Too warm

Lately Kodiak has been bizarrely warm.  And, of course, the East Coast has been cold.  This kills me.

I see pictures of winter on the internet and read complaints about it.  They should enjoy what they got because we certainly don't have it here.  It's so warm it feels like we might not get winter ever.  I even noticed that my strawberries are blooming and producing fruit.  These are outside plants!

It seems a jet has set up from Hawaii that is blasting up into Alaska and driving all our cold air down into the Midwest and lower 48.  And it looks like it might be doing it a lot this winter.  So all winter I'll read these complaints from the Lower 48 about what is essentially a normal winter.

Meanwhile up here in Alaska it is like what happened in 'The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe' in reverse.  Rather than winter all the time and no Christmas (Heaven if you ask me), here we got no winter and Christmas coming up in a couple of months.  A brown Christmas with no icicles.

Can you imagine the east coast media if it snowed in New York City in July?  That's the sort of bizarre weather we are getting here in Alaska.  Winter is supposed to be cold - not warm enough to grow strawberries outside.  Patrick

Intrepid Dog Brewster

On Monday after work it was raining pretty hard, but I noticed the car thermometer showed the outside temperature at 43.  I thought, 'Maybe it is snowing on Pyramid'.  And so I went home and got the dogs and climbed on up to check.  It was a wet and windy climb, but low and behold we got up to 1500 feet and the rain was mixed with snow - and then at 1800 feet it was all snow and starting to stick!

Whooo hoooo snow on Pyramid!

Of course yesterday when I got off work the car thermometer said 46 - no chance of snow on Pyramid at that temperature.  Patrick

Near Island in the rain

It was a rainy weekend. I actually can not remember the last weekend when it was sunny!  That stretch in August where we went almost a month without rain seems so long ago!  These days it feels like the sun may never shine again - while back in August we were worried that Kodiak would dry up and blow away.

Anyway, instead of climbing up a mountain the kids, dogs and I went for a hike on Near Island.  Rather than do our usual hike at the far end of the Island, this time we started at the UAF Fishtech Center and hiked around the North End of the Island.  I checked on the site we dug at 2 summer ago (healed up nicely), and we walked out to one of my favorite places - the very north tip of the island.  It is a cliffy little promontory.  A tunnel through the spruce trees opens up onto a grassy little knoll with cliffs all around.  Patrick

Indoor activities

Lately it has been raining here a lot.  Consequently there have been a lot of indoor activities - blocks, puzzles, books, and 'the food challenge'.

Nora and Stuey and their friend Elias have been making videos of what they call the food challenge (click here for link).  Basically one kid mixes up a really gross selection of sauces from the fridge and dares the other kid to eat it.  The loser has to pay the winner money.  each player also gets to pick 3 ingredients that can not be used.  I think fish sauce is one of the ingredients no one likes.

Click the link above to see one of the video, and if you really want to make Stuey happy subscribe to his channel.  Patrick

Fog in the trees

It's been raining a lot of late here in Kodiak.  Like hard rain every day.  I would not mind the rain if it was not so warm too.  As Nora put it, 'just a few degrees colder bandit would be snow on Pyramid - right?'  Unfortunately, I think it needs to be a bit colder than it has been of late - like maybe 5 degrees Celsius colder - for it to snow on the top of Pyramid.

But despite the fog and rain, it is always beautiful under the trees during my dog walks to Abercrombie.    All the moss is bright green and there are still a few bright yellow salmonberry leaves to brighten things up.  Patrick

Sunbeams and happy dogs

Clearly these pictures are not from this weekend!  It's pouring this morning (Monday) and rained all day  Saturday and Sunday too.  It rained most of last week too - but Thursday evening, just in time for Halloween, it cleared up and the sun came out.  Friday was a sunny day.  These pictures are from Thursday afternoon.

The sunbeams in the park were spectacular because it had been raining and the air was full of moisture that caught the light.  I tried to take pictures of it but it was pretty hard to capture.  Patrick

Halloween and harvest home

Thursday night was Halloween, and Stuey and I did the usual neighborhood trick-or-treat routine down Cliffside Road.  This year Nora decided to stay at the house and it about killed me.  Are the kids getting too old for trick or treating?  Yikes!  I guess it will not be before the kids get to college and start in on the adult Halloween parties.

Even Stuey started out a little 'unexcited', but after meeting all our neighbors and filling up a bag with candy he perked up.  Everybody was waiting for us, and related how we are generally their only trick-or-treaters. Stuey caught the Halloween excitement and even went out again with some friends from downtown to hit another neighborhood.

Earlier in the day I harvested the last of the veggies from my garden.  I still have kale and even some decrepit peas - but the carrots and beets were the last of the root vegetables.  I was surprised how many carrots and beets there were in the tiny bed.  I almost filled up a 5 gallon bucket!  Stuey will have carrots with his lunch for a few more months!
Patrick