I wrote yesterday to this blog, am slightly bemused not to see it on screen. Perhaps whatever great spirit rules the Klamath basin - am I in the Klamath basin here - is having a joke at my expense. Or maybe it's Coyote or Raven. A black construction paper raven is taped to my living room window. I don't know why. It's big and cut carefully. Am I protected? Am I a mark? My deadbolt lock on the laundry room door is broken inside the door so that I cannot open it. I have to go out the front door, unlock the deck gate, clambor up onto the deck (it's about three feet off the ground) in order to get my firewood. I need firewood. The electric space heater (there is one) is inefficient and it is expensive to heat with electricity here. Luckily, it has warmed up in the last few days.

Ah, Kah-Nee-Tah is the name of a resort and spa
The Chiloquin Casino is called Kla-Mo-Ya.
As always, I am reading myself into this place -
have found the local bookstore (100,000 books,
minus the four I bought, except he has more
in the attic, where Mary at the Curio Store, a
bit of a curio herself, masters degree in history,
wants to be interred in rocking chair, book in
hand. Her partner said, "they could change
the book out from time to time," and Mary
and I laughed together, "Yeah." I sit at a desk
in the Chiloquin Library, Bill Bryson's Dictionary
for Writers upside down over my left thigh.
Mathew Brady was a Civil War photographer-
another reason the name resonates, along with
Matthew Brady's plight, drug to death behind
that pickup. A house along my road has seven
vehicles lined up out front, three of them
pick up trucks. I'm writing this like its verse
but its prose prose, a rose by any other shape.
I also have ABSENSE AND LIGHT: Meditations
from the Klamath Marshes, by John R. Campbell
and a book called Oregon's Ghosts & Monsters
by Mike Helm. I'm thinking Halloween with
that one. Books are piling up at the cabin,
my little fortress of solitude. Here honks
the train again. These trains used to stop
here for logs, I bet. There was a mill. Is that
white building on 3rd, left side as I walk to
school where the mill was or was it beside
the river? The Sprague or Williamson.
I met Clayton Chocktoot last night. I live
at the top end of Chocktoot Ave. I'll have
to jump the row Ellie plowed with the juniors.
People said, "She's one tough cookie," and
I am definitively not tough, but I wouldn't
mind a cookie. At "The best food on 97"
they had cookies on the counter the size
of layer cake pans. I was sorely tempted.
I'd nibble daintily, take only one. Where
I'm from, the rivers have names like
Snoqualmie, Puyallup, Stillaguamish,
Skookumchuck. This was Indian land -
then the Klamath Reservation. What
were these rivers called in the old days?
I'm reading Buy the Chief a Cadillac by
Rick Steber, a fictional account of the 1961,
termination of the Klamath Reservation,
where every Indian got $43,000 cash
to sell away their million acre reservation,
the last of their birthright, to the US
government, another in a rolling tsunami
of US Government swindles. Footnote
for every - many hundreds were deemed
incompetent and did not get funds, and
children under I think fourteen were
excluded. Kids under twenty one had
trusts established, with fees paid to lawyers
and banks for administering those trusts.
How much trust do you have they
got their money? 1961, and the elders
are dying off, the young people bereft
of their wisdom though they don't yet
know it. And in 2008, those young in 1961
are elders. The elders are always dying off.

May Comes to OUR Alley

Will temperatures rise so that people as well as plants will feel it's spring?
Will the kiwi overflow the carport roof at 646?
How many squirrels have you seen running along the power lines?
Raccoon sightings?
Anybody seen the potbelly pig?
Have you met our postman, Dale?
Who else thinks our waste management truck drivers are unnecessarily courteous?

Should Alley Chat List Alley Resident Goings-on (With their permission?)

I refer here not to DUI's or credit records, but to things you'd like to publicize. Coincidentally, I would like to publicize that Essential's Madison Cafe has on display poetry broadsides created by poet and WoodWorks Press founder Paul Hunter through April. Go see them! Each is letter press printed, illustrated with hand made woodcut, and signed by the poet. Heard of Ferlinghetti? Carolyn Kizer? Sherman Alexie? Check them out!

Wednesday, April 30 at 7pm, Paul Hunter will be joined by another singular poet, Rebecca Loudon, for a poetry reading hosted by Alley Chat co-founder Laura Gamache. You are invited!

Alley Chat Asks: Is Spring Chimera or Real?

April is the cruelest month and not just in New England this year. Fighting snow to get home on Friday, April the 18th - your idea of April showers? Any horror tales of spring out there?

Who is watching to see the "faux Asian village" go up outside the Japanese Garden?

Who will report on the progress of the Pacific Rim Garden in the Arboretum?

Will you contribute to the pot to guess when Schuchart will complete the Madison Lofts?

Something Noxious This Way Comes

It turns out that the Madison Ridge area is ground zero for the Giant Hogweed, a noxious weed that King County is trying to control. A number were found adjacent to the alley in 2006. (Link to the PDF I sent showing weed locations or a link to the place where I generated the map. http://dnr.metrokc.gov/wlr/LANDS/weeds/maps.htm)

The large plant whose “clear, watery sap has toxins that cause photo-dermatitis. Skin contact followed by exposure to sunlight produces painful, burning blisters that may develop into purplish or blackened scars.”

To find out how to identify Giant Hogweed and more about the rather interesting plant (it was originally imported as an Asian ornamental) go to this link http://dnr.metrokc.gov/wlr/LANDS/weeds/hogweed.htm

It might help if people posted sightings to this blog. Also King County will be checking out the alley in the near future to confirm that the plant has not returned.
-contributed by Alley Chatter George Divoky

Madison Ridge

“it’s all downhill from here!”

Our proposed new motto will appear in our blog header shortly. If you live on the alley behind 33rd Ave. East expect a physical hardcopy flyer any day now. We're looking for:
bird sightings (chickens count)
raccoon weight guesses
alley event ideas
community links