We are getting packed up and ready to take the boat back to Sitka before we start our regular jobs. Jen will be making up for lost time by flying (a lot) with Alaska Airlines and she'll also be busy supervising me on some of our sailing charters this summer. We leave here around May 1, depending on when the lodge crew arrives and what the weather is doing. As I write this we have boxes everywhere around the lodge and things are a bit cluttered, which makes Jen very cranky. Luckily, we haven't run out of chocolate yet so we are able to manage her temper.
Since everybody has been asking, here is the story about the brown bear that ate Jen's favorite deer, Jo.
There are a lot of deer that have been hanging around the beach in front of the lodge--it's about the only place they can find anything to eat because of all the snow on the ground. Jo was just one of maybe seven or eight deer we would see most days, and apparantly not a part of the larger group of deer that hang together. There are two sets of doe and fawns, but Jo was a fawn on her own. She actually seemed intimidated by the others, and kept to herself.
Here is Jo in happier times. He/she (we think it was a she) was not quite a yearling and often grazed and slept under our boardwalk. We saw her almost every day and Jen usually went out to spend time with her, and Jo was accustomed to Jen getting close to her. Then four or five days went by, and each time Jen went out to look for Jo she was nowhere to be seen--we did notice some ravens and the eagles being very vocal and flying very close to the lodge.
As I was running the snowblower one day, a raven flew out from the Squirrel Tree--a large hemlock that has a very active resident red squirrel. I looked over the snowbank and saw what was left of Jo in the hollow at the base of the tree. I didn't think too much about all the bones showing--after all, the eagles, ravens, martens, and minks had been feeding on her for a few days. Jen was devastated and didn't want me to move the carcass, wanting to leave Jo where she had apparantly curled up to die. That was fine, but the next day I checked on the hollow and Jo was absolutely covered with a huge volume of very fresh bear scat (aka bear shit). The bear wasn't around, but it was time for Jo to have a burial at sea, as bears can become sort of teritorial about their kills, and the squirrel tree is only about 15 yards from the back door of the lodge. We looked back at the first photo Jen shot of Jo's body, and noticed that there was bear scat deposited on her even before this fresh pile.
The snow was too hard for tracks around the hollow, but we found bear tracks in the softer snow around the lodge. The back paws measured 13" in length. We had a bear wander through two winters ago that measured 16" along its prints.
For scale, that is Jen's bootprint on the right (the one with no claw marks at the toes). 
Jo's final ride--she got to go out in the skiff for a burial at sea. Originally we thought that Jo had just succumbed to a hard winter, but after finding the bear sign and moving the carcass, we discovered that her shoulder had been separated--probably by a hungry bear, just waking up from a long winter's nap.
On to a more cheerful topic--our neighbor Christine has been spending the winter in Eugene this year. She sent up a package with early Christmas gifts for next year (She is very organized!). Feral scored big time with a pile of toys and feline accessories, while the humans in the bay cashed in on hand knit custom Christine-style socks. Our friend John, who shovels every deck and set of stairs over at the townsite had snow shovels personalizing his socks!
With the warming temperatures, calmer seas (for the most part), and the opening of some commercial fisheries, we are starting to see more boat traffic in the bay. Our friend Dave Knapp brought his boat around the island for a spring shake-down cruise and stopped by the bay.
The Heuer/Emerick gang flew over to stay in one of the cabins in "town". Here a couple of animals face off before dinner.
We are finally down to bare boardwalks and decks. There is still a lot of snow on the ground, but it is nice not to be walking on snow and ice all the time! Yesterday Jen finally agreed we could take down the boardwalk lights, and now our nights are inky (bear-less?) black.
There are a couple of minks hanging out around the lodge. In fact, one of them tried to live in our battery room off the shop for a while this winter. They don't have very good toilet habits, so I was able to convince him to move back outside by chasing him out and then barricading the door with a hand cart.
To make up for having to rough it outside, we sometimes leave a few food scraps out for him and the martens.
We put some bacon grease out on the deck which was whisker-lickin' good. The minks, martens, and even a red squirrel all enjoyed taking a few bites before moving on with their usual routines, until the Mink Dawg got smart and picked up the whole thing and disappeared under the deck.
Now you know why we call this Deerborne Alley, off the I-5 Corridor. There is actually a Dearborn Street and exit in Seattle off the I-5 freeway.
The Trumpeter Swans have been moving through. We've seen a group of three, a group of six and a group of 23 either swimming around the bay or flying overhead.
And of course we see Bald Eagles just about any time we look for them.
We will be leaving the bay for Sitka in a couple of weeks. That gave us a problem, because my skiff is stored on the ground by one of the guest cabins. I had to take the snowblower out a few times to snowblow a path into it, much like Deerborne Alley. We still haven't launched the skiff, as it hasn't quite melted out of the snow, but we are just waiting now for the right day.
Because the crew cabins are buried in snow, I also took a snowblower up there to try to clear the snow around them. When the crew gets here around May 1, at least they will be able to open the doors which were almost buried with snow.
Feral coming home after checking out the snowblowing job I did at the crew cabins.
Here she is going past "Jo Hollow"--look out for bears, Feral!
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