Getting back to normal, coming back to life

Done banding birds, thank goodness. I have mixed feelings about the whole experience... the instructor was phenomenal, patience of a saint and an encyclopedic knowledge of birds.  We didn't have enough birds coming through the area for me to feel comfortable handling them, it's just too early and too cold in April in Haines.  The class room time was frustrating because Pyle guide is a giants part catalog written in a secret language...impossible to understand with out lots of bird time.

Aaanyway... getting back to normal takes a while.  Norman was actually shoveling the back yard out sometime around the last post... I am so lucky to have an amazing southern exposure so all this snow is gone except one patch over by the back of the  house.  There are actually starts in the beds he's standing near in these photos.

 New compost bin!  Old one is to the right behind the spindly tree. It has the best rich black compost in it, but if I start stacking the newly raked stuff on the old pile... besides the old "bin" is a smashed up chicken wire semi circle.  I hope the new wood one is big enough for all my composting ambitions.

 Making art dolls for hanging in the Golden Mouse gallery, Sarah doesn't want to overlap with Svenson's in art for sale.  That's good for me, more variety, more creativity, less rut!

 Bread with a small rhino.

Sunflowers and marigolds put out in the early sometimes warm spring sun.  Jars are night time cloches because it's really not that warm.

...and Biscuit.

learning stuff

How to read music... learning what every kid in the world tortured by piano lessons knows. Treble clef wraps around the line that is G and middle C is between the treble and bass clefs, how cool is that??

...and how to age/sex/band birds! Look up preformative molt... ooh my brain, middle C is much easier to understand.

home again home again jiggity jig!

Hawaii was grand but I am so glad to be here, spring is here and it's glorious and beautiful and... ok, so the garden is about 4 feet of snow away from sprouting but it's there, I know it is!

That pole used to hold my satellite dish, it's about 7 feet tall. Most of that snow was pushed there by the plow trucks that clear our road. The actual snow snow in the back yard is about 4 feet deep at this point. 360 inches flattens out to about 48 with a few seriously heavy rains.


That little dark triangle is the neighbor's jeep, they didn't use it all winter so it's just a little buried. They have a tin roof that shoots snow into the driveway, that and snow plows don't help an used vehicle!


This is the view of the Chilkats across the river from where I get my drinking water. Yeah, I have running water but it's from a brackish nasty well. The Mud Bay spring is where many of us get spring water for drinking.

This is another example of what a tin roof does...road is bare and wet, heap of snow might be giving the pup-dog a vantage point for another month!
This is the unmaintained portion of the road, the dog on the snow pile is just off to my left. This is 'the park road' and those drifts are what the local plow trucks have pushed up all winter... there's actually a driveway on the right during the summer.

It's hard to get a ride back to the parking lot at Sliding Sands after topping out at Switchbacks. People just don't want to stop on their way up the epic windy road!

Pictures for my northern friends...

Rescue board and life guard going out for the second time that day. The rescue board was broken in half after this event. They closed the beach to all but locals.
Sunrise coffee getting ready to hike out after the big storm kept us in the crater at Haleakala for a second night.
Silversword about to bloom. These things bloom once then die, they live to be about 50 years old so I feel pretty smug about seeing this start!


Red and pink hibiscus in hedges walking down Baldwin towards morning coffee.

And best of all bebeh Nene! Can't stop with the ugly-baby pictures.

Haleakala Crater

Just got back from two days/nights in the national park that is Haleakala Crater. It was supposed to be just one night at a rented park service cabin but weather kicked our asses into staying another night courtesy of the woman that had rented the cabin. She asked us to stay, Mr. Park Service Enforcement Ranger, yes she did!

When Norm didn't call his mom the day we were supposed to come out, she called in the posse. We got a lecture when we topped out at the switch back exit...but I'd dare them to say they'd have hiked out in the gale force winds that were down there. I know they were just doing their jobs and they deal with idiots year round unlike our Alaska parks but I will cut them slack about one minute after they cut us some.
The real rescue party, ready willing and able to come to our assistance.
Breakfast of champions our first morning in the crater at the Kapalaoa cabin...note the brilliant sunshine coming in the window. Not giving us a clue as to what lay ahead, good thing we fueled up!

The silversword are cross pollinating with another native plant up there, and we saw a couple of the hybrids as we crossed the valley floor. The hybrids are more green than the silversword and take on the yellow flowers of the other plant.
Here we were able to get both plants to pose carefully to demonstrate the difference between the two.

Everywhere there's a possibility of encountering the other critically endangered species (the silversword are endangered) the Nene, there are signs that say not to feed them. This inspired much Marlin Perkins style amusement when we got to our cabin and were accosted by a pair of birds.
They are related to Canadian Geese, don't migrate and are shameless beggers. Not a bad life soliciting snacks from tourists, but that "tame" quality nearly caused their extinction and they're still not able to reproduce quickly enough to keep their numbers up. Captive breeding is still going on, but we saw a baby at the second cabin!

The parents were a little less aggressive, they were busy guarding junior while he nibbled his way around the yard. They chased off a second pair that landed that evening.

new camera

Is so much better faster stronger... damn technology. It's a wee little thing from costco, pretty much Kelly proof: water, dust and shock proof and takes lovely pictures in low light and cost half what the other one costs and... I am my father's daughter, I love new gadgets.
This my new morning buddy... I call him Al as in Alarm clock. He does a fine job, but his buddies the zebra doves are a little more aggressive, smaller so they can sneak up really close to the windows and holler COOO!

I took Al's picture with the new camera, he wasn't impressed. I swear he was muttering obscenities while I was taking pictures.

made it!

Am here, am sunburned, but not too bad. That aloe stuff works when the spf 30 runs out of steam. There will be plenty of pictures to come, but being a vain sort you'll have to wait until there's at least some tan to go with the burn.

Having fun, wish you were here. Morning routine includes Anthony's coffee where the staff is hardworking and happy and the food is awesome. It's one of the few places open in the morning that makes good lunches for the folks driving up to Hana. I can think of a few (at least one) coffee shop in the ol' hometown that could take lessons from these folks.

Yesterday did my first in a long time snorkel ... new semi insulated rash guard type top kept me warm and gave me confidence to push through the surf, but the new snorkel and mask were difficult... more practice! Inspite of the "oh yeah, this little plastic tube is going to keep me alive??" feeling I got to see my first humu-humu-nuku-nuku-apu-aa of the trip.

Waiting...

The ferry leaves here at 7:45pm so I have to wait. The first plane leaves at 7 am so I get to wait in the Juneau airport for about 4 hours... then the Seattle airport for about 4 hours. At least the Seattle waiting will be during the day so I can take a bus down town or over to Southcenter to freak myself out then scurry back to the airport to ... wait.

For those of you in places bigger than this... Southcenter mall (or what ever they call it now) is huge by Haines' standards hence the freak out.

Getting homework done ahead of trip

Sewing beads and buying supplies... must be winter. I was aware that that's what seasonal sellers do before, but now I live it. All summer you sell what you can, keeping up production in case big pieces sell. All winter you restock the portfolio to try to get ahead of the summer.

I also found another source for brass cuff blanks, new shapes! The cuff in the middle is one of the new ones, wider in the middle so I can use bigger cabs but narrow on the ends for comfort. I really like the new shape. The wavy one at the bottom is fun to work with, we'll see how that looks when it's sewn up. I really like the way the rose hip looks against the lighter blue, and of course light blue is a traditional background color.


Darn wires. One of the small views out my windows... I'll use this and a couple others to practice water color painting in preparation for painting Hawaiian views . I haven't used my water colors for ages, need to practice up!