Wilderness Blues- Ramblings from the Great Land

For some reason I seem to be unusually long winded this month. This is the eighth post for March. I've never written so much in one month on a blog. I'm not real sure what I'm writing about now. I was up at the dump the other day getting rid of some of the bits of rotten wood and other debris from the boat and happened to have my camera with me. When I first moved to Hoonah the dump was located just a few blocks from town. It was actually a popular place to check out for folks from the farm. I found several really good items that had relatively little wrong with them- a recliner with a rip in the fabric, an expensive wool  jacket with a  broken zipper and a vacuum cleaner whose only discrepancy was a clogged hose. Now the dump is located several miles up the mountain overlooking the Spasski Valley. The view is much nicer, but there is less good stuff to get anymore.  They burn most of trash and the area is caged in-supposedly to keep bears out of the garbage, ...

As I get older, I find myself unable to pull words out of my head that I know are in there. It's like my brain is constipated or some such thing. Try not to give that mental image too much thought. Another problem that I have involves not being able to remember what I've mentioned before- thus I may end up telling the same humorous story (or what I think is humorous) to the same people more than once. It's not so bad if they are getting older like me and can't remember if I told it before or not, then they just laugh and forget about it until I tell the same story a month or two later. I guess the point I'm trying to make here is that I can't remember if I've done a blog post on potato soup or not. I've done corn chowder, Mexican Quiche, blueberries and cream muffins and corn flakes vs clown flakes. The bottom line is, I've done over 150 posts in the past few years and there's a good chance I may blog about the same thing more than once. If I do,...

I do some contract labor for the US Forest Service, so several times a week I find myself inside the office building. The employees spend quite a bit  of time out in the surrounding woods and rivers and because they cover so much area in their  travels, they frequently come across things of interest, which they bring back to the office. Amongst the items which are commonly found are a fungus which grows on the trees, which most folks here call bear breads. I've also heard them called bear crackers.I don't know how they came to be called by that name, to the best of my knowledge, bears don't eat them. I spoke to my friend Chris Budke, long time forestry technician about them, and he informed me that they only grow on trees that are in some way damaged, due to a defect or rot or illness. Spores come off the bottom of the fungus and drift in the wind or are picked up by birds or other forest animals and are deposited on trees that are suitable for the bear breads to grow. H...

I'm at a bit of a standstill on the boat right now. I have one project that requires me to lay on the frozen ground that I have been delaying, but other than that there isn't a whole lot that I can do at the moment.Since I was home anyway, and the place looked like I'd thrown a party for twenty wild dogs, I decided to clean up a little bit. I threw in a load of laundry and put some dishes in the dishwasher and started into my office where countless papers were littering every flat surface. I was tossing stuff madly into the trash when I came across the words-chicken bras scratched on a slip of paper.I had read that when writing, one should write down ideas, even in the middle of the night. If you can't use them now, they may come in handy later.I can't remember if I was in the middle of some erotic, Salvadore Dahli type dream or what, but for some unknown reason, the thought of chicken bras came to mind sometime in my past, so I wrote it down. We eat a fair amount o...

I hope I don't try the reader's patience by showing a few more photos of the boat. I told my son Ben I would update him on the status of the Bonnie J when he called today. As you can see, the original plan to replace the bow stem and a few planks, has grown into a monumental project that would make Noah nod in appreciation. While I was aware that some serious work needed to be done, I had no idea the damage was as extensive as it is. John told me yesterday that we had to stop taking planks off- there was just not enough time or materials to do all that needs done. I have some serious work that needs done on several planks that are amidships, but it just can't be dealt with at this time, so I'll have to try and dry out the planks and resort to the old standby, Bondo, a body filler that they use in cars after they've been in a wreck or start rusting out. You can see the contrast in the color of the wood planks versus the bow stem. The planks are yellow cedar and the s...

My wife, Jan, loves candles. We have a whole drawer in the kitchen devoted to them- and not a small drawer either. It used to be that you only brought out the candles for special occasions like Thanksgiving or Christmas.They were white or maybe  red or green; holiday colors.  Sometimes during thunder storms back in Ohio they made an appearance if a tree blew a line down somewhere. Everyone had a few candles on hand for emergencies. Last week the power went out in town, and the whole city was thrust into darkness. It's kind of eerie- no street lamps or anything. On the one hand it's kind of neat if the stars are out- you can really see them unimpeded by the town lights. On the other hand, it just so happened that it was Thursday evening, the only night that I really care to watch TV. My two favorite shows were on, both of which I missed. The power was out for over four hours and since we don't  have an alternate source of heat, aside from Rigby the dog, it got a littl...

I was down at the harbor the other day looking for something interesting to photograph. It was a drop dead beautiful day, flat calm out on the water and as you can see the sun was out. I was thoroughly enjoying myself, thinking that maybe spring was on the way. I don't know why I allow myself these delusions. The next day, March 1, the weather had turned; we had about an inch of snow and the wind was howling. When I was a kid there was a saying about March- In like a lion out like a lamb. You never hear those old sayings any more- probably because they aren't true, or maybe people aren't as gullible as they were when I was growing up. Anyway, it hasn't been very accurate since I've been in Alaska. Usually March comes in like a lion and goes out like a bear, with the time in between kind of like a rabid fox. I'm especially unhappy with the weather right now because of the boat being out of the water. I have some work to do on it that requires that I lay on the g...

Yesterday was February 29th. It only happens once every four years when there is a leap year. I was going to look into it, but I didn't, so this is what you get instead- a picture of my pickup truck. I happened to buy it from a fellow named Bob, so since I'm writing about Bob's, I felt that it was appropriate. I was out fishing last year,and as is typical for me during the long droughts between strikes, my mind wanders. I started thinking about how many people I know who are named Bob. There's my friend, Bob Pinard whom I wrote about in the last post- the guy who's missing his lucky hair thanks to his wife. It may not grow back; then what will he do? How can you possibly win at gin rummy if you're missing your lucky hair? Pinard was on the farm at the same time as several other Bobs. Bob Clark , who still lives at Game Creek. He's one of those guys who is good at just about anything. Mechanic, fisherman, hunter, tree-feller, and guitar and banjo player are ...