Full Throttle Day

Today was totally crazy!!! It's like my throttle was stuck wide open and I was in danger of being over sped.

I stayed up too late reading and slept WAY too late. I felt awful--noises in my ears, headache, shaky. Then just before I forced myself to go pick up litter, a surprising nosebleed!

I cleaned up litter along 0.4 miles, the most distance I've been able to go post-op. I could have done more but the "scattered rain showers" chose my location to scatter upon.

Came back and spied on the waterfowl at Tern Lake for a while.

At home, I did some minor maintenance on the lawn tractor, and "shaved" two lawns to get the dead grass, leaves, etc. picked up. This involved several trips to the place where I dump lawn clippings and emptying the two baskets, which I didn't think I'd be able to lift, but did.

Finished raking up the bark from firewood in the carport.

Then, fixed myself two eggs over medium on Jewish rye toast. First time post-op I've been able to swallow either.

And I'd still be out there if the batteries on the string trimmer and leaf blower didn't need charging. I don't know where all this energy suddenly came from!

Visiting the Water Ouzel Nursery

 Little gray/brown birds that live along creeks and walk underwater were once called Water Ouszels, but are now called American Dippers.

You can find these birds, legs sheathed in ice, even in the coldest of winters, plunging into the water to search of edibles.

They are my favorite Alaskan bird, by far, even beyond my adoration for warblers and kinglets.

I recently decided to visit a nearby creek when I know the dippers have a nest.    

Sure enough, the adults were busy bringing beaks full of food for their three hatchlings.

Nondescript and hard to find unless they are moving, the dippers bring insects and a tiny fish to the nest.

Dippers don't care if humans are there.   This one was foraging within a foot of my feet as I sat on the creek bank about eight feet from its nest.

Then, up to the nest it went and three huge mouths opened to receive the bounty.

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Notice all the moss in the nest.   That was put there this year.

I leave you with this sight.   

Here we are, not even the middle of May and the hatchlings are already growing feathers.

Alder-Bashing for Litter

“Did you plan that rest?” asked Mary Mcdonald when she saw me sitting down in a thicket of alder branches.

“Not exactly,” I responded.   Apparently, she hadn’t seen the other three times the alders tripped me and put me to the ground.

Alders are wicked.  Huge branches grow outward and upward in a circle from a central root and they intertwine with their close neighboring alders. They are devilishly designed to foil the most agile human trying to climb through them in search of yet another beer can or diaper.   

Just a small part of the mess.

When Mary volunteered to help me clean up litter along the Seward Highway several years ago, I immediately declared myself aged out of alder bashing and assigned her the pullouts where alders grew.   She’s 20 years younger.

We give these pullouts a thorough cleaning every spring, all the way to the bottom of their slopes.   After the alders leaf out, we don’t go into them because we wouldn’t be able to see any bears attracted to the garbage.

Yesterday, after Mary cleaned up litter in the Mile 40 area of the Seward Highway, she joined me at Mile 50.5 pullout to clean up a gigantic litter mess.   It’s the first time we worked together, as we usually take different areas.

Mary took the alders growing on the downslope.   That slope goes down 50 to 60 feet.   I cleaned up the paved parking area and the horizontal areas beyond the guard rail.  

Then, I ventured down the slope, and, because one beer can leads to another beer can, I soon found myself in the damned alders where I took the unplanned rests on the ground.  These are not falls, but a slow sinking to the ground when footing failed and branches don’t hold me as I’d hoped.

The verticle trees are cottonwoods, and the crazy tangled branches are alders.

More than six woman-hours were put into the effort and when done, we had filled nine litter bags.   The main part of the litter was a number of burst-open garbage bags that once contained numerous diapers, wipes, and tampons.  Some of the empty bags were hanging from the alder trees.   And the diapers were heavy after being exposed to wet weather.

I have no idea why this pile of road sand is here.   It had litter mixed in it, and the center is still frozen.

Mary found four pizza boxes and I found another.   There was the usual assortment of beverage cans and bottles, assorted wrappers and papers.   I even found a cat bed.  

All cleaned up.

Mary had the biggest find:   a brand-new computer still in its original, unopened packing, along with a surge protector, a printer (I think), and other tech items.   She hauled them uphill out of the maddening alders.  Later, she called the state troopers and reported finding them.  We probably will never know the story behind them.