Category: My Photos

We observed Thanksgiving on Saturday, because for various reasons not everyone was able to make it on Thursday.
In the morning, Wayne and I took a long walk up through the tree farm – I went quite a ways farther up than I’d gone before. We took Walter, the dog, who posed for a picture, too.




Thanksgiving was a great feast in the tradition I’ve associated with the Brosing-Lecomte extended family since my own childhood in the early 1970s, when both families were based in rural San Mateo County south of San Francisco (which was truly rural at that time, and not the collection of high-tech-entrepreneurs’ mansions that it is these days).
Arthur did his small duty relative to the event, by roasting the turkey in the style he developed in Arcata in the 1970s too, using his self-designed rotisserie barbecuer.
There is no table at these gatherings – never has been one, because the number of people is too great. People stand or sit wherever, and eat.

Juli and Keith’s neighbor, who has horses, generously offered to let some the kids (and adults too) ride one of her horses. It was a first horse ride for some of the kids.


It was a good thanksgiving.
[daily log: walking, 5km]

When Arthur goes down to the lower 48 for the holidays each year, he has a routine to “winterize” the house. One issue: since power is unreliable (and therefore heat), he has to anticipate the possibility that temperatures will be below freezing inside the house. That means the water system in the house has to be drained, and the water turned off. He puts antifreeze down all the drains.
It’s a pretty complicated process, starting with turning off the water supply up at the water tank, and draining the house, and then opening all the spigots, emptying the toilet tanks and bowls…
I remember doing this once by myself when I stayed here in 2009 and left in November. It was a bit simpler, then, because it was before he built the main part of the house, so it was only the two “sheds” – but these had fully functional toilets and plumbing, so the concept was the same.
We got this done today. And now it’s like camping, because we have no running water. Tomorrow we leave for Ketchikan.
Last night, we had dinner with Arthur’s friends / neighbors, Jeri and Karl. They live down the road, and came up here and Arthur prepared his famous chiles rellenos.
Here is a pretty good picture of the three of them, in the kitchen here.

[daily log: walking, 3km]

I may not have mentioned this yet. I am preparing to drive down to Portland for Thanksgiving. Yes: drive.
Arthur and I will take the ferry with the car to Ketchikan. There, he will get on an airplane, and meet Juli and Keith in Portland.
Meanwhile, I’ll put the car on another ferry from Ketchikan to Prince Rupert, BC. Then from there I can drive down to Portland for Thanksgiving.
Why are we doing this? Because that way, we’ll have the car down there. We evaluated the comparative cost of renting a car over the holidays down there, versus driving Arthur’s car down, and even accounting for the ferry tolls, the low gas mileage on his SUV, and the extra 1500 miles of driving, it’s still much cheaper.
And I used to do a lot of road trips. I think I’ll handle it fine. Once down in the lower 48 with Arthur’s car, we’ll be able to make use of it for our various intended visitings.
One thing I wanted to do to get ready to drive is make sure the car has snow chains and that I know how to attach them. That’s not because I expect to have to use them, but driving in the winter, some western states and Canada will sometimes require snow chains on vehicles for snowy weather, especially over mountain passes.
So I spent the morning practicing putting snow chains on Arthur’s car. It’s kind of unpleasant, in the rain on the gravel. But I got it done.

[daily log: walking, 4km]

Despite evidence of the cruelest tortures, the gnarled old tool did not betray the close-held secrets of its prior loyalties.

[daily log: walking, 3km]

I’m not feeling particularly communicative with this here blog lately.
Here are some pictures. More trees and water, which is what there is around here.



[daily log: walking, 4km]

Somewhat to my surprise, Arthur didn’t want to walk with me today. I think he enjoys walking in the rain less than I do. And I know I’m weird. Anyway, I went on my daily walk alone, in the rain.



[daily log: walking, 4.5km]

One thing I try to do is take a daily walk. It’s important to get out of the house. I think it’s good for Arthur,  too. It’s hard to get motivated when it rains for days on end. Interestingly, I don’t in any way make him take walks. I announce that I’m going for a walk, and he inevitably comes along, rain or shine. I’m certain he wouldn’t if it was just him alone, even though we are not at all social during our walks – he mostly listens to his “audiobooks” while I observe the world and sometimes take pictures.
I often end up far behind or ahead of him, depending on whether I’ve stopped to look at something or if I’m pacing myself relative to his progress. Here is a picture of Arthur far ahead down the road, during a continuous drizzle.

[daily log: walking, 3km]

Nothing much to say. Arthur complains he’s not doing anything. I told him he’s retired. He said no, “just tired.”
Some pictures.
On a stormy, windy morning, the sky broke open and spilled out a rainbow…

A jagged snag…

The leaves are leaving…

An archeology of the air…

The river – just add water…

[daily log: walking, 4km]

I located the last of the southern platt stakes, today.

The context:

This was the last one that needed to be found. The three southern stakes were what needed to be located – they are the ones high up on the hillside. The northern stakes (by the water) are all easily located – just walk along the shore. Total: 6 stakes, for two rectangular lots with a shared border between them.
I feel this is a great accomplishment.
So why do we need to know where these stakes are?  We need to properly locate the western properly line. So my next job is to clear a line between this last stake and the road through the trees and brush, on a bearing 4 degrees east of north. That is the western property line.
[daily log: walking, 4km; tromping, 300m]

This is the Craig I remember so fondly from my times here before.

Some pictures.


[daily log: walking, 4km]

Here are some photos from yesterday and today. It’s been raining a lot. And I’ve been very busy building a new blog host – I’m self hosting it on my server. I’m not sure this is a permanent solution, but it will work for now.  I need to make sure I’m doing backups.






[daily log: walking, 4.5km]

I did more tromping up on the hillside today, looking for that southwest stake. Earlier, in the morning, I contemplated my destiny in the form of a screen full of text. I do this a lot.

Here is the river today.

[daily log: walking, 4km; tromping, 300m]

On our afternoon walk, I found a mysterious brightly painted piece of rock at the 8 mile bridge on the Port Saint Nicholas Expressway.

I wonder what it was?

[daily log: walking, 4km]

I think Richard has decided I need training to be an Alaskan. He asked for my help on his landing craft again today. So when Arthur and I went into town, Arthur hung out with Jan (Richard's wife and, coincidentally, Arthur's local VA advocate), I spent a few hours with him putting on the port side deck piece over the other engine, which he'd gotten dropped in place. It's a two-person job because one person has to be on each side of the deck (above and below), while the nuts and bolts go through and get attached.

Here is the landing craft. The engines are at the back, in the compartment under the cabin canopy at the stern of the boat.

It was raining the whole time we worked, and the tide came in, so that halfway through the work the boat began floating, lending a certain instability to the proceedings.

[daily log: walking, 2km]

I went into town early this morning, because I'd offered to help Richard (the guy who's doing the work clearing the adjacent lot, here, with his excavator) with his work on his landing craft. I mentioned his landing craft a few weeks ago when Juli and Keith and I visited it (previous blog post). 

He got his starboard engine installed, and is putting on the deck over it. It's a two person job to be on both sides of the deck piece (above and below) while the bolts are all attached. So I got to climb around the engine compartment. A good morning's entertainment.

[daily log: walking, 4km]

I broke down the temporary tarp arrangement over all my stuff (meaning, the stuff he didn’t want in his house – about half of what I shipped here). It was time to free up Arthur’s driveway and start using my new storage unit. Which is a glorified tent.

So I moved it all in.

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Furnished Studio: premium plastic tarp construction, dock access, moss garden adjacent, slightly tilted, no electricity or plumbing – classic “Alaskan granny flat”.

[daily log: walking, 1km; boxes, a lot]

Today had a foggy morning.

I'm feeling overwhelmed by the tax paperwork I've been working on, but I genuinely feel it should be my priority.

I sense Arthur is frustrated, too – by his own struggles. He doesn't feel in control, but as time passes, he seems to be becoming more aware of not being in control. I can see the discomfort of it. One has to decode his remarks: "Full Ahead Slow" means things are going OK. "It is what it is" indicates extreme displeasure. 

Life goes on. Winds cleared the sky in the afternoon.

[daily log: walking, 3km]

Arthur says this all the time. It's like his motto, nowadays.

So it's mine, too.

Here is the water, just after dawn.

Here are some alders (I think – not totally confident on tree identification, here, yet).

Here is a snail, crossing the road.

[daily log: walking, 4km]

Not much to report today. I went off tromping on the southern property line again. Slow going, my search for those other two stakes. It's fully overgrown. I'm trying for a precision method, laying string on the southern lot line, perfectly straight with the right compass bearing, from the one stake I found. It's tedious because then you need line-of-sight: trees to be moved… 

Here is the mouth of the Saint Nicholas River, taken during our afternoon walk.

[daily log: walking, 4km; tromping, 300m]

I started building my new "storage unit" today. My stuff that I shipped from Minnesota – the stuff Art didn't want in his house, like all the furniture, etc. – has been sitting in his driveway wrapped in a giant plastic tarp to keep it hopefully dry. So we bought a sort of kit "garage tent" which are quite popular up here in Alaska. And I started building it today.

It's going to be set up in what I call Arthur's "moss garden" AKA his front yard. It's not much of a yard, and he said he'd rather it be there than in the driveway. I can tell it's hard for him to accept this particular thing – it's because it doesn't fit in with his view of how his property should look. Hopefully it will be temporary and I'll transition to a more permanent shed at some different location in the future.

[daily log: walking 4km]

Today was one of those days where I felt like I had a job, even though I don’t.
The “storage tent” Arthur ordered – which is for me to put my extra stuff in – arrived. It’s a large object: a box of a kit that needs to be built. So it was at the Alaska Marine Lines freight office in town. That meant we had to take the trailer into town (though in retrospect I think if we’d really wanted, we could have put the box into the back of his SUV).
To take the trailer into town, we had to rearrange the trailers parked in the driveway – there’s a heavy-duty cargo trailer and a boat trailer. Arthur wanted to drive these trailers around, and my thinking was that he has a lot more experience driving trailers around than I do, on the steep driveway and one-lane dirt road, so I let him, just kind of watching and trying to be a spotter for when he should stop backing up.
Clearly Arthur was struggling with the 3D puzzle aspect of backing trailers into the odd angles of his driveway. I know that it’s not an easy thing – I don’t presume that I could have done much better. But for Arthur, who is accustomed to a sense of expertise and smooth competence with this type of thing, I think it was painful for him to confront the fact that he just wasn’t doing well. Over and over, he would back up, hit the bushes or the side of the road, missing his target, and have to pull up and try again. I mean – I’ve been there. Trailers are hard to back up. But he was getting frustrated and angry, as he does.
I couldn’t do anything but just let go and let him struggle. And worst was that, after we finally got the trailers where he wanted, and we were getting ready to drive into town for our weekly Thursday shopping and errand trip, well, Arthur noticed (and I did too) that he’d managed to place a huge dent in his front bumper while doing all his back-and-forth navigating the trailer. It was clearly a new wound to the vehicle, and noticeable.
Arthur was devastated. I think not just that he’d dented his SUV, but that he didn’t remember doing it. I could see him kind of deflate, and I recalled sitting with the SLP (Speech Pathologist) at the VA, a month and a half ago, and her saying, “Well, perhaps he’s just going to have to have his moments of failure, for his new limitations to hit home.” I think this was just such a moment.
I drove into town. At one point, in one of the parking lots, it became my moment to have to back up the trailer – because we were hauling around, to pick up the storage tent. Arthur started to try to tell me how to do it. As I said, I’m certainly no expert trailer-backer-upper, either. But then he just grumbled, “don’t listen to me, you saw what I did.” It was a moment where he showed his shame and embarrassment.
We got the tent. He left the trailer hooked up to the SUV in the driveway, perhaps thinking he’d want to tackle more backing up tomorrow. I’m not sure I’m up for it. But it’ll have to happen, I guess.
It was not that difficult a day from a task standpoint. It was emotionally rough, I guess you could say.
On a brighter note, I had made some 김치볶은밥 (kimchi fried rice) for lunch, and Arthur conceded it was “quite acceptable” – which is high praise, coming from him.

A cloud in the afternoon.

[daily log: walking, 2km]

This morning Arthur and I took Wayne to the Klawock airport, and he flew back to his home on Vancouver Island, BC. 

That leaves just Arthur and me alone together again, at this place Arthur calls "Rockpit, Alaska." That's Arthur's name for his location. Typically it's called "Port Saint Nicholas" but that invokes images of Santa Claus or some Russian colony that never existed, maybe. I like the name Rockpit.

On a walk down the road, I noticed that fall comes early.

And Raven, observing the world and then taking flight.

As the saying goes, it's "just us chickens," now. But that seems to refer to the neighbors' chickens. The immediate neighbors to the east – with whom Arthur does not really get along – also have goats and dogs, who are somewhat annoying because they generally run loose, and no one informed them as to the location of the property line. So yes, I have seen goats on Arthur's front porch, and dogs on his dock. Of course out in the woods, there are bears.

I no longer have any excuse to not work on some of the unpleasant projects hanging over me: e.g., my tax problem. This has me somewhat depressed.

[daily log: walking, 4.5km]

Today was Arthur's birthday. Last week was my birthday.

Wayne was very cool – he ordered us a chocolate cake, with both of our names on it. So we had a birthday party. And the rain came, to help us celebrate.

Here is Mr. Heron, on the dock in the damp drizzle, this morning.

Here is the expressway, on our afternoon walk.

Here is the cake, and two people getting older.

[daily log: walking, 4km]