I like to spend thirty minutes of most mornings walking out to the hayfield while the sun is rising with orchard apples in my coat pockets and the dogs swirling around my tall galoshes. I present my offerings to my horses, smell their hay-sweet breath, untangle the burrs from their forelocks, and sink my cold hands into their plush winter fur. They’re very-extremely-quite-rather-busy trying to stave off the morning shivers by grazing as fast as they can so once I’m out of apples they go back to eating grass with great dedication and I stroll around the rest of the hayfield with the dogs and then head to the house for a hot cup of tea. This is a half-hour of my life I’ll never see again, but I spent it wisely so I don’t mind.

https://www.thenoisyplume.com/blog/2021/12/20/16336/

Tecovas + Modern Huntsman + Sundries Farm + The Noisy Plume

Well heck! I haven’t done an interview in a long while and doing this one alongside my husband was a lot of fun — I actually hope to never do a solo interview ever again, I love to have Robbie by my side for these things and not JUST because he’s far more interesting than me…but because we’re a team. Thank you to Katie and Rachael for coming out and for capturing an accurate snapshot of who we are at this moment in our lives! We’re thankful to call the two of you our friends and having you in our home was a real treat.

If you feel so inclined, you can read the interview in full over here on the Tecova’s website.

First Snow

This morning, I slid my feet into my mukluks, grabbed my camera, and pranced to the end of the driveway to catch a photo of the river cloaked in fresh snow. What a beautiful sight! I enjoy snow and winter so much. All is illuminated and perfected and I especially love the shift in the quality of sounds as they move in waves across the cold white. The sounds of a big river in winter are absolutely bewitching — everything seems to softly crackle and shiver and shine.

I’ve spent the past year detoxing from arsenic poisoning (and a related heavy metals issue) which is something my body has been burdened with for at least the past six years that I’ve been drinking well water. I had to kind of drop out of the world at large to deal with it, shrink my energy expenditure patterns down in order to save myself. It’s taken great effort and dedication to clean myself up on a cellular level and I’m beginning to feel well.  I don’t really remember the last time in my life I felt truly well.  I’m an energetic person and after unknowingly bearing this poisonous burden for years I thought how I felt was normal, but no.  Not normal.  Not normal energy levels for me.  I actually cannot believe I’ve been able to work as hard as I’ve been working! I currently have sustainable, high energy that lasts all day long.  Steady, pure, vigorous energy. I still have more work to do but I feel good. I could talk more about this but I don’t really want to. I’m also not an expert or a doctor, please talk to your doctor about this stuff and get your well water tested if you are on a well. What I want to tell you about is what I’ve been thinking about lately.

You and I have to live inside these bodies, minds and spirits of ours — let us take great care so that our bodies, minds and spirits don’t become prisons that trap us in darkness, suffering and pain.

There are plenty of things in life that happen to me, things that are outside of my control, but there are some things in my life that I can control, utterly and completely.  I try to take control where I can, when I can, by making good choices and wise decisions so that when the out-of-control-stuff happens to me I can bear up under the weight of it with a little more physical strength and clarity of mind and a spirit that is joyful and long-suffering.

I’m just thinking aloud this morning and feeling grateful for this little body of mine as it moves deeper into recovery and healing. How amazing is that? We can heal! We can be restored. Amen! 

I was out riding a horse last night on the canyon rim, feeling profoundly wind-battered and content, and I found myself thinking about how miraculous it is that humans figured out a way to do this — to sit astride a horse and gallop beneath the sky. What was that like for the first human who ever tried it 5500 years ago? Elation, I’m sure. Nothing makes me feel closer to the earth and nearer to the sky than riding my horses. Horses are portals to deeper living. I’m not inventing the wheel here, I’m not even reinventing it…but I think I am inventing myself with the help of my horses. I’m so grateful humans figured out how to work with horses (and dogs) and I’m grateful to have the opportunity to carry the tradition forward.

https://www.thenoisyplume.com/blog/2021/12/14/16313/

A massive swallowtail. My favorite. Larger than life. Just for fun.

https://www.thenoisyplume.com/blog/2021/12/12/16308/