Just another cloudy day

Bob trimmed out the door and windows in my shop. A door into the garage is still needed but there is no hurry. We're waiting for something discounted to turn up. It's a comfortable place to work as is, especially with the heater installed. 

Trim around door. 

Old oil heater from the cabin installed.

Primitive plumbing: rain water and bucket under sink.

With spring arriving weeks later than usual the garden is finally filling out. Poppies have faded, other things are at their peak, newly planted roses and perennials are putting growth into their roots to survive the winter. I'm happy to report the moose-attacked trees are putting out new leaves, a sure sign of recovery. 

Big Delphinium, needs dividing. 

Small Bleeding Heart that has happily bloomed all season. 

Deadly Monkshood has just opened.

Alaska state flower, the Forget-me-not.

Rhubarb grows madly despite the worst weather.

Next year I have to try my hand at growing a few vegetables. Bob says he'll construct a small PVC hoop house in the space cleared when the septic system is installed. With luck that will be done next month. Then we can bring up seaweed from the beach to decompose over winter and build up the soil.

Dogs

Walking weather! Here are the dogs playing in Fritz Creek. Tux dunks her face in the water as long as she can feel the ground under her feet.

Video of Tag and Hoop chasing sticks. You can see that Tag has difficulty getting out of the creek because of the ligament damage in his rear leg but he has plenty of spirit and is ready to go.

                                   

Turquoise on Brass

Bracelet of brass with unusual Kingman turquoise stone.

This is my first attempt at making a cuff bracelet using heavy gauge wire. The prong wires fit between the three bracelet wires to separate them slightly around the stone. I had to glue the stone in for insurance, as the prongs themselves won't hold the stone for long. I could add a prong wire on each outside edge to make four more prongs.... and, ya know, that is a good excuse to make another one!

I learned a few things this time around and unfortunately the bracelet mandrel broke off the bench Bob made for me after just a few forming taps. It is a wooden furniture foot with a screw at the top that just isn't long enough even with a ton of glue to hold it on the bench with all the banging needed to form these things, and it really needs to be a tad bit thinner anyway. We'll need to figure out a more secure attachment or just spend the money on a real mandrel and clamp. I've been holding out in hopes of finding a wooden baseball bat, which would be the perfect size, but they don't seem to be made of wood these days. Well, no more bracelets until this is solved.

Surfing in Alaska

Surfing the bore tide in Turnagain Arm. Really!

The bore tide is a huge wave or series of waves. This one moves down Turnagain Arm, outside of Anchorage, forming only after extreme low tides around the full or new moon when there is a +/- 27 foot differential between the high and low. Conditions are pretty specific for its formation. The wave is 6 to 10 feet tall here and can move as fast as 10 to 15 mph. These guys look like they are having a great time and enjoying the scenery on a gorgeous day.

My Shop

There are still a few things to do before it's finished, but my shop is now at a functional stage. Bob built the benches using reclaimed materials from the cabin project and we picked up the old desk for ten bucks at some sale... Voila! I am ready to work. You can see there is no trim around windows, door, or floor and the door into the garage isn't installed (not shown in these photos) but that can be done next year.

Petroglyph mural on the top of one wall. It's a reminder of the desert to warm me on cold days. 

First piece made in the new shop, a pendant of Verde Antique Marble (collected in the Mojave Desert) in a silver setting. Amazing apple green color!

A nice view from the water shed at low tide today. I believe the tanker is carrying natural gas. Yes, it's raining again, but at least I won't have to water the plants.

Crows everywhere! It's becoming as bad as Hitchcock's The Birds. Below are two, an adult and baby - bet you can't tell which is which. 

They are a real nuisance. First they discovered the uncovered trash bins at Wasabi's Restaurant and stuffed garbage in everyone's lawns and gardens. The dogs managed to sniff out what they deposited in our yard to noisy crow protestations. I suppose that is why they caw and harass the dogs soon as they step outdoors. When that source of food dried up the black devils took advantage of the newly mowed fields to hunt dead rodents -- which they stashed in gutters all over the neighborhood. We find rodent and small crab parts in the catch basins under the rain spouts where they dip their food before eating it. Oh, they are very clever and fun to watch but not too popular around here.

Goodness

We're having a run of sunny days! We even played golf at the local course yesterday.

 Found this great Xander Pollack poster online. Just about says it all....

A Wet Gray Day

Got a good rain today. It was getting pretty dry for the plants so they have perked up with this nice drink. I am not imagining the cold... much of Alaska has had record cold July temperatures. The jet steam is doing wild things I guess.

A sailing ship showed up in the bay under power yesterday. We could see the tall masts from our cabin, it is that big. There is still snow in the mountains across the bay. Would rather see it gone by now. The question is, will it be there when the snow flies this fall?

Chocolate lilies just beginning to bloom in the grass on the highway to Soldotna.

Drought everywhere you look

Yikes! Federal drought disaster areas declared in more than 1,000 counties in 26 states -- the largest disaster declaration ever made by USDA.

Check out the US Drought Monitor below. That is truly stunning. Even the north slope of Alaska is experiencing abnormally dry weather -- while southeast Alaska had a record rainfall of 20 inches in 8 hours this week. 

Updating this post one last time with a link to an article about the drought in Mexico. Parts of Mexico appear to be in permanent drought.  Chihuahua: Where the rain doesn't fall anymore

The Trouble with Fish

Here it is, we are going into mid July and still looking at temperatures in the low 50's. It's wet and stormy again. High winds brought down a small plane landing in Beluga Lake (near the Homer Airport) late last night. A 65 year old woman, an ex-state legislator, died in the accident. She was coming to Homer for a fishing trip. Adding to the drama, a boat was grounded in rough water on the Homer Spit. It was too rough for rescue operations last night. I suppose they got to it today. We have given up any hope of summer weather for this year.

Fishing news isn't good.

The King (Chinook) Salmon season was bust, closed over most of the state. They have gone out to sea (normally for 1 to 5 years) and not come back. So what's up with that? There is a commercial fishery, personal use fishery, sport fishery, and subsistence fishery. That's a lot of fishing going on. Add habitat loss, habitat degradation and climate change as threats to the population and it seems pretty obvious, but debates rage and accusations between user groups fly. Everyone wants their "share" of the salmon and no one will do without.

Halibut are having their problems too. The smaller fish (15 - 20 lbs) being caught by sport fishing charters are showing areas of opaque, jelly-like muscle, a condition appropriately called Mushy Halibut Syndrome. Not very appetizing, though we're told it's safe to eat. There are fewer and fewer of the big halibut being caught here in the Halibut Fishing Capital of the World.

Could there be more? 

West coast Sockeyes (Red Salmon) are really in trouble, the same loss at sea that we had with the Kings this year over a much longer period of time, with 50% to 85% drop in productivity reported in the last 20 years. In Alaska, some stocks are in decline, some are OK... with the same factors threatening them as the Kings.

In all this fishy news of late I have read that climate change is driving the evolution of the Pink Salmon (Humpy), a good news/bad news story. 

Two groups of Humpies, early migrators and late migrators, were differentiated with a genetic marker by some nutty scientist in the 1970's. Through the 1980's between 27 and 39 percent of the population was identified as late migrators. By the end of that decade fish with the genetic marker, the "lates", began to disappear, quite rapidly in fact, until today it isn't possible to distinguish the late migrators at all. They have been lost. Researchers say the loss is essentially related to increasing stream temperatures (thanks to global warming); that the early migrating fish were adapted to warmer conditions in juvenile developmental stages and migration timing, and thus had an evolutionary advantage. The good news of course is their survival; the bad news is the loss of diversity in the population makes them vulnerable to further environmental changes and total extinction. 

More of the Garden

Yes, we are having more rain, but the raindrops on the flowers are fascinating. 

A water diamond in lupine leaves.

Luscious white "Marie Bugnet" rose.

More peach than yellow, Rosa "Maigold".

I love the deeper orange on the petal edges at this bud stage.

An annual with some pretty spectacular color.

A young daisy.

The rich color of full bloom.

The Moose Returns

The mad moose returns with her twins. They took to devouring what little remains of the raspberry patch. I've given up hope of getting berries again this year due to the moose's winter eating of the producing canes. I'm not even bothering to weed the area anymore. Probably better to abandon this patch and start another within a fenced area.

Gardening

Flower pictures. I must be bored. Here are some colorful things from the garden.