This link is from the USGS's St. Helens update site. It is DEFINITELY worth the download time! Click on "Watch the movie!" and the red flashing "NEW" arrow.

All right, if you're hanging from the tenterhooks...I got two nice salmon, a buck and a hen, and it was thanks to Clyde, who staked out the best spot on the river shortly before sunrise and stood his ground. I arrived some twenty minutes later to find him in the best spot, Dennis in the second best, and the fast, hard-to-fish water left for me. Not to worry, I've been there before, and brought home a 25-pound king.

I geared up with the proper amount of weight on the first try and let the bait of eggs drift through the hole. For the first half hour or so, nothing happened, and then I hooked into a large, bright hen. She was on just long enough for me to realize I had the drag of my reel set too tightly, but before my hand could move to relieve the pressure, the line pinged and I announced matter-of-factly, "Fish off." Within ten minutes, I had landed the buck, Dennis manning the net.

The fish truck pulled in shortly thereafter and dumped a short load. The talk on the river is of how swiftly the fish run up or down stream this year, and I theorize that this is due to administration of a new, short-acting anaesthetic during transport. The snaggers are not faring well, for all of being out in hordes, for active fish are not as easy to foul-hook as those lying torpid and in plain view. As the mob of salmon finned hastily to concealment, a hen took one belligerent swipe at the mass of eggs before her snout, eggs concealing my predator's sting. Clyde netted her for me when she came near the bank, and with a greatly improved disposition, I bade the boys farewell. Last on the river, first off...I was content. Both fish were bright and firm.

Stress is taking its toll. I very nearly forgot to post a blog last night, and apologize for filling the gap with another rant about illegal fishing.

Those of you near and dear to me will know the conditions which are pushing me to the brink of nervous collapse; those who don't shouldn't have to be bothered with them. Therefore, with some regret, I am prematurely ending my self-imposed task of daily blogging until a literary masterpiece begs to be let out of the box or some event worth public mention occurs.

I would like to give special thanks to three faithful readers: Paul, Paul's mother Jane and my beloved cousin Toni. It's been wonderful, knowing that you were there, and I hope you'll continue dropping in from time to time. Like Schwarzenegger and the bad penny, I'll be back.

Clyde came over today, bearing half a smoked salmon wrapped in foil, and I greeted him unkindly with, "Are you snagging?" I couldn't help but wonder.

Behind the dark glasses, I couldn't see his eyes, but although Clyde may stretch a fish in the telling or add a pound to its weight, his moral sense is stronger than any man's I know, and I believed his simple answer of, "Nope." As an afterthought meant to console me, he added, "I didn't get any yesterday, you know."

Today was Dennis' son's day to shine as he brought home the bacon, though the story goes that he sat out part of the dance at the truck, infuriated at the jigging going on beside him. Clyde, the proverbial immovable object, stood his ground. I do not know if his stubbornness earned him a fish. It was not a question I could bear to ask for fear of the answer.

Being kept out of my favourite fishing holes by people fishing illegally is really getting on my nerves. Sande and I made a circuit of all our familiar spots today, and without exception, all were filled with snaggers having their heyday in the absence of the game warden. And just where is our one enforcer? Tied up on a huge elk poaching case, to the jiggers' collective delight. Although the local police have been empowered to write citations for fishing infractions, their patrols have so far consisted of nothing but driving around, waving to their friends and neighbours on the banks. One wonders if their evening meals include fresh-caught salmon?

A delightful surprise awaited me today: the discovery that, in my two-week absence, approximately two more miles of the Foothills Trail have been paved. The remainder (about the same distance) will be completed in a week or two, providing a hard, level surface for the entire route between McMillin and South Prairie.

That was not my only pleasure, for a heavy fall of maple leaves now lays on the asphalt, and no child of any age can resist the temptation to pioneer a path through the crackling blanket. As my tires shattered the fragile scraps or my foot dragged in the windrows, I was reminded of running through the piles my father raked behind the house. How does debris hold such magic?

Now, as my memory plunges into the midst of the pungently scented windfall and comes up slightly damp with sticky moisture, it turns to the corn shucks tidily bound and the sultry steam rising from the compost pile. The pumpkins and squash are turned to harden their pallid undersides, and ranks of drying onions perch atop a minor berm beside them. Pears hang yellow on half-naked boughs, the remaining leaves golden as the fruit. My father leans on his rake, and I perceive him as part of the autumn landscape, smelling of the good earth, frost, and harvest. We stand paired shocks by the driveway gate, and the year is done.

Today, I breathe fall's reminiscences and my father's soul rises once again, for it is here that I see him most clearly, the central figure in a moat of my childhood's maple leaves.

There is one certainty regarding our pet volcano, and that is that nobody knows what's coming next. Theories are as thick on the ground as scientists, if not moreso, every one of them the personal hobby horse of some geologist. Most hypotheses are based in good logic, although as they stack up, it's obvious that they can't all hold true simultaneously. The long and the short of it is that vulcanology is an inexact science. We truly do not understand the workings of our planet's bowels.

St. Helens has been putting up a steady column of steam all morning, piping away like a merry teapot on the back burner. Seismicity is at a low, but very regular level, in an action similar to a pressure cooker's weight giving the occasional wiggle and spurt of vapour. One speculation suggests that the magma is moving steadily upward, with tremors occurring when the surface rock cracks and deforms.

Although one would think that complacency was ill-advised in light of the events of 1980, the Volcano Alert Level remains at Orange these days, and tourists by the droves are dancing on the lid of the dynamite keg, disdainful of the hidden forces at work beneath the earth's crust. An estimated twenty-one million cubic yards of new material has moved into the crater since this episode began, a volume incomprehensible to the average viewer, and at an intrusion rate twice that seen prior to the famous blow. Something is brewing, and the lid is sitting too lightly on the pot for anyone to take their eyes off the stove.

A cozy Ohrwurm has been with me today...the chorus to a song called "Grandma's Featherbed."

"It was nine feet high and six feet wide
And soft as a downy chick.
It was made from the feathers of forty-'leven geese,
Took a whole bolt of cloth for the tick.
It'd hold eight kids and four hound dogs
And the piggy that we stole from the shed.
We didn't get much sleep, but we had a lot of fun
On Grandma's featherbed."

I've never filed the full lyrics or tune in my mental database, only the refrain, for in my childhood, too, there was a featherbed, and surely at least forty-'leven geese and a full bolt of ticking went into its manufacture. Unlike the rhyme, however, for the most part, I had it all to myself unless I invited my tiny pet poodle Marie into its folds.

How or when my mother came into possession of this marvelous piece of bedroom finery, I do not know. I believe it was constructed by Old-old, my great-grandmother, and undoubtedly, the feathers for its filling came from her own geese. Likewise, it may have cosseted the full membership of her family, dogs and a farm animal or two, for such was the way of things in the days of its youth.

My first encounter with the featherbed was shortly after the appearance of an appliance-sized cardboard box in our family room, a carton which bore large crayoned letters commanding, "Keep!" I remember being warned away from the box, possibly because it was suspected of harbouring Eastern Washington spiders (read, "black widows"), but no child could resist turning back the flaps for a peek. What lay beneath was indeed "soft as a downy chick," somewhat musty smelling, and altogether enticing. I crawled inside.

I no longer recall the outcome of that experience. Chances are, I fell asleep and was later discovered and removed to my own bed, for such was the pattern followed on many subsequent occasions. "Keep" (as the featherbed became known) was my fortress. I would burrow into the loosely packed mass until I was totally concealed from view, the light down posing no danger of suffocation.

Sadly, "Keep" was eventually devoured by moth and mice, but its memory remains dear to the child it comforted. It just wouldn't have been the same in polyester, y'know?

Last January, I discovered Blogger, and after a few days, I discovered its value as a tool for levering out the substantial chunk of writers' block which had been obstructing the creative plumbing for quite some time. I set myself a daily goal of a three- to five-hundred word essay, a rate of flow I hope(d) to keep for at least one year. This self-inflicted task progresses well, as you can see, although the literary quality often falls short of my desire and the dratted thing reads like a diary at moments, but overall, I believe the job has been worth its agonies. However, I may have expected too much. As with many old homes, the restored system may lack some part of its full functionality, and I am ashamed to say I have not been moved to submit a single article or story in the last nine months.

My strength is my weakness. I am verbose. I love words for words' sake, and greatly desire to build edifices with them, irrespective of plot or content. A 150,000-word novel resides in the drawer of my desk, awaiting a massive rewrite to introduce a more substantial story into its population of vignettes. Scraps of direction fill folders in the computer, but no three point to the same bearing. My characters are not quite lost in their forest, but they follow a trail of breadcrumbs obvious only to me. "It's beautifully written and the imagery puts you right in the scene," two agents and several readers have told me, "but it needs more plot." I could protest that a pie without a crust is a custard, and some people prefer them for desserts, but I rather imagine the editorial ear would be deaf to such an argument.

Will Blogger redeem me, or have I only dug the pit deeper by indulging my passion in its electronic venue? Do I care?

A brief blog, since I've only just remembered that I won't be home until past bedtime tonight.

Yesterday, I purchased a Little Chief smoker to take care of all those fish I've been catching. Fish? What fish? Well, all those fish I'm going to be catching, then, from the far side of the river where only the boldest go. My mother, you see, has developed a passion for smoked salmon, and of the dozen or so pieces provided by Clyde, I was able to shanghai but one before the bag mysteriously turned up empty.

I have a brine for dehydrated fish...fish jerky, if you will...which I'm adapting for the smoker. You may try it, if you like, and feel free to add spices or condiments of your own choosing.

Brine for salmon or trout:
3 cups warm water
3/4 cups non-iodized salt
3 Tbsp. brown sugar
3 Tbsp. teriyaki sauce
1 1/4 tsp. garlic powder
1 1/4 tsp. minced garlic

Combine the first three ingredients in a jar and shake until the sugar and salt are dissolved. Add the remaining ingredients and refrigerate until cool.

Place fish pieces in a glass or plastic bowl and add the brine. Stir well, being sure that the pieces of fish do not adhere to each other. Refrigerate for at least four hours (I usually leave mine in the brine for a full day), stirring occasionally.

Before smoking or dehydrating, rinse the fish lightly under cool tap water. From there, follow the manufacturer's directions for your equipment, or put in a good old-fashioned smokehouse over alder wood.

Sounds like I'm going to have to wade. My neighbours are bringing home salmon, snatched from under the snaggers' collective noses from the far shore, and I'm straggling along behind with a stringer of measly silvers. Okay, they're large silvers, pink-fleshed and salmon-flavoured, but they're too far removed from the parent breed to give me complete contentment. A 14-inch jack coho which counts statistically by its entry on my salmon punch card is bound to taste better than an 18-inch silver which has spent its entire lifetime landlocked, I'd bet on it.

I had a bad experience wading last year. The simple fact that I am a foot shorter than my angling peers often keeps me from the prize, and on occasion, I have become so piqued with Salmon Fever that my shortcomings escaped my awareness.

I had left Sande on this occasion and gone downstream to where the big boys were merrily catching fish upon fish, standing waist-deep in the swift water of the Puyallup River below its confluence with the Carbon. The far side was overhung with trees and the deepest portion of the channel ran beneath them in a perfect gutter for fish. The distance was such that from the near shore, I could barely cast to the backs of the string of fishermen, let alone to the piscine highway, so I edged out into current which was rather strong for its modest depth. The footing was sound and gravelly, although the water was disturbingly opaque, and I encountered many dips and rises as I progressed. Eddies were often unpredictable. A shallow spot might be unexpectedly swift, or a hole more calm. I had no wading staff, and my hundred pounds was buoyed up rather too readily by the flow.

Unlike many of my colleagues, I have the sense to wear a wading belt, a simple cinch which, if the fallen fisherman doesn't panic, can save a life if he or she will but raise their knees. However, it also makes one a bit more buoyant when upright, and I found myself being carried inch by inch downstream, toward a small and rapid cascade.

Several of the other anglers had noticed me and were giving words of encouragement, oblivious to my lack of height. "It gets shallower out here. Once you're through that deep spot, you'll be okay," they enticed. I bore on, and shipped water in at my armpits. Again, I was lifted downstream and into faster current. I tried to retreat, but I had passed the point of no return. Upon turning a more flat area into the flow, the force of the river heaved against me too powerfully to resist.

I have had two near-drowning experiences in my life, and I knew I was not far from a third. I swallowed my pride with a gulp of fear and asked for assistance back to shore. The angler at the end of the queue tucked his rod beneath his arm and piloted me back to safety, remarking that he'd thought I was much taller. I barely reached his shoulder. The river which came up to his chest would have been shoulder-depth on me.

I am leery of wading, belt or no, shallow waters or not. I cannot swim, or not well enough to be comfortable in a standard pool. I'm going to have to give this project a serious chunk of think. Short of shooting sixteen snaggers, how will I ever get a salmon if I do not wade?

At approximately 9:00 AM, PDT (according to the seismogram at the Longmire station), Mt. St. Helens put up another sizeable steam and ash emission. I tuned into the VolcanoCam shortly thereafter (unaware of what I would find), and she was spewing voluminous clouds a thousand or more feet above the crater rim, clouds which at times the sun could not penetrate, covering the valley floor in a nighttime pall. The drift was northeasterly, and from the photos, I guessed its path would come near my location. Staring out the window, I could see nothing. Since I was waiting for Sande to arrive, I left the computer on with the VolcanoCam updating automatically every five minutes. For the next hour, billows of ash and steam rose from the Lady's core, burdening the sky. Only minutes before he arrived, the updated image showed a subsidence of activity. The emission had continued for more than an hour from its inception. Referring to the seismogram for current data, I discovered its lines to be nearly flat for the first time in days.

As we drove across the Divide separating the Nisqually valley from that of the Cowlitz, we could see the plume trailing northeast toward Mt. Rainier and almost to its flanks. The colour was pale and cloud-like. The air surrounding us was hazy, but I believe the tinge was not an effect of the eruption, merely lingering smoke from the morning wood fires of Morton's population, and identifiable cumulus structures were beginning to form in the southwest, preparatory to a change in the pleasant weather.

Near noon, a man fishing beside us remarked that the communities of Packwood and Randle had received light ashfall, enough to whirl up in dust devils behind passing cars.

Funny....last night, I dreamed of tiny bits of pumice falling like a shower of small hail.

The following update has just appeared on the USGS Cascade Volcano Observatory web page:

"This morning the rate of seismicity was at a high, sustained level when, shortly after 9:00 a.m. PDT, the most vigorous steam and ash emission of the current period of unrest began. The emission originated from the same vent as have others this past week, as well as from another nearby new vent in the intensely deforming area on the south side of the 1980-86 lava dome. For more than one hour, steam clouds billowed from the crater. The ash content varied with intensity of steam jetting from the vent. For the first time, ash content was sufficient that it was detected by National Weather Service Doppler Radar. Steam and ash clouds reached about 12,000 feet and drifted north-northeastward. Ash forecasts warned downwind residents. Media reports indicate that a light dusting of ash fell in Morton, Randle, and Packwood, Washington, towns about 30 miles from the volcano. Nearby traffic on U.S. 12 stirred up the ash, slightly reducing visibility. We have no reports of ash falling at greater distances.
"The rate of seismicity dropped during and the emission and has stayed at relatively low rates. We infer that magma is at a very shallow level and could soon be extruded from a vent in the deforming area. Additional steam and ash emissions are likely and could occur at any time without warning. Conditions suggest that there is also an increased probability of larger-magnitude and more ash-rich eruptions in coming days."

For those of you minding the pumice, here's today's report from the USGS's Cascade Volcano observatory:

"This morning visitors to Mount St. Helens witnessed a 40-minute-long steam-and-ash emission starting at 9:43 PDT. Steam clouds carrying minor ash billowed out of the crater to an altitude of 10,000 to perhaps 12,000 feet. The event did not generate earthquakes or an explosion signal. We infer that hot rock was pushed up into the glacier, melted ice, and generated the steam. Part of the vent for today’s and other steam and ash emissions of the past few days is now covered by a boiling lake. The emission occurred during a time of gradually increasing seismicity, which dropped slightly after the emission, but continued to increase gradually through the afternoon. Another period of smaller steam and ash bursts occurred between 2:10 and 2:40 P.M. Visual observations show that the area of uplift, which includes part of the glacier and a nearby segment of the south flank of the lava dome, continues to rise. We infer that magma is at a very shallow level and could soon be extruded into the vent or elsewhere in the deforming area. Additional steam and ash emissions are likely and could occur at any time without warning. Conditions suggest that there is also an increased probability of larger-magnitude and more ash-rich eruptions in coming days...Yesterday’s gas-sensing flight detected slightly lower concentrations of carbon dioxide in the crater, but for the first time the airborne instruments detected the presence of hydrogen sulfide."

No! Those thieving sons-of-jaybirds ate every last grape! My lovely Interlaken vine was bearing prodigiously for the first time in its life, thanks to uncle Eddie's pruning expertise, and an estimated twenty-five pounds of round, sweet fruit was hanging in the cover of its leaves only a week ago today. Lover of birds that I am, I professed my willingness to share the harvest with the robins who were darting into the greenery, hardly expecting them to rob me blind.

I had gone to the grocery store, where red Flame and green Thompsons were featured at 99 cents per pound, and I passed them by although saliva rose beneath my tongue in a Pavlovian response. Why buy grapes sprayed with who-knows-what pesticide or dosed with chemical fertilizers when my own were setting sugar in the chill of morning? Another week would have seen the crop ready to strip, and only those small bunches which eluded the picker would remain to be found when the leaves turned pale and fell. I went out to the vine with my largest Tupperware in hand, mental cornucopia spilling out the best and largest bunch in a memory clear as a snapshot. I expected pilferage from the exposed clusters, but when I threw back the gown of leaves and found naked, ravaged stems, I swore the words my father used to start the tractor.

Share! I said I'd share, not give you the lot, you blue burglars! Yes, I am certain the Steller's jays played their part in the mischief, too, and no doubt a major role. Was it because of my neglect, and the days I left your feeders empty of sunflower seed, or failed to give you breadcrumbs, corn or mac and cheese? Have I not provided well for you, my erstwhile friends, that now you repay me with larceny?

Well, I am older and wiser for this lesson from my corvid companions and their chums, and though there be no raisins in the sun this year, next year's crop will be guarded by a net or plastic. Fair's fair.

For quite some time, my mother's bedroom door has squeaked when opening. It was a tiny squeak, mouse-like, a friendly sort of noise of the sort old houses make, akin to creaking hardwood and settling of timbers in the dark of night, and altogether familiar and easy to sleep through, no matter how many trips out the room's occupant might make. With our own door closed, the cat and I could slumber on through its small complaint, unperturbed.

Then one night about two weeks ago, I was wakened by a solitary drumbeat and a feline squeal. I determined with a foot that the cat was on the end of my bed, although I suspected her ears were perked for another sound of motion from the strange animal at the end of the hallway, but the only rustlings were of my mother's feet, the toilet seat, the feet again, and then another thump and yowl as she went back to bed. The solution was obvious: the hinge's voice had changed, dropped in pitch and raised in volume, and the door had swollen with autumn's pervasive humidity, to stick slightly on its jamb.

It took several nights to become accustomed to this new chorus, for I am a person who wakes to the slightest unnatural sound. Nevertheless, once a noise is identified, it raises no alarm in my slumbering brain, and I have been known to sleep peacefully through the racket of a cow elk using the exterior corner of my bedroom as a scratching post.

Small jobs are so very easy to put off, whereas the larger ones demand the attention immediately. I ignored the grumblings of malcontent coming from the brass, turned a deaf ear to its objections in all but my more wakeful moments until this morning, two ayem.

A substantial dosage of caffeine and a volcano in your back yard are not conducive to restful sleep in any event, but I had nodded off after hours tossing and turning, and was just at the border of La-la Land, prepared to show my passport, when a caterwaul split the darkness like a bolt of lightning. My first thought was of a vandal crowbarring the car's doors or gas tank, and I came bolt upright in the bed. Before I could throw up the shade to peer into the carport, I heard the plush-covered toilet seat's muffled clunk against the tank. I was groggy from lack of and proximity to sleep and couldn't quite make the equation until I heard the shuffle of moccasins on the bathroom vinyl. Again a hard drumbeat sounded to the accompaniment of a cat caught in a wringer. Resentful of my slights, the hinge was taking a more demanding tone.

I slept no more than twenty minutes in a stretch, owing to harsh punctuations in the night and to the dawn. So reminded of my duties, I dispatched the suffering beast with one trusty shot from the WD-40 caliber not long after rising, and tonight, I won't be surprised if I'm again wakeful in the space of abnormal silence.

We are now at Volcano Alert Level 3. A second small steam eruption occurred today, and seismic activity continues to increase. Official sources are saying that another eruption is "imminent," and likely to happen within the next 24 hours. I am ill at ease.

Fish or not, I'm glad I wasn't there. Sande caught a small jack (his words, not mine), although at the price of two confrontations with other fishermen. Thanks, folks, I'm not that desperate for a fish.

It is precisely the upswing of belligerent behaviour which is keeping me off my favourite waters this year. My fishing buddy is obviously elderly, despite his vigour, and for him to get his hackle up at a group of young-buck snaggers who were trying to crowd him off the river is a risky business, especially in a small logging town populated largely by hungry folks and ne'er-do-wells. Sande is normally very diplomatic in dealing with rudeness, but yesterday, his best efforts at an agreeable solution failed and he was forced to say, "I've got as much right to fish here as you do, so back off." In the second encounter, he told the fellow next to him that if he cast across his line one more time, he'd cut it. Salmon madness brings out the worst in people, and it saddens and angers me to see my gentle, easy-going friend forced into the war. To his credit, he says, "That's it for me. I'm not going back," and although it grieves me sorely, I'll take that as sound advice.

Shortened seasons and more stringent catch restrictions this year are doing nothing to alleviate the problem. Lack of enforcement exacerbates it. In the six or seven hours Sande fished, the sheriff drove by once without getting out of his car or stopping, and the county's sole game warden never appeared. This, however, can be construed as progress. This is the first year local law has been empowered to participate in game management affairs.

By Sande's telling, 99 percent of the fish taken from the site yesterday were illegally hooked. With those odds, an honest fisherman doesn't stand a chance.

Smugness may be unbecoming, but I can live with it. Permit me to say, "I told ya so." Yes, St. Helens spewed a little steam and ash today, and in the process, broke one of the more important seismic registers, so once again, the numbers aren't being posted timely. PNSN claims that the quakes have subsided, however, the question now is: will seismic activity increase again, indicating the likelihood of another eruption? On that point, I'm not going out on a limb. I like to have some facts to back up my predictions, y'know?

Yesterday afternoon, the phone rang and I answered it, ready to hang up on yet another politician, pre-recorded or otherwise, but it was Sande. "For a nickel, I'd get up before breakfast and be down on the water at first light," he said. I allowed as how that would suit my fancy fine if there was some assurance of it turning out to be worthwhile, so he suggested I grill Clyde, who had again left before sunup.

I waited patiently until I saw my neighbour's rig pull in, its occupants disembark and all three stand staring into the bed at something I was certain must have been piscine. Sure enough, Clyde went for his cleaning board, and from the motion of his shoulders, I knew something was being gutted. Of course, I had no idea if it belonged to Clyde, Dennis or Dennis' grown son, not until Dennis hoisted it up by the gills and lugged it across the property line. It wasn't the world's best example of a chrome-bright salmon, but it was more fish than I've caught lately, and you could have painted a house with a can of my envy. I let the victors retreat to their dens accordingly, and then hopped the fence to buttonhole the leader of the pack.

Well, it turns out ol' Clyde only brought home one, and from his description, that was more than he should have expected. You'd have to be able to cast with enough accuracy to put your bait in a coffee can at 25 yards, and wait to take your turn with the six other anxious anglers all popping to the same small hole. I can do it, but I don't like it, this "combat fishing." The fish were playing hard to get, according to my neighbour, and even those fresh off the truck sped upstream or down without giving lure, eggs or snagger's hook a chance to nab one.

Given this information, it wasn't hard to choose an extra hour beneath the electric blanket, followed by a nice, long bike ride on a sunny, warm day. I gave the facts to Sande, who I think remained unconvinced. His belief in fish is unshakable; mine's begun to wobble. I'm waiting for the call.

I hope I'm the only smug face tonight.