Garden Progress Pics

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June 1 (planting day):

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June 10:

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June 21:

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The winners and losers: Our tomato and zucchini plants started out really well, but have been struggling over the past few weeks. This is likely due to the cooler nighttime temperatures in Tulita: despite the warm days, it still often drops below 10°C at night. The tomatoes look like they may be lost, but the zucchini has started sprouting new leaves, so hopefully will make a comeback. Our pepper plants have suffered from the same problem – they started growing really well initially and then just kind of fizzled. We’ll have to make some kind of greenhouse next year for our cold-intolerant plants. On the other hand, all our green leafy vegetables are doing great! The kale and swiss chard are booming, and I’m going to be honest that I’m not quite sure what the rest of those leafy plants are (notably the huge one on the left and the other leafy ones in the bottom right). Some have little broccoli-like growths, so maybe cauliflower or rapini? Some of the others might be in the cabbage family; maybe kohlrabi. In any case they’re doing well. Also, the onions are coming up nicely, and the pea plant has its first pea!

Bird Monitoring Trip

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I got out into the park for my first trip of the season: bird monitoring at Margaret Lake and Broken Skull Lake (our two most forested lakes). I am not a bird expert – there are a lot of birds out there, and a lot of them look and sound basically the same. So what we do is we put out audio recorders to take 10 minutes of recordings every half hour. Then we send the tapes off to an actual bird expert to tell us what birds we’ve got.

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The weather at Margaret Lake was… less than ideal.
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Much nicer at Broken Skull Lake.

We also went to scope out some old ruins near the lakes. There are some old wooden platforms near Margaret Lake, probably from some past mineral exploration. Near Broken Skull Lake, there are the remains of an old cabin, built by a guy named Chris Larkin who flew into the lake in 1979, overwintered, and then paddled out down the Broken Skull River the following spring. He wrote a book about it called A Far Cry.

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Faye playing archaeologist