The care of the Earth is our most ancient and most worthy, and after all, our most pleasing responsibility.To cherish what remains of it and to foster its renewal is our only hope – Wendell Berry
9:30, calm, high tide, cloudy. 42 degrees.
What a difference a day makes! I’ll let the pictures do most of the talking this morning.
There are no waves at all today, and yesterday they were strong enough to heave this stump to shore. It was so calm I could smell the wood smoke from home heating stoves on Mud Bay Road. It hung in the air.
There were two gliding seals, a few gulls in no hurry, a couple of crows and one hawk cruising for voles in the meadows. I think the eagles are all up in Klukwan feeding on the late salmon run and entertaining photographers. The bald eagle festival begins today. It celebrates one of the largest gatherings of bald eagles in North America. Some 3-4000 are here in the late fall and early winter, mostly up by Klukwan because of warm up-wellings in the alluvial fan where the Tsirku and Klehini rivers meet the Chilkat. Usually, there is ice everywhere but there. As you know, the climate is changing. There is no ice to speak of yet, except on the roads by the border and up in the pass.
Mayor Tom Morphet is determined to celebrate with a welcome parade at five tonight down Main Street. He called this morning and asked if he could borrow the lumberyard flatbed for the marching band if it is raining. He plays the trumpet. “They won’t march in the rain, but they said they’d ride in the truck if I can string a tarp over us.”
Maybe the weather will hold. There’s a hint of a northerly, and that could bring clearing skies. But honestly, I’m pretty happy with my one hour of grace.
Maybe it was the later time, and for sure it was the weather, but we weren’t alone. I said hi to a jogger (wearing shorts), and met a newish neighbor. I had seen her walking her dogs on Cemetery Hill before, but not down here. Two big poodles. She only had one with her today, and when I asked where the other one was, she teared up. She had died a few weeks ago. “She was old, and there were other things…”
“How old?”
“12.”
I said I was sorry. Pearl is 12, too. She asked about the other dogs. I introduced them all, ending with Jeff.
“Jeff” she said, smiling. “I like that.” Turns out her dog is named Walter.
Walter! (Don’t you love that?)
