July 20, 2008
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Natural Uncertainty
Things are very different here this year, and most of it can be ascribed to the increased rainfall and cloudy days. I don’t know for sure, but I suppose it was the overcast sky, keeping out the sun, that was responsible for the decreased height and delayed blooming of the fireweed. I don’t know whether the increased moisture is what has caused there to be more than the usual number of open flowers on each stalk, or whether that’s just the plants’ way of getting all their blooming done before frost.
Most summers, only about four blossoms are open on each stalk at a time. Now it’s about twice that many.
This is not the only noticeable difference due to the wetter weather. Along the roadsides, where fireweed is usually the dominant wildflower, there is less fireweed and more lupine, which does best in partial shade and wet soil. Devil’s club, which grows mostly around the edges of marshy areas, is more abundant than usual. I’m hoping for good light on our next water run, so I can take the camera and get some shots of the patches of devil’s club down by Sheep Creek.
Another difference this summer is pretty easy to figure out. The “cotton” that carries the seeds of balsam poplar, the tree that many Alaskans mistakenly call, “cottonwood”, usually floats through the air for a week or so in June or July, and settles in drifts that look like dirty, fluffy snow. It didn’t do that this year. On my latest trip to town, I noticed clumps of white stuff, about the size of baseballs, scattered under the branches of big poplars all along the highway. The stuff came to maturity in wet weather and was knocked off by rain this year, not by wind.
I don’t know if it is just coincidence, serendipity, synchronicity, or happenstance that has given us an unusual variety of wildlife sightings, and caused some of their anomalous behavior. Greyfox saw a black bear recently. Doug and I saw a fox. Ravens congregated and were cawing raucously in nearby trees here one day as we were leaving for the general store. When we got to the store, another group of ravens was making the same sort of racket in the woods down there. I’m used to hearing single ravens cawing that way as they circle over some carrion, and often hear two or three ravens calling back and forth with liquid sounds or softer vocalizations, but I’ve never heard that many cawing in concert before.
Rodents and insects are numerous. I have gotten some decent pictures of various bugs recently. The one above appears to be a baby grasshopper, but I’m not sure. If anyone can help me identify it, or the flowers below, I would appreciate the information. Lots of things in life are uncertain and I’m okay with most of it, but I am not comfortable with that kind of uncertainty that is really nothing but correctable ignorance.
The photos in this entry are only illustrations. I uploaded a number of fresh scenic and nature shots today. If you’re reading this in your subscriptions or came to it directly through your universal inbox and didn’t see the photo module on my main page, you can view today’s additions here.
Comments (9)
Alaska has already and still stands to more greatly be affected by apparent climate changes. Some day soon it may be America’s new corn and wheat belt.
The weather has been weird here, too. The peonies were late to bloom, it has rained buckets nearly all summer, we don’t have the heat we normally have in July and tornadoes just seems to drop from the sky… almost from nowhere. Very weird. Makes me wonder what winter is going to be like!
I felt two things reading this: jealousy for not being in such a seemingly beautiful place, and fear for the visible changes that I haven’t yet been able to detect in my corner of the world.
I remember you posting about the fireweed last year.
and how you rue the short summers there. I wish we could meet up sometime. That would be awesome.
The fireflies here aren’t as numerous as in previous years.
Summer doesn’t really feel “ready” …
Judging by what I’ve read on your blog, you seem to be pretty audacious when it comes to learning new things, and quite detail-oriented at times. Perhaps those traits are connected with you finding garden-variety ignorance to be so inadmissable?
@butshebites - Yeah, it would be awesome to get together. Unless winter holds off for a while, this could be one of the shortest summers yet. June never really got warm, and the cool wet weather in July has felt more like late August usually feels.
@Apocatastasis - Ignorance is admissible in most areas of life, if not in court, but it isn’t a state I enjoy living in. Looked at from another angle, I’m just very curious about everything.
I think we have that fireweed here too, or something that looks very much like it is growing up through the rhododendrons in the front. The Summer here in “Coastal Washington” had been cooler and wetter than normal in the Spring, but now it’s just beautiful, sunny and in the mid 60s. I feel any day like this not spent outside the whole day is wasted.
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