May 29 - 31
I'm
sitting on the edge of the deck allowing the brooding chickadee some
time on the nest before I go back to battling the satellite signal.
It's 2:15 and I started this project about noon. It was unexpectedly
sunny this morning after a promise of showers, but as soon as I sat
down for lunch, a breezed picked up off of Gilbert Bay that foretold
the coming rain. The trip south had been fairly pleasant--a little
southeasterly chop in the channel, light seas coming out of the Taku,
then flat calm into the port--and I was glad I'd come down early enough
to miss the front. One whale on the mainland shore adjacent to Grand
Island, another in the entrance to the port, loons. As I ate I tried to
time the chickadee's visits, which were then very frequent. Six minutes
off the nest, nine minutes off the nest. By the time I got all set up
at noon, she was spending less time off (three minutes doesn't give me
very long to work) and I was hopping down off the ladder as soon as I
heard one
of them approach. Then she started staying longer. I finally gave up
for a time,
really wanting to be courteous, and made some cuts for the grease trap
system, having brought down the couplings I needed. I was not in a
great
mood, but got far enough along that I needed glue to secure the
pipes. Which required the ladder. That and the fact that the winds were
continuing to whip in and the cloud cover was darkening convinced me to
go ahead and work on the internet. My computer and the modem are
outside
right now, so rain is not ideal. I had hit a 29 at one point before
breaking for the chickadees and closing my laptop. When I came back, it
didn't show that I'd hit anything above a 15, which was frustrating,
And nothing seemed to be happening as I shifted it all around, to the
chickadees' chagrin. I dialed it back up to 22 degrees, then lowered it
a half turn and spun the dish back and forth, then a half turn down,
back and forth. Could the cable have gone suddenly bad? Then I popped
onto a 16, then wiggled my way to a 19 and a 21, way over to the left
of where the old satellite is. With the fine tuning angle adjustment I
found the first 29. When I went down a turn and then to the left a
little, instead of finding a 29, I hit something over 30 and then
BANG--85 or so! I had found my satellite (Joe said anything over 30 is
ours). I'd hit 120 at some point, but as I shifted it ever so slightly
I
could never get it above 115. Sitting here it's at about 120. I
tightened
and untightened the bolts that let the dish turn, used the fine tuning
angle....I would be content with a slower signal at 120, but the system
won't let me go forward with it, so I think it has to be stronger. It
must be possible, but I gave the very distressed chickadee some time on
the nest. I think it's time to start again. All of this I could have
done the last time I was here--my success on this trip was due to some
very simple and accurate instructions about how to find "the 29" (two
other satellites, maybe DTV) and use them to find mine that should have
been communicated before.
I hate to even go back to the hour that followed. My shoulder aching
from my efforts to make tiny adjustments to the dish, I worked and
worked and worked to get the number above the 121/122 I'd left it at. I
loosened and tightened the nuts that allow the dish to turn on the pole
so it was so tight it took great effort to move or swung freely, I
raised and lowered the angle at various numbers, but I could only ever
get it back to 115. The dish was pointed quite a bit upriver from where
it had been to the point that I thought there could be alders and a
spruce bough in the way. So I clipped, then cut alders with a swede
saw, and cast a line over a high spruce bough (succeeding on my first
try) to pull it down and clip it. Nothing had any effect. I made one
more
concerted effort to get the number up, but I could not. I decided early
on that I would deal with a slightly slower connection--after all, 122
was not so far from 130--but the system would not let me continue and
finish the setup. The
modem indicated that I could receive data, but could not transmit. All
the while, the mother chickadee yelled in my ear, several times
perching in the spruce bough just a couple of feet behind me, giving me
intimate looks at her tiny body. A couple of times I retreated and let
her in the nest, only to go back up on the ladder and in one way or
another force her out again. At 3:30 I gave up and returned the area to
peace with the cessation of the generator, which I'd left on the whole
time so as not to interrupt the modem and have to start from scratch.
Cailey had long since disappeared from my intermittent
frustration tears, but when I called her and headed down the steps to
the
beach for a walk, she appeared from under the lodge. The tide was on
its way in, but there was still enough of a beach to make it
comfortably up to the grassy point. A large flock of
juvenile Bonaparte's gulls buzzed me before settling in on the river.
The raging wind had died to a steady breeze and brought with it the
sweet smells of early summer. I relaxed a bit and began to put the
ordeal behind me.
On
the way back I picked up the upriver camera card and discovered
something odd just downriver of the creek. There was a large bone on
the ground I have yet to identify above several clusters of long white
feathers. On closer inspection, there were several other bones,
including a long, very light one, leg or arm. The only bird that could
possibly be that big around here would be an eagle, but the feathers
were all white and some of them were subtly asymmetrical and so
probably flight feathers. But not brown as an eagle would have, and no
gray as a gull. And no small feathers at all. Were these different
animals? In the wet cavity nearby that held a couple of the bones and
some of the
feathers lay a burrow or at least a natural tunnel, maybe a place where
someone ate the rest of the bird? All very
puzzling, but I kept some feathers and bones for further analysis.
After that I glued the pipes together, having found ABS glue as hoped
in the attic. It went fairly well, though I discovered that the glue
sets up so quickly that there is virtually no time to adjust the
position of the pipe once inserted into the coupling. Once, when I
attached two ends at once somewhat off kilter (and so didn't line up to
the pipe on either end), I very nearly had to abandon the project. I
wound up whacking one end against the floor of the box repeatedly until
the other coupling fell off. I don't even think that several of them
got fully inserted into their couplings because they got caught on the
glue so fast. It is old, after all, and has weathered many winters.
When that was done I found my socket set and went through the lengthy
process of tightening the eight bolts on the hose clamps. Finally, I
left it to try tomorrow and came inside for dinner. My salmon had only
been cooking a minute or two when the propane tank went dry, something
I'd been anticipating since I started smelling propane on the last
trip. I don't even think I changed the tank last summer! So, weary and
hungry and tired, but feeling no emotion at all, I went and changed the
tank without incident, cooked dinner, fed Cailey, stoked the fire
(started before I worked on the plumbing) and put the day behind me. I
read for a bit on the couch, then caught up here.
I feel like working on the satellite dish changed my relationship a
little with the chickadees, now having made myself a true nuisance. I
was very glad that they are as dedicated to the nest as they are and
perhaps I am more an irritation than a threat. Before I started work, I
saw the male stop by the nest while the female was inside, poke his
head in to some murmurs, and fly away again--so I think he fed her.
After I was done I heard chickadees from either side of the deck and
watched them meet in the salmonberries, one fluttering his wings until
he met the other on a branch and it looked like maybe he gave her food
(at
least they touched beaks); after that, one of them entered the nest. I
saw them go in the nest many times, but never saw anything in their
beaks and I'm sure they didn't have anything multiple times. So,
perhaps they are still sitting on eggs. During my brief time on the
porch after lunch I heard the Lincoln's sparrow sing a couple of times
as well as the flycatcher, golden-crowned kinglets, and hermit
thrushes, plus quiet songs from the Wilson's warblers. It's 7:00 and
I'm comfortable and warm. During the darkest times of disappointment, I
imagined having an early dinner of jiffy pop popcorn and as much wine
as I wanted, but had calmed down by dinner and wound up having a bowl
of soup, slice of toast, a small piece of coho, and wine. It never even
rained that much, sprinkling a bit on our walk and just a little while
ago, but I am glad the horror is done and I can try to forget about it.
-------------------------------------------------
I
headed to Hermit Thrush around 8:00, so had time to read for a bit,
have a cup of tea, and watch a television show before sleep. I awoke in
the middle of the night--or, perhaps, early morning, as there was a
glimmer of light from outside and the hermit thrushes were singing. It
took some time to drift away again, but before I did so I heard, among
the hermit thrush songs, a characteristic "wheet" call followed
immediately by a silvery, sideways spiraling song. Again it
came--wheet, song, wheet, song. Although the songs did not rise in
pitch as they usually do, this was without doubt a Swainson's thrush.
I've had this experience several times before, thinking that I've heard
them in the wee hours of the morning, but the songs are just not quite
what I hear in Juneau and I can never be sure in the morning if I was
dreaming (because this would certainly be an example of wish
fulfilment!). This time I opened my eyes, looked at my watch (4:00 am),
certain that I was awake and now quite confident that previous
experiences were also reality. Do they pause here on their way upriver?
Do Whiting River Swainson's thrushes sing less meteoric songs? The idea
that Swainson's thrushes inhabit the valley upriver just makes it all
that much more magical. With the cottonwood groves I've seen from the
air, it makes sense. Yellowthroats and Swainson's thrushes--just a
touch of the Taku.
On
the way to the lodge I checked in on the grease trap to make sure it
all looked intact and dry, then came inside to hook it all up. However,
I found that the now-rigid outlet system did not allow the flexibility
required to insert the drain pipe into the trap. I would have to cut an
inch or two off. After lining it up and marking the cut, I started
cooking a pancake, then fetched the hacksaw, removed the pipe, and cut
off the extra length. Once back together, I started running the water
to test the system, running outside and checking when it was about half
full to make sure it was filling correctly with no leaks. Not sure what
would happen if I left the lid off when it was full, I screwed it on
and came back later to feel water flowing through the outlet pipe and
into the drain area; no leaks, it appeared to be working. I ate my
pancake on the deck with a few sips of cafe francais, then decided I
was enjoying the morning enough to warrant a cup of jasmine tea as
well. It got so exciting outside, though, that I drank very little of
it before it cooled! This morning--mostly sunny, to my surprise--the
Wilson's warblers were fully singing again (I'm pretty sure I'm hearing
two of them) and very active in the bushes. The chickadees came and
went, Townsend's warblers and golden-crowned kinglets and hermit
thrushes sang in the distance, and even a brown creeper had peeped at
me on the walk over. The river was utterly calm. Hummingbirds were
buzzing. Among them, one sitting on a dead current stalk and singing.
Singing!? What was that hummingbird doing buzzing along in a quiet
song!? Rufous hummingbirds don't do that as far as I knew, but Anna's
do. I looked at him in binoculars: drab, green back, circle of orange
on the throat, pale gray streaks on the breast. No red. An Anna's
hummingbird!?!? Too cool. One of my bird apps indicated that there are
subadult males, so this must be one of those--without the full throat
and head, but still up for singing and, as I soon found out, dive
displaying. Rather than ending in the loud "pew pew pew pew pew" of the
rufous, these dives ended in a quiet "wheet" when I could hear it at
all. He was harassed by other hummingbirds, including at least one
rufous male, and sometimes they squabbled together in the air and up to
the
top of the dive. And over and over again he came back to sing in the
berries.
I was feeling better this morning, not upset anymore about the
internet, and thinking of all the little gifts I'd been given. While I
was writing yesterday during a break from satellite woes, a shrew (or
vole?) scampered down the boardwalk nearby; this morning, the
Swainson's thrush, now an Anna's hummingbird, typically a winter
visitor in Juneau and then only (presumably) accidentally. Eventually
he seemed to move on and bird life quieted and I got to work prepping
the porch for staining. Since I was going to have the deck protected
anyway, I decided to go ahead and put another coat of spar urethane on
the cedar siding on the gable portion of the porch; I had always meant
to, in part to help darken it to match the other cedar, and this seemed
like a good time even though it doesn't appear to get enough sunlight
to damage it. Using the step ladder, this went pretty quickly as I
listened to the end of a Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me podcast. After that
I put a coat on the cedar that wraps the outside porch posts and the
front edge of the beam they support, which did need some work, as well
as the lodge plaque. My podcast over, I started staining the rest of
the front wall again while listening to a Radiolab about how
Beethoven's symphonies are all marked as much faster than anyone likes
to play them. After about two hours and 45 minutes, it was all done,
the brushes cleaned, and everything put away. Oh how nice it was to put
the couch back on the porch and have everything tidy again, with no
need to move anything anymore. And, other than a few places that don't
seem to be taking the stain, it looks quite nice. A beer seemed
eminently appropriate, so I slowly made my way to the freshet,
clipping some of the bushes back on the way. I drank my Pacifico in the
breeze and sunshine while reading a bit, not stopping for lunch until
after 2:00. I broke from tradition and had a jiffy pop for lunch! I
guess it had been on my mind since yesterday. Sadly, shortly after I
started munching, I heard a bang to my right and a thud and found a
live but failing hermit thrush on the ground. I put him in box, but
found him dead later. What a terrible time of year for songbird deaths.
I hoped that he or she didn't yet have a nest to suffer for it. That
window has five stickers on it, I don't know what else to do. I cringed
when I heard thrush calls nearby a little later. What is his or her
mate, wondering where they were?
The tide was low after lunch, much lower than yesterday, so Cailey and
I went for a slow walk upriver. A large fishing boat with a deck
covered in pots had anchored in the channel across the inlet and
discharged an inflatable and a riverboat upriver, and I saw no signs of
either of them. The walking was easy on hard sand or silt and I
splashed
along barefoot in the shallows. When I got back, I sat for a while on
one of the benches and just chilled, watching the birds from a
different perspective and seeing that the Anna's hummingbird (I named
him Annas) was back and singing again. Feeling pretty mellow, I slipped
my boots back on and cleaned up the alders I'd cut yesterday, stashing
the big ones under the remaining branches in case I want to cut them
later. Then I wandered upriver and back, deciding to take another
gander at internet, just to have tried it another time. I managed to
get the signal to 120 again, but not better. Was there anything else to
try, I wondered? I remembered that with my previous setup, the last
step was to adjust the polarization (at least, that's what I remember
it being called) which one did by rotating the whole dish. I'd tried to
ask Kelly about that, but didn't get a clear answer that I remember. He
was doing such a poor job of explaining what nuts were what for
adjusting that I'd just figured I'd figure out when I got here. But
what if that was the final step to get that last 10 points? While I let
the distressed mother chickadee back into her nest for a while, I
looked up the old Hughesnet documents from the last dish for anything
about that element of pointing. I found little other than verification
that I seemed to have the right nomenclature. I moved the ladder to the
other side of the dish and loosened the bolts while the mother
chickadee was evidently already gone, as she came back when I was in
the middle of it. Having loosened the four nuts that I thought were the
right ones, needing both sides of the wrench I had plus a socket, I let
her back in for another ten minutes or so before giving it a try. Which
made me feel very foolish. I can't remember what this mechanism looked
like on the other dish, but these bolts I loosened...well, they were
bolted right through to the dish and obviously wouldn't let me spin it.
Oops. The number dropped below 100 from loosening them, then rose back
to 115 when I tightened them again. I couldn't see any way to work on
the polarization, so figured it must not be necessary. I tried again to
get the numbers up and again failed to get beyond 120. I let the mother
chickadee back inside and put everything away. I ate a simple dinner
outside, then set up the downriver camera and planted the
forget-me-nots I'd brought from town around the stairs, near two clumps
of irises, and a few randomly in wet places away from the trail where I
weedwhack. Back inside I finally got the fire going and curled up on
the couch with Cailey to do this. Now, a show? Some reading? Some more
solitaire? We'll see.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
I slept through the night, the rain of the evening diminishing sooner
than expected. When I drug myself reluctantly out of bed (having dreamt
of success with the internet), I cleaned up the cabin efficiently and
set the upriver camera before heading to the lodge to wash dishes and
otherwise clean up the lodge for departure. On the way
back from the creek I found all the bones of one wing of the white bird
with several of the terminal flight feathers still attached.
It was the worst timing for a low tide--about 3:00--so I could either
fight a falling tide in the morning or wait until the boat floated this
evening, likely not making it back until 7 or 8. It makes the departure
day even worse than it usually is. I was pretty much done at 9:00, the
tide comfortably high, and had some oatmeal and decaf coffee on the
porch, noting that the chickadees were still in and out of the box (it
looked like the male delivered food again) and that Annas was singing
again. It was utterly calm on the river, which I hoped bode well for
the journey home. There wasn't going to be enough time to dig into a
project, but I also didn't want to sit anxiously as the tide dropped
trying to relax but knowing that leaving would be stressful. I finally
got up to use the outhouse, taking that opportunity to return to the
sight of the white bird kill to look for more items. Not finding any, I
decided to take a gander at raising the outhouse with a jack but it was
more than I was ready to tackle, as I'd have to remove one tarp, cut
away another, and probably clip some salmonberries before I'd even be
able to start. Instead I just got ready to leave, heading down to the
boat shortly after the rain started. The inlet was still dead calm as I
kayaked out, but as soon as I got on board, a brisk breeze flew in off
Gilbert Bay, which made keeping the boat off the beach as I drug the
kayak up a little touchy (because of the falling tide). But we made it
and had almost nothing to carry back.
It was pleasantly calm most of
the way out of the port. In the middle of the entrance we passed
through
loose rafts of hundreds of Pacific loons (and at least one common
loon). And then at Mist Island the chop hit. I was grateful and
optimistic as we turned around Point Styleman and into Stephen's
Passage, as the seas, otherwise similar to last time, were not as
nerve-wracking and I was comfortable enough to head up the inside of
Seal Rocks, which I could not do last time. As I thought they would,
they
diminished a little after that, so I figured we'd hit a few larger seas
again at Grave Point and then have them diminish all the way
north. Oh, but I was wrong. By the time I was half way to Grave Point I
was wondering if the crabber that had overnighted on the river was
wondering why I was out there. They were mottled two and three foot
seas, occasionally larger, and required constant attention and an
ever-present hand on the steering wheel to prevent us from careering
toward shore. Poor Cailey was suffering and I was none too happy.
Surely, though, it would diminish past the point? I suggested as much
to
Cailey, but I was wrong again. Those big, wind-whipped seas followed us
all the way past Grand and to Arden. Surely beyond Arden, then...? But
no.
I'm not sure I've ever seen this, but they actually built up to the
largest seas we passed through--easily four feet-- just shy of the
channel and I lost my cool, my nerves about shot. And, though the
height diminished inside, it was still so bad that I turned and headed
as directly as I could to the Douglas shoreline in the hopes of getting
some relief. But the seas just turned and followed us over there. There
was no escape. We had two footers on our stern past Sheep Creek and,
here and there, all the way to the bridge. Two hours and 40 minutes
total. Ezra was kind enough to meet me and help me unload and by then I
had recovered somewhat. At home I took a hot bath in a much calmer body
of water. When I emerged, it was raining heavily and blowing and the
forecast had updated to a small craft advisory. I'd had the good
fortune to ride that front all the way home. And I left the pilot light
on the stove, using up that brand new tank of propane.
