Images of Spring

First Pasque Flowers!

I just found this pasque flower (Anemone patens) today on my walk to my phenology plot. I call it a northern crocus because it is the first flower to bloom in the tundra and it's of similar size (we can't grow crocuses sadly). I was so excited to see 4 or 5 of these little guys today!

I'll be gone for the next few days as I have to head back to Los Anchorage tonight for the Disreputable Dog's second operation (right rear leg). He goes in at 7:30 in the morning and won't be out until the next day. I've been so encouraged at his progress from the first operation (left rear leg) but I am not looking forward to him going back to pathetically in pain again for a few weeks.

Break-Up

Many a person in Alaska will try and tell you that break-up is not really about rivers but about that time of year when a couple who has been keeping each other warm through the winter break off their relationship. But really, it does have to do with break-up of ice on the rivers (even if the latter is also true). I'm kicking myself for not grabbing my camera when I took the Disreputable Dog on his evening walk to the river where we witnessed break-up.

Tidal ice along the ocean in Los Anchorage

Rivers in Alaska have long been important transportation routes. In the winter they are highways for sled dog teams, snowmachines, and skis. In the summer boats of all types go up and down them. But during break-up and freeze-up all traffic stops. Predicting break-up has long been a pastime of locals and their is at least one break-up that is akin to our state lottery.

Having found that my new residence is a short walk from the mighty River that Brings the Highest Price for Wild Salmon, the D. Dog and go there twice daily. I love these huge, glacially fed, silty rivers (ok, I'll admit it, there isn't really any river type I don't love). Just standing on the banks makes me feel like I'm out in the field. The other day we had stopped in the early morning sun to look out on a still mostly frozen scene with a few leads of water. When we arrived on the banks in the afternoon we were just in time to see it all break up and wash out.

We sat in the sand on a high bank while the ice roared and crashed and moaned, while huge car sized chunks of ice floated by, submerging occasionally and then creating huge sprays as they lunged upward again like whales breaching. Occasionally a berg would strand temporarily on the edge of the river until enough of its brethren piled up behind it and forced it back out into the stream. The river was chock-a-block full of ice, it looked like the surface of a slurpee, churned pieces of ice streaked with sediment layers of grime and a huge variety of freezing ice patterns rushed by. The sound of it was awe inspiring- roaring, rushing, seething, spraying, sucking. I can't really describe it accurately. Huge blocks got torn from the banks creating their own current and sending muddy water skyward. And after sitting there for maybe 45 minutes all of the ice had passed us. Suddenly there was an open river with a few small pieces of ice still clinging to it's banks. Looking down river we could just discern the rush of ice as it headed for the open ocean.

Signs of Spring in Alaska

• Strange baby faced men who look vaguely familiar keep showing up at work - all winter long they've had chest long hair and beards but now they've gone in for their "annual" - annual haircut that is.
• Flocks of snow buntings swooping around the roadsides like a wind swept snow storm
• Owls becoming more visible, their hoots filling the forests
• Daylight increasing so fast that it is confusing when trying to guess the time
• Big lakes of melt water stuck between the frozen ground and permafrost. You could stock some of them with fish, I swear.

My mother asked me a week ago how much snow we had - 2 feet I replied. She asked if I was exaggerating. I wasn't. You couldn't even see the benches of the picnic tables and now, a week later, there is bare ground under them.

Whew!

Ice Festival Creature 2009

So I'm finally feeling totally recovered (and I still have no clue what it was). The Disreputable Dog had his first knee surgery and is doing very well although he manages to be very pathetic at the same time, howling when I leave until the Disreputable Cat comes up to comfort him (I peeked in the window). And my step-father has been buried (but I'm reserving a future post for him.) Thank you for all of your kind thoughts.

My favorite at the festival this year

Before I got sick I was going to post all these fabulous pictures of ice sculptures from the Ice Sculpture Festival in the City of the Midnight Sun where I was just before I got ill. I'm still posting them but it feels a little out of sync with the season as the we now have almost 14hours of daylight now and it has gotten above freezing every single day and the pussy willows are bursting from the very top-most branches of the willow trees. However, the ice festival is one of my absolute favorite events in this grand state and I was delighted that I had the excuse to go up there and the time to visit them with friends.

Ice DNA (to scale!!!)

This last photo is not as clear as the others as the camera batteries were getting cold and the lens was fogging up (it was -35F ~ -38C) but it is of an ice slide. A fabulous set of long ice slides that run the length of the hill. Now many respectable adults feel that they shouldn't be using such things but how else, I ask you, does one stay warm when standing around a gallery of ice other then by running up the hill and sliding down on your butt, going so fast that you laugh wildly into the cold air even though you forgot how much catching air on an ice slide would hurt when you came down.

ice slides!

Spring - the first Crocus

Spring is here in Colorado. There may still be as much as 4 to 6 feet of snow on the ground in places and there are still storms ahead of us but the tide has turned. The daylight has reached a point where the snows will not last. The first crocus of the season flowered today in my mother's garden, there are newly born calves slumbering in the ranchers fields, the tips of willows have turned either purple/reddish or bright orange as the sap returns to their limbs to swell the buds, and best of all, the scents of the earth have returned, floating up to our noses once again after having been frozen much of the winter.

I must admit, I find this an early spring. February is a tough month usually in the northern hemisphere. It usually holds the promise of spring without actually seeing it through. It is for all it's short days, often the longest feeling month of the year. The year when the darkness and the snow and the cold presses on us and we wish for green grass and cherry blossoms and long forgotten warm summer afternoons.

This year, February does not affect me so much, partially because on coming south from Alaska in December I sped up the daylight increase in my own life and having gotten quite used to a spring that is not visible until May I am a bit shocked to find evidence of it in February. Delighted but startled. Every year I have always marked the two scent events of the spring, the day I can first smell the sea, and the day I can first smell the earth. The sea is usually scent-able several days, sometimes even weeks, before the earth. There is no sea here but the smell of earth is clear, musty, and damp, and earthy; of humus and mulch and mud.

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For those of you interested in the Yukon Quest, Kyla Boivin finished off the Quest as the Red Lantern winner on Feb 23rd. Good going Kyla!!! You can check out pictures of the Finish Banquet and learn about who won what awards here: http://www.yukonquest.com/site/news-articles/?articleid=1615