Cocoon mode* - day 16: Three check the mail, Daniel hunts for moose, a dog stalks me, the leaves go fast

As I drove down Gail Street, I saw a grandmotherly woman and two small children check their mail. 

I was pedaling my bicycle, when I saw this young man walking alongside Church Road with a rifle slung over his shoulder. "What are you hunting?" I shouted.

"Moose," he answered, just as I knew he would, for what else could he have been hunting?

I parked my bike, climbed the little hill and shot two frames in two seconds, as that's about as fast as I can do it with the pocket camera.

His name was Daniel and he had not seen a moose at all, but he had saw a man who had shot one.

"Good luck," I said, as I returned to my bike.

I should have got his phone number and address, so that if he brought down a moose, I could have gone over and got a chunk.

And as I traversed Brockton on foot, I spotted a dog stalking me through the trees. I stopped, pointed my pocket camera at it and it fled deeper into the trees, but still followed. I thought of its wolf ancestors. I imagined that it was a wolf and I was a woodland caribou with a sprained ankle, worried for my life.

Eventually, it went into a nearby yard, and then watched me warily from behind this tent. It followed me no further.

The caribou had survived. It's ankle would heal.

The poor damn wolf would starve.

At least this one would, for I think it was rather incompetent, and a bit cowardly.

The pack had booted it out and wanted nothing more to do with it.

The leaves are coming down fast. Soon, ravens will shout at each other and at me, from the bare branches of the birch trees. It is supposed to snow tonight, but the snow is not supposed to stick.

*Cocoon mode: Until I finish up a big project that I am working on, I am keeping this blog at bare-minimum simple. I anticipate about one month.

Cocoon mode* - day 11: Old man charges up steep grade on four-wheeler and then charges back down again; fall from the car

As I rode my bicycle along the two-foot wide path on the other side of the guardrail from Seldon, just over the steep drop off that could surely cripple or kill me if I were to lose control and plunge over, I heard the screaming engine of a four-wheeler, churning out more RPM's than it was built to churn. I could not see it, because there were some leaves hanging from some bushes that blocked my view, but I immediately surmised that it had to be a kid, trying to charge up the steep grade you see here.

Just ahead, there was an opening through the leaves, so I pedaled to that spot as fast as I could. When I got there, the four-wheeler was nearing the top. I stopped, dug into my pocket and pulled out the pocket camera.

Auuugh!!!! 

It was still set on last night's settings for very low-light photography: 1600 ISO, 1/10th of a second. If I were to try to take a picture at those settings, under this bright sun, all I would get would be a blinding, white, glare.

I quickly dialed the ISO down to 100 and set the shutter speed at 1/400th of a second, but by then the rider had topped the hill and had turned around to go back down.

I was surprised to see that he was not a kid at all, but an old man, with white hair and a white beard. Just like that, he dropped over the edge and charged back down the grade.

I then hoped that he would turn around and charge back up again so I could get a climbing picture, but he didn't.

He just kept going and drove through the abandoned, dug-out gravel pit that the lying developers never did turn into a pleasant neighborhood lake, the way they had promised they would do way back when they first tore up the wetlands above it. In those horrid days, a lone man sitting on the seat of a gravel extracting machine would work all the way through the summer night and if the air was flowing from him towards our house, I could not sleep over the rattling and crunching of the gravel being ground through that machine.

A few times, I got out of bed and went to talk to the man doing the extraction and his response was... "f.. you." It was summer, it was light and he was going to work through the night, the peace and sleep of the neighborhood be damned.

I would return home, climb back in bed and, unable to sleep, would fantasize about returning with my 30.06 so that I could pop the rude sob right off the seat of his machine.

Irrational, I know and I knew it then and I would not have done it, but so works the human mind when it is tormented and deprived of sleep night after night just because someone is rude.

At least when it was all over, we were to have this nice neighborhood lake, but instead we got an ugly pit.

As for this old man who charged up the hill today and then turned and charged back down, my feelings were mixed. On the one hand, I admired him, for not yielding easy to the calendar, for not giving into his years.

On the other hand, after he exited the gravel pit, he continued on and I saw him disappear into the marsh, the one behind my house. He was headed toward where the property owner across from us keeps putting up signs and baricades to try to keep the four-wheelers out, because they have done so much damage to the vegetation. Yet, the drivers just keep finding ways to get in and they just keep tearing up the property.

With kids, you can kind of understand, but with an old man whose hair is white...

But then, I don't know... perhaps he turned away before he reached that man's property. Perhaps he lives in one of the houses further down from ours that borders the marsh. Perhaps he has a trail that leads into his own backyard.

He might just be a decent fellow who would never trespass and tear up another man's wetlands.

I just don't know. I must give him the benefit of the doubt.

I pedal on, back onto the road where there is no guardrail to push me into traffic.

I took this as I drove past in my car, on my coffee break.

I would have driven slowly across this bridge so that I could have gotten a couple more frames out of the pocket camera, which is a very slow camera to operate, but there was a truck behind me so I had to rush across and was lucky to get even this one.

Technically, I have somewhat exceeded cocoon mode tonight. Oh well. The weekend has begun. I must have a little fun.

*Cocoon mode: Until I finish up a big project that I am working on, I am keeping this blog at bare-minimum simple. I anticipate about one month.

I drive to Anchorage to visit the doctor who took my shattered shoulder and gave me a new one

 

I had to go to town today to see the good - and I mean very good - Dr. Duddy, who took my shattered shoulder and replaced it with a new one. Shortly after we left Wasilla, we passed this Sarah Palin supporter.

Margie, Lavina, and baby Kalib dropped me off at the door and then went and parked the car while I checked in. Not long after I took a seat, they entered.

Kalib and Margie, as I wait to go in to see the doctor. The report is good. I am healing well. Still, he said, I can't go cross-country skiing until after the new year.

Damnit!

I was thinking about going real soon - next month, maybe.

We had lunch at Taco King. One of Lavina's co-workers was there. She adored Kalib.

As we wait for dinner, Kalib plays with one of those little things that you can put sauce in, and jalepeno peppers.

I had a meeting to go to after that, but not for about 45 minutes. Margie and Lavina took off elsewhere to go shopping, and I just started driving, wondering where I would go to. Soon, as always seems to happen, I found myself headed toward Lake Hood, and the airplanes.

I was thrilled when I had to stop at a railroad crossing, because that meant a train was coming. So I rolled down the window, knocked off a frame of the approaching engine, then remembered that I still had the camera set to the high ISO that I had used indoors. 

So this is what I wound up with, after I put the completely washed-out image into Lightroom and Photoshop for just a tiny bit of tinkering.

I just love trains. I do. I took lots more pictures of following cars. I could string them together and make a train of pictures.

As I drove along Lake Hood, this Cessna came in for a landing. Pretty soon, the floats will go and the skis will come on.

Soon, I drove by this WW II T6 trainer, shooting as I went. Just ahead, the road would turn, providing another view.

I could not look at the airplane as I navigated the turn, so I just held the camera out the window and, without even taking a glance to my side to see what it was seeing, pointed it in the general direction of the airplane and snapped, hoping that I would get what I got. Yes, a little more prop and nose cone would be nice, but when you drive-by shoot, you get what you get, and you can't be too picky about where the edge of the frame is, or just where the focus point falls.

Please don't try it. I'm the only person in the world who should do this. Not because its dangerous - it could be, but I take care to make certain that it isn't - but because it's my project, not yours. Oh, well. Do what you will.

At a stoplight, as I drive away from Lake Hood. I went to my meeting. It went well. More than that, I can't say right now.

The aftermath of what appeared to be a minor accident.

Back in Wasilla, we stopped at the Post Office. Margie went inside. Kalib and I stayed in the car. His mom had left us to go with his dad to see a movie.

So it was just Kalib and I, and he was asleep.

Wasilla in the fall, as seen from a Ford Taurus while driving to and from a coffee kiosk, the long way, shooting with the point and shoot

 

Boy on bike.

I hope this coming winter is real, like winter used to be and sometimes still is.

Some people stop here to pray.

As you can see, my windshield is cracked. That's how life is around here. You drive, your windshield gets cracked. That's just how it is.

Shrock Road.

Shrock Road.

A leaf dances in my wake.

Progress in the neighborhood.

Back in the house, a fire burns in the woodstove. Jacob and Lavina are toasty and cozy.

The chicken crossed the road, but the rooster got shot

 

Not long after I lit out on my walk the other day, I happened upon this chicken. It crossed the road in front of me.

Two or three summers back, at the house from which this chicken so confidently began its stroll across the road, a rooster came to live. Shortly thereafter, life became hell. You know how roosters like to crow when daylight breaks the night? This is Alaska, and in the summer the night never does get dark. That rooster would crow all night long and would wake me up every damn time.

Fortunately, I spent most of the summer traveling out into what we call "The Bush" because that is where most of my work as a photographer takes place. Margie, however, stayed home and whenever I would return, I would find her living in a state of exhausted exasperation. 

Still, I had to return every now and then and one night I found myself lying in bed, listening to that rooster. It was somewhere between 3:00 and 4:00 AM. Then the rooster made a loud "cock-a-doodle do!" followed by a sudden gunshot. It sounded like a .22. Nobody ever heard another crow from that rooster after that.

Silence ruled the rest of the night. I suspect that it was the owner - but the owner has never proven amenable to conversation, so I fear to ask. I think, though, that if a neighbor had shot the rooster, there would have been a ruckus, as I doubt the owner would have remained calmly inside his home.

I think the owner might have been desperate for sleep; I think too that he might have wanted to announce to the neighborhood that he was taking care of this problem and that is why he used a gun and not a hatchet. 

He could even have wrung its neck, but he shot it. At least, that's what I surmise.

Summer's definitely over. More on this in the next post. Too lazy to post today's "new mountain snows" images right now.