House burned down

Smoldering ashes

my house has burned to the ground

opportunity

My son's house burned to the ground Thursday night. No, there's no punchline; it burned down. The only parts left standing were the fireplace, the chimney, and one brick wall. Noone was hurt, they were all out of the house: Adam was on his way home from work and his wife & kids were away at her mother's in Georgia.

One of the neighbors noticed smoke and called the fire department, but told them that the roof already had collapsed into the upper floor. The three fire trucks that came focused on keeping the fire from spreading to the adjoining trees and surrounding forest. I don't know if anybody has speculated what caused the fire, but it sure did a number on the house. My son and his family were pretty much in shock up through Friday at least.

Karen and I drove down early Saturday morning -- to give moral support, to help them review their options, and to take down some clothes donated by employees in my department at work. An obvious haiku would be the one about the farmer having a better view of the moon now that his barn had burned down. My thoughts keep bouncing back to the Chinese glyph for 'crisis' being the same as the one for 'opportunity'.

Certainly we all mourn the loss of momentos, heirlooms, early family photographs and the like, and yet .... what might you do if sent this crisis, this opportunity? Would you rebuild the same style house on the same spot, buy the same kind of furniture, tools, utensils and appliances, step back into the same boxes as before? Or would you give some thought to what else might you be able to do now, and where might you want to do it?

With ample insurance reimbursement, a house could be built again, sure -- but where would you want that house want to be? What would you want to do out of that house? Maybe you'd buy a motor home and travel. Maybe rent instead of buy? Instead of buying the tools you're used to, is there something else you'd want to attempt, try out, do, or be? And then the biggest question of all -- why wait for a crisis to think about these options?

Deer and elk, continued...

So...here I was at 11,000 feet after a blizzard left two to four feet of snow, depending on where you measured. I had plenty of food and firewood and I knew how to find wild game if it came to that. But I needed to get word to the rest of the group about the results of the storm and see if it changed our plans. Four of the eight of us were meteorologists, so they already knew it had snowed; they just didn't know how much. My old CJ5 was up there with me, too. No top on it, never had a top in all the time I drove it, whether rain, snow, desert heat or a fine sunny day. But it had a strong winch on the front and had gotten me out of some pretty tight spots (into some, too, truth be told) for more than 25 years.

Back in the tent, I gathered items I'd need in case I got stranded on the way out and had to spend the night curled up under the skirt of a fir tree. Making sure my sleeping bag and rifle were secured, that both jerry cans were full of spare gasoline, and camp was "locked up," we set out, me and Grover the Jeep. Having hunted this area for so many years, we'd situated our camp where we knew the snow wouldn't drift too deeply. On semi-level ground at first, I drove primarily on the crests or windward slopes of hills, trying to avoid the lee-side of timber patches so I wouldn't get bogged down in deeper snow.

I figured out pretty soon that the snow would be less than 18 or 20 inches deep if I could see the tops of a certain kind of grass, and that much snow I could plow through. Oh yeah, I'd put chains on all four tires before I left camp, so I had pretty good traction but knew the risk would be getting high-centered...or ramming into a snow-obscured fallen tree or boulder...or churning into a ditch or depression and losing traction altogether. "Follow the grasses," that was my mantra. Man, it sure was beautiful out there in the heart of this wilderness!

I made it to the beginning of the 4x4 trails which I knew, 20 miles later, would bring me to an actual hard-packed dirt county road (underneath how much snow I didn't know). Even in very muddy conditions and with waterholes that could hide a Mini-Cooper, that 20 miles normally took about an hour to drive. But I couldn't risk the actual 4x4 trails because the ruts were snow-filled and Grover's undercarriage would flounder on his belly. Driving mostly on the high-side above the normal jeep road, I could keep track of where I was (the snow really did cover up a lot of landmarks) and I'd also lower my risk of dead-ending at some woods and having to backtrack. Also, I had to make sure that when (not if) I did get stuck, I'd be able to find a good anchor within reach of the 150' winch cable.

And I got stuck for sure, more times than I could count. There'd be places where no grass showed at all and I had no option but to run the jeep full tilt in the desired direction until enough snow piled in front of the grille and brought me to a stop. Then I'd get out, drag the winch cable to the best available anchor (boulder, log, standing tree) and dig & winch myself back to "regular" running. Then do it again, and again, and again. I soon stopped rewinding the winch, just loosely coiled the cable and brought it up over the windshield onto the passenger seat. Nineteen of those 20 miles out to the road took me from shortly after sunup to the beginnings of dusk. But then, within sight of Deep Lake, I ran out of high ground and had no option - I had to jump the jeep off the upper lip of a roadcut and down onto the roadbed five or six feet below. No option.

Jump I did, right into a bed of snow deeper than any so far since it was sheltered by the road bank. Dragging the cable out as far as I could, I wrapped my heavy logging chain around the base of a boulder as big as the jeep itself and hoped I could winch myself to the boulder instead of the other way around. It worked and, after several more similar pulls, I broke onto a section of road blown free of snow (more or less) and could actually drive (more or less) instead of ramming snow until it stopped me.

I passed Deep Lake frozen in ice and snow for the winter and took off my tirechains when I joined up with the plowed forest service road that led down out of the mountains and to the interstate. Got to the nearest town, got a hotel room for the night and called the guys in Boulder. They held a meeting and decided to stick to the original plan - they would meet me at the hotel in two days and we'd see then what the upper road and trails back into camp looked like. If the snow had settled enough, we figured we could plow back into camp and have a fine hunt. And that's exactly what we did.

Deer and elk and coyotes, oh my!

Warm air and fog

drift along the soft ridgeline

remembering you

Mornings are cooler now, evenings too. Rains visit at odd hours through the day, sometimes accompanied by summer storm's sturm und drang. The grass still green, but not as green as just a couple weeks ago, and on my walks I notice cottonwood and tuliptree leaves beginning to yellow and drop to the ground.

My heart turns to Colorado at this time of year. I love Colorado autumns....aspen, with their brilliant white trunks and limbs and bright gold silver-dollar-size leaves; elk and deer still grazing in the meadows and sleeping on the upper slopes of the high mountains but keeping their eyes on the coming winter. This is grouse season, too, those wily brown distant cousins to turkeys. How they startle me as they launch themselves into the air, bursting from their clever hiding place practically under my feet or next to my shoulder!!

I've spent many many weeks up in the flattops of the Western Slope, 35-40 miles off any known highway and a mile or more from any recognizable Forest Service road. And this season, as the world moves into fall, brings back fine memories of lying in the tall grasses, simply looking at clouds as they drifted west to east, sometimes not that far over my head. I'd listen to and enjoy watching insects, birds and all sorts of varmints as they crawled, flew, hopped, walked, scurried, scuttled and meandered their way in this high-altitude environment. Coyotes would eyeball me as they traversed a clearing with ears, eyes and noses just barely above the grasstops, on their guard lest I prove to be a threat.

One time my father and I went up in October to cut firewood (standing dead lodgepole pines make excellent fires). We planned it for a couple weeks before elk season. In two days, we felled and cut up enough wood to fill a '72 Blazer and the trailer it pulled. When he left to take it back to Boulder and get the hunting crew ready, I stayed in our camp, alone, for the next nine days, "holding the fort" for the hunting group.

I was blissed out. We'd hunted this area for more than 40 years so I was quite familiar with the terrain. I wandered among stands of dense black forest, crossed clearings from livingroom-size up to the area of a small town, hiked 1000' elevation changes several times a day, all just to see what new there was to see. I tracked an elk herd -- 25-odd cows and calves mostly, along with some yearling bulls -- and it was great fun. They'd execute their best groupsneak through the woods while I, knowing their habits, paralleled them from 50 yards or so off that backtrail. I was quiet enough and crept slowly enough that they didn't see me even though they knew I was somewhere close. I trailed them for a whole day, watched them bed down in the evening.

Then, one afternoon about 4 days before the other guys were due, it began to snow. And it snowed. And the wind blew. And it snowed and blew for a day and a half. When it stopped, the ground was blanketed with 22" of snow -- and that was where it hadn't drifted! When I emerged from the wall tent two days later, the world was completely changed - almost totally quiet, and sparkling with millions of points of light. I remember thinking to myself, "This is going to be quite a challenge..... and GREAT FUN!" It was both and then some.

(to be continued)

Bull elk watching me

beige fur and long sharp antlers

just wait for winter

Green, so many shades,

subtle motion from this breeze

sharp, round and oval

stems, spikes, shoots, vines and pods

why ask more from this old path?

I haven't been doing much walking these last few weeks. One, I slipped at work and wrenched my back; and two, I've been writing this blog and to do that, I have to stay within range of one of the few wifi networks in this little community.

When I do get out, I enjoy the path along the Patoka "River," one of the mud-colored 20-feet wide flows of water they call rivers here. Even though it's clearly not a clear mountain brook, there's always much to see: dandelions, all manners of bugs, rabbits & other creatures, wild grape strangling the young saplings of tulip trees. All of it fodder for thought, and thus potential inspiration for haiku or tanka.

A ring of black ants

surround a centipede corpse,

come to take him home

"The End is Near"

Woke to see the moon

last night, didn't know it rained

my feet are cold and wet

I spent quite a bit of time on the phone today: talking to Social Security, talking to my tax preparer, to a temp agency in Bloomington, to my wife. I even got some work done, thankyouverymuch.

Indeed I think the end is near. The missing link -- the only but crucial missing piece -- is a job that earns something in the realm of $15K a year. If that can be achieved working 20-30 hours, great; I'd love the time off during the week. If it means I'd have to work 30-40 hours, I could deal w/ that but would prefer the former. In either case, I do believe I will jump from my current ship and bring all of my Self back to Bloomington. Between the net of such a job and my SS check (even drawing it earlier than full age 66), I'll replace my current income. Side benefits: I'll be back home, among friends and family (Karen and the Kats); I'll experience much less stress than I now do; I'll cut my commute-related expenses by some $400 a month and wear-and-tear on my truck by a minimum of 800 miles a week.

Highest on this list, though, is being back w/ my family. It just does not work for me to live apart for 4.75 out of 7 days of the week, trying to jam everything into Friday evening and the weekend. Maintaining a household -- not to mention the house itself -- can be a challenge when I'm 'on-site'; and maintaining a full and meaningful relationship with Karen is, as MasterCard would phrase it, "priceless."

So I'm bending all my efforts to turn up something in the temp, temp-to-perm or long-term temp field, and have high hopes. I'm also still sending out resumes to jobs posted on several different websites I scour, announcements that come to me from newsletters or friends, and so on....things for which I qualify and would feel good. Something will break soon, I feel it in my bones.

I am home again

a slow walk on a fast day

just what I needed

This past weekend

Karen's family held their 2nd annual family reunion on Saturday. Most folks come from north, up around Indianapolis, but we have to drive up from Bloomington, so it's been held at a location in between.

About 25 people were there this year, ranging from Karen's 81-year old mother to a 3-month old baby...Karen's mother's greatgranddaughter in fact. Not a lot of kids but lots of kid-energy, if you know what I mean...yelling, running about, saying "NO!" a lot, whispering and giggling in the corners. I enjoyed myself and the day was splendid - not too hot, not too cold, surprising for Indiana in mid-August. It sprinkled about for 5 minutes then stopped.

When we got home, there was a card from one of the friends we'd made when we visited other friends who've retired to central Mexico. Chris & Kimberly live in San Miguel de Allende during 8 or so months of the year, and have a cabin on Olympic peninsula in Washington for the summer months. Kimber's young cousin was visiting when we were there last fall and we became fast friends: the card was from her, Hannah.

While in Mexico, we attended Kimber & Hannah's writing group. The process of this group is that one person thinks up 3 words as "prompts" for everybody to write a short story about while you're with the group. Didn't have to be that long, just had to incorporate the given three words. It's best not to overthink it, just write as the story flows out of your imagination. Sometimes the words coax the story out, sometimes you have to put some thought into it. But back to the card: I used Hannah's prior set of prompts to create a single-sentence story. In yesterday's card, Hannah gave us "lilac," "alphabet soup" and "static."

I love it when words have multiple meanings -- static, for instance, has four or five that come immediately to mind. We wrote our stories Sunday evening, and I think both our stories were good. Karen's story was so different from mine, and so funny I laughed out loud! I sent the stories off to Hannah (California) and Kimber (now in Washington) w/ their next prompts: basalt, birdhouse, ballerina. We'll see what next week brings.

Ravens speak Spanish

that far south of the border

What did you think? French?

Chiaroscuro

Water cascading

over the cliff's stony lip

smiles on its way down

I love the quality of light at certain times of the day. This isn't a "go toward the light" kind of thing, I'm talking about when the sun is at just the right angle and maybe there's a little haze in the air -- not too much, but some -- so that every protrusion and every depression is picked out and cast either in the brightest of light or in dark shadows.

Painters, especially those of the heyday of 16th & 17th century Europe, used this approach to accentuate their works.... a face glowing in light from an unseen window or door, workers out in the haystacked field casting shadows many times longer than their physical selves. Some three-dimensional artists and a few other practitioners create with an eye toward the interplay of light and shadow on their pieces.

But mostly, I notice this quality in the late afternoons. I'm looking out on a field now, with birds the size of crows hopping around talking to each other and catching bugs, and outsized bird-like shadows hop laterally on the ground every time the birds move. A bird in flight between me and sunlight so intense I can see right through most of its wing as it flares to land. That kind of light. I love it!

It rained again today, not a big storm but enough to get me wet as I ran from my truck to the office. Then it stopped. And started and stopped through the morning before the clouds blew on to the east. Ground too wet and muddy to take a walk, sun too bright to ignore, but the day too fine to stay indoors..... what to do, what to do? Guess I'll write about it!

Deep blue cloudless sky

bright lamp hanging up above

it's a wonderful day!