"Life is lived forward, but understood backward. It is not until we are down the road and we stand on the mountain looking back through the valley that we can appreciate the terrain God has allowed us to scale.” Jill Savage

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Onward to Homer. . .

Look what I got yesterday from my friend who took care of me last December and is out of work now - right after I blogged about her. It was a poem to a friend and this is the last line - "The happiest people don't have the best of everything, they just make the best of everything that they have." You send good out and you get good back.

Learn as if you were going to live forever. Live as if you were going to die tomorrow.
- Mahatma Gandhi

Alaska Adventure Cabin - this is the cabin I stayed at - I can't tell you what a breathe taking view there was over looking the bluff from the other direction. They had three - one was an actual ship, another one was a train, and this one.



The Salty Dog Bar - in Homer, Alaska - this was my bartender. The tradition is to put $1 on the ceiling in case you ever come back for a drink - started by Ernest Hemingway. Everyone writes their name on it. There must be thousands up there.




This is where I ate dinner two nights - El Pescador - I had halibut both nights. YUMMY!


This is a piece of property that was Homesteaded quite a few years ago. They can't get him off the land now. Anyway this guy collects anything and everything and he and his family live in it.


This is Jean Keene House or the Eagle Lady's House. . . on the way to the Homer Spit (a little tiny piece of land in Homer.)
Remember I told you the people of Alaska don't revere the eagle like we do - they are just scavenger birds to them.
"Jean Keene, the "Eagle Lady" passed away January 13, 2009. She was 85. Jean Keene lived in a campground on the Homer Spit since her relocation to Alaska in 1977. Jean began feeding a pair of eagles on the Spit shortly after her arrival. She worked for a seafood plant where she had permission to gather surplus and freezer burned fish for the eagles. After ten years, more than 200 eagles were coming by Jean's place for breakfast. Jean loaded fish into barrels and then into her pickup for the short drive home. Before she doled out fish to the eagles, she chopped them into smaller chunks making it easier for them to carry. Jean fed 200 to 300 eagles about 500 lbs. of fish daily from late December through mid April.
An ordinance passed by Homer officials to ban eagle feeding on the Homer Spit was to go in effect, but an emergency ordinance has allowed eagle feeding to be extended for 60 days following Jean Keene's death. Since eagle feeding had already began for the winter, wildlife officials agreed it might be best to taper off the feedings.
Jean was known around the world for her generosity and efforts to care for the Homer eagles."



The eagle standing guard over Jean Keene's House. They are mostly gone now.



The post office in Homer. There is a lead glass of an eagle there.
What can I say, but I ate Halibut and fished for Halibut. They are bottom feeders - both eyes on the top side that is white their bottom side is gray.

Well, my trip is almost over . . . I guess it was a gift of my lifetime . . .

The truth of a thing is the feel of it, not the think of it. - Stanley Kubrick
Love y'all,
chatty

10 comments:

ClassyChassy said...

I'm going to send the link to this post to mom - she will love to read about the eagles - great story, Chatty!

Chatty Crone said...

Thanks CC -say you're initials are the same as mine. CC

Joyce said...

I have always wanted to make a trip to Alaska(misspelled). The pictures are beautiful and I can almost smell the fish.

Love and Hugs,
Joyce

Chatty Crone said...

Joyce -

Believe me it smelled fishy and felt fishy there. Plus they deblood the fish so that the fish don't taste so fishy - so there was blood everywhere! Quite the experience, and I wouldn't trade a minute of it.

JeanMac said...

Oh I love halibut. Gotta go there some day.

Chatty Crone said...

Homer is the fishing capital of the world - or so they claim.

Olde Dame Penniwig said...

I sure like that little cabin you stayed in.

Alaska used to be more wide-open. It's a shame that now people are trying to control what was the "last frontier." There are a lot of independent-minded people still there but they are clashing with those passing this and that law...

I met a First Nations person from the Vancouver area and he called the halibut "Old Flabby Mouth." LOL...I guess they are good eating?

Chatty Crone said...

Well, I had them twice for dinner and they were yummy to me.

Yes, I guess the last frontier is building up. Progress. Still a lot of empty land.

Buttercup said...

Thanks for taking me on this trip to Alaska. I am so enjoying it!

Chatty Crone said...

Thanks, me too. Only thing is it has to end - right?