Fireweed

Photo by Celeste Prescott, Alaska Division of Forestry

A post about three weeks ago spoke to the fact that the blooms on the fireweed had reached the top of the stalk which meant six more weeks until there's snow on the ground. There are still three weeks to go to make that true but no new snow high on the mountain yet. Still there are a lot of yellow leaves in the trees and more on the ground in the yard.

This picture showed up today from the Alaska Division of Forestry. It shows a portion of burned over area from the Sockeye fire last month, the one that prompted the expotion to the East Pole to bring out precious keepsakes. Here we are about a month later and look at the fireweed already repopulating the burned over landscape with color, usually the first foliage to grow after a fire, hence the name.

For the record that fire is out now. It burned over 7,220 acres and consumed 55 homes. A tremendous rebuilding effort is under way now to help people get into homes before snow flies. Many of the people living in the area are dog mushers, some familiar names in the Iditarod. It took quite an effort but all of the dogs were moved out of the path of the fire.

So, now as the rebuilding continues and people gradually return to their land, they are greeted by the bright flowers that mark the beginning of new life in a land devastated by fire but with hopes the predictor is wrong this time, allowing more building time before the snow comes.

Top of the stalk, babies
Melissa, McGonnigal and a trail through an Alaska lifetime

The siren song of the big ocean retold in a botched haiku

Across the deck

and through the rigging

from the open sea

I heard the tempting ocean

sing its song to me

I thought this was going to be my first haiku, at least the first one I intended to be a haiku. I worked very carefully to get 17 beats and it even came out with a rhyme.

Then just for kicks, I looked up the definition. After all what fun is there in doing research ahead of time? I like writing what I want and then looking for a place it might fit. As for haikus, first of all, it's not 17 beats, it's supposed to be 17 syllables. Not only that, they are supposed to be arranged in three lines of five, then seven, then five syllables. And most don't rhyme. I guess I could arrange the words with the syllables in the proper numerical sequence, but I think then I would end up with something ee cummings might have written and that guy didn't even know how to use capital letters.

So, while mine might not be an epic fail, it certainly isn't a classic haiku either, but I like it; there is a nice rhythm to it, so I am going to keep it this way and try haiku another time.

It is however my first meme, so we are going to have to deal with that.

Here's an example of a real haiku written by my friend Philip Munger, who is hanging out along the West Coast of the Outside states these days and is writing a series of them as he travels:

Road Haikus continued: in a waiting room

medical empires

reflected on the glass wall

to see inside us

Now, that's the way it's supposed to be done.

Oh, and by the way, yes, that's me on a dock in Florida, early 1950s. And, yes, too, I did get to go to sea for a while.

ee cummings and I
Singin' them songs about them storms at sea
Sailing in the wake of a personal hero

Writers aren't that difficult to deal with, are they?

From The Writers Group facebook page.

Twice in past week or so posts have shown up on facebook listing questions or statements not to make to writers. Both lists ring true. I've heard several of them myself and I'm pretty sure the others are valid; at least if I heard them I know I wouldn't like it.

There are two I would add, at least that's all I thought of right now. The statements came from a publisher who ought to know better. The first should be fairly obvious and came from that publisher more than once.

He would tell me how well another author's book was doing. Now, I am all for any writer succeeding, but when a publisher is supposed to be selling my book but tells me how well another writer's is doing, honestly, I just don't want to hear it.

The second was more subtle and I am sure he thought it was a compliment of sorts. It involves categorization. My first two books were about the Iditarod Trail sled dog race.

About ten years later on two occasions, about two other ideas, he contacted me with books he wanted that were "right up my alley." Both were about dogs. What I heard him saying in not so many words was "you are a dog writer." At the time I had just finished a novel and was deep into a second one, neither of which involved dogs. Thinking back I hadn't even wanted to do the second Iditarod book but my ego got in the way. At the time I had reached what I felt was a breakthrough in fiction where I finally understood how it worked and was determined to write what I wanted to, rather than what would sell or what someone else wanted me to do. Stopping that effort to do another project set me back years. To be categorized as a dog writer years later was too much. I never talked with that publisher again. (The most recent Iditarod project is an exception to this tirade.)

This one would have been the worst if I hadn't known the speaker was teasing. Harlequin Romances published a book titled Leader of the Pack. The book plagiarized The Last Great Race to the point of ridiculousness.  Whole sentences, even a couple of complete paragraphs, quotes, descriptions slightly rewritten filled the tale of an alpha sled dog and an alpha male musher and their tawdry romances along the Iditaord Trail. Both books made the circuit through the cabins near the East Pole. Then one night a friend put down the romance, looked at me and said, "It was a lot better than yours – more action." Fortunately the laughter tempered my quick initial reaction.

Of the lists, I would emphasize one item and change another. No. 5 on the list in the graphic is: "Leave a writer alone when the writer is actually writing. You have no idea how difficult it is to enter the zone." Interruptions during periods in the zone I am sure contributed to a divorce in my life, and may provide some basis among reasons why I live alone today.

The second is much easier. No. 10 on that list is dealing with a writer who has received a rejection letter. It suggests leaving him alone but offering a cup of coffee. I suggest whiskey.

Ten things not to say to a writer

What's the symbolism here?

Curious, very curious

Beginning the mystery of the black pansy.

I prefer starting from seeds rather than buying already blossoming plants off the rack at the supermarket, so these just showed up in the past week after a start indoors and more than a month outdoors.

Sure enough the black pansies came up and looking ever so cool. A friend had asked why I bought black pansies and I told her i would take a bouquet of them to give to someone I don't like, a sinister warning, but with no real threat behind it, and I didn't really have anyone in mind, except one and that one is too easy.

Now I think they have more of a use as something of a muse. But the pansies, at least one, added an unexpected twist.

What could it possibly mean if a black pansy grows with holes at the dead center of three of the four petals? What does the black symbolize? That's a fairly common theme, dark, black, night, generally evil. But what abut the holes? And further, why only three? What is the symbolism there, and is it in the three with holes or the one without?

It's enough to get the mind percolating.

Here's one of the pitfalls in the writing process

Vintage WWII VD poster

Picture a small town along the Alaska coast where everyone recognizes everyone else, and most are at least passing acquaintances. Among these citizens a writer toils in the days before Internet and with access only to a limited library. He often has to find a local expert in something or other to confirm the accuracy of a tidbit he is writing.

A favorite source is the nurse practitioner in the town's clinic. his go-to reference for medical information. So, while involved with the intricacies of a plot involving the denizens of a harbor, he discovered one of his characters needed a venereal disease, wait, an STD in modern terminology. He chose Chlamydia as one that is barely noticeable and definitely not life-threatening. He only needed it so the character would have to face an embarrassing situation with a nurse he had met in a bar the same night the woman who gave him the disease told him about it.

Having written the sequence of discovery, anxiety. well, how about anger, bargaining, denial. depression, acceptance,  and sending the poor protagonist off to be cured by the nurse who had become the object of his affections, the author approached his friend for a medical opinion of his prose.

Within a day she came back to him, changing only one little detail and handing back his manuscript with pinched fingers as if it were somehow soiled, an affectation he barely noticed.

A week later, having progressed further into his plot he came upon a question. Instead of a phone call, that evening he approached the nurse practitioner in the bleachers of a Little League baseball game where she sat with a group of several players' mothers. Giving it little thought, he sat next to her and asked over the sound of a cheer, "If Chlamydia has no symptoms how do you know if you are cured or not?"

The cheering stopped in the same instant he realized his mistake. That instant of deadening silence was broken by his friend's almost fiendish laughter. Face flushed, his mouth hanging open and  panic in his eyes begging for understanding, he mumbled something about the scoreboard and raced away from that crowd knowing full well by morning the story of his disease would have spread all over that small town.

This may be one reason people hear of cloistered writers, at least that is what happened with me. Oops, did I say "me?" Damn. I avoided society for weeks after that incident, hoping that my friend had been able to tell the truth and perhaps at least dampen the gossip, but I never did know for sure and I would panic every time I suspected disapproval in the faces of some of the people I encountered. 

A new visitor in the neighborhood

As I was passing the living room window on the way to the kitchen tonight I caught some motion in my peripheral vision of a larger bird with wings spread, landing, definite yellow showing through the feathers as the sun hit them. I immediately suspected a flicker, a species I have never seen before.

Immediately I knew this was something different and I ducked down crawled over to where my camera was ready. I slowly rose to see my initial guess had been right, a flicker was dipping into the water in the bird bath. I managed six shots and two of them are close to being in focus. Although I enjoy the birds tremendously, I seldom get excited about seeing one, but a new one is special, especially such a colorful one.

It took a while to figure out exactly what it was. I usually use the National Geographic Field Guide to Birds of North America and at first the citation was confusing. According to the illustration this one is a yellow-shafted woodpecker. But there were no words for that particular bird. I googled it and got northern flicker. Going deeper it turns out some time ago three variations of flicker were combined into the catch-all northern flicker. Each of the three has slightly different markings but they are considered one species. So it goes.

Mostly I am just happy to see a new species and such a colorful one at that.

A sea otter mother's devotion

All the mentions of sea otters in the popular media make them out to be cute, furry huggables. They aren't. They are nasty, aggressive at times and dangerous to other animals including other otters. Nevertheless they are interesting to watch and were a popular feature on the tours I used to drive. They were particularly helpful on gray, foggy days when our sightseeing boat plunged into the fog and you could barely see the railing on the bow, let alone shore.

On those days I could tune the radar so finely that it would pick up one of the rafts of sea otters that used to hang out in the bay we departed from. Once I saw the collection of small blips, I'd head straight for it and as soon as we spotted them, the gloom among the passengers began to lift. On those days I spent extra time with the otters to raise the optimism.  The crew knew that once we escaped the bay we would most likely break out into sunshine but the tourists never bought it when we told them that, at least not until we saw the otters. That improved the mood on the boat tremendously and people relaxed a little.

Over the years of observing otters I learned a little about their habits. As one example, you usually see otters floating on their backs with their heads up as if their chins are on their chests. This creates a blind spot directly behind them, and if you watch, you will often see them turn their heads nervously to see what might be approaching from behind. I learned that if I positioned the boat so they could see it and stayed within their sight range they would remain on the surface. But if I started moving around and it looked to them like I might be trying to get behind then into that blind spot, they would submerge and disappear. As a result our passengers usually got as much sea otter viewing as they could stand.

The most unusual behavior I ever saw was one day when I was anchored in a quiet bay while a couple of clients spent the night ashore on a mountainside. I was sitting on the weather deck toward dusk when I saw an otter drifting in the bay. Though light was low making it difficult to make out detail, it looked like she had a pup on her belly, they way they carry them sometimes. They moved around the bay for an hour or more, the mother leaving the pup floating on the surface while she dove for food. They were still at it when I gave up and went to bed and were there in the morning and most of the next day.

Though she always maintained a good distance between us, I noticed the pup never seemed very animated on her belly or when she left it on the surface while she foraged.

In time the clients came down from the mountain and signaled from shore for me to go get them. Once I had them ferried to the boat and all their equipment loaded, I pulled the anchor and headed slowly out of the bay. As I did I hadn't noticed the otter and heard her splash as she dove for cover leaving the pup on the surface. I drove the boat closer to the floating pup not wanting to scare it, but I shouldn't have worried. Very quickly we realized the reason it had not been animated. The pup was dead.

Given the lack of animation I had noticed, I realized  it had been dead the whole time I had been watching the otters in the bay. All through that time the mother kept with the baby as if it were still alive. We didn't touch it and motored away from it and I remember wondering how long the mother would keep it with her; how long after a pup dies does a mother hold onto her offspring?

Science fiction – or is it?

I've never been very interested in science fiction. Of course there's "Star Wars" and, oh yeah, "Firefly," oh, and can't leave out "Hunger Games," and then, well, you get the picture. Let's say I've never been much interested in writing science fiction although I did dabble with it once upon a time.

The inspiration came in a supermarket of all places. To begin with I can not stand the odor of the universal coverup scent, Febreze. A friend from the old days would have said it smells like a Dutch whore on a Saturday night. However I know lots of people stand by it. It's called an air freshener and is designed to eliminate odors. All I can see that it does is overload the olfactory lobes with a heavy scent only slightly less obnoxious than one might like to mask.

What happened in the supermarket was I was picking out trash bags when one box I looked at smelled different. Sure enough, it had the Febreze logo on the box. Somebody decided more garbage bags could be sold if they smelled like that obnoxious spray. I quickly put that one back on the shelf and picked out an unscented variety. But it didn't stop there; whether that scent was stuck in my nose or whether I passed another product I wasn't sure, but when I looked, there was some laundry detergent with the foul stuff included. There's usually enough perfume in laundry soap without including that crap, but there it was.

Then I saw it on toilet paper and again on wet wipes. In time I came to peruse products to make sure Febreze wasn't in them and was surprised how many included it.

That's when the science fiction story came along. Think about all the super-villain plots in all the science fiction that were aimed at taking over the world. Not one succeeded largely because of some clever intervention or simply overwhelming force from a super hero.

Now, suppose someone mixed some odorless toxic goop with whatever the concoction is that makes up Febreze. Worldwide as people put out the garbage, sprayed behind a cigarette smoker, wiped their asses, washed their clothes and performed any of a myriad of  domestic chores they got one good whiff of this odor eliminator and were eliminated themselves, along with their families, pets and plants. Double your pleasure because the widespread use of it would also mask the stench of decaying bodies.

Before long clouds of the lethal gas would be hovering everywhere (if they aren't already) spreading the deadly air freshener.

Or it could go another way. I once discovered some mold in a tent I owned and asked a friend how you get rid of it. She suggested Febreze. That was my introduction. I fired one shot of the stuff at the mold, got a whiff of the perfumey junk and thought about sleeping in a tent with that sweet smell in bear country. No thanks. We all know the odors that can collect inside a closed tent, so picture a tent manufacturer infusing the fabric with Febreze to cover them up. In my fictional world over time the powers that be trying to figure out why there were increased numbers of bear attacks in camp grounds.

Years ago the town where I lived started spreading a de-icer on the streets. That de-icer when splashed up on car finishes attached itself with the tenacity and color of road tar. Someone discovered Febreze was the only thing that would take that junk off the paint. That ought to have been a warming for reals.

My journey into science fiction ended with those thoughts, at least until a couple of days ago when a story showed up on Facebook called "The Dangers of Febreze – A real eye-opener." The article confirms the product does not remove odors, it simply gives you a stronger odor to cover them. The article goes on to list 16 of the chemicals in the soup, many of them carcinogens, allergens, irritants to eyes, lungs, skin and ears among others. It holds dangers for just about all living things. It's one of the scariest lists of ingredients I've ever read and I am glad now that I've avoided its use all these years.

But it sure does make the case for a good super villain to take over the world in a cloud of sweet-smelling carcinogenic goop. Who would notice one more lethal ingredient in that concoction?

Here's the article. It lists those 16 ingredients and their dangers and also offers some natural alternatives. All about wellness solutions   

How does your garden grow July 2015 edition

First zucchini.

Sometimes it feels trivial to be writing about a garden when there is so much going on in the world to talk about. Of course, pick a subject and you will find lots of people willing to tackle the problems no matter whether they know anything about their subjects beyond some bull dust punch line or not. So, then, it's like why not put a little positive green into the mix and see what pops up.

Lettuce and spinach with a whole garbage bag full gone.

Yesterday a friend asked how my garden was doing and the only adjective that came to mind was overflowing. In that came the realization that I haven’t put up any photos in maybe a month. So at least the blog isn't overflowing with garden pictures not until today anyway. 

Unfortunately my daughter and her family came out yesterday and we did some harvesting so it is not as overflowing as it was a couple of days ago. Still I think it looks pretty good so I went out today, did a little more harvesting and made some pictures.

Joseph Wambaugh is not impressed.

Potatoes after two harvests.

More squash, zucchini and acorn.

My daughter took one of those white tall kitchen garbage bags full of lettuce, a standard plastic shopping bag full of spinach, a small bag of onion tops and a small bag of small potatoes, not a bad haul in midseason. So, anyway. these pictures are what's left.


Isn't that much better than announcing another candidate crawling out of the Republican clown car?

Third spinach harvest.

Garden dilemma solved
What a difference a day makes
Shoveling dirt in the hot sun

This one's for the birds, literally

Any of us who feed birds have heard the alarming thump of a larger bird hitting a window. Most often they land below the window, sit for a while until their heads clear and then fly away. Once in a while one dies, and then some might need rescue and rehabilitation. I remember a chickadee at the East Pole that flew in through the open doorway and then crashed into the picture window thinking it was a way out. I managed to get that little fellow onto a snowshoe so I could move him around. I left the door open and moved him closer to it and facing out, not wanting to put him outside because as small as they are if they don't keep moving they will get hypothermic quickly.

In November 2013 a Pine grosbeak hit the window here and hurt itself badly. I ended up sending it to Bird TLC in Anchorage.

Birds don't see the glass; all they see is a continuation of the habitat, particularly if it reflects trees and bushes behind them. They probably even see their own reflections as another bird rather than a solid object. I have tried several methods to prevent this: silhouettes of raptors on the windows, wind chimes, wind socks. One person suggested a netting over the window which they would hit first and bounce off. Another method is to keep the feeders within five feet of the windows so the birds can't get going fast enough to hurt themselves. Mine are within eight feet, but the crashes still occur.

I am probably the last person on earth to learn about these, but not too long ago I came upon these reflective deterrents. According to the literature, birds can see the UV light spectrum as well as they see the visible spectrum. The surface of the window mountings in the picture reflect UV light, making them more visible to birds. In addition the pattern in them is called dichroic glass which creates a color shifting, changing appearance visible from different angles and reflected in many directions. I ordered some but hadn't put them up yet.

The other day driving back from the East Pole I stopped at a couple of friends' house for a visit and noticed they had the reflectors in their windows. They said they had been suggested by another friend and they worked well. My friends had seen birds pull up before hitting the window, only to move over and hit the one next to it that didn't have the films.

That was enough for me. In this massive physical life reformation I am going through, today I put them in the window and we shall see how they work. Watch this space.

I gave her the bird, literally: Rescuing a Pine grosbeak

Artscape, where I bought mine; I am sure there must be other vendors

Anchorage Bird Treatment and Learning Center

Top of the stalk, babies

And then there's this.

Fireweed tops out.

Fireweed blossoms reached the top of the stalk this week. Way early. The story goes it's only six weeks until the first snow on the ground. That's August 13 on my calendar. It will be interesting to see. I don't even have squash on the vine and no tomatoes either. Grow babies grow.

Seasons change and so do I

Lighten up already, after all there are birds around.

Black-capped Chickadee fledgling.

Over the past two summers the makeshift bird bath in the garden hasn't ever seen much activity. When the weather turned so hot this year, I gave it a little more attention, cleaning it out once after algae colored the water green. Now every night when I water the garden, I empty and refill it. That keeps the algae under  control and at least in part may be the reason the bath has received more traffic this year.

Chickadees, Pine grosbeaks, white-crowned sparrows, woodpeckers, robins, juncoes, Pine siskins and gray jays have all taken a dip or a sip from it at one time or other.

Gray jay.

The other day four species were using it at once. Of course by the time I had the camera ready all but one had flown away. With a little patience I managed to catch three of them one at a time later in the day. The one I missed was the White crowned sparrow, a species that seems more wary than the other three.

I still think I need to find a prettier bird bath.

Pine siskin

Springtime visitors

The importance in possessions after all is the memories

We are often warned going through life that we shouldn't attach too much importance to things. Things are inanimate objects, possessions that for the most part can be replaced and there are other aspects of life far more important, like children and family and animals and on and on.

There is one memory after all, the day we painted the block yellow.

After going through a bunch of my things the other day and sorting what was important and what wasn't and writing about it, a friend said the real sorting was not of the objects themselves but of the memories they engendered. So true. Or course. A baseball is just a baseball until I hold it and remember my son's first hit in Little League. A small jar of sand is just that until I remember it was given to me by someone I loved and contains sand from the beach where Captain James Cook was killed in Hawaii. She thought of me in that place and brought me a souvenir. And the other jar of dust is just that until I recall my daughter collecting it from a volcano eruption that coated Anchorage. That journey into things and memories for the most part was pleasant.

Today I saw the last of another thing which was not so pleasant. A couple of years ago I wrote about the sadness when a junker came and hauled away the carcass of a Volkswagen Beetle that was supposed to be my son's first car after we rebuilt it. The project for several reasons never was completed. I held onto the partially rebuilt engine from that car. I had more than $2,000 in that engine and I hoped to recover some of that money selling it. I think maybe I held onto it also because it was a very tangible link to my son even though it stood as a symbol of a failure. I tried Craigslist several times with no luck. So, the short block with its new pistons and camshaft and lifters hung on an engine stand in the spare bedroom gathering dust and getting in the way for a couple more years.

Last night I was explaining to a friend how I had brought all the stuff from the cabin and really didn't have much room to put it. She said get creative and the engine came to mind. Maybe it was time.

Today I loaded it into the back of the Jeep along with several boxes of parts still needing to be attached including some of the expensive bright chrome go-fasters I had bought to make it fancy. I did that before I even called around to see who would take it. I wanted to be committed to the effort, no backing out. Then I called around to salvage yards and no one wanted it. Finally one guy said he would take it. But no money would be involved.

So I drove about 25 miles to his yard and there a helper and I put that bright yellow engine block with shiny bright chrome parts attached onto the pile of discarded short blocks all black and rusted and oily. The brightness of the VW engine looked like those pictures of single flowers bursting from a gray concrete world or the first fireweed to sprout in a burned meadow.

I tried to take a picture, but this stupid cellphone did something it always does when I am in a hurry and want something photographed. It stuck on this infernal "voice control" mode that has not logical way of escaping. Or maybe the fates didn't want me to have a picture of that chunk of metal that had held so much promise but ended in the discard pile.

 I turned the phone off, flung it into the car and drove away. Behind me that yellow flower stood out among the discards of a motoring civilization, just a thing, held within the memory, the memory of a plan gone awry, the memory of what could have been a cherished connection with my son. Then too, it held the unfulfilled memory of him driving down the street, a big grin on his face, in his first car, one he helped build, with its multicolored paint job that changed color with the light, fat tires on the back and as much of a throaty growl as that little four-cylinder horizontally opposed engine could generate – now a memory with nothing tangible attached to it.

Hauling off cars and dreams and moments not lived

Melissa, McGonnegal and a muddy trail through an Alaska lifetime

Heading in, so nice and clean.

The myth of Phoenix rising came to mind while driving toward the East Pole past the area that burned in the Sockeye fire a couple of weeks ago. Blackened skeletons of spruce that was flaming a week earlier stood along the highway margins on both sides for miles. Occasionally in clearings where houses formerly stood, the bright yellowish wood of new construction contrasted with the dismal black background, a fabled bird emerging from the ashes of  devastating conflagration. Somewhere back in the woods there are still flames and smoke as the fire is considered only 99 percent extinguished.

Coming out with the goods? Eh, not so clean.

Elsewhere moving north past the spruce forest into a more desiduous environment, the foliage seemed much more dense than in previous years, a seeming impenetrable labyrinth in various shades of green. The fact that the East Pole is well within the northern boreal desiduous forest is comforting, much more difficult to catch fire and holds its moisture better than coniferous forests.

The same held true the deeper I went into the forest on the trail to the Pole. Fully leafed-out branches intruded over the trail where I hadn't ever seen them before. The effect was one of driving through a green tunnel with only spots of light overhead. A bear could have been five feet off the trail and I might not have seen it. As a matter of fact, later on, I am pretty sure there was one.

It had been fairly dry for most of the summer with just some sprinkles in the previous week and I expected less mud and water on the trail. Silly me. It was just as bad as ever and made even worse by someone who had gone in on a tracked vehicle and dug ruts deeper than my four-wheeler could handle. On top of that they were too far apart for my machine and at times I found myself riding the machine at a 30 degree angle, the wheels on one side down in the rut and on the other side up on visible ground running down the center of the trail. Between that sort of thing and some deep, long puddles, I managed to take quite a load of water and mud to the cabin. One little mistake almost cost me a cooler full of food. On these trails you really should put duct tape to seal around the edge where the top closes onto the cooler body. If I hadn't packaged my food well I would have eaten some mud for a couple of days. And that cooler brought up a lesson that should have been learned many years ago.

The only excuse I have is that most of my time at the cabin has been in winter. Summer trips have been limited to two or three days, maybe a week. As a result, for those short trips, not needing much food, I always carry a small cooler. The thing is ice in the cooler melts pretty fast and by the second day there's usually only water left. Staring at the muddy mess in the tiny cooler I had an ah-ha moment. What do I always run out of? Food? Never. What else? Ice? Yes! So the main thing you need to bring is lots of ice, right? Duh. From now on the bigger cooler comes with me loaded as deeply with ice, perhaps even in blocks that melt slower given their smaller surface area compared with cubes. That was a lesson it only took about 30 years to learn.

Bear tracks and deep muddy ruts.

I had only two main chores in mind for the trip. One was to put some sealer on the outside deck which was showing signs of age. Because I got there in fairly good shape and the sun was shining I attacked that right away and coated half the deck in less than an hour. That was the half I didn't need to walk on and I planned to do the other half just before I left in a couple of days. Once again, silly me. It rained the night before I was leaving, soaking the deck and making it impossible for me to coat the remainder. So, now I have another chore next time I go. At least the water beaded nicely on the side I had done.

The other chore was more important. It was the list I made when I thought I might have to rescue some stuff from that fire. That rescue effort added to some other thoughts I have been having lately. I have already made some concessions to age and I am certainly not giving up yet, but I am getting closer to an age where I won't be able to go there any more and I think about what I should move out of the cabin. That list is in the back of my head to go with the written one for the fire rescue.

The need to move stuff became more intense recently. I haven't told many people this, but about a month ago I had a stroke. That's a pretty strong word for what happened. I suffered no permanent damage from it. I stood up out of bed one night and my whole left arm went sort of limp and I could not control my hand very well. I know the test using the first three letters in the word "stroke." S = smile. T = talk. R = reach. If you can't do any one of those you need to do something. I could smile and talk and reach but not very well and I for sure couldn't control my hand – not even well enough to button the pants I put on before I headed for the hospital.

I spent about six hours in the emergency room, getting test after test. They finally concluded that I had what is called a transient ischemic attack or mini stroke. Something, a bit of plaque or small blood clot, breaks loose, gets to the brain and messes something up, like left arm coordination for a time until the substance dissolves. It's also called a mini-stroke, and although there's no permanent damage it's considered a serious warning. So, I get another bottle to add to the row of daily medicines, I take cholesterol intake much more seriously and I exercise more frequently and more strenuously. Tomorrow I see a doctor about whether or not the carotid artery on the right side of my neck needs scraping, like he did to the left one a year and a half ago.

"Melissa and McGonnegal." The premise is Melissa is
a ballerina who decides to teach the moose, who usually
 just stands around, some ballet steps.

So there you have it. All this going on in the back of my mind while I sort thorough the detritus of a lifetime attempting to discern what's important and what isn't. It's odd the things that jump out at you. First two on the list were my print of Bill Berry's "Melissa and McGonnegal." I posted a rather poor picture of it with this, because I didn't want his heirs thinking I want to somehow violate their copyright. Second was the 16-pound monster maul without which I would not enjoy splitting firewood nearly as much, and which I don't think can be replaced.

From there it was pick and choose in no particular order. Probably 50 little yellow boxes of photographic slides that might hold a gem I missed going through them the first time; photo albums; loose photographs, some in frames including one of the Great Aunt Tillie I like to refer to now and then; along with two framed pictures of the crews I sailed with on big ocean voyages; toys my kids enjoyed now on their way to my new grandson; a ton of ammunition that for reasons sort of unclear I had amassed out there (in truth I have always thought of it as a place to go after the apocalypse and I would need things like ammo to survive); a set of expensive wine glasses given as a housewarming gift at one time; little memory-tickling doo dads that somehow caught my eye; a Hudson's Bay point blanket I have carried with me forever which my mother bought in 1936; copies of my books and periodicals I have been published in; one huge box marked simply "memories" that I will have to go through at some time to see what's there; and a couple of things I would rather people not find after I die.

I packed everything carefully and wrapped it all in plastic to protect it from trail mud and that was that. I went outside on the deck in the light drizzle and drank a Genesee beer, the choice from my youth, and lost myself in reveries. From here I am not sure what happens. I think about moving back there while I am still able, but honestly am hesitant to give up the comforts of life on the grid, particularly Internet and television, not to mention stores and even the odd chance of companionship. On balance, I feel much more comfortable there, for one reason it is mine and secondly I feel much more confident about myself and life there than anywhere else in the world. I am also calmer, more relaxed for not having to deal with the usual mayhem and insanity in news reports and generally faster paced life among people. Meanwhile I go there and probably will keep looking for things I want to save. I have gotten the indication that neither of my kids wants the place when I am gone, so sometimes the thought drifts to moving out completely and selling the place to take the money and follow the Rolling Stones on tour or something.

Bear tracks small enough to be a black.

Chances are I will keep going there when I can, appreciating the life, until I can't anymore and I then will have to make new choices. In the meantime it is always comforting to know I have a place I can go even if I don't get there often enough like Jimmy Buffett's "One Particular Harbor." Truth is maybe times are rough and I've got too much stuff physically, mentally, emotionally and it all needs a good clearing out, which would be much better done in the deep woods.

On the way out the next day with the load of important stuff, the trail seemed better despite the rain and I had a much easier time of it than going in. Of course I was moving slower and more carefully because there were several fragile items in the trailer. Along the way I came upon some bear tracks heading in the opposite direction. From the looks of them I had probably scared him off the trail and he was in that thick forest not too far away from me. Nevertheless I took some pictures before I moved on. Judging by the tracks I guessed the bear had trudged about four miles along that muddy trail until he heard me coming and hightailed it out of the way.  

That sort of almost meeting put a punctuation mark on the trip for me, and concluded the pleasantness of the whole experience very well. Then, feeling pretty good and with plenty of time to get home in time to watch the American women win the World Cup soccer tournament, I called friends who live along the road nearby and whom I feel guilty about every time I go out and don't stop for a visit. I went to their house and spent a couple of hours for no other reason than to renew the friendship. On the road home, Beck's "Morning Phase" album provided the perfect mellow background music for the day.

 

A little farther and further along that trail: Later in 2015 I realized nothing was preventing me from spending my winters at the cabin. As result I packed up and went out in early December and stayed through March. I then spent the next six winters at the East Pole. Accounts of those adventures can be found on this blog simply by searching the words "East Pole."

A follow-up: I spent the next seven winters at the East Pole.

The Sockeye wildfire
Beck: Turn Away

Some comments 

Judith Richards

 Great post, Tim.

Maybe add to your list of labels "Sockeye fire"?

Thank you! We'll chat soon! Again, great post! I really enjoyed it.

 

 

Mark Fuersteneau I really enjoyed reading this, Tim. It left me feeling warm and reflective. As we get older and our mortality lurks in the corners of our minds it isn't so much the "stuff" as it is the memories they bring and the meaningful things in life are those treasured memories, friends, family and, for me, my relationship with our Creator. Thanks for the little journey into reflectivity this morning.

 

 

‪Sharon Wright‪ Nice insights; we're not so remote with our 2nd hideaway but are thinking about listing for sale though we both have such impactful memories of our lives there. Hard choices with getting older, but they aren't really "bad" choices. New chapters to come...