In a rainforest, one’s roommates might be mushrooms.
Other pictures…
An autumnal imagistic inversion.
Walking into fog.
Greenery seen through clear water.
What I’m listening to right now.
Saint-Saëns, “Symphony No 3 in C minor, Op 78,” Orchestre de Paris with Paavo Järvi, conductor.
[daily log: walking, 4km]
One of my major on-going projects since coming here to Alaska has been to assist my uncle in taking the initial steps to “improve” (read “develop” and make buildable) the adjacent lot to the west, which he also owns.
Foremost was the need to build a driveway down the slope toward the water. This was, in fact, the project Arthur was working on when he had his accident – he was trying to survey the western property line so that Richard (the excavator operator) would have some guidance when he came in with his big machinery to cut the driveway.
So when Arthur and I first got up here, we finished that job.
Then Richard came out, starting in September, and cut the driveway. Arthur liked to grumble that Richard was destroying too many trees, but I think his complaints were with the understanding that in the given topography and the limitations of the plan and intention, there wasn’t much alternative in how he had to go forward.
The next step is to get approval for the septic system, since that would have to precede any house construction, obviously.
So I have been working on that. I completed a sketch-draft this morning, after thinking through the most reasonable place for where a house might go, talking it through (and through and through, ad infinitum) with Arthur and Richard.
Here are some pictures and my rough sketch plan. Hopefully we’ll get the engineer to begin the formal application process for the septic system if this passes muster.
Here is the lot plan. It’s very rough – it’s not a design drawing, but rather a suggestion to the engineer, to make clear our intentions.
I also prepared this photo with annotations, looking down the new driveway.
Here is a view toward Arthur’s water shed (on adjacent lot 74 to the east).
Here a view from the new parking area onto the expressway (Port Saint Nicholas Road).
Here is Arthur, supervising (observing) the excavator.
[daily log: walking, 4km]
Despite evidence of the cruelest tortures, the gnarled old tool did not betray the close-held secrets of its prior loyalties.
[daily log: walking, 3km]
I’m not feeling particularly communicative with this here blog lately.
Here are some pictures. More trees and water, which is what there is around here.
[daily log: walking, 4km]
Arthur and I drove into town this evening and had dinner with Richard and Jan and Frank and Heidi and Marshall. These are all denizens of Craig, who have been supportive of Arthur over the last summer’s events, and of course Jan and Richard have been helpful too with my move here and Richard is the guy with the excavator who put in the new driveway on the western lot.
Frank is a fisherman and he makes homemade moonshine (an apple brandy) which we sampled, and yes it’s very strong liquor but I thought it wasn’t bad at all.
Arthur prepared his famous chiles rellenos, and we had that with beans and salad at Jan and Richard’s for dinner.
[daily log: walking, 4km]
Somewhat to my surprise, Arthur didn’t want to walk with me today. I think he enjoys walking in the rain less than I do. And I know I’m weird. Anyway, I went on my daily walk alone, in the rain.
[daily log: walking, 4.5km]
Como suele enunciar mi tio, “never vote for an incumbent.”
No estoy seguro de si así hace. Me parece que sus instintos libertarios (o sea, anti-gobierno) son demasiados fuertes para que se atreva a votar por un demócrata. Acá en Alaska, los titulares son en su mayoría republicanos. Pero en en general no conversamos sobre asunto políticos. Sé que somos diferentes.
De todos modos, los votamos.
[daily log: walking, 4km]
One thing I try to do is take a daily walk. It’s important to get out of the house. I think it’s good for Arthur, too. It’s hard to get motivated when it rains for days on end. Interestingly, I don’t in any way make him take walks. I announce that I’m going for a walk, and he inevitably comes along, rain or shine. I’m certain he wouldn’t if it was just him alone, even though we are not at all social during our walks – he mostly listens to his “audiobooks” while I observe the world and sometimes take pictures.
I often end up far behind or ahead of him, depending on whether I’ve stopped to look at something or if I’m pacing myself relative to his progress. Here is a picture of Arthur far ahead down the road, during a continuous drizzle.
[daily log: walking, 3km]
Nothing much to say. Arthur complains he’s not doing anything. I told him he’s retired. He said no, “just tired.”
Some pictures.
On a stormy, windy morning, the sky broke open and spilled out a rainbow…
A jagged snag…
The leaves are leaving…
An archeology of the air…
The river – just add water…
[daily log: walking, 4km]
I located the last of the southern platt stakes, today.
The context:
This was the last one that needed to be found. The three southern stakes were what needed to be located – they are the ones high up on the hillside. The northern stakes (by the water) are all easily located – just walk along the shore. Total: 6 stakes, for two rectangular lots with a shared border between them.
I feel this is a great accomplishment.
So why do we need to know where these stakes are? We need to properly locate the western properly line. So my next job is to clear a line between this last stake and the road through the trees and brush, on a bearing 4 degrees east of north. That is the western property line.
[daily log: walking, 4km; tromping, 300m]
Last night, Arthur decided that it was time to bring in the “rails” from his boat ramp. It’s like a miniature, 15 meter railroad stuck out into the water; it’s how he gets his boat in and out of the water and up into his little boat shed. The rails stick down into the water as far as the low tide line, so it takes a very low tide to expose the lowest rails. So during the winter, normally, he wants to pull in the lowest rails to minimize the weather damage on them through the winter, when he won’t be launching his boat in any event.
There was a low tide at 10:22 PM. And all the lowest tides to be expected over the next month are at night – so this was the best we could do. We got a floodlight to shine around, went down onto the rocky beach where the boatramp is, unbolted the lowest two stretches of rails, and carried them up to the landing beside the boat shed.
It was really hard work. As is our normal pattern, when we’re most effective, Arthur provided the expertise, while I provided a lot of the hard labor.
There are no pictures – it was dark.
[daily log: walking, 4km]
Arthur and I went over to his friends / neighbors Jeri and Karl this evening for dinner. A three mile drive down the road, they have a beautiful self-built house on the inlet, where they park their sailboat. They are interesting people.
I took this picture earlier, as we were about to leave.
[daily log: walking, 3km]
I spent a lot of time on my tax work today. I got as far as sending off an email to the preparer with a first draft of the spreadsheet I have to make, summarizing my Korean income for the past 5 years of missed tax filings.
I’m sure the work isn’t done. But anyway, I get to take a justified break, since I put the ball in the other person’s court for a while.
So that’s a relief.
It rained all day. I had to help Arthur with the gutter again. It didn’t go as badly as yesterday – but I really don’t like heights.
[daily log: walking, 3km]
This is the Craig I remember so fondly from my times here before.
Some pictures.
[daily log: walking, 4km]
Arthur was talking on the phone with his friend Dean the other day. I only heard one side of the conversation, but Arthur said something quite funny and self-reflective.
I guess Dean had asked him how his recovery was going, in the “physical aspects” versus the “mental aspects.”
Arthur’s answer (in paraphrase) was: “The physical aspects are doing fine, about what’s to be expected, not that different from before [the accident], and the mental aspects, well, they’re a no brainer.”
Huh – get it? – “no brainer.”
I laughed pretty hard at that.
[daily log: walking, 4km]
Here are some photos from yesterday and today. It’s been raining a lot. And I’ve been very busy building a new blog host – I’m self hosting it on my server. I’m not sure this is a permanent solution, but it will work for now. I need to make sure I’m doing backups.
[daily log: walking, 4.5km]
I found out today that my blog host, Typepad, has altered a functionality upon which I have relied heavily. I have, for the last 4 years, been hosting all my pictures "off-site" relative to the blog. This helps me keep them organized, helps me keep control of them from an "intellectual property" standpoint, and makes it easier to be "disaster resistant" in the event of problems with data integrity at the blog hosting server.
It relies, however, on the blog host software respecting the integrity of the out-linking URLs for all those pictures.
If you scan through my blog today, you will see that all my picture links are broken. ALL OF THEM. Typepad doesn't approve of the link protocol of my picture-hosting server (i.e. it's "h t t p" rather than "https"). [And holy crap! – it's using some kludgey rewrite on the actual text of my blog entries – I can't even MENTION "h t t p" without it being "corrected" – hence the spaces in the mentions, here. So it's not only bad policy, it's bad programming, too!]
I have two possible solutions.
1) Migrate my photos to a different server, so that the links will work again (the current picture server doesn't accommodate the new, supposedly "more secure" URLs that Typepad is forcing on me)
2) Migrate my blog to a different host. All of it.
Both of these represent a lot of work.
I feel I can no longer trust my blog host with my data, however.
So much for the "lifetime guarantee." I have been with Typepad for 14 years. I had some intuition that it would come to a bad end, but I had hoped against hope it wouldn't. Such hopes were unfounded, as we can see.
I guess I have a new project to work on, to procrastinate on my taxes.
[daily log: walking, 4km]
Today was a day with a few bureaucratic milestones. I finally completed the process of getting my Alaskan ID/Driver License, and I also got my voter registration.
I finally feel I am taking the first steps to becoming an Alaskan. It's a strange thing to contemplate.
[daily log: walking, 2km]
I did more tromping up on the hillside today, looking for that southwest stake. Earlier, in the morning, I contemplated my destiny in the form of a screen full of text. I do this a lot.
Here is the river today.
[daily log: walking, 4km; tromping, 300m]
It's already the middle of October. This is some vacation, eh?
Not so bad at all. I have certain hobbies: I'm doing some writing (I mean besides the poetry, seen here); I tromp up the hill and look for stakes when it's not too wet; I sort my books and other possessions some; and there's that annoying tax documentation, which I spend a great deal of time stressing over and a smaller portion of time actually working on. I have my neuroses.
This morning I was up the hill, tromping, and I felt clever because I finagled a way to carry the chainsaw up there attached to my back, so I could have both hands free ("4 points of contact") to go up the steep, slippery trail. With practice, comes competence.
[daily log: walking, 4km; tromping, 250m]
Yesterday I found the middle stake on the southern property line – the division between the two lots of Arthur's property here. Now from here, I should be able to use the same technique to find the southwestern stake, which was the original quest.
I had begun to worry I was an incompetent stake-locator. Therefore I am pleased that I succeeded in this task, and it gives me optimism for finding the next one – I know how to do it now, and I know the method I used works. Basically, I used string measured to the appropriate length, and a precision bearing, using a compass app in my smartphone.
[daily log: walking, 4km]
On our afternoon walk, I found a mysterious brightly painted piece of rock at the 8 mile bridge on the Port Saint Nicholas Expressway.
I wonder what it was?
[daily log: walking, 4km]
I think Richard has decided I need training to be an Alaskan. He asked for my help on his landing craft again today. So when Arthur and I went into town, Arthur hung out with Jan (Richard's wife and, coincidentally, Arthur's local VA advocate), I spent a few hours with him putting on the port side deck piece over the other engine, which he'd gotten dropped in place. It's a two-person job because one person has to be on each side of the deck (above and below), while the nuts and bolts go through and get attached.
Here is the landing craft. The engines are at the back, in the compartment under the cabin canopy at the stern of the boat.
It was raining the whole time we worked, and the tide came in, so that halfway through the work the boat began floating, lending a certain instability to the proceedings.
[daily log: walking, 2km]
I went into town early this morning, because I'd offered to help Richard (the guy who's doing the work clearing the adjacent lot, here, with his excavator) with his work on his landing craft. I mentioned his landing craft a few weeks ago when Juli and Keith and I visited it (previous blog post).
He got his starboard engine installed, and is putting on the deck over it. It's a two person job to be on both sides of the deck piece (above and below) while the bolts are all attached. So I got to climb around the engine compartment. A good morning's entertainment.
[daily log: walking, 4km]
I broke down the temporary tarp arrangement over all my stuff (meaning, the stuff he didn't want in his house – about half of what I shipped here). It was time to free up Arthur's driveway and start using my new storage unit. Which is a glorified tent.
So I moved it all in.
Classified Ad
Furnished Studio: premium plastic tarp construction, dock access, moss garden adjacent, slightly tilted, no electricity or plumbing – classic " Alaskan granny flat".
[daily log: walking, 1km; boxes, a lot]
Today had a foggy morning.
I'm feeling overwhelmed by the tax paperwork I've been working on, but I genuinely feel it should be my priority.
I sense Arthur is frustrated, too – by his own struggles. He doesn't feel in control, but as time passes, he seems to be becoming more aware of not being in control. I can see the discomfort of it. One has to decode his remarks: "Full Ahead Slow" means things are going OK. "It is what it is" indicates extreme displeasure.
Life goes on. Winds cleared the sky in the afternoon.
[daily log: walking, 3km]
Arthur says this all the time. It's like his motto, nowadays.
So it's mine, too.
Here is the water, just after dawn.
Here are some alders (I think – not totally confident on tree identification, here, yet).
Here is a snail, crossing the road.
[daily log: walking, 4km]
I more-or-less completed my little "studio" (as I'm jokingly calling my new storage unit). I assembled the frame, put on the plastic top and sides, bought another tarp as a floor and put down some plywood down the center to be a walkway into it. I'll get my pile of possessions sitting under the ad hoc tarp in Arthur's driveway moved into this slightly less temporary arrangement.
[daily log: walking, 4km]
This made me laugh a lot. Plus, I like that old song.
Arthur and I went shopping in town today. I also made progress on constructing my storage facility. Finally, we saw a bear cross the road during our afternoon walk.
The bear did not play a drum solo, however. Sometimes the wildlife lets you down, I guess.
[daily log: walking, 4km]
It was only a test.
My phone surprised me this morning. It announced an emergency, but it was only a test. Some kind of national wireless emergency test message. But my phone made noises I've never heard it make before – it was a bit alarming, until I figured out what it was about.
The Korean government sends out advisories and warnings all the time – flood warnings for some area nearby, heat wave advisories, extreme cold advisories – those messages were part of the background of my everyday life in Korea, and I rather enjoyed getting them, because they would give me opportunities to decipher some Korean language.
But that kind of thing doesn't happen in the US, right? The US is in the technological dark ages… until today!
Well. Consider me alerted.
[daily log: walking, 3km]
Not much to report today. I went off tromping on the southern property line again. Slow going, my search for those other two stakes. It's fully overgrown. I'm trying for a precision method, laying string on the southern lot line, perfectly straight with the right compass bearing, from the one stake I found. It's tedious because then you need line-of-sight: trees to be moved…
Here is the mouth of the Saint Nicholas River, taken during our afternoon walk.
[daily log: walking, 4km; tromping, 300m]
I started building my new "storage unit" today. My stuff that I shipped from Minnesota – the stuff Art didn't want in his house, like all the furniture, etc. – has been sitting in his driveway wrapped in a giant plastic tarp to keep it hopefully dry. So we bought a sort of kit "garage tent" which are quite popular up here in Alaska. And I started building it today.
It's going to be set up in what I call Arthur's "moss garden" AKA his front yard. It's not much of a yard, and he said he'd rather it be there than in the driveway. I can tell it's hard for him to accept this particular thing – it's because it doesn't fit in with his view of how his property should look. Hopefully it will be temporary and I'll transition to a more permanent shed at some different location in the future.
[daily log: walking 4km]
Arthur and I were walking down the road.
As sometimes occurs, a vehicle drove by. Some days, there are no vehicles driving by. But when a vehicle drives by, Arthur knows who they are, about 80% of the time – it's a small community, up here, and he knows the people who live along his road.
So sometimes the vehicle stops. The window rolls down. A conversation happens.
In the SUV there were a husband and wife. The wife was driving. The husband had a sling type apparatus on his arm. They were going to a medical appointment in town. A story ensued – the man had fallen down on his boat. The wife apparently knew about Arthur's recent experience. She said something to the effect of, "We can't have all this falling down!"
Arthur concurred with his dry, laconic humor: "Yes. Fallin' down ain't all it's cracked up to be."
I found this pretty funny.
[daily log: walking, 3km]
