First Salmonberry

Yesterday Nora found and picked the first ripe salmonberry of the year.  Maybe a little on the 'underdone' side but ripe enough to make her happy.  This is a little earlier than normal.  In 2016 Nora picked and ate a much riper berry on the 10th of June (click here for post)- and last year Nora picked the first berries on the 17th of July (click here for post).  But in normal years we generally pick the first ripe salmonberry sometime in early July.  Yesterday I also checked the blueberries in Abercrombie and they are not even close to ripe.  It looks like we are right about on schedule for a normal year.  And this is GREAT because the last few years have been whacky - way late last year, way early the year before.  It is good just to have a normal year.
Patrick

Buoy Swing

Yesterday Nora and I took the doggies for a walk in the mist on Russian Ridge.  Nora remembered the buoy swing from a year or so ago, and we climbed down off the normal trail through the wet brush to find it.  It looks like it has seen a lot of use lately and Nora gave it a try - swinging out into foggy wet oblivion high above the wet brush.  It put a HUGE grin on her face.

Later back at the house we checked on the salmonberries and found that a few by our house are starting to turn pink.  With just a few hot and sunny days I think we will have ripe berries by the 4rth of July.  Nora checked on other salmonberry bushes around the neighborhood while on her paper route and reports that the ones at our house are the furthest along.  The ones that bloomed the first by the park entrance are not all that far along.  I guess it is too shady by the park entrance.  Patrick

Garden at the start of summer

The garden has started to kick into high gear.  We have been eating radishes and making salads for a couple of weeks and it looks like pretty soon the garlic will be putting out scapes.  The potatoes seem to get bigger by the day!  Neither the carrots nor the beets germinated very well.  This was good in that I did not have to thin the carrots at all, but bad in that I had to plant more beets in the 'no germination' holes and fear our carrot crop will be a little thin this year.  Some of the kale over-wintered and we have been eating it for over a month.  It also self-seeded and so we will have this year's crop later in the summer.  Of note the kale that over-wintered is far more tender than first year kale.  It seems like almost an entirely different vegetable - much more tender and mild flavored.  Patrick

Kale from last year in front and self-seeded kale at back

Wet Hikes

The last few days have been foggy, misty and very, very wet.  So instead of hiking up to the tops of unprotected hills and mountains, the kids, dogs and I have been hiking the protected trails by the coast or in the trees.  On Tuesday we went half way out Termination Point and yesterday it was Spruce Cape.  I'll admit that I think the dogs have enjoyed the hikes the most, but they have helped all of our moods.  A little exercise in the rain is good for the head.  Patrick

This is not good - graffiti with an Alutiiq flare

Quick Trip

Last weekend I made a quick trip to Anchorage.  I never go to Anchorage in the summer time, and it was very weird to see the place so green and lush.  I have also never gone hiking in Anchorage.  It is a totally different place from Kodiak.

I think my favorite place in Anchorage was amongst the HUGE cottonwood trees.  On Kodiak people collect and carve cottonwood tree bark that we find along the high tide line on the beach.  I have always been a little skeptical that it actually is cottonwood bark because the Kodiak cottonwoods never seem to have such thick bark.  But in Anchorage they do.  Mystery solved!

Patrick

Cottonwood tree bark fit for carving!

Yesterday

There is still enough snow for skiing

Yesterday was a busy day with a different schedule than usual.  Rather than working in the morning and skiing in the afternoon, I did the exact opposite.  After I dropped the kids off at camp I went skiing, and then mowed the lawn and THEN went in to work.  After work the kids and I took the dogs on a walk amongst the wildflowers along the front face of Pillar Mountain.  And once we got home again I did some more lawn mowing.  I got a LOT of lawn to mow.  A very busy day.  Patrick

Deer on the road on the way back from skiing

Wildflowers in the rain

Chocolate Lily

Yesterday it was pretty wet during my afternoon ski - not exactly raining - but there was a heavy mist and everything was saturated with water.  I brought along my camera and took pictures of the wildflowers.  This may well have been my last ski on Pyramid for the year.  Patrick

Dwarf dogwood

Pixie-eyed Primrose

Some worn out yellow anemones

White anemone

Green

As I said in an earlier post, Kodiak is at 'peak green' for the solstice.  Here are some pictures of the plants that make Kodiak such a pretty emerald green - False Hellebore, beach greens, salt grass, ferns and pushki.  

I've been taking a lot of plant pictures because the museum will be putting together a plantlore exhibit in the near future and we will be needing more plant pictures.  I took these ones because they made pretty patterns - they would look good as panels that you could paste text on top of - that's what I was thinking when I took them anyway.  Patrick

The Emerald Isle and Peak Green

Sunday at the top of the run in a whiteout

I am still skiing after work - barely.  On Pyramid there is about a week left for the ski season, and then it will be time to move on to mountain biking and hiking.  There will still be skiing in the high country, but convenient and quick 'after work skiing' will be done.

I took the first three photos below about 10 days ago (June 8th), and if you look at the bottom 4 taken yesterday (June 18th) you see how dramatically Kodiak has greened up.  There is a reason they call Kodiak the 'Emerald Isle'.  But 'peak green' does not last all that long - only for a month or so.  By late July the Pushki is blooming and starting to yellow and die, and then the fireweed explodes.  The hillsides lose the super saturated green of late June and early July.  In August the hillsides are a sort of dusty green at best.

So when the sun comes out - enjoy the peak green!

Patrick

Finishing a run in the blooming swamp violets

I took this one over a week ago, and since then everything has grown about a foot taller!

Campare this picture to the ones above from a week and a half ago

It has gotten GREEN down low in the last week

Yesterday at the top of the run

Only about 3-400 vertical patch of unbroken snow left