This tree saw the hustle and bustle in downtown Rockpit.
[daily log: walking, 5km; retailing, 7hr]
Category: A Daily Tree
Caveat: Tree #1493 “An excavation”
This tree oversaw the excavation of the car from a bunch of snow.
[daily log: walking, 2km;]
Caveat: Tree #1492 “Still life”
This tree was by the pond and covered in ice and snow.
[daily log: walking, 5km; dogwalking, 3.5km; snowshoveling, 1.5hr]
Caveat: Tree #1491 “Facing the sea”
This tree was in our neighbors’ front yard, facing the sea.
[daily log: walking, 3km; dogwalking, 3km; snowshoveling, 1hr]
Caveat: Tree #1490 “A shift in the weather”
This tree is the same tree as yesterday’s tree, but the weather changed.
I had an eye doctor appointment this morning, so I drove in the snow to town and back.
[daily log: walking, 5km;]
Caveat: Tree #1489 “The local gloom is an objective fact”
This tree was touched by the morning sun at around 8 this morning.
That’s the tallest tree on lot 73. It means that the sun is only a few days or a week away from touching the ground there, as the sun’s angle in the sky steadily increases with the approaching equinox. Because of our position on the north side of a steep mountain, for 13 weeks each year the sun is too low in the sky to reach us – we live in perpetual shadow. That’s one reason why ice persists so effectively on the road. Because of this shadow, the south side of Port Saint Nick (the environs of the vast metropolis of Rockpit, Alaska) is a fundamentally gloomier place than the sunny north side – that’s an objective fact!
Well the gloom is just about over. Which doesn’t mean an end to winter weather: we’re forecast a snowstorm this coming weekend.
[daily log: walking, 4km; dogwalking, 3km]
Caveat: Tree #1488 “Obscurity”
This tree obscured part of the view of a mountain.
[daily log: walking, 5km; retailing, 8hr]
Caveat: Tree #1487 “Deep in the southeast Alaskan slushforest”
This tree was feeling white at the top of ten-mile hill.
Yesterday our telephone landline and DSL stopped working. It was puzzling and distressing because its shutdown was correlated with a moment when I was vacuuming the living room and had moved a piece of furniture, where the telephone happens to be plugged in. So at first I thought the failure of the phone was somehow related to my having accidentally unplugged it or something like that. But after a lot of troubleshooting and trial and error, it seems the whole telephone line (including internet DSL) is dead.
I called APT (Alaska Power and Telephone) but all I got was a machine. I left a message. Maybe because it was presidents day yesterday?
But then this morning I decided to mess around more with the wires involved. Specifically, I switched out the wire connecting the DSL router to the wall – it’s probably 15 or 20 years old, after all. And it had a kind of janky-looking connector on one end. Somehow, my brain works better in the morning than it had been working yesterday afternoon, and I got the right combination and suddenly our phone service was working again. So it was something I’d knocked loose after all – just needed the right things plugged into the right places.
That’s the main adventure here. A bunch of snow yesterday but then rain on top of that, and it all melted again. Just that continuous precipitation with temperatures in the mid 30’s, which seems pretty typical. Not a “rainforest” but rather a “slushforest” really.
[daily log: walking, 4km; retailing, 8hr]
Caveat: Tree #1486 “Standing still”
This tree stood still as snow advanced down the mountain.
[daily log: walking, 4km; dogwalking, 3.5km]
Caveat: Tree #1485 “Substantial rain”
This tree experienced substantial rain. It’s used to it.
[daily log: walking, 2km;]
Caveat: Tree #1484 “On being”
This tree has been and continues to be along the road around 8.2 mile.
[daily log: walking, 3km; dogwalking, 4.5km;]
Caveat: Tree #1483 “Some snow”
This tree was being snowed on, the other day. This was the view as I walked out the door.
[daily log: walking, 4.5km; dogwalking, 2km]
Caveat: Tree #1482 “A late winter’s morning”
This tree was along a snowy road.
[daily log: walking, 4km; dogwalking, 5km]
Caveat: Tree #1481 “Slushfest”
This tree began the day amid heavy falling snow in downtown Rockpit.
Later the snow turned to heavy rain and by the time I left to go to work it was just a messy slushfest. When I got home, I saw on our rain gauge that we got over 2 inches of rain today. Definitely a precipitous event.
[daily log: walking, 4km; retailing, 8hr]
Caveat: Tree #1480 “Just a sprinkling”
This tree and others on lot 73 received a sprinkling of snow.
[daily log: walking, 5km; retailing, 8hr]
Caveat: Tree #1479 “Beside a restless sea”
This tree was beside a restless sea.
I didn’t walk the dog this morning, because things were very snowstormy. But later there were periods of clearing.
[daily log: walking, 2km;]
Caveat: Tree #1478 “Towering”
This tree towers mightily.
[daily log: walking, 4km; dogwalking, 3km]
Caveat: Tree #1477 “Far, far away”
This tree is across the sea from me.
[daily log: walking, 3.5km; dogwalking, 3.5km]
Caveat: Tree #1476 “Unknown wavelengths”
This tree detected an unusual blue tint in the sky.
[daily log: walking, 4km; dogwalking, 3.5km]
Caveat: Tree #1475 “By the dog on a beach”
This tree was noticed by a dog on a beach.
[daily log: walking, 4km; dogwalking, 3km]
Caveat: Tree #1474 “A parking-lot tableau”
This tree was being harassed by strong winds as I watched the parking-lot tableau outside the window at work today.
[daily log: walking, 4km; retailing, 8hr]
Caveat: Tree #1473 “Abandoned among rocks and snow”
This tree found itself among rocks and crusts of snow.
Arthur has a daily ritual: at bedtime, he asks me “what’s happening tomorrow?”
Last night, I answered, “I’m going to work.”
“And what am I doing?” he asked.
“Not working,” I replied.
“Thank you,” he said, with immense sincerity and relief – as if it was I who’d offered him this reprise.
[daily log: walking, 5km; retailing, 8hr]
Caveat: Tree #1472 “A dog’s view”
This tree was subjected to the keen supervision of a dog.
[daily log: walking, 3km; dogwalking, 3.5km]
Caveat: Tree #1471 “The traffic problem”
This tree guarded the road, supervising the unbearable traffic.
[daily log: walking, 3.5km; dogwalking, 3km]
Caveat: Tree #1470 “Half-wet”
This tree was half-wet.
I overheard this, the other day, while entering the library in town. A man and his son were talking.
“Dad, when is this rain going to stop?”
“This rain will never end,” the dad answered, sagely. The dad clearly was familiar with the weather in Southeast Alaska.
[daily log: walking, 3km; dogwalking, 3km]
Caveat: Tree #1469 “Deja vu”
This tree experienced deja vu: morning again.
[daily log: walking, 3km; dogwalking, 4.5km]
Caveat: Tree #1468 “Wind-chime”
This tree has a wind-chime hanging in it, there in our front yard.
[daily log: walking, 4km; dogwalking, 3km]
Caveat: Tree #1467 “The past is a beach on a distant sea”
This tree is a guest tree from my past. It’s a tree among others on a rocky beach on 무의도 (Muui Island), which is an island off the west coast of South Korea southwest of the Incheon Airport (I believe it’s here on the map). I visited this tree in August, 2015, with my friend Peter (who subsequently has visited me here in Southeast Alaska.
I had a very unhappy day at work – one of those days when I am reminded that I never had any actual training to be a “matting and framing guy”, but rather, I’ve always been in a kind of “fake it till you make it” mode with this job. I made many mistakes, working on challenging projects. I made mistakes with cutting mat board, which I corrected but always is wasteful of mat board, I made mistakes with cutting glass, including an oversize piece that had high visibility since I needed help from my boss Chad to make it happen. I’ll have to go in tomorrow and try to cut the oversize piece again. Anyway, I felt incompetent all day. Such a salient feeling.
[daily log: walking, 5km; retailing, 8hr; breaking glass, 4pieces]
Caveat: Tree #1466 “Fewer Clouds”
This tree was among others, as I looked east from the top of the 10-mile hill, a few days ago when there were fewer clouds.
[daily log: walking, 5km; retailing, 8hr]
Caveat: Tree #1465 “Burned out”
This tree was behind the burned-out woodshed of the neighbors house that burned down in August, 2019.
[daily log: walking, 3.5km; dogwalking, 3km]
Caveat: Tree #1464 “San Juan Bautista”
This tree was near a little notch in the trees at the top of the 10-mile hill. Down in the notch you can see in the distance the flank of San Juan Bautista island.
The island was named by Spanish explorers, and when the Russians and then the British and Americans came through, they were using the Spanish-made sea charts, so a lot of the Spanish names stuck in southeasternmost Alaska. You can tell who among the locals is a xenophobe because they will use the English translations of the names, though the Spanish versions are on the official charts. Thus “Saint John”, not “San Juan”, and “Saint Ignace”, not “San Ignacio”. Etc.
[daily log: walking, 3km; dogwalking, 3km]
Caveat: Tree #1463 “A pink mountain”
This tree had a pink mountain behind it.
[daily log: walking, 4km; dogwalking, 3km]
Caveat: Tree #1462 “Looking up”
This tree was close to our house, as seen looking up from the dock.
[daily log: walking, 4.5km; dogwalking, 3km]