Tales from Pentoga

Someone mention rain?

Here are a few thoughts on hiking in the rain during next year's AT journey.

May 20, 2021 - Thursday morning
63 degrees/cloudy/calm winds
Pentoga Road

Is it ever humid outside this morning. A person could fill a bucket by wringing out a handful of air if possible. It appears we're going to skip spring this year and head directly into summer.

Sunday's forecast high? 87 degrees.

No doubt, the unseasonable high will cause Al to do cartwheels across the nation in his multi million dollar gas guzzling jet.

Oh oh, Monday is only to reach 56 degrees.

Oops, sorry Al. Better put your jet away.

Temperature aside, it's certainly sticky these days. The trees have gone from being bare to fully adorned. Seems every wild fruit tree is blossoming.

Wild plum trees in Pentoga Village

My apple trees have yet to bloom and I hope they don't for a while. We had a hard frost late last spring causing many to not bear any fruit.

The earliest hummingbirds are back.

I'm told the males lead the way and are the earliest to arrive. We've seen several that, I believe, were on their way through while migrating further north.

Last year, ten to fifteen hummers were fed all summer long. Other than going through pounds and pounds of sugar while making syrup to feed them, we enjoyed their company well into the fall months.

In news further from home, my friend, Eileen, sent the following article (link below) about the flooding in one of "my villages" in the arctic. I probably was in Buckland more than any other Inupiaq community.

Buckland was particularly difficult to reach from my cabin, located seventeen miles north of Kotzebue. The journey on snowmobile entailed riding the entire length of the Baldwin Peninsula over some treacherous country. Forced to cross on unpredictable sea ice and a dangerous river that wasn't always completely solid also made the trip somewhat dicey.

For whatever reason, it was easy to get lost while going to Buckland. I had a student teacher and her husband who almost died trying to ride their snowmobiles ninety miles to Kotzebue to catch a jet home for Christmas.

There are some wonderful people who live in Buckland, but boy, do you ever have to work to get there.

Flooding in Buckland, Alaska

Tuesday was a lazy one on Pentoga Road. I was lucky to get my hike in between showers. Other than make another practice video, there was nothing new.

Vince the Plumber showed up an hour late. Evidently the pressure switch was faulty as the water pump is running much more efficiently now. The switch was under warrantee, his service call wasn't.

Doesn't money grow on trees?

Sargie and I made a quick trip to town before returning back home. I worked for much of the afternoon on a project that should be finished in the next day or two.

So, with this rainy, humid, weather, it's a pretty ho hum time on Pentoga Road. After all the nonstop action of the past several days, it feels pretty good to slow 'er down. Heaven knows that the coming summer months will keep both of us occupied.