Muck boot days and flower bouquets
September 16, 2011 § 2 Comments
Goodness gracious, has it been muddy! Three days of clouds and rain. Morning mists, and white wisps hovering around the mountains. It has felt like England. It has meant tea and toast with butter and jam.
It has also meant sliding around in the paddocks with high-strung horses, horses even more eager (read: demanding) to have their food. It has meant mud-caked shoes and wisely switching to muck boots, or wellies. Wellies are great, and it makes me happy when I get to wear mine. But you have to walk rather differently in them, especially when they are heavy with mud on the bottom, and after doing that – while pulling wheelbarrows full of hay or toting buckets full of flowers – for a solid day or so you will end up sore in muscles you didn’t know you had, or at least had forgotten about.
And then you get to go inside and sink into a bath, or stretch out by the fireplace, and let the cold and wet sort of seep out of you. Fleece and wool, sweaters and thick socks. It is only September and yet the rain means I get to drag out and use these favorite things!
I don’t know why what some would call “bad weather” is so often a favorite thing for me. I am completely aware that it means more work. I know it means having to worry about things you otherwise might not. I definitely know it makes more laundry! And it surely upsets the comfort and efficiency of routine.
But isn’t it a relief to have routine upset sometimes? There is just something about having to work around the weather – about having the ordinary course of things thrown off – that I can’t help finding amusing, interesting, and honestly quite satisfying. I suppose some thanks should go to parents who taught my siblings and me to laugh at difficulty and work with the unexpected. After all, that makes it more fun to plow through, if one must plow.
As I write, though, the three days of clouds and water have just passed. After a cold, foggy, coat-hat-and-mittens morning at the farm today, with plenty of sniffling and even a change of socks, I settled with the flowers into the shed to make bouquets, and the sun came out once again. The mountains could be seen blue to the west. The other farm hands and I had slowly been shedding layers all morning; I had to grin a little at going from fleece-lined softshell jacket to tanktop and ponytail in only a few hours. Now in the shade of the shed I was still sweating. Still, at least I had the shade, right?
These Fridays are my flower days, and happily full of color. So many flowers just exude optimism. Others seem more serious, or romantic, or even melancholy, and these can be nice to put together. Cosmos, snapdragons, zinnias, pincushion flowers, bachelor’s buttons, amaranth, love-lies-bleeding, sweet annie, and black-eyed susans have all been gathered into pretty bundles to greet people at the market in the morning. And I’ll be there, too – hopefully with a mug of coffee in hand and a smile more noticeable than my sleepy eyes.
A book to read in fall
September 14, 2011 § Leave a comment
A slim little paperback of 20 poems by Robert Bly, one of my beloved Minnesota poets: The Urge to Travel Long Distances.
The geese in flight reminded me of the cover of this book, a book I dig out this time of year for a good re-read. Here are poems to enjoy by the season’s first fires, with mugs of cider in your hands.
The geese fly south
September 14, 2011 § Leave a comment
Even as I write this several geese are honking overhead, the sound coming and going along with them. A welcome reminder of the nature beyond my apartment and beyond the town. On my way to the farm last week, I caught a glimpse of at least a hundred of them off to my left, settled and sifting through the stubble that remained in an already-harvested field. Yesterday, as we took the last horses from their runs to the paddocks, a large flock flew over, loud and many enough to catch our attention, even while our work requires us to be pretty darn focused on the animals at the end of our ropes and in our near spaces. Look! said my coworker, and I did: several V’s formed against the blue, against the last white beams of the sun as it slipped behind the mountains. Dark silhouettes with long necks and purposeful wings. It is time, and they always know.
The Black Hills, Part Two: Oh, how we ate!
September 13, 2011 § Leave a comment
I think we dined better over a campfire than I often do in my somewhat well-equipped apartment kitchen. We met up at Spokane Creek Campground and Cabins, nestled in a quiet valley outside of Keystone. Such a peaceful place, with just enough conveniences to keep us comfy. The first day, I’d dozed under a tree and listened to the creek running along behind me, waiting for my family to get there (they all came from the east, while I came from the west) . . . they arrived just before dusk and everyone was hungry!
We had quick happy greetings and then, starving, got dinner started. How nice to stand next to my sister, slicing peppers and summer squash and onion and garlic and hamburger to wrap in aluminum for hobo pies. With sweet corn on the grill. Most of the vegetables were from the CSA my sister and her husband belong to, with some of the squash and the garlic from the farm where I work. I brought raw milk and filled everyone’s blue speckled mugs. We were eating late so darkness crept around us as we buttered the corn and felt happy about being together. My father and brother-in-law set up kerosene lanterns, and we put water over the fire for coffee. A good first dinner. A good sign that we’d be eating well for the week. And so we did.
Breakfast was zucchini chocolate chip bread (courtesy of my sister), sometimes cereal, and gluten-free and buckwheat pancakes. Lunches were buffalo meat, cheese, bread, peaches, plums, apples, crackers. Of course we had s’mores. Peach cobbler in the Dutch oven. Dinners of brats and burgers with a side of beans, and more sweet corn. And more roasted marshmallows. (I will make homemade marshmallows one day. This was not that time, so yes, we had the bad-for-you marshmallows, a little food-sin I can occasionally live with.)
Later, we moved over to a cabin at Palmer Gulch Resort. What a fun place! The electricity was out the first day we were there, though, so we laughed and made shiskabobs over the fire. How entirely delicious. Thanks to E. and J. for their hard work! Thanks to the cabin for having a delightful porch, with a picnic table and stunning view.
One evening after lots of driving and hiking and scrambling over rocks, we ate at a pie shop in a purple-and-pink painted Victorian house, aptly named The Purple Pie Place. Admittedly, the appearance of the building got us three ladies to clamor for going there. Mostly we wanted a good dinner after our day’s long activities, and we got it . . . then split a piece of bumbleberry pie for dessert.
Our last real meal together was a good-fun chuckwagon dinner, at the Circle B Ranch. Mom and Dad went ahead of time, to get on horseback for a South Dakota trail ride. We met up with them later to see the miniature donkeys, the wood carver, the small shops on the Old West street, and then to eat: beef, beans, potatoes, biscuits, peaches, and ginger cake on a tin plate, and coffee and lemonade in tin cups, while the cowboys strummed their guitars and sang to us in rollicking harmonies.
Ah, good food. Good times.
The Beautiful Black Hills
September 9, 2011 § 2 Comments
So we went to the Black Hills. This family vacation had been talked about for probably two or three years before we were able to make it happen. We missed each other so much this time around – especially me, stranded way out here in the Wild West – so my sister and mother and I started talking about it in mid-winter and with great determination and schedule-manipulating succeeded in gathering the family for a week of fun. Hooray!
All Midwest kids, it seems, go to see The Four Faces at some point. It’s a classic family vacation. We went when I was about ten, all us kids leggy and curious and adventurous. We were all at getting-along ages and we remembered it as The Best Vacation Ever. So what would it be like now that we’re all adults?
It turned out to be fabulous.
(Note: my sis and her husband John get the credit for all these photos, since I’d let my battery die half the time and failed to live up to my tentative new photographer identity. Thanks, Elena and John! You are stars.)
One of the days was wonderfully cool and overcast, so it was a good day for driving through Custer State Park. Everyone fell in love with the place. I felt somehow both giddy and content, wearing a fleece and drinking coffee and wandering around when we stopped to explore, as we tend to do.
We made friends with the buffalo (I know, bison, but nobody says that).
We made even better friends with the “beggin’ burros.” Everyone else seemed afraid to get out of the car. We weren’t. The burros liked us a lot.
We climbed and climbed and climbed on rocks! Needles Highway was especially exciting.
One of the days we went to Bear Country USA, which I didn’t remember as having so many animals, and especially so many bears, and best of all, baby bears wrestling to their hearts’ content. I wanted to cuddle one. Like a lot. Dad said to my sister and me, “That’s why these rails are really here. It’s not to keep the cubs in – it’s to keep people like you out!” Yeah . . . good point.
Part of me always feels a little uncomfortable with wild animals in human-controlled spaces, a.k.a. captivity, but here’s a fact I learned while there: the life expectancy of a bear doubles in captivity (20-40 years) as opposed to in the wild (10-20 years). Wow.
Then there was Crazy Horse, and of course Mount Rushmore – it is awesome how close they let you get to Mount Rushmore now.
I have to admit that part of me isn’t totally sure about all this business of humans manipulating nature (with dynamite!) to make what we perceive as important art. I can’t help it – I studied these sorts of things in college. Still, we humans also manipulate nature to grow food, to plant flower gardens and orchards, to make towns and cities and recreation areas, which are other perhaps more benign yet also, in their own way, artistic projects, many of them good. I don’t have a stance to take, but it’s something to consider: what is our right as human beings in this place? What is the right of the place itself?
At both of the mountain carvings, I find myself nudged towards contemplation: about the past, about politics, about purpose and perception. Something to visit, for sure! Dare to think. Conclude what you will.
Some days, we were just content hanging out at the campgrounds. We loved our locations (we stayed at two different places), our tent site, our cabin, the pool, and the view. And oh, boy, especially the bounce pad at the second campground! Usually tiny little kids were all over it, but one afternoon it happened to be empty and our family of grown-ups had a grand old time.
Of course, we ate splendidly. But that will get a post all its own. Stay tuned.
The best of all of this, of course, was being with each other. It felt like each minute had to be hung onto, fully savored, noted in the mind and heart. Family. We are not perfect but we belong with each other, we love each other, and things are just better when we are close by.
The second best thing was the beauty of that country. It somehow felt familiar and yet wild. In so many places the trees and the rocks made shadow and quiet, the way they came together on the landscape. The open meadows had us all catching our breath, and then breathing more deeply, that clean air and the wind all in our ears. “How beautiful. It’s just so beautiful,” my mother kept saying.
It was.
Seeds and sky
September 7, 2011 § Leave a comment
“Keep your eyes clean and your ears quiet and your mind serene. Breathe God’s air. Work, if you can, under His sky.” – Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation
A favorite book on a favorite subject
September 5, 2011 § Leave a comment
As I was writing the previous post, and thinking about good words in the world, I happened to remember this book. It is the book that made me want to try my hand at nonfiction when I was adamantly going to be a young adult fiction writer. I am so glad. This book is written in a way that reminds you of snow falling in a dark night. There is something quietly powerful, quietly beautiful. Read it.
The Rural Life by Verlyn Klinkenborg
Wind and calm
August 31, 2011 § Leave a comment
Today at the horse barn, as we moved horses from pastures to paddocks and paddocks to stalls, and contented them with their evening feed, in blew a great gust of wind. And another. It forced us to squint, to turn sideways, to push hair out of our faces. At times I could hardly see for the dust that went blowing around.
“It feels like I have dirt in my teeth!” I told my coworker, as we maneuvered our way through horses who, fortunately, remained fairly calm despite nature’s fuss and fury. Inside the stalls the shavings spun into mini-whirlwinds.
White-grey skies. A few handfuls of raindrops blew sideways with the wind. Doors closed for a quiet barn.
Back home, I found cedar shavings in my hair.
As I pulled them out I couldn’t help grinning, thinking, What a funny small thing to make me happy this day!
Storms
August 30, 2011 § Leave a comment
Since we’re on the subject of water I just have to share another song – a favorite piece from one of my favorite groups, on their new album, Bright Morning Stars.
Be careful in real storms, obviously, especially hurricanes. But what a beautiful use of symbolism; the images and the harmonies make nature feel right there.
Clean
August 30, 2011 § Leave a comment
This morning I lingered in the bath. There is something just wonderful about slowly squeezing water from a soapy sponge, letting it slide down your skin and wash you clean.
So many metaphors ask to be brought up here. I love them all. I don’t know about all that “What’s your element?” stuff but I do feel like water and I, we somehow go together. If there is any truth to it water would be mine. I grew up alongside Minnesota lakes, wading in the shallows, easing in the coldness in the impatience of late May, slipping out to swim at midnight during summer camp, so maybe that’s why. It seems wrong to be without water access, to not be able to freely immerse myself in it all summer long, with no ridiculous fees to pay for the privilege. This is part of why Colorado has been hard for me; and part of why Coot Lake, though only swimmable for Miss T. and wadeable for me, has been such a relief and gift.
I could go on about the environmental problems we’re facing and how water is among the most important of issues. But most of you know those things and others have written plenty about it already. I did, for a class in undergrad, and I don’t really feel like reliving that experience, honestly! A great organization I’d recommend if you care about water issues, though, is Blood: Water Mission. I supported them for awhile when I could, and right now I can’t, but I meant to go back to it eventually. You can find a list of other water-oriented organizations at Water for the Ages.
It’s also perhaps a bit insensitive of me to regale everyone with my love for water when back east water is causing so much damage. Flooding has, in the past, harmed my beloved Midwestern states as well. Still, I can’t fault the rivers and the rain. Weather happens. Some of the damage we might have prevented through our own actions, some of it not. But I’d far rather a rainstorm than a sandstorm. We will recover. We’ll get stronger. One of the marvelous things about the floods that happened in Missouri and Iowa a few years ago was watching how communities came together. It is always good to see people caring about other people. Proof of love.
As I’m all clean from my bath and feeling cool and happy, my soul seems to be asking for a scrub as well. This song by Needtobreathe is one that I’ve played over and over, have had as my ringtone, and can’t stop going back to now and again. When I start to accuse myself of being broken, start to feel that I am valued for what I am or am not able to do, start to think failure and disappointment are all the future might hold, this song gives me a reminder of who I am.
Kinds of Honey 