Sidetracked Charley

Shadows on Stone A bit in wonder over the slow blue wave .  Maybe because there has been so much going on in my personal life. Maybe because the Orange man is still in the White House it has been hard to absorb what this could mean. Or that I no longer believe in the two party system. I am not picking another 1% representative to back for president.  I find myself thinking more local and immediate than two years from now. And a news program talking about the power of agendas being put up for vote, and a conversation with a friend more involved with state politics started my mind working. For New Mexico January 2019 is the beginning of a 60 day legislative session. And a governor in the state house more predisposed to some of the things the previous Republican governor kept vetoing.  A good time to put forward some state issues we have been fighting for like the approval of not following daylight savings time. Or legalization of recreational marijuana. And it could ...

November storms In the song the Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald there is a stanza about the gales of November. People on the shores of Lake Superior talk of the Witch of November. Something bad is always going to happen in November. Marc and I actually used the word divorce in November. Though it would be December before I move out and April 1st before it was final. When he died in early November a few years after our divorce I tried not to know the date. But I was already predisposed to hate November. Mom first spoke to me about her breast surgery in November though she said she didn't want to ruin the holidays and would wait until January. Too late. She had already ruined November for me.  And while she didn't die from cancer until a few decades later she did it on Thanksgiving ruining December as well. My sister has already been warned about putting off surgery. In the old TV show Northern Exposure about Alaska the mayor goes about in late October and early Novemb...

Sundog Dawn The holidays and me are a love/dread relationship. Heavy on the dread. I once wrote an article about Murphy's Laws for the Holidays. Number one was if it can go wrong it will go wrong on a holiday. Mom died on Thanksgiving. And I was hit by a drunk skier on Christmas Eve. Everyone wanted me to go away until after Christmas. When I was finally able to get an appointment with a neurologist he looked at my MRI scans and said, "Well, the good news is you didn't die." I start gritting my teeth before Thanksgiving which may be the reason I broke a tooth this morning. Dentist is out of the office but I will call Monday anyway and see if there is anything which can be done. I know don't chew on that side. And my guess is it a tooth with a root canal because it doesn't hurt. But my tongue plays with the gap, which has edges. Minor compared with some of the news which has been churning around me and those I care about deeply. And for those I don...

Woodpile The first Tuesday in November seems like such an awful time for an election. It seems to up our chances of foul weather to give us an excuse to not vote. And quite frankly the last of September and first part of November is when I, and most of my mountain friends, are busy getting ready for winter. Not that we cannot drop everything we are doing and head to the polls. If, mind you, we remember to drop the chore of stacking wood and heading out. Our neighbors wouldn't even be surprised to see us covered with wood chips or sap. They probably are too. If they are in town. A lot are out in the hills hunting for the elk for winter meat. Elk hunting isn't a sometime in the next month sort of thing. You get drawn for a tag for a specific area and a limited block of days. This year our county offered early voting options which did not mandate we travel for two hours to the county seat to vote. It was really nice because the two cords of wood for the winter had not bee...

The Wood to be stacked When I lived in Questa with my late husband. I participated more completely in the gathering of wood to heat the house. We would initially venture up the Cabresto Canyon to an area dead and down trees could be harvested. Marc manned the chainsaw and I fetched and carried back to the trailer. Then home to unload.  After three or four days of gathering it was time to split the wood and stack. The local myth was the more cords split and stacked the more secure the marriage; the more stable your residency. On the day I moved out and over the mountain there was five cords of wood by the garage. I had totally participated in every single piece of that. But on December 10th the day after I moved in to my house in Black Lake I had to begin looking for wood to burn. I hadn't a clue how to get the precious commodity if I didn't have a pickup, a flat bed trailer, a chain saw, and a log splitter. I discovered the full pickups of wood in the parking lots in ...

Halloween Snow Halloween is generally when the ski areas begin to make snow. It is considered a point in the weather that temperatures are such that snow can be kept on the slopes. Halloween is also myth holds when we get a first snow. But it is usually just a teasing snow. A couple inches here and there. But this year it was 10 inches at my house, 12 inches at my friend's house up the hill, and the ski area maintains 16 inches. After last year's non-winter I was totally unprepared for it to arrive this early this year. Firewood had not been delivered and I had only enough for one fire in case the power went off. And it did go off. For almost eight hours in one chunk and then off and on much of the rest of the day. Fall had seemed like it was going to last forever. My attentions had been on putting the garden to bed, and mulching all the beds. Even sowing some seeds for the first snow to cover. Hoop house frame But with the power off an no wood in the ...