The first dusting of snow on the mountains by Anchorage lore, marks the end of summer. This change, in the past, more often than not, came in August. It doesn't mean it's sticking, but it's clearly white up there.
Well, this Fall Solstice day (I always have to check because the exact date changes slightly each year, so it seems this year, it's not today, but tomorrow) comes one day after the first termination dust. (And, technically, I suppose it came yesterday, but the clouds didn't clear until today.)
The sun's been out most days. Today it was something over 70. And there's lots of flower blooming all over town. But particularly amazing right now are the lilacs and mountain ash trees.
Less showy, but no less beautiful are the wild geraniums. Here are two in our back yard. (The picture above is downtown, NOT in our yard.)
Saw lots of people today and busy prepping for our trip.
Summer began the last couple of days. Today is magnificent. I went to a rally against guns in Fairview and here are a couple of shots of the bike trail. It's the kind of green that first awed me on a half-day layover in Anchorage 51 years ago. And made me susceptible to a job offer ten years later.
This is the Chester Creek bike trail (the Lanie Fleischer trail) and now I'm getting ready to go in the opposite direction on the Campbell Creek trail for a party for someone special turning two.
It's not exactly like having new house guests throughout the summer, because most of these flowers are perennials who live here all year, though the flowers only show up for a few weeks in the summer.
So as the earlier ones fade, new ones provide an ever changing array of colors and shapes.
Appearing for the third time in the garden, and I don't remember their names. That's a problem with a couple more this year.
Some more lilies popped open.
And a couple of annuals. The nasturtiums popped out of the ground early, but took a long time to bloom. Now there are lots and lots of flowers.
And this pansy. Actually, the pansies have been blooming a while, but I just noticed this purple one.\
And finally this large hosta leaf. The flower is starting to face, but the leaf is impressive too.
It's summer enough that we are using the deck a lot now. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, if it's not raining or too cold, we're out there in this great room. And the birds get pretty close too. Black capped chickadees, nuthatches, and particularly the Steller Jays.
I was finishing the newspaper the other day when two Steller Jays showed up eyeing the peanuts I
was eating. I like peanuts in the shell because I can't eat them as fast as shelled peanuts. I have to open them first and there are only two inside. You get the point.
I had the peanuts on a plate and a bowl to put the shells. Some shells had fallen to the floor. The birds were calculating whether it was safe to hop down to the table with me sitting there. I covered the plate of peanuts with the newspaper and went inside to get my camera.
And one of the jays struck. Below is the video.
Here's dinner a couple of nights ago. When we bought this house, aside from it being close to where I worked, we loved the natural backyard. It's just a normal little city lot, but with the hills and the natural foliage, it looks much bigger.
J made Maqluba - from a cookbook called Jerusalem. I bought the book because of the picture of this dish. And it's incredible - so many flavors. (The first link is to a website called Multiculturiostity that describes making this dish from this book with better pictures. The second one links to a Jerusalem Post review of the book. It's MUCH cheaper online than what I paid for it at a bookstore, but the bookstore price was worth it for just this recipe. And I must thank my wife for having the patience to put all the different ingredients together now and then.)
OK, some might argue that there were some great winter days, but today was by far the best summer day of the year. The weekend was cloudy, rainy, some sun poking through the clouds. Chilly - in the 40s, low 50s.
Yesterday was sunny and much warmer, getting near 60˚F. But today it said 71˚F on our outdoor thermometer and sitting out on the deck felt decadent. The leaves are all out. Some flowers too.
Phlox
Narcissus
Got up and attacked my to do list. A couple of unexpected things came up, but got them taken care of too. One item on the list was to cut the May Day (Choke Cherry) tree flowers so they don't send seeds throughout the yard and neighborhood. I had discovered - because of the flowers - that we had one way in the back of the yard, on the other side of the fence even. I cut off all the branches, then cut off all the flowers. But then I discovered another one near the deck. These are highly invasive trees that also make moose sick. I've posted about them before - May Day Tree Invasion - Obvious While Blooming.
Choke Cherry Flowers
There were a lot of planes flying over. The Anchorage Airport FB page explains why:
"Runway 15/33 Closure: The North/South runway will be closed for preventative maintenance with an estimated timeframe from May 8 - 28th, from approximately 8:00am to 7:00pm, Monday through Saturday. This will likely result in more aircraft departures to the East over mid-town Anchorage and more noise impact to the community during those times."
But it was still nice working and reading lazily out on the deck.
Crossed over the bridge in Campbell Creek Park off Lake Otis and kids were swimming in the creek. (I was going to say 'cold creek' but I didn't try it. Maybe with all the warm weather we've had the water's warmer than usual too.)
And in the spirit of all the sun we've been getting, here's a sun flower from a plant our neighbor gave us earlier this summer.
It said 82˚ (F) on our deck thermometer when I got home this afternoon. Feeling so lazy.
As we hit June, more and more flowers are opening for their summer, above ground vacation.
The forget-me-not seems the perfect flower to start with as we remember our friends from last summer. And it's the state flower. Maybe we should send some of these to our Republican legislators to remind them that Alaskans are waiting for them to not just cut the budget, but to recognize that we're adults who are willing to pay our fair share to balance the budget.
Some big pumpkin colored lilies.
And, of course, the wild iris.
And some daisy too.
And finally, not a flower, but Campbell Creek, as I came back from some errands on the bike trail. One of the reasons I live here - this wonderful wild creek meandering through the middle of Anchorage. Although we're very near the Seward Highway, we're also in this seemingly wild spot.
It's summer, and this was the consequence of my lapse into un-Buddhist like impulses. But it turned out I'd already made my first blood donation of the day.
At least these guys are the big mosquitoes. That means they are slow and easy to feel on hairy arms.
The best room in the house isn't in the house. It's our summer extra room - on the deck. Here's what I saw when I looked at the ceiling while I ate breakfast this morning.
Here's one of the walls.
OK, I can see a little more than trees, but it's a bit of wooded paradise on a normal city lot right in the middle of town. It helps that there's a hill, but otherwise, it's just that no one cut the trees in the back ever. We too have just left it natural. And we've added trees on the sides to keep a little green summer oasis in the city. It's also relatively low maintenance.
Our backyard thermometer read 80˚F this afternoon though I'm sure the official temperature in Anchorage didn't get that high. We rode over to dinner in balmy weather with spectacular views. (The fact that I still am amazed at how beautiful the mountains are here after 35 years says something.)
After dinner, it was just too nice to go straight back so we headed on to the bike trail south of Tudor.
I thought about getting the photographer's shadow out of the picture, but then decided I'm not in the blog too often, so I left it in. This is about 9:20 pm. (It's 11:30 pm now and there's still some sunshine on the mountain tops.)
We stopped at a lookout over Campbell Creek where we saw salmon a couple of weeks ago. Didn't see any tonight, but then this momma Mallard showed up with 11 ducklings. They were much better behaved than human babies would have been.
A little further along the sun lights up everything. An evening when it's a joy to be alive.
While May was cool, June was spectacular. I missed the first week of July when I'm told it was grey and rainy. But it's been great the last couple of days.
I was on my bike when I saw the three moose walking across the empty lot that once was a trailer park. I barely had time to get my camera out of my pocket and take a quick picture before they disappeared.
It's been blue skies and warm temperatures since we got back to Anchorage last Wednesday night. I think Anchorage has had more summer weather already than all last summer. Our indoor-outdoor thermometer says it's 79˚F (26˚C) out on our deck. That's hot for Anchorage.
Technically, it's summer. But except for the sun and relative warmth of half of April, it's been more like the summers of the late 70s and early 80s. Cool, clouds, rain. But it is summer - because summer is when you drop off and pick up friends at the airport a lot.
Tuesday night I had two trips. Here I am waiting at Arrivals while J goes inside to find our friends.
And still there waiting. . .
We got them home and then I went out again to drop another friend at the airport.
By now - on the way home again - it's almost 11pm, but it's summer and still light, even though it's been cloudy and raining all day. Turning left at Lake Otis and Tudor. Despite the strip malls and signage, I can still see the Chugach and all is well.
At the last minute we ended up with friends enjoying the lovely evening eating salmon on their deck. Pretty simple. Just good talk, good food, good friends.
As we were eating dessert a young woman, barefoot, in wet shorts and T-shirt asked the direction of the Peanut Farm. She'd been kayaking Campbell Creek and overturned and told the others she'd meet them at the Peanut Farm where the car was. As the temperature was cooling (it was about 10pm by then) our host drove her to her destination.
With sweepers here and there, the creek is not as benign as it looks.
I was busy today and lots to post, but I was busy so this is filler and maybe I'll catch up. I'd forgotten how beautiful Anchorage is in the summer, because it's all been shrouded in clouds for so long now.
It's like this in Anchorage. We were riding home from dinner when J kept saying something about "to the right." I biked right past this huge moose and didn't even notice it until J finally said 'moose.' It was walking along the fence around McLaughlin.
Aphid honeydew. Gunk. Particularly under cottonwoods, there are large sticky wet spots.
If you stand under the true for a minute it feels like a very light drizzle. (One reason the close up picture below isn't better. I just couldn't stand under there for long. It wasn't just me, but my camera was getting dripped on.)
Here's a closer look of the sidewalk, gunking up. There are even bubbles.
And here are the culprits. (Double click any picture to enlarge it.) The best option I know (if you don't want to use poisons) is to wash the trees with a heavy spray of water everyday. The ones that are getting are deck sticky get sprayed. The others I leave alone.
It's summer enough that we are using the deck a lot now. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, if it's not raining or too cold, we're out there in this great room. And the birds get pretty close too. Black capped chickadees, nuthatches, and particularly the Steller Jays. 
OK, I can see a little more than trees, but it's a bit of wooded paradise on a normal city lot right in the middle of town. It helps that there's a hill, but otherwise, it's just that no one cut the trees in the back ever. We too have just left it natural. And we've added trees on the sides to keep a little green summer oasis in the city. It's also relatively low maintenance.
If you stand under the true for a minute it feels like a very light drizzle. (One reason the close up picture below isn't better. I just couldn't stand under there for long. It wasn't just me, but my camera was getting dripped on.)
Here's a closer look of the sidewalk, gunking up. There are even bubbles.
And here are the culprits. (Double click any picture to enlarge it.) The best option I know (if you don't want to use poisons) is to wash the trees with a heavy spray of water everyday. The ones that are getting are deck sticky get sprayed. The others I leave alone.
