Wind Fall

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Aki slept through last night’s windstorm. She didn’t react when the neighbor’s trash bin slammed into his house. As I tried to ignore rain hitting the bedroom window like it had been shot form a water house, she stretched and yawned. This morning, during a storm break, the little dog and I head out to North Douglas Island to count the newly downed trees.

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Normally the trees along the Outer Point Trail drip on us during rain breaks. Today they don’t—something I attribute to the wind, which must have blown the branches clean. Shattered limbs of alder sheared off during the storm are scattered on the trail. Near a headland, we find the only new windfall—a hundred-year-old spruce that ripped up part of the boardwalk trail when it toppled. I ask Aki if the tree made any noise when it fell without witnesses last night. She shared no opinion on the matter. But I could see the ripped-up roots and shattered trunk sections—visual evidence of loud sounds made in the night.

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Treadwell

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Treadwell in the rain is a peaceful place. Thanks to the hardwood forest already established among the mining ruins, storm winds can’t reach Aki and I. She tends to spook on days like this and I wonder, again whether dogs can see ghosts. There should be plenty of them here where just over 100 years ago tunnels running under Gastineau Channel collapsed and flooded out the mine. Before that, it would have been a place for me to avoid—crowded and dominated by the pounding noise of machines crushing the gold out of ore.

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I would have mourned the clear cutting of the original old growth forest and felt sorry for the Chinese immigrants who struggled to dig the ten mile long ditch needed to deliver mountain water to the mining town. I would also have admired the iron workers who cast the large gears needed to process ore. Today, the gears lay sprawled at the base of spruce and cottonwoods, mining cars waits for the forest to close in, and the only noise is made by a bossy Stellar Jay.

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No No No November

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After twenty-fives years in the rain forest, I should be used to grey, wet fall days like the one that challenges Aki and I today. But we just enjoyed the driest October in history, which makes it hard to accept the return of normal fall time weather. November is shaping up to be the usual festival of cold, wet rain and wind.

The little dog and I have Eagle Beach to ourselves. A high tide floods over the river sandbars and pushes river water over the meadow. We have little to look at—no birds, no glaciers, no mountains—just November gloom.

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Old Friends

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Today, Aki and I walk with an old friend on a beach trail we have taken many times. The little dog likes it that the friend always walks by my side. We are the perfect charges for a herder like Aki because we heard ourselves.

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A strong autumn sun lights up the dog wood leaves and the party colors of an ever-present raft of harlequin ducks. My friend and I talk about people we know and those we knew who have passed. Mostly, it’s a conversation as bright as the sunlit dogwood leaves but when we stop to watch a hermit thrush watch us, the mood darkens. Words, not the bird’s appearance bring the change: those that acknowledge loss. But they are followed by shared, happy memories of the man who would have loved seeing the thrush. 3

Comfort Zones

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As we round False Outer Point I spot an immature bald eagle perched on a nearby rock. Expecting it to fly off, I take a few pictures of the bird even though it is backlit. The big bird slowly turns it head right, then left but doesn’t move. The topography forces us to come within fifty feet of the eagle, well within our eagles’ usual privacy zone. Bur this one is still on its rock when we pass through the choke point and reach the next headland. “What’s the deal with this eagle, little dog?” She ignores me like she did the eagle.

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We keep moving to make it around a series of headlands before the tide floods the trail home. Around the last one, another eagle squats on an offshore rock. This one flies off before I can find the right setting on the camera. But ten feet away, a tiny sparrow preens on a surf-rounded rock.

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Hallow’s Eve

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Aki and I climb to a mountain meadow. The little dog moves slowly, like an old man just awake. New ice covers the meadow ponds. Frost crystals on dead grass stalks melt into dew. The meadow rests as it must until the first real snows.

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The Christian calendar calls for us to use these first days of ice and frost to remember our dead. Tomorrow, we are to honor saints. The next is for souls. This year I want it to be a time of remembrance, rather than mourning. I will think of a writing mentor who died last winter, remember the lessons she gave between her chemo sessions. I will pledge to honor her by applying those lessons in my work. Then, I will pray for all the souls who touched my life.

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Winning the Bet

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Aki isn’t allowed in Juneau’s graveyard. No dog is. So, we walked the parameter streets. Small stone rectangles reset into the ground mark most of the new graves. Modest marble markers stand at the head of the older ones. Darkened with age, most of these gravestones lean toward the ground. A stone angel prays at the foot of a maple, like it is giving thanks for the fall color.

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Aki delays our progress by checking pee mail left on this unfamiliar ground. One of the messages must have been rude because she sulks as we walk along the waterfront and turn up Main Street. The little dog strains at her lead as I try to photograph a raven preening in a birch tree. The raven looks smug, like it just won a bundle by betting against the Seattle Seahawks. That American football team was winning when we left the house. Three young guys walk toward us from the Viking Bar with booze breath and somber faces. The raven makes a sound that I would find offensive if I’d just lost money betting on the Seahawks.

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Sun and Silence Before the Storm

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There’s rain in Downtown Juneau, brought by a curl of clouds that rode in last night on a Pacific low. But north of town, where the little dog and I walk along a Lynn Canal beach, it’s sunny. A few miles south, clouds push up against a weakening high-pressure ridge that reaches back to the Yukon Territory. Soon, gray clouds will blanket our sun, but not before we reach a little pocket cove where we’ve seen whales, sea lions, seals, and once an ocean-going beaver.

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We work our way over rocks made slick by spray and moss to where the cove opens into the canal. I wait for the magic, for a brace of seals to round the headland or an eagle to pull something from the sea. It too late for whales but I strain to see one out in Lynn Canal. It is empty as is the sky and the trees surrounding us—empty of wild things but also of those made by man. All summer prop planes and helicopters flew over this place while fishing boats and whale watching rigs made noisy passages up the canal. Today, there is silence broken only by tiny waves strikes. Silence, and sun before the next storm.

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Squirrels with Attitude

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It’s late October, the feisty time for squirrels. A big grey one runs down the slanting trunk of an old growth Sitka spruce to stare me in the eye. I want to tell him that neither the dog nor I are here to rob his cache. Aki would rather eat cheese than the contents of the winter store of spruce nuts and mushrooms.

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All through today’s walk squirrels drop from their tree perches to challenge Aki. She falls for it every time, dashing a few feet into the forest and then stopping to assume a rigid, tails-up pose very like that the big grey squirrel showed me. I know the little dog has no interest in harming the noisy rodents. Last year, on the moraine, a squirrel actually turned to face Aki’s charge. The poodle-mix stopped abruptly and wagged her tail like she does when meeting a friendly dog.

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Fallen Pride

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While Aki slept less than ten feet away, someone rifled through our car. Nothing was taken. Nothing was broken except the little dog’s pride. Apparently, to rebuild her reputation, Aki growled at everyone we passed during our descent from Chicken Ridge. I apologized and chastised until she finally stopped. She could have spoiled the otherwise beautiful morning with its low sun milking remaining fall color for beauty. But, the ravens came to the rescue, mooching and hopping and giving Aki the eye. One climbed on top of an outdoor receptacle for spent cigarettes and tried to grab a butt. It hopped off when I tried to take a picture then affected interest in a nearby patch of grass.

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