Wilderness Blues- Ramblings from the Great Land

 Several hours ago I had some idea what I wanted to write for this post. I suppose I should have stopped right then and written it, but I had to make a trip to the store and the post office. There were some muffins to make for some friends whose family is visiting for Christmas. I needed to go to my daughter's house and enjoy an annual shoe box dinner with her and two of my grandchildren and a great granddaughter, as well as some close friends. These things are all blessings to me. Tomorrow we'll open gifts and have more family and friends over to share an abundance of food and hopefully and abundance of laughter. Like so many others, I sometimes get caught up in all the gift giving and holiday cheer, that I forget that there is a reason why we celebrate Christmas. It's because God loved us enough to send His very best. John 3:16 states that "God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but shall have eternal life...

 It's been awhile since I've written any posts. I haven't been out with the camera much lately. I guess I haven't seen too much that I wanted to photograph. The weather has been foul for weeks, rainy, snowy, windy- typical weather for Southeast Alaska in the late fall/early winter. Who really wants to see pictures of cloud shrouded mountains or rain thick seascapes? I started looking back through the archives of my pictures hoping to find something worth while to write about and I came upon this bench from down at the cannery. I remember asking my friend John Kveum about it some time back, but I can't really recall what he told me. I know it's been around for quite a long time. Back in the days when the cannery processed salmon, many a captain or crew hand or maybe cannery worker sat on this weathered bench, knife or fid in hand and decided to leave his mark. I guess there's something in all of us that wants to make a statement or be remembered. Ma...

   I've got a few pictures from Halloween 2019. One that I truly wish I had was a fine young fellow  who came out with his children on All Hallow's Eve to keep them safe. His name is Wilbur, and I've known him for years. He was a student in the school where I worked for a season. He used to address himself as Wilbyrightback. He's always been a pleasant young man and he's got quite the sense of humor. He frequently comes to work with assorted colors of nail polish on his fingernails. His daughter likes to paint them, and Wilby allows her to. When I answered the door on Halloween, aside from a lovely little girl dressed as I don't recall, her full sized father, Wilbur, was dressed in a mermaid costume, complete with wig and sparkly fins. It was hilarious. I do wish I'd gotten the picture, but I'm afraid it was an opportunity missed.  However, I didn't miss the chance to see my great granddaughter Evelee dressed as a fairy, complete wit...

    I was speaking to my daughter Autumn this evening and found that we both have a penchant for the delicious flavor of Almond Joy candy bars. As a general rule I never bother to buy candy bars. I'll admit that I do pick up a few of those little bite sized Reese's Peanut Butter cups when I'm in shopping at the store, and I imagine if you ate enough of them in one sitting it would be the equivalent of a full sized candy bar, but I try hard not to put too fine of a distinction on that. Anyway, with the recent passing of Halloween I found myself the proud owner of a number of M&M's, Snickers, Twixt,Milky Ways, Reese's Cups and the afore mentioned Almond Joy candy bars. When I was in Juneau shopping, I picked up the economy bag of candy at Costco. It had 150 candy bars and packs of M&M's inside. I didn't want to run out. Kids can be viscous when they come knocking on your door expecting a treat and you don't have anything. Better to play it...

I recently had to make a trip down to Wisconsin to visit my ill mother-in-law. It was a rush trip and totally unexpected, but it all worked out good. She recovered in spectacular fashion, I was able to visit with some family members and before the battery on my camera crapped out, I got a few pictures of one of my favorite subjects, trains. I've been fascinated with trains ever since I can remember. While I was standing near the tracks, waiting for the train, I could both hear and feel the rumbling of the approaching train; the ground vibrated like a small earthquake as it came nearer and the flashing red lights and ringing of the bells  of the crossing were just the icing on the cake for me. Growing up,whenever a train happened to be passing in front of our car, I'd sit in the back seat with a grin from ear to ear while my dad fumed at being held up.The only time I shared his disgust was when I  had to pee really bad. There are no trains in Southeast ...

    I whine quite a bit about getting older. There isn't a whole lot about attaining the "golden years" that I find very golden. Maybe they're called that because all the gold you might have been lucky enough to accumulate when you were working is now spent on medicine and doctor visits. There is one very good thing though about being retired, and that is, while everyone else is out trying to make a living, I have time to go to some of the places that others can't access during the week because they're at work. This past Friday, Jan and decided to take advantage of the beautiful fall weather and take a drive out to Freshwater Bay. It's located down Chatham Strait, and if I were to take my boat down there, it would take me at least six hours to get there. By road it's only 28 miles. Even so, it still took us the better part of two hours. There is a lot of loose gravel and pot holes, to say nothing of multiple blind curves and hill...

 Here's a picture of me from a few weeks ago, coming to the top of the ladder at the cold storage. I had just unloaded my catch of cohos and had to climb up the ladder to get my fish ticket and check. Like so much else lately, the trip up the ladder was a workout. I try not to do it much any more. I get winded, in part because I'm packing a lot more pounds than I should be. No discipline I guess. It's also part of the aging process though I think. As we get older we have less energy and slow down. We need more time to rest and we're less active. Lately I've taken to having an afternoon nap... or several. Sometimes they're planned, and sometimes they just sneak up on me while I'm in my chair watching the TV for a few minutes. I was up at the post office today and my friend John Murray, who is always outspoken was talking to a lady. When he saw me, he said-"Botts! Pull up  your pants!" He was right, they were starting to sag a little. I'...