I Hereby Resolve . . . .

 Yesterday, I started writing a blog post about New Year’s resolutions 🎊🎊 because it’s the turn of the year, and I hadn’t written a blog post for quite a while. Unfortunately, the writing stalled after two paragraphs of drivel, and by then I had the excuse to do something fun like go to the dump where I had to wait in line because it was the day after Christmas, and people were throwing away all the old stuff that got replaced by with new better stuff brought by Santa. 

Waiting in line is part of the holidays and some of us don’t do that well. I see people waiting in line at the post office as if they had come at noon just so they can visit with all the other people waiting to pick up or mail packages. 💬💬💬 That’s not me; I don’t like queuing up and am lousy at small talk. Waiting in line at the dump isn’t as bad because we’re all sitting in our cars with the windows rolled up against the damn wind, so no chitchat is possible or expected just a head nod at the driver pulling out of the offloading zone when it's my turn is enough.  Anyway, I was watching the ravens squabbling over dump treasures when I realized that the reason I couldn’t write thoughtfully about New Year’s resolutions was that I had never really made one, and I don’t set much store my them. At the same time, I don’t hate the idea enough to write a rant about resolutions and how they are a big silly waste of time. ☃☃

I know it’s traditional for some people to make promises of self-improvement on the first of January, and the Christmas wrapping wasn’t even off the living room floor before folks were talking about New Year’s resolutions, “I will stop drinking”, “I will go to the gym three times a week”, or “I will volunteer every month at the animal shelter”. These promises are well intended but most of them won’t last to Groundhog Day — a great holiday because it requires no gifts, costumes, cards, or overeating😎😎. Most people don’t stick to their commitments, and if they do it’s because they picked something easy that they wanted to do anyway like swear off eggplant, or quit eating canned spinach. Face it, most of our New Year’s resolutions are low-hanging fruit that make easy pickin’s, and we still generally fail to follow through, letting the fruit rot on the ground. The whole resolution thing is just our way of admitting that we are selfish sloths, but we can change. Hah! A society that needs the GOLDEN RULE to remind them to be nice to each other is pretty insincere about being better any time of year. 

I guess I did write a little bit about resolutions, but that was too short for a blog post, and I need to be more in the swing of this social media thing to promote my books – or so they tell me. As I consider my social media presence, I think I should be a content creator, and start a podcast. Madelyn and I talked about doing a podcast about our small town. The format would be us driving through town discussing and critiquing everything from Christmas lights and Halloween lawn art to the driving habits of people on the street. Imagine the lively banter about so-and-so who just ran that stop sign and old what’s-his-name who pushes his snow out in the street when he plows his driveway. Yes, winter podcasts might be a bit slow, but summer would bring a whole raft of subject matter to town, tourists, Campers, and snowbirds. They’d all be victims of our sharp wit and lively repartee. No town is too small to have people to make fun of or criticize.

Don’t worry, as tempting as it is, I doubt we’d ever follow through. For one thing, Madelyn has told me many times that I am not as funny as I think I am, and in fact, I’m being quite a grump of late. This suggests that some of my humor I might be mean-spirited. Humm. Maybe I should make a New Year’s resolution🎉🎉🎉 to be nicer, to try and see others as good, well-intended people. Maybe I should do unto others as I would have them do unto me. It’s worth a try. 😇😇😇 Care to join me? Get in line!👯👭👬👫

All it Takes is Money, Time and Expertise, and a Story of Course

With the December release date of my new book coming up, I thought I would share with you what’s involved in bringing a book to print. It’s a piece of cake really; all you need is time, money, and expertise. Oh, and a story to tell. In fact, let’s start there with the story. 

        When I finished Back Home, several months passed before I started thinking of more Sam Barger stories, but I knew that his tale wasn't complete. I decided, what the heck? Let's make it a trilogy. I was kicking around story ideas when it came to me. Sam should get together with Iris, the girl from Back Home, and Iris gets pregnant. No spoiler here. This is the opening line of The One-Man Iris Davis Club, literally. Here it is:  “If you paid any attention in biology class, you know how I got Iris pregnant, so all that’s left is when and where, and what happens after because that’s the real story.”

That was the first element of the story, and to make it work, I wanted Sam out of high school, and he needed to leave the state. I wanted him to go on a quest in classic hero style. This was enough to start with, supported by the backstory created by the previous books, Secondhand Summer and Back Home. In a couple of months, I had a story built that I was happy with, so I started revising and editing it, which is a continuous process that can go on indefinitely. TIME

        So, after a very long months of writing and editing . . .and editing, I had some trusted people read the story and give me feedback. Then, I
sent it on to the publishers of Back Home and Secondhand  Summer, full of optimism that they would be interested in publishing. No such luck. They passed on the project. Once I finished pouting, I decided to publish the book myself and have total control over the story. That’s where money and expertise comes in. MONEY

I had to hire an editor to polish and correct my work; a proofreader to make sure the grammar, syntax, and spelling were correct; and a book designer to help me format the book so it has a professional look to it. I found a local art student willing to design my book cover as part of her student portfolio.  I’m sure you’ve seen self-published books that had the thrown-together look. I didn’t want that, and a quality finished product costs money. Next time, I might need less expertise as I have learned to do some of this myself. But good art, editing, and proofreading are always critical. EXPERTISE

         Once I had a finished document, I purchased an ISBN number and uploaded it to Ingramspark, a company specializing in printing and distributing books and ebooks. As a distributor, this company will deliver my book to bookstores and online sellers like Barnes and Noble and Amazon. So, I am proud to announce the release of this adventure-romance historical fiction. I know that title, The One-Man Iris Davis Club, is a mouthful, but it should be memorable when you're in the bookstore wanting to buy it or you’re telling a friend how great it is. The original title was Do the Right Thing, but that’s a pretty common and vague title. This title came to me when I was writing the book's last chapter. 

        In this Sam Barger tale, he is fresh out of high school and thinks the world is his oyster. You can probably guess that things are not that way at all. Join Sam as he begins his journey into adulthood and faces unexpected challenges along the way. Here's a sample:

 “Holy shit!”

        That’s what I said when Iris told me she was pregnant. I didn’t say, “Holy shit, that’s amazing!” Or “Holy shit, that must be scary for you.” Either of those would have been a good choice, but I just said, “Holy shit!” and let it hang in the air like a giant voice balloon from some cartoon.
We were sitting in my pickup at Earthquake Park, making out and talking while we waited to see the sunset. I was seriously into making out, but Iris was more interested in talking. She was tense and didn’t seem to want to be touched at first. I tried putting my hand up her shirt but, she took it and slid it down to her knee and held it there. First, she talked about school and the war, chasing topics around like she was trying to grab soap in a bathtub. Then she asked, “So how was fishing? Was it all you wanted?” “Yes and no. There’s lots of downtime. I don’t handle that well. I think I’d like to go to college and be a lawyer and spend my summers fishing. Mom wanted that, the lawyer part anyway, and I think I did too. Now that I made a stab at fishing, though, I think I want more. It might fit for a couple of summers, but I ain’t going to make a living at. I learned that much. I’m not good at waiting, and fishing has lots of waiting.”

“Yeah,” she said, “I’m thinking this is my last summer at fish camp.

Dad’ll have to find a camp monkey.”

“Really? Is fly fishing losing its glamour?”

“You might say that. Then she sat back against the passenger door and took a deep breath. “Sam, I think I might be pregnant.” I jerked my hand away from her leg like I was touching a hot griddle—another bad move—and that’s when I said it.

“Holy shit!”

What followed was a long silence during which I rubbed my hands up and down my arms as a fever ran up my spine and my tongue became a thick ball of wool. Suddenly the truck felt small and cold.

“Is that all you’re going to say?” She slugged my shoulder. “Did you even hear me? I’m late, you know what that means, right?”

“I get it.”

“I stopped having periods, Sam. You don’t have to be Dr. Kildare to know what that means.” She leaned her head back and closed her eyes. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure, like 99 percent sure that I’m pregnant.”

I reached out to pull her close to me. Searching desperately for words, not just any words but the right words for such a moment, the right words for all the ideas racing through my head. She sat up straight and looked me square in the eye. “And don’t you even ask, Sam Barger. I know what you’re thinking.”

My hands came up instinctively to block any blows to follow. “Ask what?”

Finally, she smiled and faked a punch at my face then hit me on the thigh. “Don’t even ask if it’s yours!”

“Of course it’s mine,” I said, sounding more confident than I really was. “Wow, this is big. We’re having a kid.”

“Not so fast, Hotshot.” Iris reached down and grabbed an Oly from the six-pack on the floorboards and held it out for me to open.

“You better hand me one too. I’m going to need it.” I opened the truck door and used the latch to pop the caps off the beer bottles. I took a deep drink and looked out the window and then looked into those brown eyes and said, “I want to do the right thing.” I braced myself as Iris shook her head. I was on thin ice.\

“The right thing?” I could feel the ice cracking under me. No, I wasn’t ready to be a father, but I was crazy about this girl, and what the hell. Sure, I’d marry her. “The right thing?” she repeated. “What the hell does that mean? Does that mean you’ll pay for the abortion?” The ice was breaking under me now. “You’ll drive me to the airport and pay the doctor bills? Sam, are you that shallow?”

The ice was gone. I had sunk into ice-cold water and was drowning. “Iris, don’t. I’m right here. I’ll be here however you want me to be. I want to be part of this. You know how I feel about you. Shit, we can get married.” I downed the last of my beer and thought about another.

“Well don’t act like it’s a job, some chore on your daily checklist,” she said. She scooted away from me, putting her back against the door again and her feet up on the seat creating a wall between us. She sipped her beer and looked past me through the window to the horizon of mountains across the water.

“What did I do wrong? What did I say?” I asked.

“You just sounded so flat, like you don’t see just how big this is. Shit, I wish I had some weed. I have to walk.” With that, she bailed out of the truck, and I followed. We walked away from the other cars steamed up by couples with their heads together and moved down toward the crumpled chunks of earth left from when the shoreline collapsed after the ’64 earthquake. Five years later it was still a jumble of giant slabs of mud and dead trees.

“Do your parents know?” I asked, taking her hand. She didn’t pull away, and I realized that her hands were so small and mine so broad that we couldn’t lace our fingers like lovers usually do. It felt like a child’s hand I was holding.

“Are you kidding? Not yet. Dad will kill me—and you too. Mom’s going to cry for a week and tell me how I ruined my life.”

We were surrounded by the near-dusk light of late summer, and I searched the reddening sky for an answer. “They might surprise you, you know. Sometimes parents get it and actually act like they understand."

Boy, did I have that wrong.

Fall Comes Early in the North Country

To paraphrase the old radio show, it's been a quiet week in Bear Lake. . . 

Fall has established itself with falling leaves and cooler temperatures. The alder leaves are turning brown, and everything in the garden except the kale has surrendered its color. Fewer people venture out on the lake and we've heard the cranes holler goodbye as they head south. The woodshed is full and there are few fish frozen in the freezer, so I guess we're as ready we'll be. 

There's an old sourdough saying that used to make the rounds in Alaska: On the Kenai, the four seasons are winter, spring breakup, and road construction. Never is that more true than this year. The other day, on the way to Anchorage, I hit a two-mile stretch between Seward and the Y that wasn't under construction, and it should have been. This week, the average spend on the road from my place into town was about twelve miles an hour, which is the same speed as my grandson on his scoot bike. 

This kind of traffic fowl-up in our little town is making people grumpy and has somehow caused a suspension of traffic laws and good manners. For example, I have noticed that stop signs are merely suggestions and yield signs are an opportunity to piss off other drivers. Speaking of signs, we get plenty of warnings in the construction zones that motorcycles should use extreme caution. I've ridden a motorcycle and that seems like a good idea regardless of the road conditions.  Last week people were laughing at the thirty mile an hour speed zone through gravel/mud/pothole stretch that was tough doing twenty.

If the nasty state of our roads wasn't enough, summer was just one long,, wet spring that had moss growing behind my ears. Those of you who don't live in Alaska don't realize that we Alaskans count on one nice three-day period between Memorial Day and Labor Day when the temperature rises above seventy, and the wind stays below ten miles an hour. We call that summer and anything more than that is a bonus. I don't think we got this year. In fact, we had so much rain that there was a pair of black bears at the boat harbor this week looking to board the ark. 

The real bummer of this nasty summer is that we didn't get any berries to speak of; just ask the bears raiding the town garbage cans for leftover Red's burgers. Bears eat a lot of salmon, but they also rely heavily on berries to give them a balanced diet. Face it, a diet of spawned-out humpy needs a little sweetener, and blueberries are just the ticket. Lacking the berries, the bears are stuck eating takeout, or should show, I say, leftout. That's the garbage that is left out by people who think a Hefty Steel Sak is bear-proof. They got another think coming. 

We're putting away the SUP's and Kayaks this month and putting eyes on the snow shovels and sump pumps because we're bound to get snow or more rain than we know what to do with before Halloween.

 

Never too Old to be Stupid

 It’s been a crazy summer in many ways, but Madelyn and I finally made it out camping. I can’t believe it took until the middle of July for us to get away for some nights on the road in our little camper. While I was getting everything ready I thought how lucky I am that I have time now to get ready properly for a getaway. Back in the days of my youth, I was always throwing things together at the last minute because that was the only time I had. When I pack in a rush at the end of a long work day or early in the morning because I was too tired to do it the night before, something invariably gets left behind, something gets lost, or something nasty happens like poorly lashed boats coming off the top of the car, life jackets flying out the back of the pickup, or we get pulled over because the trailer lights aren’t working. But now I’m retired, and I can spend a whole day getting ready to go on a trip and that’s what I did. 

I changed the oil in the car, checked the tire pressure on the car and trailer tires, and charged the auxiliary battery on the trailer. I rinsed and filled the water tank in the teardrop and made sure that the cook kit was complete, both camp stoves were clean and supplied with fuel. Madelyn cleaned the trailer and inventoried the first aid kit, pillows, blankets, and spare clothes. We were ready. We had a cooler full of food, a tank of gas, and decent weather for driving. By Monday noon we were on the road. 

The first night we found King Mountain State Park with plenty of campsites and enough wind to keep the bugs down. The dogs got a walk and settled into camp mode, which for them involves lying under a tree waiting for a treat. The next day we were cruising in warm sunny weather in light traffic and glad to be away from the hectic traffic of the Kenai Peninsula. We scouted the campground at Paxson Lake —what a lovely spot that is, also very quiet. We were tempted to stay but elected to press on another hour to Tangle Lakes. We were eleven miles down the Denali Highway when I looked in the side rearview mirror and saw the right tire on the teardrop trailer leave us, roll down the hill we were climbing, and disappear into the brush along the roadside. Almost immediately the bare axle end hit the pavement and I hit the brakes. 

I didn’t even have to get out of the car to know what had happened, and worse than that I knew whose fault it was.  

We were only a hundred feet from a scenic pullout with a paved shoulder, so I moved the car and crippled trailer off the road and spent ten minutes looking for my tire in the waist-high willows and dwarf birch. After a brief board meeting which included my mea culpa and hugs all around, a couple in a Ford Pickup stopped to check on us and told us that one of the lodges at Tangle Lakes was open and had a phone. 

It was an interesting challenge to pack everything we needed from the trailer into the car already loaded with two kayaks, two adults, two dogs, and too much gear. We managed. And yes it was a glorious clear hit day. Within an hour we were checked into a tidy cabin at the Tangle Lakes Lodge, had scheduled a tow truck from Glennallen ($$$$$$) to fetch the trailer, and had borrowed a cooler to store our food in since the trailer has a built-in cooler and we never thought we’d need more. 

Dave, Trek, and Tawnie at the Tangle Lake Lodge were great hosts, and we salvaged our trip by staying there for three days hiking, kayaking, and relaxing. Of course, we were hopeful that the stars would align and we’d be able to pick up the trailer on our way home on Friday. No such luck. We were not the only people having trouble on the highway, and the mechanics in Glennallen were backed up for several days on ‘emergency’ repairs. 

It was highly likely that when the bearings went out on the trailer the axle was damaged enough that it has to be replaced which means ordering a part from Anchorage and then the mechanic having time to install it. We left the trailer in Glennallen and drove home trying to remind ourselves that we actually had some fun during our little getaway. And now, we wait for the call telling us it’s time to drive to Glennallen and bring the trailer home. 

You might be asking, How does this happen? and how was it my fault? Well, that’s where stupid comes in. Back at the beginning of the story, I bragged about how thoroughly I was prepping my vehicles for the trip. Well, I was thorough but stupid. I didn’t grease the bearings on the trailer. Heck, I didn’t even inspect them. I’ve had the trailer for three years and it’s over ten years old. How stupid can you be to never in that time to inspect or repack the bearings? At seventy years old I should know better. So, yeah, I guess you're never too old to be stupid. 

Value of Worthless Things

 We went to the Antiques Roadshow the other day when it was being filmed in Anchorage. I told my wife it was the old fart’s version of a Taylor Swift concert. We have watched the show for years, and always are amazed at the cool stuff that has little or no value and bemused by the ugly stuff that is worth a fortune. For those of you who haven’t watched Roadshow people bring their antiques and collectibles and expert appraisers tell them the value and usually some interesting background about the object. Based on my experience, I left all my cool stuff at home and took the ugly porcelain bowl that I’d saved for over fifteen years, waiting for this opportunity. 

Yup, I left home the cool antique chairs and pictures of my ancestors, I didn’t take the handwritten Alaska Gold Rush journal or my first edition books. We toted only things we were curious about including the ugly porcelain bowl. In fact, the only reason I still had the bowl was that I was convinced that somehow this could be the ONE. Why else keep something so odd? It had three stubby legs, a curled and lumpy rim that made it look like a bad Dutch baby pancake, and a brown background with grey flowers. The only way to make it look good would be to fill it with peanut M&Ms or Cracker Jacks. Ever since I found the piece in a box I bought at a storage auction for five bucks I have said, “If I ever go to the Antiques Roadshow, this is what I’m taking. So off we went to the Alaska Native Heritage Center with our carefully packed. . . and repacked, and repacked again treasures: some kachina dolls, two obscure Winslow Homer (maybe) engravings, a set of mixed media southwest art, and the ugly.

As expected, the show involved a series of checkpoints with long lines at each, but people were cheerful and relaxed, and the weather was kind as well. The triage table screened our treasures and told us where to go to get each piece appraised. The Kachinas and Southwest pieces would be appraised at Tribal Arts, and engravings at Paintings, and the bowl was assigned to Porcelain and Pottery. I was eager to find out just how big a check my bowl was going to bring, but we were being systematic and the Paintings tent was first on our route. These Winslow Homer (maybe) pieces turned out to be late 19th-century museum gift shop pieces, not worth much and only one of the reproductions was a Winslow Homer. We learned something about our art and how to learn more then headed off eagerly to the Porcelain tent where I was sure good news awaited. 

    After a short wait, we were ushered to the table where Antiques Roadshow celeb, Nick Dawes, met us with a smile and a greeting in his disarming English accent. He took the ugly bowl eagerly in hand turned it and said, “Well, Inez Wilder — see the name right here— painted this lovely piece of porcelain in 1910. My heart raced! He recognized the artist! I could hear the dollar signs ringing in my ears like a slot machine paying off a jackpot. Nick continued, “This is called painted china, and during this period around 1910 it was a popular pastime for women to get together and paint purchased porcelain bowls like this. What you have is a nice piece of amateur-painted porcelain worth about $25-30 dollars.” 
    Nick Davies grinned and shook our hand with a charming grace that showed no hint that he had just burst my bubble. If one hadn’t listened closely, it could easily appear that he was giving us the best news in the world, “Well aren’t you pleased that you have a rare piece of Inez Wilder ceramic worth $5000.” But it was not to be. Disappointed, but still having a good time, we moved on with the slot machine silenced and took our place in line to have a Kachinas and the mixed media piece given the once over. 

We were about to be ushered to the appraiser’s table when Madelyn realized that she didn’t have the largest Kachina in her bag. I didn’t have it in my bag. It was gone. Suddenly, all the happy, good-time vibes were pushed aside. Where was it? This Kachina was not easy to miss. It was about eighteen inches tall and thick as your wrist. It wasn’t something that could be floating around in a pocket undetected. 
    Then it hit me, the Triage table! where we first checked in. I rushed back across the facility, past the lines of people at the Feedback Booth and the Free Photo Booth, and against the traffic flow back into the building where we started. There was the big Kachina sitting on a table between two people working so hard they hadn’t even noticed it was there. Well, I was glad she turned up because this was our prize of the show, worth several hundred dollars. Not bad for a yard sale find. 
    As we headed home with our valuables and not-so-valuables, I kept thinking about two lessons from this day. 1) We tend to overvalue some things and undervalue others, often for foolish reasons. In reality, the blue batter bowl that I use to mix my sourdough pancake batter was more valuable to me than some odd-shaped painted candy dish even before I knew it was worthless. And 2) We really benefit more from the experiences of life —like going to the Antiques Roadshow— than we do from all the stuff we collect along the way.  With that in mind, if you’re in the hunt for an early twentieth-century hand-painted bowl look me up.

Our Small Boat Summer

 We sold our cabin cruiser this spring after ten years of adventures along the Southern coast of the Kenai Peninsula. It wasn't an easy choice, selling the boat and leaving ourselves stranded on the beach, but it felt right when we put it up for sale last summer and it didn't feel bad --well, maybe a little-- when I watched it leave on
a trailer heading up the Seward Highway destined for Valdez. They say the happiest two days are the day you buy a boat and the day you sell it. This was definitely not true for Madelyn and I. I was anxious and Madelyn unsure when bought the boat from a fellow in Juneau and had it barged to Seward. Funny-not-funny story: When we bought the boat the deal was would go on a barge to Seward, but the seller dilly-dallied and miss the barge departure day. The boat had to go on the next barge, which as luck would have it, was bound for Anchorage, not Seward which meant I had to trailer the boat 125 miles from Anchorage to Seward instead one mile from the freight dock to the boat harbor. Oh well. 

For ten years we had several trips each summer that took us to the Chiswell Islands and Aialik Bay, Day Harbor and Rugged Island, Driftwood Bay, and Holgate Glacier. The Willet was a twenty-seven-foot Albin Famy Cruiser built in 1984. It was a slow comfortable boat and great for overnighting in coves of the Eastern Kenai Peninsula. As time and circumstances changed we had to say goodbye to the Albin and now we're having a summer without moorage fees, insurance payments, or maintenance chores. That's not all bad. And one benefit of the nasty weather we've had so far this summer is that there are few days we miss being out on the water. Out on the cold windy ocean anyway. 

For Madelyn and I, there is a rhythm to life that changes over periods of years, and we immersed ourselves in different experiences and challenges. There were summers when we energetically hiked the trails of the Eastern Peninsula. Once the B&B chores were done we grabbed our knapsacks and headed off into the woods. We had our horse years (well maybe decades), and house-building years all of which consumed us and made us richer in so many ways. 

During the Willet years, we were intently focused on boat care, trip planning, and finding new places to explore. We were rewarded with experiences as diverse as catching a fifty-pound halibut in fifteen feet of water while anchored in a cove and the next day having to go overboard to unwind a tow line from around the propeller shaft. We got to watch bubble-feeding humpbacks with our grandkids and help them catch salmon, lingcod, and their favorite, rockfish. 

But now that focus is lost, perhaps ripped from us with by the storms of life, but regardless of the cause we have moved on to smaller boats. I'm kayaking and canoeing more and sharing those joys with my family. Our teardrop camper is our new yacht and with what's left of summer you will find us paddling some Alaska lake rather than bouncing over the afternoon chop on Resurrection Bay. Yes, the reach of a big boat takes one out to the big water where the whales and big fish wander, but the stealth of the small boat takes one close to a month-old loon chick or across a lake to a new trail over the next mountain. 

The simplicity of a small boat gives rest to the mind and makes room for clever stories and fond memories that rise when all there is on the checklist is lunch, raingear, and bug dope. Sometimes I'm rowing the nibble wherry that Pop Yerden built others I drop into a kayak. There is no lack of choices at hand. Pausing now, I look at the flat water of Bear Lake with the morning sun silhouetting the mew gulls on its sheet metal surface, and I'm drawn to paddle out in my old kayak to scratch lines on its surface, lines that never last. I imagine entering the kayak with that clumsy caution of donning a pair of pants by dancing on one leg at a time. Once in the cockpit, I am paired with the boat, wearing it in fact, so we are a unit of one, crossing flat water to silence nagging demons with the whisper of paddles and the rhythm of muscles. 

In this, our cold and wet small boat summer we'll make ourselves anew one more time for the world is full of charming coves, scenic trails, and picturesque campsites waiting around the next cape or over the next hill. Life is about finding some of those places and being in them for a time.
I'm going there now. The lake is waiting. 

Summer landing on the Weekend

"When I looked out at the soggy remnants of yesterday's snowstorm. This first week of May is definitely looking like a "tired winter". No real commitment to snow and cold, temperatures holding in the thirties so wool still feels good against the skin."

This is something I wrote the first week of May and things didn't get any better. May is usually a bright month full of light, advancing greenery, and often sunny warm days, but not this year.  The green buds of the willows were hesitant to open and the snow berms seemed permanent as we tumbled into June still wearing wool sweaters warm pants, and boots.  Anyone with a weather app on their phone kept refreshing it thinking they were looking at last week's forecast. Cloudy with a chance of rain before noon then rain. . . It was like NOAA got one ten-day outlook and never looked up. But June is gone now. Passed into the history books probably with an asterisk for the number of cloudy, wet, windy days. 

First day of July: Sunshine and flat water as I paddle my canoe toward the four swans floating like luxury yachts on the stainless steel surface of Bear Lake.  Except for the swans, gulls, and leaping sockeyes I was alone on the still lake, but that won't last this Saturday before the Fourth, yes Fourth with a capital F. By noon the crowd will be here to play at the lake and give me and critters all the company we can stand because this year it looks like summer did fall on a weekend.  

Get out and enjoy it, whether that means doing work you love, or playing like a kid. Don't waste this summer it may only last until noon.  

Lake Views of Wildlife

 

Observations From a Lake Shore

Trumpeter swan

Storied beauty of the Arctic sky

Migrates on velvet wings 

To land on ice skittering like a drunken pigeon.

River otters porpoise-like 

In the water

Agile 

Nimble swimmers

Drag their bellies in the snow

An embarrassment of tracks.

Moose cows high-step through 

The overflow to reach my willow pasture

And sleep in my yard 

Leaving nuggets for tips 

From their bonanza motherlode.

Magpies build nests above 

The dog lot 

Alder sticks cluttered in a spruce 

Close to the dog dish.

Our national symbol

—uncompensated

Must spend the winter

Shamelessly 

Scrounging snowbanks

For salmon carcasses

Humans,

an invasive species,

Hope for snow all winter.

Come spring 

they resent it like a house guest 

who stays too long.

And Ode to the Extratuf Gals

 BROWN RUBBER BOOTS

ALASKA gals wear their Extratufs 

like they just stepped off a herring seiner.

High-stylin' ladies acting like their feet don’t stink

Cause Their brown boots ain’t never seen dogshit or fish guts.

Rowdy gals sportin' their Extratufs 

out on the town

Dancing to the music with their tops 

rolled down 

Brown boot tops that is.

Giddy city girls on the beach 

saying their wedding vows 

Wearing Extratufs like they just went fishing and landed a big one.

Mountain women in Extratufs and yoga pants

Laborers in Extratufs and overalls

Teenage girls in Extratufs and shredded jeans

Food service workers in Extratufs and aprons

They're all being woodsy in their Brown rubber boots.

But them Extratufs,

They can’t take ‘em OFF

You know why

Cause they may be cute lookin' all Gucci.

but them sweaty stinky feet get me feeling all pukey.