How big was it?

I couldn't wait another 30 years so the other day I took down the other birch whose twigs interfere with my Denali photos.

This one was a different matter. For one, it was huge, much bigger than the first one and situated in such a way if not cut properly it could have fallen in any direction. The first one already had a good lean in a downhill direction. This one not so much.

Now, approaching a tree that weighs tons and can fall on you, takes some planning. Where to drop it: the safest direction, but also a direction in which you have ample access for the process of bucking it up into firewood lengths. Then in this country in deep snow you have to consider footing too. You want it so your feet don't slip, but you also want to be able to get the hell out of the way quickly in case the tree doesn't go where it's supposed to.

Think about this: The logging industry usually makes the top ten list for dangerous jobs along with fishing in Alaska. There are serious injuries and deaths almost every year. And, those guys are pros; they know what they are doing. Then a neophyte like me wanders into the woods and tries to take down a huge tree based mostly on the instructions that came with the chainsaw he bought which is a little on the light side for work like this. Granted I have done it enough now I feel like I know the basics, but I am nowhere near the supposed proficiency of those professionals in the deep woods down south, the ones who suffer injuries and deaths at least at a nation-class level.    

So I approached this guy very carefully. My planning paid off; the tree came down exactly where I had expected it to land.

How big a tree is it? After it came down I made a rough measurment from the stump to the highest branch I could find. It was between 60 and 70 feet tall. It was a little difficult to tell because there were gaps and a lot of upper branches ended up buried in the snow. There's also this: My 50-foot tape measure only went to 48 feet. I recalled a business law teacher I had years ago. He once counted the paper clips in a 100-count package. There were 97. He then figured how much the company saved over a year by giving consumers three fewer paper clips in each box. It was considerable. And then I wondered how much this tape-measure company saved by counting on the fact that very few people would measure out to 50 feet and cutting off two feet. Two feet of metal tape, plus printing times a couple hundred thousand sold. Again, probably a considerable amount. So I had to measure twice, estimate the gaps and came up with something taller than 60 feet.

Height, though, isn't the only measure of a tree. The diameter of the trunk at the point of the lowest cut I made was a little more than 22 inches. Probably should have measured circumference too because I can't quite get my arms around those lower ones. That doesn't matter much becasue I can't lift them either. This is dense wood and it is h-e-a-v-y.

So today, it is down, bucked up and stacked next to the trail at the bottom of the hill. A few rounds have been split with many more to go. I will have to split the big ones down there and bring them up in pieces. There are still some branches deep in the snow also and I might have to wait for summer to cut them. Some of the branches I have already cut up are larger than some trees I have cut in the past. So there's a long way to go yet.

Still, it's a warm feeling just having accomplished this much of the process and knowing with some confidence that I will have an adequate supply of firewood for a while. And I haven't even gotten to the point yet where Thoreau started counting for his "wood warms you twice" statement.

As my friend Joe May says, "out here a man is judged by the size of his wood pile."

There's also the joy of taking Denali pictures without those twigs in them.

To cut or not to cut

A writer's Merry Christmas

I received the best Christmas present this year, a year when I chose to pretty much ignore the whole thing. I decided some time ago to spend the month of December at the East Pole. Go to your happy place they say and I did. I have not regretted it, though I am sure some relatives aren't real happy with me.

So, this present came as a total surprise. Christmas Eve I was listening to my favorite music of the season, which though I am not religious is the traditional religious carols. They move me in ways almost every other genre does not. My concert always ends with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing "O Holy Night." Mostly the choir backs a soprano who sings that song like no one since Bonnie in our schoolboy church Christmas pageants. The ones where I was always a shepherd.
Anyway the gift began during the choir's rendition of another classic, "Silent Night."

For years I have been collecting misinterpreted lyrics in Christmas carols with the idea with enough of them there could be a really clever story in it. An example would be: " … with angelic host …" becomes the Jelly Coast.

So last night listening to the Mormons sing "Silent Night," I heard a new one and this one involved names. Names mean characters and characters mean stories. It happens that fast.

It's been years since I have written much that is truly creative, except maybe an occasional post on this blog.

I have gone so far as advertising for a muse on Craigslist. I was invited to do some interesting things, none of which involved writing.

So imagine those urges being stimulated by an idea. I was so happy with it, I just had to tell someone.

During the day I had exchanged messages with a friend online and she has an interest in writing also. So I sent her a message explaining the project and telling her the inspiration I had just received from the Mormons. Mind you, at this point the gift had not yet started giving.

I realized it was late where she lived and I would not hear from her quickly. And then just as I was falling asleep, I had the awful feeling I don't know her very well and I might have offended her with what could seem like making fun of traditional beliefs.

Christmas morning I opened her message with some trepidation but I should have given her more credit. She loved the idea, she loved the new additions and even offered some suggestions of phrases she had heard. Now the gift was giving. As I went about the chores of the day, the idea was festering and growing in my mind.

By late afternoon too much was going on for me to ignore it any longer and I actually sat down to write: total creation for the first time in years. Talk about Christmas joy. I once told a woman friend that total immersion in creative writing is better than sex. She didn't believe me. Silly girl.

Anyway I wrote for two solid hours, one idea following another and coming so fast I had to stop the narrative only long enough to write the ideas for the future so I wouldn't lose them. The gift that keeps on giving.

After about two hours I came up for air. I had to restart the fire (the one in the wood stove) and take care of other chores, like food for one.

Now, breathing regularly again and coming down I recall the time this friend and I exchanged ideas about muses and what I was looking for. She correctly saw right through me, telling me what I was really looking for was a friend I could talk about things like this with. I don't think, though, that she was volunteering. But she has done it, probably without realizing it, and in the process given me the greatest gift someone could give a writer, in this case unmitigated encouragement.

I would love to share what I have written but that is a great way to lose interest in something quickly. I don't anticipate it being completed soon, either. I still need several more phrases and they will come and perhaps lead to more days like today. But I don't think it will hurt to give a little hint. My new characters are named Alice Calm and Alice Bright.

"Silent Night" New York Philharmonic and Mormon Tabernacle Choir

Memo from the creek, Christmas 1972.

People often ask what is the appeal of living this way even for short amounts of time. Here my friend Joe May explains it as well as any I have ever seen. It is 10 below at the East Pole and snowing small flakes that I estimate on average are 3 feet apart. For the past two mornings when I have stepped outside in the morning darkness I have heard an owl call. "Who, who" he asks, and I respond softly, "Me, me," and I step out into his world. That's part of "why" too -- Tim

Memo from the creek, Christmas 1972

Here lives a quitter

a non-go-getter
who disenfranchised the world,
by shirking the pace
and blowing the race
into which we're collectively hurled.

Now forests and streams
provide the means
for adequate existence,
with crystal air
providing fare
for breath without assistance.

Telephone rings
and electrical things
are sacrificially nil,
commiserated
but consecrated
by lack of a monthly bill.

Garbage disposers
and pneumatic closers
are subject to cynical mirth,
as social symbols
suspended in gimbals
to minimize human worth.

Through winter's night
and summer light
I've racked my mind in vain,
to comprehend
the insidious trend
toward self destructive gain.

From here it seems
society teems
with astigmatic goats,
whose principle aim
is to eat the frame
and bottom out of their boats.

So guard my friends
until the end
your civilized possessions,
your ulcers and smogs
and traffic clogs
and psychiatric sessions.

And tally time
I'll stake my dime
against your fated liver,
you buy salmon
by the can.....
I own the river.

– Joe May  ©

This is really for the birds

One of the gray jays perches in a spruce for a moment.

It's just not fair. I had to come out for a day to do some business, pay some bills, restock a little bit (and maybe see Star Wars :). So there I am puttering about, organizing, packing, watching some football and I look out the window and there not one but two unusual species of birds at the recently restocked feeders.

Neither is unusual for Alaska or for this area but they haven't been around my feeders very often recently. The first were redpolls. After almost breaking the bank buying feed for them three winters ago I hadn't seen many over the past two. Today a dozen or so attacked the feeders and the spilled seed on the ground. Most of the feeders had been empty when I pulled in last night, but a friend had come by and filled one sometime while I was gone and I filled the rest before daybreak and the birds were back when the sun came up. Chickadees and nuthatches of course, and the hairy woodpecker, but the ground was moving with the rolling carpet of redpolls pecking about at seed dumped by the others.

There  are several redpolls in this picture. I am too tired 

to count, and they were too spooky.

Then I noticed two larger birds poking about as well and flying up to the feeders. These were Canada or gray jays. They've come by the bird bath in the summer but I've never seen them at the feeders in winter. They stayed for much of the afternoon along with the redpolls and the regulars so there was quite a lot of action in the yard.

That's where the unfairness comes in. You see I had brought my camera gear out rather than leave it at the cabin on the off chance somebody might break in. So with all the action in the yard there was no way I wouldn't try at least one picture. Right, just like the potato chips. So there went about two hours I could have been packing and napping in front of televised football games. Maybe I should just close the curtains. Nah. Back to the mountain tomorrow.

To cut or not to cut …

 What's missing from this picture?

The East Pole stands in a boreal forest at its climax stage. That means a mix of deciduous and conifer trees that have reached maturity, some of them measuring their height in triple digits. Their age might also be measured in triple digits. Who are we even to approach such majesty?

Huge birch and spruce trees rise above the cabin in all directions and they add to the beauty of the place tremendously. I have always tried not to take down a growing tree for firewood, waiting for the really old ones to rot from the inside and then fall before a good wind. The blow-downs have served well over the years. But there are a couple of trees that have been a pain for almost 30 years now. Their crime? They partially block the view of Denali. Mostly branches and twigs get in the way and with the advent of autofocus, I get great pictures of sharply focused twigs and the mountain a blur in the backbround. I have plotted against those two trees for years. Those tall spruce in the pictures are ok so far; they provide perspective and framing, but the twigs on these two birches have been an irritant almost since I moved in, early in 1986.

Mature birch

Well, the day before yesterday I took one of them down. Sad to see it go but it does make a pretty picture stacked under the house, too. That's probably the last picture I will ever take of it, but then I have probably a hundred with it in them in one form or another, so I can never forget.

That's what's missing from the most recent picture of Denali; no twigs. Now I wonder if it's going to take another 30 years of plotting to take the other one down.

Is anyone looking into solar-powered snowmachines?

I once met Sidney Huntington who died last week at the age of 100. We had flown to his home town of Galena, on the Yukon River 500 miles west of Fairbanks, to do a story about an air taxi operator who had run out of gas, literally. It was during the big gasoline shortage in the early 1970s. The flight operator had been supporting 18 trappers in the bush but because of the shortage was unable to obtain fuel and those trappers were stranded without a connection.

We had flown there to do a story about the first real victim of the gasoline shortage. In the course of the day we met Sidney. What I found amazing about the man that day was when I asked him what could be done about the gasoline shortage. I expected a tirade about all the city people with their gas guzzling automobiles and their wasteful ways. Instead he ticked off ways people in Bush Alaska could cut back. Living on margins, they seemed to me to be the last people who should have been called on to sacrifice more.

Fast forward to today. A friend posting on facebook about the recent world agreement on cutting back  on carbon emissions wondered if someone had yet invented a solar-powered snowmachine. That hit home; what do we do with the folks who depend on small engines for survival – not automobiles, but snowmachines and generators and chainsaws and water pumps, all powered by small gasoline engines.

For much of my adult life I have had a relatively small carbon footprint. At on point the only internal combustion engine I owned was a chainsaw and you can guess how many hours a year that burned up gasoline. If I used a gallon a year it was a lot. My collection grew slightly to a generator that I used to energize power tools, also not a big user. Lately though I find myself using it more, watching movies and the like and I have it running right now to power the cellular signal booster that gives me a relaible connection to allow me to be writing and posting this. Eventually I bought a snowmachine and then a four-wheeler. I installed propane lights and a propane cooking range in the cabin.  Over the early years I went 11 years without a car. Then I got married and had to have two – something I still don't quite understand.

So today I looked around and it's a generator, a chainsaw and a snowmachine. Oh yes, and my Jeep sitting out at the trailhead, and I wonder what happens at Carbon 0 to those of us who depend on small engines? Will gasoline prices soar to exhorbitant levels that we can't afford?  Will we find solar-powered snowmachines? Unlikely. At least at first we  might be victims of the majority.  But thinking further, I suppose all of those could be electric with charging energy supplied by solar or wind generation.

Perhaps it is time for some creativity and invention to be able to supply the demand when the time comes because thinking back to Sidney Huntington, those of us living off the grid (even short timers like me) don't have a lot of margin for any more sacrifice.

Shadows oh the Koyukuk, The Sidney Huntington Story

Solstice and poetry

I was putzing around the cabin today and NPR had a program of a woman reading poetry mostly about the solstice that's coming next week. A couple of things bothered me about the show. One was  why do people have to write flowery, sappy stuff about this sort of thing?  The other is why can't they wait for the event? I mean, it's still more than a week; why go all out about the solstice this far ahead of time? Perhaps it is part of my lack of success in the news business that I preferred to report what happens, not what I think is going to happen. I don't even like the sportscasters bound to predict the outcome of games and I cheer when they get it wrong especially if a whole panel of them gets it wrong.

The woman reading the poetry spoke almost in a monotone and flubbed words fairly often. Then one of her poems sounded less flowerly, more in tune with the spirituality and the history of the solstice. I listened more closely but I couldn't repeat a line if I had to; except for one. She had been reading the names of authors at the end of each poem. The name at the end of this one stopped me in mid sweep – Patricia Monaghan. My friend, my muse, my co-conspirator, who died of cancer a couple of years ago. It hit me as if she had been reading the poem herself and a flood of her words rushed to my mind. What stood out though is that her words are living on, she has a legacy and I am a witness to her success.

I only wish i could message her and tell her how I heard her poem way out here in the deep Alaska woods. She would have loved that.

A conversation
Monaghan on the solstice

Faith

Some days you just have to take it on faith that the mountain's still out there.

Storm on Denali

An extended long gray cloud obscures some of the lower slope of Denali, North America's tallest mountain Monday, Dec. 7, 2015. The peak at 20,300 feet rises above the cloud. What looks like a cloud stretches off the top to the right, but that's not a cloud. It's snow blowing off the summit in one of the wind storms that enhance legends of the mountain.

Best recollection of 2015 of the day so far

Every so often a headline shows up that just has to be reported, or a broadcaster says something so inane it just has to be pointed out. I have been posting them on facebook now and then under a heading like "Best such and such of the day so far." I got the idea a collection of them might be fun and satisfy an old journalist's compulsion to do some kind of year-end roundup, so here are the ones I found from the past year.

Meercat Expert Attacked Monkey Handler Over Love Affair With Llama Keeper

Worst analogy of the day so far: "Snow comes out of the sky like bleached flies."

Best sports quote of the day so far: World Series, "When it gets down to it at the end of this series it will be whose strength is stronger.

Best headline of the day so far: Duck Wearing Bow-Tie Walks Into Pub, Drinks Pint, Fights Dog, Loses

Best football analyst comment today so far: Michigan has won three shutouts in a row. Looking to the future an analyst says, “If they can eliminate turnovers they can win some games."

Best sports announcer comment of the day so far: "First you have to get two strikes on the hitter before you get the strikeout." Play-by-play guy: "Thats true."

Some are just plain interesting. I called this one Best crankshaft of the day so far: The Finnish Wärtsilä-Sulzer RTA96-C is the world's largest engine and powers the largest marine vessels in the world. It's a 25,480 liter, 14-cylinder engine that produces nearly 110,000 horsepower and 5.6 million lbs-ft of torque. Note the three men standing next to it. You have a crankshaft in your car's engine.

I hope these are enjoyed; you have no idea how tedious job it has been on iPhone and iPad.

Serenity now