For the Birds!

We saw our first Trumpeter swan of the season moving through the bay last week. We weren't able to get any photos because our skiff 's control cables were frozen and our resident photographer refused to snowshoe over to the falls where the swan was hanging out.

We do have large flocks of resident seabirds and a few other individuals consider the lodge their territory.

This mixed group is mostly male and female Barrow's Goldeneye and Surf Scoters.

This Bald Eagle was giving his cry from the top of a snowy hemlock tree.

This Great Blue Heron hangs out around the lodge.

We often see the Heron's tracks after he takes an early morning circuit of the dock.

The Mergansers don't seem to be bothered much by our cold weather.

This immature Bald Eagle was drying his wings out after our snowstorm.

Our Belted Kingfisher has been hanging around the lodge all winter.

I know that Sitka Blacktail deer are not birds, but we've had a lot of them around the lodge the last couple of weeks. This one's name is Ringo because of the white ring around his muzzle. There is also a smaller deer hanging around we call Pee Wee. There have also been a few other deer working their way through the grounds that Jen hasn't been able to photograph.

Spring Visitors

It's March and the time of year we start to get more boats coming into the bay as fishing seasons are getting closer. People and boats are moving around, getting ready for summer.

Chase and Hillary Bell are back in Alaska after their honeymoon in Thailand, and stopped by the bay on their way back from False Island to Petersburg.

Chase bought this big landing craft last summer in Kotzebue and barely made it back to Sitka in time for their wedding in September. I can't pronounce the 14-letter Inuit name of the boat, but it will be called Lituya as soon as the paperwork comes through.

Trevor and his crew stopped by on the Afognak, which is a tender, heading from Petersburg to Sitka for the herring opening. A tender is a boat that offloads fish from the fishing boats, then delivers that fish to the processors, allowing the fishing boats to continue fishing in their current location.

I realize how small Sailboat Bob is when a big boat like the Afognak ties up to the dock!

Trevor brought an unexpected surprise--Lizzie sent a replacement popcorn popper since our popper's top was melted in an unfortunate American Idol incident.

The Afognak left the next day during our snowstorm.

And that same night Jim came in with the Kupreanof. Jen's not happy with this photo, but she just ran out and snapped it as Jim went by the lodge.

We still cut some firewood on the days between snowstorms. Jen is happy when it's warm and dry in the lodge. And when Jen is happy.....Rick is happy!

Random February photos

My goal was to post to this blog every week or two, but somehow it's been a month (the shortest month) since I've added anything. Jen just gave me a thumb drive of photos, so I'm just going to put then up randomly.

This is a snag on the point across Sadie Creek from the lodge. A definite eagle hang out!

Here's the same point under the snag.

And the same eagle who just grabbed a piece of freezer-burned hamburger off the dock, dropped it in the water, and then circled around and picked it up again before it sank out of reach.

Some mergansers cruising by.

Shoveling snow on a warm morning.

Jen shot me from the bedroom window (upstairs).

We've had a lot of very cold weather in February (lows in the low teens, highs around 20) which causes ice to form around the edge of the bay. It also caused our running water in the lodge to freeze up as well as the drains. (They're still frozen)

This is what happens to a hot air popper if somebody leaves it on too long while they're watching American Idol.

This is how you fix the melted top of a hot air popper if you're living in the wilderness and don't have access to a hardware store or Costco. We are actually using the melted base with a modified plastic oil container screwed onto it and a baseball cap to deflect popcorn into the bowl. There's a quality control inspector keeping an eye on things on the left side of the popper.

We snowshoed up to Baranof Lake (just to the left of the tracks) on one of the many cold, clear days we've had.

Here's the view of Warm Springs Bay, Chatham Strait, and Admiralty Island from an overview above Baranof Lake. I know you've seen it before, but we never get tired of it!

A snowshoer and a snowshoer supervisor.

Feral enjoying some sunshine on the deck.

And since she's on the deck, she'll also enjoy a little lick of bacon grease.

We have a ramp to bring the snowblower up to the deck, but it's a pretty tight turn at the top.

We're out in the skiff on our way to shovel off the remote floathouse.

Schooner Cove, where the floathouse is anchored was all iced in.

We backed out once, then decided we could make it if we went slowly.

It was at about this point that Feral decided she could make better time jumping out of the skiff and running on the ice. She did just that, and the ice was too thin for us to chase her on foot. If you look at the upper lefthand corner you'll see a small area of open water. She made a beeline in that direction and it was there that she fell through thin ice into the water. What seemed like an hour actually took about a minute of maneuvering the skiff to get to her while she flailed and splashed, grabbing at ice that wouldn't support her weight....Jen is going to give you full details in a separate post--see "Feral Bueller's Ice Capades".

On our way back to the lodge to warm up a wet, cold cat!

This looks like a female goldeneye doing an "eskimo roll".

A sparkling surf scoter.

A red squirrel with a spruce cone from his cache.

What's left of the cone after the squirrel has peeled it and eaten the seeds.

This is the squirrel scolding Jen for getting too close!

Kayaking on a calm day.

Ice forming in the bay in front of the lodge.

Deep Freeze

It seems that January's rain and warm temperatures fooled us into thinking that we might get an early spring--a premature expectation to say the least. We've been having freezing temperatures, and fighting to keep our water flowing and hydro electric power running for the last couple of weeks. We've had lows in the low teens and highs around 20 degrees.

This morning it's 13 degrees and we have another clear cold day coming our way. There is a lot of ice in the bay in front of the lodge. At low tide, there is a border of thick icy plates scattered over the rocks. Wind and current hold floating ice against our side of the bay, surrounding the dock and boat with sparkling crystals as the sun comes over the mountains to the south.

We've had several days of strong northerly winds that whipped up waves and spray inside our normally protected bay. These waves crashed onto the dock and froze.

Our domestic waterline finally froze, even though the lines are buried and insulated under several feet of snow. Once it gets cold enough for a long enough period of time, the lines freeze in spite of all the precautions we take. This means we need to knock a hole in the outflow from our hydro electric system--there is running water under all that ice--and we then carry it about 50 yards to the house.

Ice forms around the edges of the bay and is stranded as the tide drops.

We get lots of blue skies and cold temperatures during these high pressure systems. This was one of the rare calm days when the wind didn't blow into the bay. Juneau (about 100 miles north of us) had several days with wind over 70 mph and peak gusts of 95 mph!

One of our cold weather procedures is to run water through an "overflow valve" below the deck. The theory is that keeping water moving through the lines will prevent it from freezing. Even though we kept this valve open and ran water in all the faucets day and night, there came a time when the water just stopped--the quiet always gets our attention. Even though we had all the faucets full open, the water started to trickle and stopped completely within about five minutes.

Ice under the deck where the overflow valve sprays water around.

As the boat rocks back and forth in the waves, the fenders dip in and out of the water. It's been cold enough to actually freeze the salt water onto the bottom or the fenders.

High tech 5-gallon buckets are our replacement for the frozen water line. We use 40 to 50 gallons a day (320 to 400 pounds) and carry the water about 50 yards to the house. Most of this water goes to keeping the hot water heaters full, as the load controller from our hydro electric system absorbs excess energy by boiling that water away. Jen and I split one cup for bathing and brushing our teeth.