Compared To A Summer's Day...

7/4/2020

The town of Seward, Alaska on a gorgeous sunny day

Here in Alaska, we are waist deep in summer!

We are enjoying the sunshine and periodic rain as we simmer through the warm season here. There have been some pretty hot days so far, but we’ve been receiving about ¼” of rain each week (totaling 1” for the month) and that has kept things green and pleasant.

Evening at Knik Lake. This was the starting point for the Iditarod when it originally began in the 1970's.

This butterfly let us take his photo while we were on a walk.

At the beginning of the month we went on a short trip up to Fairbanks. It was about a 300 mile drive each way and the highway actually goes through Denali National Park. We only saw a tiny sliver of the 6 Million acre park from the highway, so we definitely plan to visit again as there is much to explore. The views of Denali and the Alaska Range, and other mountain ranges, from the highway were stunning. One of our favorite things about living here is how absolutely gorgeous the scenery is, and it is endless. Many times, we find the drive to/from a particular place to be just as memorable as whatever we did at the destination.

Fairbanks reminded us a bit of our hometown in South Dakota, but with more trees and mountains and less wide open prairie. We plan to go back again sometime to view the aurora – from Fairbanks and north has the best northern lights shows in the country. It doesn’t get dark there in the summer, so they are only really visible in the winter and spring. Since aurora viewing is typically an outdoor activity, we’ll try to plan for a time when it still gets dark but isn’t the EXTREME cold they get in the middle of winter. -60ºF anyone?!?

Denali from a distance. You can spot the tallest peak in North America just to the right of the single tall spruce in the middle of the photo.

Our Alaskan adventures also took us down to Seward in June. We went fishing, hiked part of Mount Alice (the tallest peak in the Seward area), chowed down on halibut, walked on the rocks along the ocean, had a picnic in front of Exit Glacier, rented a small cabin in the forest, and went on a whale watching tour. With 24 hours of daylight, having just passed the summer solstice, there is sunlight available for whenever you’d like to do anything. Pete got up early and drove over to the public beach access to see if he could snag some Sockeye Salmon. He had some fish jump pretty close to him, but didn’t have any luck. The salmon run had reportedly been really heavy the previous couple weeks, but seemed to have thinned out since then, making snagging more of a challenge.

--- If you have ever fished for anything that requires any bit of skill, such as trout or bass, then you will think snagging is just about the silliest thing there ever was. Basically, the idea is that there are so many salmon swimming along the bottom making there way to the river mouth, that you just need to throw a giant treble hook with nothing on it as far as you can and then yank it back in the hopes that you randomly hook one of the thousands of fish as they swim by. You can hook it anywhere, in the side, fin, belly, it doesn’t matter. These spawning salmon aren’t hungry and have a long journey with one goal in mind: get back to the riverbed they were born in and spawn before passing away. ---

Seward has also been very hard hit by the travel restrictions. Usually, they have one or more cruise ships docking every day throughout the summer, dropping many thousands of tourists into the small town to do excursions, dine in the restaurants, and purchase things from the shops. All of that business has been cut off this year due to all of the cruise lines canceling the season. Every time we pass a house with a for sale sign out front and a U-Haul backed up to the door, or a formerly thriving shop or restaurant which is now closed up, we say a little prayer and hope that everyone is able to come through this in their own way.

That said, we are certainly taking advantage of the lack of crowds and cheaper rates for locals. While in Seward, one of the things we did was go on a marine wildlife tour in the waters along the Kenai Fjords National Park. We saw many amazing animals including some endangered sea lions basking on the rocks, Dall’s porpoise jumping next to the boat, handfuls of puffins and bald eagles, hundreds of sea gulls and a few pairs of humpback whales (mamas and calves) playing and feeding. Of course, my favorite were the humpback whales. It was a beautiful sunny day, and the surrounding glacier-topped mountains made the perfect backdrop for viewing these magnificent wild creatures.

A juvenile humpback feeding and playing in Resurrection Bay. The humpbacks migrate to Alaska in the summer to feed in the abundant waters. They come from Hawaii where they mate and give birth.

A distant view of Bear Glacier

Young Sea Lions discussing ocean matters. Check out the Boss in the upper left!

Seward is the only port in South Central Alaska which is ice-free year round. Because of that, the vegetation does not experience the hard winter freezes like we have in the Mat-Su Valley. The long summer days and mild winters allow the trees to become massive, the leaves of the devils club to grow 30” across, and the blueberry bushes to grow taller than you. It is a beautifully lush place. The best part of our trip to Seward was at the end when we got in the car to head back and it actually clicked that we are only 3 hours from home! This is just one more place on our list for when we find an extra day or a week that we’d like to fill with adventure(s). The more we explore our backyard, the more we fall in love with it. We came home from Seward exhausted but satisfied--and, as usual, had dozens of ideas for things we’d like to do when we are there again.

Pete and Baby Girl on the Mount Alice hiking trail in Seward

In other news, Pete has still been slowly chipping away (pun intended) at the log framing for the loft in the garage. This has been a long, drawn out project, but he is nearly complete! He just needs to cut 4 more of the diagonal braces and then test-fit and trim up all of the joints before we do the final assembly. It is starting to take shape and is looking great so far!

One section (called a "bent") of the loft frame.

A completed post with 3 mortises and a tenon on top

Pete has also been putting a lot of work into the garden this month. He reassembled the gate on the fence to make it moose (and dog) proof, brought in a couple loads of manure, and hauled countless wheelbarrow loads of native topsoil and rotting wood from around the property. He used all the material to lay out four garden beds and then started a couple of compost piles with the rest.

Our current garden setup with some vegetables growing in one of the beds. This season will mostly be a test run as we hope to have more time to dedicate to it next summer.

So far, he has only planted a few things in one of the beds because we haven’t got a reliable watering system in place yet. We do have a 60 gallon water tank in the garden from which we pump water through a PEX pipe which Pete installed down the middle of each garden bed. Along the PEX pipe he drilled small holes so that when water is pumped into the pipe it sprays out the holes. Pete just happened to have a 12V diaphragm pump and an old car battery in the garage, so he moved them to the garden and put together a pressurized irrigation system. We are liking this much more than the drip lines and weeping hose we have used in the past. It saturates the entire bed, doesn’t get clogged, and only needs to run for 2 or 3 minutes at a time.

A green bean plant a couple weeks after sprouting

The main hang up has been getting a reliable water source. We can’t use our well water since it has arsenic in it and we don’t have any means of collecting rain water, so Pete had an idea to dig a shallow surface well in the lowlands on the back half of our property and try to pump water from there. He dug a hole big enough for a 5 gallon bucket to sit in surrounded by gravel to act as a filter. The bucket had holes drilled in it and would fill with water which we could pump up to the barrel in the garden. This worked fairly well for the first few weeks – he was able to pump 5 or 6 gallons of water each hour and could fill the barrel in a day or two. However, in July the ground water level is approaching its low point for the year and the bucket just isn’t filling back up like we need it to. So we are planning on renting a small excavator in the next couple weeks to knock out a few projects, and building a bigger, deeper version of this surface well will be one of those projects.

In the one planted garden bed we have some experimental potatoes which have taken off wonderfully! Pete also planted some radishes, beans, peas, wildflowers, and herbs. By covering the soil around the plants with wood chips and sawdust, we can retain moisture in the soil for longer – which is a must with the intense sun we have here. We purchased most of our seeds from a seed company who specializes in selling seed varieties which are known to grow well in our long days and short season. In the other garden beds, Pete planted a nitrogen-building cover crop blend of clover and alfalfa. We didn’t want to depend on getting this water system figured out and plant all sorts of stuff that will need more water than we can currently provide, so we will just be patient this season and let the beds develop themselves. Instead, we are focusing on setting ourselves up for success next year!

A young pea plant breaking ground

Wild Rose Blossom

Speaking of being patient, there is a lot that can be gained from simply taking some time to stop and smell the roses – quite literally! For if you stop to smell the roses, you may notice just how many roses there are, and you can collect those rose petals to make some delicious tea or infuse it into some honey. And if you go back to that spot later in the summer you can collect the rose hips which are also delicious and contain lots of vitamin C. And, while you’re smelling the roses, you may also notice that there are raspberries, currants, and elder berries growing nearby! And, if you look even closer, you may notice that the ground is actually covered in a carpet of blueberries and crawling cranberry vines with salmon berries growing throughout! This was all the case for us as we began to explore our property in more detail and with more patience. We purchased a book on Alaskan edible plants and were amazed at just how much we have found growing wild on our property! We have collected a jar full of rose petals which we have dried and will blend with fireweed petals and mint to make tea which we will enjoy over the winter. There will also be much berry harvesting later in the summer once all of the above mentioned berry varieties ripen. It’s a great feeling to know that even if we don’t get to harvest anything from our garden, we have a wide variety of treats to pick from in the forest. Now, if we could just build up a stockpile of salmon and get a moose or caribou in the freezer this fall, then we’ll really get into the Alaskan winter experience!