windthread

Just Jenny today.  The two of us.   She never says what she has in mind before hand.  I find out when she shows up.    She called me on phone from the bottom of the Hill,   asking me to bring down rope.  I ask what kind,  how long,  for what and she says as long as i can find.   Ok.   Turns out she's into making some kind of bridge/dock  at the bottom of the low Hill across the creek.  Something we can just sit on.  Dangle our  feet.  Down  far  enough from the Carefree  Way.   close to the young Cottonwood.   Wants the rope to measure the distance down the slope and across the creek.   Maybe 70 ft?   We never got that far because there's a river willow there that's grown into the creek with branches extending horizontally IN the creek and creek debris is caught there,  making a little pool of Stuff.   This is the kind of thing that the Feather River people would clear with machinery when they come every couple years.   And  in clearing this,  most likely,  the young Cottonwood too.   There is no bank.  only a maybe less than 1 ft space with a slender strip of Goat Trail.  inches.   We study this and look at the two huge forms of the Sea Weed that is intermittant all along the creek,  in it's huge form looks ominous.  Like a large fish or animal down there and i'd just watched a Utube about sturgeons.   They look like 7 ft sturgeons.  i think,  eee,  but  she says no…look and grabs some that's close and pulling it out,  it's feathery,  very much like the stuff you buy to add habitat in your aquarium…its NICE,  strand by strand so ok i think and since there's no way but IN,  i go IN.   Extending from the edge there's a granite shelf  about 3 ft,  of course, sloping like everything here is,  but solid and just at the end of that the middle of the creek dips down and turns out to be over 4ft deep.  I am in.  And she hands me the Racheted Loppers  and i begin.   Branch by branch that we can easily see,  but then i need to reach down,  feel my way  under water and we can't see because it's all stirred up.  She tries to cut from the bank but Not so she's IN too.  We work…freeing up the tangle….letting it go in the current.   It's 99 degrees.  Water is cold.  The conversation strays to many things.  Memories of her hermit crab,  vacations,  to Julian and Emrie,  Alyssia,  to her dad,    We work.  We talk about what she envisions for her bridge/dock.   Time goes by and we slog around,  two EXTREMELY large crayfish show up and are interested in her shoes   and it's time for Alyssia to come bringing me ice so she has to leave.   It's a little abrupt.  But she tells me she took two days off from work.  Just to get away from the Virus.  She'll be back tomorrow.  When i got back UP,  i layed it on the bed (unmade) because  i was so HUNGRY and needed to hurry to cook food.   Some of which was FROM THE GARDEN.

she saw them first.  Only on this branch….What's THIS?    we don't know…these Beauty Full Flowerets made of leaves????

on ordinary branches as in the first two pics….there are Several.   ??????

I am an old woman.  She,  middle aged.   a Woman.   Off and on through those hours,  i thoughtglimpsed the fact that she was my old Jenny,  my little girl Jenny,  the one that was Emrie's age and on….What it might have been like to have wandered in this creek with her then,  how she was never afraid of anything,   how she was so adamant about Who She Was,  Her Self….and What it was like to do this work with her today on this HILL  in California 2020 ,   this Hill that belongs to her.  That no one can take  from her. Ever.