Happy Snowy May 13

We woke up this morning to a half inch of new snow. Fortunately, it melted off by the end of the day. The Kuskokwim broke up around McGrath, about 250 miles upriver. That puts us on schedule for an approximate break up date of May 19. We are in high flood danger this season, so that's exciting.

Last night we enjoyed the adrenaline packed extreme sport of birding. Birding is big in Bethel, as is talk of the avian bird flu. The primary action is at the sewage disposal pond. It doesn't smell pretty, but the birds love it. We learned that if you want to have street-cred with birders, you can't call seagulls seagulls. They are just gulls to birders. Jonathan Livingston will be sad to find out how lame his name is. We saw two kinds of gulls, but for the life of me I can't remember their names. There are far more gulls out there than you might think, if you're not already an extreme birder that is. Mew gull and glaucous gull.

We saw some shovelers, american wigeons, fox swallows, long-tailed somethings, and red necked phalaropes. And lapland larkson or something. And a few others. And some raptors are in the sky in this picture, but obviously you'll just have to take my word for it.


Here's an abrupt subject change. We've been reading "Spiritual Midwifery" and enjoying it immensely. It's all about "The Farm" and their famous tales of child birthing. It really is pretty cool, and an interesting story. We've been enjoying it. My favorite part was this advice, helpfully accompanied by a photo. (If you click on the picture, it will be large enough to read.) Thanks for the book, Week 16. (That's Sonja Shadow, our pregnant friend one week ahead of us.)

Tonight Genevieve made some tasty gyros on taco shells. We asked for pita bread at the store. They didn't have any, but they might get some in this summer.