The Green Explosion
Photos & Story by Carmen
You might say we have five seasons in Alaska: summer, fall, winter, breakup and spring. Breakup is our ugly season. This is the time in April (and sometimes part of March) when the snow and ice melts to reveal … ugly brown vegetation and all of the winter’s lost trash. We like breakup, though, because it means summer can’t be far off.
I define spring as the second week of May, when the green explosion occurs. Having been born here, I didn’t realize how amazingly short our “greening” period is until a guest commented on it. We go from dead brown to green in just over a week. Not for us is the staggered leafing and flowering of assorted trees and bushes. The snow melts, the plants all wake up, and boom! It’s green! Just for fun, I took pictures of my back yard to show how fast this happens.
May 12, 2011
May 14, 2011
May 16, 2011
May 18, 2011Once the grass turns green and the leaves come out, it is by definition summer. It may be 50° and windy out, but you will find Alaskans picnicking in shorts and sandals insisting they are not cold.
We are no different. We went to our cabin near Anchor Point this past weekend, looking for spruce tips for a batch of home brewed beer. We were too early for the spruce tips and it was a tad cold (47°) but the wood stove kept us warm. On the drive down, we broke our previous record of five moose sightings. We saw six on the drive down and three the next day when we drove to Homer to visit the Ring of Fire Meadery (motivated by my son, the home brewer). There were also about a dozen eagles riding the thermals near the bluff above Homer. There was an unusually high number of snowshoe hares, too. Snowshoe hares are one of a number of species that change color with the season. They are mostly brown now, but our neighbor mentioned that they had white feet and ears just last week.
P.S. On my way to the last pottery lesson of the season last week, I saw another bore tide. This time there were four surfers! They are the four black specks on the far side of the sand bar. One of them is down on his board but manages to stand up again. Also, notice how fast the tide rushes up over the sand bar. Besides the danger of getting stuck in the mud, that’s why you don’t see people out there walking around.