A Plant Life Tour, mid-Summer version

The weather has been still just a touch warm for my taste, but with clear sun interspersed with rain knocking down the fires, I can't complain. Also, there are at least ten wildland fire crews that have arrived from all over the Lower 48, actively battling our fires and cutting fire breaks. Look at this photo from fighting fires North of town:

Photo credit: D. Maneely/Southwest Complex Incident Management Team 3

Here is one from the efforts near us. The caption read "Nodwell tracked engine patrol's the Bonanza Creek Fire looking for hot spots." (Photo courtesy of Sam Collison) That lab looks like a good Friend to have around. Hope he stays safe!

We have been walking the neighborhood trails, and Raven has been doing great at recall training!

"Raven, come!"

She'll be a great off-leash dog one day, but we aren't quite there yet. She still can't resist squirrels, which is a problem until she matures up.

Here are my girls with their friend Trout! Trout has perfect recall! But not only is she a malinois, but her mom is an actual expert dog trainer, so!

Our woods look very Mysterious! Over the past week or so, I decided I'd document some wildflowers.

First up are these wild irises. I think they are so pretty!

Closeup!

Wild clover!

The fireweed is only just starting to appear.

They bloom from bottom to top. It is said that when the top blossoms open, we are four weeks from the first frost of next winter.

Sweet-smelling yarrow:

Yarrow closeup:

Compare against the unrelated bedstraw, which is considered invasive in some areas, although Fairbanks folks focus our rage on the vetch.

Cottongrass:

Cottongrass closeup!

This is called a hawskbeard. Like a dandelion, it makes fluffy seed heads, but they don't detatch as easily from the plant.

Compare against an actual dandelion. (Raven contributes her pointy-eared shadow to a lot of my photos, haha.)

Such pretty little flowers!

The bright white ones are dwarf dogwood. They will turn into bunchberries.

The pink ones are nagoons. They will turn into the tastiest berries on earth.

This is a local variation on knotweed. It has important medicinal properties.

Here is a younger version of the same plant.

This is meadowsweet, also an important medicinal herb. It's amazing to me that plants that I think of as perennial bushes still make flowers.

Even the hardy perennial Labrador Tea makes flowers! This plant is drunk as a tea. It's resin-y like pine or spruce and good for clearing a stuffy nose.

This is Agoseris, yet another yellow dandelion lookalike:

This is marsh fleabane:

Compare against Daisy fleabane:

This is called a twinflower, because the flowers form pairs at the tops of the slender stalks. They look small and delicate, but they are also wild and come back by themselves every year:

This humble beauty is the Arctic wild potato, called Troth in Athabascan (latin name Hedysarum alpinum). This is the Troth for which UAF's Troth Yeddha' campus is named. The ridge on which UAF campus was built used to be a gathering place for local people to harvest these wild tubers. Do not confuse this plant with either vetch (which is invasive) or wild sweet pea (latin name Hedysarum mackenzii which is endemic, but toxic to eat).

Cinquefoil:

Wild rhubarb. As if we don't have enough rhubarb!

Valerian:

Starwort:

Pretty Jacob's Ladder:

Closeup of Jacob's Ladder:

Some wild roses are still lingering:

And so are some bluebells:

At this time of year, cottonwood seeds are blowing everywhere. Indigenous people say it's time for salmon, but the salmon stocks have been so severely depleted that harvests are limited. King harvests are now banned. :(

This pretty thing is a pink wintergreen.

Closeup for you:

Finally Some Rain!

We had been eagerly anticipating cooler weather, which had been in the forecast for over a week. As the promised day got closer, it started to include rain, which, given the fires, was Very Exciting. Yesterday was The Day! Temperatures did indeed drop. Also, four crews of hotshots arrived from the Lower 48 to help fight fires, and four more are set to arrive today! So things are heading in a better direction. Yesterday was also DL's birthday, so it was also nice to eat something besides cold sandwiches and salads, and chow mein (which is the only thing I'm willing to cook in the heat). Seared ahi seemed celebratory!

Here is a map of fires in Alaska, which recirculates every few years. I sure hope it remains every few years and does not increase in frequency!

The girls look comfy. Do you think they are comfy? I sure hope they are comfy.

Ugh. Heat and Fires

As hot as it is, my surroundings are still visually beautiful. It's not fireweed season yet. The first bloomers are the dandelions, which is why I urge people not to kill them; they are the pollinators' first meal each spring. Second are the bluebells:

Hot on their heels are the roses:

They are everywhere!

Then my own pretty columbines. Sometimes I wonder why I bother growing ornamentals since the wild roses, fireweed, and wild irises are so prolific, and require no effort of me, but once established, my perennials are the same!

When I say "hot", I know I will get limited sympathy from any readers in the Lower 48, but this is hot by our standards:

We get by with a little help from the swamp cooler and copius consumption of watermelon. We always have a partial one in the fridge and a backup watermelon lying around the house. :D

Even Cricket, with her lighter houndy coat, is hot.

Raven is hot, too, but with her youth, she finds it more tolerable.

I've learned that they like salads. :D

In more distressing news, a few days into the heat wave, we had dry thunderstorms all over the state, and multiple wildfires started. One is nearby, so we have prepared to evacuate. I found an old file on my computer called "bugout list.xls", but when I opened it, it appears that I was thinking to flee into the wilderness; the list contains wilderness survival gear and tents and sleeping bags. I had to make another one for a wildfire evacuation situation, if we are just "fleeing" into town to stay at a hotel. And we will have access to grocery stores and restaurants.

First, we prepacked bags with important documents, meds, and spare clothes. Then I made a list of things to grab as we head out the door, those prepacked bags of course being among them. Our hiking daypacks have a lot of good safety gear in them, so I included those. And I had DL add anything else he thought of to that list and get those things ready. Then in evacuation time, we consult the list, grab those things, and go.

Once those bags were packed and sitting happily in a quiet corner ready to go (and the threat level had not increased), we had the luxury of thinking beyond immediate survival. I call this Second Tier planning: If the house really burns down, what are the things that will be hardest/most expensive to replace? DL suggested winter coats and boots. Then I added expensive eczema creams, haha. You're probably looking at about $3-4k right here. Is it irreplaceable? With the exception of one hat that a friend knitted for me, nope. But it'll be a comfort come winter to have these things ready.

We also pre-evacuated photos and family mementos, and a few rare books. Surprisingly little of my treasured book collection is irreplaceable! I can replace almost any of them with the click of a button! But I included a few that will be engrossing to read to self-soothe if our house burns down. And I also did photograph our bookcases, so if we ever want to duplicate them, we can!

And I've signed up for all the text alerts, and no longer turn off my phone at night. Unfortunately, they aren't divided by geography, so I can be woken up in the middle of the night by an evacuation notice for 40 miles away, but that's okay. Better safe than sorry.

The Borough maintains an evacuation map, which of course I have bookmarked on both my phone and my computers. Green means "ready", which means pack your emergency bags, medications, pet supplies, etc; yellow means "get set", which means stay near home so you are ready to flee with your stuff if you need to; red means "go", now immediately, do not pass go, do not collect $200. However, DL and I are staying one step ahead of them. We are now NEAR a green zone, so we are ready! If they turn us green, we will "get set". If they turn us yellow, we will leave immediately. We won't wait for the red.

I am grateful for how many of my friends are taking steps to evacuate and stay safe. (I felt similarly during COVID, when it became extremely obvious that my crowed leaned toward the cautious end of things!) If my friends and colleagues were those fatalistic, "I'm not worried/God will protect me" types, I think it would be bad for my anxiety. My musher friends who have dog teams are all evacuating super early. I offered help with dog transport, but dang, they were so organized that they declined! If any locals are reading this, please don't hesitate to reach out if you need help. This is a classic Fairbanks scenario where we all help each other. People are offering beds, showers, and camping space to strangers. Please reach out if you need help!

Here are some handy links to monitor the current situation:

• FNSB Evacuation Status Map
• Alaska Interagency Coordination Center info page and Fire Map
• BLM Fire and Lightning Strikes Map
• UAF's Smoke Prediction Map