A Beaver's Life

I went down to the boats to bail them out this evening since it rained pretty hard all day. Every morning for probably a couple weeks now, I've had a friendly discussion with a local beaver I've dubbed Mr. Beaver, usually consisting of "Don't you let me hit you." I"d hate to accidentally hit one with my prop. And then I'm off to work. I don't see him when I come home.

This evening I discover that he'd brought Mrs. Beaver over likely touting the lush feed and quiet water that's clear farther up. I'm sure he even warned her about the noisy neighbor (me) that showed up briefly every morning. It's certain she had her doubts, but she was there to check things out.

Enter said noisy neighbor to splash water out of her boat. Within a few minutes, Mrs .Beaver stuck her nose up in the air and left. Mr. Beaver decided to stick it out, likely thinking to give her a little time to cool down and think things over.

I'd decided to bail out the rest of the boats even though they were still sitting on the ground - the water was getting high though nothing was floating yet. Mr. Beaver decided to chew on a juicy stick scarcely a boat length's distance from me as I bailed out a second boat, but when I moved closer to bail out the last boat, talking to him as I moved about, he decided to join his lady friend. A few minutes later I heard them chattering to each other. In my head they were saying something like this:

Mrs. Beaver: You said it only showed up in the morning. You said it wasn't a bad neighbor.

Mr. Beaver: It has always been very polite and quickly leaves every morning. It's not a bad neighbor. Come on back inside, baby. I'm sure we can find us the perfect place to raise our kits.

Mrs. Beaver: That's all you guys ever think about, building a new house and having kits.

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Ice, Ice, and More Ice

Where is my snow? It seems to have been misplaced over New York and surrounding countryside, and wherever, but most certainly not here. Instead, we get, of all things RAIN.

Things were going so good too. Back in mid October sometime we got our first skiff of snow, pretty much right on time so I was happy. It was just a little bit and water in the river was still going down, but I was certainly happy. Then there was a cold stretch where temps averaged in the single digits and maybe into the teens, possibly warming up into the twenties during the day. Frost heaves began to show up along the trail, and I must admit, it’s fun crunching them down. I never get them all; sometimes they’re just too thick and hard.

Not long after that first dusting of snow, after it had almost evaporated away, we got another dusting of snow, and in the mean time every tree limb and blade of grass, and absolutely everything in between became coated with a thick frost. It was really quite pretty out there. I should have charged my camera and taken pictures.

The river went down to it’s lowest and ice grew across it more and more each time I went down there. Someone posted on Facebook a short video of what it sounds like when you throw a rock across the ice. It really is a rather amazing sound, so I went down to the river and did it myself. My ice was thicker and that sounds becomes less spectacular with the thicker ice. It’s still awesome. I never walked out on it though. I don’t trust that ice until I’m certain it’s thick enough.

Then comes this massive storm swirling into the gulf. Everyone is certain that it’s every bit as big as the nasty storm that hit the upper east coast a few years ago; the storm that very nearly rearranged the beaches and businesses all along there with massive flooding and super high winds. Our storm wasn’t so spectacular. There were some winds I guess, but next to no damage – at least nothing that made the news. Here? Next to nothing at all. In fact it was a very non-wind that surprised me. Always there’s some kind of breeze, but it was quiet. Quiet before the storm is what I expected so we waited.

And we waited.

And it warmed up.

And then it started to rain. Rain? In Alaska? In November? I was completely insulted.

I happened to be taking a nap when the first rain hit, and I remember thinking I should have my empty buckets in back catching the runoff, but I also figured my buckets would also get covered with ice (messy) and surely it wouldn’t rain for long and it would turn into snow soon.

Surely it would.

It didn’t.

I broke down and put my buckets in back. I made the mistake and allowed it to wait overnight and the next day (no rain), so I had to use hot water to get my water/ice out of my buckets. When I was finished with that project, I brought in two buckets full of rainwater. Far more than I expected. Figuring it was all done, I once again lined my buckets out front in wait for the next snowstorm. But what happened next?

It rained.

I was wakened by rain hitting the roof early in the morning so I got up and once again put my buckets out back to catch what came. That night (not waiting this time), I brought in two buckets + of rainwater. This time I left my buckets where they were, but it doesn’t look like I’ll be catching any more rain. Yesterday there were blue streaks in the sky upon occasion, and today the sky looks all blue.

The rain did make a royal mess though. My days started out around 35F, just above freezing, barely, and maybe warmed up ten or so degrees during the day. Warm enough to rain, but not warm enough for the ground to thaw, not even a little bit. Every drop that hit the ground added a layer of ice to the surface. Things up off the ground less so, but only because the water could quickly run down to a lower resting place. Anywhere it was still for more than a moment, it froze.

I walked down to the river yesterday on a trail that was utterly coated with ice. I can’t tell for sure, but I wouldn’t be surprised if all the hollow frost-heaved places were now full of water, especially if they were spots were I’d broken through the top. I saw enough frozen puddles in such locations to make me believe that. Places covered with leaves were coated with a glass of ice as each leaf held its drops in place as well as between where the leaf touched the one beneath it. Now filled up to the point of only the highest points protruded above the level of ice.

The place where I normally turn the four-wheeler around down there was an ice skating rink. It was still brown, but it was coated thick with glass-clear ice who knows how think – it didn’t break under my weight, which, considering it’s fairly soft sand, it might have if the ice was less thick. It was so clear I could clearly see all the birch seeds that had fallen during the course of the progressing winter.

As I was coming back, I noticed that my footprints looked as if I’d walked through flour first – clear white prints marked where I’d stepped. This was caused by my crushing all those bits of leaf and grass that had protruded above the ice – everything encrusted with ice, now shattered to dust. I had stepped in those places to take advantage of the traction the protruding vegetation provided. Believe me, there were places where there was no such traction offered. Those places were polished slick and I had to be very careful.

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Spring is in the Air

For the last few days, there's been a light haze in the sky. Not enough to call clouds, but more than perfectly clear skies. This time of year, clouds have a different effect than you might think. They're rather like a blanket for the Earth. No clouds is rather like trying to sleep without any blankets at night - all the heat that may have accumulated during the day simply goes away during the night. Clouds will hold some of that heat in, at least until the sun comes out again. But it always has the opposite effect during the day, shielding the surface from much of heat of the sun. In the end, without clouds, nights are colder and days are warmer. For some time now, it has been 5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit (-12 to -15C) in the morning when I got up and reached nearly into the 40s F (5 to 10C) by mid-afternoon. With clouds, over the last three days, it has barely frozen at night, and only reached mid 30 during the day.

These warming days set other things in motion. I'll be going to work come June and I need to make some effort to getting ready for that. The hardest part is getting up earlier in the morning. Being 'solar powered' like I always say, it's hard for me to get up in the dark, but the days are now longer than the nights, not by much but still longer, so getting up earlier is easier. Still, if I don't go to bed earlier, getting up earlier really sucks. So I set my alarm every morning, but since I don't HAVE to get up - well you know how it works. I'm getting better though, slowly.

I've also taken up my walks again, and kudos to me, I do 20 leaning push-ups off a tree at the river. Can I keep that up? I think so. It's not much really, but it's something.

This morning I got up to snowflakes, but it didn't even accumulate half an inch, and it was all gone by this afternoon. There's still 2 feet of snow out there, but over the last few days, another step became visible out front. I've also started to accumulate buckets of water. I collect snow to drink and this winter, a bucket has equaled a third and more recently, a half a bucket of water. So I let it melt, and now I'm consolidating. When I get eight buckets filled with water, I'll keep filling the last four with snow as they empty until I run out of snow or until it starts to rain, whichever happens first. Speaking of which, I need to check to see if there's room under the eves in back for the buckets. 

At work, it is my hope that I'll be able to do my advertising and maybe some writing during the afternoons when everyone else takes a nap. Napping is something I've been told to do, and I probably will at times, but sleeping while I'm at work just doesn't feel right. I've spent 12 years thinking that while I'm at work, I'm 'on the clock', and I always felt guilty even stopping for lunch. Previous housekeepers have been in-house employees so they had a cabin to retire to for those long afternoons. Since I go back and forth to home, the housekeeper's cabin has been assigned to other employees this summer, leaving me without someplace to sleep, so I'm going to take my computer to work and see what I have time to do. They have internet; I'll have to see if I can do my advertising there, but if not, at least I'll have quiet to write. I also might do things in the kitchen like canning whatever fish they catch for me, or baking some cookies or bread. There will be empty guest cabins from time to time, so I'll be able to sneak a nap once in a while. We'll have to see how things develop.

Last summer, the last three weeks of the season, I had four books here that I could sell. With the lodge being primarily Swiss, the last thing I expected was to sell books. This summer, I anticipate having six books here, or I will as soon as I can get them here; the mail hasn't been cooperating this winter in that regard, and with luck, there might even be another one here by the end of summer - I hope so. Last summer there was room for a couple of my books at a time in the little rack where they have folders and papers displayed. I guess this year I'm going to have to drum up a bookend so I can have them on the end of the counter, or maybe I'll come up with a better idea.

Sigh, the days will be LONG, but summer is short. I can do this. Soon enough, I'll be back here at home annoying all you fans with my book covers.

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Snow vs Rain

So what's with the weather these days? It seems like Mother Nature can't make up her mind what to do with all the precipitation. Last year (September, 2012) she dumped inches and inches of rain, causing the rivers to crest over their banks by several feet, doing quite a bit of damage in the neighborhood.

This last fall, she tried again only it was later, in October, when the rivers were mostly empty. The water made it over the bank but not by much, enough to float the boats sitting there, but only just. Not satisfied, she tried again with less success. I guess she was just trying to do a little house cleaning.

Anyway, whenever it rains like that in the fall, I wonder if it's all going to come down as rain, or if there will be something left over for snow. There always has been, but you know how it can be. This year, that might be the case. This year, there's only about two and a half feet of snow, compared to the normal five or so feet.

But snowfall, or the seemingly lack of it, isn't the only oddity. Over the last few years, it seems that the winters have been getting colder, or the cold spikes have been getting longer, however you want to look at it.

What I used to consider normal was temperatures ranging from -10F (-23C) to +20 (-6C) with the occasional cold spikes down to -20 to -25F (-29 to -32C). Sometimes these cold spikes happen in November but nearly every year they happen in February, lasting only a few days, maybe a week at the most.

I no longer know what normal is. Those cold spikes now last sometimes weeks, though still centered around November and February. Average temps now hang around minus something, and occasionally it will warm up to 0F (-18C) or so and drop some dry snow. This winter, it has warmed up to above freezing and actually rained - twice - how depressing.

But the weather, the temperature, isn't much of an issue - it is what it is, it's the lack of snow that's really making things inconvenient around here. For us to get on and off the river, we need to shovel in a ramp. It's like shoveling a ramp down from your second story balcony. Two feet of snow on the ground for some distance around, both at the top and at the bottom, got us our ramp, but it's kind of steep.

Another issue of lack of snow, is being able to drive through the woods to get firewood. Elders and other bushes average around 4 feet high. Normally, snow weighs them down and covers them over and driving over them isn't hard. There's not enough snow for that yet.

And the rain. Poor trees. The high humidity + the very cold temperatures caused frost to cover all the trees. No problem and really rather pretty. Snowfall sticks to the frost and coats every branch, making them look all pretty and white, still no real problem. The wind blows and knocks most of it out of the trees and they're fine, but add rain to the mix and suddenly you have these snow-coated branches, and now that snow becomes saturated with water. It freezes and the wind won't dislodge much of it. The first bout of rain was bad enough but it hasn't snowed much since then, some fine dry stuff most of which sifted away, but not all. Now it's rained again, quite a bit actually, maybe a quarter of an inch of water in the bottom of the buckets I had outside. Now all the young birch trees and thin branches are bowed hard over.

This morning, when I was out in the rain packing trails and such, I heard a tree somewhere back of the house break. I'm pretty sure it was just a branch or maybe the top of a small spruce tree. I couldn't see it and it wasn't a big sound as if a whole tree had fallen. If it stays warm, and maybe a wind blows some of that will be knocked loose, but the warm will cause new issues. Overflow on the river. We need to pack a runway, and day before yesterday overflow was already showing up out there. It's going to make packing a runway very difficult. It really needs to get cold again. If we pack a runway like this it would be ruined, leaving ruts that will freeze and never smooth out. Ruts in a runway might damage a plane, if not cause landing problems.

So yeah, blame the rain on me cause I was wishing for more snow, now I want it to get cold again. I guess I'm not much different from Mother Nature. I need to make up my mind. hahahahaha

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After Work

Is there such a thing? Sometimes I wonder. It hasn't even been a week yet and I'm still trying to catch up here at home. Having 2 days of drenching rain hasn't helped but I'm making a dent, I think.

Yesterday, I organized the woodshed and now there's room for the big weed-eater and the lawn mower, and still enough room to walk back to the wood. Still some work to do in there though. I've even taken a small stab at the shop but that's mostly just a by-product of needing to find a place for the things I put in there from the woodshed. Doing things like sorting out the nails and putting nuts and bolts into coffee cans instead of leaving them rattling around in the bottom of bad boxes or broken tubs made a huge difference in both places.

Today, I burned those old boxes, and boy, was that a chore. It was raining so hard, the boxes were getting wet before they could catch fire. I managed to get most of them anyway. I'll be burning again in a day or two so I'll see what's left from this time. Even though I wore my Riversong rain jacket, I was drenched by the time I came back in. I guess it's not as waterproof as I thought.

What with all the rain we've been having, we've been concerned about the boats. We pulled my boat, the last one, last Wednesday, the day after my last day of work. I had to paddle it into the slough where we park because the water was too low. I ended up poling my way in; the narrowness didn't give me much room to hit water on the sides and there wasn't much water under the boat anyway. Enough to float it but that's all.

As of this evening, there has been enough rain over the last 2 days to bring the water level clear up level with the bank again. What took a come-along and an extra length of rope (about 10 feet) last Wednesday could have been done by hand this evening, well almost anyway.

It stopped raining around 4 this evening and there was even a tiny window of sunshine, but I'm sure the river won't catch up with all the rain-fall until tomorrow morning sometime. I hope the water doesn't go up a lot more, but I'm about as prepared for it as I can be. The plugs are all in and the anchors are all out. The fuel won't be in any danger unless the water comes up another six feet or so. It's happened before. I don't look forward to it.

April Showers Bring...

I stepped outside my door yesterday morning and realized that there was a sizable spot of bare ground out there, off to the side of the main trail to the steps. In front of the steps there's still an inch or two of ice - don't worry, it's not slippery, it's too pitted to be slippery.

Now that's not the first bare ground to show up; the first one was under the exhaust of the generator, which sits on top of the doghouse. Putting it there for the winter is tons easier than trying to keep a hole dug out for it on the ground, and the exhaust keeps the snow 'down wind' melted to a distance of roughly three or four feet and the top of the doghouse is easy to scrape off.

Back to the real melted spot. So far it is the only spot of bear ground that I know of. I'm sure there are more. Places like under the big spruce trees always have less snow and at the rate of melt I'm sure the bare ground around those trees is growing daily. I also saw that the four-wheeler no longer has snow on top of it, but the snow around it is still every bit as deep as the four-wheeler is tall - around waist deep there, give or take a few inches.

Other trails: the trail down to the fuel drums now looks like a trail in new snow, if you ignore the dirt darkening the snow in that trail. You see, the new snowfall we had a little while ago is still white, but where it was disturbed the dirt underneath was found by the sun that has been shining for weeks nice and warm every day. The darkness of the dirt absorbs the sun's heat and melts the snow faster than the white of new snow, so since the trail down to the fuel drums is pointed primarily in the same direction as rays of the at it's hottest, it had become a bit of a trench. The trail to the outhouse or the freezer are both sideways to that source of heat and so are melting sideways. The said dirt, visible in all trails, melts the snow to the side, each fleck of dirt moving to the north a tiny bit every day, thus creating a false trail, so to speak. Now, if I were to walk where the trail appears like it should be, I would quickly be wading in snow that is still more than knee deep. However, walking on the packed part of the trail isn't easy. It too has been 'burned' sideways by the angle of the sun's rays. Yeah, it's interesting walking around out there these days.

Last night, it started raining, and it is raining still, now the clock around. I know 'rain' means many different thing to different people. If you live in Texas, rain comes down in buckets and can cause flash floods, an interesting detail found only occasionally in western novels. Here such a goose-drowner happens only once in a great while. Our normal rain is sure to get a stroller wet, and driving an open boat in the rain is highly unpleasant but all in all, it's rather pleasant if you don't have to be out in it.

The rain, nice as it might be, does complicate my problem with walking around outside. Since it didn't freeze last night, and likely won't again tonight, getting to the fuel drums for my little can of gas might be interesting. I may have to plan on wet feet tomorrow morning. Then again, it may work out better than I think it will. I like little surprises like that.

Now that the rains are falling and the nights aren't freezing, one more step towards spring has been covered. That's not to say there won't be more freezing nights but they are numbered I'm sure. Any time now I'll be seeing small flecks of green and I'm not talking about the perma-green trees.