This tree is from my past. I took the picture in August, 2018. It’s along the road from Arcata to Mad River Beach – the beach closest to the home where I grew up.
I didn’t mess with the washing machine today. The laundry can wait. I took a break, and did geofiction.
[daily log: walking, 6.5km; c103062077084s]
ㅁ The trees made gestures, showing exaltation, and clearly hoping they could fly away. The slugs were tasting stones on lower paths, that clouds prepared with frequent irrigation.
– a quatrain in blank verse (iambic pentameter).
This tree saw a dumptruck up on a pile of rocks. Maybe it was full of caveats.
It never rains but it pours, some more.
I installed a bypass for the filter system. It was a lot of work – I was a full-time plumber today.
I turned it on. It doesn’t leak. The filters shown here are not functioning – they’re missing internal pieces that we ordered. The pipes encircling the filter system are my day’s assault on plumbing and engineering standards. I should have taken a “before” photo but I didn’t.
This all works, so I disconnected the temporary hose bypass mentioned in yesterday’s blog post, and decided celebrate by re-hooking up the washing machine and doing some laundry. Unfortunately, the door latch mechanism on the washing machine is broken. This has happened before: see blog from 2 1/2 years ago. I’m exhausted and beginning to feel burned out on home- and boat-repair issues. And the end is not in sight. I guess I’ll mess with the washing machine tomorrow.
[daily log: walking, 5km; plumbing, 8hr; c106063072084s]
ㅁ The sun appeared for just a day, or two. Enough to dry the rocks but not the trees. The streams became a little slower then, but rain and fog returned to hurry them.
– a quatrain in blank verse (iambic pentameter).
This tree is awaiting more rain.
It never rains but it pours. On top of the boat problem, this morning it turned out the UV water filter system had managed to stop working during a brief power outage yesterday. it turned out the florescent UV bulb inside it was burned out. Art did have a replacement on hand, but unfortunately there’s a glass protective sleeve that goes around, that somehow broke on trying to reinstall things – I suspect I was doing something wrong. But in all the cardboard tubes which I thought had spare, additional glass protective sleeves, there was nothing but air – Arthur was saving them for some reason, but the result was that I thought we had more backup inventory than in fact we had. So now we have to await a re-order of protective sleeves from Amazon. Meanwhile, it turns out that when Arthur built this filter system, he didn’t take into account the possibility that it might need to be bypassed temporarily. There’s no bypass route or valves. So… I had to construct a bypass using a garden hose from an upstream spigot to a downstream spigot – the latter being the water source for the washing machine. Here is the hose, coming up the stairs…
… and connecting behind the washing machine.
This more-or-less works for water supply, though our laundry facility is disabled. But now we wait 10 days while Amazon delivers the part we need. I will work on re-engineering the filter installation area so that it has an actual, workable bypass system for events like this in the future.
[daily log: walking, 5.5km; c100060076084s]
ㅁ my mouth's full of mush some mornings nothing feels right my tongue's still half dead
– a pseudo-haiku.
This tree saw a fog-bank attacking the midsection of Sunnahae Mountain.
Except for our trip to town for Thursday shopping, I spent almost the entire day trying to troubleshoot or fix the boat’s engine – problem was described two weeks ago on our abortive fishing trip. I made very little progress. I changed spark plugs, fuel filters – not super easy, given the boat was in the water and my own lack of experience with marine engines, but I’m good at reading a manual. I added stabilizer to the fuel system. I ran the motor for several hours, messing with the throttle and trying to get the idle to stick. No luck. And taking the boat in for service is not in the cards: the guy in town who does boat service is booked until October. Seriously.
[daily log: walking, 7.5km; dogwalking, 3km; c120070067084s]
ㅁ Some maps show landscapes that defy imaginings and change what we know.
– a pseudo-haiku.
This tree is down a hill, with another tree.
[daily log: walking, 5.5km; retailing, 8.5hr; c101068066084s]
ㅁ Like so many dreams, I was studying language, not understanding.
– a pseudo-haiku.
This tree was near some rocks.
[daily log: walking, 5.5km; retailing, 6hr; c105058074084s]
ㅁ Several ravens all congregated and squawked below the treehouse.
– a pseudo-haiku.
This tree stood in the background while I exploited a moment of non-rain to begin trying to diagnose our boat’s engine’s problem. Something is causing it not to idle. I took out and inspected the spark plugs. Turns out Art doesn’t have a spare set – so I’ll shop for them tomorrow.
[daily log: walking, 5km; dogwalking, 4km; c103059072084s]
ㅁ Kiamon sat and considered her slump: nothing moved forward, she just was a lump. Nevertheless things would brighten, she thought. Then she would finally find what she sought.
– a quatrain in dactylic tetrameter.
This tree seemed to enjoy the rain.
[daily log: walking, 2km; c115074055084s]
ㅁ The map showed errors. "Reality's not that way." Oh, but my dreams are.
– a pseudo-haiku.
This tree was beside a dog. Or was it vice versa?
[daily log: walking, 4.5km; dogwalking, 3km; c098065060084s]
ㅁ I failed to write words instead I only thought them they escaped my grasp
– a pseudo-haiku.
This tree thinks it’s fall. Is it wrong?
[daily log: walking, 4.5km; dogwalking 3km; c091049059084s]
ㅁ Fog disrespects sea, blurs its hard-won boundaries, leaves it dissolute.
– a pseudo-haiku.
This tree noted some incipient fogginess.
[daily log: walking, 5.5km; dogwalking, 4km; c099052059084s]
ㅁ I awoke at night, midway between the twilights, and stood in the dark.
– a pseudo-haiku.
This tree is a guest tree from my past. I took this picture in August, 2018, on a visit to the town of my birth. There’s a city park in Arcata called Redwood Park, a few blocks from the house I grew up in. These are the eponymous trees.
Really I just like saying the word “eponymous.”
[daily log: walking, 5.5km; retailing, 8.5hr; c108061054084s]
ㅁ I dreamed that I was Elon Musk, in jail for doing fraud; a silly judge passed sentence then: "He'll go to space, abroad!" They put me on my rocket ship along with certain staff; I'd brought my markers and a mug, I knew I'd have last laugh. We set course for my favorite spot, that planet over there; "To Mars!" I said, "we'll start anew!" But I'd forgot: no air.
– three stanzas in ballad meter.
This tree experienced having a wind-chime attached to it.
The wind chime was a gift from neighbor-down-the-road, Penny. It was a treehouse-warming gift, as she explained. But in fact I had bought the exact same wind chime at my place of work two weeks ago. That one was hung in my treehouse already. So instead, I took this second wind-chime and suspended it in a tree in front of Arthur’s house. I wonder if he will notice it. It might be a while – I’m not going to tell him, and see how long it takes. I’ll try to remember to report when he notices it.
[daily log: walking, 5.5km; retailing, 8.5hr; c113065059084s]
ㅁ The weather forecast denied that the rain was there but I knew better.
– a pseudo-haiku.
This tree is over there.
[daily log: walking, 3km; dogwalking, 3km; c098063065084s]
ㅁ There's a rule for all the stones: "gravity" is how it goes and so they will fill the holes.
– an englyn milwr.
This tree was seen through window glass.
[daily log: walking, 4.5km; c111061060084s]
After a very long winter season, we resumed fishing today. As usual, Arthur gave me basically zero notice of his expectation. His approach has always been “military style”: never announce plans in advance, better to catch those around you unawares with whatever project you have in mind. His idea of advance notice is to say something at bedtime the night before a proposed early departure. Still, I’d more or less expected it – it was bound to happen sooner or later. He has a hard time conceptualizing the idea of “preparing” for going fishing – in his mind, the boat is always ready and nothing could possibly go wrong, it’s just a matter of walking down to it, staring the engines, and pulling away from the dock.
That said, really, it wasn’t much of a fishing trip. It was more of a “shakedown” cruise to see where we stood with boat after such a long period of non-use.
On the positive side: it still floats.
On the negative side, we seem to have some increasingly serious engine issues – the stuttering problem we’ve seen on and off in previous years (and which has never been diagnosed) did NOT return, but we did have issues with the engine not staying running on idle – which is very problematic, because it must be in idle to shift it into gear – and we got the “overheating” alarm several times, essentially randomly. I’m not sure what’s going on, but it may need a visit to the mechanic for service. The problem, of course, with that, is that it’s a quite involved process to get the boat to the mechanic. We may pull it out of the water and try flushing the engine’s cooling, and I might research online on how to adjust the idle on these types of engines (if possible – I think they’re without carburetors, using fuel injection instead).
Another negative – one of the downriggers wasn’t working. An electrical problem, in the source cable – not in the downrigger itself, as it worked fine when plugged in to the other downrigger’s socket. So I’ll have to try to solve this electrical problem. I’ve messed with this issue before (last year? Or was it the year before that?).
We departed the dock at around 8:30. It was overcast but flat. We went to Caldera, a spot which I associate with luck with catching coho early in the season. We got a tiny black bass and tiny rockfish with our one working downrigger, which was reassuring – we know the hooks are working, right? But no coho.
The wind picked up shortly after we started trolling. The forecast was that a big storm with 4- or 5-foot swells on Bucarelli was coming in by this evening, so we decided we’d done enough testing of our systems, and got home again by noon. Arthur was cold. He suffers a lot from feeling cold, these days – it might be one reason why he has much less patience for fishing up here than he used to.
Here’s the boat before launch, anticipating its upcoming short voyage.
ㅁ Yesterday, I made my first window for my many-angled treehouse. Of course it is imperfect. But I put in some glass, applied some putty quite messily, and looked out at blue sea.
– a nonnet.
This tree was near a decrepit trailer.
“Alaskan Gothic”
[daily log: walking, 6.5km; dogwalking, 3km; c098065066084s]
ㅁ Yesterday, I made some fish curry. I started making curry paste, with the mortar and pestle I'd bought in Korea; then I fry onion with zucchini, tomato, last, add fish.
– a nonnet.
