the calendar of flowers, fish, and tourists

The rain has come back to our little valley. No downpours yet, just living in a cloud. Its more of a saturating wet, but it feels good. The waterfalls that surround us had almost dried up, something I have never seen before. But now they have grown to their full glory again. It seems to rain at night, be windy in the morning, mist all day until evening then it fades to just cloudy. So I have used the evening to head out on little bike rides down the trail. The salmon berries up here on the mountain have finally caught up to the ripeness of the ones down by the channel. I was soon deep in a thicket happily gathering the orange and red berries in my mouth. Its hard to be sad in this state. I really must bring a bucket next time. Just think fresh salmon berries over pancakes for breakfast! I sat by Sheep Creek thought about the evolution of events here in our canyon and how they are marked by different floral and berry flags. Now the fireweed have climbed almost to full staff. I took a couple of my co-workers down to the confluence of Sheep Creek and the channel, they were fascinated by all of the chums packed into the little eddies. Cosmos was too, as he ran around in the stream and chased them everywhere. They're here! Couldn't help but to pull one in with every cast last week. The smoker is going, and the dogs are munching down fish heads. The elderberries are turning red, and but the cranberries are just barely forming into little green fruit right now. The blueberries at the archery range are deceivingly blue right now, but still quite tart. That means ours just above treeline probably have a few more weeks or more. The air must tinge of fall, because all I can think about is harvesting all of these things, but most will have to wait little longer.
Had a nice sauna tonite, it was just what I needed. Warm the bones a little, dry out. Kind of like what I call "charging the batteries" in the winter when I head out to the hot springs. Keeping busy here to occupy my thoughts from wandering back to the interior. Been beading some porcupine quill jewelry, painting a little, filling out my Quest Entry Application. Whoo hoo!( sorry thinking about it makes me react like that!) Can't wait to get on with the 2009/2010 race season. I think our tours have peaked now. Probably good in one way, with some of help going home soon, and me travelling back east in week. Preparing myself for heat, humidity, and culture shock, but it will be nice to see my family. I don't get back very often.
Well time to wander of to bed and dream about mushing down happy winter trails.

Zip Lining

Gearing up for zip lining.

Nothing like a little faith and fear to give you a reality check.

A couple from work and I went zip lining last Saturday. It was awesome , though I have to say I was was pretty scared, but that's part of the point right? It is a short 5 minute boat ride across the Channel. There are 9 zips strung out in the canopy of the trees. Each platfrom that you slide to is any where from 50 to 180 feet up an old growth Spruce. The trees sway as you wait for your turn. The zips are varying lengths, anywhere up to 740 feet long, so you can travel up to 40 mph. You are in control of your speed, Your hand dragging on the cable is your brake. There are 2 sky bridges or suspension bridges which a found to be the scariest. The crew there was super nice and fun, you could tell they love their jobs. I highly reccommend it! It was a blast.

Think Return of the Jedi zipping through the forest on the Ewock Island meets Fear Factor.

summer sun, fun, and chum

Our Motley Sheep Creek Crew

Jay and I (what a great team)

Sorry its been a while. It has been a little busier, plus Jay came and visited for a week, which was wonderful. It was good timing too, because we had our busiest day yet the other day and he was here to help. We had a record number of tours, along with record heat (92 degrees!) which means alot of extra work for handlers, as that we have to constantly hose off the dogs so that they don't over heat.

The chums are in full swing now, I went down to try to pull a king out from in between the mass of dog salmon but to no avail. It was kind of fun pulling a fish in on every cast but not even one was bright enough for my standards, even for the smoker. I did gather up a bunch of fish heads for the dogs though, and another woman was taking the eggs, so it at least not all is wasted.

This summer has been unreal for Juneau. I never thought there would be the time that I would actually want clouds in Southeast. They finally rolled in today, which is good for the dogs. It's making me think of fall. Soon enough. I don't want to complain about the weather 1. because it does no good to complain, you can't change it and 2. I'm afraid that it will swing from one extreme to another, in a month we could be wishing for it to stop raining non-stop!

Another day at the office

Perspectives

HOME SWEET HOME

Wandering

I finally took the time to re-brush the trail down to my tree. It is an old cottonwood that grows in typical Juneau tree fashion, twisted and mossy. The first year here at Sheep Creek I would look from camp down over the valley and that tree caught my interest. I cut a trail down off the backside of camp through the hellebore, alder, and devil's club by hand and was pleasantly surprised to find it to be hollow. Up in the first saddle was the perfect moss covered perch. I thought, "What a perfect place to write or read a book, or just lay and stare at the mountain and daydream." I made a few attempts to climb up the knots but finally I gave up and went back to camp. I wasn't deterred though, I built myself a rope ladder and gathered some other people from camp to help me get it up on the tree. Every year I go back to the tree, I just have to clear the trail again, and that ladder is still there. This tree is so big and old that there is some currant bushes, jewel weed, devil's club, and a young spruce tree growing on the various saddles. The one branch is curved perfectly so one can recline, and still be cushioned with moss, including a soft head rest.

I hung out full, Alice in Wonderland Cheshire Cat style for a little while today after tours, but didn't bring any books or journals, and didn't feel much like daydreaming so I climbed back down and wandered off through the brush to scout a good route to cut out to the chocolate lily meadow. When I got to the meadow I realized I had never been to the far end of the meadow before so I went to check it out. I found a bear trail that took me to a series of fern clearings. Each of the ferns unraveled almost to full height, just with just a one inch spiral head bobbing in the wind. The bear trail went into a salmon berry thicket so I found another, and another, all with the same ending. Perhaps the bears are too scouting good routes to late summer snacking areas. I decided to go check out a stand of knotted spruce because I knew the traveling would be easier, and eventually looped back to the meadow and out onto Sheep Creek Trail.

I thought about how I would miss this place if I ever decided to spend a summer somewhere else. It would be hard to match the magic of our canyon here, but there are those that say you make your own magic no matter where you are.

Puppy development

COSMOS WORKING ON BALANCE AND CONFIDENCE WITH THE PUPS

CHIRON SHOOTING THE RAPIDS

IO RUNNING THROUGH THE BUTTERCUPS AND LUPINE

Evening walks with puppies

CHIRON

CHIRON and IO

the pups from Ed....almost 4 months


the BOYS and the MARTIN BUSER PUPS

LIFE IS GOOD