a break in the weather and the leatherneckery

I’m having a lot of fun recalling my Marine days with reasonable accuracy.  I’ll

get back to that tomorrow.  Today, though, I want to share some weekend events

in the neighbourhood.

Saturday we got into double digit temperatures, 10 degrees C. (50 F.), for the first

time this year.  We even got a bit of sun with it.  That and the wind caused some

much appreciated melting of snow.  It also allowed Jude and me a chance to get

out on the near pond and secure the runaway log.

This log is about 25 feet long.  A huge rainfall last year loosened it from a position

it had long held on the bank.  We pulled one end ashore and foolishly made it part

of our dock.  Later huge rainfalls redesigned the dock, so I had to cut the log loose.

We moved it over to a calm cove, with plans to make it a base for an anchored plat-

form in the middle of the pond.

It stayed put for months, then further huge rainfalls moved it over to the creek

that connects the two ponds.  So with the most recent huge rainfall having just

ended, we set out in kayaks to move it back to the calm cove and tie it to a tree.

After much effort and copious swearing by Jude (she’s a nurse, don’t forget), I

realized that I would have to put on my chest waders to dislodge the log and give

it a solid push.  That did it.  Jude pulled it to the cove, I waded to shore and met

her with a rope.

I had a wonderful photo of Jude in the kayak with Slinkee on the dock barking at

her.  Slinkee simply cannot stand being left out of the action.  Regrettably, our cam-

era threw craps and I can’t retrieve the shot.  So I offer to you instead this shot of a

busker at the base of the Space Needle in Seattle.

I realize it has nothing whatsoever to do with this story, but, honestly, I don’t think

I’ll ever be able to work it into any other story.  If it’s any consolation, this guy’s bad

puppetry combined with George Thorogood’s “Bad to the Bone” had Jude, her older

son Jin and me doubled up with laughter.

Yesterday Jude and I went to check on our friend Lee.  Lee is the most isolated

member of our community.  He lives three miles from us on a road used mostly

by the logging trucks.  The road is a real axle-buster on the best of days, and it

had two feet of snow on it.

We hadn’t seen Lee for several days and he doesn’t have a phone.  We got our truck

fairly close in low four-wheel-drive and walked the rest of the way.  He was home.

What choice did he have?  He had tried without success to get his truck out the day

before.  He was low on supplies, especially food for his many orange cats.  We took

him with us on our errand run, than back to our house for tire chains and a sled to

get his goodies home.

We took him as far as we dared.  He put his groceries in his back pack and his 15-pack

of beer (tehnically, it as a 13-pack by then) with a five-gallon can of gas on the sled.

“The beer should be good and cold by the time I get home,” he observed.  And off

he went.  We certainly hope he made it safely.  He owes us for the supplies.