Dog Days bright and clear
Indicate a happy year;
But when accompanied by rain,
For better times, our hopes are vain.

The Farmer’s Almanac, “The Dog Days of Summer”

Well then. I can tell already that my first blog post in … I don’t know… a few natural disasters… is not going to be, as a local music performer billed himself, tinged by hope. According to The Farmer’s Almanac, The Dog Days of Summer (from early July to mid-August) “coincide with the rising at sunrise of the Dog Star, Sirius, as well as with hot and sultry weather.”

Dog Days have come and gone this summer. In America (as in pretty much all of you who are not us in Alaska), dog days are those hot, lazy days, when Sirius the Dog Star is warning the Egyptians of drought and everyone else of the dangers of Bud Light and sun poisoning. 

Cedar’s dog days… the heart of summer…were apparently good ones. I’ve been gone a lot this summer, and she’s had plenty of love, from Katie, from return house sitter and all-star human, Tenley, from Aaron and family at Shelter Island. But if we’re to believe the Farmer’s Almanac, what’s to come may not be so “sultry.” 

While America hid from fires and skin cancer, we’ve had quite a freak show here, too— a jökulhlaup, a rare thunderstorm, an atmospheric river, and for whatever reasons, a massive blog post drought. 

A jökul-what, you ask? Like “atmospheric river” this term was non-existent to all but specialists until a few years ago. It is not, in fact, an Icelandic heavy metal band. (I don’t think.)  Instead, it refers to a sub-glacial release of water. In Juneau, we have a basin — basically a huge, icy lake—that releases each summer, flooding the Mendenhall Lake, then the river which courses through Juneau suburbia. 

For many in recent years the jökulhaup has been a bit of a party. Pull up the lawn chairs and watch what floats by in the silty glacial river. But this year the lawn chairs went to higher ground. The graphs showing the expected peaks and the receding water levels were erased and modified on an hourly basis (which began to seem like eternities). It wasn’t long before many were up Shit’s Creek without a yard or a foundation. Trees gave up their hundreds of year holds, and houses 50 yards back from the river began to plunge in. 

Friend Betsy posted on social media, “It’s been quite a show. Things that cruised by this evening – massive trees, a refrigerator, pillows, couch cushions, a roof, part of a bathroom, a wall, all kinds of insulation, wiring The river is making a roaring sound as it sweeps by.” A friend posted, “My house just fell into the river. Let me know if you find my stuff.” My neighbor found a box on a beach 10 miles from his place. The police found his Glock pistol floating in the busy harbor may miles downstream. Still missing: a cat and backpack full of cash. 

A day later, a rare thunderstorm and torrential rain. A week later, an atmospheric river rain event. Then another, much smaller, jökulhlaup. No one near the river has returned to normal.

None of this is news from Cedar’s point of view, as far as I can tell. What is news is some doggy love (her Shelter Island summer fling, Libby) and a bit of cousin dog (who nearly lost her own yard) chill time, too. 

They’re kind of all Dog Days around here. Still, maybe it’s worth acknowledging that I’m breaking the drought of the dog blog, with no help needed from the watery world in which she snores comforting sounds to soften vain hopes.