Alaska is baking and burning. We’re also on the threshold of the most radical budget cuts that the state has ever seen—a self-inflicted fiscal catastrophe caused by our governor’s desire to give out the maximum amount of free money possible. That, and he lied his way into office by promising not to make all the cuts he’s now singlehandedly imposing.
Governor Dunleavy’s lies are detailed by Dermot Cole here.
Continue readingHow many PhDs does it take to change a light bulb?
Two, at our house.
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Back in June the run of red salmon in the Copper River this year was predicted to be poor. And the Miles Lake sonar showed that this was indeed the case, so the Department of Fish and Game closed the season very soon after opening it. And then they kept it closed for most of June and July, with just five open periods of 24-96 hours. The king salmon run was reported to be good, and those who went in June generally caught more than they could keep (1 each). But red fishing was poor.
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I hope everyone else is reveling in the cost savings that LED bulbs have meant. The light emitting diode (LED) is such a cool invention. Once the bulbs were being manufactured in huge numbers and their prices dropped, it made definite economic sense to replace our other bulbs with them. We swapped out our incandescents for compact fluorescents (CFLs) several years ago, but as those die we’re putting in LEDs. That time has also finally arrived with fluorescent tubes, too. The per-bulb cost for an LED retrofit lamp is now on par with a standard four-foot fluorescent tube, and the LEDs come with a five-year warranty. What’s not to love?
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One thing about deep snow and a snowshoe trail—if you make it, everyone in the neighborhood will use it. So I was out yesterday seeing who’s around. At various places in the trail I found the tracks of two moose, a fox, quite a few snowshoe hares and red squirrels, and a grouse or two. The neighbor’s dog had bounded through, too, as she sometimes does. But yesterday there was a new set of tracks I hadn’t seen here before: a good-sized canine that walked like the fox. I’ve seen a lot of coyote tracks, and this sure looked right. But how to be sure it wasn’t a dog?
When I was out today, I remembered that yesterday I’d caught a faint whiff of a funky, skunk-like aroma. I went back to that spot and spent some time looking, and sure enough, the large canid had scent marked. It was a female. I bent down and picked up a piece of the very darkly marked snow, stuck it under my nose, and took a good sniff. Yowza! Too much! I couldn’t get that nasty, rank smell out of my face for a good ten or fifteen minutes. I’m pretty sure it was a coyote.
Probable coyote tracks
This is an unexpected [probable] addition to the local fauna. I’d just remarked to Rose a week or so ago that I was surprised that we hadn’t seen evidence of a lynx yet. We’ve seen them in the neighborhood less than a mile away, and there sure are a lot of hares around. We’ll keep our eyes open for better visual confirmation. But my nose knows.