May 17, 2007
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When does breakup ease over into summer.
The answer to that question is, “any minute now.” Still some trees have bare branches, but most of them are showing some green.
Last night around nine o’clock, the sun was playing peekaboo with windblown clouds, giving me uncertain lighting and making trees and shrubs move around too much for close-ups. At least the wind had grounded the mosquitoes.
The fuzzy-looking lime green plant above is an evergreen club moss, and the spreading reddish stems with glossy dark needle-shape leaves are Empetrum nigrum, crowberry, another evergreen and one of the best-tasting berries in our woods. This shot wasn’t taken in the woods, of course, but in the gravel along the edge of the cul de sac, where a few sprigs of new spring green can be seen. Only out here in the sun, and in the margins of the woods, has the vegetation woken up from winter sleep. Deep in the woods, the only green on the ground is evergreen.
Above is a new shoot of poplar, sprouting from an old root underground. We call this tree cottonwood, and in early summer the fibers that form sails for its seeds collect in drifts like snow. The coloring of this shoot, and the waxy sheen on its leaves, are indicators of this dry season. When there is abundant rainfall, they come up thick and dark. These leaves are thin and flexible, with a sticky coating that slows down evaporation.It has been more than a week since I first noticed that the light of the setting sun was coming in our north windows. At midnight, it is not yet full dark. Soon, it won’t get dark at all, just a long twilight that turns gradually to dawn. Sunrise today: 5:05 AM, sunset: 10:47 PM.
I’m still working behind the scenes here on Xanga, and in the kitchen here at home.
Comments (6)
Dear Kathy Lynn,
Your new layout is “all over the place” on my browser at least. I liked the “old” layout better. I tried something called “Xanga themes” and it almost ruined my blogsite. I’m glad I remembered to copy the original code or else I would have had a lot of work to do to get things “back to normal”.
I love the photo of the kitty behind the club moss.
Michael F. Nyiri, poet, philosopher, fool
I think I could like it not getting past twilight…
Wow maybe I’ll live up there in summer and in ecuador in winter. I love the sun and green things. I’d never make it year round there; the cabin fever would make me nuts and I hate being cold and wet. Also overcast weather is very depressing. I spent a couple hours in the forest yesterday and it turned me into someone else entirely. I hope that the dryness abates.
I think no matter where I go, I will always have Alaska in my heart forever. There is something just untouchable to me- the relationship between people and nature.. commercial fishing out on the water surrounded by wilderness relatively untouched by the human population– I will always cherish that.
Sometimes I wonder why as a species, we are so destructive?
Thanks for the photo comment, it was a recent one that was at least a bit dusty for the challenge.
I’d like to experience the midnight sun sometime, but living with it and winter dark must be difficult I would think, I suppose you’ve adapted.
My answer–summer’s when 1) the fireweed blooms and 2) the snow is gone from the mountains around here.