This tree was foregrounded by a salmonberry bramble.
[daily log: walking, 3km; dogwalking, 3km]
Category: My Photos
Caveat: Tree #1141
This tree is a palm tree – in seed form. It’s a cold-resistant and shade-resistant variety of palm from China, and they have survived in England and Vancouver Island, so it has a chance of surviving here. So I’m going to try to germinate it and plant it. Because Rockpit needs a palm tree.
[daily log: walking, 3km; dogwalking, 3km]
Caveat: Tree #1140
This tree (just pick one) was across the inlet from a dog.
[daily log: walking, 3km; dogwalking, 3km]
Caveat: Tree #1139
This tree pondered the passing of time.
[daily log: walking, 3km; retailing, 6hr]
Caveat: Tree #1138
This tree is the dailiest tree so far.
[daily log: walking, 2.5km; retailing, 6hr]
Caveat: Tree #1137
This tree was there as a dog daydreamed about chasing geese over the water.
[daily log: walking, 3km; dogwalking, 3km]
Caveat: Tree #1136
This tree, number 1136, was right next to utility pole number 333. The utility poles, unlike the trees, wear their numbers publicly.
[daily log: walking, 3.5km; dogwalking, 3km]
Caveat: Tree #1135
This tree made it through to morning.
[daily log: walking, 3km; dogwalking, 3km]
Caveat: Tree #1134
This tree witnessed a dog racing along a distant beach at low tide (can you see the dog-speck?).
[daily log: walking, 3km; dogwalking, 3.5km]
Caveat: Tree #1133
This tree is from my past. It also has a magpie in it. I took the picture in 2013, in Ilsan (Goyang City), Korea.
[daily log: walking, 1.5km]
Caveat: Tree #1132
This tree is upside-down.
[daily log: walking, 5.5km; dogwalking, 2.5km; retailing, 6hr]
Caveat: Tree #1131
This tree decided it was time to try to reproduce.
[daily log: walking, 6km; dogwalking, 3km; retailing, 6hr]
Caveat: Tree #1130
This tree is only questionably surviving at all.
[daily log: walking, 3km; dogwalking, 3km]
Caveat: Tree #1129
This tree might be holding up the sky.
[daily log: walking, 3km; dogwalking, 3km]
Caveat: Tree #1128
This tree was being bitten by a dog.
[daily log: walking, 3.5km; dogwalking, 3km]
Caveat: Tree #1127
This tree is a bit of an archetype.
[daily log: walking, 3.5km; dogwalking, 3.5km]
Caveat: Tree #1126
This tree provided a backup visual for some very weird looking snowcicle thingies hanging off the eaves of the house.
[daily log: walking, 3.5km; dogwalking, 3.5km]
Caveat: Tree #1125
This tree registered a complaint with the relevant authorities regarding the apparent continuation of winter.
[daily log: walking, 3.5km; retailing, 6hr]
Caveat: Tree #1124
This tree was along a long and winding road.
I left the Gift Shop early, today, because we had an appointment with an electrician out here at the house.
This was perhaps (hopefully) the concluding chapter in our saga of the weird brown outs. After looking over our system, and trying some things out, and despite our being able to reproduce the described problem, the electrician decided that we had a corroded main breaker (in the box on the utility pole). I found this plausible, as when he flipped the breaker switch one time, it made ominous buzzing noises, and he said he saw it arcing. Which was kind of scary – the electrician jumped back in alarm at that.
So he installed a new breaker. We’re running the heat pump, no problem, the rest of the afternoon and evening. Meanwhile I set out with the chainsaw to replenish our much-reduced firewood supply – since we’ve been heating the house more with the wood stove these past weeks (due to the heat pump not running).
Here is a picture of the old, corroded main breaker that the electrician removed.
[daily log: walking, 3km; retailing, 3hr; chainsawing, 1hr]
Caveat: Tree #1123
This tree felt dizzy and disoriented due to the direct sunlight striking its needles.
[daily log: walking, 3km; dogwalking, 3.5km]
Caveat: Sunbeam #1
Living on the south side of the inlet means we live on the north side of a mountain. And in the winter, at this latitude, that means direct sunlight doesn’t reach us for about 3 1/2 months each year, as the sun is too low in the south to reach over the top of the mountain – we are in its shadow all day.
So I have always meant to try to record the days when the sun reaches over the mountain for the first time, in spring (and likewise, when it disappears in the fall). The problem is that we also live in a very, very overcast part of the world. So we never know quite what day it is. But it’s close to today: today, we had quite chilly but clear weather, for a change of pace.
So the sun peeked between two trees on the mountain’s ridge, and struck through my south-facing window next to my desk. For about 5 minutes.
“Oh,” I said to myself. “A sunbeam. What’s this?” I took a picture.
Meanwhile, we are still waiting to hear back from the electricians about having them come visit to diagnose our weird electrical problem (I think I blogged this before, but if not, the TLDR is: we experience “brown outs” when we pull high levels of current, e.g. the heating system).
I checked in with them this morning, but they are quite busy, as is to be expected, being the only licensed electrical contractors based on the island, as far as I’ve been able to figure out. “Maybe later this week,” the woman reassured me, quite pleasant but clearly clueless as to what their actual schedule might be. Island Time.
Caveat: Tree #1122
This tree is starting out in an awkward spot.
[daily log: walking, 3.5km; dogwalking, 3.5km]
Caveat: Tree #1121
This tree has been featured on this blog before. It is by the pond at Rockpit City Park. The colors on the pond this morning struck me, for some reason.
[daily log: walking, 4.5km; dogwalking, 2.5km]
Caveat: Tree #1120
This tree was there as a dog struck a pose.
[daily log: walking, 4km; dogwalking, 3km]
Caveat: Tree #1119
This tree is not out of the woods yet.
I spent quite a bit of the day waiting around in town, because Art had multiple medical appointments in town. He had PT in the morning at 9 at the SEARHC clinic in Craig, and a dental appointment at the SEARHC clinic in Klawock at 1. In the interim, I put in an hour at work while Art hung out at the Veterans Center – open only on Thursdays, run by the infamous Jan, who is also my coworker. Small town life, right?
[daily log: walking, 2km; waiting, 4hr]
Caveat: Tree #1119
This tree is from my past. It is in front of a big cliff. There is a little hermitage structure at the top of the cliff, called 연주대 [yeonjudae], on Gwanak mountain, South Korea.
In other news, today is Elizabeth Peratrovich Day. How did you celebrate Elizabeth Peratrovich day? I celebrated by selling 14 balloons at the Gift Shop.
[daily log: walking, 3.5km; retailing, 6hr]
Caveat: Tree #1118
This tree got broken, perhaps by strong wind.
[daily log: walking, 3km; retailing, 6hr]
Caveat: Tree #1117
This tree saw Sunnahae Mountain shed its shroud. Briefly.
[daily log: walking, 4km; dogwalking, 3km; disassembling, 5hr]
Caveat: a storied storage tent meets its end
I finished my fraught disassembly of my storage tent today. The morning was actually slightly sunny and nice, but by 1 PM it was quite windy and starting to rain.
I got the storage tent canvas parts spread out and weighted by rocks, and draped a simple 20′ x 40′ tarp over the “stuff” that had been inside the storage tent. This includes firewood, recyclables (because recycling isn’t currently done on the island, but I daydream it might one day be done again, as it used to be), some construction materials (boards and plywood and plastic pipe), some unused collapsed boxes and other various containers.
With the wind whipping into a frenzy, I threw a bunch of rocks and stuff on top of the tarp and hoped for the best.
The storage tent has consumed a lot of my labor over the past 3 years. I think it will be retired, now – too many of its structural pieces are bent or broken by the giant load of snow in December.
Caveat: Tree #1116
This tree was trying to jump off a cliff.
[daily log: walking, 3km; dogwalking, 3km]
Caveat: Tree #1115
This tree was alongside as Arthur’s return flight touched the runway.
Which is to say: Arthur’s back from his excursion to Anchorage, safe-and-sound.
[daily log: walking, 4km; dogwalking, 3km]
Caveat: Tree #1114
This tree took time to reflect among its peers.
[daily log: walking, 4km; dogwalking, 3.5km]
Caveat: Tree #1113
This tree saw something quite unexpected: a ray (just one ray during the whole day) of sunshine.
Arthur has traveled, on his own, to Anchorage because he needs technical help with his hearing aids and of course no one in Southeast Alaska can do that – so the VA is sending him to Anchorage, at their expense, to try to solve the problem. Some people have expressed concern about Arthur traveling alone. I suppose I share that concern, but I just hope for the best and think he’ll muddle through. Strangers are mostly helpful and kind, and all of Alaska is basically just a small town that happens to take up a lot of land, such that the “city bus” is run by an airline.
I got a phone call from Arthur to confirm his arrival in Anchorage. Apparently Arthur got off the plane at Juneau, thinking he’d arrived in Anchorage. He got as far as the baggage carousels before realizing he was in the wrong airport. Fortunately the plane (which takes off and lands multiple times in its island-hopping journey from Seattle to Anchorage, and has the atmosphere of an intercity bus) waited for him to realize his error and so he was able to reboard.
[daily log: walking, 1.5km; dropping Arthur at airport, 2hr]