Category Archives: Poodle

Leave Some for the Birds and Bears

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Aki and left the house early today. We wanted to see Gastineau Meadows in the clarifying light that only lasts an hour after sunrise. Thinking, “you never know” I slipped my ice cleats into a jacket pocket. Now I am leaning against a bull pine trunk, attaching the cleats to my boots. Aki, who hasn’t slipped yet looks back at me with impatience. She starts back up the trail after hearing the crunch of my cleats on the dense snow cover. 

            In minutes we reach bare trail. The surrounding meadow is bare as well. I step off the gravel trail and find the meadow still firm from last night’s freeze. The sun has already burned away most of last night’s frost.  I search for little depressions in the grass that still sparkle and find one dotted with wine-red cranberries. They ripened last fall and remained firm in spite of cycles of freeze and thaw. They are unaffected by the heavy snow that just last week covered them. 

            I pick a cranberry, find it firm but without the shinny surface it had just after ripening. It tastes complicated: mostly bitter, a little sweet with a musky base that reminds me of the meadow’s smell in fall time.  I could fill my hand with cranberries and eat them during the meadow crossing but decide to leave them for berry eating birds and just awakening bears. 

Any Excuse

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Aki stops twenty feet behind me. A few days ago she would have been standing on ice. But that is gone, melted by the string of warm, sunny days that followed our last visit. “Why,” she seems to be saying, “are we back on the Fish Creek Delta?”  If she were a human, I’d explain my intent to make many visits here so we can take an informal bird census. Because she would be that kind of human, she would press me until I admitted that I’d take any excuse to return to the rich and beautiful place.

            I was pleased to find the trailhead parking lot empty when we arrived. As if to confirm that we were the day’s first human visitors, two braces of mallard ducks rested on a pond right next to the trail.  They paddled without haste to edge of the pond and stepped onto the meadow grass. 

            The ebb tide provided ducks with exposed grassland for resting. A small raft of mallards slept on a nearby patch of grass, their necks buried into their back feathers. Another gathering of their cousins walked the shallows along the Fritz Cove beach, their heads plunged into the water.  They ignored a gang of American Widgeons that splash down onto nearby water after being spooked by an eagle. 

            The still-hungry eagle screeched out a complaint and flew into the top of a beachside spruce.  It clamped its talons tight around the springy branch, hunched its shoulders, and held on like a rodeo bull rider as the branch bounced up and down. After the movement stopped, the eagle raised its beak into the air and announced victory. 

Thanks

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This morning broke sunny and blue. Three mountain goats grazed above us on Mt. Juneau as Aki and I headed out for a cruise around downtown I needed a light jacket at first but soon found myself carrying it. Crocuses opened to the sun in south facing yards. I silently thanked the gardeners who squatted down to plant bulbs in the rain last November. 

            We pass the tiny Russian church, thankful for the person who refreshed the gold paint on its onion dome. I seem to be giving thanks often this morning. Aki looks thankful for the sunshine warming her curls and the chance to check the trap line of scents she maintains on the downtown streets. 

            On South Franklin Street, a man carries a Styrofoam container from the homeless shelter to the stoop of the Red Dog Saloon. After taking a seat, he raises his face to the sun. His takeaway breakfast sits uneaten beside him. It will fill his stomach even when it loses its heat. Then he will have at least two things to be thankful for.

Signs of Spring

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The snow is gone from the rain forest, washed away by rain and spring-like temperatures. It left behind bare ground covered with dead hemlock leaves and dissolving piles of dog poop. I tend not to look down this time of year unless necessary to avoid smearing my boots.  For the nose-driven dog, the opposite is true. 

            While Aki sniffs and pees, I scan the woods surrounding the Outer Point Trail, looking and listening for signs of spring. No thrush or robin or chickadee sings or even flits away at our approach. Only my boot taps on the trail boards breaks the silence. Buds on the red-limbed blue berry bushes are swelling. In a week or two, if the weather holds, pink or white blossoms, each a tiny Japanese lantern, will dangle from each branch. They will draw rufus hummingbirds when they arrived from the south. In a swampy area near the beach, skunk cabbage shoots, battered by their efforts to break through softening pond ice, provide the strongest evidence of spring. 

Aki has to squint her eyes when we leave the woods. A newly arrived sunlight brings a spring-like clarity to the scene.  Alders still wet from this morning rain glimmer, naked drift wood logs look as white as desert bones. 

Philosophical Moods

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On days like this, when the sky looks like dirty sheep’s wool and there is no wind to create drama, my mind wanders. I forget for moments to monitor Aki. There is little to endanger the poodle on this trail to Nugget Falls. When she finishes her most recent exploration, she will catch up. 

Even though fuzzy catkins decorate bare willow branches, it doesn’t feel like spring. There is no sign that bears have stirred from their winter dens. No wolf tracks mark the remaining snow. No eagles bicker in the nearby spruce trees. Only the falls, now unfrozen, makes any sound. 

Across the lake Mendenhall Glacier snakes down through rocky cliffs. We walk toward the falls in gray light until the sun breaks through the marine layer to give the dog and I crisp shadows. It forms faint rainbow prisms on the falls for a second and then disappears. High above the glacier a large mountain goat rests on a ledge. It appears to be looking at Aki and I rather than the glacier or the shafts of light glistening the lake ice. It appears to be in a philosophical mood. 

Very Early Spring

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Sunshine tempted the little dog and out the door early this morning.  No wind stirred the neighborhood spruce trees so we headed over to Sheep Creek. I hoped to enjoy reflections of the Douglas Island ridge in the still waters of Gastineau Channel. 

            Thanks to the near presence of the Juneau Icefield, sunny days are often windy days. Not this morning. The resident mallard drakes can admire their reflection in the tidal ponds scattered around the Sheep Creek delta. Aki can walk without wind flattening her fur. I can enjoy the reflections. 

            Just offshore gulls crowd onto a shrinking gravel bar. I measure the progress of the tidal flood by the number of gulls forced to flight. The remaining gulls lift off in a group, moaning and complaining about the thoughtless tide, forgetting that soon they will feast and fight over food that it will leave behind.  

            A cloud of fussing gulls flies over two seals that splash and swim around each other. One of the seals appears to climb up on the back of the other. Is this a frolic or something more serious? Are the voyeuristic gulls invading the privacy of the seals while they try to mate? It’s way too early in the year for seal sex in normal times. But we rarely, if ever, have 60 degree F. temperatures on a mid-March day. Is climate change changing everything?  

The Looking Glass

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Aki splashes along a trail of covered by ice and a thin layer of water. Before I left for my weekend trip to Anchorage it offered skiable snow. Now I have to struggle to stay upright on my cross-country skis. I follow the little dog, thinking that we should turn around. Each time I do, the glimmer of water on Mendenhall Lake draws me forward. 

The water covering the still frozen lake reflect a gray ski, clouds, mountains, the glacier, and surrounding trees. The captured reflections are outlined by the glow from the underlying ice.  To eye them is to see into Alice’s looking glass. 

After almost falling a few times, I follow Aki into the relatively snow free woods and onto the edge of the lake. Here a border of windblown snow offers a skiable surface. The little dog walks behind me on my ski tracks. I still have to take care to avoid skiing over the tops of emerging rocks. 

The temperature has reached 54 degrees F. I unzip my parka and remove my hats and gloves.  The snow, already reduced by a recent deluge of rain, can’t survive long in these conditions. Is winter dying, little dog? She offers no opinion. 

Judgmental Eagle

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This morning only one bald eagle roosts on top of the old Treadwell mine ventilation shaft. Small waves slap at the base of the shaft. Rain soaks into the eagle’s feathers.  It focuses one eye on the little dog and I and forces its eyebrow into a shallow “u.” I’ve seen a similar look on policemen and teachers about to scold a troublesome student. 

            Aki trots over to the beach’s grassy verge, apparently unaware of the eagle’s mood.  A few yards away, a rusted piece of ore car railing emerges from the sand. Further down the beach, the tide has exposed a hundred-year-old engine block. In between chunks of shattered pottery and bricks lay on the beach. Maybe the eagle is upset with the men that left all this junk behind when the mines closed after World War I.

            We walk on down the beach into the wind and exposed to the rain. When Aki and I reach the little bay formed by collapsing mine tunnels, we move into woods that have grown over the mining town of Treadwell. Steel cables, car springs and ore cart railings emerge from the flesh of spruce trees. The trees, not the things manufactured by men, are the aggressors. This is not right. The trees aren’t attacking, just tiding up the mess left by the men who moiled for gold. (“Moiled for gold” borrowed from “The Cremation of Sam McGee” by Robert Service).  

Storm Light

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Suddenly, Aki has a shadow. It’s the last thing I expected on this grey morning. We are approaching the old Auk Village site on a beach exposed by the retreating tide, trying to get a walk in before it rains. The shafts of sunlight piercing the marine layer are a surprise. 

            We’ve seen this kind of storm light before. Sometimes it appears as rain clouds breaks up. I suspect that today its presence confirms the weatherman’s prediction of rain. In minutes the light disappears and is replaced by a cooling wind. The strong breeze blows us past the village site and out to Point Louisa. 

            We’ve seen eagles, seals, and tight clusters of ducks at the point. Today’s wind has blown away the usual rafts of scoters and golden eye ducks. Crows bounce up one at time into the air, as if playing a game with obscure rules. Four of the crows take shelter behind a nearby boulder. Aki disappears behind her own sheltering rock, as smart as a crow.   

Yellow is the Color…

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On this grey day at Fish Creek, yellow is the dominant color. Last week, when sun hammered down on the snow-covered meadow, white fought with blue for chromatic first place. Tides and rain have washed away the snow. Grey clouds hide the indigo sky. The straw-yellow of last fall’s grass can draw the eye. 

            Yellow’s time will be short. Already green shoots push up through the bases of the winter-killed grass. Spring arrivals, like American Widgeon ducks and plovers work the shallows of Fritz Cove along with resident mallards. 

A half-a-dozen eagles sulk in nearby spruce trees. We have not seen more than one or two at time all winter.   The sound of the eagles bickering makes Aki nervous. But she still follows me out to the mouth of Fish Creek where a large raft of widgeons feed. They seem jumpy. Six or eight of the plump ducks panic into flight and fly close by us on their way up stream. Aki is honoring her no-contact-with-waterfowl policy so I know we aren’t making the birds nervous.  

            We pass another collection of widgeons on the way back to the car. The entire raft bursts into flight, twists around above Fritz Cove, plops onto the shallows and charges onto the beach. I can’t spot the head of a seal offshore. But what else could have driven the sea birds on to the beach?