I was up late reading when, around midnight, I heard the bird feeder thump against the house. Our bird feeder hangs just outside the kitchen window so we can get close looks at the birds. When the feeder thumps the wall, day or night, it’s almost always either a day squirrel or a night squirrel (red or flying).
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Category Archives: Alaska
A Festive Beringian Hosiery Burning
Do you ever wonder how traditions began? On a cold, dark night, long, long ago…
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Bust a Move, Snowshoe Man
We generally see snow from late October through early April, but with an average annual precipitation of just 11 inches of water, we usually don’t see really deep snow. This year, however, we’ve been getting a lot of snow. It’s the third-highest snowfall ever recorded this far into the winter, and this past week it really piled up. With the long weekend, we’ve been getting out and enjoying it. Blowing it, shoveling it, walking in it, snowshoeing in it.
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A Brief History of Fire in Our Forest
The true-to-title version: I found a fire-scarred birch on the hill above our house and cored it to see how long it’s been since the last forest fire here. It was surprisingly long ago.
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Lots
Heavy forest fires in Interior Alaska some years back burned down a lot of trees. But these fires also changed human behavior, and not necessarily for the better. Who would want a home in the woods if your house might burn down? The woods still saw new homes going up, but in many cases trees were being removed with excessive exuberance. Instead of the standard 30-foot clearing around a home to serve as a fire buffer, 60-foot buffers were often created, or whole lots were being cleared. Forest one day, stumps the next. It was ugly.
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