Up At 9000 Feet

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I stayed up high for a little too long and made my way back down the steep face of Scout Mountain in the stumbling dusky hours, tripping through sagebrush and talus fields on wobbly knees and ankles, spooked witless by grouse bursting out of the brush beneath my feet.  It was worth it though, it always is.  By the way, have you heard the ruffies drumming in your neck of the woods.  A drumming ruffed grouse is one of my very favorite sounds in nature — it transports me directly back to the wide and wild arms of my childhood.  There’s no sound like it and it turns the key in the lock of my feral little heart.  I hear the drumming and something inside of me howls and shakes its mane.

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I haven’t officially told you yet, but due to some housing technicalities (namely, the LCITW is no longer available for rent), I am not moving to the Methow this summer with Robert!  Thankfully, no, gloriously, Robert cannot begin work until June 16th due to some other technicalities.  Since it feels like summer here already, I will inform you of the fact that we are enjoying, so very much, our first partial summer together in seven years!  We are rafting, hiking, camping and gardening galore as well as sipping gin and tonics, taking evening bike rides, and doing lots of dreaming about what we want to do with our lives.

I love to dream with him.

We feel lucky, time feels precious, no one beats at the big bass drum of my heart like he does.

On The Road (and looking to fill a hole)

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I was so terribly lonesome.  Robert was on week six of his deployment in the southeast and I woke up one morning feeling trapped, stuck inside the old walls of our farmhouse, stuck on the sidewalk between the house and the studio, stuck in the studio, stuck in my head, stuck in my heart, stuck like two feet goopy with tar.  It felt bad.  And I was lonesome, as I mentioned, lonesome for Robert specifically, but also for my sisters and my parents. On impulse, I ran away.  I tucked a few things away in the truck, gave two of our three dogs to pals here in town and hit the road in our little red Tacoma.

I didn’t know where I was going when I started driving.  I was thinking about Moab, Jackson and numerous other places.  When I pulled the truck onto the highway I found myself merging towards Boise and suddenly I knew I was going shed hunting in one of my favorite wintering grounds out in the rim rock of the Snake River Plain.  I drove.  I sang along to the radio.  I chewed at a  hangnail on my left thumb.  I drove some more.

Eventually I pulled off onto the back roads of Idaho, wove my way into some open country, locked the hubs and flipped the truck in 4×4, crept my way across BLM land on a deeply muddy two track and threw the whole circus in park (with e-brake) somewhere in the middle of nowhere — the perfect place to simply go walking and stone kicking and bone collecting.  I had Tater Tot with me and he started quartering the field immediately looking for Hungarian partridge and chukar, zig zagging in front of me like a confused freight train, wagging his nubbin of a tail like he didn’t mind if it fell right off.  His method, the method of bird dogs, is a miracle to watch — there is so much grace in the madness of their energy.  I broke his heart a few times, flushing his points and telling him “no bird“.  Dogs don’t understand hunting seasons, permits, laws…heck, I don’t understand that stuff either, really (Actually, I do.  Wildlife management is a science and an art.  I respect it.).  I still, to this very moment, wish I could have rewarded his hard work with a bird.

We scaled the basalt cliffs, felt the wind slam against us, breathed the sage, closed our eyes and exhaled, and then we hunted for bones and antlers — with mediocre success (I only say mediocre because I usually walk away from this place with multiple skulls, the occasional sacrum or intact spine and usually at least three antlers).  It would be a lie to tell you I was happy, alone and fulfilled out there.  I was missing Robert something terrible.  And when I say MISSING I mean it felt like the marrow of my bones had turned to thin water, dilute and pathetic, and was making its way out of me, out of my millions of pores, a weeping of the body and spirit under the heavy cape of lonesomeness.  I could have cried.  But I didn’t.  Instead, I just walked, watched the world under the sunset, and keep my eyes peeled for the stark white of antlers poking up from the bunch grass.

I found myself thinking, over and over again, “I usually love to be alone.  What is wrong with me?”  When I am alone, which is often, it is by choice and there is a fullness to the aloneness that feels natural and good.  Lately, I have wondered if my nature is changing?  If I am sliding slowly out of introversion and into the deep, warm pocket of extroversion?  Or maybe I’m an extroverted introvert?  I don’t know.  Two of our very best friends bought the house exactly next to ours, here in Idaho.  I see them every single day and I love it.  I have coffee or tea with them most mornings and eat dinner with them, at their house or mine, about four times a week and we are constantly talking over the fence between their house and ours.  It is so special.  I know this is a once in a lifetime experience, living right next door to best friends.  I cherish it, already.   I see so much of my people here, my little tribe built of wild land firefighters and their wives — there are about fourteen of us, you know, mostly married couples with a few spare men and women thrown in for good measure.  It’s a nice chunk of friends who are like family, jingling around in the pocket of my heart like precious coins.  I relish their company so awfully much lately that it truly has me wondering about my self-proclaimed hermit-ness.  Maybe the fact of the matter is simple, perhaps I love our friends here deeply enough, and feel understood well enough by them, that I am willing to forsake my nature to be with them almost every day of the week, to laugh with them, to cook and eat with them often, to have them constantly spiraling in and out of my life like loving cyclones.  They care for me in ways I cannot care for myself.  They are important to me and important to my life, I realize this more and more as the days pass.  Maybe my nature is not exactly what I have deemed it to be these past few years.  What do you think?

Something in me is changing and I believe it has to do with the good and gentle hands of the people I love.  They pour their grace into my very roots, I drink deep and grow up out of myself in their presence.

Tater Tot and I spent the night out there on the wind swept openness of the rim rock.  I ate weird soup for dinner, shivered in my sleep and we continued our explorations in the morning.  At some point, before noon, I acquiesced to the fact that I didn’t feel like being on the road.  I took the scenic route home, climbing and sinking up and down mountain passes, snow blind and weary.  I saw magnificent springtime squalls riding white across the horizon.  I saw the steelhead running, feral and sterling, and wished I had a whopper fly rod with a fuzzy streamer to taunt a big fish into aggression.  I saw antelope.  I saw elk.  I saw the Sawtooths in all their exquisite glory.  I saw wide open spaces, void of cattle, void of humans, void of cities and towns, filled with light and sagebrush and mountain peaks biting at the spring gales.  I saw magnificent things, but no matter how wonderful the landscape I passed through, I still just really wanted someone with me, Robert or Jade or Toby or whoever I love and trust in this world.

I wanted someone I loved with me, riding by my side, singing along with the country music on the radio and exclaiming at the same beautiful sights.

Somedays, I guess it’s good to be alone.  Other days it’s a good time to lock yourself to the ones you love and share an experience unless the world and all its beauty should fall to rust in your mouth; other days are good to share.

Eventually I made it home to my little farmhouse — I liked the feel of being in my space again, peacefully submitting to this season of life where I find myself without Robert, my one and only.

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I am learning so much lately, about life, about myself, about the land.  On occasion, the lessons are uncomfortable, but I don’t mind, as long as I keep expanding like a morning sky.

Everything’s Coming Up Rosie

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Morning Mention-ings

IMG_8402IMG_8414IMG_8428IMG_8434A few details worthy of mention:

1.  It has become a habit.  A delicious habit.  Oatmeal with almond milk, a drizzle of fresh local honey, strawberries and toasted walnuts.  I ask you, is there anything more scrumptious and rich than a toasted walnut?  The flavor truly transforms a dish.  Try it.  If you are loathe to fire up your oven for a few nuts, you probably need to get a toaster oven which is as magical and practical as a baby angora unicorn.  Maybe even more practical!

2.  USPS now has sheets of songbird stamps available for purchase.  They are the loveliest little stamps I have seen in a while.  If you are a letter writer residing in the USA you’ll need to purchase some, as soon as possible, and then use them up quick so you can buy more.

3.  That fantastic green glass goblet is one of six Robert brought home from Georgia recently.  He was home for a week between deployments and brought me my first two fire presents of the year!  Fire seasons gifts are a holy and wonderful tradition he has kept for the past seven years of our life together, something I always look forward to and frankly, occasionally badger him about.  He is good natured about my badgering and knows it’s not the actual gifts he finds for me that are important to me, but the fact that he thinks of me and misses me when we are apart.  Presents are a manifestation of my constant presence in his heart, even when a fire season keeps us apart.

He always finds at least one present to bring me while he is off in the boonies battling flame, every single year.  In years past, gifts have been wonderful and creative ranging from caribou antlers and fox skulls to surrealist art prints from an artist in Bend, Oregon to a warthog skull from Arkansas.  I have never received a shirt or a piece of jewelry.  Though I might, someday.  Robert is a wonderful giver of gifts.  A girl never can tell what she might receive — except for that caribou antler, I guessed that present correctly over the phone, across the thin air between Fairbanks, Alaska and Winthrop, Washington.  Anyway, I love those pea green vintage goblets.  Rob transported six of them, most miraculously, and they are a delight to sip from.  He also brought home a heavenly host of crystals he found on the ground while hiking around and working in Hot Spring, Arkansas!  Tremendous!  Extraordinary!

4.  I was in Oregon last week — more on that soon, I’m working up an essay on the topic — and found the most exquisite batch of stationary in Sisters.  Travel here to see Angie Lewin’s work.

5.  I am currently working in the studio like a true she-beast trying to build up some beautiful inventory for an art walk I am appearing at on May 2nd.  It’s been so fun!  The new work is so springy and fresh and I feel free and lighthearted out there as I tap away with my hammers.  A light heart is a blessing.  We all know this.

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6.  Fresh eggs!  Finally!  You know, I’m down to one hen here.  I’m pretty sure she thinks she’s a dog.  I’ve been faffing around with the idea of getting her a pal this spring but for two years now, I’ve wanted to switch over to a pair of laying ducks which are reportedly less destructive on garden spaces than hens.  Do any of you keep laying ducks?  If they are free range, how do they do with your garden spaces?

I’m off to perform  my daily hour of morning yard work which involves, on some days, the delicious extraction of dandelions from my flower garden, herb garden and succulent garden.  This time of year, it feels fierce and maybe even cathartic to yank up a dandy by its taproot.  So satisfying.  Dandies, be warned, in a couple of seconds I am coming for you and there will be no escape.

Be well, dear folks.

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Mind The Moose (Springtime On Gibson Jack)

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What is it about moose in spring?  We call them “March Moose” around here.  I know.  That’s tremendously clever of us.  However, if you’ve ever run into a cow moose in the spring you probably know how insane they can be.  I ran into one tonight, while out gallivanting with the dogs on Gibson Jack (which is, to be sure, as pretty as anywhere — look at that wonderful view behind me in the above image!  Melt your heart and make your soul bones chatter).  That moose.  That moose!  Meeting her was a hot mess and I’m glad we all survived.  She charged me not once, not twice, but six times.  We were all pinned in place on a treed slope and I had to continuously howl at the dogs to get away from me and to run for the forest — ooh, she wanted to stomp them into smithereens.  She was growling at us!  Have you heard a moose growl?  It’s an unearthly sound.  Fortunately, I had a handful of stout fir trees around me and I ducked behind a trunk or two when she opened up her can of crazy, again and again and again.  She was close enough for me to pet a couple of times.  Finally, right before she charged me a seventh time, I had about enough and I charged HER.  I’m not joking, I really did.  The little girl in the woods in red corduroy pants waving her arms and hooting like a hyperventilating owl, that was me.  It was a purely reflexive response, not premeditated in any way so I am very glad the antic was successful.  I don’t recommend aggressively chasing a cow moose in springtime but I was going to be up there all night long and a dog was going to get squashed if I didn’t fight back and chase her off with my blond hair waving like medusa snakes in the breeze and my scrawny limbs spinning like windmills.  It was madness but it worked.  That moose took to the trees up slope of us, I hollered for the dogs to get on ahead of me, made sure we had Penelope and we galloped like heck down the mountain.  Back at the trailhead, we opted to head up the mountain on the trail opposite that dang blasted moose and boy howdy, it was one of those springtime nights that only Idaho knows how to do.  The birds were singing out their alleluias, the creek whistling show tunes, the aspen poofing with green fizz, and the grass turning shaggy beneath my feet.

Tater Tot found pheasant and they shot across the valley like rockets, cackling and streaming their tail feathers through the pink of dusk.

The balsam root is just starting to bloom here and patches of yellow grace the hillsides like sonnets woven with love ballads.  I would lay down and play “he loves me, he loves me not” with these simple yellow beauties but I know Robert loves me, I’m sure of it…and there’s the issue of ticks (get your dogs oiled up, people).  I still took my sweet old time photographing a few patches for you.  Balsam root is so merry and utterly irresistible.  A true harbinger of summer.

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It snowed this morning.  I stepped out of the house, first thing, to grab some cat food from the garage and noticed it was nippy out.  By the time I was back in the kitchen setting the kettle on the stove top, the sky opened up quietly and the flakes began their gentle descent.  It’s ridiculously beautiful here, as a result.  Fresh white caps on the mountains, conifer stands laced with the residue of the squall, the last of winter pressed up against the green turning and the green is radical, rule breaking, irrepressible in every way.  Spring is a sweet old badass that pushes on no matter what, a trooper bound to the no-nonsense orbit of our planet, bound to the laws of the universe!  Oh, she’s a stickler for the rules.

Onward, upward, forever the bloom, forever the sun, forever these long days trailing into the staccato of short nights. 
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