December Word Count

Nov 29

Ice on the pond!

It's a sunny but breezy day, slightly above freezing. The furnace kicks on and the baseboard heaters click with the change in temperature. Deer hunting season is over. The orange vest and dog bandana go back into the cedar (hee hee) chest. Glad a few of the deer got away.

I was thinking of going to Farmer Dave's Riverside Farms and looking at newly cut Christmas trees. But yesterday I washed the red truck and today the doors are frozen shut. That's okay, because that truck hasn't moved in 3 years. A guy is coming to look at it. He's confident that he can get it started. And then he'll take it away. That is, if he can pry all the slowly sinking tires out of the frozen ground.

Nov 28

My fellow hut-to-hut snowshoers/skiers will be happy to know I have a brand new purple jacket to keep me warm on the trip to the Blue Lake Hut. More warmth, less whining. It'll make a nice pillow when not being worn.

Meanwhile the puzzle thickens.

Nov 27

Our first snow/sleet of the season!

It only delayed the shopping at Macy's, Target and Cabela's. It finally melted enough to venture out around dusk. While waiting for the temperatures to rise, shopping online revealed a few interesting sales.

Nov 26

It was meant to be a shopping day to replace the birdhouse that blew down in the winds a couple of weeks ago. But the weather radar map shows a large and wide band of pink over the area, representing freezing rain, just until it warms enough later in the day. What good is getting up at 3 AM if the roads are treacherous until 10?

Resistance will undoubtedly arise to make you stronger. Stronger convictions, stronger driving skills, stronger ability to resist shopping for the day... which one is it?

Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Well, Pilgrims,

Whaha.

The thankful task for this week is to stay out of the grocery store and to read nothing out of a book. That is seven days of no food shopping and seven days of no reading books. So on top of reading deprivation, there is to be no visitation to Hannafords.

What happens when you disrupt your usual schedule. Does your face break out? Do you clean and oil your guns? Are the ipods more active? Do you talk more to your spouse who is reading to beat the band and snacking on the last of the chips?

Divining

Practicing the art of forecasting the future:

It looks bright.

Promising.

Abundant.

Behind the eight ball.

Cheery.

Vibrant.

Productive.

Adventurous.

On the QT.

In the catbird's seat.

Hunky dory.

Okey dokey.

A feast of massive proportion.

A cake walk.

Nov 23

Looks like it's good to go to 19,000+ feet. Need more red blood cells and oxygen carrying capacity. Pranayama helps in the lung department at high altitude. Kapalabhati, or skull shining, is a forceful exhale and passive inhale done rapidly in combination. This breathing increases oxygen and decreases carbon dioxide. Although it's not the high CO2 that's the problem at altitude, surely it couldn't hurt to increase oxygen by even the smallest amount.

Nov 22

Day after the full moon.

The moon has been shining in the window about 3:00 AM and looks like a spotlight. So it's a perfect time for thinking, writing, scheming and dreaming. Something is at the beginning. The outline bursts into being. A plan is hatched. Monochromatic. Not yet in focus.

Nov 21

Cardiovascular training was on the schedule for today. Because there was no gym where I am today, I ran in the woods. Yikes! The last time I remember running in the woods I fell on a protruding rock, landed on my outstretched hand to catch my fall, and had to go to the emergency room to relocate a dislocated finger. There I had to hear jokes about pulling my finger.

Not this time. Just 24 minutes to get and keep the heart rate in the high 140s for 20 minutes. That's the recommendation for people in their 40s. Hee hee.

Nov 20

"Benedicto: May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles and poets' towers into a dark primeval forest where tigers belch and monkeys howl, through miasmal and mysterious swamps and down into a desert of red rock, blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless stone, and down again into a deep vast ancient unknown chasm where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled cliffs, where deer walk across the white sand beaches, where storms come and go as lightning clangs upon the high crags, where somthing strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you --- beyond that next turning of the canyon walls."

Edward Abbey

Desert Solitaire

Nov 19

It's modest but effective. Nigh on two weeks of free weights and already the brachioradialis shows itself, not as pronounced as Popeye, but more than Olive Oyl.

Nov 18

Hunting season began this month. It's dicey walking in the woods, but we still go about it. Dawn comes before the tree nursery workers get the machines running in the back. We wear our orange and walk among the bare trees, wary as deer in December.

Peter's BDay

A second 4 leaf clover!

May those who love us, love us

And those that don't love us,

May God turn their hearts;

And if he doesn't turn their hearts

May he turn their ankles

So we'll know them by their limping.

-an old Gaelic blessing

Nov 16

There was a great armload of clothes to try on at Macy's. It's the annual Christmas review of new sparkly clothes in the holiday section and it always inspires me to fit into smaller sizes.


This sweater caught my eye, but I put it on the "no" rack until I reviewed the picture. Then I thought it quite nice, eye catching, and reasonably priced. Not holiday attire, but artistic in a splotchy sort of way. The glittery silver form-fitting thingy did not make it into the basket. Nor did the satiny coral pajama top. It was a successful date with myself. An artist's date.

Blue Lakes Hut

Looking for information on Blue Lakes Hut in the San Juan Mountains.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTX0yMFiwiA&NR=1

All I hear is high altitude panting. All I see is untracked snow.

Last year we didn't quite make it to the Blue Lakes Hut from the Ridgeway Hut. Something about a pulk and 3 sissies. So we're going to make an assault from a different angle. Gotta finish what we started, otherwise we'll have to be reborn again as snow bunnies.

Getting ready with the initial anticipation, then lists, then training (AGAIN), and packing.

We have yet to see snow here. 'S'okay with me.

Element of Fire

A Birthday Party!

Complete with balloons...


decorations, food...


And relax, I'm just here for the cake.

By the time the birthday boy lit the fire, it was all of 6:30. The youngsters were just getting started. The oldsters went yawning home. Fire without mishap.

Nov 13

Ooops

Rain, excessive winds directed exactly perpendicular to the stern, and waves from the wind have swamped the boat. I am refusing to attach any symbolism to this, and attempt to focus on the days of Indian Summer forecasted to follow the storm. But can't seem to take my attention off the boat.

Nov 12

Pactum Factum

or

It's a Done Deal

A psychic molar haunts the jaw because the tooth doesn't know it's been extracted just three hours ago. The jaw continues to experience the shape of the tooth roots. This is what the yogis refer to as the subtle body, that energy that brings form to the body. It'll catch up soon enough. The last tooth falls. It'll be mashed potatoes and macaroni and cheese for supper tonight. No popcorn balls.

The toothbrush was invented in Maine. Otherwise it would've been called a teethbrush.

Veteran's Day

Thank you

Feeling Your Oats

Too many oat groats!

If I were a horse, I would be diagnosed with colic from getting into the grain bag. That's what raw food will do. Too much cellulose, not enough meat, cheese, sugar, fried dough. This is ending right now, much to everyone's relief. See you at the Landing Strip Cafe for corned beef hash, scrambled eggs, and rye toast slathered with butter!

The Yang of Nov 9

It used to be called macrobiotics from a German who called it Macrobiotik - The Art of Prolonging Human Life. Then a westernized Japanese man became involved and introduced yin and yang to the pot some 40 years ago.
Nowadays David Wolfe tells us to "have the best day ever!" and to eat raw food.

These thoughts were all brought on by attendance at a WeightWatchers meeting Sunday. There we all talked about food and Thanksgiving and planning a strategy to eat reasonably (in three weeks). The team leader became my soul sister when she admitted to worshipping mashed potatoes with cream and butter. She was remarkably attractive, thin and personable. See? Sisters. I came home, soaked some oat groats to mix with nuts and dates, and ate raw for the day.

The quilt entitled Storm at Sea is made of old fat pants and continues to hang on the wall on the stairway landing as a reminder of heavier times. Jim wanted to know if I was also going to AA, NarcAn, and overeaters anonymous. In the manner of Doc Martin, I said to bugger off.

Nov 8

The Pleiades runs from Orion. This constellation is best seen in the spring, but to my eye now, looks like a little wash of milky way not too far west from Orion's bow. Last night with the new moon, Daisy and I walked right into the birch that's bent over from woods to lawn as we tried to find the studio in the dark.

Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend.

Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.

-Groucho Marks

Orion, The Hunter, Ends Daylight Saving

Orion chases the Pleiades

Orion appears as a harbinger of winter, the season when sailors are supposed to put up their boats and work the land. Said to be a mountain man, Orion hunts the Seven Sisters who flee from him into the west.

And so winter follows spring.

The home-built studio has a wood stove installed especially for winter, and our own rendition of Orion in the panel below the roof. The Hunter is made of jigsaw stars cut into 3/4 inch plywood and connected by black magic marker. Dawn comes a little earlier with the time change. Dusk comes a lot earlier. Funny how that happens.

The Heart of the Matter

The woods have shown me its heart. It resides in the hollow of the tree trunk, gnawed at by porcupines, after the dissolving of many 50-pound salt blocks, in the rains like those of the last two days.

Nov 5

5 Hazardous Attitudes

Yesterday it rained...all...day. The dog stumbled through puddles and never completely dried off. The new rose carpet now smells like wet dog. The house lost electricity around dusk. And so we waited for light, waited for supper, waited for the furnace. The airplane does not have a winter home, wouldn't start despite a new battery, and we did not have enough energy to hand prop it. The key to the skis didn't work. And it is still raining this morning. In danger of gray November, I am "slouching towards Bethlehem", soggy, listless, cold and raw. "The center cannot hold".


Of the 5 hazardous attitudes in aviation, November mostly brings forth resignation.

These hazardous attitudes are said to contribute to poor pilot judgment. Instead of saying, "Oh, poor me, what's the use? I'm going to let this plane crash into the house", you take charge. Recognition of a hazardous attitude is the first step in neutralizing it.

You repeat the antidote to resignation. "I am not helpless. I can make a difference." And you say it loud enough to drown out the naggy background voice chanting, "What's the use what's the use what's the use..." And then you wave a banner, sound the trumpets, and charge.

In the emergency room, standing on a little step stool so you can see the desperately ill patient (who looks a lot like November), slightly above all the people starting IVs, wielding paddles of electricity, chest pumpers, endotracheal tube stuffers, lab runners, all people looking to you to conduct the orchestration, you take your own pulse first and then you take charge.

Nov 4

Five Animal Kenpo

or

Law of the Fist

If you are surrounded by 5 attackers at once, (they must've been Ninja attackers, otherwise how did they all arrive at the same time without notice?) you apply the method of 5 animal kenpo. That is, don't focus on what you don't want, not on all 5 at once. Focus instead on one at a time. Is it best make it the easy one or the closest one or the slightest one or the toughest one? That choice may not be available.

Line them all up, one behind the other. Take out the first one. Make sure the first one doesn't get back up to attack again. Use the first one to take out others if possible. Prepare to get bloodied in an unfair fight.

Best not get yourself in this situation in the first place. Don't take just a fist or knife to a gunfight.

Nov 3

The floats are off!

The airplane has just lifted off from the miniscule grass strip down by the river. I let the A&P take it up to the fuel dock on the airstrip at Turner. Because of the short length and the irregular surface of the strip by the river. Better he fly it off, than me.

Today we are going to practice our wheel skills that have atrophied during the summer float season. Everyone is waiting to critique the landings. We'll see...

Election Day

We are traveling in a fog, waiting for election day to pass and with it the hype, the mania, the feigned importance. In order to do something about the hot air blowing on us, we are going to blow some back.Using massive amounts of petroleum products instead of sweat to fuel the process,

we shoulder the machine and step out into the woods. Pull the starter cord and make our way through the world blowing hot air back at the talking heads.

And when we're done, a beautiful green mossy path waits; soft, quiet, and ready for NCIS tonight instead of blue and red states.

The first one to say differently is a rabid Republican lawyer.