Category: A Daily Tree

Work proceeded apace on my effort to complete my application to UAS. I have just two remaining things to complete – one more essay and an old college transcript request.
Meanwhile, outdoors, the rain proceeded apace.
Arthur is doing his annual “re-paint the boat rails” project. These are the rails that sit down in the water, that underlie the trolley that pulls the boat out of the water and into the boatshed. This project fills the house with petrochemical fumes. I have a theory that Arthur either cannot smell petrochemical fumes, or actively enjoys them – every time he fills his kerosene heater that lies in the boatshed, the house also fills with a similar smell. Today he did that, too. So I sit in the attic on my computer bundled up with both windows wide open, to get a cross breeze and ventilate the space.
Here is a picture of a tree from the archives. The picture was taken in August, 2007, in Mexico City. There are actually two trees, I admit. But the building (although there are two facades, in fact it is a single building inside) is notable: that is the building I lived in, in 1986. The second floor window near the center is onto the hallway in front of my bedroom.

[daily log: walking, 1km]

I went into town today and took a “proctored impromptu writing sample” test, with the help of a person at the Craig School District who was kind enough to help. This is part of my application for the Teacher Certification program at University of Alaska Southeast. Normally this type of “proctored writing sample” would be done by going into the appropriate college office, sitting down and taking the test. But because this program is an “All Online” type of program, that doesn’t really work. But they occasionally want you to prove who you are, and the way to do that is to get you to find a proctor that they approve of in your local community, and work with that person to proctor your test. I’m not sure how frequent this type of thing will be. I’m only in the application process.
Since I was busy with that (and preoccupied by the surrounding anxiety), I failed to take a picture of a tree. Here is a tree from my archives. This picture was taken in November, 2012, looking out from a window at my workplace in South Korea.

[daily log: walking, 2km]

With a supposed break in the rain, Arthur and I attempted to go out and put heat tape around the water pipes that run out of the new well-head “doghouse” (where the pump controller, etc., are).
But every time we started working, it rained. If we stopped working, it stopped raining.
After a while, we gave up that project. Typical Southeast Alaska.
I put some time in on my computer instead.
Here is a tree.

[daily log: walking, 1.5km]

Because of the raininess outside, I have been less inclined to pursue any of the outdoor projects I have in progress. I have been working more on computer-based projects, including messing with my programming environment (my largely unfulfilled fantasy of learning to program using Ruby/Rails), and adding some bells and whistles to a few of my server projects.
Meanwhile, on the equinox, I find attention-seeking behavior among trees. Hey! Quit goofing around!

[daily log: walking, 3km]

I spend part of the day outside working on some more aspects of the well-head “doghouse” – specifically, the outgoing pipes/conduit to connect to what I’m calling the “greenhouse” – I want to build a small greenhouse on the new upper parking pad, hopefully to be able to use next Spring.
I spent another part of the day trying to build a Ruby on Rails development environment on my server. It’s slow going, but I feel I’m making progress. So far the vscode IDE is working much better than all those times I tried to use Eclipse, so the switch over was a smart move.
Lastly, I have been writing an essay for my UAS application for the teaching certification program. I’m sure what I have already is fine, but I’m being perfectionistic. So there’s that.
I failed to take a picture of a tree today. So here is a tree from my archives. This is Gobong Hill with its distinctive radio tower, in Ilsan, Korea, as seen from near the top of Jeongbal Hill, a few blocks from my apartment there. I took it in October, 2015 – just short of 4 years ago.

[daily log: walking, 2.5km]

Today, the Ides of September, Arthur and I once again sought to catch a halibut, but alas, we returned to port having only hooked a number of ugly bottom fish of poor quality. Halibutless. The sea was flat and sunny, though. I saw some seagulls cruising on an improvised raft (hard to see, center of this picture, looking past the southern end of San Juan Island toward San Ignacio and Baker, in the distance).

Meanwhile, trees continued their efforts to touch the sky.

[daily log: walking, 1.5km]

The past few days I’ve been busy with my somewhat unsuccessful effort to remodel the plumbing in the well-head shed (“doghouse”). I’m not very good at eliminating all the leaks – I’m too inexperienced a plumber.
Today, with sporadic rain, I decided to work indoors instead, and have been doing “academic stuff” related to my efforts to enroll in the University of Alaska Southeast’s teacher certification program – a much more overwhelming and bureaucratic process than I had hoped for. Sigh. Life goes on.
Here is a tree over on lot 73.

[daily log: walking, 3km]

Our friend and neighbor Joe from down the road joined us and we went out on a singularly unsuccessful fishing trip today. We went seeking halibut at Roller Bay, then “Shipwreck” (off San Fernando Island), then the northwest side of Balandra Island. We caught exactly one smallish lingcod. Then we tried for salmon along Cemetery Island and the Coronados, trolling into the south entrance of Port Saint Nicholas. Nothing – a few black bass that were smaller than some of the bait.
Here is a tree, also struggling.

[daily log: walking, 2km]

Arthur and I took Peter out fishing. From a fishing standpoint, it was somewhat disappointing – we caught no salmon, and when trying for halibut we only caught ugly bottomfish. But I think Peter enjoyed himself, and anyway he got to see an aspect of life here that many don’t.
Here is a tree seen on an island.

[daily log: walking, 6km]

Today I took my friends Mark and Amy to Kasaan. I like the totems there – it’s my favorite cultural spot on all of Prince of Wales Island.
Here at the beach in front of the old lodge house, there is a bonsai-ish tree.

[daily log: walking, 3.5km]

Look, a tree.

With my friends Mark and Amy here, I have been borrowing their help to clean out and move my “studio” (a portable storage tent thing) to the western lot. Here it is, emptied out.

[daily log: walking, 2km; carrying stuff to the other lot, 10 trips]

I was walking down the road, and saw a foot-high cedar tree growing in the gravel of the road. “Well, this tree will not last long, here,” I thought.
I yanked it out of the ground and carried it back to Lot 73. I chose a spot down near the water at the northwest corner, where Richard had thrown fresh raw fill (mud and rocks) down behind the new septic tank. I put the tree in the ground there. I wonder if it will grow?
Here is the young tree, lying there, roots exposed.

Here is the same tree, with its root buried.

I’ve done a few other experiments with moving seedlings around, here. They don’t seem to have a very good survival rate, under my amateurish supervision.
My friends Mark and Amy from Minnesota arrived here. That’s pretty cool! We will do touristy stuff with them for their visit (about 6 days). Mark has actually met Arthur once before – in 1985! Mark remembers Arthur well – he made a big impression on him at the time, but Arthur doesn’t remember Mark.
[daily log: walking, 3.5km]

Arthur and I sought some fish, but this first post-storm sojourn was fishless.
I saw this tree – specifically, the one right in the center of the photo.

[daily log: walking, 2km; chainsawing, 1hr]