Spring is on the way, today hail rained down on our little island in sheets covering the newly budding plants. The beginning of herring has started to move around nothing like past years but there are signs of life. The human inhabitants of Baranof island rejoiced in the sunshine for the past 2 weeks as high pressure held over most of Southeast Alaska.
I look forward to the spawning of the herring and the arrival of hungry whales; the eagles have already started to gather and the sea lions are basking in large groups waiting for the tiny fish to arrive. The biomass of herring can be astounding, this year is “wait and see”, for the unsustainable harvest of the sack roe herring fishery will not last forever. Some of the whales I witnessed overwintering are very thin, unable to make the migration or choose not to go, it provides them with a first chance of major food when the herring return in earnest, instead of winters meager offerings.
The trees drink deep the rain and snow.
The mountains look threadbare without the cloak of snow.
The tide washes gently at my feet and winter begins to crack and groan,
Spring is on the way dear friends take heart and vitamin D,
What ere the summer brings let it rain down,
The water on which we all depend.
too much change, too fast, will leave us all in wanting.
Simon the Adventurer 