I grabbed his arm before he took off. We backed slowly away. Sam, an experienced wilderness dog, peeled off without a commotion. The bear was content to see us leave and, thank goodness, returned to the brush. The day could have ended in a bloody mess.

We worked our way around to a rock outcropping to watch the bear. It was scratching the ground, mosses, willows and all into a pile then flopping down on top. Scratch, scratch, flop. Over and over. It was a big pile of brush and we saw the antlers of a bull moose sticking out at the bottom of it. 

We had just interrupted a grizzly caching a moose! A seriously dangerous situation. Did the bear just kill the moose in a great battle or did it finish one injured by a hunter? We would never know. 

We watched for half an hour before the bear got up. It looked around to make sure nothing would disturb the cache and took off towards the river. I don’t know how much ground a bear covers in one stride but it is a lot. Three long strides and it was out of sight. 

In a few days Bob returned to find the stinky moose under the brush, bones crushed. It was smashed flat as a pancake by the bear’s great weight. 

Heat Wave

From  Anchorage Daily News

All-time temperature records fell across Southcentral Alaska on Monday.

Temperatures in the 80s and 90s were reported across the region, according to the National Weather Service. Among the places setting new records:

• Talkeetna, 94 degrees. The previous record was 91 on three previous dates: Sunday; June 14, 1969; and June 26, 1953.

• Cordova, 90. The old record was 89 on July 16, 1995.

• Valdez, 90. The old record was 87 set on June 26, 1953 and June 25, 1953.

• Seward, 88. The old record was 87 on July 4, 1999.

Temperatures are expected to hit the 80s again around the region on Tuesday, though it will be cooler than Monday, the Weather Service said. Temperatures are expected to continue falling as the week progresses, with more seasonally normal temperatures later in the week.

In Homer:

We got to the high 60's at the cabin. With no rain for the last few weeks and slight chance for any in the coming one, the garden is suffering. Our well water seems to be low and collected rainwater is depleted. That's bad news for the seeds we spread earlier hoping to fill in the bare ground from last year's construction projects. What a roller coaster of weather we've had from a record cold May to record highs in June.

Friends spent the Father's Day weekend with us and took Bob out fishing so we have some nice halibut in the freezer!

Read more here: http://www.adn.com/2013/06/17/2943371/90s-in-southcentral-alaska-temperature.html#storylink=cpy

Flowers Mid June

Himalayan Poppy

Blue Poppy and Trollius

Trollius

Shooting Stars

Bleeding Hearts 

Something Different

Here is a story from my time working with moose in Alaska in which I recall an encounter with an enraged moose.

It was summer, after the calving season, and this day started out as just another damp, gray morning except for the odd distant cries. I really wasn't sure I'd heard anything, but maybe something was happening in one of the fifteen acre pens down the road. A mud hole had formed there and I wondered if it was possible a moose could get stuck in it. Curious, I tugged on my Xtratufs, jacket, cap, and left my cozy cabin. 

It was drizzling and the trail was muddy from days of rain. The cries were plaintive, getting louder.  

Something stopped me cold. 

I saw the one I called Psycho Moose. A smallish, fine boned moose with a thin, bony nose. She hated people, was known to attack without provocation and at the moment she was extremely agitated about something. I was in the pen with her, a dangerous place to be, but as yet unnoticed. 

I saw she wasn't stuck in the mud at all. She was frantically pacing the fence line with two small calves in tow. That was strange because she had given birth to only one calf that year and it was, I clearly saw, on the wrong side of the fence! How they became so separated is still a mystery, considering now this moose’s devotion to her calf. Soft cries and a stirring in the trees at the edge of the clearing revealed the distressed mother of the confused twins. 

Somehow Psycho Moose had lost her calf but she was not to be without. She had kidnapped another moose's calves! 

She was desperate and I needed to get out of that pen before she discovered me. I turned back to the gate, but running in the slick mud wearing sloppy rubber boots was not easy. I slipped and fell flat on my face, mud covered, head to toe. 

There is something I hate about mud, even today. 

But I was younger and game and sprang up like a bop-a-doll, fully expecting the blows of moose hooves to knock me flat again. I reached the corner of the pen and scrambled over the tall hog wire fence. If memory serves correctly it was seven or eight feet high. More than a hop, skip and jump for sure.

Climbing fences is a good way to rip your pants, a silly thought as I flew over. But I was safe. For the moment. How was I to get the calf back before a bear killed it, and then return the twins to their rightful mother?

 I ended up on the same side of the fence as the lone calf and thought to herd her to an open gate and then to the pen where she could find her mother. A good plan, but Psycho Moose saw me now and did not consider me a savior. If she would stay calm there was a chance of pulling this trick off, but as it turned out she would not cooperate. The furious moose swung back and forth along the fence, charging wildly, doing her best to protect the calf. I’m not sure what I was thinking as I approached the calf, but now I wonder if  even a bear would risk challenging such a moose. 

It was all too frightening for the little calf. She startled, running straight towards a low four wire fence attached at a right angle to the tall hog wire fence that was the only thing between us and her mother. She ran smack into that low fence and flipped over it. With thin legs entangled in the wire, hanging upside down, she was helpless. Time stopped for a moment. 

I was horrified. 

The moose was horrified.

There was no turning back. The calf must be rescued.

The moose, just inches away, was steaming mad, and she was looking at me! Screaming, eyes bulging, rearing up, crashing against the fence, she would kill me given half a chance. I do recall that I thought about dying at the hooves of this maniacal moose as I frantically pulled at the wires to free the struggling calf before the fence collapsed and the enraged moose came crashing through. Your life sort of flashes by.

But suddenly the calf was free, all legs, loping towards the open gate! 

The mother moose forgot me, now guiding her beloved to the opening. The twins were abandoned, no longer needed. Their real mother left the safety of the trees to retrieve them. 

I breathed a sigh of relief as the world came right again. It was not my day to die after all. 

Wood Working

Happy dance! A blue poppy opened today. I think all the sunshine is helping. It's weird how slowly some things, especially the shrubs, are coming back though. I've been digging things up that look dead but their roots appear healthy, so I'm transplanting them to places that might have better soil or growing conditions. Who knows.

We are working steadily on the garage. Finished the front today and started wrapping the siding around one side, as you can see here. Thank god the back is metal all the way up because there is a lot of cutting and notching on this board and batten stuff and working with all the angles on the front side has twisted my brain into knots. We have a good system going. Bob is working from the lower roof now and calls out the measurements, then I do the cutting and hand the pieces up so he doesn't have to climb up and down. Anyway, the garage is looking good and will be totally beautiful when the wood dries and can be oiled. 

Hoopie, snoozing in her favorite spot on the back porch. She stays here all evening watching the road, listening to the birds, close enough to hear what is going on in the cabin. She sure has lots of gray hair these days.

Board and Batten

We've begun working on the garage siding while the weather is good. The wood can dry in place and the finish be applied next year. The boards are nailed down one side; the batten covers the edges of two boards with a space between and holds them in place.  The space between the boards is where the batten is nailed. Now the wood can shrink as it dries without splitting. Does that make sense? We work four or five hours a day when it isn't raining, taking our time.

A few flowers dare the weather...

Bleeding hearts

Shooting Stars

Trollius

Moose and vegetation

Mega has been rushing through the yard with her twins a couple times a day. Here is a blurry picture from today (top). Compare it to the picture below which was taken almost exactly a year ago in the same area of the yard. They are in the raspberry patch and it is looking bleak. Even the grass looks bad. Good news is the Trollius are blooming and the shrubs that look so dead are slowly putting out a few tiny leaves so there is yet some hope for a summer.

2013 

2012

Our Cabin For Sale

Tux's Eyes and Moose Tales

Another rainy day and we are all feeling kind of lazy. The picture of Tux, below, shows that stubborn dark mass in the left eye. The cloudiness and other nasty stuff is cleared up, but this bloody stuff might be permanent, which isn't so bad as long as she can see. She's really good about taking the eye drops, most likely because the treat afterwards and knowing the other dogs, who watch the whole operation very closely, don't get anything. Frightening news is that the Adequan that helps so much with her mobility is not available at the online pharmacies right now. There is a shortage and even vets are limited to buying only 3 vials.  I have enough on hand for a few months and can only hope the supply issue straightens itself out before we need more. I'd hate to see the poor dog become lame again when she is doing so well.

A momma moose has been making late night visits with her twins. Bob tries to wake me to take pictures but I am dead to the world. The cow went berserk one night racing back and forth on the bluff, snorting, jumping and looking impressively furious. (An enraged moose is something you will never forget.) One of her calves was having difficulty getting up the slope and there must have been a bear or another moose around to cause such distress. Last night they paraded calmly through the yard, nibbling at this and that, like nothing had happened. Another moose got into the penned area in front of the house, where I've been trying to protect new plantings since the moose attack last year. There wasn't much damage this time but we'd better make sure there is no way a calf could get in there or there will be holy hell to pay getting it out. I once had the thrill of extricating a moose calf caught in a wire fence with its raging mother on the other side of the fence and it is something I will never forget. Really got the old heart pumping, but it was worth the scare to see them reunited. She had moose-napped another moose's twins, thinking she would lose hers permanently, and immediately abandoned them to their own mother when she got her baby back. Funny that moose psychology.

Dark mass in corner of eye 

Tag takes over the dog bed

Hoopie always near

A May of Records

Oh yeah. It really has been cold. This is from Deep Cold  a blog about weather in Fairbanks.  Highlights from the month of May:

Only six days the entire month were within one standard deviation of normal. On to the highlights:
In the Weather Bureau/NWS era (starting 1930) 

• 10th coldest May
• Latest date (May 18th) of record with a daily high temperature below 40ºF and daily mean  below freezing
• Three daily record low temperatures and two record low max temperatures
• Winter snowpack melt-out of May 11 is the second latest of record
• 18 days with daily low temperatures of  ≤32ºF is most in May since 1964
• Green-up of West Chena Ridge as seen from UAF on May 26th is latest since observations began in 1974 and probably latest since 1964
• The 47 consecutive days with daily mean temperature below normal appears to be a record for such a streak, though it is not a record for consecutive days with departure of the same sign (53 days in a row in autumn 2002 above normal)
• Lowest April-May of record (mean temperature 31.3ºF)
• Fourth lowest March-April-May of record (mean temperature 23.2ºF)

On the warm side:

• Daily record high of 84ºF tied on the 30th
• Five days with highs in the 80s ties for second greatest such days in May (record is seven days in 2011)
• First time ever in May with five straight days of highs 82ºF or higher (thanks to reader Brian for this one)

Drying Wood

We brought the wood for the garage home to dry. The boards are stacked in layers two high with sticker boards between the layers to allow air circulation. A few weeks, maybe a month, and it will be ready to stain and hang. The big tank in the photo holds heating oil. A gas line is going in this summer but we don't plan to hook up to it. 

Plants are showing signs of life after last night's gentle rainfall, however the Mayday tree, which is normally an early grower, is not in any hurry to do anything. It looks like I've lost two roses, a climber and a yellow one. I'm hoping they are just slow coming in and won't pull them yet. The roses eaten by rabbits were badly damaged but now growing nicely. Even the darling weeping spruce stripped of branches by moose this winter is putting out new chartreuse tips on the few branches that remain. I don't know if this tree will ever regain its lost beauty but I don't have the heart to rip it out without giving it a chance. The trollius is beginning to bloom and, a most pleasant surprise, the mini bleeding heart has put out a few sprays of tiny pink flowers. I say surprise because it looks too delicate to survive these winters. Everything I weeded out last year is back and days are growing longer.

Wood for board and batten siding

Weather forecast. Need I say anything?