Alaskan Bush Adventure II 11-21-23 Nome 1

Between planes we were able to spend time in Nome, mostly around the waterfront.

 

There is a large dike protecting the town from the sea.

Nome has many houses like this, with caribou and moose racks. Note the a large fishing

 net with floats in front.

Alaskans keep as much as they can outside all year round. In the winter it disappears, covered with snow.

Near the waterfront is a small "Memorial Hospital". It has been replaced by the Norton Sound Regional Hospital which is a modern facility with 36 beds.

Alaskan Bush Adventure I 11-20-23

Don's Blog   Alaskan Adventure I

This Thanksgiving week we will go back in time to when I was a kid doctor in Anchorage. I hope you will enjoy my memories helped along by images I took at the time. Think of it as my version of a blog stream.

It is the spring of 1968 and I am at work in St Louis in the McMillan Hospital operating room doing a long head and neck case with my mentor Dr Joe Ogura.  I get a phone call from my wife and break scrub to hear, "We're going to Anchorage!" I am about to go on active duty in the Air Force during the Viet Nam War. We are more than relieved as we have been worried about going to war - my previous Chief Resident, Bill Diehl, also in the Air Force, has spent this last year at Cam Ranh Bay, Viet Nam. We are excited and energized to go to Alaska on active duty.

I have been a Berry Plan USAF Lieutenant, then a Captain, and will soon be  a Major. I attended two weeks of Officer's Training at Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, Texas which included many hours of lectures and some nighttime adventures.  In one exercise I was carried on a stretcher by other trainees who were ten years younger.  After  the training I return to St Louis. I pack up the Suburban with Jan and our two housebroken kids, and orders in hand, drive west and then north. The trip to Anchorage takes 13 days and the boys are no longer housebroken.

We end up with three  Otolaryngologists at Elmendorf Hospital in Anchorage. This allows me, an opportunity to attend at the ANMC (Alaska Native Medical Center). The Alaska Native population has an extraordinary number of patients with ear disease in need of corrective surgery. Most of these are children. I end up volunteering, with the Elmendorf Commander's blessing, and perform three ear operations every Tuesday morning for two years. Thank you Colonel Vandenbos. Another part of this volunteering adventure includes travel to the back country, the Alaskan Bush, where the patients lived.

   Bush Trip to Nome and Kotzebue 

 

In the spring of 1969 we fly to from Anchorage to Nome and then north to Kotzebue. 

We take off from Anchorage International Airport and head north in a small plane on wheels. I fly with two nurses. One is a nurse anesthetist and the other a surgical nurse. Our plan is to do multiple tonsillectomies on  native children diagnosed with chronic tonsillitis. Leaving Anchorage we fly over the rivers and the tundra.

We fly low and can see the plentiful wildlife including a small group of caribou 

 

and even a large grizzly bear about to cross a stream.

We arrive at Nome where we will change planes to Kotzebue, where the operations will occur. 

Nome is located on the Norton Sound of the Bering Sea. It was incorporated in 1901 and was once the most populous city in Alaska. In pre-history, Nome was home to Inupiat natives. The area came to Western attention in 1898, when three Nordic-Americans discovered gold on the ocean shores of Nome, prompting the Nome gold rush. Within a year the city went from non-existent to a population of some 10,000. Offshore gold mining is still a major economic force in Nome.

Don's Blog A Mystery Solved 11-17-21

Each day I walk by this house in Ebsworth Park behind my house. It is the Russel Kraus House built by Frank Lloyd Wright. Its Usonian design is a delight to the eye and mind. 

In front of the house is a grove of persimmon trees (Diospyros Virginiana). They produce a huge number of 

persimmons each year which land on the ground (and the walkway) when ripe.

The mystery was why there was a major decrease in persimmons this year. Much fewer than normal.

We had plenty of rain until recently and the deer have never eaten them. It turns out there was a scatological

answer to our quandary. It looks like the coyotes have been eating them. These are undigested persimmon seeds

in the scat.

And the hair in the scat pshows it is coyote as coyotes  are meat eaters. It's fun to solve these problems.

"Just follow the science."

Fall at the Lake House 11-15-23

Activity at the Lake House has decreased. But the chicken is still on the roost.

There is always a wind off the lake.

And these light colored deer as seen from the kitchen window have nested down under the bird feeder.

And even in the fall there is action on Lake Aspen.

On the whole it is a time of silence. I am inquiring into the silence.

                              Silence

            There is a silence where hath been no sound, 

            There is a silence where no sound may be, 

            In the cold grave—under the deep deep sea, 

            Or in the wide desert where no life is found, 

            Which hath been mute, and still must sleep profound;

      No voice is hush'd—no life treads silently, 

      But clouds and cloudy shadows wander free, 

      That never spoke, over the idle ground:

      But in green ruins, in the desolate walls 

Of antique palaces, where Man hath been, 

Though the dun fox, or wild hyena, calls, 

And owls, that flit continually between, 

Shriek to the echo, and the low winds moan, 

There the true Silence is, self-conscious and alone. 

    Thomas Hood

'Silence' by Thomas Hood describes the ways in which Silence exists in the world and the places that one can find it.  The form of 'Silence' is described as follows. It is a fourteen line, Petrarchan, or Italian, sonnet. The sonnet is divided into two sections, the first is made up of eight lines, referred to as an octave, and the second made up of six lines, a sestet. The octave follows a standard rhyming pattern of ABBAABBA while the sestet follows a scheme of CDCDEE, neither standard nor unusual for a sonnet of this kind. 

The separation between the first and second half is comprised of a turn or a volta. This turn provides a beginning and an end to the problem or story. It may also be an answer to a question. In this case, the speaker is expanding on the concept of Silence and providing a contrasting example to those in the first half. (Wikipedia)

Another day I will share an analysis.

Flower for the Day Leather Leaf Viburnum 11-13-23

Just when I thought the flowers were finished blooming I looked out my bedroom window and the leather leaf 

viburnum (Viburnam rhytidophyllum) has begun to bloom.

And higher up the mature flowers are blooming.

This vigorous, coarsely textured evergreen shrub has an upright habit and 8-inch long, lustrous, deeply veined oval leaves with dark blue-green surfaces and pale green undersides. The leaf stems are fuzzy brown. It blooms in the spring and for several years now it has bloomed in the late fall.

Fall Winding Down 11-8-23

Well, fall is winding down in Kirkwood. The bid bath has been put away so it won't break with the freezing and re-freezing. Here are our neighborhood bluebirds from earlier.

We are enjoying our paths in the back. I love the crunch of the dried leaves underfoot.

We have a new Thanksgiving flag.

And this is my favorite image from the summer off the back deck.

Don's Blog Fungi II 11-6-23

Well the plants are winding down but with each rain we get more fungi.

Please let me know if you can identify these.

1.

   

2.

3.Turkey Tail (Trametes versicolor)

  

4. This is solid and the woods animals have been eating it. Do you

see the chew marks on the right side?

  

 

Fungi

If we think dishonestly, or malignantly, our thoughts 

will die like evil fungi – dripping corrupt dew 

                                       John Ruskin, Proserpina

 The smell –

wet anorak, fusty books, disturbed dust

of long unopened doors –

like the basement of your childhood,

beautiful scary darkness.

 

They poke

their tiny heads through dirt,

explorers from another age, and find

a world glassy with rain, a forest

thick with leaf mulch.

 

A good one,

if you're starving, could save

your life. A bad one would kill you

after only one bite. Step on its poison head,

it billows black fumes.

Lost in the woods

and hungry, how to tell them apart?

You can trust the feel of flesh on your tongue,

good meat - you know it won't hurt you,

you're a bit of a witch yourself.

Tamar Yoseloff

Just remember whether you are a witch or not,

"A bad one would kill you."

Flower for the Day Chrysanthemum 11-3-23

One of the enduring traditions in late fall is to have chrysanthemums for color. For years I would put them in but never could get them to 'come back' the next year. Now i just purchase them and enjoy them for about a month. They start just with mostly buds,

and grow into mature beautiful yellow flowers.

They also sell them in smaller containers.

This year the deer found the buds to be tasty, but only in the back out of the picture.

It is the only plant that I have covered (with Jan's nylon hammock) at night when the 

freeze would kill them. It has worked and we have another week of warmer weather

to enjoy them.

A Blackbird Singing

It seems wrong that out of this bird,

Black, bold, a suggestion of dark 

Places about it, there yet should come

Such rich music, as though the notes'

Ore were changed to a rare metal

At one touch of that bright bill.

You have heard it often, alone at your desk

In a [brown October], your mind drawn

Away from its work by sweet disturbance

Of the mild evening outside your room.

A slow singer, but loading each phrase

With history's overtones, love, joy

And grief learned by his dark tribe

In other orchards and passed on

Instinctively as they are now,

But fresh always with new tears.

  RS Thomas

Flower for the Day Silver Grass 11-3-23

Silver grass (Miscanthus sinensis) is my favorite ornamental grass. It is inexpensive and easy to care for -it essentially needs only water.

The gnome is my newest acquisition and my largest and oldest. He has a flower in one hand and a trowel in the other. 

Truly a 'gardening' gnome

In view of what is occurring in the world these days here is a poem from Rumi.

           Who Am I

What is to be done, O Moslems? For I do not recognize myself.
I am neither Christian, nor Jew, nor Gabr, nor Moslem.

I am not of the East, nor of the West, nor of the land, nor of the sea;
I am not of Nature's mint, nor of the circling heavens.

I am not of earth, nor of water, nor of air, nor of fire;
I am not of the empyrean, nor of the dust, nor of existence, nor of entity.

I am not of India, nor of China, nor of Bulgaria, nor of Saqsín;
I am not of the kingdom of Irãqain, nor of the country of Khorãsãn.

I am not of this world, nor of the next, nor of Paradise, nor of Hell;
I am not of Adam, nor of Eve, nor of Eden and Rizwãn.

My place is the Placeless, my trace is the Traceless;
'Tis neither body nor soul, for I belong to the soul of the Beloved.

I have put duality away, I have seen that the two worlds are one;
One I seek, One I know, One I see, One I call.

He is the first, He is the last, He is the outward, He is the inward;
I know none other except 'Yã Hú' and 'Yã man Hú.'

Rumi - thirteenth century poet and Sufi

Flower for the Day Tropical Milkweed 11-1-23

Last week I found this tropical milkweed (Asclepias curasavica) in my garden at the Lake House in Warren County.

I have absolutely no idea how it got there. I have never heard of it before.

This is what I found out about it:

Tropical milkweed (Asclepias curassavica) is a non-native milkweed that has exploded in popularity in response to the demand for milkweed. It is simple to propagate, allowing growers to rapidly produce the plant for quick sale. The plant is also attractive, both to humans and monarchs, providing flowers and lush green foliage throughout the growing season – and that's a problem.

Tropical milkweed becomes a problem when planted in temperate areas where it does not die back in winter. A protozoan parasite of monarch butterflies, Ophryocystis elektroscirrha or OE for short, can travel with monarchs visiting the plants and become deposited on leaves. When caterpillars hatch and start eating the plant, they ingest the OE. High OE levels in adult monarchs have been linked to lower migration success in the eastern monarch population, as well as reductions in body mass, lifespan, mating success, and flight ability.

I don't want to reduce anyones 'mating success'.I'm going to cut the sucker out before it propagates. Monarchs don't need more problems than they already have.