We had all day to wander. The drive was only about 90 miles along the Alaska Highway from Sundog to Haines Junction where we had a reservation for the next night. It was quickly decided that we would first find the marge of Lake LaBerge where we would look for a certain derelict of note, take a couple pictures, then drive south of Whitehorse to explore Fish Lake Road where wetlands gave hope for good birding, and where we heard there was a chance of seeing lynx.
I slept well enough that night, woke without an alarm the next morning, and was eager to get moving. A quick look at the map, told us we needed to head north on the highway a few kilometers for a lake access road. If we go, there will be no Alice May—no boat with planks missing from the floor, no coal lying about, no greasy smoke. It will just be a lake. We have a lot to see today. We did not find a lynx, or very many birds along Fish Lake Road, just a single muskrat, and soon we were back on the Alaska Highway headed for Haines Junction, driving slow and looking for wildlife.
Along the way we watched a huge bull elk bugle and mate, saw several hawk owls, and more golden eagles than we could keep track of. A coyote loped across the road in front of us carrying a very large meal we surmised might have been a snowshoe hare. We saw mountain bluebirds, trumpeter swans, ducks, a rough-legged hawk, and a northern shrike. Pine grosbeaks were plentiful foraging seeds in the tops of snow-covered trees.
Oddly, in the midst of all the magnificent wildlife, a rusty blackbird hopping along the Takhini River excited us as much as anything. Rusty blackbirds breed in muskegs and other wetlands across Canada and Alaska, and winter in wetlands in the eastern half of the U. Although widespread, their populations are in rapid decline so sightings are special. That night we stayed in a nice house in Haines Junction and while Laurie was in the bath, I took advantage of a good wireless signal to look up The Cremation of Sam McGee.
Apparently, Sam McGee was a road-builder whose name Robert Service found on a bank form, and who gave permission to Service to use his name. But McGee was just a name. The poem was inspired by a Doctor Leonard Sugden who used the boiler of a derelict called Olive May to cremate the body of a miner who died of scurvy. Perhaps the location of the wrecks are noted in some record. Perhaps I could stand in those places, but to what end? There is a time for fact, and a time for personal truth. There are strange things done in the midnight sun By the men who moil for gold; The Arctic trails have their secret tales That would make your blood run cold; The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, But the queerest they ever did see Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge I cremated Sam McGee.
Following a morning of ritual waving of fly rods at oblivious coho salmon, we park the car on the edge of the Glacier Hwy. We dip quickly into woods that soon give way to marshy muskeg. A few scattered, puffy clouds accent a crystal blue sky over a landscape that averages days of measurable rain a year, and we feel lucky.
Meaning of "marshy" in the English dictionary
Southeast Alaska is mostly rain forest. Looking west over the swamp, clumps of rushes, scattered grass, and gnarly coastal pines grow out of heavy, wet sphagnum and peat. Beyond the muskeg, unnamed peaks—numbers and —form a venerable white crown atop it all. We are, indeed, lucky to have this perfect weather, but we also did our homework, studied forecasts and schedules. Along with clear weather and backcountry cabin availability, a third factor had to align: We are headed for the Cowee Meadow cabin—chosen for its situation in an open meadow, and the short walk from there to the shore of Berners Bay—perfect places for viewing the object of our quest: Out of the muskeg, the trail follows the marge of a wet meadow.
Scattered horses graze the meadow. An hour in, the cabin comes into view, tucked into a pocket at the northwest corner of the meadow. Narrow walkboards over water-logged moss that connect forest to cabin have a thin covering of ice, and we appreciate the extra stability our trekking poles lend to our calf-high rubber boots.
Billy Bob the Bullfrog from Marshy Bog by Rene Ellis
We doff our packs in the simple little cabin and waste no time in unpacking the gallon jugs of kerosene we have lugged a little over two miles—weight we thankfully will not have to carry back out. There are other backpacks, gear, and several more jugs of fuel about the cabin and we hope there will be no confrontation. We have a reservation but anybody can open a door without locks. With two or three hours remaining before dark, we take advantage of the day and walk a quarter mile to the shore. The muskeg trail is on walkboards the whole way, and slippery. We advance slowly and cautiously, agreeing that we should bring our trekking poles next time.
Near the shore, a small porcupine, oblivious to our presence, waddles between clumps of grass. When approached,the odd little critter buries its head in a thick clump like a young child who thinks by covering her eyes she cannot be seen. Unlike the vulnerable child, though, this youngster has a heavily-speared backside protecting it, and we keep our distance. Giving them space, we wander in the other direction—exploring the receding tide on the edge of the bay. Sculpin dart from our shadows in tide pools rife with anemones, chitons, limpets, and hermit crabs. Looking up from a pool, we see the three sun bathers coming our way and move towards the trail to greet them.
They are, indeed, the folks from the cabin, and we are pleased to find them very friendly and happy to evacuate. As they walk back to get their gear, we walk around the shore where harlequin ducks mingle with mallards, scoters, and gulls. A far-off flock of shorebirds rallies to a boulder covered in blue mussels and barnacles. We get back to the cabin as three bodies emerge, packs on their backs, into the waning light.
They are nice enough to give us tips on starting the kerosene heater and warn us that our two gallons might not be enough for two nights. Darkness is full by the time we clean up from eating, and I am eager to get outside and take some test shots. I set up my tripod in a flat spot in front of the cabin and scan the horizon. The big dipper sits low on the horizon over the cabin.
I trace a line from its front edge up and to the right to find the north star—always a comforting and grounding sight. To the right of the dipper a faint white light glows on the horizon through the trees.
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I level the camera, zoom out to capture Ursas major and minor in the view, and depress the shutter. There is a click, ten quiet seconds, a second click, ten more seconds for noise reduction, a third click, and an image appears on the screen. We stare at the little image on the back of my camera, back at the sky, and back to the camera again. The faint white light on the horizon appears in the lower right corner of the camera screen as a green glow—the aurora borealis.
I reposition the camera farther east, and snap another. This time the green is a little brighter, fading higher. Above the green, as if being poured from the big dipper, is a red splash. Farther east, the white glow is now turning green to the naked eye and I turn my camera toward the pleiades where the camera reveals vertical bars of green light, a green glow across the the horizon, and more red above it all.
I point my camera to every corner of the sky. The greens are becoming brighter and brighter, streaking up into the stars and back down again. The reds are appearing in blotches here and there. In the southwest sky, Orion lays on his sword in the dark. I photograph it all. After an hour or so, the show has settled, but there remains a glow to the north, so we put our tripods over our shoulders and head for the shoreline.
Halfway out the trail, we are stopped by a new light in the east and step out into the muskeg to shoot. With water halfway up our boots, we shoot bright green streaks rising high into the sky. We shoot and shoot and shoot until, from somewhere along the shore, we hear a snort. Senses heightened, we stand still and listen. There is another snort. I feel an uneasiness in my stomach. We are in bear country, and it is dark. I train my camera in the direction of the snort and open the shutter.
Twenty-five long seconds later, the image appears on my screen. This time the photo is bright but grainy. I zoom in on the tiny screen until I can just make out the fuzzy shape of a horse standing in the tide flat. Relieved, we go back to shooting. A little while later, we hear a loud neigh followed by a fading gallop.
Uneasiness returns to my stomach. We never find out what spooked the horse. For unmeasured time, we photograph an ever-changing show. It is well past midnight when we return to the cabin where we set an alarm for an hour nap, then head back out, once again, first shooting the meadow, then heading to the bay. Halfway to the bay, in the same area where we stopped to shoot earlier, I slip on a loose walkboard and find myself twisting, fighting to keep camera above the water as I splash down, soaking my right side.
Fortunately, sphagnum makes for a soft landing. Unfortunately, the water is cold!
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Most importantly, the camera is fine. Undaunted, we continue on. Shortly after my slip, Laurie has a similar fall, but lands on the board, avoiding the soaking I got. Between two and four that morning, we capture the most spectacular scenes of the night. No camera is needed to appreciate the grandeur of it.
It is four-thirty when we return to the cabin for some sleep. I am still floating when we crawl out of our bags a few hours later. I take down my pants from where they hang over the stove. They are dry, but the stove is out and the cabin is cooling. Outside, frost covers the meadow. I rustled some wood from the porch and build a small fire.
We are impressed at how quickly the cabin warms back up. We spend the day walking, photographing birds—belted kingfisher, song sparrow, bald eagles, ducks and gulls. The highlight of it all is stalking and photographing a flock of mixed shorebirds—black turnstones, surfbirds, and rock sandpipers. We eat lunch on a boulder by the bay. Our second night has a few more clouds, plenty of sky, but little aurora. We spend most of our time sleeping, alternating every hour to get up and check for light that never comes.
By morning, it is overcast and we decide on a side hike up a steep trail along echoing creek to cedar lake, foraging blueberries along the way. Cedar Lake is a beautiful pond offering stunning reflections, and a perfect lunch spot. From there, we hike back down, load up our packs and head back to the car. Along the trail, we watch pacific wrens hunting spiders, play peek-a-boo with a raven, and unsuccessfully attempt an overgrown, unused trail through the muskeg to a beaver pond, but quickly find ourselves headed into water too deep for our boots, and retrace back to the main trail.
We pause, again, for a view of and , but find them mostly obscured by clouds. It has drizzled the whole way out, yet I am not ready for the trail to end.
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I find some solace, however, in the knowledge that I have ten more days in Alaska. On the way home, we stop at the Eagle Creek bridge, where bald eagles dot the spruce trees. I train my lens on a close one and snap three shots before it flies, then one more in flight before it quickly comes too close for shooting, and passes overhead—a throwaway shot, I think. When I import my photos later, I find that luck was on my side again. That night we consult calendar, weather and aurora forecasts, and scout lodging possibilities for Yukon.
We are just getting started!
Synonyms and antonyms of böğ in the Turkish dictionary of synonyms
Yesterday evening five little beaks snuggled cozily, unconcerned by the giant black eye peering in on them. They looked up at the unfamiliar cyclops as if I were a normal part of daily life in the garden shed. It is hard to identify emotions in the eyes of nestling wrens, but my estimation of their reaction was indifference. Mom, of course, had a different reaction. Out the back door she raced to a nearby cherry tree where she vocalized her displeasure with gusto.
I can only imagine the feelings of horror and powerlessness after weeks of building, laying, incubating, feeding, and protecting, to now see her five young, so close to fledging, in such immediate peril. Needless to say, there was no peril. I pose no more threat to those young than their own parents, and without the responsibility of raising them, am free to feel nothing but delight in their well-being. But mom cannot know this so, in deference to her pleas, I closed the door and planned to revisit them today—perhaps while both parents were out, and the light was better.
The door to the shed faces west, so for the best light, I planned to return during the golden light of evening, just before the sun dips below the crown of the pear trees along the drive. Prior to the planned shoot, an afternoon visit, I thought, would be quick—snap a handful of test photos, then away. Given the impassivity showed yesterday, I brought a wide angle zoom. No need for a telephoto when I can walk right up to them. I waited until an adult flew from the shed, then quickly approached and swung open the door. Three flew directly up, over the wall, and out the back door.
One dropped down to a shelf below the nest, and the fifth made tracks for an upper corner of the shed where he was enmeshed in a decade of cobwebs and all the flotsam and jetsam that come with them. I snapped a quick pic, then retreated. While she flew from perch to perch, checking in with each fledgling, I found one of them clinging to the trunk of a pear tree.
I took one photo. He flew to a higher perch. I took two more. In remarkably short order, all five were tucked into an overgrown thicket across the orchard, mom overhead on a sweet gum limb advising them loudly to stay put. I took a couple quick photos of her, and went my way. Enough stress for today, I thought. With any luck I will see them around the house in the coming days as they explore their world, and next spring perhaps it will be a nest built by one of these five that draws the cyclops to their door. If so, I can only hope mom will remember from this year that I did them no harm, but that is unlikely.
On my way to the north end of the farm I pass the blueberries. They are plump, dark blue, and sweet, and I would rather be picking them, but I have a job to do so I pass on by, across the stretch I covered yesterday and turn the tractor east and down the slope. Across the fence, the neighbor moves along much slower on his larger, newer, shinier orange tractor than do I on this smaller green one. His mower is designed for shaving vast swaths of lawn and he covers his lawn deliberately, meticulously. My mower churns and chops, tears and shreds overgrown blackberry, flower stalks, thick grass, and small trees.
He waves from across the fence and I wave back, then we both return to the necessary focus of our labors. I am strapped into a diesel-fueled iron horse named John who never gets tired, never questions my commands, never starts at the sight of a snake, is content to sit for weeks without food, water, sunshine or exercise and requires only that I remain in the seat and steer to keep her on task. My back will ache from the pounding of uneven terrain, but that is the the result of genetics—bad discs—not exertion.
My shoulders will be uncomfortable only due to sunburn. The most pain I will feel from the job is from the large blackberry cane that catches the inside of the front right tire and whips my hand and forearm before I can get them out of the way. I am nearly finished with my mowing, and feeling satisfied with the near completion of a required task, but I do not like what I am doing. I see the deer trails criss-crossing the hillside, and the handful of beds in the thick. I see small ripe blackberries deep in the patch disappearing beneath my machine.
Had I mowed around them, I would not have eaten them, but I know something would have. This is the corner where I release the copperheads I save from neighbors who insist I move them farther away from their homes than I would like.
I want them to be safe here. There is nowhere I can go. Nothing I can do but keep mowing. In second gear with the PTO engaged, my throttle pedal would not have the necessary effect, and I have no window to roll up. Hundreds of large, buzzing, black insects surround me, then retreat. One flies into the back of my neck, another hits my arm, yet a third lands in my hair. I wait for the stings. She stubbornly stays in her stilettos as she marches through a marshy jungle where this sort of thing tends to happen , scurries around the Monday's sunny, degree weather was back to normal, and groundskeepers dried the marshy outfield with a low-hovering helicopter.
The field is part of Grove Lane marsh which constitutes the only remaining semi-natural marshy grassland habitat along the whole of the Calder Spotted water hemlock in a marshy area, right, and before flowering, left. The water hemlock grows up to 2. One of Bulger's alleged victims: Debbie Davis was also dismembered, her hands cut off, her teeth pulled, her body left in a marshy area, much Most likely, the term was first used by Dr. Francisco Torti, Italy, when people thought the disease was caused by foul air in marshy areas.
Crocodile on beach 'a fake planted by tourism rival' says Goa travel …. Crocodiles can be found inland in Goa, where there are marshy rivers Photo: Tupelo, a tree native to marshy and swampy sites, can tolerate wet soil but is more vulnerable to drought than pines and junipers, which breeze English words that begin with m. English words that begin with ma. English words that begin with mar. Load a random word.
Dec 10, Randall Gregg rated it it was amazing. The theme of this book, even as a Children's Book, is powerful for young readers to learn not to taunt. Billy Bob can't speak well and is made fun of. He later proves to kids in this fictional place called Marshy Bog that he can fit in. He does and becomes friends to all the kids and becomes a hero! Children, I hope, will read this and realize that people should be appreciated for who they are.
Can't wait to read the other books from Rene' Ellis - Author. Krypto Ellis rated it it was amazing Jun 29, Rene' Ellis added it Dec 09,