Rambling through a random garden

Wasn't kidding about the tomatoes.

Here's that wall of tomato plants mentioned in the post Friday.  Wasn't kidding.

Spinach, maybe gone to seed.

A gladiola, with spinach
low and to the left.

I haven't been tempted to bore folks with garden posts this year.  Part of that is due to the mixed results. I started plants way too early, like early April, and as a result some were mature or even past that when I could put them outdoors after our May 16 snowfall.

Bean plants in particular didn't fare well  and I had hopes for  a climb to the clouds.  The tomatoes are what I think is called leggy, long stems with bushy leaves at the tops.  Still they are doing well.  I lost count around 30 tiny tomatoes on the vines.

I think these are poppies.

This was an experiment after sweet peas outgrew
their pots indoors. A bit of chicken wire around
a gladiola with sweet peas climbing it and then
regular peas planted at the bottom later.

One of the problems this year was a shortage of money to buy expensive plants at the local nursery and from what I grew indoors beforehand, I only had enough for about two-thirds of the space.  Sooooo, two packets of those Alaska wildflower seeds everyone is selling this year took care of the rest.

There are peas in various stages of development, from dead on the vine to just beginning to flower.  But there is a lot of spinach only I think it has gone to seed and I have no idea how to preserve what's still good.  Canned spinach may be one of the worst looking, worst tasting vegetables in the world.

This is what those bags
of wildflower seeds make.

The tomato plant is indoors growing from one of those
upside down planters.

All in all though, the garden appears full anyway and I guess that's something.  We shall see when all the flowers pop.  No need belaboring the explanation, the pictures tell the story.

Look what was among all those upside
down leaves.

Rambling with the lizard king, trying to light the fire

Rattling around in a cage, a wall of tomato plants blocking the exit, creativity boiling but no clue where the fire that makes the steam is coming from,  All receptors open with no discernible stimulus. Finally an escape only to wander, as it says on the Twitter, rambling with the lizard king, trying to light my fire.

Wilburys, Janis, and Duane Allman's long guitar solo at the end of "Rambling Man."  This thought:  Great groups of the 60s, Beatles, Stones, others.  But what do these British bands from that era have in common:  Yardbirds, John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, Blind Faith, Cream, Derek and the Dominos?  Eric Clapton played lead guitar in all of them, a British invasion all of his own making.  And a graffiti tagger left the sign that read simply "Clapton is God.."

But tonight was about that title,  the fire, yes Doors,  and trying to light that fire, crawl out from under the tomato plants and figure out what is burning in this mess of a brain..  Some days, as old Lodgeskins said, the medicine doesn't work.

Maybe it is this.  Last night someone asked me what concerns me deeply and I let it out.  In a word EVERYTHING.  I find myself living in a world where ignorance is glorified and intelligence and knowledge vilified, a world where our leaders are more interested in regulating a woman's anatomy than they are with  a corrupt banking system that steals from those same leaders, or at least the people they supposedly represent while lining the pockets of those who allow it.  It is a world where not a single banker who almost brought down the American economy is even charged, while a kid who drew an anti-banking illustration with chalk on the sidewalk outside a bank, gets nine years in prison.

We have so many problems and we have solutions for all of them, but a loud and archaic minority is able to block those solutions, mostly because we have an African-American president, instead sending us backward in time to where we have to re-fight battles we won 40 years ago.  It is insanity.  It is frustrating, and it is depressing.  Where is the beauty?  Why are we letting ourselves be held hostage by ignorance so that minority can undo all the progress that has been made to this point in history.

Maybe that's the fire.  Some days the Doors speak loudly, maybe there's need to listen to another Jim Morrison line and we need to wait.  "Wild child, full of grace, savior of the human race...."  and let's "break on through to the other side" and then let it never again be "over for the Universal Soldier." Then with a nod of disagreement to John Lennon, let us not "let it be"...  Or, could it be we are waiting for a second coming of Eric Clapton, slowhand on the rise, to lead aging rockers and the remnants of that generation to the promised land.  It's all conjecture until the boiling overflows the pot.

No outpouring from the ramble, so now facing a major decision, "Firefly" or "The Girl Who Played with Fire."  Fire seems the logical choice.

Clapton is God.

Justice prevails, the chalk man is acquitted.

Judge issues gag order in chalk case

You can hike Alaska trails, but can you haul?

Anyone who's ever lived in the Alaska Bush has endured the pain and suffering of perpetual hauling along a difficult trail.  And anyone who's done it has more than one story to tell.  Everything has to go however far it is along an individual's trail and few have ever taken that trail in without pulling some kind of contraption behind, loaded with building materials, or food, or a piece of furniture.  We haul with snowmachines and we haul with four-wheelers, some haul with airplanes and others haul with dog teams. Some simply walk pulling a little red sled behind.  

It's incessant and insidious. I don't think I ever went to the East Pole without a fully packed sled behind the snowmachine. I always came out lighter though.  After all the troubles hauiling things in, no one would ever think of hauling anything out unless it was broken and you couldn't fix it yourself.

There's the ancient Action Packer.  (The gray box
on the right,  smart ass)

And, we all are looking for better ways to do it, sometimes even inventing a new method.  I have a friend who actually built a back-packing harness so he could carry 4x8 sheets of plywood on his back.

We examine other people's loads carefully looking for those better ways, some way someone else is doing it that would make our hauling if not easier, at least more efficient. One of those improvements was the Action Packer that came out, maybe a couple of decades ago.  The first models were one size, a size that fit perfectly and snuggly into the sled I usually hauled with.  This was after the cabin had been built and I had a large heavy-duty plastic sled with high sides. Even then I had a welding shop make a heavy aluminum band that fit like a U along the sides and around the back of the sled, so the towing pressure was on the metal and the back of the sled, not in easily broken-out holes that anchored the hitch in the plastic. Hauling during construction was done on a steel-runnered heavy sled, stout enough for what one friend called combat hauling. Once all the heavy stuff is in, you can go to something lighter. The Action Packer looked perfect and over the years has proved to be tough enough for the trail as well.  I still have the two I bought in the early '90s. 

But, isn't it the nature of man, that we can't leave well enough alone, that we have to keep improving, even to the detriment of the original product?  Over the years those boxes grew larger, and there was a smaller model too.  I admit to buying one of each of those, but what I found was while I could carry more stuff in the larger one, when I reached the cabin I couldn't lift the damn thing because it had too much stuff in it, so I had to lighter my goods up the steps onto the porch and into the house.

Then the manufacturer decided to put wheels on them.  Anyone worth his Haulers Anonymous card knows those wheels won't last long on the hard trail, even inside the sled.  They never even tempted me.  

The new more expensive and decidedly breakable version.

Today I saw the latest generation, and for the second time in as many trips laughed out loud in the supermarket.  That's the one in the picture.  Now it has wheels and flip-down legs that fold out so it can stand higher.  My bet is those legs won't last long on the trail either. But that wasn't my first thought. The first thought, the one that made me laugh, was that pretty soon these things are going to be self-propelled,  a small engine and maybe bigger mud-bogger wheels, or at least the wheels and a towing rig so they can be hauled without using a sled or trailer.  As a matter of fact they could make the wheels interchangeable with skis so the box could be used summer and winter.  If this new version costs $79.99 on sale, imagine what that the next generation would cost.  I think I paid about $20 for the ones I have now.

At any rate I thought it was worth a second trip into the store with my camera to get a picture of this monstrosity.

Now, I realize, most people have never experienced the joys of hauling heavy, often cumbersome and clumsy materials along a winding, hilly, moguled trail, praying you make the top of the hill and screaming as you hope you live through careening down the next one, so for your edification, here's a short story I wrote after a particularly arduous day on the trail to the East Pole:

Author's note:  Please forgive the names.  It was written in a rush and I didn't want to stop to think of better ones.

HAULERS ANONYMOUS

A TALE FROM AUGUSTUS BIRCH-ALDER

The meeting began even before the boys had the big H.A. banner hung at the back of the little community hall stage. The room was packed with rough-looking bush folk, the kind of people who lived alone in the woods and mountains and spent a whole lot more time on the trail than they ever spent in a bath.  Crosby Stills was clearing his throat to begin the HA pledge when the rear door opened and closed quietly.  He was the only one who saw the stranger enter.  The newcomer sat down in the back row so quickly few others made out who he was.  In the row right in front of him Spuds McWhortle elbowed his partner Gravy Dickens and they nodded to each other.  They had noticed the stranger at each of the past few meetings as he sat quietly in the back, entering just as the meetings began and leaving just before they ended.  They understood.  Just being here meant you were admitting you had a problem you didn't want others to know about.

Crosby cleared his throat again and recited the pledge to the murmurs of those in the audience following along.  It began as each added in his own name:  "My name is Crosby Stills, and... I'm ... a hauler...," and went on from there.

When the pledge was finished the boys congratulated each other, shook hands around and then looked again to Crosby at the podium.  As he had done at every meeting since the first, he asked them to donate some money to keep the group in refreshments and literature and the like to which most of the poor woods folk laughed or looked at the ceiling, anywhere but directly at the speaker.  Then he called for the meat of the meeting.

"Anybody want to make a Testimonial?  Anybody new who ain't spoke yet?"  A few of the boys turned toward the back where the stranger sat, but there was no movement from that quarter.

Ringo George raised his hand.

"Ringo?  You talked before."

"Got more to say.  I ain't testifyin' or nuthin',  just want to discuss something."

"Okay, Ringo, you got the floor."

Ringo uncurled himself from the chair he was wrapped around and strode to the podium.  He stood for a minute, nervously scanning his audience.  Then he focused on the top of the wall at the back of the room and said, "My name is Ringo George and I'm a hauler and I got a little complaint here I think we ought to discuss."  The others leaned forward in their chairs.  "Come on, Ringo, what is it?" somebody shouted.

"It's about this support we're supposed to give each other.  Now, when a guy gets the urge he's supposed to go see somebody else, am I right?  And that guy's supposed to talk him out of it, right?"  They all nodded agreement, though some seemed to hold back just a little.

"Well," Ringo went on, "I ain't so sure some of us is too good at doin' that part.  I mean if a guy comes to you and says he's got the urge, by all rights you ought to be talkin' him out of it, right?"

"All right, what happened?"

"I'm gettin' to it, hold on."  He paused for a few seconds, as if to decide something, figure out how he was going to say what he had to say.  Then, "This last week I had the urge awful.  I mean I had to move.  I had to move things, lots of things, much as I could pack on my little sled.  I mean I had to HAUL.  I did what I was supposed to do.  What it says in all the brochures.  I went down to this guy's cabin, wantin' to be talked out of it.  Now, I ain't sayin' who, 'cause I don't doubt any one of us mighta done the same.  Well, I says to this guy, I says, 'I got the urge.  I gotta pack that sled and I gotta haul somethin' somewhere."

Spuds dug his elbow into Gravy's ribs:  "He said the 'H' word," and they both laughed.

Ringo didn't even hear them.  "This guy listened to me and smiled and acted like he was understandin'.  I kept on talkin' and kept on tryin' to talk myself out of it, but he wasn't sayin' nuthin'  finally I run out of things to say.  Now, this is where he's supposed to talk me out of it, right?  Well, he still didn't say nuthin'.  I ain't gittin' no support at'all and just about when I'm fixin' to up and leave, my neighbor, my friend, my support mind you, the guy that talked me into comin' to these meetings in the first place, he says 'Ringo, don't go.'  Then, of course, I argued a little, like I needed a little more convincin'.  To that he says, 'I done my part.  You oughtn't to go.'  Then he waits a minute for this to sink in and then if you can believe it he says this: he says, 'If you're so bound determined to go, I got a couple of gas cans out there at the trail head.  Maybe you could haul 'em in for me.'"

The "H" word again.  A few stifled laughs punctuated the general of agreement that ran through the hall.

"That ain't support,"  Ringo said and left the podium to take his seat.

Crosby assumed the podium.  "Thanks for that, Ringo," he said and then to the rest of the meeting, he said, "We gotta help each other.  That sorta thing doesn't help anybody."

"Helped the guy needed the gas," somebody shouted.

"Boys, this ain't funny.  We got a problem and we gotta lick it."  He stopped and looked around.  "Anybody else want to speak?"

Another hand went up and another figure walked toward the front, only this body was hunched over and the man hobbled a little.

"Did most of his haulin' on his back," Gravy told Spuds.

The new speaker leaned over the podium.  "Name's Nash Young and I'm a hauler," he said.  "While we's on the subject of neighbor helpin' neighbor, I got a story to tell.  Like all of us here, I was haulin' stuff on the trail regular.  Seemed like every day it was a trip or two.  One day I got to my place and was unloadin' and this guy comes walkin' into the yard.  Seems he's buildin' a place up the crick a ways and he says howdy and looks over my kit.  We had a cup of coffee and jawed a while and then he left.  The next day I come in with another load and here he comes again only this time he's pullin' a little hand sled.  I was unloadin' and I come to a box didn't look like any of mine.  He says it looks like one of his and sure enough we find his name down in a corner.  How it got into my stuff, I'll never know, but there it was.  I just throw the stuff off the pile onto the sled, never looked to see what's what 'til I git it back to the cabin.  Musta got some of his stuff mixed in.

"Well, next day it happened again, only this time it was a sheet of plywood and sure enough when I was unloading, there he was right on schedule to pick it up.  Seemed like every day from then on somehow I'd get somethin' of his mixed in with mine.  Couldn't figure how in the heck I was doin' it.  Then one day I had some trouble on the trail, got stuck a coupla times and all that.  Had to make a third trip that day what with some perishables left out and I got out to the end of the trail way after dark.  That's when I surprised this old coot.  He had the tarp up on my pile and he was just slippin' a window underneath where I'd be sure to grab it first thing next trip.  He'd been doin' it right along, takin' advantage of my disease to git his own haulin' done.  And I done it for a long time without eve thinkin'.  Haulin' was haulin' and if I hauled another guy's stuff by accident, well that was okay.  It was feedin' my habit."

Again some of the boys had a little trouble restraining their laughter but at least aloud they all agreed it was a dastardly deed indeed.

Crosby returned to the vacated podium.  "Anybody else want to talk?  How about you, stranger?"  He nodded toward the back of the room.

The newcomer unlimbered himself.  "I guess it's time, isn't it?" he said and received agreement all around.

He walked toward the front.  A few in the room recognized him.  "Tell you what," Young said to Ringo, "don't always think I'll make it, but if he can, I can.  That man's compulsive."

By this time the stranger had reached the stage.  He leaned on the podium and looked out at the gathering, hesitating.  finally, he began to speak.

"My name's Augustus Birch-Alder, and I guess I'm a hauler."  He stopped, looked around the room.  "This is my first time talkin' here.  I been sittin' in the back listenin' and I guess what I gotta do is tell my whole story here."  He stopped again and looked across the faces in front of him.  It's not easy to stand up in front of a bunch of strangers and tell them about your weaknesses.  They'd all been there before, they'd all done it and they all tried to make it easy for him. 

"I don't mind tellin' you boys the judge sent me here.  It was either this or jail time, so I opted for here.

"I started like a lotta guys.  I wanted to move to the woods, get away from town and people, live clean and free.  I went out to my land with jest a backpack and what I could haul in a red sled."  More than a few pairs of eyes in the place expressed an understanding for that.

"Well, I got out there, set up my tent and commenced to livin' the good life.  Started cuttin' trees for my house and lived with it for quite a time.  I even got to eatin' the local flora and fauna.  Then one day I got to hankerin' for some fresher food and also thought maybe a box of nails'd make things go a lot easier.  I dragged that sled to town and filled it and dragged it back to my place.  I unloaded, looked at the pile, then looked around.  What I thought was, maybe a few shop-cut boards'd make things go better so off I headed to town again.

"I brought in one load of lumber on that little sled but right there I decided I was going to need more, so I went right on back to town.  This time it was moren' I could drag myself, so I bought one of them snowmachines and I could haul ten times the stuff.  When I seed how easy it was with that little machine, I took to that trail like there was no tomorrow.  I mean I started haulin' bigger and bigger loads until I got 'em so big I couldn't haul 'em with that little snowmachine no more.  That's when I went and bought the Cat.  Now that dozer was a haulin' machine.  The stuff I dragged down that trail, you wouldn't believe."

By now the boys in the hall were quiet, listening.  Not even the worst of them had gone so far as to buy a bulldozer.

"I never knew it was happenin'.  I just kept draggin' stuff down that trail.  The pile of things at my place got bigger and bigger, but I just kept to that trail.  Then one day something strange happened.  I knew it soon's I woke up in my tent, but I couldn't figure it out at first.  It was late enough, but it was like the sun didn't rise.  I got dressed and went out and it scared me, I'll tell you.  There I was standin' out, but no sun.  I thought it never come up.  For a minute I thought this was the end of the world.  I was about to start prayin', and then I took a few steps down the trail and that's when I realized what it was I'd done.  I built that pile of stuff I'd been ahulin' down that trail so big it went and blocked out the sun.  That's how much stuff I hauled down that trail.  When it blocked the sun I knew I had to do something.  I was in trouble.  I hightailed it out of there.  I headed right for town, no Cat, no snowmachine, no sled, not even a backpack.  I just ran to town.  And that's where the trouble come.  I never should of tried to quit cold turkey.

"I run right to my woman's house.  She's right next to a store so I didn't even have to bring groceries all that far.  I did fine there for a couple of days  and then one day while she was to work, it come over me again.  I didn't even know it, I wasn't even all that aware of what I was doing.  But, I started haulin' with a vengeance.  I grabbed a kid's little red wagon and I started haulin'.  In two hours I had all her living room furniture and half a bedroom down to the corner.  I was headin' back for the dining room table and that's when the police come.  'Fore I knowed it I was spread-eagled on a car, read my rights and accused of grand larceny.  They hauled me off to the hoosegow and up before a judge before I really even figured out what I'd done myself.  I tried to explain to that judge and I think he was beginnin' to understand.  Said he had a weekend cabin in the woods once but he never did get everything he wanted out there.  Said he finally give it up.  That old judge he give me the choice of jail time or meetin' with you boys here.  Meantime, whilst I was coolin' my heels in that jail I gets this note from my woman sayin' she can't abide no man steals her furniture and good-by.  So here I am.  Don't mind tellin' you boys, I'm a broken man.  Lost my woman, lost my pride, did jail time and got no place to live, less'n I haul some more stuff out to that cabin site.  All I got in the world's that mountain of stuff out there, but I know if I go, I'm going to need more of somethin' and the whole thing starts up again.  I come here for help.  I'm a hauler and there ain't no doubt, no doubt at'all."

He stopped, shuddering, staring into the upturned faces.  And then the voices of understanding began returning to him.  They each walked up and shook his hand, said it'd be all right, he was among friends, they'd all been there, we're here to help.  Augustus Birch-Alder stood there shaking, but gradually the boys brought him around again.

Crosby Stills cleared his throat.  "We gotta thank Augustus for that one.  A horror story for all of us to remember.  Thanks.  It helps all of us to know there's others been on that trail with a heavy load.  Thank you, brother.  It's the first step to recovery.  We're here to help with each step and drag the others along with us as we go."

He stopped, looked around and then spoke again.  "I guess that's about all the business we can take for tonight.  How about if we quit and have a little refreshment?"  Everyone agreed.  Crosby looked across the room toward the door that led into the kitchen area.  He hollered, "Okay, Maggie, you can bring the cart out now."

Maggie, the cook and waitress and just about everything else around the community hall, backed into the room pulling a cart full of snack foods and a big coffee urn. 

As the cart came full into the room, Gravy Dickens stood up and took a step toward it.  "Here, let me help," he said.  Nash Young, catching Gravy's drift offered, "I'll give you a little push."  Spuds McWhortle just a step behind Gravy shouted, "If anybody's gonna haul that cart across this room, it'll be me. 

Gravy shouted back, "I was here first," but few of them heard him as he went down under the stampede of feet trying to get to that cart.  Three more jumped into the fray pushing, pulling, gouging, kicking and, yes, hauling that cart across the room.  The whole thing almost turned into a full-fledged brawl before they finally wrestled the cart to the serving table.  Maggie crawled out from under the tangle of arms and legs on her hands and knees, her hair disheveled and looking like she was ready to dive back in herself.  She stood up and walked over to where Crosby Stills was watching.

Maggie knew.  Crosby knew.  Some of these boys was going to need a whole lot more therapy than anybody thought they would.

Copyright © Tim Jones

It was time for an Alaska adventure anyway

The road less traveled indeed.

Two roads diverged in the woods, and I (sigh) I took the one less traveled.

But, after all, the SPOT worked. The unit sends a signal every 10 minutes.
That's why there's a diagonal from 4 to 5.  The actual trail is between 5
and 6. That's the Knik River where I was headed in the lower right.

For the past couple of days the weather has been so nice, I decided to get better acquainted with the SPOT Locater.  Two days in a  row, I fired it up and took a ride down to the river, hoping to document that little jaunt for some as yet unknown future reference.

Both days the thing didn't work.  I came home to a blank map that should have had several positions on it but didn't.  Every time I looked at it, given the flashing lights, it should have functioned.  And at home, positioned in the driveway it worked fine. 

Thinking always produces a new plan and sure enough one popped up today.  I decided carrying the unit in a buttoned up pocket might not let it receive or send a signal and I could not remember if had positioned the antenna facing in toward my body or outward. It had worked before from a backpack on the trail to the East Pole.

So, today, I strapped the SPOT to a backpack on the front rack of the four-wheeler facing upward toward the satellites. In addition I took the iPad carefully cushioned inside the backpack so I could check along the way if the unit was sending a signal and the computer was receiving it.

Knee deep in the big muddy.

Off I went down the driveway and down the road where I came to that divergence.  There's a long straight trail that goes directly west and another that I usually take that goes west and then south.  That trail was full of people on a sunny Sunday and as I looked down that long, straight one, it looked very passable At times I've encountered huge mud puddles on it, but as far as I could see there was no water on the trail so I headed down that trail less traveled.  For maybe half a mile hard-packed, dry dirt was what I ran over. Then came the first mud, almost dried up and easily passable. Beyond that the puddles grew increasingly wider, longer and deeper.  But nothing seemed insurmountable, at least until the last one, not the last one on the trail, but that last one I was going to try.

When I went into it, it felt like the four-wheeler fell off a cliff.  Before long water was over the wheels and mud flying everywhere where the wheels kicked it up.  I tried to get to the side for some traction but that didn't work.  Flashing through my mind as if in bright neon were the words "momentum is your friend."  No stopping,  that finishes it, just keep those wheels churning and no matter how few feet you gain it is better than stopping.  Maintain the momentum."

Then the water deepened.  Sitting on the machine it came up to my knees, my shoes were full but I still had a bit of that precious forward progress.  My mind went through quick inventory of all the equipment I carry on a trip to the East Pole.  Rope, the come-along winch, spare parts, heavy boots, rain gear, tools, ax, hand saw, none of which were on board during this short jaunt from the house, not even my cell phone.  The machine slowed to a crawl but I kept the throttle pegged and it slowly dragged itself toward the far shore.  In time a low part of the bank gave it purchase and gradually it rose out of the muck like some monster emerging from primordial ooze, flinging water and mud as it did.

Once out of the water, I stopped to take inventory, and dump the water out of my shoes.  I looked ahead down the trail and could see an even bigger lake out there.  Quick decision.  I could make it if I had to, but I don't have to, so, better part of valor, I turned around.  That was when I discovered some folks had pounded a trail through the woods around that puddle.  Of course that was the way to go.

Among other things remember to wear boots.

Shortly I came to a shady spot and stopped.  I brushed a bit of mud off the SPOT, but decided to wait until I could clean it with alcohol to prevent any water or mud from getting into the case.  I pulled out the iPad to see if the thing was tracking.  Guess what.  No 4G signal.  Life in Alaska.

Having decided that was enough adventure for one day I headed home.

On the way home I argued with Robert Frost.  Robert, sometimes there's a reason the road less traveled is better not taken. You can have an adventure in any way you choose but sometimes it is better to learn the lessons from other travelers and take the trail that gets you there.

Robert Frost -- The road not taken