Wilderness Blues- Ramblings from the Great Land

Digging on the mud flats for crabs Success- five Dungenss Crabs ready to cook Star fish A Sun Star Star fish on the beach Sea Cucumber A Horse Clam  When most people talk of going to the beach, there are visions of warm water, bikini clad beauties, sand, surf, wading in the water and swimming. I decided to join my family members the other night and we didn't experience any of the above. Instead we faced snow, wet boots, mud flats and exercise with clam rakes. On December 23 and 24 of this year, we were blessed with unusually high tides. As I've mentioned on this blog before, really high tides create really low tides about six hours later. It seems that the lowest tides are usually in the evening, as was the case the other day. Both nights experienced a minus 4 foot tide. When that happens, all the areas that would usually be covered by water are exposed, and it's the prime time for going beach combing, looking for clams, cockles, or Dungen...

    Years ago, after I had grown up and gone, my parents moved to Florida. Dad loved the warmer weather, and unlike Ohio at the time, there was a building boom going on. In addition, my brother and his family lived there. It was a win-win situation. For reasons I'm not sure of, my folks ended up taking over the care of my brother's dachshund. Perhaps my brother felt that they needed a dog in their lives, so he gave up ownership of his dog Oscar. Oscar Meyer, which was a fitting name since he was a wiener dog. Like many animals, dogs like a routine. At a given time every night, Oscar wanted to go to bed. I"m not sure why, but my folks kept his bed in a coat closet. What was even more bizarre was the Oscar insisted on being wrapped up tight in his blanket. When it was time to go to bed, my Mom would say "OK Oscar- go get your "blang". So he dutifully grabbed his blanket, and they wrapped him up tight and laid  him in his bed and there he...

When I was a kid, winter was always a challenge for me. I didn't like cold weather, and Ohio in the winter was quite cold and frequently snowy. Like any kid, I wanted to be out with my friends though, throwing snow balls, sledding, building snow forts and whatnot. There was one closet downstairs for the whole family to share, and into that closet was crammed as many coats, hats, snow suits, gloves and mittens as possible. Every year for Christmas I was given a pair of gloves. By December 26th I had usually managed to lose at least one. No matter how diligently I searched the closet floor or shelf, I could never come up with a glove to match it's mate. On more than a few occasions I went out with mis-matched gloves. I don't recall now, but I may have had to settle for a glove on one hand and a sock on the other. Socks were notorious for getting lost too. Gloves and socks are probably part of the same genus- Clothingus Disappearus. Well, obviously I'm not a little ki...

       It's hard to imagine when looking at these tranquil pictures, that a very different scenario was playing out some 546 miles away. Anchorage of course was hit with a pretty strong earthquake several days ago- a 7.0 . My daughter, Autumn called that morning shortly after it happened, around 8;30 in the morning. She was working in a cafe in Palmer when it started and mentioned that things were falling off the walls and something fell down and hit a glass table top which shattered. Everyone rushed out into the streets and hoped for the best. Back in 1964 a magnitude 9.2 quake hit Anchorage with the loss of over 130 lives. I heard that the ground dropped over eight feet in places during that one.  When I spoke to Autumn, she was still pretty shaken up, and rightfully so. You never know if that's the worst of it or if there is more to come. Unfortunately there are aftershocks that can go on for some time. The USGS mentioned that in t...

  Well, Thanksgiving 2018 has come and gone. I hope yours was pleasant. If you were one of the tens of millions of Americans who took to the roads and skies this year, I pray that you made it home safe and that the trip was worth the expense and hassle. I, for one, have no desire to travel more than two or three blocks for a holiday dinner, and for as long as I can remember, haven't gone much more than ten feet; from my easy chair to my spot at the table for a Thanksgiving meal. I do miss having all the kids sitting around the table during the holidays, spilling their milk, hiding the stuffing under their plates and arguing about whose turn it was to do the dishes. Ahh, the good ol' days. This year we only had my oldest daughter Jen for dinner, but we were blessed to have five friends share our meal. I like to have a table full of folks for the holidays. For reasons I can't fathom, Jen finds the word pickle to be rather hilarious, so at the appearance of the reli...

 Halloween has come and gone, and we're just a few days away from the next major holiday- Thanksgiving, yet somehow, the local store is a holiday behind. I went to the produce section the other day to pick up something for salad and came across these gems. They're called Buddha's Hand, or Goblin Fingers, for a very good reason. For the life of me, I've never seen anything like it before. The scientific name for this fruit is Citrus Medica Var Sarcodactylis.  Kind of sounds like a disease. As you can see, it's easier to ask for Goblin Fingers if that's what you want. Apparently they're only available for a short time of the year; fortunately that time corresponds with Halloween. I read up on them little bit because I wanted to know what the heck they could be used for, aside from scaring the masks off of little kids when they knock on your door wanting candy. This fruit is also known sometimes as Fingered Citron. It's a member of the Citron fam...

I would like to extend a hearty THANK YOU to all of our vets across the country and around the world, wherever they may be. Unfortunately there are still wars and hot spots across the globe that require sending our troops into harms way. In other cases, the various branches of the military are stationed where they need to be to be able to respond to conflicts if they should arise. In some instances, military equipment, as well as men and women are utilized to respond to natural disasters. These men and women don't have a say in where and when they'll serve. Once they sign on the dotted line they become government property and serve at the pleasure of those in charge, regardless of their political affiliation. All too often, the spouses and children of these service men and women are forgotten, and yet they bear the brunt of keeping the household running smoothly. I can only imagine how hard it is for a wife to have to keep up a brave face for the kids while she worries ...

 Have you ever watched a little kid when they first get the training wheels taken off their bikes? They keep looking behind to make sure that the parent is still hanging on to the bike; they don't want to fall. When they're finally on their own, there is usually a bit of time where the front wheels wobble as they try to maintain control. I'm not sure what happened  here in these pictures. I can't imagine anything like this happening in Juneau or Anchorage, but I can understand it happening in Hoonah. I mean, after all, that's where I live, and a good bit of my life is made up of the never before seen or experienced. Far be it from me to criticize the operator of the line painting machine. Lord knows that I could never paint a straight line, even if I had a thousand yard straight edge, somehow I'd manage to veer off the mark and end up with something that looks like this. Really though, what are the odds that the state of Alaska would hire someone like ...

Last month my wife, Jan, retired from the job that she's worked at for the past twenty three years. She worked at Hoonah Trading Company for half of our married life. When she first started working there, it was Hoonah Seafoods, one of three stores in town. Since then, L. Kane Store has closed, as well as Harbor Lights, and the only other store in town opened- Colette's Cupboard. She first started working in the hardware department. I can't recall if it was Ace  Hardware then or not. I think it was. Since then they've been involved with several other hardware companies. After a few years down there in hardware, the store's general manager asked her to come up to the office and work. That's where she spent the majority of her time, as a bookkeeper. She was also given the assignment of collecting delinquent accounts, and they couldn't have chosen a better person for the job. She was like a bulldog with a rag doll. I've no idea how much money she...

It's that time of year again. The time when farmers harvest their corn or at least I think they do. Where else would the corn stalks come from that show up in the supermarkets before  Halloween? I'm sure that the pumpkin harvest must be going on, as well as other fruits or vegetables or grains. I know that here in Hoonah, I once again took part in ravaging the crab apple tree in front of the Abundant Life church. Last year my daughter Jen and I picked a whole slug of crab apples and made jelly. It turned out wonderful, so I thought I'd try it again this year. I was down to the nubs in my jelly supply, and even though Jen couldn't help, her sister Autumn came down from up north and lent a hand. She really gets in to the whole growing, harvesting, processing thing. She would have made a good farm wife fifty years ago. Last year was our first attempt at harvesting the tree, so I took the lessons I learned and tried a different approach this year. We still ...

When I find something I like, I usually stick with it. I'm fairly loyal. When I drink a soda, it's usually Pepsi. When I want salsa, I settle for nothing less than Pace Picante Sauce. The cupboards in my kitchen are Kraft made. I'll never get any other brand. I know what I like, and I support it with my money. Recently the blanket that I've had on my bed for over twenty years started to show signs of it's age. The edges were getting frayed, and there were spots that were looking kind of sparse in the fabric. The original blanket maker was Vellux. It was a velour blanket, and I loved it. Of course I wanted to replace it with another one. Well, I looked around on line, and all I could find were velour blankets made in China. There were assorted complaints about them, everything from smelling like formaldehyde to having them slide off the bed during the night and ending up in a pile on the floor beside the bed. Hmmm.... not good. I decided to check out bla...

Have you ever pondered the direction your life has taken? I suppose all of us would like a second bite at the apple. A chance to go back and correct mistakes we've made. Unfortunately we're not given that opportunity. We can certainly change our behavior and make wise choices from here on out, but we can't erase the past. Yesterday is gone and will never return. I remember a song I heard once, back when the kids were little. I believe it was on Sesame Street. The words were- Yesterday, today and tomorrow, whether they bring pleasure or sorrow, time is something no man can borrow, yesterday, today and tomorrow.- Truer words were never spoken. Anyway, at this juncture of my life, I find myself reflecting on my past, and wondering about my future. I don't want to feel like I wasted the time that God has given me, but that doesn't mean that every day has to be filled with activities either. I truly believe that we need to start every day with the Lord. Spend some t...

 I know that it's been awhile since my last blog post. My apologies, but it's fishing season, and I need to make money, like most of the rest of the world. Couple that with the fact that I'm getting old and tired, and by the time I get home and have supper, it's usually after nine o' clock,  I don't have much energy left to do a blog post. I'm writing one now because it's really foggy this morning and I wanted to do something before I go wet some lines. In the pictures above you can see that we've been visited by an infestation of hungry caterpillars. These particular ones are called Wooley Bears, at least that's what I've been told. I normally don't have anything against caterpillars. When you see one or two around town, it's kind of a neat thing. However, I guess due to the extended spell of hot, dry weather this summer, we got inundated with the blasted things. I had dozens of them every day on my flowering crab apple...

 How often have you been somewhere, when out of the blue a scent wafts past your nasal passages and you're instantly transported back to another time, another place. I'm not suggesting that the memory will always be pleasant. Perhaps you'll get a whiff of someone's old gym shoes and you'll be reminded of Phys ed class in ninth grade when a bully made you smell his socks under the threat of a thorough pounding. Maybe it's something more pleasing, like a lady passing by on the street and you catch the slightest scent of her perfume and you're transported through time to a summer romance from your youth. In what is the first of it's kind in the world, the USPS has come out with scratch and sniff stamps. As you can see, they look like frozen treats, and actually, you don't even have to scratch them to get a whiff of the delicate sweet scent. Perhaps receiving a bill from the electric company will be a little less unpleasant with a scratch and sniff ...

  Last week I went out with my number one crew hand Adam, and in what turned out to be a very wise decision on my part, a lady friend who owns the F/V Talache. I was having a heck of a time finding a second crew hand, when the idea occurred to me to ask Barbie if she would like to go.She jumped at the chance and I was so glad I asked  her. She was the perfect addition to the crew. The trip, as often is the case, didn't start off so well. I hooked up the long line drum and when I turned on the hydraulics, the motor that I had purchased just three years ago started puking hydraulic fluid like a college kid after an all night bender. What a hassle! The only person in town who works on hydraulics was out of town on vacation-go figure. Soooo..... I had to send the motor over to Juneau and order a new one, for a mere $775.00. We hadn't even set the first hook and I was already in the hole. Anyway, the second day I got the new motor hooked up and we ma...