Winter in full retreat

It's been raining - It's been raining a lot.  And on the mountain the snow is rapidly receding to the higher elevations.  But once you are up there it is still winter.  There is still a deep snowpack and great downhill skiing.  Sometimes it even snows when it is raining down low.  But winter is most definitely in full retreat.

Pretty soon even on the mountain tops there will be flowers and green slopes.    So I am enjoying the last of winter knowing that pretty soon there will be a big gap of summer and fall before I can ski again.  Patrick

KambuCha

Oddly enough Stuey loves to drink kambucha.  Every time we go to Safeway he has been buying a few bottles.  The stuff is pretty pricy - like more expensive than beer - but hey it is also supposedly super good for you.  So it is behavior that I have encouraged.

And then I thought - why don't I make the stuff?  This could be fun!  And so I did. It turned out to be a long, and pretty involved process.  KambuCha is a fermented drink and you need to get the 'bacteria colony' or 'mother' going.  I had to start from scratch and it took a while to create a healthy 'mother' that could turn my sweet tea into tangy, fizzy kambucha.

I also experimented with various juices and in varying amounts to get the flavoring down.  The photo above is from yesterday, and I think I now got a handle on the whole process.  Starting this week I should be making 12 bottles a week.  And it really is good.  Just like the stuff from Safeway!  And best of all Stuey thought so too!
Patrick

Rainy Day Walks

Here on Kodiak it's been raining for week and is supposed to continue raining for another week.  Yuck.  Rainy weather equates to wet dogs with muddy bellies and paws.  I think the worst part about taking the dogs for walks in the rain is getting home.  I generally leave a towel by the door and there is a lot of commotion while I towel them off before letting them inside.  And inevitably there are still muddy tracks and wet spots on the floors and furniture.

But walks in the rain aren't all bad.  Abercrombie's old growth spruce forest is beautiful in the rain.  Misty fog and dripping moss.  It's a muffled silence with the occasional varied or hermit thrush song. And so so green.  I always come out of the woods calmer than when I went in.

The dogs don't mind the wet and neither do I.

Patrick

The hidden and the Obvious

Tonight I am giving a public lecture about petroglyphs at the Alutiiq Museum.  I've included 2 of the slides from the talk below to whet your appetite.  So if you want to learn about some recent Kodiak petroglyph research come to the museum tonight at 7PM and listen to my talk.
Patrick

Playing Hooky with Stuey

Yesterday I took Stuey out of school early to go skiing.  He got to play hooky with dad.  We had gone skiing all together with Nora over the weekend, but Stuey wanted to go skiing with just me.  And so we did.  Stuey had a great time.  He REALLY likes the downhill part.

And I must say, now that the kids can skin up on their own going skiing with them is fun!  No more hassle carrying stuff all the way up the mountain, and tired kids post holing in soft snow - filling their boots with snow.  Stuey just walked up the mountain on his skis.  Round trip from St Mary's to skiing and then home was 3 hours.  It has gotten easy to take the kids skiing.

Driving back to town after skiing Stuey said that he wants to do this every week.  He also said, 'that was fun - now I see why you want to go up there every day'.  Ah words to warm the heart.

Patrick

New vs Old Waterproof Camera

New Camera a couple of weeks ago

I took all these pictures a few weeks ago (April 24th or so), and looking back it is depressing how much snow we have lost.  And yet, not so much as one would expect at the very top.  Down at the bottom since I took these pictures we have lost ALL our snow.  You now have to hike up to 1200 feet or so before you can put on your skis (the parking lot is at 530 feet).  When I took the pictures I was still able to ski almost to the road.

Anyway, I took the pictures with my old point-and-shoot and with my new waterproof camera (new as of last August).  I wanted to see how the 2 compared.  At first glance the quality does not seem all that different, but a closer look shows that the colors and texture is FAR, FAR better with the new camera.  And that even on the snow with all the light in the world. The difference is clearly apparent when you open them up big and look at the detail.  You can not see much difference on a small screen.

I used to think my old point-and-shoot was as good as anything out there when there was a lot of light.  But clearly that is not true.  Also it is funny but both my cameras, the old and the new, take 16 mega pixel pictures.  It is just that the new camera has a full sensor - so the pixel quality is so much better.  They both have the same number of pixels or dots in each picture, but the new camera has better details in each pixel.  Better quality pixels so to speak.

In the pictures below the areas with no snow are black, grainy blobs in the pictures taken by the old camera while with the new camera you can see the colors and details much better.  Patrick

Old Camera

New camera - my tracks on the North Bowl Wall

Old Camera

North Bowl - new camera

The North Bowl is steep

Last of the Potatoes

Yesterday I took all of the remaining potatoes from the 2017 season out of storage in the barn.  I store them there in old cotton game bags - the bags I used to carry meat home when hunting (hence the word 'game').  The bags breath and keep light off of the potatoes and the technique seems to work well.  My barn or rather shed seems to stay at a pretty constant temperature in the upper 40s.

I picked out the best remaining potatoes and made one pile (above) and the rest I used as my seed crop for the 2018 season.  I planted them in pure beach peat and even had a bunch leftover that I just can't seem to throw away (see below).  We ate a LOT of potatoes this past Winter so it is kind of surprising that I still have so many leftover.

And now the garden is totally planted.  It is time to start mowing the lawn.  Next up weeding!
Patrick

Some of the potato beds with planted potatoes and beach peat and garlic