Feral Takes A Boat Ride To Town

In March, Feral and Jen hitched a ride to town with the Youngs for a visit with the vet.  We have been having trouble getting Feral to eat and she has lost a lot of weight.  Unfortunately, it turns out that Feral is undergoing kidney failure at 16 years of age.  She and Jen flew back to the lodge on a float plane and we've been enjoying our time with her ever since.  She isn't in any pain, isn't enthusiastic about eating, but still seems to enjoy life and has her frisky moments.

Jen and Feral hitching a ride to town on a beautiful spring day!

Thanks Mark and Dawn!

Rick got left on the dock.

Fishing along the way.

Winter King!!!

Feral out for a spring stroll.

Headed back to the lodge!

With her support staff.

Heading back to the lodge along the boardwalk.

Reviewing the anatomy of a chicken!

Feral on watch! (We've got a pretty nice view here).

We call this "Feral's Perch" on the deck rail.

Reflecting on life....

Eagles and Friends!

Here are some random photos of birds and other wildlife around the lodge.

Hanging out on a dock piling!

These Trumpeter Swans stopped by on their migration north.

We often see harbor seals cruise by in front of the lodge.

A female common merganser stretching her wings.

On a rainy day, this eagle grabbed something in the water and headed right for the lodge.

We see this regularly when the eagle's prey is too large to fly with.

They rarely come out of the water close to the lodge.

So we were disappointed when he came out right in front of the deck empty-talonned!

This eagle missed his prey and flew on.

Another miss!

Flying back to the beach.

Chuck's Visit

Our friend Chuck often comes to the lodge from Portland to visit us.  This year, he tried to come see us in February.  The day he was supposed to fly over from Sitka, it was 14 degrees and blowing 45 kts.  He waited for flying weather patiently in Sitka for four days before finally flying home.  The next day it was beautiful flying weather.

He rescheduled for April and had a great day to fly over the top from Sitka!

Finally made it!

Some of groceries that had been waiting in Sitka since Chuck's February attempt!

John came over to get his mail and some groceries that came over on Chuck's plane.

While John and Chuck were here, I pressed them into service to help me adjust the ramp down to the dock.

What a day!

Chuck helped me snare a volunteer log.

The ramp on a minus 3 foot tide.

I guess I'm going to have to work on my left hand position!

Dueling Fiddles!

Snowshoeing to Sadie Lake

We had more clear, cold weather than we typically do this winter.  We ended up with about 4 feet of snow.  That sounds like a lot until you remember that our big year was 37 feet and we used to always get 15 to 20 feet.  We now keep a patch of snow on the deck we call our "village white".

The boardwalk out to "The Point", one of the lodge's cabins.

We snowshoed over to the townsite where we met up with John and Jeanne.

At the townsite.

Heading up to Sadie Lake with John and Jeanne and the shadow of Jen's head.

The trail goes through the woods in places and without a lot of snow we had a lot of bushwhacking to do.

A lot of the hike goes through the muskeg--which was frozen solid under the snow.

Lunch Time!

The trail became problematic after lunch, so we decided to head back.  (The problem was that we couldn't find the trail!)

Headed downhill.

Although we couldn't find Sadie Lake, we did manage to find Baranof Lake!

Documenting our discovery.

The Baranof River (normally raging down to the waterfall) was very low and sedate!

Sunset back at the lodge!