On Thursday, we were treated to the sight of a magnificent solar halo gracing the evening sky. As is the case with many of the arcs, spots, and lines we are privileged to see in the arctic sky, solar haloes are also formed by sunlight refracting through ice crystals. In this particular case, the ice […]
Inaccurate Weather Prediction! Read More »
Over the past few weeks, we have had the pleasure of watching a pair of robins raise a family. Today’s post will show some of the pictures I took as the chicks developed. The story began in June, when we observed that a mother robin had decided to build a nest near our garage door.
The chart shows the temperatures measured in the biomeiler at a height of 4’ above the ground. This height marks the boundary between the pre-existing biomeiler and the recent extension. The data were collected by a thermocouple buried in the pile at that height at the very center of the inner core, another placed halfway
June 2026 Experimental Results, Part 2 Read More »
Early summer in Fairbanks is usually a wonderful time of year. During the month of June, the outdoor air temperatures followed the usual pattern of rising to the 70sF during the day and settling into the 50s during the night. A common feature of summer days here is that, in the late afternoons, we often
June 2026 Experimental Results, Part 1 Read More »
Our honeyberries are now ripe enough to begin our first harvest. Today, Melissa picked about two handfuls to evaluate the flavor. When I saw the berries in a plain white container, I thought they would make a nice holiday picture on one of our red-edged plates. This year, the honeyberry bushes, newly transplanted, have yielded
With the site cleared and mowed, Melissa and I were able to assemble the roof of the pen on the ground. We repositioned the roof on the site until it appeared we had discovered the optimum placement. The new pen is 2’ wider and 6’ longer than the old pen and there were trees, berry
New Pen – Frame Complete Read More »
The droppings left by the chickens have greatly improved the fertility of the ground in the pen and raised the ground level by several inches. One consequence is that the fallow season, unintentionally created by our choice to leave the pen unused last summer, allowed for the proliferation of many rose bushes and weedy plants
New Pen – Site Prep Read More »
The chicken pen that we have referred to as the “berry patch” pen was originally constructed as an enclosure to protect strawberries and other delicate plants from birds. When our efforts to grow strawberries proved futile, we repurposed the enclosure as a chicken pen. It served that purpose quite well for many years, but almost
New Pen – Parts Prep Read More »
This spring, our lilac trees needed a great deal of attention. The winter snowfall was so heavy that it damaged many of the longer limbs. Rather than simply cut off those limbs, I decided to try propagating the lilacs by air layering. I had never tried this technique, but it seemed worth the risk since
Layering Lilacs and Willows Read More »
This winter, Fairbanks went through a record cold spell and received a record snowfall, the last of which finally disappeared from my yard only a week ago. Correspondingly, the usual spring sequence of greening and blooming has been both delayed and accelerated as Nature hurriedly completes her to-do list to begin summer on schedule. The