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Not Yet Summer

The weather here remains unsettled. The wind frequently howls, clouds come and go, the temperature doesn’t go much above 70 and there are occasional thunderstorms. It’s June and feels very cold. But why should we let that stop us? I woke Ken up yesterday and told him we needed to go for a hike. There are lots of projects around here to do and he continues to work from home and now he has to travel again so there’s no time like now.

It was a LONG bumpety bump drive to get to the trailhead at 6800 feet elevation and given that it had rained hard at home the previous night, we should not have been surprised to see new snow. Not a lot but I imagine that the folks camped up there were not real happy about it. Along the trail little and big rivulets and small streams were running joyfully down the mountainside. Flowers bloomed in snow and standing water. Anemones were everywhere. Water dripped from evergreens as the snow melted.

Ken fished for brook trout while the girls and I explored a bit around the lake and Sky took great joy in swimming for sticks despite the cold water. She shivered when she sat still.

It was a lovely short hike despite the long bumpety bump drive.

Lupine
Brook trout, just before it got away
So much anemone
Buttercups!
Water everywhere
Happy, happy dog!
Last year’s aspen leaf. The trees haven’t even leafed out up there now.
Some odd fungus
I think this is elephanthead. Maybe Pedicularis groenlandica
Moss spores
like abstract art
Willow leaf buds
Looking SW

Mountain Hike

The girls and I got a late start yesterday but still managed a very pleasant (mostly) hike in the mountains. The trailhead was only forty five minutes from home and there was no snow at the start. It was cloudy and spit a tiny bit of rain but not enough to get out my coat. Luna enjoyed the cool temperatures but not the rickety bridge across one of the big creek crossings. We hit snow about two thirds of the way to the lake and near the lake were walking on snow all the time. I had to be careful not to get to close to the edge and get my feet wet. Sky was ecstatic and of course, wanted me to throw sticks but I didn’t. It’s pretty shallow with logs under the surface where she could hurt her legs. As if to make up for the lack of stick throwing, she rolled in something unmentionable after we left the lake. I scrubbed her in the big creek using a hemlock branch but didn’t get it all. She had a bath at home.

Sky says the bridge is still good.
Cool bumble bee
Western white pine
Sunshine at the end of the hike

A Honeybee Swarm

Ken has six active bee hives this year and yesterday one of them swarmed. Honeybee swarms are a natural occurrence and can be expected if hives are really busy and growing in population. The bees force the queen to slim down by not feeding her and she makes new queen cells so the bees left behind will have a new leader once the old one has swarmed. One of his hives from last year was thriving and constantly had bees ‘bearding’ on the front of it and Ken expected it to swarm.

In yesterday’s case, they didn’t go far – maybe ten or fifteen meters to a young ponderosa pine tree and fortunately Ken spotted the giant bee cluster before they moved on to what would be their new home.  The tree is on a hillside just below our backyard and the swarm was high enough that it required a ladder to remove it.

Ken had promised a swarm to our friend Mary for her birthday, since her bees did not survive last winter. Of course, she and her husband were out walking the dog and without their phones so it was a while before they called and said they would be right up. In the meantime, Ken started setting up a ladder and other equipment to get started on it by himself. I was not in favor of him doing it alone and was relieved when they said they were coming.

With three of them it was much safer and easier. They all moved slowly in their bee suits, keeping the bees calm, while they gently began cutting branches away from the pack of bees. Little clusters of bees were placed in an empty hive with the branches. Gradually they got to the main part of the festooning bees and very carefully cut out the two big branches holding it all together. They got just about all the bees into the hive and put the top on. The stragglers joined the others around their queen and in a short while all was quiet. Mary got her bees early this morning when it was cool and will get them set up in her bee yard and then remove the branches from the hive and replace them with frames so the bees can build orderly comb and fill it with brood and honey.

The swarm
Ken carefully considers his first move
We watched honeybees while we waited for our friends
It takes a team
Mary steadied Don on that downhill facing ladder
That’s a lot of bees!
Job well done!
We think they came out of this hive.
These two were kept away from the action

Remnants from Other Seasons

Getting Out

We got out for a couple of days and it was marvelous! Friends took their RV up the Chewuch on Thursday and I managed to find them in a large dispersed site later on Friday. All the campgrounds remain closed. It was a long ways up the river before they were able to find a site and I was beginning to have my doubts. I knew that I was near the end of the pavement and they would not go any farther than that. And then, I found their sign! Whoo hoo! The girls and I made it! Ken was recording and joined us at dinner time.

We enjoyed socially distanced visiting, dogs playing, campfires and campfire cooking, hikes, wildflowers, the sound of the Chewuch and Andrews Creek at high water levels, birds and just being out. It rained a little but that gave me time to read in the afternoon while Ken napped and our friends made jewelry. We were offline and that’s a good thing. Hopefully we will get to go camping again soon.

Big RV, little RV
Arnica
Andrews Creek
paintbrush
serviceberry
Lewisia
I love this pond
More Lewisia
So much penstemon
Penstemon and knapweed
Arnica
There should have been a bridge
Thirty Mile Fire burned twenty years ago
wild clematis
Wyatt Ann looks good in arnica