Every year is different. The first summer I was here in Alaska the hornets and yellowjackets were everywhere. The fellow I was living with had his coveralls hanging on a nail next to the front door of the cabin. He found out the hard way that hornets had built a nest in the sleeve. Amazingly, he only got one sting.
That was Summer 2003. I was living in a spruce forest then, where the moss is at least three feet deep everywhere, creating the most humongous mosquito condo you can imagine. The bugs were awful that year. Spruce bark beetles seemed to think I was a tree, my hair was constantly red and black, from all the smashed mosquitos in it, and going out the front door meant a quick dash, hoping to avoid a commando attack by yellowjacket.
Part of the bug problem was that I was in prime bug territory. But the mosquitos and hornets were really bad that year.
The next summer, in 2004, the mosquitos were just gearing up when the world caught on fire and didn’t go out until it snowed in October. Six million acres burned, the worst forest fire the United States has ever had, as far as I know. That was the Smoking Summer, and I had to wear a gas mask much of the time because of forest fire smoke, not to mention not knowing if or when I’d have to evacuate. It sure kept the bugs down, though! Unfortunately it kept down birds and humans, too. I got more exercise last winter than I did last summer!
Now it is Summer 2005 and already I know how it is going to be remembered. The Summer of Butterflies is here. Swallowtail butterflies are everywhere.
Last weekend we were out doing what we do, which is tootling past junk yards and junky yards looking for old cars and trucks, when Scott said “We need to pull over here!” I pulled in and sure enough, there was a neat old fire engine that looked like it would run if someone would just turn the key! I looked it over, but before Scott was done my attention was drawn to the barn swallows that were swooping in circles just above my head. As I raised my focus to include the rest of the yard, I saw a puddle where the birds were gathering mud. This enabled me to move much closer to them and get a good look at their metallic blue coats and to notice that they are really much larger than swallows in the Lower 48!
I have noticed that the robins up here are quite large and I asked Nancy DeWitt, biologist at the Alaska Bird Observatory about it. She’d replied that the farther north a bird migrates, the larger they tend to be compared to their compadres who don’t make it up this far. I was glad, because I had first thought it was my imagination. But these robins are huge! You could practically put a saddle on ‘em...
A swallow flew up from the puddle as I approached and I realized what looked like a strange pile of leaves was actually about fifty swallowtail butterflies standing on a damp patch of ground. It was so unexpected, so fairylike! Being very careful not to step on any I crept up to them. I probably could have picked one up but I didn’t try. I got within a foot and most of them decided to fly away. The wind was toward me, so all at once I was enveloped in a cloud of feathery butterfly wings. I stood there with my arms out, hoping one would land on me. This is definitely something you don’t see every day.
The swallows were eating mosquitos up in the air, but I wondered how they didn’t end up stuffed like little birdy pillows. The air is full of cottonwood seed. It mimics snow, that’s how thick it is. It’s actually poplar seed, a relative of the cottonwood, but having lived around cottonwood trees and their fluff for twenty years, I have a hard time calling it poplar seed. Lots of people still call it cottonwood, too. It looks the same.
We bumped down a mining road to check on an old abandoned dump truck, and saw poplar seed a foot thick in the woods. It filled some of the ruts and potholes in the dirt road. If there is any other name for this summer, it will be Summer of Cottonwood seed.
It’s been raining on and off all spring. I’ve had to move my potted plants off the porch and under the eaves so that they don’t drown. That’s after I brush all the cottonwood fluff off them, poor things.
On the way home a few nights ago there were sporadic showers in the big sky. It was about midnight and the sun was just going down, causing the whole western sky to go coral. As I drove northeast, with the intense coral sky behind me and big puffs of cloud raining here and there, I saw a rainbow right over my cabin. No, two rainbows, three!
A rainbow at midnight. Now that’s not something you see every day.
