Garden stuff and photos....

We have been working non-stop on the garden.  We crawl into bed with sore muscles and dirt under our nails.  Today we finished hauling dirt to our site and filling all of the boxes.  I've planted seed or mini-plant in pretty much all of them.  I'm holding on a bit longer to the warmer weather plants, waiting to make sure the frost is gone.  The weather has been a steady mix of light rains and hot sunny warmth.    I have also found that I am a bit obsessed with taking photos of birds so that I can look them up in my husbands bird book. 

One of the weird things I have been dealing with is the massive urge I have to run every time a bee comes to look at my plants.  Most people are unaware that we Inupiat are usually absolutely terrified by the arctic bees.  They are huge and extremely furry and come with their own stereo system.  It's like seeing a flying mouse ...with a stinger.  We run.  I have been training myself not to run, because I would never be in the garden if I did.  I actually came up with a theory of why we are as a whole afraid of these fuzzy beings.  The warble fly actually looks pretty similar to the bees, but the warble flies land on a good host being (usually caribou) and deposit their eggs in the fur.  The larvae burrow into the skin of the animal and live there all winter to emerge as adults in the spring.  Yes.  It's THAT gruesome.  My theory is that to fight this thing off we as a whole have evolved to run screaming without an ounce of dignity to avoid becoming host to these insects.  That's my theory and I am sticking to it.  I know have a mission to take a photo of these bees with a size reference.

Fireweed sprouts have emerged, officially announcing spring.

The empty husks of Stinkweed seeds dot the landscape and make it look fuzzy.

I was surprised to find these little flowers.

every single photo of this bird was blurry because he was moving so fast.  Spinning in circles and bobbing his head.  He looked like he was listening to the wub wub of techno music.

I literally have had a nightmare about this robin.  He comes around every night and digs a bit in the dirt between my garden boxes looking for bugs.  So far he hasn't found the tasty seeds I have carefully planted. 

My garden.  The plastic covered box in the back left is corn, and I have covered up the little seedlings for the night under plastic.  You can see part of the rock wall we are building to the right, to cut the wind down a bit and protect it from the area that had dogs living in it.  I told my helpers that one day they will write poems about that wall...none of them believe me.

Almost completely camouflaged in the gravel in our front yard.