More Pictures from Seldovia

The Village of Seldovia (May 26-28)

On Wednesday, May 26 we drove to Homer to get on the Seldovia Bay Ferry. The 1 and a quarter hour ferry took us on our second trip to Gull Island this Spring. We saw mostly the same birds we had encountered before except our first ever Tutfted Puffin sightings. We saw 3 puffins from the deck of our boat. After Gull Island, we headed for the small village of Seldovia(home to 264 friendly people and a few old crabs). The first evening we set up camp and biked around town. It was so nice out that we took an hour nap on the sand at Inside Beach. Near low tide we went out to Outside Beach on Otterbahn Trail. The trail goes through part of the Alaskan "Rain Forest." The trees are virgin timber and almost all Sitka Spruce. During low tide we walked through tide pools and saw a lot of different critters. Things we saw were: mussels, barnacles, anemones, limpets, and some crawly critters.

Thursday brought more nice weather. We got up and headed out on what turned out to be a 30 mile bike ride. Our trip took us from Seldovia to 5 miles past Jakolof Bay Harbor. Our hope was to make it to Red Mountain, but snow on the road caused us to turn around. Later we found out we still had 5 miles to go before we were to make it to Red Mountain. In passing we viewed the McDonald Spit. It is a lot like the Homer Spit just not as long nor wide. Mount Redoubt was in clear view many of times throughout our journey. That evening Rochelle experienced her first ever jellyfish while walking the harbor. In fact, they were all over in the harbor.

Friday morning, brought the annual chainsaw carving competition. We watched as the artists started on their large carvings that were to be completed over three days. At 11AM we watched the competitors complete in a 1 and a half hour quick carve competition. It was amazing to watch them create carvings out of 6 foot tall timber cuts that were about 3 feet in diameter. At 5PM the ferry took us back to Homer from our 3 day adventure "across the bay". On our journey back we were greeting by some mama sea otters with their babies on their bellies!

Sunrise/sunset data for Monday, May 31:
End civil twilight 12:44 a.m.
Begin civil twilight 3:21 a.m.
Sunrise 4:50 a.m.
Sunset 11:17 p.m.

A New Arrival (May 17-23, 2010)

We just finished our last week of school with kids. It has been an eventful week. I woke up to a phone call at 4:15 AM Alaska time from my dad letting me know that I was an auntie! Myra Ann Moravec, Wade and Rita’s brand new baby girl, was born Wednesday morning. Jon and I have been able to see pictures and are very eager to hold her when we arrive in MN in June.

The end of the week was fairly crazy as I ventured out Wednesday morning to go camping with another teacher and 23 middle school girls. We had wonderful weather and the girls were great! There were many birds: a pair of common loons (now in their summer coats), harlequin ducks, mergansers, and a couple gray jays who frequently visited our campsite in search of food. Of course, the girls obliged. We also saw a number of snowshoe hares in their gray coats. Every time we scared one up we saw its white bottom hop away into the woods.

On Saturday, we went clamming for the first time. We went to Clam Gulch, a beach located between Soldotna and Homer. The clamming has been down this year, but we did manage to dig up 9 razor clams in about one hour. Clamming is done when it is low tide. We went down to the waters edge and looked for “dimples” in the sand. These “dimples” are the air holes for the clams. As we started digging one up, it squirted a clear fluid from its neck. It caught us by surprise. Fortunately neither of us were hit by the flying fluid.

On Sunday, we ventured to Kelly Lake to hike a portion of the Seven Lakes Trail. From Kelly Lake we hiked to Hikers Lake. On Kelly Lake we saw two common loons, a pair of mergansers, and a pair of scoters. One of the loons seemed very upset with the other water birds and began flapping its wings violently until they left. As we got down to Hikers Lake, we spotted a yellow warbler, a yellow-rumped warbler, many robins and chickadees, and another pair of common loons who were cleaning themselves in the water. On our way back to Kelly Lake, we sighted two Bonaparte's Gulls dive bombing a raven. We also spotted a Barrow's Goldeneye. The bird variety was amazing today, the mountains were beautiful, and the aspen tree leaves are really coming in.

Moving Out (May 10-16, 2010)

I arrived at school on Monday and tulips were blooming in the school garden, the first tulip blooms we’ve seen this year. On Saturday Jon and I moved out of our rental house on Fireweed Lane and moved in with one of Jon’s co-workers, Sandy. Sandy has a house in Sterling, about 2 miles from Jon’s school. We’ll be staying with Sandy during the last three weeks before we head back to Minnesota. On Sunday evening, Jon and I walked to Izaak Walton Recreational Park. It is the confluence of the Moose and Kenai Rivers. The Moose River is brownish in color and the Kenai is aqua green due to the glacial waters from upstream. The contrast in color as they merge is absolutely beautiful.

More pictures from May 9

Many Birds (Week of May 3-9, 2010)

Sunrise for Sunday, May 9 in Kenai Alaska: 5:38 AM
Sunset for Sunday, May 9 in Kenai Alaska: 10:23 PM

We have been blessed with gorgeous weather throughout the week, allowing for plenty of outdoor opportunities. Spring is definitely here and summer is working its way in. We have been seeing flocks of Sandhill Cranes fly over Kenai the past couple weeks, migrating to northern Alaska.

The moose have also been very active, browsing on fresh greens and they have been lingering nearer to town. Apparently many mother moose choose to give birth to their calves in town due to the fact that they are less likely to be preyed upon by the bears. Less than 50% of moose calves make it through their first year, mostly due to bears. On Tuesday morning Jon dropped me off at school and literally pulled up to the door because a moose was nibbling at the grass up against the school. About 10 minutes after being at school, what I believe to be the same moose, came to the back of the school to continue its morning munchies of grass. It stood right in front of my window, so close that I could visibly distinguish the texture of each hair. Its hairs were nearly pressed up against the window. It was oblivious to me being there, preoccupied with the possibility of danger elsewhere. The top of its hump was up to my chest, which is probably a medium sized moose.

The fishing guide couple who we are renting from have their son up getting the place ready for guests that will be arriving in May. We officially move out next Saturday. On Friday morning he took one of the boats out to the Cook Inlet and caught halibut. We were fortunate enough to receive some from him. So on Friday for supper we were eating grilled halibut that was swimming in the ocean about 12 hours prior. Delicious! It’s amazing how much better it is fresh.

On Saturday morning we were heading down to Homer for their annual Shorebird Festival. On the way we stopped in at Deep Creek State Recreation Area. It is a stop over for migratory birds. Although we didn't see any migrants, we did see plenty of gulls, bald eagles, lesser yellow legs, northwestern crows, and one common loon. The eagles were swooping together in pairs; I’m assuming getting ready for the nesting season.

Once in Homer we headed to the Bear Creek Winery where we took in some free wine tasting and a tour of the facility. I can say that it was the best wine I’ve had. Most of their wine is made from Alaskan berries: gooseberries, blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, and more. They even had a delicious CHOCOLATE Raspberry Dessert Wine! After wine tasting, which was way too good, we went on a guided hike along the mud bay portion of the spit. The hike was more veered towards kids, so we weren’t the best students and didn’t really pay attention. But we were able to learn about one species of shorebird that was new to us, the semipalmated plover.

Our trip to Gull Island was by far the highlight of the Festival for us. A small wooden boat called the Danny J took us 3 miles off the spit to view Gull Island. Gull Island is a bird rookery filled with gulls, kittewakes, murres, and puffins. Unfortunately, we did not get to see any puffins, but the rocks were covered as the birds hugged the sides of the cliffs. At one point a group of common murres cascaded down from the top of one of the rocks towards the surface of the water.

After Gull Island, we made two stops before leaving Homer, Beluga Lake Wetlands and Beluga Slough. Here we spotted even more birds: trumpeter swans, pintails, shovelers, grebes, lesser yellow legs, Hudsonian Godwit, Bar tailed Godwit, dowitcher, and a flock of geese mainly made up of the Greater White Fronted with a few Canada Geese in the mix.

When we arrived home that evening around 8:30 the sun was still very much up. At 10 o’clock we went out for a bike ride and arrived back around 10:30 with plenty of light. The extended daylight is wonderful.

On Sunday afternoon we went for a hike out near Skilak Lake called Bear Mountain. It’s only a .8 mile hike but it has a quick elevation gain of 400 feet. The view from the top was gorgeous, a panoramic view of Skilak Lake and its surrounding mountains. And to top it all off, the sun was shining all day.

Spring is in the Air (Week of April 26-May 2, 2010)

The sun has been shining and the weather has been warming up this week. We had a fair share of forty degree days with plenty of rays to soak up some vitamin D. We have three weeks of school remaining this year, it's hard to believe, but we are ready to start the summer. The sunrise on May 2 was 5:56 and the sunset was 10:06, we currently have a little over 16 hours of sunlight.

We had an interesting sighting on Tuesday morning. As Jon was taking me to work we saw a canine running along nearby the road. It was definitely very wolf looking at 6:20 in the morning. Our conclusion is that is was a wolf, but we can't say for sure. That evening we spotted our first American Robin of the season. I had no idea that American Robins were even in Alaska during the warmer months. Since Tuesday we have seen many more of them around the neighborhood. In fact, there is one singing just outside our house as I'm typing this. It's wonderful to hear their beautiful songs again.

Jon and I took another class this weekend on the Project Learning Tree and Project Wild curriculums. Wonderful environment education curricula. During the class we were able to participate in birch tapping. Now, back in the lower 48 we had known about maple syruping since we were kids and even participated in tapping maple trees up at Wolf Ridge. But birch tapping? Alaskans tap birch trees for birch syrup. It is the same process as tapping maple trees but the results are not as great. For every 40 gallons of maple sap collected, 1 gallon of maple syrup can be produced. For every 100 gallons of birch sap collected, 1 gallons of birch syrup can be produced! The flavor is also very different. It has almost a subtle molasses taste to it. I thought it was good!

After our class on Saturday, we headed to the beach off of Cannery Road, what a difference from last time we were there. The people seem to be crawling out from the winter months or tourist are already arriving. The mountains and the clouds were of such similar color that they appeared to blend together.

We have started packing up our belongings, we are out of our place in less than 2 weeks and will be living with one of Jon's co-workers for the three weeks prior to our summer in Minnesota!