A Threat of Spring

Easter morning and the thermometer sits at 20 degrees amid fog and hoar frost on the trees.   THis week we had another foot and more of snow though the melt is progressing fast.   We saw a patch of open water along the south shore of the lake yesterday and four mergansers flew over looking for it.   The eagles have returned to scream and chatter in the trees along our property line and I can see out my window past the snow berm.  The sun is on the lake by 8:30 am and it's time for some crust skiing.    Happy Easter.

The Bold Progression of Sunlight Hours

We are now sixty days past solstice and half way to the vernal equinox when the day and night are the same length.   In the last month we have watched the days grow longer and the rising arc of the sun the souther sky.  Changing height of the sun above the horizon each day is significant, for not only are the winter days short, the winter sun is low on the horizon and it's light weakened by passing through more atmosphere.   So now, in late February, a clear day means dazzling sunlight reaching over the the southern fringe of trees and bathing the lake in a flood of light so audacious it can only be faced with sunglasses  On days like today, when the temperature is over thirty and the clouds just wispy accents to the mountains and forest, we are taunted with thoughts of spring and breakup, and warmer days to come. But this is a lie that February tells each year, and those of us who have been scorched before will not buy the trick.  Winter is with us until March is on it's last legs and even in April we can expect some frosty mornings and unwelcome snow storms.  Until then we will savor the sunny part of winter and all it has to offer.

The Distant Glow of Arctic Magic

 Last night with the wind finally still and the skies clear, it was fine night on Bear Lake.  We've had a foot of snow since Saturday night and the wind came behind to sculpt it round our house and outbuildings.  Most of the day it blew, carving dunes on the roof pitch and filling trails I'd cleared with the snowblower.  

        One doghouse is complete covered now and I may not dig it out since old Nelson will sleep on the porch on a chair but not in a doghouse.  Out on the lake, a pair stalwart kite skiers waded through knee deep snow with their dogs to spread their kite on the wind in a splash of red and yellow.   Two men and three dogs seem to be trying to harness a giant Phoenix of a bird, which leaps and jerks away and stumbles across the snow with crippled wings.   At dark they gave up and left the lake to the wind, which came immediately to cover their trail.  

        Our moose is still around to get Snape, the newest of out dogs, to barking, and the ptarmigan flew by the window in a flock of nearly twenty on Saturday.  The rest of world is snow and sleeping trees.   Out on lake side where the spruce and hemlock come right down to the shore, the wind gets the trees and snow moving until there a great avalanche of snow off the limbs tumbling down into the forest and lake and up in great clouds of dust like snow that is not quick to settle to earth.  By late evening I am hopeful for seeing the aurora, and I do about 11:30 but it is a pale wisp of light in the sky, not the dramatic stage show of dancing light one would see in the arctic sky.   The aurora from here, just north of 60 degrees is like watching a football game from top row of the stadium,  its exciting and pleasing but not quite dramatic.

  

Winter Life

Bear Lake in January is a black and white photo.   What little light there is comes in just over the southern horizon and the combination of spruce forest shadow and almost oppressive white of the snow seems to extract all but the brightest colors, a skiers red anorak, a yellow school bus, the orange snow machine.
At first look, one might think the lake and its shore is deserted, abandoned by the wildlife of summer.   Some are gone, but others have moved in or stay year round.  A flock of ptarmigan have taken lease on the willows along the shoreline.   They leave their trails in the snow as they work through the willows eating buds and perhaps bark.   They are hard to spot, for they are literally white as snow with only black eyes and a flash of black at the tail when they fly.   Spot one, then keep looking and slowly others appear when your eyes adjust to see them well-disguised against the snow.  We also have a moose hanging around; a male with one antler jauntily angling off one side of his head. T hree dogs tied in the yard do not deter him from browsing the willows between the house and the lake.  He uses the snowmachine trails and groomed ski trails to shop the pickings along the lake shore, often taking his midday nap out in the open on the lake's blanket of snow.

After last week's two feet of snow we have been busy with 'snow management".  As much as we like snow too much of anything is a pain, in this case a pain in the shoulders and lower back.  Some berms are over our heads and the trails from pole shed to dog lot and woodshed grow narrow.  The forecast for the next week or more is for cold and windy.  before long, we will be wishing for more snow.    

Finding Balance during the Autumnal Equinox

      For those of you who are not students of geography, the Autumnal Equinox is the time in the year when day and night are equal.  This is the official end of summer and beginning of fall.  In Alaska, traditional fall weather started a month ago.  Some say that Alaska's four seasons include spring, fall, earlier winter and winter, because we have such a short cool summer.  Others say, "It's a good summer when it falls on a weekend."   here on Seward this is the time of year when the Pacific hurricanes, called typhoons, and tropical storms sweep into the north pacific and slam the Alaskan coast with rain and wind.   We've had three such storms since the end of August, each more intense than the previous.   intense wind and heavy rain has knocked down trees and raised the lake level to it's highest in two years.   Our neighbors had trees down in their yards, and a plane moored on the lake flipped over and broke a wing.  Steady 20-30 mph winds lashed the house for 12 hours Monday with gusts over 50 mph.   That's when we're glad for every bit caulking, bracing and hurricane clips we used to make this house tight and strong.   We live in the teeth of gale; the price we pay for living on this fine lake in the north country.
      Things are changing on the lake this first day of fall.  More ducks are stopping by like the grebe that has take up resident in our front view.   Thousands of cranes cackling their way south passed overhead in long ragged v's of migration.   The bears are off in the hills hunting berries, so we haven't seen then for several weeks now.  During a walk along the south shore we found no fresh sign of bears and under the cottonwoods, they had stripped devil's club berries down to the last seed.
     The devils club is a beautiful but viscous plant with a stalk covered with half inch spines all the way up to it's rhubarb-sized leaves which are also covered with spines.   The berries grow in cone shaped clusters atop the stalk which stands four to eight feet tall.  And they don't stand alone.  Devil's club grows in dense stands so the broad leaves create a roof over the the forest floor of an acre or more.   This time of year the leaves are bright yellow and seem to light up the woods during the dark wet days fall.  Those berries must be tasty for bears to go throw what they must to get them,  and even they have spines.

The Green Grass of Home

           After a couple of stormy days fraught with rain and wind, we awoke to a sunny sky and calm winds.  We paddled out in the kayaks on flat water that invited our gaze deep into it's depths.   The morning light and perhaps the fresh rain made the water clear and I could down through six feet of water to make out details of the bottom.   Madelyn noted how far out into the lake the vegetation grows, reaching up through the depths to reach the sun.   Not only do plants like water lilly growth up through the lake to the surface, but the very bottom of much of this part of the lake is as green with plants as my lawn.   East along south shore of the lake, the vegetation changes.  In front of our place, horsetail grows up creating a fringe around our dock.  people comment that our when we sit on the dock, it appears that we are sitting on a grassy lawn.   As I paddle east I notice that the vegetation changes from horsetail to grass, and out from shore, barely pushing through the water surface is another plant whose name is lost to me but it looks like the classic aquarium vegetation.  several variaties of pad lilies seem to be scattered about the whole southern part of the lake but not in any density.   It is easy to look at the aquatic plants and think there is only horsetail and lilly pads. But in reality there are dozens of different plants growing in this lake and this morning they are all so easy to see in detail.  A few years ago, a survey of aquatic plants in the Kenai Peninsula lakes found twenty-nine flowering aquatic plants.

        The water is so clear today, it's like heavy rain had changed the water in the lake.   The bright, fresh-scrubbed feeling of the world after a rain seems emphasized this morning on Bear Lake and the red salmon, the tail end of the run,  are brilliant red in crystal water of an August morning in the shadow of Mt Tiehacker.

       

Changing times

august 16,   10:30 pm clear and still.



At 10:30 we are watching the coming dark dusk fall on Bear Lake, because August is the month of transition to fall.  In July, the evenings were endless and until midnight there was little change in the amount of light.  But now the light at ten pm is less than that at nine and we can feel the cool of the evening  sooner.  In lower latitudes the world is experiencing the height of summer.  Not here.  Even though today was warm and sunny.   The leaves are starting to rattle not rustle, the fireweed are bloomed to the top or nearly so, and the giant puchki leaves are starting to turn yellow.   Yes, winter is still along way off, but fall has quietly begun.  Here at the lake, the aquaculture crew broke down their fish camp at creek today, only the stragglers of the salmon run are left, and the long-quiet loons have started having guests from other lakes and taking noisey flights of their own.  Fewer salmon are jumping, more are spawning along the south lakeshore where the shallow water and gravel bed seem to be ideally suited to this process.  As a result, every night the bears are wading this shallow stretch of lake shore catching and eating salmon.  This week we had one at our dock splashing and thrashing about in the horsetail and grasses of our shallows.  Our stretch of lake doesn't have a gravel bottom so the salmon aren't spawning here nor do they linger.  The only attraction a bear might encounter here are muskrat.  Maybe these little fellows were the prey that evening.  We don't know for sure, we just had the sound of a rowdy bear.  We were surprised that is bear was about 100 feet away but we could hear it breathing, panting as it waded off into the night.