Poem: Float Plane Commute from Bush Alaska

 

On a lake by Big Su,

Lives a gentleman who

Moved from a high-rise in Texas.

Now this is a choice that many would rue,

Indeed, they’d consider it reckless.

 

But he loves the setting – the greens and the blues –

The weather that always directs us

For flying or staying

or working or playing

or planting or haying

And other things, too.

 

In summer, he flies

In his Piper through skies

That are bounded by mountains so vast

That they dwarf meager hills

Where he first learned the skills

Of a pilot, in Texas, long past.

 

To pre-flight his plane

On a day without rain,

He walks to the dock ‘cross the grass.

He pumps out the floats

 and then loads up the totes

After checking his oil and gas.

 

When packed up and ready,

The wind holding steady

The dog and I come to say bye.

I loosen the tow ropes and hold the plane fast

While Bryan assesses the sky.

 

With a shout of “all clear”

His voice full of cheer,

He is happy to lift off and fly.

After checking conditions,

He presses ignition

To taxi toward Willow on-high.

 

At first, he goes slow so the oil will heat

He toggles the pedals and shifts in his seat.

He watches the oil temp rise as it should,

Considering options of wind shear that could

Derail well laid plans while he lays out Plan B.

 

He reaches the end of the lake; turns to lea.

Then raises his rudders and looks to the trees.

He assesses humidity, temperature, thrust.

He determines that take off is ready and just.

 

His feet to the pedals, his hands on the yoke

He pulls on the throttle with light little strokes.

He taxis so smoothly that when he lifts off

A viewer can’t tell when he first gets aloft.

 

He reaches to pull up the lever for flaps

Adjusting the yoke to avoid his kneecaps

He rises up steeply,

Which pulls on his straps

As he turns to the east, toward the goal on his maps.       

 

He scans the horizon for all other fliers

While watching the landscape for wind, fog, and fires

Admiring mountains and rivers and woods.

Instruments fine, avionics look good.

 

At Trail Ridge and Yentna and Deshka, he calls

His location to pilots in planes big and small.

He vectors towards Willow - the lake, not the town.

It is 22 minutes until he’ll touch down.

 

He lands on the lake, takes a turn to the right.

He taxis toward Stanger’s, soon greeted by Phil

And all of his wonderful family, but still…

Where is sweet Kyra – ah, there by the grill

Awaiting a morsel, a tidbit, a spill.

 

“Join us for dinner!” They call in delight.
We have plenty of food here, would you like a bite?”

“I’d love to come join you,”

He says, to the cue.

“If you have the meat there, then I’ll bring the brew.”

 Bryan walks toward them with beer, not in cans,

But a growler of lager made by his two hands.

 

Joey finds glasses while Chrissy brings slaw.

Phil flips the meat, less a piece for a paw.

Libations pour quickly around the small table,

In friendship so warm, and enduring, and stable.

 

The laughter is lively; the stories are varied.

Through soft, evening hours the picnickers tarry.

In summer, no sunset impedes any flow,

The revelers linger, the sun still aglow

Honeybees sparkle and ducks grace the lake

While they finish their lager, and coleslaw, and steak.

 

“My, my, what a meal” observes Bryan, with smiles.

“I haven’t enjoyed such a feast in a while.”

“Don’t tell that to Laura; she’d chide me for sure.

She’d make me start cooking , I know; I adjure.

Her cooking is great; her cookies are bliss.

No critic am I – I just want to say this:

 

You’ve created a haven, and I’d be remiss

To neglect to say thank you for dinner and your,

Kindness and friendship.  I’ll soon reminisce.

 

In a week, I’ll return to Trail Lake for the winter.

I’ve finished wood splitting – no gash, cut, or splinter.

The logs are all stacked.

The lager is racked.

What supplies we may lack

We’ll discover and tinker.

 

I don’t mind seclusion ‘til May, I admit.

With, Laura, companionship’s still a good fit.

The quiet, the beauty, the solitude – nice.

We are surrounded by forest, and meadow, and ice.

We’re both well prepared with our cold weather kit.

 

We read and we play, and we cut down dead trees.

We turn from the wind in below zero breeze.

We bathe in our wood fired hot tub outdoors

Until the temp drops down to those we abhor.

 

But I’ll think of our joking and chatting today.

I’ll think of your jests and the things that you say.

I’ll reflect on your talents and all our horseplay.

I value your friendship and wish you all well

As we separate through the long winter ahead. 

I hope you do well both at home and away.

 

They hug and shake hands and depart to their beds.

In houses or campers or hangers, all said.

B walks to his camper, climbs into the loft

Eager to fall on the mattress so soft.

As he looks out the window, he sees on the lake

A family of ducks paddle by with a drake.

Further back, graceful swans  begin to glide by

‘Til they migrate in pairs with their honks amplified.

 

“What a magical place,” he thinks, as he rests.

I could live elsewhere, but Alaska is best.

 

Grief Assuaged by Nature

 

In August, my dad died.  I spent a few hours processing the news, but all I felt was an emotional maelstrom and a physical need to go outside and DO something.

So I harvested saskatoon berries. 

Berry picking has always been a calming and meditative activity for me.  It engenders feelings of gratitude at the reliable plenty of a summer’s harvest.  

 Today though, my mind was whirling with images of my dad and my siblings as I plucked the fruit.  In the process, the berries soothed my knot of grief.

I remembered when I planted these six, spindly little seedlings a decade ago. Every year, I worried when the springy boughs bowed below the snow, wondering how they would fare the following spring.  Some branches broke.  Of those, I taped and splinted a few.  Some benefited.  Others didn’t.  I pruned low branches girdled beneath our deep snow by hungry voles.  I mulched in the fall and fertilized in the spring.

Of the six trees, two are tall and prolific producers.  Three are middling, and one is the runt of the group.  

Since each tree has grown differently, I have lots of “woulda, coulda, shoulda thoughts” about my interventions. What if I had planted them elsewhere and farther apart?  Some trees hog the sun, grow taller and stronger and their boughs whip the narrower branches of an adjacent tree, which becomes stunted.  What if I had pruned them better, earlier?  Now such intervention on some major limbs might kill the tree.  What if I had watered them deeper?  What if?

All of us who are children, as well as parents, co-parents, step-parents, and siblings contemplate such what ifs.  It is hard to step out of a family or community and view it from outside.

As I gathered the berries, I reached for those of the darkest blue hue, heavy and round with juice.  Since the berries do not all ripen at the same time, I leave those that are purple or red that need additional time to mature more slowly in the sun. 

Some berries grow in ideal locations – plenty of sun, protected from the wind, with room to grow, well separated from others. 

Some are physically deformed by birds that pecked part of them.  A few look fine, but skinny larvae burrowed inside and rot the interior.  In thick clusters, a single berry in the middle is always desiccated and surrounded by a gray fluff of mold, which taints the berries surrounding it. It did not have room to grow so it died and infected those surrounding it.

Each tree, each berry, each season, teaches me a different lesson.      

That day, different from a decade of other harvesting days, my mind viewed this line of trees as a community, each tree as a family, and the berries as individual members of that family tree.

My dad has died.  The saskatoons consoled me because I observed among those trees and branches, life experiences that illuminate my own.  

 I can’t hug my dad.  But I can stroke these branches and think about his children and grandchildren and great grandchildren who will grow toward the sun, strong and resilient.  He was a strong tree with, like all of us, some weak branches.  He has many progeny, who will blow and bend with the winds of the future.

We have a bench along the lake shore with three stone cairns as memorials.  When I retrieve his ashes, we will build a fourth. 

       

Dog Days of Summer (where does that evocative phrase come from?)

 

The most urban of urbanites, who would not be caught dead beyond the highways and high rises of their favorite cities, may well evade many aspects of the natural world.  But one powerful aspect of Mother Nature, weather, imposes its will in even the most human of man made environments. 

Bee hive check for population and production

 

For many readers,, weather determines the clothes we wear, the design of our homes (we hope) and the utility bills we pay.  But for all history and even today, weather determines feast or famine, and death by freezing cold or excessive heat and all sorts of  disasters, like hurricanes, flooding, and tornadoes.

So it is not surprise that most religions have deities not only of weather, but of particular aspects of it, like storms, sun, rain.  Nor is it surprising that the constellations, which we see at particular times of year, are associated with the weather of that season.

I love researching the etymology of evocative phrases.  “The dog days of summer” intrigued me to find the best description to share with readers.

Below is a well written article from www.dictionary.com that explains this term that dates back to the ancient  Greeks.  Can you guess why?  Read below.

July 15, 2015 article, no author identified

Origin of Dog Days

It’s hot again, up in the Northern Hemisphere. It’s that time of year when the sun shines its most unforgiving beams, baking the ground and, indeed, us. It’s the portion of summer known as the hottest time of the year. Or, more delightfully, the dog days.

 

Contrary to common conjecture, the dog days do not take their peculiar name from weather that “isn’t fit for a dog,” or heat that is so extreme it drives dogs mad. These folk etymologies shrink in comparison with the actual background of the phrase, a story of astronomical proportions.

 

The dog days, in the most technical sense, refer to the one- to two-month interval in which a particularly bright star rises and sets with the sun, shining during the daylight hours and staying hidden at night. This star is known by three names: Sirius, the Dog Star, and Alpha Canis Majoris. Apart from being the most prominent star in the constellation Canis Major (Latin for “Greater Dog”), this heavenly body is responsible for the origin of the expression dog days, a phrase that has endured through millennia.

 

One of our hives swarming in mid-July

Classicists and astronomers will know the Dog Star as Sirius. The earliest record of this name comes from the Greek poet Hesiod, in Work and Days, written in seventh century BC. Meaning “searing” or “scorching,” Sirius encapsulates the Dog Star’s unusual brightness. Additionally, in Greek mythology Sirius is the name of the dog of Orion (a mythical hunter who has a constellation of his own adjacent to Canis Major), which further reinforces the Dog Star’s historical associations with canines. This tradition continues in the Harry Potter series; Sirius Black’s Animagus form is a large black dog.

 

The Dog Star’s connection to dogs was not only maintained by constellations and mythology, it was boosted by the fact that dogs seemed to take the brunt of the dog days. They suffered from the heat more intensely than humans seemed to, and were at greater risk of madness.

 

The English phrase dog days, which entered the language in the 1500s, is a direct translation from the Latin term caniculares dies, which refers to this specific seasonal phenomenon and is modeled after the same term in Hellenistic Greek. It is also from Latin that we got the word canicular, which refers to the Dog Star, as well the precursor to the expression dog days: canicular days.

 

The Dog Star, being the second brightest star that can be seen with the naked eye, did not escape the attention of ancient astronomers. Nor did its annual disappearance from the night sky and the corresponding influx of heat. Initially, ancient Greeks blamed the Dog Star for the sweltering weather, assuming that its brightness paired with the sun manifested in the hottest days of the year. This belief was debunked in the first-century BC by Greek astronomer Geminus, but the significance of the Dog Star remained untempered.

 

About 100 potatoes, various varietals

In ancient times, the dog days would have roughly corresponded to the summer solstice. Due to precession, however, the days have fallen later and later in the year. The exact dates of the dog days depend on your latitude, but by today’s estimation they begin on July 3 and come to a close on August 11.

 

Humans have been griping about the weather as far back as written history reaches, and the dog days were an important time for all. The Ancient Greeks and Romans, in particular, had grim feelings for Sirius, associating it with an outbreak of insufferable heat and fever. Civilization has long credited the objects in the sky with influence over the earth and its inhabitants; if it’s not the Dog Star cursing you with sultry summer heat and madness it’s the moon driving you to lunacy. It seems you can’t win when it comes to the celestial bodies. (end of article)

 

The heat conveyed by the word choice, Sirius, and the phrase, dog days of summer, may sound cute to someone who can retreat to a shady interior cooled by air conditioning.  But for thousands of years, including today, a scorching end of the growing season means that food crops bolt and die before the optimal size and condition for harvesting.  Fruits shrivel and drop from the trees.  Shallow rooted plants, even perennials, can die. Honey bees will swarm because the hive gets too crowded and hot and they need "to thin the herd." Normal irrigation is inadequate and additional water may be unavailable when rivers run low and warm, which can kill fish, as well.  

People dependent on the food they grow fear weather outside a fairly narrow range for optimal growth.  Too much heat, too much rain, too late or early a frost all result in a winter of food rationing and hopes for an early spring.  This is why so many first people were nomadic and did NOT settle down to year round agriculture.  It was unpredictable.  It seemed more prudent to travel to places with robust seasons of hunting, trapping, and fishing, with the bonus of gathering and preserving plant materials in each of those locations.   Still, in many far North American tribal languages, the period around the month of March was called “the month of hunger.”

Brassicas, potatoes, beans

The beauties of nature and its beneficent creations are awe inspiring.  But so, too, are is its mercurial powers of destruction.   Even people who live in cities experience the devastation of tornadoes, hurricanes, and “snowmaggedons.”  But it is people who grow some of their own food who understand why an evocative phrase like “the dog days of summer” could strike visceral fear in those who experienced that weather.