More Garage Pictures

A neighbor gave an enthusiastic shout-out about the garage siding yesterday. I don't know if she liked it that much or was just happy she wasn't going to be blinded by the white Tyvek anymore. Here are a few pictures showing this morning's progress. East side done, west side begun. The back side will be metal all the way up and it's going to be crazy getting up there to hang it. 

Notice how Hooper manages to be in just about every picture? What a ham. Here she is with Tag.

This is a pretty sedum growing in a wild area of the yard.

The curtains I made from painters canvas are finished, ready to hang, and now we're just waiting for the rods to come in at Ulmer's. The only thing in stock was a brass finish, and yes, there is only one place in town to find this stuff. I want black (or bronze). They're going to look pretty good... especially considering the total cost for hardware and everything will be under $100. I'll put up some pictures when they are hanging. 

Will this month never end? (Pictures!)

May is taking forever to finish up its business. I think it's become frozen in time. I think I am frozen in time. Could we just see a day or two above 50 degrees?!

OK, enough of that. Here are some pictures. The metal siding came and Bob started hanging it. It's the same maroon metal as the roofing but the light is coming from behind the building and it just looks dark. Second picture with Hoopie shows it a little better. Above the siding will - someday - be board and batten siding, looking similar to the water house.

This is looking towards the area where the slope gave way. The septic system will go someplace in here and the curtain drain will run off here, and I'm lobbying for a gently sloping trail down to the lower portion of the property. Right now we can only access it from the beach.

My beautiful potted clump of quaking aspen, Hansa roses, mock orange, lilac and a few other shrubs patiently waiting to be put into the ground. Someday they will be impressively large and I hope I will be here to see that.  I should point out the moose damage on the mountain ash to the left of the aspen. There is barely enough bark that it seems to have survived. At least it's putting out leaves. There is another ash in the midground of the picture that wasn't so lucky, but it is suckering so maybe I can salvage something from the wreckage. (You can click on these pictures for larger views.)

Huge Kodiak scallops simmering gently with asparagus, red and orange peppers, and oyster mushrooms in a tomato base. Delicious on pasta! 

Tag at his favorite spot... my feet... wherever I am. What will I do without you?

My Day

It's been a lazy Mothers Day... some grocery shopping (Kodiak scallops for dinner!), a walk on the beach, Skyping with my young 'un. At 41 degrees, wind and rain, the weather is too miserable to spend much time outside. The shorebirds will have to make do without me today. Maybe they will be so kind as to wait until later this week before heading north... temperature is supposed to hit a glorious 50!

I wanted to post a few pictures to keep everyone up to date. We have been working. Most of the garage is insulated (still working on the upstairs) and sheetrock in my shop is up. Not sure how much more we'll do  on the inside of the garage this year. There is a lot of expensive work yet to be done on the exterior of the garage and the lot (French drains and septic system).

Garage pictures are not very exciting.

There was a sale of last years left over trees and shrubs at Fritz Creek Gardens so I picked up a neat weeping Norway spruce and some low growing junipers to stabilize the slope outside my studio. Had to dig an awfully big hole for that little spruce! (It looks kind of scrawny - maybe that's why it's weeping.) The hungry rabbits and moose better keep their distance next winter, that's all I can say. One of our mountain ash is surely dead though Bob is in denial. Don't know how the other one survived. There is just a smidgeon of bark left on its trunk.

I was too late last year and missed out on these green-edged petunias so I grabbed the last small hanging pot in the greenhouse and am nursing it through the cold.

The young guy installing our new SpitWSpots antenna (for internet -- we ditched the slow DSL) told me he was careful not to step on the succulents coming up at the front of the cabin. Succulents? Huh?? Yeah, with the brown fuzz on them. Wha...? Ohhhh.... the Himalayan poppies!

Here they are, loving this cold wet weather. Me? Not so much.

Misty Moon

Night lights on the Homer Spit as seen from my bedroom window. We're still gaining light until late June. Curtains on the to-do list!

Clam Tides

I forgot how good fresh clams taste!

Bob and Dave went clamming yesterday, braving the cold and wind and rain and hoards of greedy clammers. They brought home a nice little haul. This is our share.

The clams got a soaking in fresh water to encourage them to eject their sand and then we went to work cleaning them up. I made a delicious clam pasta for dinner and froze a few bags of clams for later. This adds variety to the salmon and Kodiak scallops we stocked up on as soon as we got into Homer. Next month we should start getting fresh veggies. Instead of trying to grow my own, or risk missing out at the local farmers market, we have joined a local CSA. Eating is so much better in Homer than Arizona!

Birding is picking up. We are seeing the goshawks every evening. They went after a magpie that dared fly too close to their territory yesterday, so we're thinking they are nesting in the trees nearby. Here is a species list compiled by local birders for May 4:

MARBLED GODWITS and WESTERN SANDPIPERS (~2000+) at Mud Bay
BARTAILED GODWIT and BLACK TURNSTONES near the end of the Spit
WHIMBRELS at Green Timbers and Beluga Slough
SURFBIRDS (many hundreds seen at one time there) on the Jetty by the Harbor

Many places: PACIFIC GOLDEN PLOVERS, BLACK-BELLIED PLOVERS, SEMIPALMATED PLOVERS, DUNLIN, DOWITCHERS

EURASIAN WIGEON in Beluga Slough and Mud Bay.
SHORT-EARED OWL and MERLIN, possible AMERICAN KESTREL...

What is the value of a bath?

A lot. Let me tell you. Sponging in the bathroom sink gets old. We filled pitchers and kettles and poured warm water over soapy bodies while standing in the tub. It's a cold way to go. But, hurray! The replacement parts for the faucet finally arrived and after two days of futzing around on the bathroom floor, doing, undoing and redoing to stop the leaks, we are bathing for real again.

Critters with feathers

Shorebirds, dark clouds of them flying in precise unison, are arriving just in time for the shorebird festival next week. We drove out to the spit last night with binoculars but the tide was out too far for viewing - clamming tides to minus 5.6 feet - so the birds are way out in the distance. Greater white fronted geese were on the beach so we weren't skunked. They did a number of fly-bys checking out the dogs before settling down in the dried grasses. And there were a few grebes and a pintail in the lagoon. But the best sighting was right here at the cabin. Two northern goshawks twisting and turning, clutching talons, right out our window. Birding doesn't get any easier than watching from the comfort of your sofa in a nice warm cabin.

Moose Power

How do you mow YOUR lawn?

Moose Mower

Thoughts before sleep

It's cold. It is really quite cold. Going to be 24 degrees tonight. I am thinking landscaping thoughts. There will be lots of opportunity once the yard is dug up and I have already ordered some roses, mock orange and quaking aspen to hold the earth in place. We've been insulating the garage and shops and ordered siding for the outside walls. So much to do. But now to sleep.

Water

In the desert sun is the enemy. Here, it's water.

At some point this spring a highly saturated chunk of our bluff land sloughed down to the lower level of the property. Heavy snowmelt has turned some areas into sloppy bottomless pits of soil and clay. We made the mistake of walking along Mud Bay yesterday where runoff plus seawater has turned the world to muck. Tag's rear end sank into a mud pit so deep he couldn't get out, that happening one day after diagnosis of a cruciate ligament problem in his knee. I was able to pull him out from a solid spot but he is really hurting today. No more walks on that beach until our world dries out a little.

Anyway, back to the bluff. We are looking at a very expensive solution to the ground water problem, but with all the water draining our direction from the upper bluff we have to do something to stabilize our property. An eight foot deep French drain will have to be dug along the north and west lines of our lot, diverting all the water collected to the lower level where there is a boggy area now. That should dry out the upper shelf, reduce the sloughing and maintain the stability of our building foundations. Maybe the extreme amount of precipitation that fell this winter was an anomaly, but we're thinking weather extremes are becoming more the norm than the exception so might as well prepare.

And since we're spending a small fortune for all that earthwork we're thinking we might as well put in a new septic system while everything is dug up. We're still hooked to the original crib that was put in years ago. It's probably functioning because we aren't here full time and we have some of the gray water diverted so it isn't being overwhelmed with water. It's going to collapse one of these days though, and no bank will loan on this place without a proper septic should we decide to sell. Might as well do the work now and enjoy the benefits. But I think Bob is going to have to go to work to help cover the costs. On top of all this, we have to get siding up on the garage this summer or risk damaging what we've already built.

In the meantime I'm doing a Dry Dance to keep the rain away.

Overnight Guests

There were two moose curled up on the frozen lawn this morning. They looked in relatively good condition compared to the starving moose seen around town. No doubt they are the ones responsible for a lot of the damage to trees and shrubs in the yard. The bark on the mountain ash trees has been eaten off seven feet up. Hope the trees survive because their red berries are a favorite of waxwings in the fall.    

I did a little yard clean up last evening and am covered with mosquito bites from the waist down. The itching is miserable. How the heck do they get into my clothes!

We caged the climbing rose with three foot high hardware cloth before leaving last fall so fortunately only the tops of the limbs were nipped off. Probably rabbit damage. The old rose bush that's been here for years was trimmed down to about three foot lengths and the raspberries were almost wiped out, too, so there will be another season without berries. A fencer is coming by next week to see about moose-proofing the yard.

We need to keep the dogs on the property, too, because some old codger in the neighborhood is into shooting loose dogs. There is still an uproar over one he shot last month that had been trained as a cadaver dog -- one test left for certification. The old guy said the dog threatened him while it had a hare in its mouth. Right. And there is no one here who would mourn the loss of a hare after all the damage they've done the last two winters. Oh well. I will be happy to get a fence, whatever the reason. It will keep out moose and gun-happy grouchy old codgers, too.

A few pheasants survived the harsh winter. I hear the raspy screech of one as he makes his morning rounds. The Sandhill cranes got in a few days before us. They congregate on the beach in the evening, legs dangling like marionettes as they float down on outstretched wings. The crows saw Tag and went nuts. I guess they have good memories. It started with one crow fixating on him last spring and spread to all the local crows before end of summer so that the whole flock would go nuts when they saw him. Just Tag, not the other dogs. Funny.

Here is a view of the Spit at low tide this morning. We were greeted with great weather when we got to Homer, but the report shows a stretch of rain on the way soon.

Our moose. Check the nubbins on this guy's head (enlarge the photo with a click). It's hard to imagine how fast they will grow into a huge rack. He's giving me a wary eye, not at all happy having us around to complicate life.

The cow didn't even twitch her ears when I snapped her picture. Fish and Game says the cows will probably abort their fetuses this year due to severe dietary stress. This one doesn't look too bad. Will the moose hunt will be closed this fall to allow the population to recover?

We are here - Homer.

It was a rainy, snowy, icy, and windy but comfortable (as comfortable as you can be confined to your seat all day) and mostly uneventful trip. We spent a couple of days birding at Malhuer NWR in Oregon and made a stopover near Spokane to visit with friends. Photos from the trip below.

Still settling in at the cabin and wrapping up other business before I can put much time into this new blog.

Pelicans at Malhuer. I think these pictures are clickable to see a larger file.

More white birds. Huge numbers of snow geese gathered in all directions.

An avocet and stilt.

A pretty camping area someplace in British Columbia

Hooper passing time on the long drive

Camp on the Donjek River in Yukon Territory

with our neat new Chalet

In Homer, an unwelcome guest in the garden

still wearing winter coat