Alaska Friends,

Winter is officially over in Fairbanks!  Winter is from the first time the snow pack reaches one inch until it is less than one inch.  This year that was from November 5 until April 27, 168 days.  The shortest winter on record was 1934-35 with 133 days and the longest was 1992-93 with 222 days.  Last year winter tied for the second most days of winter at 209 days.

The break up is past.  There were ice chunks going down the river for about a week.  Then the chunks were smaller and smaller and then none.  Now everybody talks about spring.  The trees are budding.  Some rhubarb is starting to push up through the ground.  They say that when the trees start to leaf out it happens quickly.

We went to a fish hatchery last Friday.  It had not been open to the public until then.  It is just a couple years old but they do not have the funding to have public displays and people to explain them.  It was just open a couple days while there was also a outdoor show nearby.  The hatchery has 32 circular tanks, the smallest 365 gallons and the largest 42,300 gallons.  As the fish grow they are moved to larger tanks.  When they are taken to the streams and lakes some are fingerlings and some are ready to be harvested.  Here are the number of fish they have stocked since opening in 2012.

2012     281,792 (this was their first year)

2013     347,124

2014     361,000 (hopefully)

That is nearly a million fish!  They stock a couple kinds of salmon, greyling (a cousin of salmon), and trout.

There was a special display tank with perhaps 50 fish.  You can tell the pictures which are in the production tanks.  The production tanks were separated from the viewing area by glass and the window on the side of the tank was glass so those pictures are through two windows and not real clear.

Another sign of spring is tree pollen.  Birch pollen is very high here in the spring.  The pollen count has already been 95 particles per cubic meter (ppcm).  In the lower 48 tree pollen count of 250 is considered high.  Here the normal spring has about 1500 ppcm.  In 2010 it reached a record 3986 ppcm.  Spruce pollen is also very high but it is not so bad at producing allergies.  Last year an updraft had so much spruce pollen in it that some people thought it was a forest fire!

Have a good spring - have a good time doing all your spring work.

God's blessings to all.

Larry and Elva