Larry says when we quit looking at eagles we have been here too long. I guess we haven't been so far because we are still watching with open- mouthed wonder.
This spring the eagles have been extra active or else they have relocated to the front of our happy little acres. We sure are seeing a lot of activity.
In fact, when you next visit...Larry brought back greenhouse sheeting and started building us a nifty little viewing front porch. Here in Alaska they call a porch a wanagan. Regardless, of what you call it we are going to have a snug, warm, dry front viewing area on the float.
The guys are sitting out there all ready but it is only a roof and one side covered so far so I think I will wait a spell. I have two porch rockers and little snack tables waiting. Send working wishes north to Larry.
So back to the eagles. In the spring our circle of life starts with the growing of the kelp. Herring come in and lay their eggs on the new leaves ( and I am talking Alaska leaves _ 40 footers!) Then we have hatch lings and bigger fish move in to gorge on them.
The next stage is the predators of the fish, seal and the swooping eagles. I think the eagles are the top of the areal cycle but the seal get eaten by Orca in the water. It is a rough life around here but quite the show.
So again, right now we have eagles in the cedars lining our beaches. When they spot the sparkle of scales too close to the surface they dive bomb down for a tasty mouthful. You can see them perched on the rocks post dive with a talon full of fish. We always know that it is an eagle by that round little golf ball white head.
I've often wondered what the adult children eagles do. They think that nest is home but then they get rooted out by a new setting of eggs... There is a definite pecking order. Last fall we put deer carcases on shore where we could watch. There was a lot of fussing and fighting but the older eagles ate first while the juveniles waited.
It is springtime now and mating season. Eagles mate for life and use the same massive nests. We are lucky to have some nest trees on the farm. Right now I can hear eagles twittering. I like it when I hear them fly over me. Those long wings make an audible swoosh as they power by.
Eagle mating is a spectacular display of tandem wind gliding and turning patterns culminating in a joining dive that hopefully ends before they hit the surface of the water. I actually saw one eagle barrel rolling. I did not know that birds could fly upside down but I saw it! Jim said that he has seen more than one couple smack the water.
It gives us a rush to watch!
Ok Kiddos,
You wake up early on a Saturday morning to the news that it is 30 degrees outside. It is so foggy that you can barely see the decks and it is raining. So, do you :
A. roll over and go back to sleep?
B. grab some pop tarts and catch cartoons on the
tube
C. dress in layers and go out to dig clams.
If you are a shellfish farmer the answer is C all the way. The tides were right for digging so out we went. It takes a while to learn how to dress in the right layers for digging in our weather but I think I have it now. I start with a tank bra, a set of wind proof long johns, and my SmartWool socks. Over this goes a thick knit shirt, Army surplus wool long underwear, followed by a sweatshirt. On the outside goes the rubber water proof coat, pants, liner gloves, rubber gloves, and insulated Mickey Mouse boots inflated for max warmth. They weigh about ten pounds each leg so you better hope you don't fall overboard because it would be cement overshoes time. I top this with a knit cap, face mask, and goggles. We pack some water and snack bars and waddle out to the boat to cruise to the beach.
We see some otter waving at us along the way. The sun comes up burning off the fog and stopping the rain. The eagles are screaming as they glide the air currents preparing to mate. It looks like a great morning to dig. As we have an order for clams to ship A.S.A.P. it had better be!
We pull up by a rock. As I throw myself over the boat side, Larry anchors up. Now the dream of every clam digger is to get five or six clams per rake. A more typical dig is five or six rakes to find one. This time we were making twelve passes of the rake to unearth one clam. We were teamed up, Larry wielding the rake, me picking the clams up and putting them in the bucket.
I was picking up everything too. Alaskan beaches have layers of different species of clams. We are licensed to sell the Littlenecks from 1 1/4 inch sized on up. They are found two to four inches down. Close to these are the pretty Cockle shell clams.
They have long elbow syphons in them and make a great chowder. Under this layer you find the bigger Butter Clams. These are great sliced in half, dipped in flour, and steamed in hot butter, but then, what food isn't good steamed in butter? Deep under these are the otters' favorite, the Horse Clams. To get to them, they plow up our favored clams, eating some and leaving the rest exposed to die. As otter eat 25% of their weigh every day, that is a lot of digging area.
Those otter we passed must have been giving us the nanana razz berry not just waving good morning. Otter had gotten to the beach before us and cleaned it out. We just hoped that Jerry and Brick, the clam digging dog were having better luck on their beach.
Larry rolls me back in the boat and we go scouting for that dream beach where the clams are laying thick on top of the sand waiting to jump in our buckets. A beach that the otter have not found. A beach in warm sun shine...
Such are the dreams of a Shellfish farmer.
We returned to less than stellar weather this spring so we spent some time inside, cabin cleaning.
Unfortunately, every time I cleared an area, JR brought in more things to pile there. With the weight of us, the snow, and rain in the logs we were hanging precariously low. I mean, waves were washing over the decks and lapping at the doorstep.
For too many years we have been looking at different air bladders and floatation devices. It had become time to act. With the time crunch, we went with the time-tested low tech method of putting barrels under the float.
Over time we have collected the odd barrel floating by (hope that's not because they escaped from under other people's floats!). We also made two quick (HA HA!) trips
to town to buy barrels. I laugh because we are in year two of the ten year road rebuilding project here on Prince of Wales and no road trip is quick but that is fodder for another blog.
Lar and I spent a day running down a local guy who dives for hire. Now here is a job not for the faint of heart, diving in Alaska. It was also not an easy task to find this guy. People truly move to Alaska to hide out. After driving around having numerous conversations with suspicious people or suspicious conversations with people along the line of we are looking for Jeremy and them saying Jeremy who, we gave up and went to the mail drop to wait on a plane. The island drums must have worked their magic because as we sat there up walks a guy who says he is the elusive Jeremy.
We agree on $100 an hour (chump change for this type of work) and the day of service. Then we had to hurry back to the float to ready the barrels. That consisted of, unreal as it seems, removing one of the bungs from each top. Larry siliconed the other bung in tight. The rule is, top bung in tight on the float barrels, bottom bung open. Who knows these things? Supposedly, magic air pressure keeps them in place and dry under the logs. We laid out our water bilge pump and our extra generator and air compressor and we were ready. I could hardly sleep a wink waiting for the dive day to arrive, but arrive it did.
Jeremy dressed in his wet suit and spoke not a word but slipped straight in the water. He didn't even shiver! Wrong story, but it felt like the wonderment of Christmas.
We had amassed 23 barrels for this first effort. This was by Jeremy's estimate about 60 barrels short of what is needed to raise the place but hey, he is the guy getting paid to put them in place.
Placing them consisted of us bilge pumping water in to each one until it sank enough that Jeremy could swim it under the space between two logs then he displaced the water with our air compressor and voila! We had rise!
It truly was that simple! He could place barrels as fast as we could sink them, about 10 per hour. As if all that swimming around in a balmy 40 degree ocean wasn't enough he started cutting off the fouling that had grown under the raft that was further weighing us down. The theory is you can stack barrels under a float like an upside down pyramid adding about 450 pounds of lift per barrel.
It may not be enough yet but we are all ready four inches above sea level and more ready for the next gale that will blow our way.
We were more than grateful to this intrepid diver for all his work and that was before he produced rock scallops that he found hitchhiking on the bottom of our home. All that floatation and dinner too. Where else but Alaska could you get that?
