agility

reposted from my facebook page:
Yes, maybe still looking pretty good, and staying fit.. but for a year now, i have been waking up ( and getting out of the car) rather stiff, stiff legs. I know i am getting older too, but i wonder if anybody has any suggestions. When you are my age or older and are still totally agile, i would love to know what you think could be your secret. Thanks!

laying back in the reindeermos

ancient sand dunes covered in lichen

Bald eaglets

Today we will go look at the eaglets if they are okay.
Last week after the rain the nest look a little precarious.

There seem to be two eaglets

According to the research, incubation is 35 days ( 5 weeks)
and the eaglets being nestlings 56 till 98 days ( 8 to over 12 weeks)

We first saw the Eagle on  Jan 13 2017
We saw them together on Jan. 29 2017
We saw them standing on the nest  and  close to the nest in February and March. (March 26 they were not yet sitting on the nest)
We saw one Eagle sitting deep into the nest on April 15
and from then on.
 and June 3 we saw Eaglets!

Now assuming that they were sitting on eggs  before April 15
plus 35 days
is  before May 20

Assuming that they were hatched before May 20
that could bring us to them being fledglings before July 15 or as late as August 15, 2017

Still a ways to go

And last week the eaglets  were big but still grey and not standing up in the nest yet.

today

All is well! 

a very peacefull family

so according to what i am reading, and saw today, they could be 5 weeks old.

right on.

spot land applications

In the last few days something kind of became clearer for me.

Not in a good way.

In Whitehorse there is an idea that spot land application are BAD
with spot land application i mean, what it means to me:

residency in the the middle of nature...well it is already by law established you can't be right in the middle, you have to be close to an existing road.

The story goes, all these people wanting to live outside of the city limits, create a very large footprint on the environment. the story goes that they demand government services. Hence which would create a very large footprint.

As does our new water well here in the community, which i was dead set against.

I can only speak for myself, but i am sure there are more who think the same

I came to live rurally, to be without many amenities.

Like one thing of the problem is that the government feels it should provide all these amenities.

Like there is a statement "to give everybody clean water/ internet access" etc etc

I think they/we confuse two things.

There are people who are born and raised in poor conditions and are suffering because of that and yes, i do think my government has a responsibility to provide accessibility to education, water etc.

But hence, it seems to me, that now under that rule of looking after, they impose upon me that i be looked after.

I am not asking, i am not even wanting all these services.

I CHOOSE to live they way i do.

bears have long tongues

I did not know that.

 And this bear might like oranges, it plonked into the water behind me as i was peeling my orange. It definitely was coming to us ( Don and I) . We were having our lunch on an island in the river, and had been eating ham sandwiches  half an hour earlier.
Quickly we jumped in the canoe and paddled/motored away. The bear did stop it's approach after we kind of yelled at it "whoa bear" kind of thing. Leisurely it climbed back on shore and traveled the same direction as us.

But talking about food, so yes no more plastic packaging or any packaging for that matter.
Since last post, i did not buy anything in a package yet. Oranges can be bought without being in a bag, i can bring my own to the store. Bread, same. Ham, maybe when i buy it from the butcher in Porter Creek.  I am not particularly interested in ham , i can live without it. And i actually do not eat much bread

I have to say, in my household my husband does most of the shopping, so it is going to ask for some self discipline to only eat  foods that come whole without being packaged. I am weaning myself off slowly.

Dinner tonight; chili made with beans,  and wild herbs and rhubarb from the garden,

plastic

And  a snow goose told me;

When you care about me,

- stop buying  plastic-

plastic or things that come in plastic, or if there is no way around , leave the plastic packaging in the store.
and NOT replace it with something else, something equally (or just differently) wasteful.

and obviously, it is just me asking you, using the goose.

When you care about the environment let's just  -en masse- stop the plastic craze.

I  am here now trying to think how that will look for me....
 firstly i have a lot of friggin plastic laying around the house to reuse
I will get back to you when i come to a point were i have to make a choice, to either stop doing altogether what i normally do (an action which includes plastic), because for me the problem is not that simple as using paper bags, we have been there and done that. We all now have our reusable grocery bags with us.

Thank you

and...something else... it being 6-6-2017 Alexander turned 26 today! Happy Birthday beautiful son.

snow geese

Takhini saltflats

 straggler snow geese

June 4 2017

And for that matter there were still 9 swans at mendenhall landing the day before.

I had never seen snow geese before, what an awesome big bird!

It rained!

And now everything is bright green
my forest enclosed me in a most dramatic way
kusawa lake is open, to see that much water, made me gasp.
and not least and neither last
all sorts of plants popped up and ones that were there hugging the ground grew a foot, and are blooming all in two days.

and oh yes nothing to do with the rain 

the bald eagle has at least one chick!

Using less, enjoying more

 Again, what i have tried to talk about before.

Yesterday i listened  to an you-tube video of an interview with Peter Wohlleben.
He talks about how trees communicate with eachother.  In the interview  someone asks, what can i do for the forest? And he clearly says something like " by using less natural resources".

Why is that so hard to say, or not being said very often?

Here this morning on the radio it is 'Climate Change' again, we apparently have our own Yukon example now, Kluane Lake.  No we don't need to dig out the lake to make it deeper ( it's for real, a yukon politician is suggesting this)  And  YES (to another politician), we need  government regulation and incentives. But i keep thinking

-We need to use LESS-

Not so simple.
Today and tomorrow i will drive the 100 km into town, with a jeep, that uses lots of gas.  After my Jetta broke down, we opted not to buy an even smaller car (more efficient), but I use the old Jeep, that we already own. Do i need to drive twice this week?

It is all those decisions
USE LESS
and ENJOY MORE

I think that is the essence.

Looking at what I do ( what resources I use) and look at the intention behind it. And keep it up till it becomes a habit....And i have found often my body will crave that new habit, in a good way.

Can I reach my goals in a simpler way, using less?
And actually get more out of it.

Often i do get more out of it.

Staying close to home for my walk

I found this

yellow anemones

They actually bloom close to my home. In the last few days I found two locations that i did not even know about.

This gives me great JOY:)

and do you see these horsetails beside it, they apparently make a nice meal, i did not try them yet.

spring horsetails

and i recently read a good rule for harvesting in the wild

take 1 leave 20

Collecting spruce tips at the moment i do not have to worry about that, there are millions around here.

I dry them for winter use

and use them sparingly in stir-fries

i will add one or two cooking rubarb

ha! Intention: to eat healthy, what grows right in my back yard, for free in a natural way,  and to think of  Peter Wohlleben, I am sure i keep the spruce trees happy. They love being nibbled on, i am sure.