This was originally posted June 22, 2015 but didn’t post correctly. Today I had an extra day of whale watching as they were short-handed.  The company is so good to me I was happy to do it.  Bluebird day.  Flat calm.  And whales were bubble net feeding. The calves that can’t participate wowed us with breaching. I wanted to get some salmon berries this year, as I’ve heard they are already out but did not know where to go here, even after going on 20 years in town.  I’d thought I’d seen salmon berry bushes up at Eaglecrest when I was hooter hunting and gathering greens, so I headed back to the fiddle head spot.  What a change. After crossing the creek and breaking into the open the landscape was mostly ferns.  Everywhere.  About waist high. I found a few patches of what I thought were salmon berries but only saw a few berries that were small and green and others with just the blossom back left. So I headed back to the truck and thought I’d look along the road further up to the ski area parking lot.  After making the loop and starting back down, there was a couple who flagged me down and asked for a ride down the hill.  Sure I said, wondering – did they walk all the way up here? As we drove down the hill I asked the male where he worked.  McDowell Group he says.  I used to work there I said.  When he told me his name, we realized I worked with his aunt at the legislature.  When I said I was up there looking for salmon berries, they both said – go to, well, a certain spot that’s easily accessible.  They said I could pick all I wanted with ease.   When I asked what they were doing at Eaglecrest, they said they’d walked a trail up from the N. Douglas Hwy to a mountain and swung down to Eaglecrest.  They asked if I’d ever but up the mountain, and I replied “not on purpose!”. I dropped them back at their vehicle and headed to the supposed honey hole of salmon berries.  I was not disappointed.  Berries galore.  Yellow ones and red ones.  Everywhere.  All within 50 yards from the road. I realized when I got home I get an adrenelin rush when I’m in a gathering frenzy like that. My mind is clear.  There is produce everywhere.  I will never pick it all.  Maybe this is what heaven is like. I picked till it was getting dark.  My pack was pretty heavy coming out.  I got home and measured what I got.  30 cups of berries plus a couple cups of juice.  2 cups shy of 2 gallons.  And I easily had the full 2 gallons but stumbled and took a header down a stream bed and lost several cups in the process.  I vac packed the berries for a later jam session, and now know I’ll be obsessed to continue picking for the next several weeks until the salmon berry season is over.  Life is freakin’ good.

Did some chores on the boat today.  I had to change a leaf spring that broke earlier in the week.  Of course, no one in town had the same type spring I needed.  So, I put on an easy loader spring, making the requiem 3 to 5 trips to Western Auto to finally get all the parts necessary.  Today I fixed a step on the trailer.  I also bought some LED tail lights for the boat trailer, which will last alot longer than the old bulbs.  Cleaned off my work bench, but never can seem to thow away everything I should, but mostly move things from one side of the garage to the other.   Sara finished her life guard tests and after her last day of school yesterday, will cap her retirement as the graduation speaker tomorrow. She spent most of the afternoon working on her speech.  Sunny and high 60’s today.  You can almost hear the foliage growing. 

My cousin Christine Gilroy and her tribe were in town to celebrate her husband John’s 70th birthday.  John looks – and I’m not kidding – like not a day over 55.  I used to stop at their place in Iowa when driving somewhere – NY or Mississippi – to Alaska.  We went crabbing – unsuccessfully – and over to our cabin.  Went whale watching.   They went up the tram and to the brewery.  Today they went to Haines on the ferry and then to Sara’s retirement party.  We cooked Alaskan dinner here at the house everynight.  Deer one night.  Moose the next.  Then crab – Ron gave me 10 when he scored 20.  And geoducks last night.  I made crisps for dessert from all the berries last year.  They leave in the morning and I miss them already.  It’s great having family here, especially since it’s so rare, and so harder to see people go again. 

Laura, Samuel and I went up to Eaglecrest fiddleheading in 70 degree weather.  If this keeps up, I’m going to have to move further north.  Supposed to be 75 degrees tomorrow.  We were a week later fiddleheading than last year, plus it was an early spring.  We almost missed them.  Most were 18 inches high, although with the fiddle head still curled.  Some were already leafed out to full-fledged ferns.  There were still young ones coming up between the tall ones, and I got 5 nut canisters full in about an hour and half.   I saw a deer with a red coat bounding across the hill when Samuel and Laura were up near it.  The brush just swallowed it.  No wonder I don’t see many deer over there.  Samuel ran all over the hill and talked from when he got in the truck till when he got out.  Of course he went up to his thighs in a muskeg pool on the way out too.   

Todd was in town to hooter hunt.  After 3 unsuccessful deer hunts in driving rain, I figured – come down for hooters in May.  Weather is always good in May.  Todd got here Friday night in pouring rain.  And it got worse on Saturday.  We took the boat out and stopped and listened.  Either the birds weren’t hooting or the wind a tad too much to hear them.  We did see a brown bear on the Admiralty Island beach.  When we got back, we drove up to Eaglecrest,  and I heard one bird at the top of the opposite mountain.  Not gonna get any  birds today.  We gathered up Chris, who whimped out on hunting when he got up and it was raining.  Of course, when we picked him up in the middle of Juneau, we could  hear several birds hooting up on the hillside!   The three of us had a dinner down town and then returned to Chris’s house in time for nurse Janelle to hand use out ample doses of abuse.  They said they  needed a funny  movie for their 8th graders birthday party.  I told Chris to dial up Wayne’s World.  Eva the 8th grader was impressed, and added it to here movie list for the party.  I told her to get Meatballs, too. We got home late and so got up today when we got up.   Pancakes with sausages Todd brought down.  I thought we’d try a new spot that our friend Laura told us about when she was walking her dog.  She’s the recipient of stuff from our freezer, so he’s always willing to help. We headed up to the muskegs, where I figured we’d listen and keep going if we heard birds.    We heard birds.  We climbed up and up to the trail.  When we hit the trail, we heard birds.  But as we traversed the trail across the hillside, the bird hooting went away.  We decided to keep going the same direction.  Maybe a half mile later, we heard some hooting and headed off the trail and up the mountain further.   We climbed up to a knob to where we were sure the first bird had been hooting, but it quit.  Then we saw an eagle land in a nearby tree.  Mr. Grouse was playing it safe.  After a while we heard another one a hundred yards away on the same knob.  We got over there, and he kept hooting.  I got the .22 and 12 ga guns out of the pack and put them together.  We did the merry go round around the trees where the hooting was coming from.  We heard the bird we’d just left start hooting again, too.  And then Todd spotted it.  He’s the first person I’ve taken hooter hunting for the first time to see a bird before me.  Todd didn’t want to shoot because he hadn’t shot a gun in so long.  So I got a good rest and held on the birds head.  Doug and I had dialed in the .22 with a Burris 1.5×6 scope and it was shooting well.  First shot and the bird didn’t move.  The next one and the bird flew to another tree.  I saw it land.   Now he was in a branch low enough for the 12 ga, and I dropped him down.  Looked like I’d grazed his neck right below his eye with the .22.   We went back to the other bird, and found it pretty quickly.  I saw it this time.  First I thought the .22, then thought it was low enough for the 12 ga.  I shot, and the bird came sort of flying and tumbling down to us, and Todd pounced on it and wringed it’s neck.  Two for two.  Been a long time since that happened.   We couldn’t hear any hooters close enough without crossing a canyon so we headed back.  Wow, it was a long walk back.  But a beautiful sunny  day with a north wind and dry. Real Juneau May weather. 

Turned on the coffee about 515 then went outside to listen as it had stopped raining.  Was that …. yep.  That’s a hoot.  He’s up there.   Drank my coffee, emailed the boss, left a note for the wife, shouldered my pack, and up I went.  As always, its way  up further than you’d think it is.  Up on a cliff you have to go around the side of to get up on top.  Saw a deer on the way up. When I got there about an hour later, I thought I pegged the tree for sure, and looked for maybe an hour and never could see it.  I put on the pack and was about to leave when I looked up in a closer tree – there he was.  I could only see his head over the top of the end of the tree branch he was in.  Put the new .22 10 20 takedown together and couldn’t find a good rest where I was, so walked up to another tree, and couldn’t get a good rest there, and at the third tree, a gust of wind came and the bird backed in closer to the tree.   So, round and round for another hour.   Could not see it.  Put the gun in the pack and decided to go down the other side of the hill.  And as I looked up – there it was!  It had hopped to the tree next door, which had few branches.  It was a long shot, but the bird was right there in the open.  Looked as big as a small turkey!   And this time  I got a solid rest.  I slapped the bolt a couple times per the manual, then put in the magazine and loaded a shell.  I held the cross hairs right on it’s heart, pulled the trigger……..and it flew away.  Never to be seen again.   Wow.  Do I seriously suck at this.  Another solid 5 hour workout.