Icicles on the roof at sundown

I feel a commitment to the land, and yet, I am preparing to walk away.  I ponder this paradox. I have been through this before. 

A visitor speaks of his fierce attachment to the land.  I am intrigued with this expression, and consider his meaning further. A fierce attachment to the land.  What I see is a fierce attachment to the past.  He remains attached to a memory.  An important place in his heart, I see, but as vague and distant as a dream only partly remembered.  When he is awake, he is not here. He has built his life and home elsewhere. 

For us, it is more, it is less, it is good, it is bad. It is home, where we struggle and strive to be, to make a living, to raise our family, to build our house, to live best we can off of and with the land. We have been committed. We have remained, labored and strained in the face of family conflict, colts dying, financial woes, and weather changing for the worst.  We have endeavored and dared to make our dream come true.

Now the dreams have changed.  Such is the nature of dreaming.  Such is the nature of life.  Things change.  How long do we remain committed?  When does it turn to attachment?  When is it time to let go?

In attachment, I see a holding on, a taking only. Attachment.  I think of a child clutching to his mother’s skirts, so afraid to let go. Afraid to grow up.  Attached.  Attachment is a needy state. We cling to what we barely hold.

Where is the sense of commitment? There is no partnership with a land from which we only take.  I seek a balance. I must give.  I must work on the land, with the land, of the land. I am willing to commit to the land, but not cling to attachments of a dying dream.

Commitment comes only with a struggle. We button up the coat and pull down the hat and brave the storm because this is our home, and home is worth standing up for. We don’t leave when the weather changes. This is all we have.  We are willing to fight for our home, our children, our lives, our land.

Commitment.  How do I define this?  I see a husband standing beside his wife as the storm approaches.  He reaches out and holds her hand and they know they will manage together.

And yet, here we are, packing our bags.  A bittersweet struggle.  A paradox.

Down in the willows before Ute Creek

Years ago, when I moved to the Pacific Northwest with my baby, I was the caretaker for a remote kids camp.  Closed for nine months of the year.  Only ours.  Ours to tend to, to toil for, to wake in the middle of the night and check on a crying lamb, to stay out in the rain through the last light to weed one more garden bed, groom one more horse, or repair one more broken pipe. And I loved it.  Learned one need not “own” something to make it theirs. We can commit without attachment. As long I was there, I treated the place as mine:  every animal, every pipe, every fruit tree, everything.  I felt appreciated. I felt at home.  I was committed.

Mind you, this was a seasonal camp for kids, and no where did I see the difference between the sense of attachment and the sense of commitment more clearly than I saw at camp.  The campers, or the adults who once had been campers, held an attachment so fiercely to the land, to the camp, to their past.  I saw men and women in their thirties, forties, fifties and older, for one week out of every year regress to their childhood reminiscences and once again “be” campers, holding on to a fierce attachment to memories of a land, a place, a way they once were.  And then they would leave, go home, return to their life for 51 weeks, return to their commitments and count the days until revisiting camp again.

On the other hand, were the locals, folks who were not amongst the elite of those who had been sent away to experience the world in which the locals lived. These were folks committed to the land.  Land on which they struggled to make a living, support their families, raise their children, grow gardens and animals and barns and dreams.  Land they  knew they could not get something out of, be it a safe and warm home, or a crop to sell, or a beautiful view, without putting into it, working for it, fighting for it. Committing to the land.  

And when the weather changed and the mountain threatened, there they remained long after the campers left.  They continued to toil, put up with the harsh winters. Droughts.  Calving complication.  Horse births. Crop failures. Floods, storms, wild fires, children who grow up, spouses that pass away.

Now, the neighbors – a small community of perhaps 200 people spread throughout the mountains – was built with the bricks of some remarkable human beings.  Women like I never had the opportunity to know.  My friends and neighbors were then in their 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. . Most that I remember were amazing women. Strong women.  Women who had homesteaded there. Built their homes. Worked their land. Raised and fed and taught their children there, found a way to scrape by a living, usually on the land. They knew how to work hard, were honest, sincere, caring.  It was not a place to “get away.”  It was a place to commit to, to work and reap the meager rewards. To hope and dream and struggle through hardships.  It was not their vacation.  It was their life.

They were surprisingly open to have someone from the younger generation show interest in the old time crafts, and were remarkably willing and able to share their knowledge with me.  I was lucky.  I wanted to learn it all, and they were willing to share. Many of these women were already widowed.  Since I left, three more have lost their husbands. Most still remain on their ranches.  All still work hard, for the land, or the community, or their families.  Full lives, filled with commitment to a rich life.

Looking north beyond Pole Mountain

I moved away.  I’ve grown.  I’m not the fresh young thing I was there and then.  Now I have a bit of the knowledge they so graciously shared with me. I can bake my own bread, milk a cow, make butter and cheese, grow my own corn.  Maybe now – or next time – it will be my turn to help share knowledge.  I’m not an old lady yet.  Maybe there is stage in between being at the receiving end, and being the teacher.  Maybe I just have to live it for while.

I consider this change, and see a natural pattern.  I try to see my place between attachment and commitment and make sense of it all as I turn to walk away.

There is commitment in community. Here, I think this is what I have missed.  There is no community in attachment. One can enjoy each others company as long as the weather holds.  But when the storm clouds roll in and the leaves blow from the trees, one can walk away, each in their own direction, and perhaps each hold that attachment in the back of ones heart until the next summer arrives.  Attahcment allows them the hold on and walk away at the same time.    

I seek a place to remain.

The irony of it all.

I am not attached.  I am too practical to hold onto the past. I am committed only as long as I am here. But I am not tied to nor bound by this land.  Between the family conflicts and the ensuing wave of discord; a land that has killed my horses and part of my dream… what a fool I would be to remain in a place and position providing for others dreams when mine is only washing away with the heavy rains of summer? Does one remain committed in a relationship so imperfect, or does one strive for more?

I have compromised enough. I feel myself dreaming again.

I long for commitment as I long for a true home. A sense of being, a sense of permanence in an impermanent life. I am no closer than I was when I moved here, and began these years of commitment to a land I am ready to walk away from.  Perhaps permanence, home, commitment, these things are found only within us. 

Where does this leave me?

Looking up at Simpson Mountain

Icicles on a spruce tree looking up Ute Creek

So we were dumped on this week.  Long anticipated and well welcomed here.  Elsewhere in the Rocky Mountains is receiving winter’s wrath today. Storms are scattered throughout the country from west to east.  It is expected, in lesser or greater amounts, every year.  We have little excuse to be taken by surprise.  It is winter.

Closed roads, power outages, and communications down.  These things happen randomly, every year, across the country, at the whim of the weather.  We know few who have never experienced a part of it, in one way or another.  We know better than to think it couldn’t be me, it wouldn’t be here.

That pantry better be stocked.  Sure, maybe you don’t need 300 pounds of flour, but a few extra canned goods don’t take up that much space. Even when we’re down to the bare minimum, we can usually come up with something good to eat.  Get creative.  Think warm and comforting.  Think SOUP.

Here are three recipes for simple to make soups that can be made with canned goods and/or a few remaining items in the fridge.  Don’t hesitate to think of replacements. When we don’t have everything a recipe calls for, look around, substitute, and chances are, you won’t go wrong.

Carrot soup

Carrot Soup

In a heavy large sauce pan or medium soup pan, heat:

            2 tablespoons butter

            ¼ cup olive oil

Add:

            1 onion, diced

            1 ½ pounds (less is fine if that’s all you have) carrots, diced

Cook over medium/high heat for about 8 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Then add:

            4 ½ cups vegetable or chicken broth

            ½ teaspoon ground ginger

            ½ teaspoon garlic powder

            a dash of nutmeg

Continue to cook over medium/high heat until the vegetables soften, about 10 or 15 minutes.

Stir in:

            Fresh ground pepper

            1/3 cup sour cream

Puree the soup in batches in a blender (yes, even I pull out the power tools for this job when I have power – otherwise, use a ricer).  Salt to taste.

Oyster bisque

Oyster Bisque

In a medium soup pan, melt:

            2 tablespoons butter

Add, and sauté until soft:

            1 onion, diced

            1 stalk celery

Stir in:

            1 tablespoon flour

Then add:

            2 8-oz cans whole oysters, juice and all

            3 – 4 cups chicken broth

            1 teaspoon parsley

            ½ teaspoon thyme

Cover and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Then add:

            2 cups heavy cream (or a can of evaporated milk)

            Fresh ground pepper

            A dash nutmeg

Heat back to a simmer, remove from heat, and puree soup in batches in blender or ricer.

Salt to taste.

Tomato basil soup

Tomato Basil Soup

In a medium soup pan, cook, stirring occasionally, until soft:

            ¼ cup olive oil

            1 onion, diced

            3-4 cloves garlic, chopped

Then add:

            2 cans diced tomatoes

            ½ cup white wine

            3 cups chicken broth

            ¼ cup fresh basil leaves, or 2 tablespoons dried, or a few dollops of pesto

            A pinch of cayenne pepper

            Fresh ground pepper

Bring to a simmer, stirring occasionally, and cook uncovered for 10 – 15 minutes.

Then add:

            2 cups ripped up sliced bread, or any stale leftover bread

Cook for another 5 minutes, then let sit for abut 15 minutes.

Stir in:

            ¼ cup grated parmesan cheese

Salt to taste.

Outside our cabin and the heavy snow begins to come down

In the darkness that is this early morning, I can not well see the snow that fell throughout the night. I shine my flashlight through the glass, and the small arc of light sweeps across nothing but white.  Before dinner last night, we stuck a ruler in the snow collecting from this new storm on the table out there on the deck.  By dinner, the ruler was covered.  By the time Forrest went to sleep, he took his tape measure with him to check the depth, and read over 20 inches.  Now, the table, which is our snow gage, is covered.  The snow from the deck has risen to reach it, engulf it, smooth out the surface of the deck so that chairs, rails, tables, all become a smooth white wave.

Still, the snow is falling. A mid winter storm.  So perfect in her abundance.  This is what we call a “good” storm.

The silence is incomparable.  The river, the trees, trails and life, all are covered with this heavy load.  The cabin is tucked in.  The air is filled with falling snow.  Sound, if any was made, is carried down by the millions of tumbling flakes and absorbed into the generous layer covering our world in white.

Last night we stood outside and listened to the snow falling.  The sound is like the softest of rain.  So delicate, we hold our breaths to hear. A dim and velvety pattering all around us as the snow lands, collects, the tiny facetted shapes holding together to form one smooth sparkling mass in the limited beam of the flashlight.  Coming down the snow shimmers, each flickering flake radiating like so many crystalline tears, and I wanted to cry for the beauty that overwhelmed us, surrounded and engulfed by so many fine crystals falling so gracefully from the black sky.

The excitement in our house was almost uncontained.  We anticipate the same sleepless excitement that Christmas brings.  Perhaps even more. Oh, how my boys love the snow.  I suppose like a surfer waiting for the big wave.  They were ready to burst. 

In the middle of the night, I woke to hear Alan pushing through his dog door.  I did not hear the ensuing click-click of his nails on the wooden floor.  I assumed he remained outside.  He still does not like that dog door.  I found my way downstairs, grabbed a flashlight and stepped just outside in hopes of finding him near. He was not there.  No sense in calling.  He can not hear. His tracks stayed close to the cabin, a narrow trench plowed through three feet of snow, then turning the corner and disappearing from sight.  I slip on a bathrobe and tall boots and head out to find him. There are few places he can go. He can follow the trench to a clearing beneath a huge Blue Spruce perhaps 12 feet from the cabin.  From there, I can see attempts at busting through the snow in other directions. Failed attempts, given up, the trench dead ends. He must have returned to the spruce. 

Now, my boots are far beneath the level of snow.  My bathrobe drags through the soft powder.  If I am to look further for him, I will need to be properly dressed.  I follow the trench and return to the cabin.  In one final thought before heading back out on my rescue mission, I check his bed in Forrest’s room.  And there he is, sound asleep. 

How often have I “lost” something only to find it exactly where it belongs? The last place I think to look.

And what about the birds in the trees, trees loaded with arching, heavy white arms? I consider the wild ones, the animals out there on the mountain, in this storm, tucked in somewhere, perhaps beneath other big trees throughout the mountain, seeking shelter, protection, acceptance that they can not they can not hunt, find feed, travel. They remain holed up in this deep white powder, despite their hunger, and allow this storm to pass, then await the snow to settle.  Their days of moving about the mountain with ease are over for this season.  They will long for the brighter days of spring to set up the snow, melt and glaze the surface, and enable them once again to move more freely about their mountain.

Now, spring seems a long ways away.

Now, I await daylight in this heavy darkness and silence. It is leaden, a grave in which I am softly swallowed in this tender bottomless blanket of white. I feel submerged, as if underwater.  A languid, fluid feeling of lightness, weightlessness, endlessness, as I glimpse outside and see the ground level rising higher and higher still.  

And for a while, I hear nothing at all.

Looking west along the snowshoe trail

I avoided the computer this weekend. It called to me but I would not answer. Do inanimate objects get lonely too?

From time to time I took a peak. Smiles from far away. Messages that do mean so much to me. I thank all who took the time to write here or by e-mail.

Here, the weekend brought life to the mountain, oddly abuzz with humans like ants on cake left behind on a picnic, though somehow lacking the sense of shared effort that ants are known for, each one feeding himself. How odd to hear the occasional distant motor, see tracks following our tracks. The strangeness of the holidays on this mountain attracts folks escaping. Each one seeking their own solitude, avoiding the hope for society, perchance even just neighbors. They come here to get away from those things. They can, they need to. It is no more than a weekend away. I have memories of distant mountains and neighbors at the holidays stopping in for eggnog or cookies or a story and smile. We sat at the kitchen table far too long. Funny the things I have missed. For these few times in the winter, this mountain seems small, aloof, uncaring, and cold. And yet, the air blows unseasonably warm. I take comfort once again in no more than the air. I need little else. There is little else. The rest will blow away.

Warm air. Warm enough to melt snow. Icicles form on the eves of the cabins. The ice flows on the creeks continue to build. Down at the Rio Grande, Forrest straps on ice skates and tests the frozen waters for the very first time. It intrigues me, the things I failed to teach him. No TV, no town. No peers, no peer pressure. How odd his education has been. Book smart. Mountain wise. Yet I forget many things, often things I took for granted as a child, things I assumed all children did and knew.

His life has been different, here, where we were before, where we will be next. There are few who have had the freedom of the wilds as regular as a deep breath. Nature teaches things I can not. He will learn his own boundaries, I thought, and he has. I try to be the mother wolf. He knows he is safe with me. And away from that security, he has learned, slowly, how far from the den he can wander. On his own. We do not push him. We try not to pull him back. I am here, wherever home is. Well and wild in the mountains.

I skated often as a child. I remember how it feels. Fond reminiscences of elegance and ease, gliding on this hard, unforgiving surface I felt enough to know intimately. He moves with surprising ease. The recollections I have of little boys beginning to balance on blades on ice is not what I see before me as this tall young man stands straight and begins to move with the manner of a young horse testing his legs on pasture. I am pleased.

The proud parents, Bob and I stand and watch. We both remember how this feels. We both wish to be there, gliding, over the mighty river flowing free, barred only by its cold, hard surface.

What is hidden beneath this heavy sheet of ice? I cannot even hear the waters below. With my wide flat snow shoes, I walk down the river in the center of its smooth silvery pale blue course of frozen waters. Now and then, the surface is broken, revealing the sides of the rigid surface in places a foot thick, and the dark depths below. I approach cautiously and look into the abyss. I hear the rush of the river from these faults, powerful and mighty, made more so by the memories of being here to watch raging brown waters in the middle of a summer storm. Now, the flowing black waters seem somehow colder even that the surface. Uninviting. Ominous.

What is hidden beneath this flat expanse of ice? There are my answers that I seek.
The plan lies dormant for lack of direction. Yet here I watch and see the water knows where to flow. Why don’t I? I am as still as the frozen waters on which I stand, as the sun dips behind the mountain and cold air spreads like wildfire in the wind, chilling me in an instant as the line of shade now works its way up the mountain,. I watch the warm gold glow rise and diminish towards the top of the mountain as the world below fades to indigo.

It is time to go home.

Forrest learning to skate along the Rio Grande

Please note I will not be posting on a daily basis this year.  For now, I will try for Mondays, Wednesday and Fridays. And on the other days?  Saturday, I’ll still post on the High Mountain Horse site.  Sundays, I’ll often still share recipes – hopefully some of you do try and enjoy them – but at the least, it’s a good way for me to keep track of the ones I like best as I prepare to give my cookbooks away.  And the remaining days?  Time for me to get that book together…

Regardless of when I post, I hope you will continue to join me here again this year. Please know that as always, I love to hear from you, to keep in touch, and hope too that you will continue to keep in touch with each other as well.

Snow blowing from the south and west.

Still I lie
Against your frozen breast
While slowly smoothly gently silently
You cover me with your drapes of white
As each intricate, perfect flake of snow settles
And joins and masses above me, of me
I am under the heavy cloak which keeps me
As a mother tucking her child to bed
I drift to slumber in your loving arms
A lullaby in the falling snow
And I sleep

I am buried in this sea of white and nothing else matters
Not now
Not yesterday
Not tomorrow

In darkness we learn to see.
Long shadows, long nights, long heavy sighs and sleeps.

We dream of what is to come, what we will make in this world, what we will make of ourselves of our children.
The world around us revolves regardless.

Snow falls softly this morning. I turn further within. Enwrapped in the cocoon of winter. The silence spins about me, somehow warm and comforting.

We become so concerned with fear of death that we forget to live.

I read yesterday: “You cannot compromise the dream or the dream dies.” (Terry Tempest Williams)

I am not willing to let my dreams go, but at times I forget how to keep them alive.

The mountain still shuffles with life. Little tracks cross those made by my large snowshoes. Others follow my paths; leave the work of breaking trail for me. Most are smaller, lighter. My trail becomes their highway. Better still are the set tracks left by the boys’ snowmachines, which by now, with little new snow, criss-cross every open meadow, continuing the twisted hidden trails around tight trees in uncertain patterns through the groves of spruce and aspen.

A surprising number of elk remain up here this year. We worry for them. They have been caught unaware by big storms before, left with snow far too deep to paw through, far too deep to allow them a way off the mountain.

The moose will remain all winter. Yesterday in the last light of the day, we watch as the horses turn in unison towards the willows along the east side of the pasture. Funny to call it a “pasture” when it is now nothing but white. The horses too think of it as such and insist on heading out each night after feeding. They paw and roll and romp and fend for themselves after their bellies are full. This is good for them. They allow their wild side to emerge in winter.

Towards the willows the horses are faced, all snorting, tails raised, neck arched, prancing excitedly. We know this for what it is: the warning of the moose. Nothing affects these horses quite like the moose. We step out onto the deck, look where they are all looking, and see the big black awkward silhouette moving down the fence line through willows. I call to the horses, laugh and try to reassure them. Now they know better than me. The stallion is up front, flanked by the two mares. The younger horses well behind them. They keep their distance, but define their space.

They do not settle but continue their upset. We continue to watch from the warmth and comfort of the kitchen. Now we see the dark shape of the moose crossing the pasture right below the little herd. Crossing, and passing, and contining on regardless of, unconcerned with, the horses.

The horses, in kind, cease their upset and ease up. Their fear came straight at them, approached them, and passed, leaving then unscathed. They stand their now with their heads and necked lowered, humbled. One by one they now face away from where the moose went, and towards the barnyard. Casually, they return to the corrals by the hay shed and resume their dinner as if nothing ever happened.

Down in the willows looking up mountain

Ice building up on a log in the creek

The snows have not held back the ice, but are feeding it. The courses continue to swell with frozen waters, layer upon layer of a silvery blue, here secretly building beneath the soft snow, there its run has risen to the surface as the snow bows gracefully at the frozen banks to allow the measured flow.

It has been cold. Snow has not yet slid from the roofs but clings to the steep metal sheets in defiance of the feeble of warmth of the sun. The depth of snow on the level is holding its own.  It does not melt.  But somewhere on the mountain, something melts.  Something runs its course, slowly feeding these flows of ice.

On Christmas day we journey up what is a trail in summer, now no more than a white ribbon through the trees and a path we create as we push through the first time.  The boys on their old play sleds, snowmobiles well over a quarter century in use and carefully tended each season to ensure one more year. Me on snowshoe.  The same ones that have taken me thousands of miles over this mountain. We have packed a simple picnic. The temperature rises to nearly 17 above zero. We find a relatively warm place on the hillside, protected from the bitter winds, saturated with the low light of the early winter sun.

We can not remain idle for long. The shadows threaten to engulf us. We return along the course of the creek, by way of frozen waters.

The boys zoom ahead of me on their snowmobiles.  They move fast enough not to notice, not to hear the rush of the water beneath the snow where the ice has not formed and the soft powder is somehow precariously balanced upon the gushing waters beneath.  A stealth and menacing secret that only winter knows.

We descend the creek, now to a narrower, steeper section, the smooth white trail of the water course yawning in the timber and higher banks of the deeper canyon.  The water is pushed and funneled through here.  Ice is not as easily formed as on the flat, wide, slow sections we just crossed.

Ice is not infinite.  It has its limitations.

I follow their tracks slowly, cautiously, spreading my weight out between my snowshoes and poles, hoping the snow, the ice, the solid feel beneath me will hold.  I see where the boys’ tracks have broken though, unbeknown by them, as the snow falls into the water in their wake. White breaks way to the black abyss, letting loose an angry roar of river. They are unaware of how thin the surface has become.  The motors drown out the growl that echoes from just below the seemingly innocent surface of snow.

Where do these waters come from? When the creeks seem to seep a solid form, from where does this flow continue? Deep within. With stories of the violent brown run off, of last years snow fall, of summer days hot enough to seek out shade, of springs formed beneath her flesh thousands of years ago. The blood of the mountain flows clear and cold, a pulse that never ends.

Now, humor lightens and lifts the human soul in ways nothing else can.  We have seen it with so many animals, we are no different, playing for no more reason than just to play. A simple and basic need. An instant relief from the heavy world that can oppress us too easily.

Bob’s snowmachine breaks through the ice. I don’t think anyone is completely surprised.  Laughter builds and bursts free like the ice that did not hold up the weight of the little sled.  I imagine Bob stepping off the sinking sled onto the firmer shelf of ice looking down in great amazement. And Forrest behind him, having kept a safe distance, probably glad it was not he in the lead this time.  Both would look at each other in silence, and a big wide grin would spread across both faces.

They work together to get the sled out of the creek. By the time I arrive, the sled is out, both boys are safe and dry. Forrest is contemplating how to get his sled turned around and off what we now know is thin ice. Bob is assessing the next predicament of how we will get out of this canyon through the thick timber and steep slopes, made steeper still with the tiny motors of the antique sleds.

“That was me,” we say as we point out to each other a distinctive tract left behind in the snow, a line which tells a story. I look back down the creek, up on the timbered slope. This was my boys, on Christmas day. 

We return home content.  It was another good adventure, another good day, together. Once again it is the best Christmas ever, as every one should be.

Snowshoe tracks heading down the middle of Lost Trail Creek on a wide and well frozen section

In the snow across the river.

Solitude surrounds me.

For some the silence is oppressive. The dread of being alone, away from close walls and ringing phones, tight schedules and someone to hear if you cry out. An uncomfortable and odd void filled only with a transparent cold air of time to think, to feel, to listen, to dream. The need for bright lights and loud noises eases ones mind like the comfort in numbers. We are not taught to be solitary.  We are social creatures, they tell us, and perhaps it is so.

What do you do, they ask?  As they look around for the TV and shops and parties and a barrage of stimulations to drown out the hidden hum of the mountain.

Quiet, I ask them.  Be still and listen. But they are gone before the clear notes ring out. Don’t you hear laughter in the sound of the river gurgling beneath the snow?  Soothing words in the wind dancing through the deep black timber?  And feel the arms that wrap around you as the low light of the sun spreads across your shoulders and gently caresses your exposed cheeks?

The wide open spaces of the mountain are washed in white. It is vast, overwhelming.  Blinding. We yearn to find our place. We learn to listen within. Words need not be spoken. The wind answers the muffled song of the river reverberating from far below her winter coat of ice and snow.

I dreamed I was floating on a sea of snow, soft and languid like waves in the middle of tranquil waters. The river had brought me here, carried me away to settle my soul.  To allow me my solace found only within.

The cold places around us show us the cold places within us. We confront our darkest hours, our deepest dreams, when we crawl under ground and roll tight back into the world from which we emerged.

And nothing else matters but the one flake of snow which has floated from a far away cloud and landed so perfectly upon my glove. I stand for a moment and stare at this wonder.  Few other flakes fall.  Solitary diamonds in this glimmering sea of simple white jewels. What greater riches do we need to seek?

The snow turns to diamonds on the needles of the blue spruce.

The simple magnificence of nature: crystals of snow.

Far away from the stores... but still not far enough.

The headlines read, Storm hits East Coast, and then, Snowstorm may curb weekend sales.  This is national news. Big time. A friend writes, “Perhaps the snow will keep people home instead of out shopping for more things they do not need.”

It did not.  The storm did not amount to much for many.  The following day, the same friend writes, “We only got an inch.  I’m heading out in the car and going shopping…”

I smile. This is Christmas.  But I wonder: when and why did it become the season of shopping?  We’d rather spend our precious time (not to mention our monies) out shopping for someone, rather than spending that same time with them.  Does this, perchance, seem a bit odd?

Ok, it’s Christmas.  This is America.  We shop. We consume.  Do we stop to look around, to listen, to slow down and perhaps give the gift of time… or are we too busy shopping?

Oh, I know it does feel wonderful to give, even if what I am giving is a store bought gift.  And in a convoluted way, of course, this still represents time:  time spent working in an office to earn monies to pay for the gas to get to the store to buy the gift… It is complicated.

Perhaps I’m not patriotic enough.  It is Christmas and I have not been in a store since… since…when was the last time I was in town?  Last month some time, I suppose?

Now I can’t claim innocence here. I am as guilty as the rest for falling into the trap of the Christmas spirit fashioned by shopping. Remember, one can shop on the internet… even out here (though the packages don’t get delivered out this far in the winter!).  And I did. There will be presents under the tree, though few and practical, at least this is what I strive for.

Time.  Time spent cleaning cabins, and fixing clogged drains, and hammering nails, and hanging curtains and saddling up a string of horses early in the morning to pay for the shiny packages stacked beneath the tree.

Time.  Time that could be spent talking just a little longer at the dinner table. Baking.  Taking walks in the softly falling snow together.  Reading by the fire.  What is more important?  I have to question myself in order to remind myself.  Time for the simple things goes against what is instilled in us.

It is easier here to find alternatives to the emptiness we fill with objects, with shopping.  I have tried to find these things everywhere.  Even in New York City. I could climb to the roof top or go by the West Piers and watch the sun set. Yes, I would. It is a miracle to watch, even there.  Anywhere. In Greece, I would sleep on the beach in order to see the same sun rising over one side of the island as the full moon would set simultaneously over the other side. A minute that seemed to last for hours. Or sit in the cold sands in the desert of New Mexico and await the rising of the big moon amongst the scorpions and rattlesnakes.

I have tried to find alternatives. They are everywhere though I have often forgotten to look, or became too busy, or the view obscured by obstacles I created, and could not get myself to clear in order that I may see the view before me.

It is free. It is everywhere.  It only takes time.

Time is money, we are told over and over again.  I say it myself regularly. Time is money?  Or is money time?  Another value put on the most valuable of substances. Time.

Money. How much our lives are held by its strings playing us like puppets. If we sever the cords, we fall.  It seems we can never fully live without.

I dreamed of being a female Jeremiah Johnson and leaving it all behind…

I still dream.

Perhaps I should dream even more.

hoarfrost on a willow branch

Winter solstice.

3:22 in the afternoon and the sun slips behind the mountain to the south and west of the ranch.  How late will it rise this morning, as I sit here in the deep blackness of the star sprinkled sky, in company with the dog and cats and a cup of coffee.

Yesterday I watched as the line of darkness slowly moved up the pasture, beginning with the giant shadow that remains forever all winter on the north facing slope across river, where the snow does not recede amongst the big black timber and the hoarfrost blossoms along the fine branches of the willows.  I watched as the shadow moved and grew, not so rapid that I could see the movement, but swift enough that each time I took a conscious note, the shade had progressed closer and closer still. Now down by the river, then the lower fence line, then the corrals, now me

I am in darkness, a relative darkness of the season.  Cold and still and silent. The fleeting warmth of the sun has left us. Soft light lingers still. It is the time we bury deep within ourselves, and celebrate the darkness without. A time of reflection.  The frozen mountain echoes our quiet inner thoughts and dreams. Listen. The black sky is a mirror of that which we keep ourselves to busy to see.

Enjoy the longest nights, the sweetest hours allowing us time together, time to read aloud, remain just a little longer at the dinner table, there is nothing pressing, nothing to hurry off to now. The chickens are in, the horses are fed. Put another log on the fire and pour another cup of hot tea and sit back down… there is no rush. We have months of the chill brought on by this darkness to intensify, to endure. We shall revel in the stark, simple beauty.

Now we descend into darkness. Now winter begins.  Enjoy the dance of the darkness, the sway of the drifting snow, the bite of the morning air, the faint warmth of the low sun, a welcomed touch on the rare glimpse of exposed pale flesh, and the shadows long, so long and blue across the clean white snow.

diamonds in the rough (hoarfrost chrystals)

Tiny white lights in the big spruce before our cabin.

I fear we are addicted to snow. Goose down as is pours from the sky.  Powder as it piles up on the mountain.  We love it.  I would guess this comes as no surprise to you.

Of course the snow has its inconveniences as well. One of them is our commute. Getting from the ranch to anywhere in winter is an ordeal.  But a minor inconvenience to me, as I’m most content staying home.  For anyone else coming and going… it is, well, an interesting challenge.

Bob was coming home last night.  Not having phone service here at the ranch, we communicate by text messages.  And not having cell phone service with witch to send or receive text messages for at perhaps 30 miles in either direction, we have come up with a system where by the person who went to town (usually not me) sends a final message at the last place the cell phone works, sending a message back home to let the home front (usually me) know they’re on their way.  That final stretch of the way home which may take less than hour in summer, takes quite a bit longer in winter.  We drive up the snow packed dirt road, pass through the locked gate about 11 miles below the ranch, drive another 5 miles,  park the pickup, transfer the groceries, mail, and other supplies (ranging from  Christmas presents to building materials) from the pickup to the tub sled, fire up the snowmobile, hook up the tub sled and securely cover the cargo, pile on a new layer of clothes and a helmet, then ride along what is known in the summer as The Reservoir Road, but in the winter is just a single track snowmobile trail on the bluff above the big frozen water.

Of course, it is usually night.  Darkness adds to the adventure, the mystery, the feeling of being out in the middle of no where… until you see “The Beacon.” You can see it over two miles away.  And why not?  The power is free thanks to our solar electric system. And there is no one within those two miles, or many miles beyond that, for that matter, to be bothered by the light. 

The Beacon, as we’ve called it for years, is a blue spruce tree outside our cabin to which we hand dug an electric line from the house, and on which we hung a few strings of little white Christmas lights.  With our limited solar electricity here, you’ll rarely see these lights on in the summer.  But in winter, ah, it is a different story.  Our power is abundant.  And free.  That sun does shine, and our system usually provides only for us!  So, I am generous with Christmas lights. And not only during Christmas, but all winter long.  I have them strung about in the house, on our tree, around the windows, over the dove cage… and outside, on the Beacon tree.

The tree has grown.  Where once I used a ladder to hang the lights, my bull (yes, a bovine bull) walked by that tree one day, wrestled with the branches for some unknown reason apparently fueled by testosterone, ripped off a bunch of branches with his big head, and tangled the lights in his horns.  Always wished those lights were shining.  If that wouldn’t have been the best photo ever…  Well, it was day light and those lights were off, but that spruce tree will never be the same.

Now the tree has grown. Minus a bare section down low where the bull pruned it. This year I hung the lights as Bob raised me in the bucket of the back hoe, far higher than the ladder could reach, and far higher than I would have liked, for that matter.

Our indoor Christmas tree, by the way, is a used, recycled fake tree. Really. Bet that’s not what you’d expect being as we’re surrounded by a forest of beautiful Blue spruce trees. We’ve never been keen on cutting down our own trees.  I’d rather plant them around us instead.  Last time we cut one down, Forrest was perhaps four years old. I explained that I was “thinning” (and I was!), but upset ensued which is really no surprise coming from a little one raised in the magic of the woods, thus that was the last time. We cut “Christmas branches” for a few years after that, which worked well enough – big boughs from giant fir trees.  And then, when my folks were tossing their “old” fake tree, we took it. Thus… a recycled, reused tree. Tacky?  Maybe.  Green?  Definitely! How “green” can you get?  Funniest part is, no one notices that it is fake.  No one.  Not until we tell, and sometimes, well, why bother? After all, it does look like a Blue Spruce… sort of… and it’s about the last thing one would expect to find up here…

Back to the drive home…

So, Bob is coming home last night.  Through text messaging, he makes arrangements with Forrest to meet at the parking area around 8 pm.  Forrest will help Bob haul in the supplies Bob brought back from town. Forrest heads out in the dark, no moon, just his headlight on the snow, around 7:30.  I get dinner cooking and keep the fire going. Around 8:30, I see the two single headlights, shining from over two miles away and approaching fast. One can travel this road much faster over the snow with snowmobile than over pot holes and ruts with a pickup. And traffic is rarely a concern.

Within minutes, I hear the roar of their motors settling right outside the kitchen door.  My boys are home. 

Bob gives me a kiss and hug, but he’s holding back.  There’s something wrong.  There’s something in there, inside his jacket.  He unzips.  Pulls it out. (Please trust me here, this is G-rated…)

A bouquet of flowers.  Tucked in his snowmobile suit to make it back with minimal damage from the frigid cold and wind and pounding that the ride home usually brings.  Instead, they arrive warm and well, if only slightly “pressed.”  

I think this is a first.  Six years of marriage.  Life is full of surprises.  Life is good…

The bouquet on the table, beside the blooming paperwhites and before the blossoms of the bougainvilla. A bountiful world we live in.

subtle and deliate beauty even mid day: snowy mountain behind a lacy willow branch

There is no moon, only the delicate light from the stars, dazzling against the infinite blackness surrounding them, quiet in their reflection upon the fresh crystalline snow.  They allow me light enough.  Eyes adjust when there is nothing brighter to blind us and wash out the quiet magic of the velvety glow. I feel my way to the sink to fill the coffee pot.  The big window before me sparkles with the deepness of the universe glittering before me, so close I can touch it, I am there, in it, among those stars dancing, one of many, howling wild and free in the black dome above us all.

The water spills over.  I return and am grounded in my warm cabin, inside looking out.

In the high of the mountains, we can see just a little more. The thin air provides less obstruction. There is no light pollution here. Only the reflection of flames from cracked door of the woodstove, flickering on the inside walls. There is something about the cold air. I know not how, or why, but I look up enough to know we see further, deeper in the intense cold of winter. 

A spark in the sea of stars I assume is from the chimney.  Then another and another.  I begin to pay attention. I look. The sky is alive.  Outside the window where a few of the horses had been lying in the snow, sleeping in the peace of the early morning and end of night, they are now standing.  I see their silhouettes large and black against the snow, facing the sky.  Are they too watching this enchantment in the sky unfold?

In the dark of the house I gently wake the boys. They both awake with a start and wonder what is wrong.  Nothing, I assure them.  Nothing I can say or see.  I tell them instead of the shooting stars.  In the dark of the cabin with the starlight the brightest radiance, Forrest comes out sleepily and sits before the big window.  The magic unfolds before him too.  For a child, no longer a child but a young man now, who has never seen fireworks on the forth of July, meteor showers and lightning storms have been what filled his eyes with amazing beauty, filled his soul with fascination and wonder.

We sit in silence and stare out into the vastness.  The sky rewards our patience.

He returns to sleep, the darkness remains, the magic in the sky continues to put on it dazzling show.  For me alone or so it seems.

Now I sit by the fire with the computer on my lap.  The darkness of the sky is lost in this artificial glow. It blinds out the subtle light of the stars. Yet, a message from across the country appears on the screen.  A friend has watched the very same show, 2,000 miles away…

Suddenly I am but one of those infinite stars again, and I take comfort in that, knowing I am surrounded by a countless number, a sea of endless stars, one of many, so many…

a trail in the snow

It is still morning. The thermometer is now up to an even zero.  32 degrees below the freezing point.  The sun has been struggling to warm our world for several hours.  Faintly, it has. Inside our warm cabin, we dress.  This takes a while in winter; a long drawn out process that makes me wonder if my time would not be better spent doing something else.  However, attempting to spend time in this wintery world devoid of this artificial insulation is not a good option. 

We fasten on our snowshoes to our bulky boots, the rubber strapping frozen in the crispy morning air.  We too are cold and tight.  Our breath blows smoke like peaceful dragons.  Our eyes burn from the cold, dry air.

Up the trail, through the back gate and into the woods we walk.  Each step is deep and weighty. We move slowly, a gradual progress, an unhurried pattern of lift and place and sink and settle into a foot or more of soft snow. We think of nothing but this design of heavy strides and the white path before us. Complete silence.  The powder muffles the sounds of our bulky snowshoes and poles as they are buried again and again in white with each progressing step. Our breathing becomes a strong and steady pulse. It is all that we hear.  We stop, stand still, hold our breath, and absorb the silence.

Deep in the woods the trees are heavy with snow.  The wind has not blown in here, knocking the heavy loads from the limbs.  The trees bow with grace and elegance.  We bow low in return, in due respect.

There is life all around us, hiding in the secret spaces that are more places than the known and obvious. Tracks of rabbits, tree squirrels, snowshoe hare cross the path before us.  We see a coyote track leading to the base of a big spruce tree.  The track circles around the tree in a perfect “O” then returns directly to the exact trail that took him to the tree.  His tracks return in his own track perfectly.  A necessary conservation of energy.  The snow is deep. We all learn to get around, and when to remain holed in.

Our steps descend into a draw and cross over where the frozen creek was forming, just days ago.  It is nothing now but a soft layer of undulating snow, waves of white powder, covering the thick and heavy ice that we know is not far below.  There is no sound of the creek now.  Frozen below, and insulated above, it adds to the silence of the woods.

Suddenly we break into the open expanse of the park and can see what feels like forever.  We stare at peaks we have climbed, on foot, on snowshoe, on horse, perhaps even on snowmobile.  So far away becomes so close with memories of the birds that sing on the slopes, the flowers that bloom in late summer, the view that we see from there looking back to here.

Our world becomes small and comfortable.  We are no longer chilled.  We are thankful for ears to soak in this silence, eyes to gaze out in wonder, bodies to tolerate the elements and carry us to these magnificent places.

in the parks above the ranch

a blue spruce heavy with snow

After a fresh snow

Even a little moon

Brings big light

The storm left, unspent, passing on elsewhere, blowing across the flats of Eastern Colorado, then up towards the Great Lakes, releasing its wrath along the route. Now I hear these same clouds may share their bounty towards the Northeast.  Where does this energy come from, relentless and unyielding?  A winter storm feeds on its own fury leaving a glacial path in its raging wake. It allows us to recover without remorse. Remorse is of our creation, not that of the storm.

The sky is left clear and cold.  The temperature drops to sixteen below zero.  Mid day it raises it to sixteen above. There is relief.  We hide from the wind and blowing snow, and seek the meager efforts of the sun. Try as it may it is weak now, humble, of minimal impact; long shadows and diffused radiation will not generate the warmth the flat white surface of snow reflects back into the thin mountain air.

It is on these frigid mornings that even the air will freeze.  Is that what it is, that hazy layer high in the sky to the west?  At first, it looks like clouds, but without the relief of the warmer temperatures clouds promise in winter.  We see this instead when our mountain is at its coldest, fifteen below and colder.  On those mornings, the sky is not clear as one might expect.  There is a soft screen, pink in earliest light. This vapor, frozen moisture, clings to the sky like hoarfrost on the willows. It is odd.

As the air warms, how with such low and little light, the sky clears. The blue above us in the crisp afternoon air is pure.  Eternal.  Unspoiled. No artist would dare to render a sky so blue. But they could, they should.  The intensity of the perfect expanse of this cobalt sky seems high and untouchable, reminding us how little we are. It is vast and overwhelming.  We swim in this sea of white, deep, deep under the big blue.

yes, the sky was really that blue...

a patch of sunlight on tree and snow with a very dark sky behind

a snag and the sun

a view of finger mesa

Bob playing on the little old sled

Bob setting tracks up the road

Forrest playing in the powder around the ranch

A sight you won't see very often: me on snowmobile

probably not the safest way to do it but it worked: Forrest knocking snow off the hay shed

though it was windy and little snow remained on the trees, we would find small protected groves all covered in white

snow and a cold winter wind; here the mountain behind a drifted snowbank

the soft warm eye of my little cold stallion

The horses’ coats are thick and heavy. Shaggy, fuzzy horses. Wild beats to look at.  Even their winter coats do not keep the cold from penetrating their skins, chilling them deep within.

Frost builds up on their eyelashes and at the base of their tail.  Small opaque icicles form around their muzzles.

I wonder if they know this cold spell will not last but a day or two.  Temperatures will warm.  Mornings will return to around zero.  A noticeable difference from twenty below zero, as we have this morning.

In the mornings the air is as still as the ice. Sometimes I think you can almost see the frozen water in the air.

In the afternoons, the wind blows strong and violent as the sun slides behind the slope of Ute Ridge.  It is early, not even 4 o’clock, the signal which warns us to prepare for nighttime. I finish my outside chores as the thermometer’s figures drop before your eyes if you had nothing better to do than watch.  Keeping busy keeps you warm.

The horses huddle in the wind.  A mass of many, all with their rear ends to the wind. From one another, from the position of their hearty yet so fine and delicate bodies, they find simple protection from the elements. They remain out in the open. I wonder why they don’t seek the shelter of the sheds. Deep inside, they are still animals of the plains.  They are still wild as that wind.  More so in the winter, when they are allowed to be here, forced to be here.

Wild, or so very domesticated, as they have been for thousands of years, our companions, our partners, our beasts of burden, of transport, of war. They have changed the life of man.  They have certainly changed my life.

Who says horses can not tell time?  They are as punctual as I am.  Usually more so.  They watch in the direction from where they expect me to arrive, anticipating their next meal that they know will be… soon, so soon, never soon enought.  Like so many sun dials if I was the sun.  I suppose my presence, that which brings promise of hay, is nearly as welcome as the rising of the sun.

We feed heavy.  Calories are heat. An apparent conversion.  Extra hay and a concentrated pelleted feed.  They endure, heads down, eyes not meeting with mine.  Just surviving.  They will eat.  This will pass.  They will make it through.

Only my little stallion seems to suffer.  Born in California and raised in a protected stall, he seems to find this all so wrong. I think at times he is right.  His coat is as thick as those born here, those who accept the cold blasts and biting winds without visible concern. It is an expected and tolerable part of life for them.  As if they shrug their shoulders and acknowledge that which they can not change.