Random Winter

Throughout the year we hear coyotes.

They surround us.

They cry to each other across the desert - packs that live on Rattlesnake Butte just on the outskirts of town crying to packs that live on Cedar Butte and Big Butte many miles away, and that all roam the desert in search of food, water, mates.

One roamed the desert alone for a good part of the summer and we saw him often - just on the outskirts of town and running until he got lost among the sage and grasses during his return to the desert.

Standing alone in the middle of the desert and then simply sitting and watching us as we watched him in return.

By fall he was gone.  

Possibly adopted into one of the packs.

Possibly this one.  Laying dead just on the outskirts of town a few months ago.

Frozen and laying still among the growth underneath a tree along the back road, just as the snow was beginning to fall.................... 

We have so much snow now.

Our fourth winter in SE Idaho and without a doubt the most snow we have seen so far.

Early in December it snowed heavily for a day, and then closer to Christmas it snowed heavily for three straight days.

Every few days now it snows a little, each time adding one more frozen layer to the frozen meat locker that we now call home...................

This is far and away my favorite time of year.

It is beautiful here now.

The snow smooths out all the rough edges of this little community in the desert - laying a blanket of snow and frozen ice crystals over every piece of town, both cared for and not.

All the downed beams, forgotten vehicles, carelessly rolled up hoses, abandoned campers, low income and in-poor-taste yard art, all of it.

A white pureness that settles for the season on the roofs of nice homes and not-so-nice homes.

On the fences and in the trees.

In the winter the snow soothes the savage beast that is Atomic City.

Making frozen still lifes out of every piece of this desert town.

The desert in winter is a wondrous place.

Gone are the spring wild flowers and green grass.

Gone as the hundreds of different variations of brown that this place becomes as spring transitions into summer and the snow and rain transition into endless hot and dry days.

In its place is a starkness that is completely compelling.

The endless landscape looks even more vast.

Uninterrupted white as far as the eye can see.

Skies that vary from day to day - alternating between complete blue and complete grey.

Sometimes the frozen mist is so absolute that it is impossible to see 20 feet in front of you.

The buttes disappear in the mist.

The world disappears in the mist.

And the silence is wonderful.................

One day last winter I was snow shoeing on BLM land and Kory was with me.

As I lumbered in my snowshoes my puppy happily danced and pranced her way through the deep snow.

I followed one trail (blazing the trail with my snow shoes as I went) and at the end of the first trail I took a right turn and picked up one more trail.

Instead of staying on trail Kory danced through the snow as she is compelled to do, but generally she had been following my direction.

At the end of the first trail she jumped through the snow across country and stood on top of a small rise surveying this new white world of hers.

I watched her for a few minutes and then called to her, expecting that my dog would turn and head back towards me.

Instead, she ran over the back side of the rise and disappeared.

I called to her for a few minutes before realizing that my dog was gone.

Surely she hadn't gone too far - the snow was too deep for her to wander far.

Wasn't it??

A few more minutes and I finally accepted the fact that my dog was indeed gone and that I was gong to have to blaze trail through the snow and try and find her.

Sighing deeply I looked across the vast white sea of land and knew that it would take at least 10 minutes for me to even get to the rise where she had disappeared.

Calling to her the entire time I reached the rise and looked out over the desert.

Nothing but white.

Nothing at all but white as far as I could see in all directions.

And no dog.

I could see for at least a mile or more, and in the whiteness of the desert I was a little stunned that there was no sight of a red dog.

Where the hell WAS she???

By then I had transitioned from disgust to worry.

The desert looked so different from what she was used to.

A straight line of low lying cloud cover completely obscured Cedar and Big Buttes.

Suddenly I was worried (with no familiar terrain and no buttes to navigate from) that my dog would get turned around and just wander deeper into the desert.

 With so much snow, if she DID wander further into the desert LC and I would have a hard time searching for her.

I called LC and explained the situation and asked him to head down to Big Butte Rd - to watch for her as he traveled down that way and to pick up a trail off Big Butte Rd and call her from there.

I would continue snow shoeing further into the desert.

At every rise I stopped and scanned the frozen desert, fully expecting to see a tired red dog at any moment.

And at every rise I was disappointed.

I could hear LC a mile or more away from me beeping the horn of the truck, hoping that would get her attention if she truly was lost and disoriented.

Over an hour after Kory first disappeared over the rise close to the trail I had been trudging along, I finally spotted a red dot in the distance that was heading my way.

After calling LC I stood and watched as my dog broke through the deep snow with every step.

She was tired.

Even as far away as I was from her I could see that she was exhausted.

When she finally reached me, she collapsed at my feet, tired and out-of-breath.

Squatting down, I rubbed my dog on top of her beautiful furry head and then rubbed her ears, and quietly talked with her while she caught her breath and rested.

Just happy to see her safe and happy to have her back.

When she was ready to go again I called LC and asked him to meet me on the road by the trail head.

Before I hung up I warned him that it would take me at least 30 minutes to get back to the road.

Kory looked very cute deliberately walking in my snow shoe tracks as we slowly made our way home.

But on that day I decided that I would not walk on BLM land with Kory in the dead of winter anymore.

It was just too much work to track her down if she decided to wander and too dangerous if we couldn't find her.

And so............we spend a lot of time walking the roads on the outskirts of town through the winter.

She can still play in the snow, but her desire to return to the ploughed road ensures that she doesn't wander too far from me......................

A couple of weeks ago - on a very clear and absolutely freezing early evening I looked out the front window, realized that the sun was beginning to set, and made the instant decision to walk to the back of town and see if I could catch the sunset.

As I pulled on winter boots, jacket, neck gaiter, hat and gloves my dog stood up from behind the wood stove where she had been sleeping and looked at me expectantly.

That sweet, beautiful, hopeful face.

Waiting until the last possible moment (so I didn't have to listen to hysterical barking) I walked to the front door, turned and looked at my dog and said "well...........come on!"

Instantly in rapturous joy she ran to me and I struggled to hook her leash to her collar, as my excited dog danced in circles around me.

And together we wandered in the silence, the freezing cold, and the beautiful evening..............

It had taken until early afternoon for the watery sun to break through and burn off the frozen mist that had enveloped our town the previous freezing cold night.

Only a few hours later - as the sun was beginning to set - the frozen mist was already creeping across the desert and heading our way.....................

Each solstice is a domain of experience unto itself. At the Summer Solstice, all is green and growing, potential coming into being, the miracle of manifestation painted large on the canvas of awareness. At the Winter Solstice, the wind is cold, trees are bare and all lies in stillness beneath blankets of snow...........Author Unknown

Keep Saying I Am Not Sad

I received a message from my sister Lisa this afternoon:

Ed sent me this to send to you. Hope you like it. Happy new year to you both..........

This is my Grade 7 school picture taken in Australia.

I'm in the middle - second to back row.

I remember a couple of the girls in this picture - their faces but not their names.

I remember the teacher well - him, but again not his name.

But I liked him a lot.

I remember liking him.

A lot.

He was a no nonsense teacher.  I clearly remember him walking around the classroom always carrying a long switch under one arm.  Always walking the aisles between desks and occasionally slamming the switch down on the desk of anyone who annoyed him in some way.

When it hit the desk it was very loud and startled everyone in the class.

Every time.

In the context of school in 2016 that sounds horrendous, but back in the 70s he was a great and caring teacher who pushed students to do well and learn well, and I liked him very much.

Seeing this picture threw me for a loop.

A big one..................

My response to Lisa:

You want to know something? My whole life I remembered myself as being fat and ugly as a young girl. Seeing this picture - and other pictures from around that time tells me that I wasn't either of those things. It's a weird feeling to be an adult and remember yourself as something you never were. Please thank Ed for giving you this picture and thank you for sending it. It is Seans' birthday today. He would have been 33. Found out yesterday while surfing around the net that Jessica (Seans' wife) just remarried. It's been a rough couple of days. Take care Lisa and please say hi to Mick for me. 

Karin......................

 He awoke each morning with the desire to do right, to be a good and meaningful person, to be, as simple as it sounded and as impossible as it actually was, happy. And during the course of each day his heart would descend from his chest into his stomach. By early afternoon he was overcome by the feeling that nothing was right, or nothing was right for him, and by the desire to be alone. By evening he was fulfilled: alone in the magnitude of his grief, alone in his aimless guilt, alone even in his loneliness. I am not sad, he would repeat to himself over and over, I am not sad. As if he might one day convince himself. Or fool himself. Or convince others--the only thing worse than being sad is for others to know that you are sad. I am not sad. I am not sad. Because his life had unlimited potential for happiness, insofar as it was an empty white room. He would fall asleep with his heart at the foot of his bed, like some domesticated animal that was no part of him at all. And each morning he would wake with it again in the cupboard of his rib cage, having become a little heavier, a little weaker, but still pumping. And by the midafternoon he was again overcome with the desire to be somewhere else, someone else, someone else somewhere else. I am not sad..........Jonathon Safran Foer, Everything Is Illuminated

Deer In The Back Yard

It has snowed SO much recently.

More snow than we have ever seen in our four winters in this small town in the desert of SE Idaho.

But much earlier in the month - before we had day after day of heavy snowfall - I had a quiet and wonderful interaction with some residents of this town.

The numbers vary from year to year.

Sometimes they are gone for many months at a time.

But invariably a small herd of deer, at some point in the year, decides to make Atomic City their temporary home.

Usually there are 13 or 14 or so - a small herd that wander alone or in pairs throughout the summer but who (as the weather gets colder, the days grow shorter, and the cries of the desert coyotes grow louder) begin to band together.

They wander through town together throughout the winter, enjoying the relative safety that comes with numbers and becoming tamer to humans by the day.

This year there are about 14, and for the first time there are two young bucks that are traveling with the does and last springs' fawns.

Two little bucks with sweet little racks and cute little faces.................

One day early in December I looked out the front window and the young and healthy herd were wandering together on the opposite side of the street from the house.

Quickly pulling on boots and sliding on coat I grabbed my camera and headed for the front door.

Pushing my dog back from the front door I quietly opened the storm door and slowly walked outside.

By the time I reached the front of the house I looked towards the kitchen window and saw my pup standing on the kitchen table watching me.

Patting the window where her nose was located on the other side, I smiled at my dog.

A PIA sometimes, but she has her Kory-Ways that make my dog who she is.

Turning my attention back to the deer I realized that they had wandered into the middle of the road.

The Love-Hate relationship I have (actually EVERYONE who lives in town has) was in full force as I watched these quiet and gentle creatures.

All spring and summer we curse at them because they decimate trees, bushes, flowers, vegetables, everything and anything that residents try to grow in their gardens.

We put protective fences around some things last summer once we realized that the deer (that had been MIA for over four months) had returned to town.

Mostly perennials and young bushes that we had recently planted and that needed time to become established.

But all our annuals, all our other bushes, all our trees were trashed not long after their reappearance.

And so we need to put up more fencing next spring.

Come fall (when everything has stopped growing) I watch as summer fur begins to turn into winter fur.  As girls go into heat.  As huge bucks mysteriously appear from the desert, stay in town for a couple of weeks, and then just as mysteriously disappear back into the desert once their job is done.

And then winter.

When they easily wander from yard to yard (often bedding down under a huge pine tree we have in the back yard), when the other human residents of Atomic City go into hibernation, and when Kory and I more-often-than-not have the entire area to ourselves.

Just me.  My dog.  The deer..................

I stood in the front yard for a while, bundled against the cold, snapping pictures, watching the deer mingle on the road and then one by one make their way over to the fence leading to our side yard.................

Heading back into the house my dog jumped off the kitchen table and excitedly greeted me.

Leaning down to rub the top of her head and stroke her ears I quickly headed towards the center of the house.

Kory eagerly followed me, but for the second time in the past thirty minutes I had to tell her to "stay here"

She looked up at me with the disappointment and sad eyes that could break your heart.

She wanted to go outside with me, but she couldn't.

I was heading into the back yard to see if all the deer were there, or if they had simply wandered to the back fence, jumped the fence and continued on their way.

Kory couldn't be out there.  She chased them.  One of the does had already turned on Kory a couple of times, intent on protecting her young.

No pup.  Stay here.

Cutting through the laundry room I walked to the back door and then headed into the back yard.

The deer were all wandering around.

Beautiful.  Graceful.  Seemingly in no hurry to move on through town.

I stood still, 10 feet away from them, watching them, watching them watching me, occasionally snapping pictures................

One of the little boys............

By the time the last deer had jumped the back fence, walked down the grassy and snow covered alley and headed to other parts of town, I had turned, walked to the back door and called Kory.

Eagerly she ran up to me and I smiled at her as I moved out of the way. so she could head into the back yard  to play...................

I don't have to take a trip around the world or be on a yacht in the Mediterranean to have happiness.  I can find it in the little things like looking out into my backyard and seeing deer in the fields...........Queen Latifah 

The more I see of deer, the more I admire them as mountaineers. They make their way into the heart of the roughest solitudes with smooth reserve of strength, through dense belts of brush and forest encumbered with fallen trees and boulder piles, across canons, roaring streams, and snow-fields, ever showing forth beauty and courage.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/j/johnmuir752674.html?src=t_deer

The more I see of deer, the more I admire them as mountaineers. They make their way into the heart of the roughest solitudes with smooth reserve of strength, through dense belts of brush and forest encumbered with fallen trees and boulder piles, across canons, roaring streams, and snow-fields, ever showing forth beauty and courage.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/deer.html

Little Color In A Black And White World - Part 2

LC and Kory coming back after clearing snow away, warming up the Suburban and driving it through town.
As they roamed through our snowy town I continued to wander in the yard, in child like awe of how different and how beautiful everything looked covered with a blanket of snow..................

In our black and white world the few things around me that were colorful popped in pictures..............

By the time we cleared snow off vehicles, cleared snow off driveway and walkway, warmed up vehicles, drove around town, and took pictures in the back and front yards both humans and one dog had been outside for a couple of hours.
Temperatures were mild, nobody else in town was outside or had dared to confront the day, and so we had the world to ourselves.  
Or so it felt.
After building a fire in the living room wood stove, drinking more coffee and warming up I suddenly had the desire to cross country ski.
I was gone for an hour.
I still suck but I can get around on them, and just as importantly I could be alone outside without having to keep one eye on a dog (that can disappear in moments when she has a mind to).
And so I skied, slid and unceremoniously wobbled my way down the center of an empty road before bushwhack-skiing across a field and picking up a trail that circled me back to town.
Within minutes of returning to the house it began to snow again.
It snowed for the rest of the day.
And I loved it...............

It snowed all week. Wheels and footsteps moved soundlessly on the street, as if the business of living continued secretly behind a pale but impenetrable curtain. In the falling quiet there was no sky or earth, only snow lifting in the wind, frosting the window glass, chilling the rooms, deadening and hushing the city. At all hours it was necessary to keep a lamp lighted, and Mrs. Miller lost track of the days: Friday was no different from Saturday and on Sunday she went to the grocery: closed, of course...............Truman Capote