Just for the grins

Some time ago I mentioned moose nuggets. Just to prove a point, it is true they are used for jewelry and doo dads and such. I particularly like the mooseltoe.

Some days you just have to love Alaska

Fairbanks man jailed for driving forklift while drunk

And it seems so much was left out of the story, like, how did the two pickups end up in the ditch in the first place? Winter drag race?

I have a friend who while working in a fish processing plant won a bet that he could pick up a quarter with a forklift.

Journeys, projects, voyages and art -- another random thought

A project brought the train of thought to mind, but they all have a certain progression in common. There is always the optimism of beginning and jumping in. But not too long after that comes the realization stage. A friend once described it as this: We were beginning an ocean voyage and he apologized right off the dock. What he said was please be aware that about a day or so into this I will go into kind of a funk. It was when he realized having done this before he had just done it to himself again, committed with no way out. On this particular voyage it was my first offshore and I didn’t get it, but later in life as I embarked on journeys of one sort or another I did. Building houses comes to mind after the few first boards are laid on the foundation and I was left alone to finish the house, knowing how long it was going to take there was always a moment of depression. It happened in writing as well; at the beginning I could see the end, but a week or so into it I could only see a year of writing ahead. I think that was at least part of what caused my loss of interest. Not only did I see a year of writing ahead, but I was unhappy with what I had done already and I didn’t like the main character and he was based on me. Then life stepped in and piled on, and I never really went back to it. But that gets off the subject. Once you get past that initial realization about the monumental task in front of you, you shrug your shoulders and go for it, knowing it is the only way it will get done and for the time being it is your way of life, your raison d'etre and from then on you separate the project into incremental, attainable goals, a floor laid, a page written, a waypoint on a voyage passed and life goes one small step at a time working toward the whole. When the project is finished, the house built, the voyage completed, the book written, in this case the living room remodeled, there is a moment of satisfaction, a moment of accomplishment, a moment of achievement, but those moments are fleeting.

It was after I completed this most recent project, the living room floor and trim that I realized the last step in the process. Of course there are always a few odds and ends to complete yet, you have to clean the boat, polish up some spelling and grammar, still put down a little trim here and there but for the purpose of the project that moment comes when you have the feeling (and relief) of completion.

Sitting on the couch looking over this most recent one it hit me and as I thought back through others they all had this same aspect in common. The realization is that despite all you are feeling you have accomplished, life has not changed in any meaningful way. I was sitting on the same couch, watching the same tired television shows I had watched when there was a ratty old carpet under me instead of a brand new laminate floor. It happened, I realized in all the houses I built, at the end of every voyage and eventually at the end of every book: No matter what the accomplishment life did not change. The next day I woke up alone, went to work, came home, turned on the television and went to sleep as I had every working day since this latest period in my life began, I suppose that is to be expected, but in my mind it seems life should change in some dramatic way somehow. It doesn’t.

What has me wondering now is what happens at the end of the global journey, the entire project. Do I sit somewhere drooling in a wheelchair wondering if at the dock after the voyage through life, completing the last chapter, I am left with the same feeling? Does it mean that for all of it, nothing really changes despite your tenure on earth?

The realization stage with only a couple of sticks of baseboard to go.

And one more random thought having to do with the solstice. My niece who was here this summer wrote a happy solstice note and said she couldn’t believe it has been six months already since her trip. When someone talks about the rapid passage of time I usually remind them that each passing year is a smaller percentage of the whole life and as those percentages grow smaller and smaller time seems to pass more swiftly. So maybe it all comes to this, time really does move faster with age and the end comes when we reach escape velocity and what amounts to a soul spins off into space.

Scattered thoughts at Solstice time

A few rambling thoughts on the event of the 36th Winter Solstice experienced in Alaska. To begin with, the temperature is 40 degrees, very un-Alaska like especially after two weeks fluctuating between plus and minus 10. There is at least snow, now, and maybe it will hold up through a warm period. Snow is light at the East Pole, 17 inches as near as I can tell which may hinder plans to go there for Christmas and New Year’s.

On to random thoughts: Trickle-down economics ­-- that wonderful Reagan-era phrase that really meant give to the rich and hope a few crumbs trickle down to the rest of us. Since then the rich and the rest of us have actually moved farther apart. So it goes. But inadvertently President Obama has created a trickle-down economic effect that actually works. It goes like this: My nephew hit a deer with his vehicle a week or so ago. Not much damage, a headlight and some trim it looked like from the picture he sent. But a few days later came this note: “Once again I have to thank the Obamathon for filling up the junkyards. Got all the plastic pieces and a battery pan for 65 bucks!!!”

It was the Cash for Clunkers program. It had to be expected the yards taking in all those clunkers didn’t totally waste them and salvaged as many parts as they could. Now the yards are full of parts: with a big supply prices come down, the original owner saved supposedly by trading in on something new, the new-auto industry got a shot in the arm, which should mean more jobs and more money in the economy, the junk yards made money taking in the clunkers, and now are making more selling the parts, and the people (like my nephew who probably won’t admit it) who still own clunkers, can find parts for them at reasonable prices. Was it all worth it? Sure seems like it to me.

Another random thought: A couple of months ago the mayor of Anchorage vetoed a measure that would have given equal rights in things like housing, job discrimination and health care to gay people. A young columnist in the Daily News took him to task about it. In the course of her diatribe she wrote that it turned out the mayor was in fact, just “an old white man.” Somehow, having to admit that I, too, am now “an old white man,” that phrase irritated me. While gay rights is not exactly my cause, I can certainly sympathize and am all in favor of everyone in this country enjoying the same rights as every other person in this country. But, the thought process went on,

Besides wanting to tell this sweet young thing that all old white men do not think the same, I wanted to point out what this generation of old white folks did when we were young. There was civil rights, there was the Vietnam war, there was relevance in education, there was the environment and even, gasp, women’s rights. Gay rights had not quite come on the scene, at least in a big way. But a lot of us now old white folks, even men, did what we could for each of those causes. And, there was hope that as that generation matured we would take over and change the world into a better place for all.

The realization is, we failed. While some of us were fighting the good fight, a lot of others, probably the majority, stuck to their books, kept their heads down and went on into business, law, government and on and on, and those were the ones who rose to positions of power bringing with them the old ways we were fighting so hard to bury. To be sure, there have been tremendous successes but just look at the health care debate in Congress to see who really won. We were the generation who brought on free clinics but we were also the generation who brought on Joe Lieberman. the Party of NO and Mayor Dan Sullivan of Anchorage, Alaska. So, in the end what prevailed was an evolution of the status quo with only as many social progressions as the old white men felt comfortable allowing.

However, blanket condemnations are not helpful. As we learned in all those rights progressions, not all African Americans are alike, not all minorities are alike, not all women are alike and not all gays are alike. Get this straight: Not all old white men are alike either.

What this young woman needs to do along with her generation, is pick up the torch where we dropped it. Challenge those old white men (we called them the establishment) and carry on the fight until it is actually won.

I suppose that is enough rambling for one day. Have you missed me? For all who enjoy this sort of thing “HAPPY SOLSTICE”

Mostly finished

Ran out of money before I got the trim done, but other than that ...

Short progress report

A whole weekend of building, first blush, taking a break now to let the heater cool so I can lift it out and put flooring under it.

Oh, and I saw the first moose of the season on the road last night. Time to get ready and maybe slow down.

Late Thursday more progress photo gallery

Here we go again

Several nights last week the overnight low went to 20 below. This morning the temperature is above 40 and what little snow we have is melting away. So, again in just a few days we have had a 60-degree temperature change. To tell the truth it is not all that disappointing. Putting down flooring this weekend and I want to put the saw out on the porch to keep the dust out of the house, so it ought to work out fine. And maybe warmer temperatures will bring the birds around. I was a little late filling feeders this year and didn't do it until the big chill last week. So far not one has showed up as far as I can see. So, for the time being the 25 pounds of sunflower seeds I bought is in the back of the Honda hybrid helping keep it on the road.

So far the car is doing all right with the winter. It started right up at 20 below after a couple of hours plugged in, and at work it started easily a couple of nights at 10 below without the plug-in. The electronic displays are a little sluggish at low temperatures, but the heating system warms it up nicely. I didn't put snow tires on it, but it seems to hold the road well, and using the paddle shifters, I have good control. The one thing that's still a concern is bottoming out in deep snow. I have already seen where it pushes through the snow in the driveway. The engine doesn't particularly like the cold, though. Mileage has dropped off from above 50 mpg to the mid to low 40s. Part of this is due to letting it warm up at an idle and part general driving conditions. Still, 43 mpg is a whole lot better than I have ever gotten with anything I have driven before. All in all still happy with it.

There's something about swans

No idea why I find them so fascinating but here is another part of it. I only learned this second hand but it is a good story. Late last summer someone on the Kenai Peninsula south of here shot a swan with an arrow. The swan was spotted swimming around a lake with the arrow sticking out of it. A team from the Alaska Sealife Center managed to capture the swan and take it to their facility.

 They named her Marshmallow which would not have been my choice but will have to do. There they removed the arrow, treated the wound and nursed her back to health. When it seemed she had recovered fully they returned her to the lake where they had found her, and in time, before the southward migration had begun. There she was greeted by what was assumed to be her mate; they, like geese, mate for life.

 Everything seemed to be fine until the migration started and the swans flew south. Someone checked the lake and Marshmallow was still there. Her wing had not healed well enough or strong enough for her to make the trip and it looked like the other swans had left her behind. The crew from the Sealife Center captured her again and then managed to find a way to send her south for the winter. She flew down in a pet carrier on an airplane.

 People in Washington released her onto a lake where she immediately flew into a tizzy and chased two other swans away. So the injured swan at least ended up somewhere south for the winter, has enough moxie to be feisty and perhaps will gain enough strength to make it back next summer. A happy ending, except perhaps for losing her mate. Well, winter came down on us fast and that lake froze. A few days after she made her safe trip south, someone ventured over to the lake again.

There, walking around on the ice was another swan, alone in the winter apparently displaced, perhaps lost, perhaps looking for Marshamallow, his mate everyone assumed had been left behind by the others. Now he was the one left behind. One can only hope there is more of this story yet to be written.

Time has come, the walrus said

If you click that little Alaska flag to the right under the "What's going on here" headline you get the Weather Underground weather conditions for the area around the East Pole. I delved a little deeper into the site today and found weather warnings. On a map of Alaska it shows high wind warnings. Southeastern has them, but for the rest of the state there is only one little spot of blue indicating high winds. Guess where? Rat cheer. And, boy is it howling out. Tools hanging from a rack on the side of the house are banging, trees are swaying, pretty good storm all in all. On a brighter note, heavy snow predicted for the East Pole, 10 to 20 inches in the next 24 hours. That might not be so much fun while it's happening or until the cleanup is complete, but in the long view it means snow on the trail and time is close for snowmachine trips to the cabin. Woo hoo. I have two more weekends of remodeling and then watch out.

Too much smoke

Not long after I moved to Alaska I started having a recurrent dream. In it, I had traveled Outside and for one reason or another could not get back to Alaska. In time I learned that several other people had the same dream. In discussing it with one person or another we decided it was simply that this is where we wanted to be and had some kind of unconscious fear of losing it. Well, that dream faded after a while and I haven’t had one in years.

However, it has been replaced by another, I had one last night. It involves the East Pole. In it, I am making my way along the trial toward the cabin. I run into people along the trail, some I know some I don’t, it changes with the dreams. It is almost always in summer with four-wheelers and difficulties along the trail change also, however it always seems there are more people than usual. Sometimes they are headed for the town, or we can see the town or it involves getting something from the town, but that is not the most disturbing part, When I finally arrive at the cabin I find I can see others around it. but even that is not the worst.

The worst is that just over the hill behind the cabin there is some kind of a development, Sometimes it is a mall or shopping center and sometimes it is a cluster of townhouses but always an encroachment of development with paved streets, stores and traffic. Sometimes I wrestle with that or sometimes I wake up but that seems to be where the dream ends, when I realize that the sprawl of development has caught up and I either need to join and accept it or start over farther away.

Just some side notes on this: After 20 years someone has finally built a cabin I can see from the East Pole and I find that disconcerting. In summer when the trees are all leafed out i can't see it, but I know it's there. In winter it is very visible from the front deck. It is like the solitude is shattered. But the dreams began long before that. I think the new cabin just fulfills the apprehension from the dreams about people moving too close. It is like when you expect people to be around you can deal with it, but when you don’t it can be disturbing,

And I am not without fault. While I was building the cabin I made friends with a man who had lived in that area in a small cabin for the previous 12 years, from long before the land had been sold as a subdivision. One day he was helping me put up the ridge board (a story in itself) and I was telling him how this had been a lifelong dream. He said it had been one of his as well. At that point a startling realization came over me. Shocked, I looked at him and said rather sheepishly, "I am part of your problem, aren't I." He politely nodded affirmatively and we let it go at that, but that realization has always tempered my reaction to others who came out later. One man's dream is another's nightmare.

One of those trivial facts I remember from early history lessons or that I read somewhere is that Daniel Boone had said he always felt the urge to move when he could see the smoke from a neighbor’s chimney. He eventually died in Missouri. I have always wondered if expansion caught up with him there and he just gave up and didn’t move again or if he had reached the end of his trail before another neighbor's smoke pushed him farther west.

At any rate, it seems these days there is just too much smoke to get away from it all.

ADDENDUM: Lately I have discovered an awful number of young people have very little knowledge of American (or any) history so here's a little about Daniel Boone. As if to make my point a question on one of the sites asked "Wasn't he the one who died at the Alamo?" The article even pointed out he died in 1820, 16 years before that battle.

He Lives!

Driving to work on a dismal gray day, snow in the forecast and obviously threatening... memory music playing, the kind that gives you that warm, sad feeling. It had been kind of a low weekend anyway and it all seemed to fit. And then I saw a figure walking the bike path across the four-lane. It took a moment to register. Then in the fleeting of passage at 62 mph, I recognized the wide-brimmed hat, the blue denim jacket, the long gray beard -- the Solitary Man. He was walking away from the town toward where he would cross two lanes of the highway to his island. That lifted my spirits. So great to see him, know he’s alive and still trudging that trail and still wondering what goes on in that solitary life. Immediately I felt a smile, a happy song came up and it just made the day a whole lot better. By night and time to go home, it had snowed about three inches and still falling. This was the first time in snow with the Honda. There was enough snow falling to be blinding especially when another car passed and blew up a bunch of it. Went home slowly then messed around a little after I got off the main highway and it seemed to handle the snow just fine. Paddle shifters help. With seven gears there is a lot of control so the car might be all right. Now if the huge battery doesn't freeze at 30 below everything will be just fine.

Random occurrences from life in the slow lane

Startled awake yesterday to a pounding on the wall. At first I got a flash of a neighbor having seen my house on fire and trying to wake me up. Not nearly so dramatic as I came more alert. My friend the woodpecker is back and just had to let me know. He worked his way around the two walls outside the bedroom making sure I was awake and aware he had returned.

On the theme of birds, eagles are back along the river. There is a teen hangout where two immatures watch the flow from an old, broken cottonwood or swoop down to water’s edge to nab whatever they are finding in the stream these days. Farther along in a huge cottonwood, two adults do the same thing, though, I am sure with a more practiced eye.

One night last week I saw a fox race across the highway and slither under the guard rail. Moose are moving down and more and more of them are showing up along the roads. Time to slow down.

And, another only in Alaska observation: Two nights ago driving home, I came up on a vehicle with hazard lights flashing, four of them. Closer observation revealed a pickup towing a snowmachine trailer, but it was moving close to 60 mph so why the hazard lights? I caught up even with the trailer and then it became clear. On it were two carefully (it looked like at 60 mph) wrapped airplane wings. It isn’t unusual to see people hauling airplane parts around Alaska, even whole fuselages, but in the middle of the night on a dark road, one has to wonder. Nothing ulterior though, guessing the fellow just wanted to protect them at all costs from some idiot running into him and ruining his winter project.

So it goes. Snow in the forecast down to 1,200 feet.

Hip deep in the East Pole mud

There's a reason I don't go the East Pole much in the summer (read, Fall, as well). The trail is so trenched if there has been any rain at all the ruts fill with water and the high sides hold it there so you can run into 100-yard long lake and because the water is so muddy you have no idea how deep they are. It is always amazing what a four-wheeler can do. I remember a time a wave in one of those lakes came right up over the front of the machine.

Most of them aren't very deep but some have no bottom. Another surprise as that when people go through them they gun it at the end of the puddle to rise up out of it. Unfortunately doing that digs the bottom deeper right at the end because they spin the tires and dig it out. It keeps getting deeper and deeper with each passing and creates also a steep rise out of it, some of them trenched enough you can high center the machine. Roaring along through water at full speed and then hit a mogul like that. It can stop the machine cold. The key is momentum... keep going no matter what and hope your momentum keeps you going when the wheels start spinning in the underwater mud. In a lot of places people have created side trails where you can go around some of the worst spots. 

 Picture seven miles of this, another puddle every few hundred feet. The worst is when you decide you can make it and then the puddle curves, you come around the corner and there is another couple of hundred feet to go through the water, no idea how deep it is or how loose the mud underneath is and then the front disappears under water. This is when your only hope is momentum and you grip the throttle and blast through it, mud flying and if you are fortunate enough you don't smack straight into one of those moguls. So in the last two days I did 14 miles of that. 

 What takes about 30 or 40 minutes in winter, takes two hours in the summer. Never stuck, rolled it on its side once and oh, yes, the mud, what a bunch of mud. I never had mud work its way INTO a cooler before. And I saw enough spruce hens for a thanksgiving feast. If I could have stopped I might have brought some home.

Jumping to conclusions

All right so fall is a time of transitions and nothing stays the same. Now the newer solitary man has disappeared again, didn't see him at all for two days, but, of course "for good" doesn't seem to apply at this time of year because yesterday there were two brilliant white swans on the pond. Still no snow on the ground at this level but, some white, and endless rain it seems. And, nope, still no one. And, things change here too, wind blew most of my garden protection away so I have to start over, and oh yeah as if this all should go in the same sentence, on Twitter now, and oh boy, an iPhone. So, I guess the need to change isn't just in Nature and weather. As Kurt Vonnegut wrote in Slaughter House Five, so it goes.

Rush to judgment

The newer solitary man hasn't disappeared quite yet. Maybe he had to go get gas or something. Anyway he was back yesterday but in a different place... this time in a pullout parking spot, the last one before you get on the highway, or so I thought. On the way home last night he had pulled even closer to the highway and was parked on the shoulder just before the on ramp, stove pipe smoking and at 1 in the morning obviously spending the night. It will be interesting to see where he is today or if he has finally hit the highway.

Fall is edging much closer to winter these days and there have been strange doings. For one, the large group of swans stayed only one day. In past years they have lingered for as long as a week. The nesting pair that stays showed up a few days later again but they too have now gone on. They have stayed until freezeup in previous years. Leaves have lingered longer on the trees and there are still fully yellow trees around the house. Yesterday I got the garden ready for winter. A friend told me and another confirmed it works to put down newspaper and then cover it with mulch so I did. Supposedly no weeds show up in the spring. I raked up all the leaves nearby and covered the newspaper with them. Today there are that many leaves and more right where I raked yesterday. No more raking until the trees are bare. Might as well do it just once. So, anyway, the garden is ready, the swans are gone, leaves are falling, the newer solitary man is inching closer to the highway winter equipment is in both cars, temperatures now in the 30s at night and the stove is cleaned and ready for cold. Oh, and get this: Snuggies are on sale at Walmart. Still to be learned is how an Insight functions in cold and snow.

On another note

It looks like the newer solitary man has disappeared. I never really accepted him as truly solitary because he was always so visible, at least his homevan was. I noticed one day he had moved from his most recent parking place down the road a way toward the highway to a much narrower area. That didn't look too permanent and sure enough a few days later he was nowhere to be seen. Meanwhile a friend thinks she might have spotted the original right in the same area where I first noticed him.

OK try this

Southcentral Alaska is clinging to the fall colors still, just too pretty to let go quite yet before accepting the white shroud of winter.

Lights

Forty degrees and snow in the forecast, and then northern lights on the way home tonight.

Eight swans a'swimming

Eight swans on the pond as I was driving to work yesterday. They are striking, all pure white against the yellows, oranges and bronze of the lily pads and alders lining the pond. Two flights of Canada geese passed overhead in Anchorage, too. 

Migrating birds are on the move and that means winter is chasing them south. It is a strange fall so far, Lots of color up country and in toward Anchorage but around the house, all the trees are still very green. That is late. It holds me up, too, because I wanted to used the leaves to mulch the garden, which by the way still has plenty of colorful flowers in it. There is very little, if any, new snow -- Termination Dust -- on the mountains. Last year there was some in July and usually it shows up sometime mid to late August. No wonder I have no big drive to do firewood. It all adds up to winter coming late this year after the unusually warm summer.

Things are changing for the newer solitary man. I drove by one day and his van was gone, so I figured he went on south for the winter. But next day I noticed he had just moved back a little behind the tree line. So maybe he was planning to stay. Then next day he was gone. But farther along there he was pulled into a paved pullout near the salmon stream. 

A police car was parked next to him and my guess was he got chased out of his last parking place. Then a day later he had pulled off into a narrow space at roadside. A day later he had moved again, this time to a wider pullout and he has been there ever since, his bicycle standing in front of the van and smoke coming from the chimney. Over the course of the summer he has moved from place to place from near the river bridge back toward Anchorage until he’s now just two miles from the highway. I still have had only one glance at him that day when he was wearing the mosquito net. Somehow this one doesn’t generate the empathy of the first one. I hope that fellow is still around and doing well and I am just missing him because my schedule changed and his didn’t.

It will be interesting to see how it plays out -- the warm summer leading into a late fall and how winter will be, and, too, how this van-loading solitary man weathers it all.

But some things never change … looked around when I saw the swans but, nope, no one.

More in the way of passages: A championship

One of my son’s best friends turned 20 yesterday-- a great kid, no longer a kid any more. And that means my own son will be 20 in just a few short months. Wow! How did that happen so fast. It got me reflecting on things even more. And one thing that came to mind was one of the times I was most proud of him.

When he was in elementary school in one way or another I coached his youth basketball teams. When he moved on to junior and then senior high school he was in the hands for more experienced coaching but I missed the participation. One year while he was younger, I suggested we both coach a youth basketball team and we volunteered.

He must have still been in junior high at the time because he wasn’t all that much taller than the fourth and fifth graders we were coaching. I tried to stand back and let him do as much of the coaching as he would.

One night after practice he started playing a kid one on one. Pretty soon it was two on one and then three and so on until there were seven of them. And he beat them. I had always thought he needed to be more aggressive on the basketball court so almost every time he came into a game after that I would shout “seven on one” to kind of remind him of a time he played aggressively.

But that wasn’t the proudest moment. This team developed slowly, they lost their first four or five games until they began to come together. Then they played the best team in the league on a Saturday of Super Bowl weekend. They took that team into two overtimes before losing by a single point. A couple of people in the crowd said it was probably the best game they would see all weekend. The kids were disappointed of course but I told them they had just taken the best team in the league to its limit; it was the best game they had ever played and that now they KNEW they could beat anyone. They didn’t lose another game.

The moment came during the championship game. At a crucial point in the fourth quarter on a key inbounds play we called a time out. As the team gathered, my son gave me a glance, like “I’ll take it from here.” I stood back and let him do it. Then with the team circled around him, he designed a play with his finger drawing it on the floor. The team gathered for a cheer before they went back in. (This is an aside. Instead of hollering “Defense” or “Win” or some other thing, my teams always hollered something like “Double Fudge Brownies.” Youth basketball is supposed to be fun to begin with, and secondly it seemed to loosen them up -- they’d go out onto the court laughing and win.)

Anyway, after a “Triple-thick Milkshake!” they ran out onto the court, executed my son’s designed play perfectly and went on to win the championship. After the game one parent told me it was so cool watching him take over the team like that.

I have one regret from that day. The winning coach gets to make a speech. I complimented the other team for a great season and a great game and introduced each of our players with a compliment for each as well. But, I neglected to introduce my son and point out his contribution to the effort. I had the greatest assistant coach a guy could ever have: his own son, and was so proud of him but somehow skipped over him in that speech and have always wished I could go back and make the speech again, this time recognizing the greatest assistant coach ever. It was such a great experience, except for that.

Perhaps this made up for it a little. It is customary for the parents to give some token to the coach after the season. They bought us each gift certificates to a local restaurant. In the card with his, one parent wrote: "Thank you for being such a good role model for our boys."

And, now he is going to be 20.

Passages

I watched a friend today go down the driveway in the back of a pickup truck and out of my life forever. I don’t often get attached to things, but in the hour or so before the pickup arrived I sat down and reflected on this old friend.

I bought the Ski Doo Tundra around Christmas in 1986, the winter I was building the home at the East Pole. In its time it carried most of what is in that cabin today, including a lot of the building materials. Every trip along that trail on that snowmachine was an adventure. In those days all we did was haul. I longed for the day I could run the trail and not be hauling a heavy sled behind me. One of those adventures goes like this. Loose lumber is difficult to haul because it’s difficult to cinch down. The minute the sled starts bouncing around the lumber moves and pretty soon the cinch straps aren’t holding anymore. I finally learned to nail them together so they wouldn’t do that but not before this happened: One day I had a load of 2x4s probably five wide and five high. The first mile or so of trail is pretty much uphill including one stretch that is very steep. 

 To get up it, especially with load, you have to get a good run at it and keep the throttle hard down until you get to the top. This isn’t all that easy because in places the trail is narrow, moguled, icy, and not level which often makes the machine tip; and with this machine the steering skis had a way of coming off the ground going up hill. As a result I had to stand up and lean forward in order to steer and in standing had to alter my weight from one foot to the other as the machine tipped, kind of like a skier trying to maintain his balance. As another result, it was very difficult to look behind me. So, I headed full bore up that hill wailing on it roaring around curves, over moguls at times the machine airborne and finally reached the top. As I slid over the ridge and into the downhill portion I stood and cheered out loud that I had made it with this load. Then I looked back and to my horror the sled was empty and behind me all the way down the hill were strewn 25 2x4s. That took me more than an hour slipping and sliding up and down that hill bringing them to the top two or three at a time and it was during that hour I decided to try nailing the boards together.

But, it wasn’t just building materials and supplies that machine hauled. There was a lot of other precious cargo. Even on the day I picked it up, the young son of a friend of mine rode with me from town out to the trailhead. That first winter, once the cabin was livable, my daughter came out on the machine and several more times over the years. My son at 6 weeks and in a snuggly inside my Carhartts was another of that precious cargo. He fell asleep and I remember checking on him by blowing on his face to make sure he hadn’t suffocated. He grew up going to the East Pole and eventually drove a machine out there himself, and in time, his own machine.

For 20 years the machine made the trip several times a year bringing in Christmas, often for spring break and was integral to everything that happened in that magical place. So many memories come to mind, so many adventures: the time the moose kicked Christmas, the time I fell through the ice on the Talkeetna River, all the trips to the creek to get water or through the woods hauling firewood, the time blundering around in the dark and getting stuck in deep snow and having to leave it overnight, and just the slow trips through the woods, the wildlife, the people met on the trail, the time Frank and I had to chase his dog team after it escaped; all of it came to mind in that hour.

A couple of years ago I put it aside for a newer one. (Newer? That one is now 12 years old itself) And, of course, my son got his own which I am taking care of : ) while he is away at college. The original has sat neglected in the yard for those last few years and I guess it came time to get rid of it. (Of course losing a great lawn ornament in the process.) So, a fellow came and got it today. He is going to rebuild it for a friend of his who lives in the Bush. He felt he was getting a bargain and it sounds to me like it is going to a good home. I just hadn’t realized how much it meant to me until an hour before it went down the driveway.

Cabbage patch with a surprise at the end

Last night there were several stories to choose from to lead the web site. A big trial, couple of serious crimes, a big oil company cutting back on Alaska contractors. But, then late in the evening a bigger story broke. A world-record-breaking cabbage was weighed at the state fair. I swear if the sky were falling, but we came across a huge cabbage it would be the bigger news. This beast weighted 125.9 pounds, two pounds heavier than the previous record that had stood for 20 years. The record that one broke had stood for more than a century. We do love our giant cabbages.

Of course today I had to go see it at the state fair. In the long run, it’s huge, but it’s a cabbage. How much cole slaw can a guy eat after all? Still Alaska has the biggest one, have to love that. Incidentally one of the photos that won a big prize in the arts exhibit showed a baby happily snuggled among the leaves of another giant cabbage. And speaking of babies, though I was tempted by lots of things for sale, the only things I actually bought were some Alaska things for my new grand nephew.

The fair generates a complex set of responses. It was one of the things my son and I did just about every year and for the second year he is away at college and I had to go alone. At least that made it easier to go through the livestock barn which he would do anything to avoid if he could. The exhibit was disappointing in a sad sort of way. Every year there seem to be fewer and fewer animals. I can’t help thinking of the decline of the American family farm in general and here, the farms disappearing in favor of residential subdivisions. First time I went to this fair in the ‘70s the exhibit hall was overflowing with animals. This year they barely filled half the available space. For a while I watched the few 4H kids parade their sheep in the main ring for judging. Then wandering through the pens eating a pork chop on a stick I looked at the goats and sheep. Once I finished the chop I felt better going to look at the pigs. This next set of kids were taking their pigs to be judged. Interesting how they slip a mobile cage over them and then gently guide them to the judging ring. Watched that for a while, too, glad in a way they still do this and hoping somehow these kids carry on with the American farm and hoping I am not witnessing the end of that era altogether. Maybe there is some hope in these kids. I noticed one steer entered by a girl I had read about. She has won national awards in entrepreneurship and agriculture, was statewide president of the FAA and still entered her steer in the fair. The sign said she is away at college studying some aspects of agriculture, so maybe she and others like her will lead a resurgence.

The rest of the fair was more nostalgic than exciting. Had my pork chop on a stick. Skipped the turkey leg. For $9 it didn’t seem worth it any more. I did have cold frozen cheesecake in a cone, that was something, But with that I left the other sweets alone, including the funnel cake. I walked past the rides my son in his later years loved and sat for a time watching the little cars he couldn’t wait to drive when he was little. I did lust for a minute over a small tractor for sale. Don’t know why, and can’t think of a single reason I need one but would love to have one of those small tractors.

After about three hours, I left the fair with my little bag of clothing for that little fellow who was born about a month ago, clothing that back home would be called farmer’s, and I headed home.

On the way I passed a field of tall brown stalks and about a dozen sandhill cranes were poking around among them. Cranes, like the fair and those swans I see almost every day now, are sure signs the autumn is coming.

The guy came back with an even bigger cabbage and stayed on the front page for three days. Now that's cabbage.

Sandhill cranes

Fish are jumpin’ and the fireweed’s high

Back to nature. Maybe it was the long, hot summer, but the drive for firewood has been at a low ebb this year. A year ago there was new snow on the mountain in early July. This year by the third week in August, no snow yet. I do have more than a winter's worth in the yard so that could have lessened the drive as well. But, it is coming, there is an August nip in the night air. A couple of swans showed up on the pond a week ago, but they are probably the nesting pair that hangs out in the sloughs and muskeg ponds farther back off the road, not resting on the migration. (Right. Still no one.) The water remains covered with many more bronzing lily pads than in the past few years. A few leaves have yellowed but nothing like full-blown autumn. Fireweed has gone to seed and people say it is the tallest they have ever seen.

There is a new solitary man. I have not seen the original in more than a year. That is probably more due to a change in my schedule than anything that might have happened to him. I just don’t drive through his part of the country at the times I used to see him in years past. This year a fellow, (at least I think he is a man) has taken up residence along the narrow road to the house. He lives in a decrepit old brindle brown van with a stovepipe. Most often there is smoke coming from the pipe. He first showed up in a narrow pullout near the river bridge but later moved to a more open space not far from the salmon fishing area. The highway people had gone along and cut back brush from the road and he found an open, level place to park. For a while he had a tent up but that disappeared. He has what looks like an old bicycle mounted on the front of the van and I have seen it off a time or two. I have only seen him once or twice, once sitting in the driver’s seat watching traffic, but masked so much by the windshield his features were indiscernible. Yesterday he was walking toward the van with an armload of what was probably firewood but he wore a headnet against insects so again his face was masked.

There are differences among solitary men and a glaring one between these two. Where the first fellow lived in the woods out of sight of other people, this one lives right out in the open, visible to anyone who drives the road. Some want to be seen, for whatever purpose and others prefer their privacy. It is as if one wants to be found and one doesn’t and we can only guess at the reasons for either. In my own solitude, though I have been quite comfortable, I think I fall among those who want to be found. I can understand putting on the front of self sufficiency, solitude and privacy, yet maintaining that little spark of a thought that someone out there you really want to, will find you. Grace or Fiona would be good. It is, of course, false hope nurtured by ongoing fantasy and the moments you realize that can be pretty depressing. But, a new day most often brings a new hope and you go on with your life secure with yourself and content with existence, though aware of that question and finding ways at least in your imagination of answering it. And doesn't the sight of those symbolic swans fuel that flight of fantasy?

Finally beat a video game

This may take a while to explain. I promised sometime ago that explaining a Honda would come. Well, thanks for waiting, here it is. About a year or so ago when the price of gasoline went above a four dollars a gallon, I got this idea. You see, I have this 80-mile commute five days a week and that gets pretty expensive at $4.35 a gallon even in my Vue that got up to 27 mpg. So, I thought i need a good commuter car but i also need something tough for banging around Alaska, towing trailers and handling heavy snow. There are no compromise vehicles for this sort of thing, although the Vue handled the trailer just fine, even with three snowmachines on it and all our gear. So, why not buy two. Get a good high-mileage car for the commute and a used pickup or Jeep or something for the fun stuff. Shortly after that a Toyota dealer here came up with a deal where you could lease a pickup and a high mileage car for about $550 a month, so i wasn't that far off base. It kind of confirmed for me i was on the right track. But I sat on that idea for about a year and then one day I had some time in Anchorage and was passing the Honda dealer. Honda had risen in my estimation after a conversation with a friend. We wondered, given that we loved our Honda four-wheelers (mine is 15 years old and going strong), their generators, snowblowers, pumps -- everything they make is strong and reliable and lasts, even though it is often a little more expensive. And my friend chimed in with just about all the cars at Indianapolis are Honda powered. So, why don't we ever think of their cars? All that came to mind was a '72 rusted out Civic. Well, with these parallel thoughts festering in my mind, like i said, there was the free time and a Honda dealer right there. I wandered in just to look and before I left I had bought a 2010 Honda Insight hybrid and a 98 Jeep Wrangler. Ever try to drive two cars home from a dealer? It can happen.

Now, the technology on this hybrid is amazing. And there are so many gauges and readouts to look at I almost drove off the road a couple of times. I still haven't figured out the radio although i did get it play a Zip drive from the USB port. While you are driving it tells you your immediate mileage and your average over the course of your trip. It does a lot of other things too, but i have been boring people with too much information lately so I will forego that part. However included in all those readouts is a video game. As you drive, the car scores the efficiency of your driving. It measures things like speeding up too fast, slowing down too fast, steady driving, use of the air conditioning, all kinds of things that affect your efficiency. The digital speedometer is backlighted -- green if you are doing well, blue-green if you are stretching it and bright blue if you are very inefficient like when you speed up to pass. In the readout you are scored by the number of plants and leaves and flowers you accumulate. In the first level there are five plants each with two leaves. In the second the plants can score four leaves and in the third it is four leaves and a flower. When you finish each level, the display shows a kind of medallion trophy. Tonight when i got home and looked at my score --- I HAD BEATEN THE FINAL THIRD LEVEL. The medallion in the picture is my trophy and the other picture is the score displayed ... all the bottom bars filled and all four leaves and a flower on each plant. This is a milestone. At the tender age of 67 I have finally beaten a video game. And, in the process, I have passed gas stations 497 times as i rack up 50 mpg or more every day on my commute. PLUS: The Jeep is sooooooo much fun. Yet to be seen is how this little car handles winter cold and snow.

Warning: Alaska may be hazardous to your health

There is an article in this morning's paper about the brother of a Minnesota doctor who fell on Mount Marathon and died this summer. The brother thinks there should have been a warning sign showing the safe way to go down. There are 33 comments on the story and while several writers expressed sympathies for the brother and family, not one agreed with the idea of a warning sign. A little history: this mountain which is in Seward is the site of a race every July 4 in which hundreds of people run up and down that mountain without a death in all the years it has been run (OK, so, one other person in the last 25 years).

So, my first impression was, right, put a sign everywhere there is significant danger in Alaska. There isn't enough stimulus money in the whole country to accomplish that, let alone thinking what the countryside would look like. The commenters on the story had some good suggestions: Put signs up but only in the Seattle, Anchorage and Fairbanks airports reading something like: "Warning! Alaska can be dangerous. Proceed at your own risk" Many warned that when you head out into the woods here, there are dangers and the person should know what they are and how to deal with them. One guy suggested a sign that read something like the safest way down is follow your tracks from the way up, duh.

 All of it reminded me of the time the homeowners association that kind of handles the area around the East Pole (yes officially it is a subdivision) had a meeting and one woman wanted telephones put on trees at intervals along the trail so someone in trouble could call for help. Unfortunately some of the people even took her seriously. Fortunately there are no phones on trees along the trail. However we got cell phone coverage since then so now everyone can call for help when their fourwheelers get flat tires. Hey, lady, the whole idea is to be as self-sufficient as possible. Take care of yourself. And that is the way Outsiders and insiders for that matter need to be. You go into Alaska at your own risk. You are expected to be prepared and savvy enough (we call it skookum) to know the dangers and do all you can to minimize them. And then you have to be prepared to handle what comes. And no more families whining about warnings. We have very little sympathy for that.

Addendum: I had a grand idea. Why not bundle all the doo dahs up in bubble wrap as soon as they enter Alaska. I bet they would even float, not to mention bounce off anything they happened to fall onto. With all that bad-tasting plastic a bear might even spit them out.

Warning signs

Statesman

I have been trying to imagine myself today, in someone else’s shoes. Can you imagine this? You are captured in North Korea with its reputation for being one of the most controlled totalitarian countries in the world. You go through the fear, anticipation and utter hopelessness of being sentenced to a criminal work camp for 12 years -- 12 years. While you are in a holding area eating rice with rocks in it once a day, suddenly you are dragged away... driven somewhere you have no idea where and no idea what is going on. You are pushed into a room and standing there is former President Bill Clinton. I doubt there is a word worthy of what those two women must have felt. Elated comes to mind but doesn’t quite do it. Euphoric? Maybe some doubt. Is this really him, or is this some nasty North Korean trick. But mostly, you would just know it is over. Instead of looking at 12 years in a labor camp you probably wouldn’t survive, you are going to go home with one of the most famous men in the world. The emotions must have been overwhelming.

And what an accomplishment for him. The man has followed Jimmy Carter along a trail to a status seldom bestowed on anyone anymore -- that of statesman. It first blossomed in the aftermath of the tsunami that devastated the islands of southeast Asia. Sent by then President W. with W.’s father, the two led the American effort there and then went on to lead a worldwide fundraising campaign for impoverished people everywhere. There is some substance to the idea Clinton even was part of the persuasion that led Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to dedicate a huge part of their fortunes to philanthropy. (The Museum of the North at the University of Alaska Fairbanks lists the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as its largest contributor,)

But back to Clinton, not only did he pull this off, he did it at no cost to the U.S. government. One of his biggest campaign contributors volunteered his own airplane and paid for the fuel for the flight to North Korea and back. (They refueled in Anchorage on the way over. --- we always love our Alaska angles).

I am not often or easily impressed, but I am impressed today. What an accomplishment. What an example to look up to. And just think how those two women felt when they walked into that room.

And, oh yeah, Justin got his truck.

As the world turns

Last night a story came across about the Talkeetna Moose Dropping Festival and how a bunch of rowdies disrupted it. The festival is the small town’s summer carnival and gets its name from what moose leave behind in winter.

With no leaves or grass, moose generally eat twigs in winter and their droppings are little nuggets of pressed wood, with a consistency somewhat like particle board used in building houses. There is no smell, the nuggets are as hard as wood and you can pick them up with no ill effects. People even make jewelry out of them.

But not everyone gets the humor of moose droppings. One woman Outsider heard of the festival and wrote a very angry, demanding letter wanting to know how far they dropped those moose and were they hurt. For a while the logo for the festival became a moose dangling in a sling from a helicopter. So, this festival has been going on for 37 years as a family friendly affair with a tongue in cheek sense of humor. Until this year.

Apparently a group of youngsters from out of town raised hell, drinking and carousing and ruined it for the regular folks. One of the carousers even drowned when he jumped into the river and never came up.

The story quoted an Amanda Randles, a bartender at the Fairview Hotel (which is a story all its own). She was complaining about how the festival was disrupted.

Having known the Talkeetna community for years (it is the closest town to the East Pole) I questioned whether that name was correct. I know a Pam Randles from around that country and also a Pam Ranalls, who I know is a bartender there. I discussed it with a woman at work who is familiar with the area and even asked the reporter how old she thought the source was, thinking maybe she had gotten the name wrong. She said the woman sounded between 20 and 40. That didn’t fit with the age of the women I was thinking about. This led to a discussion of the two women and eventually to Pam Randles’ husband Slim and we what remembered about the two of them. It was in that discussion that the realization hit.

Their daughter was named Amanda. I remember holding her in my arms when she was a baby just struggling with her first words. At the time Slim and I both had long dark beards and dark rimmed glasses. To the chagrin of all of us, the baby tugged hard on my beard and said “Da-Da” for the first time.

But, I thought she would be too young to be a bartender at the age of 20 or so. Then we started going through the years. O M G! By our count she has to be 36 or 37. This little girl whom I remember mistakenly calling me Da Da is not only old enough to be a bartender, she is old enough to be the bartender in a famous Alaska saloon. But worse than that: SHE IS OLD ENOUGH TO BE COMPLAINING ABOUT THOSE DAMNED KIDS!

Can the Pioneer Home be far off?

Lazy, hazy days of summer

We are sure having those. Temperatures in the 80s this week with no letup in sight. Might be comfortable somewhere, but here it is just damned hot. A couple of months ago I mentioned the expert at the Bureau of Land Management who said we would have a light fire season because it would be cool and wet. Guess what. Cool and wet turned into hot and dry and we now have 70 wildfires burning across the state that have already consumed 629,739 acres. So much for the light fire season. One fire already has burned 125,000 acres. The picture is toward the mountain I have photographed before, only you can't see it today because of the haze from the smoke drifting over us from the fires farther north.

In other news, i saw a bear on the way home last night, on the bicycle path near Eagle River. A little farther along I saw a late-night hiker walking toward the bear. Nothing in the news this morning so everyone must have passed all right. It was a small black bear, so probably pretty easy to chase away if they did happen to meet.

Then there is the garden. The owl must have fallen asleep on duty and the squirrels stripped the plant. Kind of disheartening but now we have entered phase two as seen in that picture. Heavy bird screen around the plant, supported by stakes and held down with spikes and rocks. So far so good. This is quite the plant. It already has produced at least a dozen berries and there are at least half a dozen more on it now ripening. If you look you can see some red around the base. I went looking today for a live trap but no luck. I will find one and that is phase three. After that it starts to get serious. Then there is the second bloom on the Himalayan poppy. Another one is ready to go. And there are new flowers, yellow ones on this broad-leafed plant i have no idea what it is.

So with haze and bears (three so far this year) and strawberries and new flowers, not a bad day to be alive.

Son of Only in Alaska

As newspapers continue to decline, more ways to miss them come up. A fellow the other day cancelled his subscription because: "There ain't enough paper in them any more to start a good fire." I use those outdated phone books these days but it is more work.

Berries, bears and John Dillinger

Two more strawberries tonight. That makes it me 5 squirrels 2 and they haven't gotten one since the owl took his post. One more shrew in his food tonight. On top of that it looks like the Himalayan poppy as ready to show two more blossoms, PLUS the big plant with the wide leaves looks like it is going to pop a couple of yellow colored flowers in the next few days.

Went to see Public Enemies tonight. Good movie all around and I am continually amazed how Johnny Depp can be so credible in so many different roles. They made Dillinger a little more human than my impression of him has been and funny but in all the pictures i remember seeing of him in Life magazine, I don't remember a smile even. Of course in all those pictures he was headed into jail, so perhaps it was a not funny time for him. They did show the time he broke out of jail using a gun he carved out of soap though i didn't catch that they showed it being carved or that it was made of soap. The biggest surprise, though, was that the lady in red wasn't in red at all but in white and orange. Now you have to wonder if the story was just myth and the movie got it right or if the movie played with the facts to avoid the cliche. At any rate a good movie especially now that I can go to a movie for less than the price of a $15.99 DVD. Now that i only use a gallon of gas to make the 50-mile round trip that is.

So, the topper for the day? Besides the strawberries? I saw a black bear cub amble across the road on the way home.