May Day in Alaska (aka Come Help Me!)
It is May. I know this because the calendar sheet over there on my toolbar is sporting a big black “1.”
It is May Day, also known as International Workers’ Day, which celebrates the international labor movement. Solidarity to all workers everywhere.
It is also May Day, the traditional day of several Spring Festivals in the Northern Hemisphere – the Celtic festival of Beltane and the Germanic festival of Walpurgis Night, for instance. Flowers are celebrated, poles are danced around, the woods are frolicked and cavorted in.
The May Day it feels like in Alaska, is of a different sort. A sort like this:
Mayday is an emergency procedure word used internationally as a distress signal in voice procedure radio communications. It derives from the French venez m’aider, meaning “come help me“
Yes. “Come help me.” That’s the one.
Spring in Alaska has been more elusive than usual. Here in Anchorage, it was snowing yesterday.
Flakes. Falling. Down.
It’s not unheard of to have snow at the beginning of May, but this year Mother Nature felt particularly ruthless. And it’s not just me. The National Weather Service had this to say:
I am validated.
The reason for this, apparently, is that the jet stream decided it would detour up to the North Pole, and then hook a sharp right turn, carrying all the cold it could muster due south to Mudflats Central.
There are certain signs that Spring is on the way. Men in fluorescent reflective vests are raking dusty grass along the road near business parks. Giant yellow trash bags emblazoned with the BP logo dot the median of the highway, bulging with God-knows-what that came out of the snow melt. Ruddy, flat-cheeked people in stretchy pants and headbands are jogging despite the choking dust that comes with each passing car.
And Deathwish Danny is out. He’s the black dog that perches on the edge of the road, just down the way, and catapults himself toward oncoming cars on the narrow twisting thoroughfare that winds up the mountain. He’ll announce the launching with a bark, which stiffens your spine, and makes you listen hyper-alert for the sound of a thunk, or a bump under the back wheel. So far, so good.
The last Deathwish Danny, and the Deathwish Danny before him aren’t around any more. My kid mused today, “Let’s name the next one Deathwish Dave.” And when I asked him why he was already naming the next one, he noted grimly, “They don’t seem to stick around long. I think they get their wish.” I do not know this to be true for a fact, I’m just saying.
I thought that today, I’d get outside. In defiance. I thought I’d take some pictures, maybe, and chronicle the long, slow death of this long, slow winter. Bearing witness to its passing might help my cabin fever up here in the hills where the snow lingers longer than in the city. So I did.
Then I went out to dinner, and on the way home, right at Deathwish Danny bend, sure enough a black shape sprang out toward the car. “That’s odd,” I thought to myself. “It looks like Deathwish Danny has grown to about 15 times his normal size since this afternoon.” I thought this in that millionth of a second way that you think about things when your car is about to hit something. He was acting different too, and I slammed on the breaks reflexively. He skidded to a stop right outside the driver’s side door. And he looked at me – he about six inches from the glass on the outside, and me about six inches from the glass on the inside. And he was a bear.
M’aider!
So, with that, here are the pictures I took today, and next time I go out without a vehicular enclosure, I’ll be a little more vigilant. Spring is clearly here, even if it doesn’t feel like it.
Buf the Dog is ready, regardless.
She does not count on the punchy snow, though, and keeps sinking up to her shoulders. She also does not count on a humiliating picture of herself ending up on the internet. Shhhh.
Composure regained, the noble hound surveys the land.
The little spring that comes down from the mountain is starting to open up.
It flows toward the creek, and then disappears under the snow again.
Mud, sitting water, slushy snow. In other words, ick.
A bud. Nothing much going on there…
Leftover pine cones.
Yes, I’m coming!
A moose was here.
The macro-world actually looks kind of pretty.
And it’s pretty nice when you look up!
Somebody bought the adjacent property, and put these “NO TRESPASSING, ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK” signs up on several trees I am very fond of. It annoys me.
A beautiful wood ear mushroom. Fungus transcends seasons.
Uh-ohhh… That awesome fungus is on the other side of the danger tree!! Yes, I entered at my own risk, because that’s how I roll when I’m annoyed by ugly signs. 🙂
Please extend my sincerest apologies to Buf for even thinking it might be a dingo. Color me properly chastised.
Ah, yes- springtime in Colorado. April 28-30: temps close to 80… May 1st brought a 50 degree temperature drop and 7″ of snow. Today? Sunny, high 40s and snow is melting.
Trees and shrubs will have to set buds- again. For the third time.
Ok, I will NOT tell you that although we are cool on the AK Peninsula the snow is mostly gone, not a huge snow year anyway, and days in the 40’s. I will not mention those things.
Today our first boat went into the water, a little early from what we can remember and at 35 degrees and a windchill that takes it into the 20’s doesn’t feel spring like.
Be careful with those car/bear/deathwish encounters….even our puppers realize that coming unglued at the prospect of chomping on a bear should be done from across the other side of the car/truck!
Pebbers says ‘hi’ to Buff and was giving me the eye that I am NEVER to post embarrassing photos of her going through the snow or mud!!
Here in my part of the Tongass, the rain in “temperate rainforest ” reached 9 inches for April (twice normal) and set some records for snowfall. The “temperate” part hit the bottom end of the scale with daytime temps running over 10 degrees below norm for the month. Freezing rain got rilly, rilly boring half way through the month. Rilly, rilly.
We’re seeing a lot more ground than you AKM – some of it is even greening up . Waterfalls have replaced icefalls and avalanches are booming off the mountains every few hours so we are getting to the “there” of spring. Finally. I hope.
Pats to Buf!
Please do take care when not in your rig now that the bears-not-dogs are out.
found first asparagus today,probably freeze tonight.
Oh . I love asparagus! Do you ever tent things with row cover? I do a lot/often in this on again-off again time of the year now.UgaVic talked me into trying it ( actually, she told me to quit whining and sent me Elliot Coleman’s Winter Gardening book, 😉 ) a few years ago and it makes a big difference in the not losing nice garden goodies in the early part of the season.
You sure have wild spring temp swings there- as wide as CO does there in Colorado?
We mostly have very cold, pretty cold, and almost warm enough here.
I found several green cherry tomatoes this weekend on two of my plants, I’ll be adding fresh produce to my salads shortly, green beans are climbing the trellis , will be looking for beans in another 2- 3 weeks, I’m thinking,,,, I covered the cantalope plants at night for the past 3 weeks, but we head 90 today ( het advisory, so I think I’m done with making the plastic quonset hut , unless the bloody deer start busting thru the netting.. chuckle 90here in th Santa Cruz Mtns, and it’s snowing in the midwest !
Yeah Ben,but at least our Midwest snow is corn fed.
You are so lucky ben. If only I could grow cantaloupes under cover!!!
I have 6 lil tomato starts in the front room window- all cool weather varieties. Always say I’m not going to try them again, always do anyway. I got 2 quarter sized Glacier tomatoes last year. Figure each was worth about $437/lb in effort 🙂
Couldn’t do the 90 degrees though- eeks!!!
Not sure how row covers would work with asp. One tip was near my garage on West end of garden and the other two were in a sprawling bed over a hundred feet away.Plastic jugs might work for a night or two. Got plenty of clear plastic and time to spare.
Worth a try to save asparagus!
Neighbors are now very used to my temporary sticks , rocks, and row cover “structures” strung here and there for a couple weeks at a time but still generates interesting conversations about gardening- so it all adds to my peculiar and limited social life too 🙂
I can’t help wondering if a heated water line coiled around the plants ( in a pot) , coupled with plastic cover would be a worthwhile endeavor/experiment… basically a mini- hot house over each plant, with clear plastic for access to light. you’d probably have to use a wood stove as the source of heat due to cost factor. manifold the hot water to the plants ( if ya do it in series, the first plant will cook your veggies before they grow, the lat will fast freeze them) ., and then manifold the return line. no pump needed as the water would flow in and out thru one way flapper type valves….
So who is the dog-Deathwish Dingo? The jet stream took a hard right turn-hmmnn-means Mother Nature is b%^ s%^t crazy,just like rethuglicans or korporate amerika bought her off.
Wonderful photos. Good to see the dog again. Spring arrived in northwest lower Michigan on Tuesday, the last day of April. On May 1 the temperature reached 80 degrees – only for a few minutes though. The front yard is looking green finally, there are buds on the trees, daffodils are blooming, the side yard is carpeted in violets and a bunny was checking for dandelions in the front yard last evening. Unfortunately for him no dandelions yet but they’ll be up and blooming (unfortunately for us) by Mother’s Day. He just has to be a little patient. Our very last “wodge” of snow disappeared over the weekend.