Did you miss me, baby, did you really?

It’s been a while and we have a lot to go over so we’d better get started. First of all, yesterday was Green Day, one of the best days of the year in Alaska. Once winter begins to release its grip, all the deciduous trees take on a skeletal look, all brown and twigs. This goes on for weeks and then one day, all the trees at once blossom with green leaf sprouts. It happens in one day and that day was yesterday. We have been having quite a heat wave.

Temperatures have been in the 60s and even 70s for more than a week now, very unseasonable for this time of year. I have been snowed on in the middle of May so this came as a total surprise. This was funny. The Bureau of Land Management people who care about these things reported one day they expected a mild wildfire season because it will be a cool and wet summer. That was the first day the temperature hit 70. Don’t those people even look out the window?

So, this happened too. I was backing in toward the door with a load of drywall. Yes. only I would find pleasant warm weather the time to refinish a bathroom. I spent two days indoors hanging drywall and a tub surround instead of doing something outdoors. Anyway I was backing in and about to pull forward again to straighten out the trailer when something fell out of the big cottonwood next to the driveway. At first I thought it might be a leaf but it had landed kind of heavy for that. Then it started moving a little. It was right in front of the trailer tire so I would have killed whatever it was and stopped. Then a squirrel came racing down the tree, ran over to it, picked it up in its mouth and headed off for the back yard. It had been a baby squirrel, almost hairless that had fallen out of the tree. Now, I don’t like squirrels, but I am still glad I didn’t run over it.

Despite the race into spring I haven’t seen the bloom of porcupines yet and the swans have not come back to the pond, either. As a matter of fact farmers are saying the geese aren’t back yet either and that worries them about a late, cold summer. Then, I saw two Canada geese yesterday right where Fred used to greet me last year, so only swans to come.

We had another cantaloupe moon last week but this time, underneath it, even at midnight, there was a line of daylight left on the horizon. Tonight there was even a little pink in that line of daylight.

That gets us back a couple of weeks to when I got a wild hair one day and stared a little decorative garden in front of the house. Got some ground contact timbers and framed it up and then called to get some topsoil, Problem is, springtime the roads only allow trucks half their axle weight, so no one is delivering yet. But I did have a nice talk with the woman who runs a nursery down the street.

Before that a couple of weeks I went with my son to Cleveland to see a Cavaliers game. That was fun but I do belong in Alaska.

Besides all that, dealing with the demise of the newspaper business has been a bit depressing. I don’t see much future for us, but I have to wonder what happens when they are gone? Like them or hate them, they are still the only source that is in any way trustworthy to watch the world and report on it. Who do we trust when they are gone? Keith Olberman? Bill O’Reilly? Aryanna Huffington? Any old blogger who comes along? Thomas Jefferson said once given a choice of government without newspapers or newspapers without government he would choose the latter. We may not even get the choice. Might have some new pictures in the near future and am feeling a little more like writing these days so watch this space carefully. Oh and I did hear a good joke last night.

This is a dumb person joke. We used to be able to say blonde, or Pollack or something but now it is just a dumb person. Substitute your favorite for dumb person if you like.

So, this dumb person is sitting at a table with a bunch of pieces laid out and is staring at a box.

A friend comes in and asks what is going on. The dumb person says I am trying to do this jigsaw puzzle and it is supposed to look like a rooster.

The friend looks everything over and says I don’t see how you are going to get a rooster out of that.

The dumb person says, I don’t even see where to start.

To which the friend says, “Why don’t you just put the corn flakes back in the box and we’ll go do something else.”

OK, well that should have you caught up to a certain extent. I feel like a bowl of cereal.