Winter is coming!

The tundra (and the TundraGarden) are changing color.

The pond had its first ice this morning, which lasted until after noon.

And there was a small drift of snow against the door…

Winter is coming…

It’s been hot here too–by which I mean over 60° F

It has been very warm here the past several days.  This led to a massive midge hatch.   They love the BARC, for some reason, and pretty much cover the building when they are out.  Fortunately each hatch only lasts a few days.

Bugs all over the BARC doors

The heat really pushed things along in the TundraGarden. Everything was blooming at once.

Mertensias by the pond.

Close-up of a mertensia. More than a modest rosette of leaves, I’d say.

Moss campion, alas not flowering too well.

Forget-me-nots, the Alaska State Flower. This is the farthest north plant in Alaska.

A slightly bigger forget-me-not

The Stellaria are just starting.

A variety of tundra flowers.

Flowering willows.

More flowering willows.

And more!

Woolly louseworts.

It was so hot for several days that the woolly louseworts were starting to fade almost as soon as they started.  I was away for several days and missed the peak of their bloom this year.

TundraGarden in full bloom.

Naturally, all that hot weather brought a thunderstorm, even in Barrow.

Clouds building inland.

Clouds in a darkening sky.

I didn’t stay out to take pictures of the thunderstorm or the rainbow after, but it rained very hard.  It has been a bit cooler since.  In fact we’ve been the cold spot in the state…

A bit of rain…

…has really lead to a rapid greening-up of much of the garden, although the bits that were under the really deep snow are behind.  Right now, the potentillas & buttercups are going strong, so there are yellow flowers everywhere.

Yellow flowers of all sorts.

Dwarf buttercups.

Mosses have been spreading over the years (with encouragement).  Some of them are reproducing (blooming?, fruiting?) at the moment.

Moss reproducing.

Moss by whalebone.

OK, that took a while…

The last post was a bit optimistic.  The rest of March was really cold, and the snow didn’t melt completely off the Tundra Garden until a few days ago.  Now it is bare, but still pretty brown.

Tundra Garden, June 2012

First snow!

I woke up this morning to snow. It had stuck to the ground and to the vehicles. It wasn’t that heavy, and it’s gone now, but it was good to see.

First snow Fall 2011

 

Although apparently the official temperature in Barrow has not yet dropped below freezing, it clearly did out here.  The pond (which was actually installed over Labor Day weekend, but the post somehow never got past draft form until earlier today) had a thin skin of ice.

Ice on the new pond

Christmas catus & Midnight Sun

The garden is less than pretty at the moment, since it’s rather grey and snowing right now.  So I though I’d put up a picture of one of the blossoms on the Christmas cactus that is blooming at the moment, taken the other night, backlit by midnight sun.

Cactus flower

Green-up!

We had a lot of snow this past winter, and it has taken forever to melt.  The drifting over the TG was different than usual, with a storm that cut a tunnel near the windows, so this year the main part of the garden is melting out before the pond.

The TundraGarden makes its appearance.

The dried grass & willow branches have been showing for a week or so, but now they are out and signs of green are starting to show up.  The Artemisia arctica is just starting to send up shoots.

Artemisia arctica shoots.

Storm destroys pinwheel

I had gotten a set of three metal pinwheels, in hopes of putting one next to the ground for the house’s wiring, which for some reason the electrician planted in the garden. Possibly he thought the plants meant that there was actual ground there, as opposed to the gravel pad on which all of NARL sits, but really the whole garden is on top of the pad, so if that was crucial, the place still isn’t grounded.

Anyway, we’ve been having a big fall storm this weekend, with strong winds, and they pretty much destroyed the pinwheel.  There was minor coastal flooding, but that didn’t affect the garden.

Remains of the fallen pinwheel.

The wheel part was held on by a round nut, which presumably came unscrewed and fell into the snow.  I looked, but was unable to find it.  It will show up when the snow melts, although that may not be until June.

The rod that hold the pinwheel is actually two pieces that screw together, and they were almost unscrewed, so it appears that it must have come unscrewed due to changes in wind direction rotating the wheel, but why the wheel came unscrewed isn’t clear…

I’ll have to put one of the others out, since they do hide the grounding rod, or at least distract from it.

We really do have a lot of snow…

I was just looking for pictures of the TG from around this time last year. I found a couple, and they really confirm that snowmelt this year is slow.

Here it is (from a slightly different angle, since my back is messed up and I didn’t feel like going outside) today. Big difference. The bathtub hasn’t moved, nor have the logs, so they should orient you.

We did have a huge drift there this winter. The picture below is from February, when it was probably the biggest.

Spring is taking its sweet time getting to Barrow

By now, patches of tundra should be showing, and the Tundra Garden should at least be peeking through snow cover. Instead, there is still lots of snow everywhere, at least 3 feet on the TG! Birds are here, and expecting to make nests, but there is nowhere for them to put them. I’m not sure what they are going to do if it doesn’t melt pretty soon.

Despite that, there is plenty of mud, getting tracked in everywhere and making life tough for janitors and moms. The roads are a mess, with deep potholes all over, sometimes hidden by huge puddles, some of which are big enough to be ponds, at least. Driving is a nightmare, with trucks breaking tie rods and axles, and people getting jolted all over. A fellow I know had a couple of kids with him, one of whom apparently unbuckled at a stop. He hit a big pothole before she got buckled in, and she flew up, and smacked the window with her head hard enough to break it! Amazingly, she’s OK, with just a little egg.