BREAKFAST IN A TREE

This morning I took off early with a thermos of hot tea and a bag of fresh fruit.  I wanted to have breakfast outside, something to clear my head from the abuses of last night's planning board meeting.  I wandered along until I saw a big tree fallen across the creek.  It only had a few branches to climb over before it was even enough to sit, dangle my feet above the creek and enjoy my meal.  While I was drinking tea and spacing out on the rushing waters I heard coyotes start yipping nearby.  There were only three or four of them but by the time they all joined in to the "round" singing going on, the whole valley was ringing with their yips and barks.  The coolness of the morning dew on the leaves of the tree I was in and the wind blowing up off the creek contrasted nicely with the warmth in the sun lit spots on my walk back.  I picked more kinikinick this morning and unbudded chamomile.  That's drying in bundles in the shade of my porch.  I can hardly wait for mushroom season to start!  I'll check out the early spots this weekend just in case.  I won't find anything but I'll sure enjoy the time spent looking.

 Tomorrow night I will start thinning my garden and have a salad topped with those tender little greens.  As I spend as much time as possible out of doors and hunting for food and wood this summer, I gain the added benefits of serenity (well, more than I usually possess!) and physical fitness.  This morning was just what I needed to stop me obsessing on the follies of mankind and start thinking about what I can do today that is productive.  That's a positive thing and that's what I'm searching for now in my life, positive and productive.  

Roland, the Perfect Companion!

The picture is of Roland running full title acorss a field to join us.  He hadn't even been out of sight but he's always that excited to be with me.  He goes whereever I want and never complains.  He eats whatever I give him, well, whatever he sees, with no complaints.  He gives me unconditional love from an open heart.  He also has a weight problem.  He never cheats on me, no matter what I'm HIS owner.  

He finds interest in the things I do and he likes my friends.  I never worry about him growing apart from me.  In fact, unless I get the diet control doggie food I need to worry about him growing much too close.  All in all, Roland has been the perfect companion, unlike my taste in men, my taste in dogs is great!

Finding Peace

Peace is where you find it and I am lucky to have so many places that have that feeling for me.  I put my hands in dirt in the garden and my whole world gets better.  I feel comforted and comforting.  I am growing some of my own food and it makes me feel more in control of my daily life.  It makes me feel like I might survive an economic disaster here in America.

I have a porch that, while not fancy is the most soothing place for me and a troubled mnd.  Last night I watched the evening show of hummingbirds in the twilight.  Dozens of them swooped and fought in my yard and under the porch.  I have up three feeders and they were all buzy.  The dense green of the quakies in my garden and the evergreens backing them makes my head feel refreshed.

But most of all, I have the Colorado high country to drench me in the peace of natural beauty, awesome heights and the sight of running water.  I have fields for my dog to run in and places to hike or climb.  I have familiar spots where memories overcome me and I have to stop and remember, let the joy come back to me or pay homage to a friend long gone.  I have the excitement of finding a new place, a new spot to meditate sitting high on the side of a moutain, looking into the deep woods, breathing the sap scented air in meditation.  I can feel the sun on my face and watch the wildlife of the area.  I can lose myself in hunting herbs and mushrooms for hours in a life that few others participate in.  I come down from the hills, dirty and sunburned, covered with grass and bits of the forest, and dazed with having to come "back" from the mental vacation I've been on.  

Thanks to the powers that be for giving me this in my life  Thanks for the healing.

Michael's Visit

Where do I begin?  Let's start at the airport!  As soon as we met up I knew it was going to be rough.  He could hardly stand up from being so tired, had worked late and not slept on the plane.  However, we still had Stephanie's parents to meet.  I was so nervous but we had a great time together, a nice dinner and the nausea I'd had all week just anticipating sticking my foot in my mouth slowly receded!  We left Denver around 9:00 and ran into a two hour long traffic jam only minutes after I had suggested Michael take another route.  We sat surrounded by semis on all sides, our eyes burning from what we could only hope was not my clutch for all that time with Michael going into a hyperactive frenzy.  By the time we finally got home I was surprized we hadn't gotten into a fist fight as both of us were on our last nerve.  We ended up staying up until 1:00 in the morning, a very late night for me, talking and calming down, catching up with each other's lives.  I slept well knowing my son was back in my home.  It's something mothers do.  

I got up at the crack of dawn the next day and started cooking and moving the yard furniture around for the barbeque we we having.  Everything started smelling good, the turkey breast that was on the smoker was like a food incense.  I set up a bar so we could have Pina Coladas and Margaritas from scratch!.  We got the music going and people started showing up from all over!  Michael's friends from Denver came up and brought food, my friends came to see him and brought food.  We had salads and fruit bowls, elk burger, veggie burgers, elk tenderloins, smoked pork steaks, vegan brats, Italian sausage, grilled eggplant, red pepper and goat cheese sandwiches on foccacia bread, hummus, chips, flat breads, salsas, guacamole, grilled peaches, plums and pineapples and the most decadent desert ever a fruit pizza consisted of a cookie crust, creamcheese and white chocolate chips melted together and spread on top and then beautiful berries, peaches, and kiwi fruit lined out on top, OMG!  People laughed and partied and visited for hours.  It was a great day but exhausting!  I really looked forward to Monday when he and I could hike up above Silver Plume and spent more time with the family. 

Instead, while we were walking the dog, my tires were slashed.  Two tires so I couldn't even put on a spare and drive to get them fixed.  The local Marshal came to the scene almost immediately and the witness, a Rec District worker was more than willing to describe the kids who'd done the deed.  They live in my trailer court!  I see them at the library and talk to them every week.  They are 10 and 12 years old and had their 6 and 8 year old brother and sister with them.  I know their Mom is single parenting and I was lucky I had some other tires but my boy and I were stuck here all day and this morning will still be spent dealing with this.  They also got the folks who live next door because they thought their car was mine.  I had no idea these kids disliked me!  Mom came to the lady next door and apologized to her but wasn't going to "be able to pay for the damages".  Well shit, neither can I and it wasn't my kids who slashed the tires.  So, here I sit with a bad taste in my mouth about the whole deal and not even an apology from any of the people involved.  The Marshall went ahead and pressed charges even though I didn't want to.  I guess since there were multiple (three) acts of criminal mischief it was out of any one of our hands.  

Michael and I decided not to let it ruin our time together so we spent last night playing cribbage and drinking beer.  Granted I only managed half of a beer but it certainly lightened my mood.  I haven't seen my son for most of the last year and a half.  Tire slashers aren't ruining our good time!  

I HOPE I DON'T YAK!

My son is coming home today.  We have only seen each other for two hours in the last year and a half.  I am so excited I'm afraid I'll get sick!  I haven't really slept for the last two nights getting up at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning to do another thing I've decided had to be done before daylight!

I get to leave work early which will help no end as today will last forever.  Meanwhile I've thought of dozens of things I still need to buy and I looked at my checking account;  HMMMMM!  Not good, maybe I'll charge his friends to eat!  I hope to get everything done by around noon tomorrow but the cooking so I can lay around in the sun drinking Pina Coladas and enjoying my boy.  

I don't know what others have planned for the weekend but mine is just perfect!  Two full days of hanging with my kid, the one other person alive who gets my sense of humor!  I am so looking forward to this.  

Stinky, Sticky, Happy

Roland goes with me almost everywhere I hike.  He even climbs rock.  His favorite thing to do is roll in dead things.  He found a big old dead thing this hike.  I think it was yet another "catch and release" fish or as I think of it, "kill and waste".  The people who come up here to use the fishing leases don't seem to have learned how to "release" the fish yet.  

When Roland got to it, there was a lot of decay going on.  Sort of a jelly like consistency that he threw himself into with all four feet.  He rolled in it so thoroughly that when I got him to a creek it didn't even start to relieve the smell.  In fact, since Roland won't swim, only gently lie in shallow water, the top of his back looked like a mohawk that had been glued into place.

He doesn't believe me when I tell him to go away or that I don't want to share in the smelly fish joy!  Nothing in the world matches the smell of dead fish, wet dog and hot sun, not even that hot dish they make in Minnesota.  Life as I once knew it has changed for the worse.  I have hung deodorizer trees from his collar but they ain't making a dent in the cloud of fetid fumes surrounding his joyous grin.  Please help me and don't tell me about the damn tomato juice thing.  You can't spray it well through a power washer and that's as close as I'm getting to him!

SPRING SETTLES IN

Roland and I went herb hunting Sunday.  We went into the woods to an area where meadows suddenly appear in the middle of thick forest.  Look at the light in these trees.  This is really the way it looked, not a trick of the camera.  I found St. John's Wort, wild strawberry leaves and kinickkinick.  The willd chamomile I found was at it's best, right before it flowers out!  Everything is moist and blooming.  The high country is at it's best right now, pleasantly warm, fresh, and growing.  I'm taking more from the forest than usual this year.  I think I'll be needing more medicines for people then in the past.  There is certainly less money for doctors in our area so I am building up the stores of herbs.   It is knowlege I am lucky to have in these times.  I can think of few things more relaxing or stimulating than harvesting wild foods and herbs.  It is a healing thing to do for my body and my soul.

LAST NIGHT

I woke late last night to sound of boulders rolling in rushing water as the melting snowmelt from the top of moutains reached our town.  The Boulder Dance is something I have been lucky enough to experience for many of my 57 years.  High water in early summer has always been an excitement living in the upper end of Clear Creek.  When I was a child my mother, grandmother, brother, sister and I raced the flood of water from a dam break all the way to Idaho Springs.  We beat the water but the wall wiped out every bridge between that town and home.  We stayed there for three cramped, uncomfortable days.  But so very exciting!

When I was in my early twenties I lived right beside one fork of Clear Creek.  It ran through my backyard.  It raged during high water and rolled boulders down crashing into the rock chimney across the torrent that shaded my yard during the summer.  The grinding roar, the dull thud that nothing else could ever replicate, the song of the Boulder Dance still sounds in my memory.  That was the best place, the loudest, the most dangerous.  Every spring my yard filled with water and the little cribbing that held some of the dirt in place trembled and threatened to float away.  I would come outside on the small cement porch and sit with my room mates.  Often the peak of high water comes during a full moon.  We would watch the silvery reflection in the roiling water come closer to our feet.  

In my thirties I lived a little further from the creek and when those boulders rolled the sound was muted like giants walking.  We could feel the ground shake when the Boulder Dance happened at that house.  It was hard to hear it over the sound of the children running madly around.  I did day care then.  

Now I live just up the road from the creek again.  I can hear the Boulder Dance now clearly as I am alone and no one makes any distraction from the Dance.  I find my mind moves in different ways now and it is easy to sink into onomatopoeia, the hypnotism by the sound or sight of something in nature.  The Dance is my meditation.  It is the background music to all the springs of my life.

ONCE AGAIN IT'S BEAUTIFUL!

Here I am looking at leaf green light backed with sunshine as the sun comes into my garden this morning.  I love early mornings here, shaded and cool, birds singing and flowers already blooming.  It's hard to imagine anything better to do with myself than to work in the dirt all day.  I'm having some health issues to a long hike out of the sight of other people isn't an option right now.  Instead, I'll be in my own private paradise and happy to be there.  The porch is starting to get cleaned up and plants are everywhere.  My back bedroom is ending it's term as a greenhouse and I miss the smells of damp earth and new life in there.  I may have to plant more all summer just to keep that going!

It's a day with no dust, not too hot, not too cold and all mine.  I am just too damn lucky!