Wilderness Blues- Ramblings from the Great Land

 2014 is drawing to a close, and so I thought it would be a good time to reflect on some of my many blessings. This is by no means a comprehensive look at them all, but rather a small fraction of God's goodness to me. I recently heard a Christmas song that I haven't heard in years. The lyrics in part go like this- when I'm worried and I can't sleep, I count my blessings instead of sheep,and I'll fall asleep, counting my blessings. I hope that as this year ends and a new one begins, you'll join me in looking back and reflecting on the multitudes of blessings we enjoy. Thank you for your interest in this blog. God bless and keep you, and God bless America. May we return to our roots and once again be a beacon of light for the world.

  When I was a kid, Christmas was a magical time of year. Shortly after Thanksgiving, ol' Mac would start to receive the Christmas trees that he chose back in October. He owned Mac's Trading Post and was one of the main suppliers of Christmas trees for the area. I've always enjoyed the sights and sounds and smells of Christmas. In northern climates the days tend to be dark and gloomy and the extra lights and colorful tinsel help to brighten the season. As an adult I still enjoy the the bright colors and whatnot, but even more so I enjoy receiving Christmas cards. You get to hear from friends who you might not have contact with any other time of year. Usually there's always some relative who sends a brief history of what they or their kids are doing in a type-written mass produced letter. It's nice to know what little Johnny is doing...I guess. I just wish they would include some real world experiences. If one were to believe what was written, ...

Can you believe that it's almost Christmas again? It seems like we just put all this stuff away in the attic, and now it's time to drag it out and go through the whole scenario of shuffling through it and decorating. I remember hearing older people talking about how fast the time goes as you age, and because I was young and days seemed to last forever, I thought they were mistaken, or at the very least pulling my leg. Now that I've entered my senior years, I realize they were so right. We're on a train through time that starts off slow as it leaves the station and continues to gather speed until it's hurtling faster and faster towards our end. Ah well, guess we need to make the most of the time we're given. In any event, back to the subject at hand. At the beginning of the week Jan rooted around in the attic and started digging out the  boxes of "Christmas Stuff." Holy Crow! It looks like the seasonal isle at a Walmart Store. ...

 I hope everyone had an enjoyable Thanksgiving Day with family and friends. For those who had to be away from home or without family members, I hope that you can find some comfort in your memories and pray that your future memories will be pleasant. My son Brian is visiting right now, for which I am most grateful. I miss having all the kids sitting around the table like it used to be. I'm very fortunate that my daughter and granddaughter live here in Hoonah and we're able to see them fairly often, but I do wish that I could afford once a year to pay for everyone to come together for a Thanksgiving feast.  Since that isn't possible, we have to settle for phone calls and Face book I guess.   A few weeks ago my good friend, Buffalo Bob Holden called. We first became friends when we were both living on the farm at Game Creek. Periodically one of us will call the other to catch up on our lives and compare books we've read. I'm reading a book right...

  When Jan and I bought this house years ago, we were a family of nine. Including Jan, there were six females trying to live in harmony in a home that had only one bathroom. For the life of me I don't know how we did it. Mornings were especially hectic as everyone had to try to get ready for school or work. Fortunately, if things got desperate the boys could step outside to the woods in back for some immediate relief if the bathroom was tied up. Our home was one of the original "war houses" that were diverted to Hoonah after the fire of 1944 burned down most of the town. I believe they were originally bound for Hawaii or some warmer climate. It runs in my mind that there wasn't any insulation in them when they were first installed. Of course it wouldn't be such a big deal if the average year round temperature was 75 or so, but it didn't work too well for Alaska. When we purchased the house, it had been remodeled recently with new plumbin...

  Today's post will be number 300. Who knew that I could be so long winded? Well, maybe everyone but myself. It's why I accomplish so little in the course of a day. I should be a DJ or something so I could at least be paid for being a windbag. In any event, I suppose I should celebrate somehow- maybe bake a cake and stick on three hundred candles. I could probably shut off the heat for awhile. More likely I'd set the house on fire, so I guess I won't attempt the cake.   I went out yesterday to document something that I never thought I would see- utility poles stretching out beyond the town. I couldn't believe my eyes when I first saw the crews from Chatham Electric erecting them. I knew that Shorty Tonsgard had started a subdivision out past the runway, but the power lines go well beyond that, all the way out to the O3 road where our water supply for the city is. I asked a former city administrator about it, and she said we were going to ...

   I made a trip over to Juneau last week to go shopping. Sounds about as exciting as watching paint dry doesn't it? I believe most ladies like to shop, but I think that usually involves fun things like shoes or clothes or some such thing. I don't know what's so fun about those items. Now if they were shopping for hoochies or spoons or flashers and assorted other fishing gear, I could see where that would be fun. I think my heart skips a few beats every time I spot a new pack of hoochies that have the potential for catching fish. That's much more practical than a tenth pair of shoes or an extra blouse to squeeze into a closet. Unfortunately I wasn't shopping for fishing gear. I paid $132.00 to hop a ferry and go shopping for groceries. It seems like a lot of money, and it is, but the fact is, it costs so much for groceries here, that with the amount that I bought, I actually saved money. A case in point. I ran out of gum prior to my trip so I ...

A Haitian boy in the market Children in school at Danita's Children Dauphly Francia Dervilus Robenson Talabert  I received a lovely color pamphlet from Danita's Children  a couple weeks ago. Danita's Children is an organization down in Haiti that runs an orphanage, a school and most recently a hospital on the compound. In 1998 Danita Estrella came to the Dominican Republic with a group of doctors in order to translate for them. Several weeks later she traveled to Haiti. When she saw the orphans, the people sleeping in the streets, the abject poverty, her heart was broken. Two months later she said goodbye to her family and moved to Haiti by herself. She opened a home for orphans and one month later she had fourteen children she was caring for. She started a charitable organization called Hope for Haiti and has since renamed it Danita's Children.I'm no...

  I took these pictures out back this morning. For those of you who can't tell or aren't familiar with the flora of Southeast Alaska, these are blueberry bushes. As you can see, there aren't any blueberries on them. In years past, I wouldn't even bother to pick any berries until now because of all the leaves. I kind of like to wait until after a frost so that in the process of picking I don't end up with more leaves than berries, plus there is a little white worm that inhabits some of the fruit, and I think the frost drives them out or at least kills them. In any event, I had planned on going out picking several weeks ago, but the fishing season was extended, which was a good thing, and the weather was really foul with lots of wind and rain, which wasn't such a good thing, and I missed my opportunity to go picking. Blast it! I really wanted to have a gallon or so of blueberries so I could make a few, or I guess more than a few, batches of ...

   Have you ever sat down at the end of the day and asked yourself, "Where does the time go?"  It's something that happens with more frequency as I get older. I used to rush around like a madman doing this and that, looking forward to the next project, but not so much any more. I move a lot slower now, and if I don't have something that needs done right away, I'm pretty much ok with that for awhile. The problem is, I have all kinds of projects that need done, at least right now, but either I don't have the time or the energy. or something of equal or greater importance pops up that takes precedence. Case in point. Today is the last day of the summer troll season. I had planned on possibly going over to Homeshore for one last hurrah, but instead, I had to take the truck up to have a diagnostic test done on it. Par for the course, the mechanic said-" this is the only vehicle I've  ever checked that this tester won't read....

    My friend is dying and I'm sad about that. In the past few weeks we've had three people pass away here in Hoonah. Two were pretty well advanced in years, one was my age or perhaps a little younger. All three succumbed to cancer. It's the same thing that is working its way through my friend's body. I believe it started in the pancreas and has moved through the uterus and other internal organs. She is dealing with a colostomy and has shaved her head, I suppose because her hair was falling out in patches because of chemo.She writes a blog and has included all of this factual information in it, as if it were happening to someone else and she were just an observer, recording the facts. Up until now she has been very strong, very stoic, at least outwardly, but her last post revealed  a sorrow that  has been kept private. Frankly, I'm glad that she shared some of her feelings. As human beings we sometimes hurt. We get scared or lonely or sad. We need each other to ...

  A few weeks back I was coming home from church when I noticed this unusual craft anchored in the bay off of Graveyard Island. I didn't know if it was a submarine, a boat or what. I was surprised a week or so later when I saw the same boat on the Anchorage news. It is named simply, A. According to the Sun Sentinel it is owned by a Russian billionaire  who named it after himself (Andrey Milnechenko, and his super model wife, Aleksandra. It is reported to be 394 feet long and having a price tag of a cool $300 million. I can think of other ways to spend $300,000,000.00. That's just the initial cost. As the owner of a boat that initially cost me a cool $16,000.00 I can promise, that no matter how much you spend on a boat, it will just be the beginning of sorrows. The difference between him and me is that he can afford to make the repairs. Oh, he may be a billionaire now, but by the time he gets done owning the boat, he'll most likely be in debt to some shipyard or anoth...

  Those who know me know that I can take the smallest of life's trials and blow them up into earth shaking, catastrophic events in my mind.  Fortunately I've been blessed with the ability to find humor in most of life's daily struggles. After my initial frustration or anger over an event has passed, I can turn it into a fairly humorous story. Losing six fish in a row to an aggressive sealion is terribly frustrating. The humor comes the next day when it surfaces with one of my flashers stuck to his head. Hopefully it will serve as a warning to any fish in the area. It would be better yet if it attracted other sealions thinking he had a fish and they all attacked him. Poetic justice I would say. In any event, whether it's losing money to predators or medical emergencies or children making choices that you know will not turn out good, we all have something unpleasant to deal with in this life. Jesus said it pretty plainly-" In this life you will have trouble, but ...

   I was perusing my large stack of paperwork today when I came across this picture. It is from the good folks at Radio Bible Class. I wish I had the name of the photographer. He did a delightful job. When I was living out at the farm there was a very different doctrine being preached than one that I could embrace and I was in constant turmoil mentally trying to wrap my head around what was being said and what I felt was reality for me. There was a small library in the tabernacle there. I can't recall ever seeing anything but religious titles there- no Alexander Dumas or Robert Fulgham or William Shakespeare for that matter. However, I happened to find a copy of Our Daily Bread, put out by  Radio Bible Class. When I looked through the devotional it was like someone turned on a light in a dark room. I understood and agreed with what was written in that pamphlet. When we left the farm I started receiving monthly copies of Our Daily Bread and have been supporting them e...

      Jan and I took a Sunday drive recently.It was a Sunday, just not last Sunday.The weather was nice at the time- or perhaps it was sweltering and I felt the need to go cool off- I really can't recall. Anyway, a friend told us that this sow and her cubs were hanging out at Spasski River, so we thought we'd check it out. Initially I could see the sow in the bushes and I really didn't think that she would come out to where I could get a picture of her. However, she stepped out of the brush and started walking on a well worn path in our direction. In fact, several times she looked up at the bridge. It was a little unnerving. There were a few salmon in the stream, but not very many, and perhaps she was thinking that a much more filling meal was waiting to be harvested from the red truck that was up there idling. I kind of wanted to leave the truck and go take a peek to see what kind of salmon were finning in the river, but after she looked at me a second time, I...

The Fairweather Mountain Range, outside coast                                                            Blue green glacial water in Idaho Inlet     The point I anchored behind in Idaho Inlet    I ran to the outside coast last week. Fishing on the inside has been almost non-existent. Well, at least the fish have been. What good is going fishing if you can't catch any fish? Granted it can be fun or relaxing or whatever you adverb you want to use to describe it, but when you're a commercial fisherman, you need to catch fish. That's the bottom line. Otherwise the adjective used to describe you is poor or perhaps destitute or penniless. Any of those would work. Anyway, I bit the bullet and ran out to the outside coast last week. I had to wait for a weather window. The week before I went o...