A Day in the Life

There's a story in this photo:

1. I am not shoveling the waist deep snow that I am supposed to be shoveling, but standing in a narrow path that I shoveled to take this photo that shows how deep the snow was.

2. The photo was taken with a point and shoot camera that was propped on the handle of the snow shovel that I was supposed to be using.

3. Yes, I was chilly. I was not dressed for warmth, but for not getting too warm while shoveling, which I was not doing.

4. Notice the knee of my snow pants. A large tear is repaired with duct tape, the first choice of discerning Alaskans everywhere.

5. When I actually got around to shoveling, the only part of me that was cold was my right hand. That was because I kept taking it out of a glove to take photos.

6. The deck eventually got cleared. By that time, the first half of the Steelers/Patriots game was over.



These are the things that kept distracting me from shoveling:

Oh, look at the pretty mountains.

It's 15 degrees!   How can this tiny icicle be dripping?

The tiny icicle is center right.

Looking down on the back deck below and the way the snow curls off the top rail.

More snow art.

Oh, you have to take a photo of that mountain.

And those, too.

More snow art.

Done.

From below.

Out of the Camera Stuff

I've been busy with a project that is taking many, many hours on the computer and when I get tired of working on it,I certainly don't feel like writing new posts here.

So, I'll let the camera do the talking:


 Ten below zero and the little birds look like golf balls with tails.

This common merganser just surfaced into the cold air.   See the water sheeting off its head?

I shot this American dipper through mist rising off the water, so the photos aren't clear.  


The dipper caught a fish and is slamming it against the rocks, apparently trying to separate a chunk small enough to swallow.   You will see the moment when it looks like it's wishing it had teeth or opposable thumbs.

Once it swallowed the head, it left behind the rest of the fish.


 Lots of  "noise" from low light and mist.

This dipper was jumping off this ice into the creek to look for underwater food.

 That's gold in them thar cricks.

Night Light

When a sunset is lighting up your night.....

Make sure you look behind you.

Tossing Off the Winter Duvet

 Not long ago, I was lying in bed reading when I heard a loud roar.   That I heard something in this quite sound-proof house was amazing.  I figured it was one of the passenger jets flying over the mountains behind my house, on approach to the airport in Anchorage.

Or a bunch of Harleys.    Or a truck using its jake brake.   Or the beginning audio part of an earthquake.

Not once did I think of how the mountains throw off their winter snow mantles.   Not once.   So, when various neighbors asked me if I"d "HEARD THAT AVALANCHE!!! (delivered with the wide eyes of someone who'd experienced something awesome), it took me a while to put that loud noise together with their descriptions of how they were awakened by THAT AVALANCHE.

We're used to avalanches around here.   In the spring, especially, when warm temperatures and mountains touched by sunlight start shedding.  They are quite entertaining and leave amazing patterns in the discarded snow.

These three photos are of a mountain along the Hope Road.

Now that the mountains are greening-up with summer, the path of THAT AVALANCHE is even more impressive, because THAT AVALANCHE was not only snow.   It scraped vegetation off the rock body of the mountain, wrenched shrubs and trees out by their roots, and piled them all up at the mountain's base.  It essentially denuded the path it took.

No wonder it woke everyone up.