niebruggestudio.com

Wow! Alaskans are hard-pressed to handle multiple days with high 70 or low 80 degree weather, but that is exactly what happened over Memorial weekend. Saturday I filled all my pots with hardened-off annuals, they were lavishly watered with fertilizer, gently placed in potting soil and looked fabulous. Finally I could enjoy a touch of color in my dried-out brown dirt yard. During the sizzling hot evening I sat in the shade admiring my flower pots and hanging baskets. A job well-done, I thought to myself. (more…)

Memorial weekend is the big planting and yard work time in Alaska. My yard is still an acre of ungraded dirt. We discussed our job with the excavator in mid April, so that we could be early on his list. Every week he promises he’ll be here next week, now he is down to “I’ll be there tomorrow.” We’ve heard the tomorrow date all week. I’m anxious to get things growing, but down the road a few years it won’t matter and we won’t remember the frustration of waiting. (more…)

The Tree Swallows are happily building their home in our nesting box on the birch tree. We enjoy watching them from our patio. Sometimes one swallow will sit on a tree branch about 20′ away guarding the nest, and every once in awhile we will see a swallow’s head peeking out the entry hole. (more…)

The other day I received an invitation to design a painting and oversee the painting of this design onto a large surface (approximately 10′x40′) that will be mounted on the outside of a building in downtown Seward. The town already has several of these large-sized murals on the exterior of buildings, and they give the place a charming, arty look. (more…)

To navigate a canoe without changing the paddle from side to side, one must master the “J” stroke. Both my husband and I are quickly learning how to perform this stroke efficiently, in coordination with each other. The “J” stroke keeps the canoe on a straight path, and allows the canoeist to be in charge of direction. (more…)

The weather is incredibly beautiful, early morning finds the lake flat calm and empty except for waterfowl quietly resting and feeding. This is the time of the day we enjoy paddling the canoe. We have the lake to ourselves and the scenery is gorgeous. Snow covered mountains reflect like a mirror on the surface of the calm water, the only ripples are created by the canoe as it cuts a path, gliding seamlessly toward the opposite shore. This is indeed a time to think, to exert, and to bask in the beauty of nature. (more…)

Sunday evening, May 21, 2006, spotting waterfowl with my binoculars during a quiet evening on the lake I saw a young man exhibiting some unusual behavior. He was crouched down inside a boat pointing what looked like a short black pole, then he would stand up and look back at the shore, squat down again and point the pole again. The fact that he kept repeating this action, and looking back at the shore seemed strange. It was unnatural. (more…)

In the morning I noted a swallow bringing a single long blade of grass into the box nest that is attached to the Birch tree in our yard. The grass hung partially out of the box entry hole for quite awhile until it was finally pulled inside. No doubt about it, this nest box has been claimed and is being prepared for laying eggs and hatching a brood. This will be fun to watch!

Gail Niebrugge, Alaska Artist

May 22, 2006 dawned clear, calm, and sunny. We spent all morning in the boat and found more Red Necked Grebes, Common Loons, and located a pair of Barrow’s Goldeneye ducks. I am quite sure that a pair of Mallard ducks have built a nest in the swampy woods next to our house, and to our surprise we found a Grebe’s nest right out in the open seemingly unprotected, with one egg! Although, as we approached the nest quietly by boat the Grebes were out to meet us. We kept a respectable distance. (more…)

We have been watching the swallow nesting box in the Birch tree, and occasionally a bird will arrive and climb inside, then it will poke its head out and after awhile fly away. This is the third day of this type activity. I have to assume that the nest box is being considered for occupancy, or maybe already chosen. This is new to us, so we can only watch and wait. (more…)

Friday morning, May 19, 2006, the sky was swarming with Tree Swallows and they found the nesting box we placed in the Birch tree near the house! At the same time I noticed a pair of Common Loons on the lake. (more…)

As a test we moved the owl decoy from the dock today, and will keep it off the dock for awhile. Hopefully the Mallards will not take up residence on the dock again. The Mallards have been floating right by the dock several times a day, but haven’t been up on the dock since the arrival of the owl decoy. (more…)

This morning I spotted a huge group of new ducks on the lake, possibly sixty or seventy, but they are too far away for positive identification. A group of eight landed in our cove and they are definitely Surf Scoters. I’m guessing some of the others are White Winged Scoters and a few look like Scaups. A fishing boat showed up and scared most of the ducks away. I hope they return and land in my cove so that I can identify all of the species. I enjoy watching the waterfowl migrate through this area.

Alaska Artist, Gail Niebrugge

Last winter we had our friend and contractor Jess Hall build a new residence/studio for us, and we moved in during the coldest month in Alaska, January. During the next few months, while the yard was covered in snow, we got settled inside. My studio is wonderful, it is in a loft upstairs with good light and windows facing the view of the lake. (more…)

To keep the Mallard ducks from sunning on the dock and fouling the dock with duck droppings, we purchased a fake owl and placed it at the end of the dock. For the last three days the Mallard’s haven’t been on the dock, so it looks like the owl decoy is working. I have one problem with this, will this owl decoy keep birds from building nests on the property? Does anyone know about this? Please comment. I want swallows to build nests, and other birds as well. So, maybe I’ll have to put up with duck dung on the dock.

Thanks, Alaska Artist Gail Niebrugge

The first waterfowl to return to our cove at Finger Lake were a pair of Mallard ducks, April 28, 2006. It has been a cold Spring this year in Alaska, and the break-up of ice on the lake is slow. April 29 yielded three pair of Barrows Golden Eye ducks, and by April 30, our little cove held the Mallards, the Barrows Golden Eyes, 4 Bonaparte Gulls and a Bald Eagle watching the scene from a perch on a dying Cottonwood tree. (more…)