Old Blue rides again.
Let me just say that mentally you can turn the clock back decades by driving a 1990 Mazda pickup listening to John Denver songs on a cassette tape. So my current commute has me living in the past and “… humming some old song he wrote…” and other gems for the rest of the day.
The Fairbanks North Star Borough runs on property tax. It’s the only regular tax that we pay in-state (though we expect that will change soon given the huge state deficit). Every year the borough sends out a notice telling you what they think your property is worth. We’ve never had a problem with them before, but this year when the notices came with a 20% rise in land values, we were surprised.
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We’re two weeks early here. The first leaves popped out today and the raised beds are forked. Hammond’s Flycatchers showed up yesterday and Mew Gulls today.
The first leaves of the year are popping out. These are birch.
The raised beds are forked. They will heat up fast now.
What’s behind Door Number 3?
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We’ve had more Ruffed Grouse activity in the yard this winter than usual. It’s been fun to watch them, and to keep them returning Rose put some sunflower seeds out on the floor of the deck. They appreciate it. Yesterday I watched one slowly amble across the snow in the back yard, gingerly stepping and often breaking through. It did not look fun—basically postholing, which when I have to do it is exhausting. Oddly, when it came across a fallen aspen leaf, brown and ugly at this time of year, it picked it up and swallowed it down. That was a surprise; we see them eat tree buds a lot, but this looked like almost the lowest quality food one could find (one step above spruce needles).
As the grouse slowly approached the edge of the woods, the red squirrel who lives over there went batshit crazy.
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