I may write for a blog, and thereby qualify as a “blogger,” but I prefer to think of myself as an essayist. I try to offer a brief essay each posting, making them somewhat of a stand alone piece. Unfortunately, life can be a bit more linear than that. By choosing to write essays instead of diary entries, I don’t always follow up on the information I present.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, as bits of information to add to previous posts become available. Perhaps it’s time to circle back and follow up on some of the topics previously covered:
As far as we know, the brood of chickadees living in one of our bird houses fledged successfully. A short while later, a chickadee couple (the same pair? A different one? We’ll never know) cleaned up the bird house, made a new nest, and a second brood of chickadees has been raised and fledged.
I did catch a fish for dinner to celebrate the anniversary of our return to Alaska July 12th. I caught a couple of kelp greenling.
Greenling, a type of cod, live off our rocks, and take lures eagerly through much of the summer. We caught them gladly at first (Aly’s first fish was a greenling) but had grown tired of the mild meat and small fish, especially after we tried poaching it in milk, once. Most of last summer we avoided them. This year, they’ve been noticeably larger, and Aly has been preparing them using my late mother’s beloved halibut recipe, making them a very welcome table fish this year, when we can’t get Dollies or salmon.
The first book signing for the ship tourists at Alaska Rod’s was a lot of fun! I went with the idea that I would meet and talk to a lot of great people, and maybe sell some books, and that’s exactly what happened. Among many others, I talked to a woman who works at a winery in Colorado, who asked about the possibility of flavoring white wine with fireweed blossoms. This led to an exchange of emails, and a plan to experiment.
I even sold some books! At the end of a delightful conversation, a few people surprised me by saying, “Well, I’d like to buy a book.” Book? Book? Oh, right . . . ! I increased last quarter’s sales at the store by 300%! Which is to say, they sold one copy last quarter, and I sold 3 that day. Looking back on several of the conversations, I found moments when the topic could easily have been related to one or another of my stories, but what the heck? I’m not really a salesman, and would rather just visit than try to steer anyone toward a purchase.
I went back last Wednesday for another signing. I sold a couple more books, met some great people, and had a good visit with Rod and Rhonda, the owners. I’ll likely try to hit every Wednesday boat after the 16th, when Aly plans to return to school.
That fills in some holes. We’ve got a low system sitting on top of us, meaning no wind, and very low cloud cover, often fog. Power’s a bit low, but wind’s supposedly on its way, hopefully I can keep to a better posting schedule again soon.