It was a dark and stormy night....

"Squalls out on the Bering, big storm coming in soon" -- apologies to Jimmy Buffett.

This is the storm before it came across southern Alaska.

That's a picture of it before it hit here.

And boy, did it come in.

Overnight Sunday-Monday the power went out between midnight and 1 a.m. and wasn't restored until 5 the next afternoon. 

Gusts hit this house louder than any I have heard in my life, and if you read this blog you know I have been in storms at sea and out in the weather.  The house seemed to handle it fine, the trees outside didn't do as well.

Over by the woodpile in the morning it looked like a war zone.  Three big spruce came down, one hitting the firewood pile, another landing on the snowmachine trailer. Fortunately there was no real damage but a lot of work cleaning up.  In the little triangle of wood lot out front two more spruce came down and in the driveway the shattered top of a rotten cottonwood just missed the Jeep.

The mountainside above Anchorage experienced gusts to 106 mph.  Even the local paper here doesn't mention wind speeds. A search for weather history on the National Weather Service site says there is no data for this zip code. Some days it's great to be off the map, on others, not so much.

Tree on the left  is on the trailer, at 
right, the woodpile.  A third is down 
in the central background.

Once the damage had been assessed, the cleanup began. Pretty obvious, after all that stacking of firewood, I now have that much or more to go through.

But as always in Alaska, before you can do something, you have to do something else. Since the last trip to the East Pole I have been meaning to buy a new chain for the saw. The old one broke out there. Well, as per usual, had to go get a chain for the saw before I could even begin cutting.

Once that was accomplished I went after the first tree, the one on the trailer. Went to the far end first and cut the top off.  Then back to the front of the trailer to remove that section of trunk.  When I cut through that one, the weight of the roots and the attached dirt and rocks countered the weight of the remaining trunk and it suddenly swung upright.  That's the way it still stands, more on that in a bit.

Another view of the main damage.

Spent more than an hour cutting off branches and then bucking the trunk into stove sized pieces to be split later. That finished off Monday.

Tuesday I went after the tree that fell on the wood pile.  This was a little trickier. The top was hung up in another tall tree.  I went to the end of the woodpile and cut the trunk there.  Fortunately after a bit of pinching that almost caught the bar. the two separated, the upper section moved a little in the tree and then stuck again and a long, heavy piece remained on the wood pile. I managed to get that cut from the stump and then pulled it off to the ground. And then began the chore of restacking all the wood.

The tree in the foreground is the third one.  That's the 

one on the trailer behind it.

Next morning I went after the stumps.  I had this grand idea that I could pull them out with the Jeep. I attached to the bigger one first, wrapped chain twice around the stump as high up as I could reach for leverage and connected the ends with a Master lock. Then I attached a tow strap to the chain loop and the Jeep. A steady pull didn't move anything except gravel under the tires. I tried releasing strain and then surging forward.  That was not a good idea.  I tried a couple of short jerks first and then gave it a good hard hit. There was a loud bang and the Jeep came loose from the stump. When I checked, the lock had disappeared but everything else seemed intact. Where that lock went I have no idea, just damned lucky it didn't come through the back window of the vehicle. I have seen tow lines on boats part and people can be killed in the snap back.  It isn't pretty.  Lucky one that time.

Top of the cottonwood that came down.

But no reason to give up.  I went after the second stump. It was looser and smaller and some of the roots were broken. I dug out one large root and cut it with the chainsaw and then attached with just the tow strap.  A nice steady pull ripped that one right out. I had other things to do that day so I quit.

Next day after a trip with Walter to the vet, I went to buck up what I had cut but the brand new chain blade wouldn't even make sawdust. (A well-sharpened saw is supposed to make small chips.) It was then I remembered cutting through a nail somewhere on that first tree, which couldn't have been good for it, and then there was cutting the root out and the rocks around it. That's probably a ruined blade. It was the same as a knife that wouldn't cut butter. So, rather than quit, I went after the top of the second tree still hung up in the trees.  I got a rope around the trunk near the ground and attached it to a come-along attached to another tree. When I cranked on it it moved and fell a little way through the tree.  It came down enough so I can reach far along it and cut out another section that should let the rest of it fall. That was enough of that for the time being.

This the hookup for the first stump, note it is vertical now.

I mean, what could go wrong here? I might be needing
some yellow machinery for this one.

I took Walter for a long walk and on the way back we cut through the woods on the front of the lot. That's where I found two more fallen trees, both angled and hung up at the top in other trees. Those are going to be tough.  One didn't break fully off the stump and the other is still attached to a pretty big root ball. They are far in the future.  We continued our walk out to the power right of way behind the house. That's where I found a tree had fallen across the feeder line to this house and the neighbor's. No way I was touching that. I called the utility and they came today and took care of it.

Hookup for the second.

And, success.

These are the two in the front yard.

So, we are now at Thursday after the Monday storm. A doctor's visit near the closest store that sells chains (it's a 40-mile round trip) took care of that  problem and we'll attack it in the morning.  I sharpened the old blade and if it will cut at all I'll use it to get the roots on the stump that wouldn't come out.  I said will because by the time we got everything done today Thursday Night Football was on, trick or treaters were coming up the driveway and after all there are priorities.

So right now we are not even finished with the part where all the wood is reachable for cutting. When it's all done, I should have again as much firewood as I have now, even if it is the faster burning spruce. Right now it is all so green it wouldn't burn well at least until next winter.

Thinking maybe next summer I will fill the four-wheeler trailer and haul some over to the Jim Creek Recreational Area parking lot and sell it for outrageous prices to the weekenders.

Hoping I can at least get it all cleaned up before the next storm comes through.

Blackfish

A killer whale swims past the mouth of Columbia Bay in Alaska's Prince William Sound.

     It's taken a while to come around to the right frame of mind to watch the movie "Blackfish."  It was bound to be upsetting.  It's about Sea World and captive killer whales, focused largely on the death of Sea World trainer Dawn Brancheau in February 2010.  After seeing the movie I am more convinced than ever that Sea World, or anyone else for that matter, should be shut down and never again allowed to hold a whale in captivity, Having read about the whales and Sea World and participating in the effort to stop them from capturing whales in Alaska's Prince William Sound, I sort of knew what to expect, but to tell the truth the situation is far worse than I had thought.
     To begin with I  have to take back what I have said about the trainers after watching several former trainers in tears during the movie discussing how the whales are treated.  What came across was that for the most part the trainers were very idealistic young people enthralled with the whales and the idea of working with them, but who knew little about their natural history.
     To compound that problem Sea World management consistently lied to them or misled them or just flat didn't tell them much about the whales.  And, the new employees had no reason not to trust what the management was telling them, Sea World managers were supposed to be the experts. One striking segment focused on the lies in the Sea World spiel that the young people had to give customers thinking it was all true.  One that stood out in the movie was that the whales only live to be 25 or 30 years old. That is the extreme age for whales in captivity and few of Sea World's captives live even that long; the average is more like 11 years.  In the wild males can live into their 70s and females can reach 100.
     From the movie it is obvious these trainers whom  I had expressed no sympathy for when they get batted around by the whales are almost as captive to Sea World management as the whales are. They aren't told about incidents with whales that are often termed accidents. They are fed false information and lured into believing they are safe in the water with the ocean's top-level predator. They also weren't told about specific whales with a history of attacking trainers.  According to the movie, there have been at least 70 attacks in Sea World parks over the years, none of which the new trainers were told about.
     Sea World went so far as to blame Dawn Brancheau for the whale's attack that killed her, claiming the whale had pulled her down by a pony tail in her hair which she shouldn't have had. According to the movie, autopsy results showed she was first pulled into the water by her arm.
     Given all that, I have to pull back from blaming trainers and having no sympathy for them.  Granted they should have learned more about the whales before they took the job but when I was that age I can totally see myself lured by the temptation to jump into that water, too.
      At the end in the credits it said Sea World was invited to be interviewed and the offer was refused every time. In an ad for the movie on CNN, a Sea World written response said the movie was entirely one-sided.  For one thing they could have presented their side, for a second, to my mind there is only one side to this issue.
     Something else about the movie was bothersome.  In all the arguments I had with Sea World people they often hauled out the tired claim that what they do advances the science around killer whales. Not one mention was made in the movie about any scientific knowledge Sea World has contributed. Sea World science claims have always been suspect as just a verbal front for the true mission of making money off killer whales. As a matter of fact the management actually concealed what they knew about killer whale behavior from their employees.
     The Occupational Health and Safety Agency investigated Sea World after the death and the agency's eventual ruling was that trainers in the future had to be separated from the whales by a barrier. At the time the movie was made, Sea World had appealed that decision.
     The OSHA decision is fine and a step in the direction of safety for the trainer.  Now all we need to do is address the safety of the whales. Overall you leave the movie convinced that animals used to ranging over thousands of miles of ocean do not belong in concrete swimming pools.

Sorry Sea World trainers, no sympathy
Whale watching: Who's watching whom?
The singing whales of Alaska's Prince William Sound

A clip from the movie
#blackfish, #seaworld, #killer whales

Training day

After a low of 19 yesterday, another approaching storm drove the temperature into the 40s today and the sun came out.

Alert at the word "Walter."

So, Walter and I went for our longest walk yet, even toured the Butte International Airport.  I thought it would be a good day to work on his "come Walter" command. 

I have been using that command every time I call him all along and when he comes it always involves a treat, but this was the first time I would try it off the property.

On his way at "come Walter."

For the first time on our long walks I let him off the leash when we were in the woods away from the road and then when he wandered far enough away, I called "Walter!" Once I had his attention, I called "come Walter" and all three times he hightailed it toward me. Of course the command meant there was a treat involved, still I was pretty happy with his responses.

I bought the deep bowls with the 
tapered sides just so his ears fall 

outside and food doesn't stick to 

them.

You'll believe a dog can fly, at
least if there's a treat involved.

He's about 15 pounds now, and getting adult food mixed with the puppy food until the puppy food is used up.  That was the vet's recommendation. Both his harness and collar are too tight so they will have to be replaced next week after his vet visit.

All in all he seems a healthy, intelligent boisterous puppy so I guess the choice among nine was a good one.

Walter's gallery

Apple didn't think of everything

I guess you can't expect folks in Cupertino, California, to understand the sub-arctic.

A month ago I bought one of the fancy new iPhones.  I've been able to stifle my tech desires for a few years but now some of the apps don't work on my old phone and the phone's memory was running out of room even for just the music, so it was time.

Rather than dump my old 3G, I shut off all the phone stuff and sort of turned it into an iPod to leave in the car connected to the stereo there.  That worked fine for this past month when it was unseasonably warm, but today when I went out it was 19 degrees.

When I started the car, the stereo started up but then lost the iPhone.  I checked connections, turned it off and on a couple of times but every time I did, it played the first notes and then clicked off.  Finally I checked the phone.

It had a big red warning image on it that read TEMPERATURE.  What got me was it said the iPhone was too hot and I had to let it cool off before using it.  I was pretty sure it wasn't too hot at 19 degrees, but figured temperature had something to do it.  So I stuck it inside my jacket still connected to the stereo.  Within about ten minutes it had warmed up enough and it came on by itself and the music fired up and we were back in business.

Had to laugh though.  For as good as those Apple techs are, it never crossed their mind to warn people that the iPhone wasn't working because it was too cold.  Welcome to Alaska, iPhone.

Conversation with an older writer

In August I posted an excerpt from something I have been working on for the past couple of years titled "Conversation with a young prostitute." It was an experiment in a couple of ways, first, generally it's not a good idea to expose work until it's finished; there are just too many pitfalls waiting for you in comments from people who have not seen the finished work or all of it.  That can be pretty discouraging.

Secondly, the writing itself is experimental, at least for me. Briefly, the full story explores a modern relationship that occurs totally online and is expressed only in instant-messaging format with the inherent spelling, grammatical and typographical errors intact.

I guess I probably got my money's worth

In an economy seemingly dependent on planned obsolescence, new versions of iPhones coming out every two years or so, technological advances so quick you haven't even paid for the last one before you have to have the new one, cars coming a step closer to driving themselves with every model year, I had quite a surprise today.

That's the tire and the trailer, now relegated to yard work but
sporting new camo rails.

The other day I was hauling some manure from my neighbor's alpaca yard to put on the garden over the winter.  As I was shoveling it onto the garden I noticed one of the tires on my four-wheeler trailer was loose on the rim and had broken the bead that makes the seal to hold air in it.

Of course my mind jumped to the worst possible scenario, one where I would have to replace the tire and the wheel.  If anyone has tried to buy just a tire for something like a small-wheeled trailer knows, you often have to buy the wheel too, partly because it is so difficult to mount a tire on those small rims.  So I figured while I was at it I might get a couple of those fat off-road tires for it that probably cost more than $100 apiece.

I couldn't think of anything that happened that could have deflated the tire, no heavy loads, no blowout, so I figured it might still be good, just lost all its air.  And then I remembered a trick someone had told me for mounting a tire on a small wheel.

I got one of the ratcheting straps I use for tying down loads on the trailer and the snowmachine sled and trailer and fed it around the tread of the tire.  Slowly tightening it forced the tire bead against the rim, I was hoping, tightly enough so it would hold air and let the tire fill.

It worked.

Today while I was putting the wheel back on the trailer I was complimenting myself for saving a couple of hundred dollars and thinking, that's pretty bad, a tire deflating and coming off a rim. Then I started doing some math. I bought that trailer in 1986 for hauling building materials over the trail while I was building the cabin at the East Pole.

So what's that?  Ten, twenty, seven.  Wow, I have had this trailer 27 years, which means I have had the tires for 27 years also and I don't recall ever filling the tires with air though I might have filled them using a foot pump once. It's just a cheap little Coleman trailer I got at Costco and it and the tires have lasted 27 years having gone over that East Pole trail maybe a hundred times, half of those with heavy loads.  Parts like fenders have been knocked off it but this tire failure was the only thing vital to fail so far.  But the tire didn't really fail , I did, by not checking it for air once in a while. Even if the tire was no good, I think I got my money's worth with 27 years of service.

The only regret:  I wasn't intelligent enough to check the other tire and today learned that one is soft, too, so another trip to the service station.  It's off the trailer and in the Jeep for the next time I go into town.  The only problem is, this one looks like it has a couple of cuts in a sidewall so I may have to spend that money yet.  But for now, pretty smug with how long this outfit has lasted.

Perspectives

Here's what I see at the crossing.

Sometimes it's difficult to see the world from another's point of view. Over the years at times, I've been able to stop and look at a situation as another person would, but it isn't easy. Walking a mile in another person's shoes doesn't always fit, but if we care enough about the other it is always worth the effort.

So, that in mind, I've noticed on our walks, Walter usually hesitates before we cross the main road to get to and from the trail we walk most often.  The other day I took a camera along and found out why.  In this case the pictures tell the story.

Here's what Walter sees: the road to Mordor. No wonder he hesitates.

Sharkmagedden

Things that race through the mind just in those moments when all you want to do is fall asleep.

So, there was that movie a while ago called "Sharknado" that created quite a stir.  There's supposed to be a sequel in the works but I bet I have a better idea, with a possibility in reality and an Alaska twist.

Here's the set up.  There's a frozen estuary underneath an Alaska glacier.  It was a place ancient sharks went to spawn.  I know most of them are live bearers, so what. This is wild fiction after all.  Ok, so, as the glacier retreats the estuary is exposed to the air and sun and gradually begins to melt.  In the process several adult giant Pleistocene sharks thaw out and begin swimming about sluggishly at first.

There's a fishing village at the entrance to the bay the glacier empties into, often choked with ice as the glacier melted and calved off icebergs.  The fishermen mostly go outside the bay into the ocean, but  on the occasions when the ice clears out of the bay they fish closer to home.

One such fisherman disappears.  A couple of days later half his body washes up on the beach in front of the village.

Leaving out a lot of details  and suspense and encounters with the huge sharks that would have to be worked out, the villagers discover this ancient species of giant sharks in their bay.

All kinds of possibilities here given the truth-stretching anyway.  For example a south coast Alaska village likely would have totems and the image of one of these sharks could be carved on one, but no one until this time knew what it was.

Word travels fast and shark scientists and paleontologists flock to the site.  Several horrible encounters ensue.  Eventually authorities make the decision to place a heavy steel net across the mouth of the bay to contain the sharks before they get out into the big ocean.   Then they go about killing all the sharks in the bay eventually wiping them out.

Once they figure they have killed them all there is general celebration.

In the last scene baby sharks emerge from the mud in the estuary and head for the ocean, swimming easily through the mesh on the steel net at the mouth of the bay,  laying the way for further disaster and many sequels.

Now, about that effort to fall asleep.

Repairing nature

Overview shows the area affected.  Note the trees leaning toward the river.

Last summer I put up a few posts about flooding along the Matanuska River and bank erosion that took out one outbuilding and a guest cabin and leaving the main cabin precipitously hanging over the water.  An owner hauled another cabin off before the river took it.  A number of large trees along the bank also succumbed to the undercutting.

Well, this summer the state went to work.  Excavators dug up most of the ground between the river bank and a bike trail that runs past the property.  Then truckers hauled in rip-rap (huge rocks) and filled in the open trench which was then covered with topsoil and seeded.

Just last week workers demolished the main house which was still hanging over the river at an odd angle, and hauled the residue away.

Muddy area is where the house was removed recently.

These pictures show the result of the work.  The one at the top is an overview of most of the property affected.  The muddy spot in the smaller picture is where the house stood, well, leaned, until last week.

Just an addendum.  The family that had been living in the house had no insurance and didn't have the money to save it so they had to abandon it.  Then they lost most of their belongings when a fire burned the apartment where they were living last winter.

Original story

Mah woman's done gone, mah pickup's been stole and my hound dog puppy's smarter than me

If that were the country song about my life, at least the third part is true.

This Walter fellow has a way of figuring things out. Every time I try to outsmart him, he surprises me and often thwarts my effort.

The Finder

I was pretty happy on his first day here when he learned if he rattled the bells hanging from the door knob he got to go out.  He retained that and though there has been an accident once in a while, most often when he has to go he lets me know by ringing the bells.  Sometimes when I feel lazy, I leave the door ajar and when he wants to come back in he can nudge it open.  When he did that today, I didn't pull the door all the way shut and a little while later he pulled on the bells hard enough to open it wider and let his own self out.  At least we haven't had an accident in the house for the third day in a row, now, so it's a partial win for me.

That's just the latest.  A few days ago I started teaching him to sit. When we came in from outside I walked into the kitchen, I dug a treat out of the Yummy Chummys bag held it for him and then gently pushed his butt down while saying "sit" over and over. He took to that one pretty fast. By the third try I didn't have to push any more. But here's the problem: I always go to the same spot to get the treat and then tell him to sit.  So what does he do now?  When we come indoors he runs to the spot and sits, even before I can get there, let alone dig out his reward. So, I'm now in the position of telling a sitting dog to sit.  Well done, Walter, well done.

Now, too, he is in that puppy phase of chewing and biting. Even when I go to pet him I end up digging sharp little puppy teeth out of my hand. That puts me in a bad situation of disciplining him with my hands. So I got an idea and bought a little squirt bottle with the idea of spraying him in the face with water when I want him to stop.  Well, guess what. HE LIKES IT. He charges at the bottle to make me spray him and then he licks off all the water he can reach around his muzzle and comes back for more.

Sometimes he seems so astute I forget he is a puppy not even eight weeks old and less than two weeks with me.  As such, something new happens for him almost every day and everything is a learning experience. It's just a question of, for whom?

A Walter gallery of pictures