For years I’ve been patching our deck by swapping out surface boards as they rotted. The original builders hadn’t used treated boards, and the previous owners hadn’t painted it, either. So it had slowly deteriorated. I put in treated 2x6s, so it was increasingly sturdy. But I stepped right through it on an old but sound-looking board in the fall, and then the lower structure started to give way as some of the joist ends rotted. All winter I kept thinking about what it would be like if a moose walked onto it and broke a leg. So we made plans to get it replaced in spring.
Continue readingCategory Archives: Alaska
Apocalyptic
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 readingA Very Unusual Dipnetting Season
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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An Unusual Absence—Where are the Redpolls?
Normally at this time of year our bird feeder is packed with redpolls. They can usually be counted on to empty the thing daily, and we actually ration them so we don’t go through too many forty-pound bags of sunflower seed kernels.
But this year is dramatically different. They’re completely absent. They were scarce early in the winter, but I haven’t heard one for months. This absence became more and more puzzling as the normal late-January visits didn’t appear and the February and March hordes didn’t show either.
But then I realized that I hadn’t seen a single birch seed shadow all winter. These are common in normal years, when even a light breeze drops birch seed all over the snow.* A few years ago we had an astonishingly high birch seed year, but this year it looks like practically none were produced. And so I finally realized why we had no redpolls this winter. I am not sure what the cause is, but it is the first time in our 22 winters’ experience here that it’s occurred. We miss the little buggers.
* A five-year study published in 1972 found an average annual production in birch forest around Fairbanks of 23,303 seeds per square meter. This is why birch seed shadows are usually so visible all winter as these seeds periodically fall.
25 March update: Well, the redpolls read my post and sent a few emissaries. If I’d known things could work this way, I would have posted this in January. A small flock of four stopped by while we were eating lunch. Rose and I just started laughing. It’s amazing how excited you can get to see what’s usually an abundant bird.
Cornices
With our heavy snowfalls this winter we’ve seen some marvelous sights in the ways it accumulates. I took a few pictures.
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