On One Small Lake

Sky Painting

Sat, 9 Aug 2008 20:22:20 -0800

After weeks of clouds and rain. The weather broke to gift us with a glorious sunset! It was one of those rare nights when nature painted a spectacular scene with hues of orange, pink and gray as the clouds became a huge, flowing three dimensional canvas of water vapor.
Earth is such a spectacular place! When we open our hearts to appreciate the smallest flower, an amazing creature or a grand sunset there is always a gift of beauty and wonder to inspire us to appreciate and honor this remarkable planet we call home.

Go to Movie Album page
Back to the Home page

Stickleback the movie

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 07:41:29 -0800

In this new movie I drop my video camera over the side of my kayak to explore the underwater realm of the Stickleback, a small native fish living in Wallace Lake.

Go to Movie Album page
Back to the Home page

The Very Best

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 23:00:56 -0800

Last weekend I watched a great DVD, “Extraordinary Vision!”, by Dewitt Jones. Jones was a photographer for National Geographic for over 20 years. One thing he said that I really liked was that, “Nature always gives the very best it has to give without any regard to whether or not anybody is there to receive it.”
Tonight was one of those times when nature was giving it’s very best and I was there to receive it! It felt like I had been given a gift. I was given a gift of beauty, peace, joy and gratitude. I think gratitude comes when love and beauty are floating around inside us and we have an experience which triggers the feeling that we REALLY are connected to something much bigger than ourselves. It all is, we are, and it is good!
I truly felt that I was present spiritually and emotionally to receive the very best nature had to give tonight. A beautiful little rainbow lingered in the sky from the afternoon’s heavy rain storm. The air was fresh and clear, and the sun was bright. The low evening light from the sun lit up the rain water on the lily pads like glowing jewels. The loons rested peacefully as the trees and clouds formed perfect reflections in the mirror-calm water. As the sun neared the horizon the glowing white clouds were transformed into various shades of pink, orange and gray. Nature was giving it’s very best!

Watch the movie, “The Very Best Nature has to Give”

Back to the Home page

One Fateful Day

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 06:36:52 -0800

A couple of days ago as I was paddling around the lake, I realized I wasn’t seeing some of my usual friends, the Bonaparte’s Gulls, Belted King Fishers, Arctic Terns and Red-necked Grebes. In past years they have had their babies by this time and they would normally be very busy taking care of them. But, this year they aren’t here. I started wondering why not and it occurred to me that three years ago, on one fateful day, I saw two Northern Pike in two different areas of the lake. I was alarmed by this because we don’t have pike in our lake. We only have Sticklebacks, a small minnow-size fish. The reason I was alarmed was that pike are notorious predators that will eat almost anything, even their own kind! (see the sidebar for more information on Northern Pike)
I knew that the pike didn’t get into the lake by themselves, because our lake doesn’t have an inlet or outlet. It is completely fed by underground springs. That means someone on our lake brought them in from some other lake. Its illegal to transplant fish, so I called Alaska Fish and Game to talk to them about the pike I saw in our lake. They asked if I knew who had transplanted the pike into our lake and of course I didn’t, so there wasn’t much they could do.
I was very sad for days, because I knew that the act of one self-centered, short-sighted or just plain ignorant human had permanently changed the entire aquatic ecology of our lake. The birds that normally nest here depend to a great extent on the millions of little Sticklebacks as the food for themselves and their babies.
I fear that the reason I’m not seeing my usual feathered friends is because of that one fateful day three years ago. And I can’t help wondering if this may be part of the reason the Loons didn’t have a successful nest this year. Maybe they realized there just wouldn’t be enough food to feed their little ones through the summer. Only time will tell if the loons will be back to nest here again next year.

Explore the watery realm of the Stickleback in my movie.

~~~~~~~~~~~~
But, never fear I have lots of stories and hours and hours of video to share with you! So, over the next few weeks I will introduce you to some of the delightful creatures I have had wonderful experiences with over the years.

Go to Movie Album page
Back to the Home page

Movie and Photo Album

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 06:47:45 -0800

I have created a movie and photo album page so that you will be able to see all of my movies and photographic slideshows from one page. So, now you will not have to go looking through all my web pages to find a specific movie or slideshow, or to see them all again. Just click on the one you want to see.

Go to my Movie and Slideshow Page

Back to the Home page

Light as a Cloud?

Mon, 7 Jul 2008 21:27:37 -0800

We have been getting some much needed rain the last couple of days and it reminded me of something I read some time ago about clouds. Just one puffy, cumulus cloud can hold 550 tons of water! (See the sidebar to read more about this.) I just find this utterly mind blowing! All of those clouds floating around in the atmosphere above our beautiful blue planet are holding rivers, lakes, even oceans of water. This huge amount of water is circulated around the earth in these packages we call clouds. When I really think about this, I’m again struck by how amazing nature is to have a system that can quite literally move tons of water anywhere in the world.

Of course being a photographer, I also love that clouds provide wonderful textures and splashes of white and grey into a plain blue sky. I often find that the clouds themselves are what draws my artistic interest to create a particular composition. It is how clouds integrate with the trees and mountains or their reflection in the lake that makes the composition work. One of my favorite times is after a rainstorm when the air is fresh, clean and cool. Sometimes there will be low clouds floating just below the peaks of the mountains or rising up from the distant valleys. Or if the conditions are just right, a glorious rainbow will present itself. Clouds also provide a wonderful, textured palette for the sun’s rays to paint magnificent layers of color in the early morning or late evening sky.
Here on Wallace Lake, we tend to get our most magnificent sunrises and sunsets in the spring, fall and winter when the sun is at a lower angle to the horizon.

Watch my Glorious Clouds movie

Back to the Home page

Time Warp

Sat, 5 Jul 2008 19:07:41 -0800

It is amazing how things have changed in just two weeks! It feels like I’ve reentered Alaska through a time warp. In addition to the wild Roses all blooming, there are wild Irises, wild Calla and Spirea blooming.

With nineteen plus hours of sunlight, our garden is growing at an amazing rate. The peas and potatoes have grown a foot taller. The kale, collards ,
spinach and lettuce are big enough to start picking a few leaves for our dinner. And the rest of the plants in the garden are getting bigger and bigger every day. It really is an amazing time of year.

And as an added bonus, the flowers and ferns around our house are making this the most beautiful time of the summer.
(Watch my Home Garden Slideshow)

There is some unfortunate news. The loons were not successful in hatching any new babies and it doesn’t look like they are going to try again. Sometimes they will lay more eggs if their nesting fails the first time. This strategy doesn’t always work because sometimes the young loon doesn’t mature enough to fly before the lake starts to freeze.
I’m sad that we won’t have any loon babies this year, but I did see a Mallard hen and her ducklings swimming across the lake a couple of days ago. I guess that is some consolation.

Back to the Home page

Aah!

Wed, 2 Jul 2008 09:10:37 -0800

Aah!! It feels sooo good to be back in Alaska. I was Outside (Alaskan lingo for being outside of the state) for two weeks on vacation. It was kind of a crazy thing to do when it is so beautiful right here on Wallace Lake.
It is such a wonderful feeling to be back on the lake. As my kayak glides through the calm water, I hear the tremolo of a loon somewhere off in the distance. The fresh, clean air from last night’s rain fills my nostrils as the mist from the lake rises into the cool air, flowing around me. As I approach the far shore, I see beautiful, smiling, pink faces greeting me; the wild roses are blooming. Aah.... A rush of peaceful bliss comes over me and I know deep in my soul I’m home.

See my movie; Aah! - The Movie

Back to the Home page

The Hidden Garden Part 2

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 06:09:39 -0800

In part 2 of the Hidden Garden, I wanted to introduce you to some of the more obvious flowers, like Dwarf Dogwood, Star Flower, Pond Lily, High-bush Cranberry, Cloudberry and a couple of teenie-weenie flowers I just discovered.
Dwarf Dogwood is one of my favorites. Its bright white flowers tend to grow in communities, forming their own little garden of green and white. They seem like happy little plants... or maybe it’s just that they bring a smile to my face each spring when I rediscover them.
Star Flowers often live in the Dogwood communities, but they seem to be more independent in nature. Sometimes they form their own little communities, or quite often I will find one or two individuals.... like little shining stars in a sky of green.
Yesterday, I found the first Pond Lily blossom to open up. These showy, bright yellow flowers will be emerging from the shallow waters all around Wallace Lake. The Pond Lilies are anxious to start growing as soon as the ice starts to thaw. In spring when the ice on the lake begins to melt and there is enough open water for us to get out in our kayaks, I look down into the water and much to my surprise the Pond Lilies are already starting to send their unfurling leaves toward the surface where they will float and soak up the suns rays.
Every spring I take our canoe around the lake to do clean-up. I use long poles to pick up the trash that has accumulated around the shore from the winter’s winds. There are times when I see a piece of trash that is out of reach of my pole, so I have to go ashore to retrieve that ugly piece of garbage. This year when I went ashore I found some interesting flowers I hadn’t seen before....Cloudberry, Low-bush Cranberry, and a very small flower that looks like a diminutive cousin of the Shooting Star....Bog Cranberry.
The Cloudberry was a surprise to me. What surprised me is that I hadn’t noticed it before. The single white blossom is about the same size as the Dwarf Dogwood so I don’t know how I could have missed it. I think the lesson here is get out of the kayak once in a while and see what else is out there!
Oh, I almost forgot about High-bush Cranberry! This bush is quite common along the shores of the lake. It has bunches of small white flowers sticking up out of its green leaves. In late summer there are beautiful, bright red translucent edible berries, but get them before they’re too ripe and start to smell like old stinky socks!
In part 1 of Hidden Garden I talked about how many of the flowers go unnoticed and these next two flowers take it to the extreme, Low-bush Cranberry and Bog Cranberry. Both of these flowers are less than 1/4” long.

The Bog Cranberry flower looks very
similar to a much larger flower called
Shooting Star.

Back to the Home page

The Hidden Garden Part 1

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 18:39:34 -0800

This is not your typical garden, this is nature’s garden. The flowers come in their time and create their own arrangements. This is the garden that most would not even notice, a hidden garden, not because it is invisible, but because it isn’t showy... it’s a subtle beauty noticed only by those that take the time and have the inclination.
June is the month of flowers, starting in early June, sometimes late May depending on the weather. The Leatherleaf, Labrador Tea, Sweet Gale and Blueberry bushes line the shores while the Buckbean’s lush green leaves and upright stocks of white blossoms decorate the water’s edge.
Buckbean is a very interesting plant. It provides the perfect hiding place for many of the lake’s residents, food for moose and muskrat, and building materials for nesting loons and grebes. The moose and muskrats eat it, lopping off sections, eating the portions they want and discarding the unwanted sections in the lake. What happens next, I think is quite remarkable. As long as the unwanted section falls back into the water it will grow new roots, stems, leaves and flowers. In fact the plant can be floating freely in the water with all of it’s necessary parts all growing happily! Eventually its roots will reach the mucky bottom and take hold, forming a bright green border along the shore with all the others of it’s kind.
Leatherleaf is the first plant to flower. It’s unassuming little white urn-shaped flowers, flanked by green and brownish leathery leaves, often go unnoticed by all but the most attentive nature lover.
What surprises me sometimes is that when I slow down and pay attention to these little flowers I find that my appreciation of all things in my life increases. My life is richer, fuller and happier all because I took the time to appreciate these wonderful spring flowers.
The Blueberry has beautiful little pink bell shaped flowers. Later in the summer it is fun to snag a few yummy berries as I’m gliding along in my kayak.
A new flower that I just discovered this week is Bog Rosemary. It’s a delicate, spindly plant with little urn shaped flowers on upright stalks. One might be tempted to eat some as a spice or seasoning, but don’t! It’s very poisonous according to Vern E. Pratt, “Field Guide to Alaskan Wildflowers.”
The leaves of Labrador Tea, on the other hand, can be used for a tasty tea, but go easy as it contains a chemical which acts as a diuretic and can cause cramps (Vern E. Pratt). “I think I will just enjoy the little bouquet of white flowers, thank you very much!”

Back to the Home page

Exciting News!

Thu, 5 Jun 2008 21:46:27 -0800

The loons are nesting! If all goes well, it means we will have new baby loons around July 1, give or take a few days. It takes about 28 days of incubation before the chicks peck their way out of their ovoid home. I can hardly wait to see the 1 or 2 little black puff balls riding around on the backs of their mom and dad! (They are sooo cute.)

Also, earlier this week I saw a Bald Eagle and a moose on the same morning kayak trip! The Eagle was kind of scruffy looking because it was just getting the white head and tail feathers of a mature 4-5 year old adult eagle.
Watch the movie... Bald Eagle

One thing I really love, is when I’m just sitting quietly on the lake in my kayak and something happens... like a moose meandering along the shore not aware (or not acting like it) that I was there watching and being there with her. This isn’t an easy thing to do since I’m usually moving which attracts their attention and it doesn’t help that I’m in a bright red kayak!
(Actually most mammals are color blind so for the moose, anyway, the color of my kayak, probably isn’t a big factor.)

Watch the movie... Moose Reflection

Back to the Home page

Flight of the Dragonfly

Mon, 2 Jun 2008 23:07:59 -0800

Every year in late spring, late May or early June, there is a great emergence of a creature that undergoes an amazing transformation, the dragonfly. I find the evidence of the dragonfly’s transformation by the many empty shells, their exoskeletons, left behind after they have taken flight.
Dragonflies lay their eggs in the water in mid to late summer, where they hatch into larvae that spend several years in the lake growing until they are ready to emerge.
I often wonder how a creature could go from being a water dweller for years, then, one day it feels a stirring deep within it’s beingness that causes it to do something totally irrational.... crawl out onto the land! And they all seem to have this stirring at the same time for within a day or two all of the dragonfly larvae emerge on the shore of the lake where I, a mere human, live. I am in awe at what these amazing little creatures do!
Some climb up the nearest plant they can find along the water’s edge. Others may crawl several feet to a near-by tree and scale 7 or 8 feet up the trunk or some may choose to use my kayak which, conveniently, is turned upside down on the bank near the water’s edge.
How do they go from breathing water to being able to breathe air? Do their gills somehow develop the ability to breathe air? Do they develop some other lung type organ just before they emerge or are they able to hold their breath for an incredibly long time while scaling trees and kayaks?
Once they have securely attached themselves, with all six of their clawed feet, to a plant, tree or kayak they rest before the next step in their amazing transformation begins, where within a few hours they will metamorphose from bottom water dweller to master of flight.
Metamorphosis is an amazing process! How on earth can a long sleek aerodynamic critter with four large lacy wings come out of a short squatty aquatic bug in only a few hours! Until I actually witnessed the process myself, I just didn’t appreciate the magnificence of such a feat.

Watch my movie.... Flight of the Dragonfly

Back to the Home page