Wilderness Blues- Ramblings from the Great Land

  2015 will be remembered by me as a year of trial and tribulation, a year when my patience has been stretched to the breaking point and seemingly beyond. We're half way through the month of June, and I'm still waiting for the remainder of the planks to be installed. A project that began at the end of March and was supposed to be finished over a month ago and has no finish date in sight. I'm pleased that we finally have some planks put back on the boat. It's progress that can be measured; however, the dog salmon are running and I'm not on the water taking advantage of them. The weather for the past six weeks has been hot dry and sunny, with an almost daily dose of wind. While it is nice to wake to sunny days, the unseasonably warm weather has melted almost all the snow on the surrounding mountains, which is a primary source of water for the streams that the salmon rely on to go up and spawn. Another ill effect of all this hot weather is that t...

   I know that those of us who write a blog have a lot of competition for readers, and that one sure way to lose readers is to not update the posts regularly. I understand that it's been a while since my last post, but I've been dealing with an uncommon amount of problems this spring, and doing a blog post hasn't been at the top of my priority list. As I write this, I'm in a certain degree of pain, I won't go into the reasons, but suffice it to say, this may not be my most stellar post. As of this moment, the boat is still missing the vast majority of it's planks on the starboard stern. The shipwright was down on Friday and installed some oak frames, and said he couldn't make it back until Sunday. When I went down today to see if he had made any further progress, it appeared that he hadn't come down. Oh Joy! Last week, I needed to get my oil changed, which is usually a fairly minor job, however, because of a back issue, I can...

 For most of April of this year, we had rain. Now, I understand that we live in a rain forest, and that's what it does there-rain. Frankly, I'm glad it does. The Eco-system is set up for that kind of climate. I think we came within a fraction of an inch of setting a record in April for rainfall, so a few weeks  ago when the sun started shining, my spirit was uplifted and I was a happy camper. The boat dried out enough that I could paint it and not fear moisture in the wood underneath. That was great. Like all good things though, after awhile it's nice for a little change. I was starting to wish the rain was back. The snow on the mountain tops is melting at a rapid pace and the hull of the boat is starting to check from being out of the water for so long and the days on end of hot sunshine. I was outside painting or some blasted thing last week in the uncommon heat and even though I was hot, I didn't realize that I was getting dehydrated. Well, I was...

  Jan and I enjoyed a delightful time last night with a young lady who is preparing to return to the lower 48 for a job she's really wanting. For the record, this isn't the gal  pictured here- she's a different young lady named Renee who just recently got married. She used to be the school counselor and we developed a friendship that  I cherish. She too left, a pattern I've seen all too often here in Hoonah. We just get to know someone and off they go. Isn't that life though? Anyway, our friend last night, Shannon, mentioned that I reminded her of her grandfather. That's a good thing. If she had said that I reminded her of Harrison Ford or some other equally handsome fellow, I might have felt the need to shave or shower or get dressed up a little before she came for a visit. As it was, because I'm getting to be an old guy, I don't feel any pressure to hold in my gut or stand up straight or anything. She knows I'm an old guy and accepts me as suc...

    If we are lucky enough to enjoy a long life, the chances are that our bodies and minds will gradually deteriorate. Just like any piece of machinery, no matter how well oiled or maintained, time will eventually have an impact on us. I just returned from a whirlwind trip south to assist in getting my mother moved into an assisted living facility. Several months ago she suffered a stroke. It required her going into a rehab program and sharing a room, much like a hospital room, where she could get the help she needed. Unfortunately, the stroke wasn't the worst of the problems she was facing. Over the course of the past year or so, it was becoming increasingly evident that Mom was having problems with her memory. Not just the common forgetting where you put your keys or not being able to pull a word out of your mind to complete a sentence. In the course of a conversation I would often answer the same question five, six, seven or more times. Every day knowledge that she sho...

   Twenty five years ago, when I first laid eyes on the Bonnie J, I really wasn't impressed. After all, it was a wooden boat,and I knew what that was going to entail. However, when I got closer and looked at the For Sale sign, and the amount that the seller wanted for her, I started to give it some consideration. At the time I still had seven kids at home, and I wasn't exactly raking in the big bucks working at L. Kane Store. I don't know what my reasoning was for buying it; I guess I realized that I'd be hard pressed to find another boat with a basically new engine for that price,and since I wasn't mechanically inclined, a new diesel was a real selling point. I would have liked to have purchased a good used fiberglass boat, but they were going for about twice what we paid for the house, so that wasn't practical either. Sooooo... I bought the Bonnie J and actually, I've been paying for it ever since. I've had her for almost 25 ye...

     Years ago Timex watches came out with various commercials showing their watches being abused in assorted situations - people skiing down a slope and falling or a guy using a jack hammer or something along that line to show how tough their watches were. The announcer would come on and say - Timex watches, they take a licking and keep on ticking. Well, Jan and I celebrated our forty third wedding anniversary recently and I'm pleased to say, we're still ticking along. I didn't say tickling, I said ticking, like a watch. I didn't include any pictures of us as we look now, the contrast is so great, that you probably wouldn't believe that it was the same two people. It's amazing what time does to a person. I wish I weighed now what I did in these pictures. I think I had a 29 inch waist then. Heck, my head probably wouldn't fit into a 29 inch stocking cap right now. I can't recall when the last time was that my hair was anything ...