Forgiveness

Today is the last day to submit a piece for the Ketchikan Arts and Humanities Council January art show entitled, Forgiveness. We were to respond to the idea of forgiveness in whatever media we chose. I chose words, of course. Then I wrote a letter to someone I'd like to forgive. Afterwards, I went back and changed all the words to gibberish - except random words expressing the emotions of the writer and recipient. See photo.

Last year, some might remember, I submitted a piece as part of the show, Puzzled. This year's submission took less time but more energy. Nonetheless - it was all fun as I love being creative in many different ways.

2010 resolution: Post on this blog at least once a week...

First Snow!!

Yesterday it started - hail/rain so fierce that by the time I pushed my cart from the grocery store to the van, I was soaked. But by the time I got to the top of two hills and our house, it had turned into a beautiful snow storm.

And when we woke up this morning, it was official - the first snow of Winter 2009.

Cedar Bark Basket Weaving

I'm taking a two week course (every night from 6-9 PM) on cedar bark basketry. It's taught by Diane Douglas-Willard (that's her gorgeous rattle top basket pictured) and it's held at the Totem Heritage Center in the middle of town. We - all 14 of us including one man! - sit around a large conference table and weave. (The bag of Halloween candy in the middle supplies us with energy if we feel sapped...)

After we soaked the cedar, we began by connecting eight "spokes" of red cedar with two ends of a long cord of yellow cedar. Diane is a great teacher because as I watched her across the room patiently showing two classmates, I was positive that it would be incredibly complicated to learn. It isn't at all - in fact, it's somewhat simple. The technique starts with two ends of the weaver, a right and a left. The left weaver goes over and under the "spokes," and is snugged up tight. Then you begin again with the new "left" weaver which used to be the right weaver.

The difficulty lies in making the weaving uniform - very hard to do - and also in adding the additional "spokes" or spider legs, as I like to say. You need to have 60-90 of these spokes which means you're adding every other or every two or three spokes.

After two classes, I am nearly finished with the bottom of the basket. Tonight I'll take photos to show you.

CRASH! CLATTER! ROAR!

It finally happened. It's been almost happening for about a month now. By that I mean that we'd awaken around 1 or 2 AM to the clatter of our neighbors' trashcan being pushed over by... bears. We'd rouse ourselves with the hope that we'd actually be able to see one. We'd peer out first the bedroom window, then the dining room window, then the living room window. Nothing. Once or twice, we even ventured outside to the deck, a safe place because it's a whole story above the ground. No luck, no luck and more no luck.

But last night, it was finally different. There it was - a huge, maybe 800 pound large black bear dragging a trash bag into the woods. We could even see its nose in the light from the street lamps.

Back to bed, but then up again in about 30 minutes as it had returned, just as huge and hungry as before.

Who needs Netflix with bears outside your window??

I'm BACK!

I have to apologize for being away so long. June happened and then July and then and then and now, October is just around the bend. I'm going to try hard to blog at least once a week.

In July, we took a ferry trip up the Inside Passage to Skagway, Juneau, and Sitka. I plan to put up posts of each leg of the trip.

But in the meantime, fall has arrived in Ketchikan - no blazing New England foliage, just the yellow of the aspens and red of some isolated maples. But the air is crisp, and any day now, I expect to see snow at the top of Deer Mountain. I remember riding my bike last fall to the rec center, rounding the corner and there it was - gorgeous white peaks stretched against the sky.

Last Saturday was the season's first Torchlight Cultural Arts presentation. Robert and I walked to the bottom of our hill to the high school where we saw Maya Soleil, an Afro-World Fusion Music and Dance group. They were terrific.

Boiling

Last night at around 8 PM, I looked at the thermometer outside the kitchen window. True, it had the sun baking on it, but remember, this is Alaska. ALASKA.

It read 90 degrees! It was boiling. Fortunately, most of the living areas of the house are in the back where it's much cooler at night. Still, one bedroom, my study and the dining room are all doubling as saunas. If this keeps up, we'll definitely have to invest in a portable air conditioner.

I have set up a deck-top garden of tomatoes, herbs and lettuce. They are all wilting. I should figure out how to drag the outside hose up to the deck so I don't have to carry pot-fuls of water to revive these sad plants.

The weather report for the weekend predicts a high of 62, so I could be eating these words. But I don't think so, because I really, really like it cool and do not like the heat. Yes for the beautiful sunshine and bright blue skies. But let the temp hover - at the most- in the low 70's and I'll be happy.

You see, the water around here is about 400 feet deep, right off the dock and is probably a toe-numbing, frostbiting 45 degrees. Really. So if you can't swim to cool off, then bring on the low temperatures!

Salmon Derby

Last weekend, the annual Salmon Derby began. We drove out to Knutson Cove to check out the activity. I was hoping to see a fisherman come in with a king salmon and watch it being weighed. No such luck.

We did, however, have some yummy fries and a great view of the marina. Then we drove about 3 miles north and took a hike on the Lunch Creek Trail which goes into the forest but has great views of a waterfall and also steps to the beach.