Summer is making it's brief appearance in SE Alaska. Yesterday the temp. got to 76. Today is supposed to be as nice - then it will be Fall _ hope it lasts longer but no guarantees. We have learned to get outside while we can.
JR and Zach packed up and moved South - to Naussak Bay where a friend has a remoter cabin! They will check on that guy's oysters, dig clams, shrimp, and fish. Yes, a real change from here!
Lar and I were motoring around in a different cove, checking out possible oyster line sites when we saw today's bear. The first one was a shaggy, young guy just sitting in the grass - makes you wonder about the properties of our grass! We turned off the motor and got really close, but no camera, sorry to say. I could count his freckles!We had quite a stare down before he ambled away.
Next we went in to our favorite bear haunt, the lagoon. The sow we saw this time only had two cubs. She would eat some grass, nudge a cub, take another bite, nudge the second cub. I bet she was glad she only had two. We couldn't believe that there are two bear families living so close together.
I couldn't believe we didn't have our camera. While watching the mama bear with her two cubs, a salmon jumped, and an eagle swooped down and caught a fish! I could have gotten all those iconic Alaskan scenes in the same picture. Now there is a missed opportunity.
We are gearing up to bring in our fuel supply. That is a story for another day. We need a new system for it.
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Friday, June 22, 2012
A Five Bear Day
We saw five different bear yesterday. That is the way we like to note days. It started with JR and Zach digging for clams. Larry and I took the sprayer and a pump and cleaned bags of oysters as they hung on the fence lines. That worked pretty slick. It saved unclipping and carrying them, always a plus.
When we were through I planned on cutting some wild Sea Asparagus so we piloted in to the big lagoon. At the far end you could just see a nice, fluffy Black Bear munching down on the greens beside the water line. We cut the motor and drifted towards her shore. On a log behind this bear you could see another one snoozing away. As we got closer and the big bear spooked she collected not just one little cub but two and then three climbed down off that log and followed mama in to the trees.
I picked a bowl of asparagus for shrimp stir fry (Yum!) and collected some lagoon oysters for sampling (on the BBQ). Then we went on our way towards home.
At the mouth of the lagoon sat another nice Black Bear like he was watching us motor by. I expected him to start waving as we passed.
Upon hearing our report the men got all excited, packed some sandwiches, and headed out north on a bear hunt. Not to be outdone, Larry and I packed supplies and headed west to Question Cove on a bear hunt of our own. We have seen five bear at one time around the shoreline there. All that was out there this time were the whale feeding and blowing about. We sat and watched them and caught bottom fish after bottom fish. We tossed most of them back to the delight of the eagles. We soon had a little parade following our boat around.
All in all it was an excellent day, a five bear day. It didn't even rain until after bed time.
 |
| Just munching on the grass |
 |
| Momma....hey theres a boat |
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| Time to go kids |
When we were through I planned on cutting some wild Sea Asparagus so we piloted in to the big lagoon. At the far end you could just see a nice, fluffy Black Bear munching down on the greens beside the water line. We cut the motor and drifted towards her shore. On a log behind this bear you could see another one snoozing away. As we got closer and the big bear spooked she collected not just one little cub but two and then three climbed down off that log and followed mama in to the trees.
I picked a bowl of asparagus for shrimp stir fry (Yum!) and collected some lagoon oysters for sampling (on the BBQ). Then we went on our way towards home.
 |
| before shrimp |
 |
| with shrimp ...better |
At the mouth of the lagoon sat another nice Black Bear like he was watching us motor by. I expected him to start waving as we passed.
Upon hearing our report the men got all excited, packed some sandwiches, and headed out north on a bear hunt. Not to be outdone, Larry and I packed supplies and headed west to Question Cove on a bear hunt of our own. We have seen five bear at one time around the shoreline there. All that was out there this time were the whale feeding and blowing about. We sat and watched them and caught bottom fish after bottom fish. We tossed most of them back to the delight of the eagles. We soon had a little parade following our boat around.
All in all it was an excellent day, a five bear day. It didn't even rain until after bed time.
Friday, June 15, 2012
More Whale Tales
What a great start to the morning. What a great place to be.
It was 4:30 a.m. We awoke to the sounds of JR on the balcony calling and loud CRACKS from the water. Was the float breaking apart? No.
It was two whales near the mouth of our cove making the sound of a rifle crack with their whole bodies as they belly smacked down on the water after propelling all 15 tons and 50 odd feet of blubber up into the air and then CRACK! Landing fully against the surface then diving to jump out and do it again.
Breaching it is called. Scientists and naturalist speculate but don't really know why whales do this and other fascinating behaviors. Jole da vive I would call it. Love of life.
They continued to jump as they moved out of sight around the point. Soon all that was left was that cracking splash sound. We live for moments like this, even if they come at 4:30 a.m.
It was 4:30 a.m. We awoke to the sounds of JR on the balcony calling and loud CRACKS from the water. Was the float breaking apart? No.
It was two whales near the mouth of our cove making the sound of a rifle crack with their whole bodies as they belly smacked down on the water after propelling all 15 tons and 50 odd feet of blubber up into the air and then CRACK! Landing fully against the surface then diving to jump out and do it again.
Breaching it is called. Scientists and naturalist speculate but don't really know why whales do this and other fascinating behaviors. Jole da vive I would call it. Love of life.
They continued to jump as they moved out of sight around the point. Soon all that was left was that cracking splash sound. We live for moments like this, even if they come at 4:30 a.m.
Monday, June 11, 2012
Rain and such
Technical difficulties! I thought I wrote about rainbows with the picture but I can't find it. Please bear with me. I will try and recreate it.
We went to bed with the sound of rain on the tin roof over our head and woke up to the same. Southeast Alaska is classified as a rainforest but it stretches my mental definition of the word. We don't have monkeys or jungle vines. We do have rain 5 or 6 days a week but a soft rain. Some days you hardly notice it. The upside is that I don't have to mist my bonsai plants. The down side, trying to get towels to dry.
What we do get is rainbows, lots of them, daily. Full range rainbows, double bows, moon bows, fog bows, circle rainbows.
You have never seen colors this intense. We see the full spectrum. Zach came in last week from town and said, "We saw seven rainbows on our way back from town!" I don't remember seeing that many in a year down south. Jerry always tries to angle the boat so that he sees the end of the rainbow over the farm. You gotta admire that kind of optimism!
We went to bed with the sound of rain on the tin roof over our head and woke up to the same. Southeast Alaska is classified as a rainforest but it stretches my mental definition of the word. We don't have monkeys or jungle vines. We do have rain 5 or 6 days a week but a soft rain. Some days you hardly notice it. The upside is that I don't have to mist my bonsai plants. The down side, trying to get towels to dry.
What we do get is rainbows, lots of them, daily. Full range rainbows, double bows, moon bows, fog bows, circle rainbows.
 |
| Fogbow in front of float house. |
You have never seen colors this intense. We see the full spectrum. Zach came in last week from town and said, "We saw seven rainbows on our way back from town!" I don't remember seeing that many in a year down south. Jerry always tries to angle the boat so that he sees the end of the rainbow over the farm. You gotta admire that kind of optimism!
Thursday, June 7, 2012
Just a Typical Day around the Float House
We worked hard yesterday so we slept in today. Larry and I washed, tumbled, sorted, and re-netted 3000+ oyster.
JR, Zach, and the fearless bear dog drove to Whale Pass to catch herring. It is sort of like a smelt run but not with nets. They use a pole with 5 hooks on each line and just jig it up and down. Dad was so good at that when he was here that he could routinely pull in four or all five fish on at a time. I don't have the patience to wait for all the hooks to fill up. I guess that I used up all my patience back in my school teaching days. The men got home around 9:30 and had to clean and freezer bag a cooler full of fish.
Pickle, smoke and use for bait. Herring are a vital part of the food chain around here.
So it was 9 a.m.before I wondered out to the green house with my coffee which I sweetened with leaves off my very own home grown Steavia plant! I don't know what else to do with it, any suggestions? (the Steavia, not the coffee)
The green house got totally torn down and rebuilt this spring with reinforced visqueen and is doing well.
I wondered from there to sit on a nurse log to watch the water and finish my coffee. Recently we brought home an old but new to us float to move our shed onto to free up float space to add a bedroom/bath and sun porch to our cabin - very ambitious plans. A float has logs laying one way with one log pulled up across on each end that you lash all the other logs together from.
This rider log as they are called is pretty old and weathered so that it has grass and small trees growing out of it - a very rainforesty decor. That is called a nurse tree, but I digress. I am sitting there watching the fish feed on top of the water and other things feed on these top fish. Once you hear an eagle fly you will never forget the sound, You hear a voop, voop (rhymes with loop) as they flap their wings - it is surprisingly loud!
Henry, our resident heron was fishing from the shore.
A river otter swam to within a few feet of me. He was really looking me over.
It was a nice start to a day that got even better before the rain chased us home.
Finishing my coffee, I talked Larry in to a quick boat ride to check on some new oyster lines we recently put out. There is no such thing as a quick boat ride around here and we know better by now than to go off with out our proper gear, but off we went.
On our way to the lines we cruised by some of our favorite beach spots. We collected enough sea cucumber off our gear for a delicious treat. Moving on we checked on some more cuke- friendly beaches. I peek in an old stack of trays that were exposed by the low tides and to my delight, they were filled with all sorts of sea treasures. I got out some oysters, horse clams, and scallops. We did look at the new lines and those were feeding fine.
We went to an older spot, just to check and ended up moving bags, changing lines and moving support posts, me without rain gear, gloves, and in my old, leaky boots because we were just going out for a minute.
We pulled some bags that were ready and met up with the other guys at the processor. They had been out digging clams. We cleaned, processed the oysters, clacked the clams and got dirtier and wetter. We did clean some of the sea cucumbers, clams, and such for a delicious lunch fry.
Back at the house by 1 p.m. I mixed up some sour dough bread using my starter mix (have you tried yours, Beret?). Yep, this has been a pretty typical day around the float house and it isn't over yet!
JR, Zach, and the fearless bear dog drove to Whale Pass to catch herring. It is sort of like a smelt run but not with nets. They use a pole with 5 hooks on each line and just jig it up and down. Dad was so good at that when he was here that he could routinely pull in four or all five fish on at a time. I don't have the patience to wait for all the hooks to fill up. I guess that I used up all my patience back in my school teaching days. The men got home around 9:30 and had to clean and freezer bag a cooler full of fish.
Pickle, smoke and use for bait. Herring are a vital part of the food chain around here.
So it was 9 a.m.before I wondered out to the green house with my coffee which I sweetened with leaves off my very own home grown Steavia plant! I don't know what else to do with it, any suggestions? (the Steavia, not the coffee)
The green house got totally torn down and rebuilt this spring with reinforced visqueen and is doing well.
I wondered from there to sit on a nurse log to watch the water and finish my coffee. Recently we brought home an old but new to us float to move our shed onto to free up float space to add a bedroom/bath and sun porch to our cabin - very ambitious plans. A float has logs laying one way with one log pulled up across on each end that you lash all the other logs together from.
This rider log as they are called is pretty old and weathered so that it has grass and small trees growing out of it - a very rainforesty decor. That is called a nurse tree, but I digress. I am sitting there watching the fish feed on top of the water and other things feed on these top fish. Once you hear an eagle fly you will never forget the sound, You hear a voop, voop (rhymes with loop) as they flap their wings - it is surprisingly loud!
Henry, our resident heron was fishing from the shore.
It was a nice start to a day that got even better before the rain chased us home.
Finishing my coffee, I talked Larry in to a quick boat ride to check on some new oyster lines we recently put out. There is no such thing as a quick boat ride around here and we know better by now than to go off with out our proper gear, but off we went.
On our way to the lines we cruised by some of our favorite beach spots. We collected enough sea cucumber off our gear for a delicious treat. Moving on we checked on some more cuke- friendly beaches. I peek in an old stack of trays that were exposed by the low tides and to my delight, they were filled with all sorts of sea treasures. I got out some oysters, horse clams, and scallops. We did look at the new lines and those were feeding fine.
We pulled some bags that were ready and met up with the other guys at the processor. They had been out digging clams. We cleaned, processed the oysters, clacked the clams and got dirtier and wetter. We did clean some of the sea cucumbers, clams, and such for a delicious lunch fry.
Back at the house by 1 p.m. I mixed up some sour dough bread using my starter mix (have you tried yours, Beret?). Yep, this has been a pretty typical day around the float house and it isn't over yet!
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
A whale of a Tale
Wow! What a day. What a little sunshine brings to the water. The herring and salmon fry are hatched out and the top of water was just covered with fish feeding on the phyto plankton. It truly does look like the water is boiling as you may hear it described.
The eagles were out in full force swooping down to catch a fish or as Larry says sometimes just to wash their claws.(they do miss!)
The best part was early evening. We were watching a whale work the fish against the shoreline of the island across from us. We didn't take pictures, sorry.
We were just watching it through our binoculars as it splashed and rolled and spouted. We could hear it.
Just then a large fishing vessel comes by our house pulling three other boats so the diesel engines were really booming.
That got the whale moving too. At first it stayed ahead of the boats but then it did a an avoidance maneuver and ended by coming up right beside the house and our cove is not that big or deep! Good ol' Brick was barking, I was shouting, the whale was blowing, it was pretty intense for a while there. Then we saw tail and he or she was gone. The next spout we saw was in the distance.
As if that wasn't close enough of an encounter, we did it again this morning.
Lar and I were up at 5 a.m. to get the load of oysters to town for shipment. JR got up even earlier to finish packing them. So we load up the skiff and head to the dock.
It was low, low tide and Lar had just commented on the strength of the current when we saw another whale surface just inches off our port side bow!! He was coming up with a mouthful just as we were going across his fishing hole. It was over in an instant but etched in my visual memory. I am sure that I will see that shiny gray back coming up and up and up in my dreams.
The eagles were out in full force swooping down to catch a fish or as Larry says sometimes just to wash their claws.(they do miss!)
The best part was early evening. We were watching a whale work the fish against the shoreline of the island across from us. We didn't take pictures, sorry.
We were just watching it through our binoculars as it splashed and rolled and spouted. We could hear it.
Just then a large fishing vessel comes by our house pulling three other boats so the diesel engines were really booming.
That got the whale moving too. At first it stayed ahead of the boats but then it did a an avoidance maneuver and ended by coming up right beside the house and our cove is not that big or deep! Good ol' Brick was barking, I was shouting, the whale was blowing, it was pretty intense for a while there. Then we saw tail and he or she was gone. The next spout we saw was in the distance.
As if that wasn't close enough of an encounter, we did it again this morning.
Lar and I were up at 5 a.m. to get the load of oysters to town for shipment. JR got up even earlier to finish packing them. So we load up the skiff and head to the dock.
It was low, low tide and Lar had just commented on the strength of the current when we saw another whale surface just inches off our port side bow!! He was coming up with a mouthful just as we were going across his fishing hole. It was over in an instant but etched in my visual memory. I am sure that I will see that shiny gray back coming up and up and up in my dreams.
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