Excuses Galore

 What can I say that would excuse my absence here?   Only this:   it's summer.

Like the little tree swallows below, we Alaskans cram a lot of living into a short period of time.  The swallows arrive, build nests, incubate and hatch their young, feed them non-stop unless the little ones fledge and then they're gone, leaving us to deal with the abundance of mosquitos they leave behind.

A wee tree swallow waits for food to appear..

Alaskans are much the same--cramming a lot of living into a few short months before the arrival of yet another long, cold, dark winter.   This year is worse than usual.   Some of us aren't sure if summer has yet arrived.

April, May, June and now part of July were n on-stop gloomy gray and rainy.  Cooler than normal.   We had a few nice days here and there, but for the most part summer has been a bust.

Everything is late.   The birch trees didn't fully leaf out until mid-June and that "fully leaf out" thing is the cue for everyone to start planting their gardens and hang their flower pots.  No more can we count on Memorial Day as "the day" because they've gone and messed with its date.

INCOMING! Open wide!

Even the swallows have chores to be done.   Here, an adult is removing a fecal sac from the nest.   The little hatchlings don't stick their butts out and poop.   No, their feces is encases in a mucous sac that makes it easy for the adults to remove it and drop it in my yard.

This load appears to be extra large, and contains something that looks like a mosquito wing.

Chores.   I haven't even begun the gazillion things that need to be done around here.   However, my friends Mary and Shawn decided they were going to split, haul, and stack the firewood I bought and they are almost finished.   Four cords in the woodshed and one to go.  They won't let me help, either.

The spruce bark beetles have bored through the bark of the mature white spruce, girdled them and killed them.   It breaks my heart to see so many brown trees.   They have to come down.

Looking at these photos reminds me of another horse I've been putting off for several years because I can''t figure out how to accomplish it.   All the facia board on this big house needs to be refinished.  I figured out the part about lying on the steep roof and reaching o ver and down with a stain applicator.   What I can't figure out is how to keep the stain in whatever utensil I use and not spill it.

So, here I sit like this swallow, trying to figure out how to get things done.   All the deck rails need to be pressure washed and restrained.  Deck steps need replacing.   Some siding needs to be sanded down and restained.

It never ends.   Not for me or the swallows.  

In the meantime, I drive off every day and pick up litter along the Seward Highway.   At least I can see what I've accomplished by doing that.  I've reached the far side of Turnagain Pass, which is the right place for this far into summer.

EXCEPT:   My friend Mary is dedicating one day a week to cleaning up litter , too.   She can walk farther and carry more weight in the litter bag than I can.  She's doing miles 48 through 56.5.  Thagt's the only reason I'm on schedule time-wise.   We couldn't even start until the first of May because the snow and ice lasted so long.

Oh, well.   The wildflowers  in Turnagain Pass are magnificent this year and are making "spectacles" of themselves.