This tree provides double the usual tree-type entertainment.
I got up extra early and Arthur and I attempted to repair the broken cable pulley at the base of the boat rail. I say “attempted” because I learned that later in the day, Arthur attempted to operate the trolley and the pulley broke again. I came home and found that the eye-bolt we’d used at the base was clearly inadequate to the task.
Meanwhile, I went to work and had an unexpected success: I got the video security camera system working. Apparently, that system has not been working for 12 years or so. Jan said, jokingly: “Impressive, but don’t let that success go to you head.” Fair enough. It was just trial and error, mostly – it turned out the power source for the cameras was faulty, and I solved it by “hijacking” the power source for the recorder box.
[daily log: walking, 4km; retailing, 6hr]
Category: My Photos
Caveat: Poem #1521 “Time for fish to die”
ㅁ the fish was seeking... but it landed by the dock and gave up its ghost.
– a pseudo-haiku.
Caveat: Tree #620
Here’s a tree on a fallen tree.
[daily log: walking, 3km]
Caveat: Tree #619
This tree, too, is sideways yet alive.
[daily log: walking, 2.5km]
Caveat: Tree #618
This tree finds its own way.
[daily log: walking, 3.5km]
Caveat: Tree #617
This tree is from my distant past. It’s there in the fog beside the road.
In fact, Arthur took this picture, from his car, as he followed my father’s car down the road in some tandem driving odyssey. That’s me looking out.
We had a long day today. One of those days when Arthur lives to the fullest his maxim: “Better to be lucky than to be smart.”
[daily log: walking, 7km]
Caveat: Tree #616
I can’t decide if the featured tree here is the one up on the ridge or the one down in front of the cliff.
[daily log: walking, 6.5km]
Caveat: Tree #615
These trees test the sky’s patience.
The sky always passes these tests.
[daily log: walking, 3km; retailing, 8hr]
Caveat: Tree #614
This tree is in Rockpit – featured before, I’m sure.
It was very windy in town today while I was working. The wind blew open the door of the store and damaged some merchandise.
[daily log: walking, 3km; retailing, 6hr]
Caveat: Tree #613
Arthur and Alan drove the boat into town, while I took the Tahoe with the boat trailer, so we could pull it out of the water. I took this picture of Arthur and Alan in the boat departing the dock. I was standing on the neighbor’s lot, and the picture prominently includes the burnt tree from the house fire last summer.
Driving into town, I saw a rainbow.
While in town, we saw another.
[daily log: walking, 2km]
Caveat: Tree #612
This tree has lots of moss.
Arthur announced that we would be taking the boat in for service tomorrow. As usual, the discussions about this must have happened in his head at some point without telling me. The military life: always be ready to jump when they say “jump.”
[daily log: walking, 2.5km]
Caveat: Tree #611 “An unbuilt lot at five-mile”
This is a tree but there are other trees which make distinguishing (or deciding upon) the tree more difficult.
I suppose it better fits in with my recent interest in capturing pictures that I could label “Alaskan Gothic.” Alan and I had taken a very long walk and this container is in front of the water plant at 5 mile.
[daily log: walking, 11km]
Caveat: Tree #609
This tree is one I saw on a side street near my place of work in Ilsan, Korea, in October, 2012.
[daily log: walking, 3.5km]
Caveat: Town Day
It being Thursday, we went to town to do the weekly shopping, as usual. But with Alan visiting, he came along too, and we ran extra errands and socialized with some people.
One thing we did was we went to visit Richard, who was working on his landing craft. It’s progressed a lot since I last got a tour last year (when I put in a day helping work on it), and obviously even more for Alan, who last saw it in 2017 when he visited up here.
Richard is installing a crane. So he built a shed over the front of it to cover the work area to weld the base area of the crane.
Looking around, I saw a view that felt like a nice addition to my “Alaskan Gothic” theme.
We also stopped by the gift shop, so Alan and Arthur met a few of my coworkers.
Finally, since today is supposed to be the last day of sun for a while (by the sometimes-not-so-accurate weather forecast), Alan helped me replace the tarp covering the GDC.
Caveat: Tree #608
This tree is near my treehouse project.
I saw a raven on a truck in the parking lot after work this afternoon.
I was very tired from work today. Not sure exactly why – I felt the weight of responsibility or something.
[daily log: walking, 2km; retailing, 8hr]
Caveat: Tree #607
This tree is by the water a mile west of here.
[daily log: walking, 2km; retailing, 8hr]
Caveat: Tree #606
I captured this tree’s image because of the fall-hint below and in front of it.
With hardly a summer worth mentioning, fall is upon us.
I spent the day cooking. I made my slightly well-regarded Chilean-style chupe de pescado (fish chowder). I’m not sure what my uncle Alan thought of it, but Arthur has said he likes it a lot.
And for some unfathomable reason, I made a chocolate cake.
Earlier, Alan and I walked out to around 6.5 mile. He’s a much more intensive walker than Arthur is. I should follow his example.
[daily log: walking, 7.5km]
Caveat: Tree #605 “Shipping container with alders”
I would also classify this tree picture under the rubric “Alaskan Gothic.”
[daily log: walking, 2km]
Caveat: Fishing Report #(n+15)
With Alan here, Arthur was motivated to go fishing again, despite continued reports of poor catching.
We left fairly early: away from the dock by 7:30.
The day was clear and the wind was light.
First we went to Port Caldera and tried for halibut. We caught a big ugly orange rock fish, which we decided to keep, though in Arthur’s book it doesn’t count. Then, much to all of our surprise, quite quickly we caught a good-sized halibut. Here’s Alan holding the halibut – it was maybe 30-35 pounds.
After that, we were unable to repeat that luck, so by 9:30 we started trolling for salmon. It was a desultory trolling. We went from Caldera to Port Estrella. A few small black bass, but no salmon at all.
At Port Estrella we tried for halibut again, but there was nothing. We crossed over to San Juan, and trolled from the southeast corner to Black Beach. No salmon there, either. We saw some people camping on the shore there: tents, dogs, a fire going – everything. That was interesting to me. Arthur thought maybe they were hunting deer. The east side of San Juan is native land, so I guess they hopefully had permission to be there. But who knows?
The whole trip, the large motor was behaving oddly. This was not the hiccupping problem we’ve had all summer. It wasn’t something that kicked in when the engine was hot. Instead, right from the start, at high RPMs there would be these irregular surges and pauses – RPM up 100, down 100, up 100. I managed to google the problem on my phone, and everything I could find and read said it was a fuel supply problem, which is also the likely cause of the hiccupping issue. I guess the fuel supply issue is getting worse. Anyway, it didn’t prevent us from using the boat – we could just go more slowly to avoid it, and even with it happening, it didn’t really handicap our ability to get around. It’s just disturbing. Arthur’s stated intention, though, is to get the boat in for service and out of the water before Alan leaves, so it will hopefully get looked at soon.
With Arthur and Alan both on the boat, despite their quite different personalities, they still both remind me of my grandfather (their father Dwight) a lot. It was “stereo Dwight” in some ways. Arthur’s personality is more like Dwight’s, but Alan has more of his mannerisms and his way of talking, if that makes sense. So between them, it feels uncanny sometimes.
Year-to-date totals.
- Coho: 22
- Halibut: 6
- Lingcod: 1
Caveat: Tree #604
In the morning I went on an unexpectedly long walk with my uncle Alan who is visiting here. We went all the way to 11.2 mile on the road.
I saw this tree in front of Sunnahae and said, “I think this would be a good tree but the power pole is in the way. Alan said, “Make it part of the picture.”
Here is Alan discovering that he has cellphone reception down there, because it’s across from the town’s 4G tower.
Then in the afternoon I ended up going in to work for 4 hours. I had to learn more about framing – specifically, we were trying to cut a oversize piece of glass for a custom frame. The glass cutting gadget only goes up to 48 inches. The frame we needed to do was 50 inches wide. It was difficult – we had to cut the glass “by hand” with a straightedge and long rule. I broke one piece.
[daily log: walking, 8km; retailing, 4hr]
Caveat: Tree #603
This tree is down by the water.
Art and I drove to Hollis this evening to collect Alan, Arthur’s brother (another uncle).
[daily log: walking, 3km]
Caveat: Tree #602
This tree (I’m thinking of the one on the left) is from my past: I took the picture in October, 2015. The tree foregrounds a peculiarly-shaped church a few blocks from my apartment in Ilsan, South Korea.
[daily log: walking, 2km]
Caveat: Tree #601
This tree is the little cedar that I attempted to transplant a little over a year ago (tree #237).
Surprisingly, it’s not dead. But it doesn’t seem to be particularly thriving, either.
[daily log: walking, 2.5km; retailing, 8hr]
Caveat: Tree #600
Though numerologically significant, this tree is just a middling-quality tree at best.
[daily log: walking, 2km; retailing, 8hr]
Caveat: Tree #599
The tree towers over the human things.
[daily log: walking, 2.5km]
Caveat: Once a year whether it needs it or not
Because the sun was out, I decided I should wash the GDC. I had taken off the tarp covering it, last month, thinking there would be summer sun to bake out some of the mold and moss beginning to grow on it. But with the gray and rainy August we had, it just got greener. So with the sun out, unexpectedly, today, I decided it was time.
I drove it up to the upper parking area next to the greenhouse, and washed it with a soft scrub brush and soapy water and the hose off the well.
A stellar jay came by, apparently interested in the undertaking.
After the GDC was clean (or, um, cleaner, anyway), I decided to wash the Blueberry, too. Although to be frank, that’s a sisyphean task – one commute into town will have it well-coated in gray grime again.
Caveat: Tree #598
This tree got noticed by the sun.
[daily log: walking, 2km]
Caveat: Tree #597
This tree has aspirations.
[daily log: walking, 1.5km]
Caveat: Tree #596
There are trees, here.
[daily log: walking, 2.5km]
Caveat: Tree #595
This tree is one of the smaller trees that I am currently permitting to stick up through the temporary deck of my tree house. I kind of want to keep it, but I might end up removing it.
You might ask, “What’s up with the treehouse? You haven’t posted much about it lately…”
In fact, I stopped working on it. The treehouse project was focused on things that didn’t require my spending more money. I reached a point where I needed to invest some more money – I need lumber for the permanent deck. I don’t want to spend money on that project, right now. Maybe after I’ve worked for a while at the gift shop and saved up some money.
[daily log: walking, 1.5km]
Caveat: Tree #594
This is a huckleberry bush with some huckleberries, but it’s sufficiently tree-like that I decided to include it here.
[daily log: walking, 2km; retailing, 8hr]
Caveat: Tree #593
This cedar tree is younger than the western hemlocks behind and beside it.
[daily log: walking, 2km; retailing, 8hr]
Caveat: Tree #592
I took this picture of a tree when I was driving south of Ketchikan along the coast in November, 2009.
[daily log: walking, 2km]