Wilderness Blues- Ramblings from the Great Land

I was down at the harbor the other day to get a picture of Floyd Peterson. I wanted to get out of the house for awhile because it was sunny outside and I wanted to get the stink blown off. As I was driving around I happened to notice Floyd's boat drifting close to Graveyard Island with a pretty good sized flock of seagulls hanging around the stern. I had heard that there were a few kings around, so I figured he got his share. I went down to wait for him to come in and tie up. While I was there I noticed a lot of activity in the area around the floats. The gulls were agitated and there were a few eagles perched on the trolling poles of some of the boats. There was quite a large flock of Mergansers swimming in the harbor also. They are fish eating ducks, so in all my brilliance, I deduced that there must be some reason for the interest. As I was walking down the ramp I could see the dark line in the water that separated empty water from that which was teeming with life. For whateve...

The other day my daughter Camille called and was unhappy with me because she was tired of looking at the picture of Jack, on the previous post. I guess I'm going to get a call every few days now because I haven't met my quota of blog posts. Apparently she is sadly lacking for entertainment. So, Camille, this one's for you! This is a picture of our dog, Rigby. He's a black and tan daschund. I had to look up the spelling in my dictionary. Contrary to popular belief, Paris Hilton's dog isn't the most spoiled one in the universe. Oh sure, it may have a diamond necklace and get packed around in an overgrown purse, but I would be willing to bet that Paris has never once bent down and picked up even one pile of poop after her little precious relieved itself. I, on the other hand, have picked up mountains of the stuff. Not because I want to, it's just the right thing to do. Plus, if I don't, come spring, when it's time to mow the lawn, it will be lying in wa...

This is my friend Jack Annis. I'm not sure he would approve of my writing about him- he's a fairly private person, but then again, he might not mind. He's incredibly generous with his time and talents and even his possessions. When he moved away last year he went out of his way to make sure that everything in our house was up to par- the electrical, hot water heater and plumbing. He had worked as the maintenence supervisor at the school and there wasn't a whole lot that he couldn't do. Actually this blog isn't about Jack, he's just the only person I have a picture of who is getting grey, so he fits the bill for what I wanted to write about. I do have a rather funny story involving Jack, two Sitka Blacktail bucks and a rubber life raft that I would like to share some day, but that will probably wait until another time. I was in Juneau awhile back to take care of some overdue maintenence on my body. I went to the dentist and had two teeth filled and one root c...

Today is the second day of the new year, and to start it off right, I decided to make a pot of soup. It just so happened that I had a pint of heavy cream left over from the potato soup I made on Christmas Eve. I don't want to toot my own horn, but that was some awsome soup. It's hard to taste bad when the ingredients include a pound of bacon, a whole white onion and a pint of heavy cream amongst other things. I used a recipe called the utimate potato soup recipe. I guess you could call it heart-attack soup too- it's full of all kinds of things that aren't good for you. Some people don't like cream soups. I have a friend who gags at the sight of any milk product. My daughter Jen was thinking of wrapping up a quart of milk for him at Christmas as a kind of gag gift, which in this case it would be- literally. It's kind of ironic- his wife is nursing their baby. The very sight could be a best case/ worst case scenario. It might be fun to watch, but the thought of...