Some Poems Don't Rhyme

With the exception of having a very long and very good lunch with my ex-colleague and friend M&M today I did not venture far from home, and tonight waded through some pictures that can only be described as random.

Some I think I have posted in the past but some I have not.

The picture above is of LC's truck.

We spent time washing and waxing both vehicles last weekend, and before the rain returned took some pictures of it.

He has been toying with the idea of trading it for something different.  Something cheaper on gas.

We traded straight across the board for it for my blue Silverado truck while in Wyoming, and when we knew that we were returning to Tennessee, concerned that neither lighter truck that we owned at the time would be able to handle the weight of the trailer we would be pulling.

It is a 3/4 ton with a 460 and there is no doubt that it is lousy on gas.

But it is mechanically sound, solid as a tank, cosmetically in good shape and we both like it.

Truthfully I like it very much and gas be damned I hope that we keep it..................

When I walked out onto the back porch this morning it was one more overcast and damp day and the temperature was still mild, although I knew that at some point it was going to start dropping.

I looked up into the sky because it was unusually noisy.

Noisy with birds.

They were everywhere - flying, landing in trees, chirping and calling to each other.

One tree in a neighbor's yard was filled with small black birds and I scrambled back into the house to grab my camera before they flew away.

They all scattered right after I snapped this picture.................

I bought this cheap little plastic turtle years ago at a yard sale and before leaving for Juneau it sat on a rock in my front yard close to the house.

LC and his brother arrived by ferry in Juneau five months after I began work up there and by that time I had picked up a cheap car to get me to and from work, found a rustic house to rent 20 miles outside of town, and bought furniture and other household items that we needed to start our new life together in Alaska.

We unloaded the two very loaded down trucks the day after the guys arrived and I smiled in surprise when I saw this little guy tucked in a corner of the truck bed.

He sat happily on a log in the yard and when it was time to leave Juneau I dug him out of the snow and again tucked him into a random corner of the bed of the truck for the long trip back................

One of my very favorite things.

I do remember writing about my "treasure chest" before on this blog.

My youngest son found it in the middle of a creek.

I have no idea how he found it but when he came running home to ask if I wanted it I immediately said yes.

We drove back down to the creek and I watched as my tall and lanky young son waded down the creek, and watched in bemusement as he bent down to pick it up from the bottom of the knee deep creek, and then struggle with the obviously heavy object as he made his way back to me.

I wondered just what the heck he had found and as he got closer I guessed that it was some kind of old metal ammunition box.

I still don't know what it really is but I have loved it ever since my child gave it to me.

It follows me everywhere I go.

It sat in my yard in Tennessee before sitting in my yard up in Juneau.

When we were getting ready to leave Juneau it was buried underneath the snow and frozen solid to the ground and I asked LC to do whatever he had to do to free it.  I was angrily determined that Juneau was not going to keep it.

A crowbar and a good deal of effort and it was again a traveling treasure chest.

It sat in front of our tiny rental house in Wyoming and now again sits in my front yard here in Tennessee.................

On the way to the base a few weeks ago I stopped for a few minutes at a used odds-and-ends store to wander around.

There was not much of interest to me at the store but I found this small bear lamp sitting on a table at the back of the store and I liked it very much.

It sits on a wooden bookshelf in the den and is one more thing that is decorating what is rapidly becoming (by happenstance more than design) a fairly rustic room.................

A large framed photograph we bought at a yard sale in Wyoming.............

I bought this large unframed oil painting at a yard sale here in Tennessee many years ago, and have always intended to get it framed but have never gotten around to it.

It has traveled all the way to Alaska and back again, and is now on the wall in the kitchen.............

One of two small stoves I have in the kitchen.................

While I was living in Alaska I spent many many hours both happily and not-so-happily walking along the shore of the large number of beaches in the area.

During my walks I began collecting shells - white ones and blue ones.

For a long while my growing collections were stored in an old cigar box, and then one day during one of my many visits to the Salvation Army store that was located close to where I worked I bought this round...........whatever it is.

It became the new home to many of my blue shells and they now sit on an end table in the living room...............

I love this guy.

My pet rock.

I bought him at a yard sale in Alaska just before I moved into the Unabomber Cabin.

He is heavy and awesomely beautiful...............

The second of the miniature stoves.............

While I spent so much trail time running and biking before leaving for Juneau, I also spent brief periods during that same time picking up nuts and pods and seeds that had fallen from the trees that surrounded me, much as I collected shells in Alaska.

I have no idea why, but I packed them in a box before leaving for Juneau and they actually and ridiculously found their way to Alaska.

They are probably the most well traveled nuts and pods and seeds ever, but regardless they now sit in a bowl on my coffee table in the den.

They are surrounded by railroad tie winter figures and pewter and wooden shelves and brick steps and wooden sleds and metal squirrels and wooden spools and wooden bird houses and.................

Easy to figure out where this came from, eh?

A yard sale find in Cody last summer.............

More Cody yard sale finds.............

A soapstone figurine of Native Alaskan children and cuddly bear cubs that I bought at one more yard sale in Juneau...........

 I put this Cody Christmas ornament up on the wall during the holidays and when it was time to take everything down decided that I liked it too much to store it away.

As of this writing I am looking at this Christmas wreath, a pine cone Christmas tree, a lighted tug boat and a rustic Santa figure.

I already have a head start on holiday decorating................

LC and I took a drive out to Wapiti last summer.

Wapiti is a small community about 20 miles beyond Cody heading towards Yellowstone National Park.

After leaving Wapiti we continued driving a little further and stopped at a picnic area alongside a river that was raging from snow melt off in the very beautiful Shoshone National Forest.

The day was sunny and very warm and we were alone and completely surrounded by mountains and trees.

We wandered happily along the river with Jamie, greatly enjoying the day and excited as we always were to be out in the forest.

I was taking pictures of the river when LC called my name.

I turned to look at him and he was smiling at me.

In his hand he had this antler.

We looked for the mate to this antler but never did find it.

This one lone antler is now resting on top of a wooden sled that I picked up on the side of the road after someone had thrown it out for the trash many years ago.

Before we left Cody our elderly neighbor gave us two more antlers.

They are huge and sun bleached and wonderful and sitting up in the attic right now until we ultimately decide what to do with them and where to put them......................

I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next...............Gilda Radner