The cool, rainy weather persists.  Yesterday’s temperature did not climb above 16C, and the other morning, when the night was clear for a few hours before sunrise, it froze.

Despite the rain, the river has not come up a lot this year.  Before the flood of 2010, there was a channel on the left of the picture.  The flood carved a new, much deeper route for the river, and the left-hand bars are now growing over.  Stitchwort twinkled among the rocks.

and a real surprise was a clump of silky phacelia, a most striking flower.  I have found it way above the treeline at Nuk Tessli.

Later, I found a vigorous population on a gravel area beside Highway 20.  It is a most striking flower.

I was lucky to have a helper for 5 days and he did a few urgent jobs.  It is still very difficult for me to carry things any distance.  He staked my peas…

(the rows are wiggly as I planted them with crutches – literally: I scraped the trough with the crutch and then tried to put in seeds.  It is the first time I have had a garden at Ginty Creek – there was not time to prepare more: this is by way of an experiment.)

..and he built a much-neede compost bin.

He also helped me hang a couple of doors.  I made the original ones and they warped so badly I got a neighbour to make these.  They are gorgeous.

Some mornings we would get a gleam of sun for a brief time before the fog and cloud rolled in.

The aspens already have a silvery cast as they are riddled with leaf miners.  It is a wonder they ever survive.

The showiest flower in the area right now is a penstemon.  The blossoms are  half a finger in length.

Another species of penstemon is hosting a swallow-tailed butterfly.

The forecast is promising an improvement in the weather.  This morning, the fog was as thick as ever.

This orb-web spider was unusual – most of the webs were made by other species, like the one in the background, and were a lot more messy.  (Apparently you can induce this among orb-web spiders by giving them LSD….)

But the sun came out and off I went for a hike.  I went further than I have or a long time and climbed up onto the north dunes.  It was so great getting to a good viewpoint at last although the high summer sun is not great for photography.

The sand was soft and slithery to walk on so it gave me an additional workout.  At the edge of the dunes was a bit of dogbane.

I am always amazed at this species of horsetail.  Most need damp or wet areas, but this one thrives on the dunes.  Horsetails are the surviving relatives of forest-sized plants that eventually made coal.  They grew when the dinosaurs roamed the earth.  They have this curious jointed structure.  You can easily pull the segments apart.

Here is a juniper snake.

 

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