Exploring the International Blogosphere

Okay, I know, “international blogosphere” is a tautology, but it
doesn’t hurt, especially in the U.S.of A., to remind people that not
every blogger is tapping out the English language on those keys.

The other day, my radio was on and tuned to public broadcasting, as it
often has been since I was driven back to the radio two months ago when
my computer and the PS2s all went down at once.  Before I moved in
here on the public utility powergrid around the turn of the century and
went online, public radio (an old car radio connected to a 12V battery
that I sometimes had to drag on a sled to a neighbor’s house to charge)
had been my connection to the outside
world.  I’d listen as I did jewelry work or household tasks.

Radio has TV beat for multi-tasking because one can lend an ear to it
while doing any number of other things.  I remember, back in the
1950s, when we’d recently gotten our TV, my mother complained that she
had a tendency to scorch the ironing or let the soup boil over when the
TV had grabbed her attention.  That doesn’t happen so often with
radio.

I was tapping away here at the keyboard when I heard that tautological
phrase, “international blogosphere.”  The program, I think, had
been The World.  I’m pretty sure, anyway, that it was one of the
BBC programs our local NPR station rebroadcasts, but it could have been
some other news show.  As I said, I was multi-tasking, not giving
it my full attention.

I caught the entire “blogosphere” spot later in the day when the rebroadcast came on.  They were talking about the globalvoices
project at Harvard.  The speaker said they wanted to be sure that
the blogosphere didn’t become parochial to the English speaking
world.  I made a note to check it out later, and googled it today.

The top item was about Isaac Mao,
whose original site is being blocked because of an April Fools Day blog
in which he made fun of the Great Firewall of China.  Here is the
substance of that entry:

Any techies in my readership interested in contributing?

Retrograde Mercury has been a helpful factor since I started writing my
memoirs.  Most of the progress I’ve made in that area has happened
when Merc was retro.  In recent weeks, I added a few episodes to
the adolescence end of my dangling threads, and have been giving a lot
of reflective thought to the other dangling end in the ‘seventies.

But that’s not the only area of those memoirs that have been getting my attention.  Thanks to a new reader, craftygirl, I have been rereading, expanding and revising many of the entries I wrote almost three years ago.

craftygirl
has been reading my life story.  I read her comments in my
feedback log.  Some of them impelled me to go back and look at the
entries on which she was commenting.  In some instances that led
to corrections, additions and revisions.  This was a task I’d
known I needed to do for a long time.  I appreciate being given
the impetus to do it.  Most days, blogging the present is
infinitely more attractive than revising the past.

For 43 years a comic book heroine, redheaded reporter Brenda Starr, inspired a
couple of generations of women to
break out of some “feminine” stereotypes, while perpetuating some other
stereotypes.  Brenda’s creator, Dale Messick, died a few days ago
at the age of 98.  If Janet and Dan hadn’t completely bollixed up
the image upload system, I’d have pics for you of both Brenda and Dale.
 

How does it look now?

If my front page was looking wonky to you earlier, and it’s okay now,
tell me so I can congratulate myself on fixing it.  If this works,
it was maggie_mcfrenzie who clued me to the problem.  I gotta
watch that pre-wrap tag.  It has gotten me before, when I copied
and pasted something. Homer clued me to that months ago.  Must remember to paste it into notepad to
get rid of the formatting before I past into xTools.  That’s a
little bit easier than editing the HTML here. 

I’m really curious why my URL sometimes comes up with “beta” in
there.  It might be unrelated to the wide-screen problem, but it’s
a curiosity.

BTW, for those of you who mentioned that my left module is wider than
normal, I know.  I fixed it that way to keep it from being as long
as it would be otherwise, what with my links to the memoirs and that
humongous and ever-growing list of quotes.  You should see NO YOU
SHOULDN’T see how long it is on my private front page with all my
subs.  I’m a promiscuous subber. *blush*

I took an unscheduled trip to town today.  There was a final
notice in the mailbox today, some stuff waiting at the post office in
Willow I needed to pick up before they sent it back (not your software
Sarah, but Doug’s new game that had been there longer)  Since I
was going that far, I went on into Wasilla to take Greyfox some of the
beans I cooked last night.  Doug rode along so he could do most of
the legwork.  Still, I wore myself out.

Note to self:  stay out of meth labs… even if they’re not being used as labs any longer. 

There’s a cabin at Felony Flats, right behind the new spot where
Greyfox sets up his stand.  It’s vacant, and there were two
broken-open bags of potting mix littering the ground in the gravel
drive beside the porch.  After I scooped up the neato-keen topsoil
stuff, bagged it and had Doug load it in our hatch, I got snoopy. 
The door was open, and all the windows.  I stepped inside and
noticed a light on in the next room.  Being the
conservation-conscious numbskull I am, I crossed over to switch it
off.  Greyfox stepped onto the porch behind me and said, “Don’t go
in there.  That’s where the meth lab was.” 

I sniffed deeply and said, “I don’t smell anything.”  Of course,
most of the time I don’t smell anything.  That’s called
anosmia.  When I got back outside, Doug said he could smell it
from out there.

By the time we were having our lunch, I was feeling funny — sorta
shaky and half sick, weak muscles — the usual chemical sensitivity
toxic reaction.

I’m glad I’m home.  It was a quick turnaround trip, just in, do
what needed to be done, briefly poison myself, and then back up the
valley.  I never did get back under those covers this
morning.  It’s about time, now, I think.

OMG!  They’ve screwed up my image files.  They’re not in
alphabetical order.  I couldn’t find my moniker in the drop menu
and had to write the HTML.  That sucks so bad!  Xanga, why do
you hate me?

Little update, a few minutes later:
Okay, Xanga doesn’t hate me.  That was actually an upgrade. 
Now I can choose to have my pics listed alphabetically or
chronologically.  Whew!  They’re back in alphabetical order
now, but with one click I can make them chronological again to help me
find things that are close to other things.  Cool!

How does my front page look to you?
Two people have noticed something wonky about the script on my
front page.  I don’t see it here, and have not made any changes
except some additions to my left module.  What do you see? 
Any suggestions?

One Thing and Another

The first thing today is relief, a burden released.

Some time ago, I mentioned an ethical dilemma of Byzantine complexity
and Stygian mystery.  I didn’t and still do not want to be
specific enough about it to embarrass or imperil anyone, but it was
too important to me not to put it in my journal and when I started this
journal I made a promise to myself that I wasn’t going to keep any
secrets.  We are only as sick as our secrets and my primary
objective for this journal was healing.

When I wrote that first entry about the dilemma, I was wishing I’d
given the matter more thought and declined the request at the
start.  I was trying to find a simple way to back out of a
commitment that, upon reflection, did not feel right.  I got lots
of advice from readers.  People suggested every possible option
I’d thought of and a few that hadn’t occurred to me.  I gave all
that advice due consideration and came up with a course of action that
felt right.

Since the client’s end hadn’t been fulfilled as agreed, I felt
justified in renegotiating the contract.  I declined that part of
the original request that didn’t feel right to me, and offered
something else that I felt would better serve the client’s needs. 
Today, I fulfilled my end of that modified agreement.  The best
thing I can find to say about this whole affair is that it was a
learning experience.  I won’t be making any regular business out
of this.

From about day two of this affair, I’ve seen a little sign flashing
behind my eyes:  THIS IS A TEST.  When I completed my final
email installment today, that sign blinked off and was replaced by a
gentle, fading message:  never again.

Yesterday I was asked by spinksy
for book recommendations, presumably of the sort of detective fiction
and true crime I had mentioned in that blog.  Months ago, soul_survivor
asked for a different type of recommended reading.  I’m responding
to the later request before fulfilling the earlier one for a very
simple reason.  It’s easier.  Compiling a list of my most
valued scientific, spiritual and metaphysical books is a task so
monumental I’ve shied away from it.  I mean, who remembers, and
where would I find room for such a list?  I could probably drag my
heels on that job for the rest of this lifetime.  Comparatively,
listing some of my favorite fiction writers and fictitious characters
is a breeze.

My favorite books are ones that tell stories about “people” I know and
care about:  long-running (or not so long) series that involve
well-drawn characters.  Below are some of the authors and
characters that I like best.

Oh, shit!

I forgot something.

(updated)
This ‘n’ That

When I broke a few days’ silence here with my latest blog, I got
comment and email indicating that some of you had noticed my
absence.  I hadn’t expected that.  Many of the Xangans I read
don’t post more than two or three times a week, so I thought I would
cause more comment by posting two or three times a day than by taking
two or three days off.  See how wrong I can be.

Apparently, some of you have come to expect more of me, and when you get less you start to wonder.   In her comment wixer
took a few guesses at why I hadn’t been posting.  One of her
guesses, “feeding the new addiction,” came very close to the
truth.  It is an old addiction that has recently been
revived.  During the month that my computer was down and our PS2s
were not working, I started passing my time reading books.  That’s the way I passed most of my youth and my prison time.

On Thursday, I spent the hour that Greyfox was on a computer in the
Wasilla Public Library selecting books from their paperback
racks.  I brought home 23 books, mostly detective fiction from
authors I favor for their realistic portrayals of criminals,
criminalists and detectives, with a sprinkling of good true
crime.  By “good” in this context, I mean not emotional and
sensationalistic reports from writers such as Ann Rule, but the
first-person accounts of investigators and profilers such as John
Douglas and Gregg McCrary.

I chose to take books only from the paperback racks
for two reasons:  small, lightweight books are easier to handle in
bed.  I’ve fallen asleep many times while reading.  If I’m going to
drop a book on myself, I’d prefer it be a paperback.  It’s less likely
to awaken me or injure me.  Also, the library sets no due date on those
books.  They just count how many go out and come in and don’t care how
long I keep them.  This works very well for those of us who live in the
upper reaches of this valley and don’t get to town regularly.

Here’s a quotation from The Unknown Darkness:  Profiling the Predators Among Us by Gregg O. McCrary and Katherine Ramsland, PhD.:

I find such reading fascinating because I’ve worked in the mental
health field and I have lived (in prison) with psychopaths.  I’ve
also had close associations with some of those “therapeutic
communities” that tend to make some forms of psychopathology
worse.  My recent study of orthomolecular medicine now makes me
wonder how some of those otherwise untreatable cases might respond to
targeted nutrition.  It’s questions like this that are so
intriguing to me.  One of my major payoffs in reading these books
is that sometimes one of them will suggest a web search, and I then go
off on a branching mind-trip in which I learn things.  Learning
things — that’s another addiction of mine.

I never have any difficulty finding things to do while I’m avoiding
Xanga.  This time, I had plenty to do — things that actually
justified (some might even say necessitated) my giving some time to
more concrete tasks.  My house is filling up with junk scrounge
salvage.  As recently as yesterday, Greyfox told me he was still
getting things out of the “windfall” pile beside the cabin next to
his.  Even though other denizens of Felony Flats have discovered
the pile and begun scrounging it, there are still things to discover
there as the ice and snow melt away.  I had spotted a Hoover
vacuum cleaner encased in ice in a shady spot.  Greyfox is keeping
an eye on it, and I hope that when it emerges sufficiently to be
grabbed, he’ll be the first one to grab it.

Greyfox now has a second small under-counter-style refrigerator to
supplement the little one furnished with his cabin.  He put it on
his porch and plugged it into the outlet where he plugs in his engine
block heater.  We have brought home three loads of other stuff in
our cars.  They included small kitchen appliances and electronic
gear, tools and hardware, clothing and linens, toys and art. 
Fortunately, I also found some storage units to help me organize
it.  

One set of three items (probably part of a larger set) was what I
consider a great find.  It would have been greater to have found
it sooner, before the weather ruined it.  They are old (how old, I
don’t know) Japanese (I think) or Chinese shadow box collage
pictures.  The frames are warped, paint peeled, veneer flaking off
the backing, and they have mold growing inside the glass.  I think
they are beyond restoration, so I’m taking them apart to salvage and
reuse some components.  These three appear to be part of a
four-seasons set.  They include a picture of bamboo and deer, one
of chrysanthemums and dragonflies and another of buttterflies with
flowers that might be some sort of allium.  Those flowers are
carved from pink coral.  The chrysanthemums are white jade, the
chrysanthemum stems are jet and all the leaves are green jade, nephrite
in the case of the chrysanthemums and jadeite in the others.  The
butterflies and dragonflies are mother of pearl.  There are other
gemstone components, too.  Each picture has a group of Japanese (I
think) characters carved from ivory. 

They will be useful for a project I’ve been planning:  boxes
decorated with gemstones.  I got the idea for the boxes from a
collection of broken beads, rings and such that I’ve been accumulating
from my jewelry work.  I’d been hoping to collect some old cigar
boxes or something to use for the project, but the windfall pile has
provided a few little boxes specifically made for such crafts
purposes.  One of them is now in my possession and Greyfox is
watching for the rest of them to thaw out of the block of ice they’re
now encased in.”

An extensive collection of bakeware and cake-decorating equipment gave
me pause.  For an insane moment, I saw it as a sign from above
that I’m supposed to start a catering business.  Naaah — that
“signs from above” shit:  it’s what psychologists call “ideas of
reference.”  They’re symptoms, not signs.  But I’ve kept the
bakeware, anyway.  Ya never know — this damned disease could go
into remission and it might come in handy.

There was a big basket full of incense that had been submerged in
snow-melt.  I have some of it spread out here to dry.  It
takes up every available horizontal surface and the fragrance of my
domicile changes from day to day as one batch dries and gets bagged up
and a new one gets spread out to dry.

Having that big windfall pile didn’t eliminate or even diminish the
usual flow of scrounge at Felony Flats.  Among other goodies,
Greyfox discovered two frozen turkeys in the dumpster. 
What!?!  Did I hear a faint, distant sound of retching? 
Maybe it’s about time for me to leave off the trailing end of my
adolescent memoirs and take up the thread where I left it off in the
‘seventies, during the economic bust that followed the pipeline boom,
when Charley and I not only survived, but thrived and fattened on what
we found in dumpsters.  Maybe, later….

I brought those turkeys home Thursday night along with the groceries
I’d bought.  One went in the freezer and the other into the bottom
of my fridge to thaw.   Today, I intend to take some ephedra
so my sense of smell will work.  Then I’ll get the turkey out of
the fridge, and if it smells okay I’ll stuff it with onions, celery and
sage, and roast it in my oven.  I truly hope it is good.  I
like turkey, and haven’t had any for a while. 

I guess I fed Doug too much turkey as he was growing up.  He
doesn’t like it, and won’t eat it now except occasionally when I make
it into enchiladas or something that disguises it.  Since Greyfox
doesn’t live here any more, I’ve not been able to justify to myself
buying a whole turkey just for me.  But I’ll cook that dumpster
bird if it smells okay, and I’ll take some of the meat to Greyfox next
time I go to town, as I’ve done with the moose we butchered in the
front yard, and some stews and beans and such that I’ve cooked up
here.  Otherwise, the Old Fart generally subsists on lunchmeat
sandwiches, canned soup and frozen dinners.  He has essentially no
food prep area, and only a microwave for cooking.  If I were in
that situation… I wouldn’t be in that situation.  I’d be out in
the yard cooking over a campfire or something.

The Firewood Saga Continues

If you’ve been following the story of our attempts to stay warm this
winter, you may recall that Jason, our young neighbor who had supplied
our firewood for several years, killed himself last year.  It was
coincidentally near the time that we were ready to start stocking wood
for the winter.

Jason had had an argument with his wife one night.  He went to the
lodge and got drunk.  The next morning, she found him hanging in
their barn.  We learned of it that same morning, when Greyfox
called and asked for Jason, to order a load of fuel.

It rocked the neighborhood.  For weeks, every conversation among
neighbors at the spring or the general store involved Jason and
Selena.  We’d share what information we had, express concern for
Selena, and wonder what she and the kids were going to do.  Then
someone would ask, “Do you know anyone around here who’s selling
firewood now?”

Jason’s suicide left a big gap in the immediate area.  Its impact
was emotional because everyone knew him.  It hit many of us close
to home in another way because our households depended on him for
winter warmth.  I tried calling every ad in the local papers, on
flyers hanging on bulletin boards, and in the yellow pages.  Those
who weren’t out of wood already were either unwilling to deliver this
far up the valley or to go to the extra trouble of cutting it in the
short lengths we need.

Finally,
around the end of September, after the first few snowfalls had come to
signal winter and then melted in the sun, I found George.  On his
first trip here, I snapped his pic and reported to you about his
apparent NPD (narcissistic personality disorder).  A few days after that, I told the final chapter of
that story.  He had tried to cheat me, selling me six tenths of a
cord and calling it a full cord.  Then one night in a drunken
phone conversation, he had told me that his truck only held 3/10 of a
cord.

When he came back to sell me another three-tenths for sixty dollars,
I’d confronted him.  Rather than revise his measurements or
renegotiate the price ( I was less disturbed over the expense than I
was over the dishonesty), he opted not to do business with me.  He
allowed Doug to unload most of that load before he left, yelling out a
veiled threat as his parting shot.

That scant nine-tenths of a cord lasted us into December.  Through
October and November I had been calling every number of every ad for
firewood I found and all the ones that Greyfox saw on bulletin boards
in town.  Finally, in desperation, I went back and called all the
ones who hadn’t returned my calls, telling everyone I was out of wood,
implying desperation.

I also called someone I’d dealt with once before and chosen not to deal
with again.  This guy, Mark, runs patronizing ads that say
“firewood even your wife can burn.”  In this household, I’m the
one who gets the fire going when the wood is wet, or restarts it when
one of the guys lets it go out, and I don’t have a wife.  I hadn’t
liked Mark’s ad, I didn’t like his attitude when he delivered the wood
that first time, before Jason had moved in and started selling wood,
and I didn’t like the fact that he delivered me a short cord, much of
which was cut in longer lengths than he’d agreed to.
 
I held my nose and ordered a cord of wood from Mark.  I wrote
about the runaround he gave me, the delays because I told him I didn’t
want the cord of mixed birch, spruce and aspen he was apparently
picking up from someone who’d previously bought it from him, and his
novel method of emptying his truck by backing it up and slamming it
into the woodpile.  After keeping me waiting a couple of days
while he said he was cutting a load of the birch I wanted, he came late
at night and delivered the mix of birch, spruce and poplar.

Among the callbacks I got later on that desperate day of calling around
was one from a guy named Lou.  He had a big truck and promised me
a cord and a third of birch for $130.  Kinda high price, but I was
asking for short lengths and a long ride to deliver it, so I accepted
even though it wasn’t seasoned wood.  I figured I needed more than
one cord to get us through the winter.  Even though those two
deliveries had originally been scheduled days apart, they ended up
being delivered all the same night.  Lou, at the last minute,
decided to charge me an extra $20 delivery charge.  That story is here.

I have mentioned here a few times lately that we were running out of
wood again.  Doug and I kept the fire low and used the inefficient
little electric heaters for several weeks as I tried to find
fuel.  I tried Lou, and he was out of wood.  Mark’s ad was no
longer in the newspaper, or I might have held my nose and tried him
again.  I don’t know.  That’s a decision I’m glad I didn’t
have to make.  We prepared ourselves to make it through until warm
weather by dressing in some extra layers and running up the light bill.

Greyfox found several new numbers on bulletin boards in town.  One
of the ones I called was a cell number that put me in an electonic loop
before telling me it wasn’t a valid number.  When Greyfox called
that number one day, just to find out if it was defunct so he could
remove the flyer and make room for one of his own, he got through and
gave Tim my number.  Then he called me and gave me Tim’s number.

After a couple of rounds of phone tag, Tim and I talked to each other
and he agreed to bring me a cord of mostly birch, cut to my 11-inch
lengths, for $120.00.  Meanwhile, Doug had been shoveling the deep
snow away from around the edges of the woodpile.  He found some
strays that had rolled off the pile, and hit one significant vein that
kept the fire going at a low level.  We were managing to keep the
stove from becoming a big cast-iron heat sink, the coldest object in
the room, but just barely.

The day Tim had promised his first delivery passed with no word from
him.  The next day, I called him — phone tag again.  I left
a message on his voicemail.  When he called me back, he apologized
and said he had forgotten all about me.  I had already felt good
about Tim, but when he told me that it only confirmed my feeling that I
could trust him.  I hate being lied to, and I was dead certain
that Tim was telling me the unvarnished truth.

He still didn’t get here with the wood when he said he would. 
Late at night the day he had promised the delivery, he called. 
Doug caught the CallWave message:  Tim’s nephew had rolled his
truck.

When Tim called the next day, I took the call.  He said his nephew
was okay but the truck wasn’t.  He had a friend with a truck he
could use.  I got the first delivery that night.  It was
mostly birch as we’d agreed.  It was well-aged as he had
said.  It was obviously more than I’d gotten in the two loads that
George had called a cord, but Tim was quick to tell me it wasn’t a full
cord.

I told Tim that night that I’d had a good feeling about him when he
told me he’d forgotten me.  He said his girlfriend had overheard
his end of that conversation.  “Why do you tell people things like
that?” she had asked.  “It’s true,” he had answered her.  I
said that was a good enough reason for me.

He had said that the first cord for each customer was $120, but he’d
sell subsequent cords for “regular” customers for $100.  I had
agreed to buy 2 cords this spring, even though I’m pretty sure one will
get us through the rest of this year’s cold weather.  As Tim, his
helper, and Doug unloaded the wood, we talked about payment.  I
told him I had the $120 in cash, and asked him if he’d be willing to
take my check for the second cord, or if I’d need to go to an ATM to
withdraw more cash.

I was surprised when he agreed to take my check.  Woodsellers
around here don’t take credit cards.  That idea, to most, is
absurd.  None of the ones I’ve ever dealt with would take checks,
either.  They’re just like dope dealers that way.  It is a
cash business, usually, and they don’t give receipts.  

I asked Tim if he’d be selling firewood next fall.  He told us he
would be back in October to start selling wood again.  I got the
feeling that he’d prefer selling us next winter’s wood this
spring.  I wasn’t sure where I’d get the money, but I knew that I
could get a cash advance on a credit card if I had to, so I told Tim to
bring me five cords.

We’ve gotten to know each other better than I’ve gotten to know any of
my previous firewood dealers.  That night, he handed Doug a little
slip of paper on which he had written, “Chirikof Island.”  He said
“they” had made a webpage about him, and I could search it out.  I
did that the next day.  I found the site devoted to the Alaska
Maritime National Wildlife Refuge, and several other web references to
Tim.

Some of the people who write about Tim call him a “maverick.”  For
those who didn’t grow up on cowboy movies the way I did, I’ll define
that word.  Originally, it was a calf on the open range without a
brand.  When it became applied to men, it referred to one who
followed his own rules and belonged to nobody but himself.  It
wasn’t necessarily an insult, unless one happened to be the
conservative sort who believed in conventional laws and social
order.  Most mavericks were decent people, something like what is
known in RPG terms as “chaotic good.”

By the time I’d finished reading all I could find about Tim, I
understood why I’d had such a good feeling about him just from his
voice, before we’d ever met.  We see eye to eye on a lot of
issues.  This turned out to be a good thing for both of us. 
We had made our first contact about the time Mercury went retrograde,
and our whole association thus far could be summarized in two
words:  retrograde Mercury.

He has had telephone problems, and so have we.  He’s had
persistent mechanical problems as well as heavy snowfall and some
inconvenient thawing of the ground around the lake where he’s getting the wood.  He
has delivered about half of my wood, and I’ve paid him for the entire
order so that he could get the parts he needs to fix his truck so he
can deliver the rest.  Very soon, after the thaw, the area where
he cuts the wood will be inaccessible.  He’s working against time,
and I’m happy to help as much as I can because there’s an advantage in
here for me, too, besides the pleasure of dealing with someone I like
and respect.

I’m not going to write out all the details here of Tim’s venture on
Chirikof Island.  I’ll just give you some of the things Tim told
me that are not on the web, and you can Google Tim Jacobson and
Chirikof Island if you want more details.  Tim is on the left in this shot.  The cowboy on the right is named Loni.

There is a herd of feral cattle on the island.  It has been there
since the late 1800s.  It is probably the healthiest cattle herd
in the world.  It has never been subjected to growth hormones,
never been exposed to BSE.  Tim has a contract with the feds to
remove the cattle from the island, something many people have tried
unsuccessfully to do.

The reason for their removal is the mission of the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service, protection of the nesting grounds of the shorebirds
on the islands in the refuge.  It is a controversial mission there
on Chirikof Island.  Many people would prefer to have the cattle,
who have been there for more than a century–most of it without human caretakers–stay.

Tim’s success thus far has been small, and his effort and expense quite
large.  He told us he spent tens of thousands on legal fees to defend
against an effort our governor made to lay claim to the herd (and the
island, I think).  Tim won.  He now has an extension of his
original contract and five more years to fulfill it.

Meanwhile, as he spends his summers rounding up cattle out there, he’s
working to get the regulations changed so that the herd can continue in
peace.  He is also doing what he can to improve the herd. 
Without human intervention, it has become about 60% bulls.  Life
is hard for cows with so many bulls around.  Tim said the only
significant hazards out there are some boggy areas where they can get
stuck, and the brutality of the bulls.

Tim is “banding” young bulls, using castration bands to turn them into
steers.  Steers produce better meat and are less aggressive. 
The meat on these cattle is very lean.  Tim describes it as more
like elk than beef.  I haven’t tasted it yet, but he has promised
to bring us a sample.  He has some for sale.  I don’t know
how much he has, or his price, but if anyone is interested I will find
out for you.

When the state administration was making its grab for the island, they
made a “documentary” in which the voiceover talked about how wild,
intractible and uncontrollable the herd is.  The problem with that
was that while the narrator was reading that script, the video was
showing the cows standing around inside the fences Tim and his crew had
built, with the island cowboys walking amongst them.

There’s a story behind those fences, too.  Tim found the wreck of
a barge on one of the island’s beaches.  Digging down through
about 8 feet of silt and sand, he found lumber and barbed wire that had
been preserved there for decades.

I’ve been invited to the island for a visit this summer, to stay at
the new ranch headquarters pictured below.  It might not be
feasible, but it certainly is tempting.

(Chirikof Island photos from AMNWR)