As if forced away by music, the clouds always abandon Juneau on the Saturday of folk festival week. This surprised the weatherman, who had predicted a continuation of the wet weather that plagued Southeast Alaska for a week. Aki doesn’t know that a bath awaits her when we return home from this trip to the wetlands. In minutes she manages to coat her fur with estuary mud then prances around like a perfumed starlet. With the tide out, the birds are out feeding on the mudflats. Two eagles do fly over, chasing each other toward the glacier. They disappear, leaving the skies empty except a song sparrow that settles onto a drift wood root wad and sings of spring.