This tree was on a hillside above some newly exposed dirt and gravel.
[daily log: walking, 2km;]
Month: August 2023
Caveat: Paine River
[This is a cross-post from my other blog.]
My low-effort brag-post for this week is showing the “twin towns” of Glensheen and Paine River, in the southeast part of the state of Makaska. Like all of region surrounding metropolitan Ohunkagan, these towns are currently stuck in a time-warp, sometime around 1920, as I try to develop the whole region chronologically. In the 1920’s, Glensheen, with its active port and industrial base, far exceeded Paine River in size. However, my expectation is that by the contemporary era, the towns will have equalized in size, as the industrial base in Glensheen declines and the exurban clout of Paine River grows. Paine River will be the modern southernmost terminus of a commuter rail line all up and down the “Silicon Shore” south of central Ohunkagan. The farm and forestlands are still a bit schematic, and need detailing, but the basics are definitely in place. I’m particularly pleased with how you can see the interaction of topography and landuse in the topo view.
Here is the area in regular view.
Here is the area in topo view.
This area is found on the opengeofiction map here: https://opengeofiction.net/#map=13/-43.1165/145.8464&layers=B
Caveat: Poem #2584 “Standard procedure”
ㅁ the morning took steps to ameliorate night and dispel darkness
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Tree #1677 “Foundation”
This tree was next to the newly built foundation for the utility shed (“cabin”?) on lot 73.
[daily log: walking, 4km; retailing, 8hr]
Caveat: Poem #2583 “Downrange”
ㅁ Down in the ditches, dodging rocks, excavators... immersed in my dreams
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Tree #1676 “Retention”
This tree was behind a newly-built rock retaining wall.
[daily log: walking, 5km; retailing, 8hr]
Caveat: lavez votre cerveau
Chanson dada I La chanson d’un dadaïste qui avait dada au cœur fatiguait trop son moteur qui avait dada au cœur l’ascenceur portait un roi lourd fragile autonome il coupa son grand bras droit l’envoya au pape à rome c’est pourquoi l’ascenceur n’avait plus dada au cœur mangez du chocolat lavez votre cerveau dada dada buvez de l’eau II la chanson d’un dadaïste qui n’était ni gai ni triste et aimait une bicycliste qui n’était ni gaie ni triste mais l’époux le jour de l’an savait tout et dans une crise envoya au vatican leur deux corps en trois valises ni amant ni cyciste n’étaient plus ni gais ni tristes mangez de bons cerveaux lavez votre soldat dada dada buvez de l’eau III la chanson d’un bicycliste qui était dada de cœur qui était donc dadaïste comme tous les dadas de cœur un serpent portait des gants il ferma vite la soupape mit des gants en peau d’serpent et vint embrasser le pape c’est touchant ventre en fleur n’avait plus dada au cœur buvez du lait d’oiseaux lavez vos chocolats dada dada mangez du veau - Tristan Tzara (Romanian-French poet, 1896-1963)
Caveat: Poem #2582 “A celebratory slide”
ㅁ The rain arrived to end the dust, the birds took it in stride; the slugs jumped out into the grass, to take a little slide.
– a quatrain in ballad meter.
Caveat: Tree #1675 “Herd of cormorants in morning sun”
This tree was across the inlet from a herd of cormorants on neighbor Brant’s boat. Note also the young eagle on the dock ramp railing.
[daily log: walking, 5km; laboring, 6hr]
Caveat: Poem #2581 “So tired”
ㅁ My body was tired, so then my brain stopped working, which was quite awkward.
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Tree #1674 “Magpie with tree”
This tree is a guest tree from my past. I took this picture of a tree-trunk and adjacent magpie while walking to or from work one day in June, 2011, in Goyang, Gyeonggi, South Korea (경기도 고양시 일산서구).
[daily log: walking, 5km; laboring, 6hr]
Caveat: Poem #2580 “The alien”
ㅁ The sun's alien in this rainforest landscape. I await its going.
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Tree #1673 “In a ditch”
This tree oversaw the proliferation of plumbing.
[daily log: walking, 4km; laboring, 5hr]
Caveat: Poem #2579 “Pogo whacker”
ㅁ the "pogo whacker" is a thing for compacting, pounding down the rocks
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Tree #1672 “Labor”
This tree was there as we labored to start placing the piers that will support the new utility shed on lot 73.
[daily log: walking, 5km; laboring 8hr;]
Caveat: Poem #2578 “The Demiurge”
ㅁ labor attached to land real-life geofiction machines to move the stones and dirt change things
– a cinquain.
Caveat: Tree #1671 “Pipes”
This tree was beside the new trench where up the hill service pipes go: water, future propane, electricity.
[daily log: walking, 5km; compacting gravel, 1hr;]
Caveat: Poem #2577 “Zombie banality”
ㅁ future was arriving like a dim sleepwalker devoid of useful agency but real
– a cinquain.
Caveat: Tree #1670 “Due to the fires”
This tree caught some morning sunlight stained yellow by smoke from Canadian wildfires.
These days I am quite exhausted at the end of the day. Too much going on, too much emotional energy getting used up. I’ve been in burnout mode.
[daily log: walking, 5.5km; retailing, 8hr;]
Caveat: Poem #2576 “The floor is open to comments”
ㅁ some ravens at six-mile congregate and flap around discuss the weather
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Tree #1669 “On edge”
This tree was alarmed by an interloping excavator.
Richard, the excavatorer, seemed a bit on edge yesterday.
Richard does excellent work and is highly competent – he knows the “right way” to do things and works efficiently – but he is difficult to communicate with, because he has very strong opinions which he believes to be facts. Sometimes you just have to let him do it “his way” and adapt to what he’s done afterward, similar to dealing with natural disasters.
[daily log: walking, 5.5km; retailing, 8hr;]
Caveat: Poem #2575 “Riggin’ fit”
ㅁ So Richard told me 'bout when Joe... he had a "riggin' fit": it happens when a thing don't work, so you get mad at it
– a quatrain in ballad meter.
Caveat: Tree #1668 “A shift in the weather”
This tree thought there might be a shift in the weather. The last few days the nights have been slightly cooler, and I noticed today that the fireweed was changing color.
[daily log: walking, 6km;]
Caveat: Poem #2574 “The worm’s lament”
ㅁ I trimmed some wildish plants to clear the spots where work is planned. A crawly worm got in my shirt "Get out, you bug, you're banned!"
– a quatrain in ballad meter.
Caveat: Tree #1667 “A lack of awareness”
This tree was unaware of the fish in the nearby sea.
[daily log: walking, 5km;]
Caveat: Fishing Report #(n + i)
You will have noticed the lack of Fishing Report features on this here blog, this summer. I have avoided going out fishing with Arthur through the last several months – though Arthur, too, has been avoiding, in his spectacularly non-communicative way. But now that Wayne is here visiting, you would think there would be fishing reports.
Actually, Wayne and Arthur have just now gone out fishing in the boat for the third day running. And I’ve avoided going with them. This has forced me to acknowledge a very difficult emotional truth about myself:
I hate fishing.
I didn’t used to hate fishing. I used to rather enjoy it, I think.
But nowadays, Arthur’s spectre hangs over my shoulder and whispers to me, inevitably, that I am doing it wrong. That was Arthur’s habit in the best of times – he’d tell me I was doing it wrong, or worse, just barge in and take over, because he wasn’t always great at explaining how to do it right. He was better at demonstrating. But at least in the past, his telling me that I was doing it wrong was accompanied by an effort to teach me how to do it right.
The last vestiges of that mentoring behavior evaporated last summer. It was in that moment when he announced to me, forlornly, that he’d forgotten how to deploy the downriggers on the boat. That left me doing everything, while he just watched sulkily.
And yet… he still found it in himself, later on that same trip, to tell me that I was doing it wrong. I think it broke something inside me.
So there is just no way I want to go out fishing with Arthur. Nevertheless I have neither the self-confidence in my own ability, nor the cruelty toward Arthur, to somehow go out fishing without him.
So I’ve been miserable. And I’m done fishing, I guess.
That’s too bad.
I’ll be glad when fishing season is over and the boat is back in the barn, and the people around me stop talking about fishing constantly.
Caveat: Poem #2573 “Napping at dawn”
ㅁ sleep slips in takes over just a moment and i can dream i'm shouting at the moon
– a tetractys.
Caveat: Tree #1666 “Arcata, California, 1965”
This tree is a guest tree from my past. Farther in my past than other guest trees, this photo was taken, probably by my mother or father, in front of the house they bought in far northern California in the year I was born. That’s my dad’s Model A Ford parked in front, and the trailer it had towed out from Kentucky a few years before. He still has both the car (which still runs, sporadically) and the trailer. The cherry tree in the photo, in the house’s front yard, is long gone, replaced by quite different trees.
[daily log: walking, 3km;]
Caveat: Poem #2572 “A dog’s annoyance”
ㅁ The dog had seen the baby bear, she wanted to give chase. The leash prevented fast pursuit: frustration on her face.
– a quatrain in ballad meter.
Caveat: Tree #1665 “Not fishing”
This tree was on the shore while Arthur and Wayne went out in the boat to try to catch fish.
It was nice to have a break. As I’ve mentioned before, fishing with Arthur, for me, is not actually fun at all. Arthur has strong feelings about how fishing should happen, and he doesn’t have any confidence in my ability to navigate or assist. I’m still a 12-year-old kid in his eyes, often times. But with his cognitive and physical challenges, these days, he isn’t really equipped to actually be the captain of the boat. So going out in the boat with him is a huge emotional challenge. He gets mad and has tantrums, or he just gives up and sulks. Or he gets obsessed about one issue or another, like the time we spent 40 minutes circling a spot in the water because we’d dropped a bucket in the water and he insisted we try to get it back.
Anyway, I expect the dynamic with him in the boat with Wayne would go differently. Art and Wayne are peers, firstly, and secondly, Wayne is the person who actually taught Arthur much of his fishing skills and boat-craft, many years ago. So Arthur will not distrust Wayne’s suggestions or skills.
Regardless, I could tell Wayne was tired from their half day out on the water together. Simply communicating with Arthur is exhausting – the combination of incipient deafness and difficulty with language processing combine to make it a slog to interact with him.
I haven’t been avoiding going out in the boat with Arthur – if anything, he’s been avoiding going out in the boat at all. He seems vaguely aware of his issues and limitations, at some level, and so he spends a lot of time making up excuses for why we don’t need to go out fishing. And I’ve been happy to enable him. And I was happy, today, to let Wayne take it on. I feel guilty that I was happy about that. Living up here, it’s very hard to explain to the people around me that I have come to actually rather strongly dislike fishing. But that’s what’s happened. I’m sorry.
They caught a few salmon, and a ling-cod.
[daily log: walking, 4.5km;]
Caveat: Poem #2571 “Fish worship”
ㅁ fish create obsessions and burning needs among visitors to this remote island in southeastern Alaska and it's all people talk about when socializing around the town
– a reverse nonnet.
Caveat: Tree #1664 “Bright red leaves”
This tree is a guest tree from my past. I took this picture while walking to work in Goyang City, South Korea, in November, 2015. The route was frequent enough that I know exactly where this tree is, even 8 years later.
[daily log: walking, 3km;]
Caveat: Poem #2570 “To get where you’re going”
ㅁ A nonnet starts from some position and unfolds itself with slow steps - a teleological, but not quite knowable - journey down a path to simple ends, with only lonely words.
– a nonnet.