My Tiny Christmas Tree

 

My Christmas tree this year was pretty small.  I first saw it from the car and noted it was dense and the perfect shape.  So I parked the car and checked it out.  It looked small, but I remembered that in the past that they alway look small in the field and then you can barely fit them in the car.  So I cut her down and brought her back to the car - and even in the car she was tiny.

Back at the house, I put her in water and puts some lights on.  Since she is a small tree she was easy to set up and decorate.  Of course Bodi and Red kept on stealing the blanket base cover to play with outside.  They'd rip it right out from under the tree.  A big tree would have toppled over and there would have been a big mess, but not with the small tree.

The tree lit up the living room and made it cozy and 'Christmassy'.  Mission accomplished.

Patrick

High tide at the Buskin - I have never seen it this high!

All lit up at night

Sunset light on way home from skiing

It's tiny when there is some perspective!

Brook's group selfie in a whiteout

Tree with Bodi in there

The last sunny day of the year?

 

It's been pretty much rain and snow for the last week, and, after yesterday it is supposed to be more rain and snow through to New Year's Day.  But yesterday it was sunny.  The skiing was terrible but it was sunny.  And sunshine does work wonders.

In the days prior to yesterday the skiing has been pretty good but the visibility poor.  Deep slushy snow in a blinding blizzard.  Then on Monday night it froze and turned to ice on high and breakable crust down low. And the sun came out.  So Stuey and I headed up to Pyramid to ski with the cousins.

It really is amazing how much snow we got in the last week.  Just a week ago on the Solstice (Wednesday), just before the storm I went skiing on Pyramid and it was so thin and icy with sticks and rocks poking up that I walked from mid jibber the rest of the way down.  Now there is a solid and very dense 3 feet of new snow in the jibber.  WOW!

Fingers crossed that we get more.

Patrick

White day before Christmas

 

Today it is Christmas and it is raining and howling outside.  It's still dark but when I looked out at the yard it seems like we lost most of our snow.  But just 24 hours ago it was a winter wonderland.  We woke up to a blizzard of dry snow.  Enough snow that we had to shovel around the cars.  

The kids and I took a walk with the dogs in Abercrombie and all the spruce trees were mantled in dry snow.

In the afternoon, Nora and I picked up cousin Brooks and drove up to the pass to go skiing.  It even miraculously cleared off for a bit.  It was a rare day of Kodiak powder skiing. I'm glad we went yesterday because it is ugly today! My best present came a day early.

Merry Christmas!

Patrick

Some new snow

 

Yesterday it was supposed to rain and then snow, but in the morning on the SAT photo you could see the polar high over the Alaska mainland bulging to the south and over Kodiak.  It was pretty obvious, despite the forecast, that we were in for some cold and clear skis.  And but the time I left work at 1PM it was already sunny and well below freezing.  Time to go skiing!

Nora and I raced up to the pass, and found that it had snowed quite a bit overnight.  I'd gone skiing in the middle of the storm on Thursday - so I knew we had 1/2 foot or so at least in the Jibber bowl.  But there was a lot more than that and even good snow at the road.

Up on high we met up with Uncle Dicky and cousins Brooks and Zeke, and did a couple laps of the jibber bowl.  The light was spectacular, all the brush and trees spackled with new snow, and the skiing far better than expected. We hit it just right.

On the way home Nora commented, 'I'm always in a better mood after skiing'.  So true.  And we caught the sunset at Deadmans Curve.  

Patrick

Bodi and the Eagle

 

Just before the storm I was skate skiing on Lake Catherine with Stuey and Bodi (Red was with Nora) and there was an eagle perched in a willow tree.  We were doing loops around the lake and he/she just sat and watched. The eagle was perched above where a creek runs into the lake and it is a good place for spawning salmon.  The eagle was probably hoping for something to eat.

On about the 4rth lap past the eagle Bodi and I went a little closer.  She was not perturbed at all and just looked at us.  Bodi looking at the eagle reminded me of the Aesop Fable where the fox steals the crow's cheese.  Except in our case the eagle couldn't be bothered to talk to us - the only movement was a turn of the head.

And so we left her there and chased off after Stuey who had gotten ahead on the lap.  On the next lap when we passed by again she was still there - watching us.

Patrick

Red's Uncle Hank

 

Yesterday Red got to go on a walk with her uncle Hank. Hank is an English lab just like our dearly departed Tank. And back in the day when we met Hank on walks through the park he was just like a mini Tank.  So when I decided I wanted another English lab I asked Hank's owner where they got him.  And so we went to the same breeder and got Red.  

On yesterday's hike Red is now the mini Hank and Hank is Tank's doppelgänger.  It's actually kind of eery how much Hank resembles old Tank - and not just the very similar names! I don't think Hank felt any familial tenderness towards Red, but it was fun to see them run around.  Occasionally Hank would turn around and tell Red with a bark not to follow him.

Of course during all of this Bodi felt a little left out.  No one was interested in good old super mutt Bodi, and we were trying to shoo him out of the pictures. Then near the end of the walk I saw Red running closely behind Bodi and doing their pack dog thing.  Bodi is Red's best friend in the whole world.

Patrick

Bird Count 2022

 

My count day Rock Ptarmigan

Sunday was the annual Audubon Christmas bird count.  The day all the local birders try to find and count all the birds near town.  Every year Kodiak is in the running for recording the most species of birds of any count in Alaska.  So it is a big deal to try and find every species.  One of the hard ones to get is the ptarmigan.  This is because they are only found in the alpine.  So every year on count day there are a few locals tasked with climbing into the mountains and finding a ptarmigan.  I'm usually one of those locals.

I've been a part of the Christmas bird count for about 25 years, and back in the day I always got my ptarmigan.  But the last few years I've failed a few times. So this year I climbed up Pyramid a few times in the week before the count to see if there were any Ptarmigan up there.  On Wednesday and Thursday I saw ptarmigan in the same spot.  So come count day I was pretty hopeful that they would be there again.  

So the morning of the count I climbed up there and the sun was shining.  Then just as I reached the alpine it started to snow HARD.  I wandered around for a bit and no ptarmigan or even any fresh tracks.  On a whim I tried croaking like a ptarmigan.  Bodi looked at me like I was crazy.  And then a ptarmigan flew out of the falling snow and did a pass by and landed.  I got the top photo just before Bodi chased him off.

Patrick