This tree is up on the hillside.
We successfully retrieved Alan from the ferry and he’s settled in here at the house. The plan is to go out fishing tomorrow.
[daily log: walking, 3km; driving to Hollis, 130km]
Category: My Photos
Caveat: Tree #918
This tree is reaching for the water.
The plan had been that Arthur’s brother Alan (my “other uncle”) was going to arrive at Klawock airport this evening, to stay for a 10 day visit.
Apparently, though, Arthur managed to forget to book the last leg of Alan’s journey, on Island Air Express, which is the airline that provides service on their little airplanes between Ketchikan and Klawock.
Actually, I think saying that Arthur “forgot” isn’t quite accurate: his cognitive issue is, as described before, not entirely a memory issue so much as a failure of what the psychologists call “executive function.” I see this manifest in the following way: in day-to-day experience, Arthur often “checks things off” his mental checklist before he’s done them. Thus he thinks he’s told me of a plan to go fishing, when all he ever did was intend to do so. Or he thinks he’s booked a flight for Alan on Island Air, when all he ever did was intend to do so. He plays out the plan in his mind, and his mind says, “oh, good, that’s done, then.” I think his episodic memory of recent actions mixes up “planned actions” with “completed actions.”
So Alan had no seat on Island Air, and got stuck in a motel in Ketchikan for the night. We’ll get him over to the island today, hopefully – worst case scenario, he can take the ferry in the afternoon.
[daily log: walking, 2.5km]
Caveat: Tree #917
This tree is another effort at trying to grow a maple tree. Along with the redwood, which I posted yesterday, I ordered a baby maple tree to make another go given my failed attempts at germination. It didn’t survive the week-long postal journey here as well as the redwood did – most of its leaves died. But it’s got a few. We’ll see how it does.
[daily log: walking, 1.5km; errant erranding, 4hr]
Caveat: Tree #916
This tree is a coast redwood (sequoia sempervirens). I made an effort starting a few months ago to germinate some redwood seeds, but that effort ended in abject failure. So I decided to spend a bit more money, and buy a redwood sapling, which arrived on Monday. I have transplanted it into this little bucket with some potting soil, and will keep it in the greenhouse for now. Maybe it will survive.
[daily log: walking, 3.5km; retailing, 6hr]
Caveat: Tree #915
This tree exists.
[daily log: walking, 3km; retailing, 6hr]
Caveat: Tree #914
This tree caught some early sun at 530, before the clouds returned.
[daily log: walking, 1km; currying and cobblering, 2hr]
Caveat: Tree #913
This tree on San Ignacio Island has an eagle. Can you see it? It’s very small, but clearly silhouetted against the sky.
[daily log: walking, 3km]
Caveat: Tree #912
This tree failed to notice the deer hiding behind a large rock. But I noticed it, and took its picture.
[daily log: walking, 2km; boating, 45km]
Caveat: Tree #911
This tree (from my past) is watching hot peppers dry in September, 2009. I saw it on the island named Ulleungdo off the east coast of South Korea.
[daily log: walking, 4km; retailing, 6hr]
Caveat: Tree #910
This tree was up early.
[daily log: walking, 2km]
Caveat: Tree #909
This tree (recumbent) has appeared here before. It’s the tree that was damaged by the neighbor’s house fire in August, 2019. The absent owner next door apparently isn’t completely absent – he hired people to come and cut down these fire-damaged trees, and also yesterday while I was at work, a barge came and installed pillars for a new dock (seen in background, sticking out of the water).
[daily log: walking, 3.5km; retailing, 7hr]
Caveat: Tree #908
This tree is down near that flowering plant.
[daily log: walking, 4.5km; retailing, 6hr]
Caveat: Tree #907
This tree is along the beach. The treehouse is in this picture, but you can’t really see it.
[daily log: walking, 1km]
Caveat: Tree #906
This tree saw stars in the sea.
[daily log: walking, 1.5km; boating, 35km]
Caveat: Fishing Report #(n+22)
We went fishing today.
Arthur made more effort vis-a-vis communication than I’ve seen in awhile. Specifically, he told me yesterday, well ahead of time, that he wanted to go out fishing today.
This means a lot to me – it makes it possible for me to prepare myself mentally, to make sure I’m not in the middle of something stressful with my ongoing computer work (which is, frankly, traumatizing me lately). In fact, knowing we would go out today, I woke up extra early, did something relaxing instead of messing with the programming stuff, and even meditated for a while – something I should do more of.
So when we left at 7, I was more prepared than usual for dealing with Arthur’s laconic eccentricities. I made a lot of effort to be positive, and in fact, that helped. I’ve never wanted to deny that at least some of the issues and tension that arise between us on the boat is a result of my own shortcomings.
The water was flat and still when we left.
By the time we exited Port Saint Nicholas, however, the wind had leaped into action and the water was quite choppy. We went to San Ignacio, again, and trolled up and down the east side, twice. Nothing.
We then went to Point Tranquil. There, we hooked a salmon who got away, but shortly after, hooked another. It seems that it was the same salmon, because the second salmon had a hook in it, which we’d lost in the first (though Arthur hadn’t realized it at the time).
There were no more salmon. But there were many boats. I suspect there were more boats than fish. It was Sunday, after all – many recreational boaters out, a hefty-looking research vessel of some kind, a boat with a flag indicating divers were beneath, a commercial fishing boat anchored and a family on the shore nearby. And lots of sportfishing craft.
We trolled along the north side of that arm of Prince of Wales Island to Caldera Bay, where we gave up on catching salmon – though they were leaping out of the water all around us. We fished for halibut for a while. Nothing there, either. Then we came home. Here’s the northwest corner of Caldera Bay, a spot called Point Lomas (you can click the pic to embiggen).
Year-to-date totals:
- Coho: 3
- Kings: 0
- Halibut: 0
- Other: 1
- Too-small fish sent home to mama: 11
- Downrigger weights left on the bottom of the sea: 1
Caveat: Tree #905
This tree is a little pine tree sapling I transplanted last year, from the muskeg about a mile east of here to a spot on lot 73. There are lots of pine trees in the muskeg but none growing around these lots, here. Probably different soil or something. Anyway, it seems to be doing okay, so far.
I made some cobbler, using mostly salmonberries and blueberries picked around the house here, but also some frozen raspberries my boss at the gift shop gave me.
[daily log: walking, 2.5km; cobblering, 1hr]
Caveat: Tree #904
This tree is one of three.
[daily log: walking, 1.5km]
Caveat: Tree #902
This tree saw the new culvert dry up for the first time – no water is flowing through it. This is the culvert that was newly installed on lot 73 last fall because of flooding problems on the road.
[daily log: walking, 4km; retailing, 6hr]
Caveat: Frame Shop Journal #10
I took almost a month to post this, since the last one. There was a very slow period, when I wasn’t making many frames, in mid-June. But since then I’ve been making a lot of frames.
During the slow period, I did an “inventory” of our filing cabinet where we store vendor information and catalogs. As part of that, I made new labels for the chaotic folders.
Before.
After.
Here are bunch of frames, in no particular order.
I had one new frame that was a bit bittersweet. A customer bought a picture on our wall, that I’d framed last November. She said, “But that frame is ugly, I want a different one.” So I had to take apart a frame I’d made last fall, and make a new one.
Before.
After.
One time, we got in a frame from our supplier that was clearly a horrible mistake. We had to re-order it.
I also spent some time teaching myself how to cut curves in glass. It’s not easy, even though Arthur claims it’s easy – although I’ll observe that Arthur didn’t bother to demonstrate this for me. I did borrow his fancy diamond-tipped glass-cutting tool, which is better than the hand-held glass cutter at the store.
Caveat: Tree #901
This tree is branching out.
[daily log: walking, 3.5km; retailing, 6hr]
Caveat: Tree #900
This tree (let’s say, for the sake of argument, the tree on the far right) saw me stop in Klawock to buy gas. I felt the fact there was still a lot of snow on the mountains in early July was notable.
[daily log: walking, 4km; retailing, 7hr]
Caveat: Tree #899
This tree tasted the sea – photo taken a week or so ago, while out in the boat.
[daily log: walking, 2km; rendering-unto-database-gods, 8hr]
Caveat: Tree #898
This tree was with a deer.
[daily log: walking, 1.5km; boating, 40km]
Caveat: Tree #897
This tree served as a backdrop for this portrait of my green chili, which I harvested from my greenhouse this morning.
I installed the green chili in a batch of my fish curry, which, since Arthur considers it acceptable despite being called “curry,” I have been making now and then, as it’s currently my favorite of the dishes that I make.
[daily log: walking, 2.5km; fishcurrying, 1hr]
Caveat: Tree #896
This tree is outside the back door to the gift shop. You can see that the Alaska State Troopers like to park back there.
[daily log: walking, 2.5km; carwashing, 2hr]
Caveat: Tree #895
This tree is the same maple tree I posted a week or two ago. It died in the heatwave.
[daily log: walking, 3.5km; retailing, 6hr]
Caveat: Tree #894
This tree was across the street from my apartment in Yeonggwang, Jeollanam, South Korea. I took the picture in December, 2010.
[daily log: walking, 4km; retailing, 6hr]
Caveat: Tree #893
This tree has an angle on things.
[daily log: walking, 3.5km; retailing, 6hr]
Caveat: Tree #892
This tree is in front of a much older tree.
This is a hot red pepper flower in my greenhouse. Maybe I will grow a hot red pepper.
[daily log: walking, 4km; drilling/pounding/walking-back-and-forth-carrying, 5hr]
Caveat: GDC Surgery
I performed surgery on my RV today. I removed a failing organ from it – namely, the roll-up canopy that comes out over the passenger side.
It was failing because one aluminum support strut had broken, and one of the extending arms was weirdly bent, too. It seemed unrepairable, at least given the tools and talents I would be able to bring to bear to it, so I decided to just remove it.
It was very difficult to remove. Several of the screws that I needed to remove were stripped out, and wouldn’t come out. I drilled them out of the aluminum. Anyway, it finally all came apart.
It was an actual hot day today – hot by Rockpit standards, anyway: almost 80° F. So I laid out my giant white tarp to dry. I thus increased the planet’s albedo by an infinitesimal amount, doing my part to fight global warming.
Caveat: Tree #891
This tree is located on the far left of this photo, twice.
[daily log: walking, 2km; boating, 30km]
Caveat: Tree #890
This tree is from the past. It’s a tree in front of the house in Quakertown, Pennsylvania, where Michelle (my wife) died in the year 2000, on or around this date. We don’t actually know the day she died, because she committed suicide and her body was only found some days later, but in recent years I’ve settled on June 25 as the anniversary of her death. In fact, I never lived in this house. Michelle and I had separated (but not divorced) and this was the house she moved into shortly after that separation. I did end up spending some time in this house, though, after her death. I spent a very intense and grim few days there, while staying in a motel, cleaning up and collecting our shared possessions and placing them into storage. I also returned to visit the house some years later, in 2009, and took this picture.
[UPDATE] It has come to my attention that this same picture, somewhat more cropped than above, was featured as Tree #282, about a year and a half ago. Rather than delete or alter this tree picture, I’ll point out that the cropping of the earlier posting of this picture clearly “chooses” the darker, denser tree on the left, near the picture’s center. So I can suggest that this time round, I’m choosing the tree on the right instead – the one closer to the street. In any event, as I said in that earlier blog-entry, Michelle’s ghost sometimes makes requests.
[daily log: walking, 2km]
Caveat: Tree #889
This tree is a western hemlock, about one inch tall.
This is the first ripe salmonberry of the season.
[daily log: walking, 2.5km; picklemaking, 1hr]