ㅁ The solstice here means not much darkness. There's sunset twilight at midnight. At three the dawn twilight comes. I am awake at three? Sometimes I wake up. Thinking strange things. Counting ghosts. Doubting. Time.
– a nonnet.
Month: June 2020
Caveat: Tree #536
This tree reflects on the nature of mud-puddles.
[daily log: walking, 2km]
Caveat: Art #56
This is the last (that I’ve been able to find) of that eccentric fantastical architecture series from the late 1980’s.
Caveat: Poem #1421 “Culinary announcement”
ㅁ I made some fish soup. It's a Chilean chowder: spicy and creamy.
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Tree #535
This tree reaches for another.
[daily log: walking, 1km]
Caveat: Art #55
This is a weird alien dude I drew in maybe 2012.
Caveat: Poem #1420 “The cartographers’ folly”
ㅁ The arbitrary placement of mountains is nonsense: complacent cartographers' debasement for simple entertainment.
– an englyn in Robertson Davies’ style.
Caveat: Tree #534
This tree conceals itself among others of its kind.
[daily log: walking, 1.5km]
Caveat: Art #54
This is an office chair I drew in 1988. I think we’re stretching the definition to call it “art,” but so it goes. If I were a very famous person, it would be worth a lot of money. So there’s that.
Caveat: Luck o’ the driveway
My loyal blog-reader and once-upon-a-time college roommate, David, had observed in a message to me a while back that he easily finds four-leaf clovers where he lives.
I have therefore been on the lookout for four-leaf clovers, among the patches of clover that have sprung up in our driveway.
I found one today. Here is the plant in question, in the center.
Here is its location in the drive way – the green patch of clover below and left of center near the rim of the retaining wall.
Caveat: Poem #1419 “Over on the north side”
ㅁ along six-mile hill the wind feinted from the sea the trees lashed and waved
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Tree #533
I saw this tree in the forest. Go figure…
[daily log: walking, 2km]
Caveat: Art #53
This is art from 2014.
Caveat: $120’s worth of crablessness
Arthur and I have occasionally dropped his lone crab pot into the water in front of the house. All of last year and through this spring, no crabs of a size worth eating have walked into the trap.
We did catch something this week though: we caught a $120 fine from the State of Alaska, who fished the waters of Port Saint Nicholas for additional revenue.
The fine was for a) a mis-labeled buoy (Arthur hadn’t included his boat license which is apparently required, and had written his enigmatic “rockpit.ak” instead of his name, which the fish and game official legitimately considered to be uninformative), and b) absence of a biodegradable locking mechanism (normally a piece of hemp string).
Arthur was disgruntled. Apparently many people along the inlet received similar fines this week, though.
This is the offending crab pot.
Caveat: Poem #1418 “Safe and sound”
ㅁ a blue fishing boat parked in the inlet last night expecting some rain
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Tree #532
The young tree grows in front of an ancient, tall stump.
[daily log: walking, 1.5km]
Caveat: Art #52
This is a bad imitation of Picasso, done in ink in my 1992 art class.
Caveat: Poem #1417 “Finch”
ㅁ The finch decides to scale my window's screen and tilts its yellow stripes to left and right.
– a couplet in blank verse (iambic pentameter).
Caveat: Tree #531
This tree awaits the sun.
[daily log: walking, 1km]
Caveat: Art #51
I drew this “Squeakinge Lisard” in March, 2013. It was to support a wikipedia article I found.
Caveat: Poem #1416 “Repetition makes it true”
ㅁ With a lot to say, but small vocabularies, the birds greet the day.
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Tree #530
This tree (these trees) await the night.
[daily log: walking, 1km]
Caveat: Art #50
This is some still life of unidentified objects from my 1988 art class.
Caveat: Poem #1415 “Indeterminate materials”
ㅁ I made a tower of stones. They reached up. One rock was cup-shaped - or bone- - can't be known.
– an englyn cil-dwrn.
Caveat: Tree #529
This tree is not actually a tree. It’s a blueberry bush. But its comportment is decidedly arboreal, in my opinion. The skunk cabbage at its base makes the whole scene look weirdly tropical.
[daily log: walking, 2km]
Caveat: Fishing Report #(n+1)
My fondness for enumeration has been made demonstrably clear by this here blog. I thought I could start enumerating fishing reports, since Art and I go out fishing now and then. But I have no idea how many fishing reports I’ve already done – the “fishing report” aspect was incorporated into other various blog entries over the last year and half, and it’s hard to go back and isolate those references.
So this enumeration will be somewhat vague as to its starting point. This is not “Fishing Report #1” but rather #(n+1), where n=’however many fishing reports I’ve already given.’
Hereforthwith, then, is the first Fishing Report explicitly declared as such.
Today, Art and I went out in the boat.
We left at 8 AM. The weather was forecast to be partly cloudy but with little wind. In fact, over the day, the skies cleared to beautiful sun, but the prediction of light wind was a bit inaccurate. It got pretty breezy, and the trip was through choppy water – especially on the way back. “Hammer off those barnacles!” Arthur insisted.
We motored out to Ulitka Bay, off the northern tip of Noyes Island. That’s open ocean (“next stop: Kamchatka!”) just around the point, there, so the swells were wide and slow.
We trolled for salmon. There were two other boats there, when we got there – a much lower number than the 20-30 we saw several times congregated at the point last summer. I expect the sport fishing season is seriously impacted by the pandemic. One boat trolled around randomly, the other was mooching close in to the rocks.
We trolled in a loop around the little bay there, and then eastward along the north shore of Noyes Island all the way to Steamboat.
We caught no salmon, but we caught a ling cod and 3 black bass. We threw back the two smaller of the black bass, as not worth the effort. The 3rd black bass we ate for dinner, and the ling cod was frozen for future soups. Despite this, Arthur will tell all our acquaintances with utter sincerity that “we caught absolutely nothing.” That’s because in his mind, only salmon and halibut count as something. I somewhat understand this, but it’s annoying too, because he gets all depressed about our fruitless fishing trip, but it’s not, technically, even true that it was fruitless.
We also put hooks on the bottom off the east side of Noyes for a bit around noon, hoping for halibut. That’s the spot where we caught halibut a week or two ago with Joe.
The sea was quite bumpy on the return trip. We got home around 2:30.
Here is a mountain on the north side of Noyes Island. It still has patches of snow in mid June.
Here is Arthur with one of our fish we caught which he will tell you is nothing.
Caveat: Art #49
This is a fractured teapot, from around 1989.
Caveat: Poem #1414 “The ephemerality of stones”
ㅁ The stones compelled the sky to pull aside, besieging time itself and standing ground. But time had better plans: it had prepared for waiting out the stones, and pulled them down.
– a quatrain in blank verse (iambic pentameter).
Caveat: Tree #528
This tree is on the neighbor’s lot, where the house burned down and which is now for sale. Anybody wanna be my neighbor?
[daily log: walking, 1.5km]
Caveat: Art #48
This is art from 2009.
Caveat: Poem #1413 “The potentiality of stones”
ㅁ the stones stand, ruins of unknowable planets spiraling outward
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Tree #527
This is a little one-foot-tall western hemlock that I tried to transplant to the gravel hillside of the new driveway.
I’ve messed some with planting alder saplings, and they seem to do well enough on average. But something about the hemlocks makes them resist transplantation – they all seem to die. This, despite growing like weeds everywhere. I think they have fragile root systems.
Anyway, this little hemlock gives me hope, because it put out some green buds just these past two days. Like maybe, it has decided to live.
I’m struggling, lately, with feeling stuck and unmotivated. I’ll wait it out.
[daily log: walking, 1km]
Caveat: Art #47
I drew this cute cartoon llama in February of 2013. Thus this is its second appearance on this here blog. But it should be included in the enumerated art for the sake of completeness.
