Wild Thang!

It's been a looonnnggg time since I wrote, a good combination between poor internet and little motivation to be on a computer rather than outside! Here's what I've been meaning to write about for a while now, sorry for the delay!

Several weeks ago we had our USFS safety week, which was 4 days of activities like swift water rescue (in which my "dry" suit left me soaking wet!), rifle training, aviation survival training, learning to use a fire extinguisher (you think you know how to use one but have you ever actually practiced!?), and bear safety. I have since then decided who of my coworkers I would want to stay close to during the apocalypse.

Nate's photo in his backyard..... yup that happened. Credit: Nate Catterson

I was also able to experience the CUTEST wildlife encounter. My supervisor was having coffee at his counter one morning while watching a moose have her calf in his backyard. Not something everyone can say they've witnessed!  The moose and her calf were in his yard for several days, I guess thinking it'd be a safe place to hunker down and rest up and hide from bears (even though a game trail runs right through his yard). I walked over to his house and looked through the binoculars at the adorable baby moose. GAHHHH!!! He got some amazing pictures. I wonder if Grandpa Cleaver ever had got to see a moose take its first steps?

Nate's spawning steelhead photo- we waded the Situk to get some good photos for "Don't Tread on Redd" signs

The Mallott's Guest House

Also a while ago: Tom and Patricia (both teachers here), and their son had my friend Maria & I over to enjoy the view from their house and Patricia's famous Filipino cooking. Maria and Patricia have been very close friends during Maria's 10 months here (she's an Americorps envtl education volunteer in the school). Our other friend brought over fresh shrimp from his shrimp pots which was literally the most amazing thing I've ever tasted. Putting "local" into a new context when you can see where your dinner comes from (and who caught it) while eating it!  I believe Tom has lived in Key West before, and Patricia is from the Philippines.  A little about their house- they live in the Mallott's guest house, which is literally OVER the water. The porch hangs out over the high tide line of Yakutat Bay, and holds probably the nicest view in town of snow-capped Mt. Saint Elias, stunning sunsets, and porpoises swimming through the bay daily. It's a small house (reminds me of the tiny house movement but is definitely bigger than that) with a ladder that goes up to the loft, and 1 bedroom and a tiny bathroom. It is a dream house!  I remember searching "Yakutat" on Google Images and the above picture came up- and thinking, "wow, I have to find that house!" And within a few weeks of visiting Yakutat... I was eating dinner in it! Patricia made a Thanksgiving Dinner's worth of DELICIOUS food, including spring rolls- my favorite- followed by key lime cheesecake. Can life get better?

Why yes, yes it can. That amazing house pictured above? I now live in it.  Tom & Patricia and their son live in Haines for the summer, and their usual renter during the summer is not staying in their Yakutat house, so they offered to have us rent it. We have named it the Chateau del suenos (a bilingual name for "Castle of Dreams"). My first morning here was the lowest low tide of the year I believe, so we jumped out of bed once we woke up, and ran down the steps to do some Saturday morning science in the intertidal zone (before changing out of our PJs or having coffee)!  We found HUGE sunstars (the largest I've ever seen), lots of barnacles, limpets, and some other invertebrates.  I decided someday I'll write a children's book titled, "Coffee with Crustaceans".

Saturday morning science!  kids: don't touch the marine life

size comparison!

absolutely cruisin- look at those skid marks

Typical sunny day view from the Chateau

One evening, we noticed an absurd amount of eagles and ravens flying overhead. There are several eagle nests all around our house, and seeing them everywhere is not atypical for Alaska. But there was a continuous stream all headed in the same direction up the beach from us, and quite a raucous, so we decided to check it out. We walked down the beach and saw- I kid you not- at least 30 bald eagles in 1 giant group on the rocky beach. We could see what looked like blood inside their circle, and we began taking pictures, video, and looking through the binoculars to figure out what the bloodbath massacre was!  We still never figured out what it was- seemed like too much blood for a fish, but may have been something the neighbors threw down onto their beach. I've never seen anything like it. There were eagles not only down on the rocks, but also across the stream on the island nearby, and smaller eagles (which I guess were intimidated by the dominant adult males) sitting in the nearby tree tops, waiting for their turn to have a seat at the feast.  Maria and I got jealous- nobody invited us to the eagle party! We imagined how even more amazing our pictures could have been with some of the fancy cameras our other buddies in Alaska have.

Eagle party

photo taken through binoculars.... this is why I need a new camera!

Eagle outside our house

crazy eyes

I still haven't gotten used to the beauty of Yakutat. It does rain a lot here, after all it is a rainforest, but every clear, sunny day that I can see the mountains from Yakutat is jaw-dropping.  People here know how to do such interesting things that I would never have a reason to learn about elsewhere- such as canning salmon, smoking fish, etc. I'm hoping the smoker gets used soon and I learn how to smoke some salmon!

This place is like living in a zoo and aquarium all at once.  The other day we were out on the boat and saw a brown bear sow and her not 1, not 2, but THREE cubs with her on an island in the bay.  Today we went halibut fishing and to check Nate's crab pot and while out we were surrounded by porpoises, whales, caught a big orange octopus, and pulled up several crabs with a sculpin in the pot.

fishing for halibut, but caught an octopus!

we debated making calamari, but ultimately let him go.

It's insane!!! Compared to what the rest of the world probably did on a Sunday, I'd say I got to see some of the best of what this sweeeeet place has to offer.   I still have a lot more writing to catch up on some of the most exciting events of the past month (such as learning how to gut a bear and the barn owl and falcon that were living in the bunkhouse with us for a few days during the Tern Festival), but at least this is a start!