April, Record Breaking Temperatures

Weatherwise, April was a whipsaw month of dramatic changes. Temperature records were set all over the state for LOWS around April 7 and for HIGHS just two weeks later.  Anchorage smashed a record set way back in 1917.  Here, we bottomed out at 6 degrees F, BEFORE wind chill, which was substantial, and topped out at 64.  By mid-month, we relied only on a modest morning fire to warm the house above 59 degrees. No fire = spring cleaning, so we washed every curtain and rug free of 6 months of soot and ash accumulation.

Snow: 

As you may imagine, the snow started melting FAST.  We shed 5.5 feet in about 10 days.  Even with the dissipation of that volume, our yard is still 90% white.  Brown doughnuts of open ground have appeared around trees and dark buildings, expandìng and blending.  Hardscape is starting to appear, such as the rocks around our firepit and log benches.  We discover that the snow weight shredded a 4x4 post tethered to several electric and barbed wires encircling the beeyard.  (We should have loosened the wires).  On the other hand, one of the 2 x 4 cross beams of the raspberry trellis broke, too, and we DID loosen those wires.  Frost heave and snow.  What ya gonna do? 

Chickens: 

My delightful hens have endured another winter.  They don't like cold, wind, or snow, but they do like sun (so I wish we had positioned their coop better).  In mid-April, they started venturing rather tentatively out across the snow to our cabin.  I don't like it when they poop on my back porch, but I LOVE seeing and hearing them, and I am sure they love the snowless expanse under and around the edges of our cabin.  In a happy trade, the 8 ladies gave us 7 eggs one day.  I hope that these fluffy carnivores are eradicating fly larvae, because those creatures are annoying the barbeques we have started to enjoy again in the sun of the front porch. 

This was the first winter that we kept so many birds through the winter (we actually started with 10, but a marten killed two of them.  As a result, we underestimated the amount of hay we would need.  In the initial warm months of winter, I turned the dirty bedding every day.  But the muck freezes in deep cold, so later I use a deep litter method, which is to simply add a flake of new material every few days.  Well, by the beginning of April, we had depleted the bale, the coop smelled of ammonia which is unhealthy for the birds, and it was too cold for them to go outside.  So Bryan mucked out the stinky mess and I hauled 14 small sled loads uphill to dump into our big snowmachine sled.   It was interesting to see the methane rich material steaming from its internal heat in below freezing temperatures.  When the coop was cleared out, we transported the noisome pile to the vicinity of the biggest raised bed gardens in the back of the property.   Then, I layered thick cardboard over the chickens' floor and tossed in woody debris from our wood corral and cold ash.  This was not ideal, but it sufficed for the short interim until they could spend most of their days outdoors. 

Plants: 

I love what I consider to be scavenger hunts throughout the year.  In April, I cross the snow to the open ground and seek the earliest leaves and buds, some of which appear directly through the snow, too.  By the end of the month, I am wearing a short sleeved T shirt, but with tall boots and gloves as I cross through rotting snow, sometimes postholing up to my knees.  

Wild currant and elderberrry buds are full and fleshy.  The initially magenta leaves of dwarf dogwood appear along the lake shore.  Among domesticated plants, I favor perennials, and have planted lots of tulips in groups of 5-7 in front of a memorial bench with stone cairns for loved ones and dear friends.  Not only are the tulip leaves rising directly through the thinning snow, but, to my surprise, several of the cairns remain intact, rather than tumbled, despite all the winter snow.    

During this transitional time of year, we scurry about, trading out winter supplies for summer ones.   The marine cooler that stored food on the porch all winter is cleaned out.  The freezers in the food shed and the on-demand water heater are turned back on.  Boots and skis and parkas and snowmachines go into the bunny hutch/garage building, trading places with summer wear, mosquito netting, and sunscreen.  

As of the end of April, we see no open water on the lake yet, but it is no longer safe to walk on the thinning surface.  As the snow melts there, the lake takes on a variety of hues – some black/brown from suspension of dead leaves and branches, some lovely shades of ice blue, sea green, and sand.  We have pulled the blue tandem kayak out from beneath the cabin and dusted it off, ready for the first day we can paddle among the ice floes, perhaps with a visiting river otter.

Alaska Civil Air Patrol: Search and Rescue Training

 

The Civil Air Patrol is the civilian auxiliary of the US Air Force. Its missions, since formation in 1940, are emergency services, aerospace education, and cadet development.  Throughout the country, its squadrons are often the first people in the air to photograph damage from floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes, and to assist in locating lost hikers, boats, and planes.  Among the states, the Alaska Wing of CAP (akwg.cap.gov) performs many search and rescue (S&R) operations.  These emergencies require both practice and coordination among pilots, ground crew members, and communicators.  Lectures and simulations are useful, but nothing is better than real experience.

 

That’s where I fit in.  Although I am not a CAP member myself, my husband is.  Several times per month, I receive a call to “put out the beacon.”  This means that one of CAP’s seasoned check pilots has decided to train another flyer to detect and home in on an emergency locator device that we keep at our remote home This gives the other pilot more than half an hour's flight over largely uninhabited land to find us.  

Summer or winter, I flip the switch and position the yellow box and antenna on a nearby tree stump, where its signal will not be obscured by our metal roof.   Pilots flying north from Anchorage eventually detect the distinctively annoying tone.  To determine the direction from which the signal is emanating, the pilot engages in one or more wing nulls, which is a circling maneuver in which the wings block the transmission from the source location, enabling the plane to skew closer and closer to its destination.   Most of the time, after flying directly overhead, the pilots give us a wing wag of thanks and then fly back to base.

 

Other times, we mix it up.  In the summer, I sometimes take the beacon with me in the kayak and head out to some spot on the lake, simulating a submerged plane or a floating pilot or emergency bag.   This winter, the check pilot asked us to incorporate ground to air signalling.  What a great idea!  We considered laying out a blue tarp (known as a signal of emergency) but because of winds, I decided to try a signalling mirror and a ground indicator made of logs.  Because the afternoon was sunny and beautiful enough that a few recreational flyers were in the vicinity, I chose not to use a symbol of true emergency, like an F, which means “need food” or two parallel lines, which indicate injury.  Rather, I formed on the frozen surface of the lake in front of our cabin, two large L’s out of logs, each one about 12 feet by 7 feet.  The CAP pilot, flying at an altitude of 500 feet discerned both the signal of “Lima Lima” which means that “All is well,” and my random flickers of the signalling mirror, before returning home from successful S&R mission training.  For higher planes, a bigger shape would be important.

 

This signalling practice was as useful to me as it was to CAP.  I had to think about the relative positions of the plane, sun and mirror to make effective use of a simple hand mirror.  I also saw how much the logs sank into soft snow, obscuring a lateral view. I recommend that anyone who spends time in remote locations practice familiarity with these symbols.

In future, I look forward to additional signalling practice with the CAP pilots, pleased that I can enhance their ability to detect and interpret audible and visible emergency indicators... before they are called out for a serious situation.