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!