The construction around the building is almost completed and I again have access to one of my favorite sitting areas outside of the building.There is a great view to the south towards the Alaska Range about 80 miles to the south. On a clear day, you can just see from Mt. Mckinley all the way to the range south of Delta. Today was not really clear as there is still smoke from brush fires. And at 38°F, it was a bit too cool to enjoy my morning coffee.
This is the view to the southeast towards Delta and, as you can see, there is still quite a bit of smoke and haze. The rain over the past week really got things green again though some have reported frost knocking out parts of their gardens. They are just finishing the dirt work below the building as they had to build an additional retaining wall to keep the parking lot from sliding down the hill. Hopefully, they will put the nice x-country ski trail that used to traverse this slope back in.
Yesterday was day 25 of "31 days of geocaching". We met with several friends at Creamers Field, which is a bird sanctuary in town. We found a couple of caches and the number of cranes and geese were astounding. The place was also crowded with birders as you couldn't go a hundred yards without running into someone else. Something about a
Sandhill Crane Festival.
I'm starting to run out of convenient caches and may have to start on some of the more challenging ones. The blue dot is where I am and all of the "happy faces" are caches that I've already found, The color indicates the type of cache. The iPhone app is a really convenient way to geocache as you just tell it to show you all of the caches around you, select any one of them and have the app point you the direction you need to go. The downside is the battery draw from the gps is enough to drain the phone pretty quickly. The battery in my 3 year old phone is about 60% of new according to a battery monitoring app that can only be run on a jailbroken iPhone.
More changing colors and the cranberries may be ready for picking as you normally would wait until after the first frost. While out geocaching, we did find quite a few areas with cranberries though they were on the trail system and liable to be picked out before the weekend.
BTW, this showed up in front of the building right next to the parking lot. The stainless cylinders go straight through. Any thoughts?
My guess, 1% for art...
Hi Richard
ReplyDeleteyou wrote:
The battery in my 3 year old phone is about 60% of new acc.
acc?
dom
Sorry, got distracted...
DeleteThe battery in my 3 year old phone is about 60% of new according to a battery monitoring app that can only be run on a jailbroken iPhone.
Richard:
ReplyDeleteI'm not liking your 38°F temps. It's like a sign that summer is ending.
It was warm yesterday but there is a chill in the air in the shadows and rain is forecast all week.
are those stainless tubes, Polished ? that may give us a clue
bob
Riding the Wet Coast
No, not polished but nicely finished....
DeleteI think that summer is indeed ending up here. It'll take a while for that trend to migrate south.
My thought is that it's wind art. Wind blows through the steel making interesting and sometimes spooky sounds. If the tubes are not situated for good air flow then I have no clue.
ReplyDeleteNice photos! The temp here reached 98, tomorrow the same. 38 sounds almost good.
That could be it. The normal wind direction would be across the face of the tubes not through it. But, it would have made more sense to me to make the tubes different lengths to make different tones...
DeleteI'm with Martha - the tubes look like they might be 'art' although the base is very commercial looking, but then again I saw a Dyson vacuum in the Museum of Fine Art NYC - so who knows? Can't wait to find out what they really are.
ReplyDeleteThere is a chill in the night air here as well even if the days still have a sauna like feel ... I may not know what the stack of tubes are for, but one thing I know for sure - fall is coming.
The base is a concrete pier to prevent cars from damaging it when pulling into the parking space. The piers are spaced every other parking space and have power running to them so you can plug in your vehicle to keep the engine warm during the cold periods. This particular pier did not have power run to it. Kind of an anomaly. Now we know why.
DeleteMy very first thought was that it looks like a very big pitch pipe, again wind/sound. Hopefully it won't draw curious tongues with your winter (August) temperatures.......it's got "try it once" written all over it; those short and tall.
ReplyDeleteIf it ever gets windy, we'll see if any sound is generated. Yesterday, one of the VPs was playing around and used it as a megaphone. It seemed to direct the sound pretty well. He thought it was a paper delivery box...
DeleteMy fantasy of ever visiting Alaska on a motorcycle cannot survive the reality of 38 degrees in August. Besides which my car does not have a plug for an electric block warmer. I can imagine getting stuck in the tundra and dying of summer hypothermia. Pathetic.
ReplyDeleteThe tubes ar obviously a newspaper rack for paper delivery.
I'm sure that if you can survive on a boat in northern CA then Alaska should be a walk in the park. This morning, someone stuck a newspaper in one of the tubes...
DeleteFingers crossed they put that ski trail back in for you.
ReplyDeleteSo, is it almost time for the birds to start heading south or do any over-winter in Alaska?
There are quite a few that winter over in Alaska but most head south. Quite a few residents head south with them.
DeleteThe geese, ducks, swans and cranes are the most visible at the bird sanctuary. One of the local radio stations has a contest for sending in the first photo of geese returning in the Spring. Lots of folks around Fairbanks put out bird feeders in the winter for the birds. I thought about hanging something right outside the sliding glass door next to the cat tree.
That first picture is a million dollar view, indeed. As for the tubes I am clueless. If it were to have different shapes and lengths I would go along with the artsy wind noise but this structure doesn't make much sense.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it is just a way of recycling materials left over from the construction by calling it 'art'.
I don't think I ever get tired of the view from the grassy knoll next to the building.
DeleteThe one problem with the "art" argument is there is no signage stating that it's art. No artist name or title attached to the post. Plus, it's in an odd location.