I am waiting at Dr. Kimi’s in Copper Center for Eve’s spay operation to finish huddled in the front seat of my truck that rattles with every spring gust. It seems as good a time as any to write my weekly post. 5 1/2 months old and one heat cycle under her belt and it was time to make the 70 mile trek to the vet to make sure we would not continue populating the world with kittens. And while it might be a pipe dream, I am also hoping that soon she might settle down a bit (and stop killing quite so many of my plants with her acrobatics.) The warm spring weather has spurred insects to hatch and the tiny flies are in our airspace with increasing frequency. These winged delights zooming by are quickly followed by an 8 pound kitten in hot pursuit. Coffeecup, plates, plant trays, paperwork…nothing is safe as Eve chases the bugs around inside and out. Last night she spied a spider who had happily spent the winter safely on my bedroom ceiling. She meowed and pawed and rummaged around on my desk to try and reach it. Finally she tried to climb my driftwood mirror and nearly knocked it off the wall. Poor spider…it was brutally squished for no fault of its own in my pursuit of actually falling asleep at a decent hour.

Last Friday I finished splitting and stacking the 4 trees that came down in the yard. Usually we do all our firewood chores in March but we had unseasonably warm weather mid month and with a low snow season, we lost our ability to use snow machines to haul logs out of the woods. We are being a bit inventive this year with filling our woodshed and I am onboard as it also doubles as a spring clean up project. We have been utilizing any trees that fell over during bad winter winds, any stacked piles of wood on the property that were to be dealt with “later”, trees that came down on the Strelna Creek property, as well as slab wood left over from a milling project too many years ago to count. It is not an ideal way to fill the wood shed nor does piecemealing the shed full over the course of the summer appeal to me BUT it will get the job done, eventually.

My softwood cuttings of lemon balm and sage FINALLY rooted and I transplanted them into 3 inch pots . This is the first time I have attempted to overwinter herbs to take cuttings to sell in the spring. My high rate of die off and slow rooting tells me I have a lot of room to improve! But the survivors are strong and have joined the daily parade out to the greenhouse and back into the cabin every night with all the other trays of starts.

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Monday we woke up to snow. The big fluffy flakes were still falling when I got up at 6 am and for a brief hour or two we were back in winter with our boots on and thoughts of actually finishing an indoor project or two. But the sun is strong these days and when it came out midmorning the roof started dripping, then pouring, and by late afternoon it was all gone. Back to spring chores…

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Monday night we were up late visiting with our good friends coming into the neighborhood on their way home for the summer. It was well after 11 pm and we were shutting the house down for bedtime when Tim called me to come outside because the “lights” were out. A stripe of green aurora spread in a narrow curved arc above the Wrangell mountains to the North. And as I was stepping out, that stripe started rippling with a light undercurrent of red. Green spikes shot up to the zenith and the red and green colors undulated and writhed against the dark sky. While we stood there in coats marveling at the spring show in mild weather, Tim said “listen…frogs” And I listened. The wood frogs were calling out their first mating cries of the year on April 15th in the chilly near midnight air. I wonder what they thought of the 18 degree temps the next morning. Brrr!  Wood frogs are amazing creatures and I absolutely am obsessed with them. I grew up in New England waiting for the peeper’s song every year and now I wait for the Wood Frogs, our only amphibian in Interior Alaska. It is a bit of a contest in our family to be first to hear them. Well, it wasn’t me this year!

I have been walking everyday as part of our April 30 miles in 30 days fundraiser for our local volunteer fire department, SVFD. It is great motivation get out (and to take the time to observe the progression of the spring season.) The snowshoe hares, who are at a high in their (11-ish year) boom and bust cycle, had grown their pure white winter coats weeks before we had snow stick last fall. And now the snow is gone early and while their brown coats are coming in, the white bodies are quite easy to spot. It has been interesting to see so many in freeze mode knowing that if they were not so obviously white against a brown backdrop, I would never know they were there. With a multitude of nesting owls, bald eagles, goshawks and other raptors around, I am guessing that the hares that turn brown the latest in fall and the earliest in spring will be the ones passing on their genetics this summer.

It is the week to plant the bulk of the garden plants. It is time to start all the brassicas. Of my 20 beds planted in vegetables, 5 will be filled with this cold hardy plant family. Cabbages, broccoli, cauliflower, asian greens and so much more. Where will these guys go?

Our internet is not cooperating this morning. Blinking in and out has made uploading photos a much longer than anticipated challenge. But as I sat here doing the final editing, the first robin of the year perched on the perennial garden fence post. He flew off but we can hear them singing. Which reminds me trumpeter swans flew over our lake a few days ago. The migrating birds are on their way!

Till next week…