July 12: Moosen at the lake

As boats start pulling out of the water and the yard at AGS starts filling up, I begin to feel the melancholy of the end of the season, even though it is weeks away for me. Harry, Makenzie, Ev, and Hannah will leave soon and having already eaten their celebratory dinner at the D&D came down the beach to join our farewell dinner in their honor and in the honor of the Goat Roper crew, Phil, Tom, and Trevor who will also leave soon. My crew is still fishing the day-into-evening tides, but Rohan and I needed the ebb to get ready for dinner. Jeff replaced us both. Hmmm. We made the salads and the cheesecakes. What more is needed for a farewell dinner?

I just paused here for a minute to read The Sentimental Fish, the lead article in the Summer 2014 Wild Alaska Salmon issue of Alaska Women Speak. It was written by our very own Makenzie. I found it to be so moving: beautifully written, poignant, and in so few words conveys such depth and breadth of feelings - describing my own feelings about this time of the season better than I do. Really, it's more than "describe." It's like she picks verbal snapshots that, when taken together, are like a plucked guitar chord - a chord that elicits a feeling. Because that's what her article does: it does describe, so that the reader might grasp what she is talking about, and the images that she weaves together also create an emotional chord. I'm so proud (and comforted) to share this melancholy with her. And how fitting that she and Ev are both moose, Palmer High School's mascot, because...

Jake, our outdoorsman, burst into the cabin with a moose sighting! I feel I must tell the truth and admit that he had to keep showing me where to look to see them. Standing in the lake right behind my cabin! Someone wanted to know where the antlers are - answer: they don't always have antlers. And Roger voiced his suspicions that they are just donkeys, with those big ears. He also settled the question about what the plural of moose is. In my lexicon, it's now "moosen."

I went back in to keep working on dinner - guests would arrive soon! And came back out in time to see the moosen ambling off into the tundra. They were right up on the horizon with a perfect silhouette when Jake pointed out that they were walking toward an eagle, with a mountain in the background. I thought I was doing pretty well to see the moosen. He wanted me to see the eagle too? So I handed him the camera, and here is the story that those pictures told:

You can see why I couldn't pick just one.

We all returned to the cabin. Roger was in rare form tonight. When I cleaned the salmon we planned to grill, I placed the waste in a grocery sack to be emptied below the tideline on the beach. I asked the out going crew to do that, but they forgot.

When the crew came back in, I asked them to start the charcoal grill, telling Jeff where to find the charcoal - in a white plastic bag in my porch. He brought it and the grill over and went looking for the chimney to start the charcoal. As he returned with the chimney, Roger stepped into the crew cabin, walking between the two grills that were just transported from my cabin, with the bag that used to hold the charcoal, asking if we had any plans for the stuff that he had just emptied onto the beach, thinking it was the forgotten waste from the salmon and noticing, too late, that it was something else entirely.

We excel at Plan B. Time to use the blocks of mesquite, also on my porch.

I also asked him to tear the lettuce, as the base for the summer salmon salad. He asked if you can just twist the stem off, while twisting the stem off... so that lettuce flew onto the lemon cheesecake. And that's how we sneak more vegetables into our meals here at Moose Camp.