windthread

a glade.  a small clearing.  There are two of these,  to the East and a little UP from Campsite B where one of these days i will live.  They appear to be spontaneous.  No sign of having been  "man made".    Just small clearings,  Sun filled and surrounded by the brush and 200ft trees.  When i can,  i go to sit there.  I go to lie flat into those grasses,  on my stomach,  face pressed straight into the earth,  on my back,  arms extended.  

There has been rain this week,  good "winter" rain for this part of the planet,  seasonal rain.  Sometimes coming as a downpour and the tarps for the Goat shelters watched closely.  Sometimes just a gentle rain.  But rain.  Just so close West of here  the Sierra Nevadas get snow.   That will become run off for that seasonal stream.    All of the Live Oak are leafing.

The fence around these 6 acres is complete.  Even parts where it was hoped there would be no fence.  The big gate is in place.  One part 12 ft and one part 6 ft  or something like that,  i'm not sure,  actually,  it's not that,  but you can get the drift.  A big side and a smaller side.  The fencing is IN on the side that runs to the canal/creek,  the hardest part in a way because of the slope.   We think now,  that nothing can come in and nothing can go out.  Even if all the Goats were to suddenly free themselves,  which they wouldn't want to,  but if they did,  they would be safe.  6 acres.   Six acres of some earth and a lot of granite.  The ecosystem is almost beyond imagining.

While Alyssia works,  Emrie and i find ways to be without her.  I don't do any more than she needs,  but encourage her independence and she works at that independence,  understanding that it's what there IS.  That her mother will return,  but that her mother is not here right now and she needs to make do.    I am witnessing this with some detachment which is really quite grand,  watching her, with her 6 month brain making order of things.  A new human being.  Watching how really delicate her beingness is,  but also how resiliant and capable.  I feel like a scientist.  When Alyssia does return,  it's with the sound of crunching gravel under foot and Emrie,  like an animal,  with ears pricked,  turns her head….

Alyssia enters and offers the breast.  All is well.    Later,  Emrie, sitting in her booster seat next to her mother,  pulls her arm close,  burys her face in her sweatshirt and breathes,  deep huffing sounds,  breathes her mother's scent in.   Again,  not a scientist, but an anthropologist.  I am an anthropologist.  of my own species. 

I am drawing.  I finally was able to draw an OLD face…it came out of nowhere.  I'll try to take a pic.  Once again, to repeat,  i can't upload pics  myself.  I show Alyssia  a pic from the phone camera and she somehow gets it into her phone and then somehow takes it to typepad and enters it.  I then add text.   This one today,  like once before,  was sideways a long time till she was able to get it upright.  

 

 

they have just left.  It's newly dark,  only 7 something, earlier than usual.    They load themselves up…kids finding their shoes,  collecting their little screens of whatever,  their papers,  Alyssia strapping Emrie into her car seat,  the dangling musical flamingo who we call Flemie,  dangling and playing her car seat song…a sweet song, really.  Tay is sprawled out on the floor in front of the pull down "couch", bed,  where i have chosen to sleep.    As i listen to the crunch of gravel from the tires, i begin to make my bed.   I go back into the "bedroom" of this travel trailer,  which seems miles away from everything, and bring them out.

it's the same sheets,  pillow cases, quilt that i got at the animal shelter garage sale maybe 15 years ago.  Familiar.  Same  ones from New Mexico,  that street in Polvadera.  Linens.  Stuff made of 

cloth

Make the bed.

another day has spun through.  The pull down bed bordered on the West by windows and when i wake during the night i can look out and see stars by the zillions.  They are so BIG,  the stars here and so CLOSE.  More so than ever before anywhere.  I asked Alyssia if she noticed this or if it was just me and she said that she has seen this too.  Stars here,  near the edge of this continent are CLOSE.  There must be a scientific explanation for this?  I'll try at some point to find it,  know it,  but in the meantime,  I wake,  off and on.  Looking out the window.  If Tay sounds an alarm, I will get up,  put on my socks,  my pants, sweatshirt,  shoes and take the Fat Max spotlight OUT into the dark to be sure things are ok and i will look up

at the stars

that are so close they are in their own way, frightening.

 

 

 

 

the dumpster kitten.  In one moment an orphan.  In the next, a part of a Hill Story.  She was ready.  Completely ready.  As if she was born for it. 

I didn't want to bring her.  Most because of Tazmeena who is old and being in a cat carrier from N Mex to this point in California still 200 miles, 3 hours from a destination in the Unknown.

a quote …Eudora Welty…via Maria Popova, Brainpickings

"Writing a story or a novel is one way of discovering sequence in experience, of stumbling upon cause and effect in the happenings of a writer's own life.  Connections slowly emerge. Like distant landmarks you are approaching,  cause and effect begin to align themselves, draw closer together.  Experiences too indefinite of outline in themselves to be recognized for themselves connect and are identified as a larger shape"

She slept that first night in this truck on a towel.  But with morning, first morning,  she was brought out an let go.  And as we walked this land  for my first time,  Tay's first time,  Puppy ran along.  Maybe 6 weeks old?  Less?  a tiny cat….small even for her short life,  she ran along.  Like a puppy.  and so she is Puppy.  Merced for where she was born.  Hill for the world she chose.   At that gas station parking lot,  as i walked Tay on her 12 ft. lead,  she jumped out…toward us.  Tay sprang toward her.  Puppy stood her ground.  As Tay and I backed away, Puppy came forward,  following.  Ready.

in the 2 months since then she has claimed her world.  Almost everywhere you look, Puppy is somehow there.  I look out the window this morning, it's not yet light and there's Puppy walking around in the midst of the Goats.  She has become arboreal.  Sometimes following along not on the ground,  but leaping from branch to branch through the trees.  Now,  when the door has been left open,  she will be discovered on the back bed.  Napping next to Tazmeena,  backs touching.  Tazmeena doesn't like her but has stopped Hissing.   She follows the kids everywhere…parallel play with leaves and twigs.  She is with me during the night when Tay alerts and i get out of bed to check on the Goats…she was with us that night when we captured Sunny Ray and hauled him back to the original buck yard.  She stood with me  afterward as i soaked in the intensity of that,  she and Tay,  just standing.   I have only just recently begun touching her.  Have pet her twice.  Her purr is enormous.  The kids carry her around and you can hear that purr from a distance.

Like i feel about Tay,  Puppy is not a pet.  She is an entity unto her own Self.  A sentient being.  Wild choosing Domesticity.  She is unafraid of all the dogs,  of all their mindless dog energy.  Her brain has mapped this entire Hill and knows how to keep safe..where to run and she's faster than any of them.   and Knowing,  as in out of volition,  she puts herself places like in that playpen when they are all here.  It had been tipped over because of the rain, covered with a tarp.  Right up next to the trailer,  right in the middle of Things.   

she has no tail.  We can't tell if she was born that way or if it was from her beginnings in Merced.

many years ago, upon setting out for Oregon,  from Michigan,  setting out to create a new and different life that made sense,  sitting at a picnic table in a remote part of Glacier National Park,  wondering about what i'd done,  what i wanted to do,

an old woman appeared and came to sit with me.  She asked about where i was from,  where i was going,  and then she asked why.  I felt relieved to tell her the LONG story of it and did,  slowing at the end to tell about how i imagined it would or could all be.  She had listened silently through it all and remained silent for a time when i had run it all out …. and then said,  "There's a snake in every garden."  We shared some food and then she walked a way and i could hear her drive off.

The snake now is in the form of dogs.  And i really can't say much at all about it because i can't get a good enough distance from all the Feelings.  But as this is a journal, it needs its place here in this moment,  in the beginning of it.

There will be 5 dogs living here.  Alyssia's,  daughter Jenny and her man's 3, and Tay.  Right now,  Jenny brings her 3 sometimes when she comes to work.  There is a lot of joyfull comotion.   They run and spin and are thrilled to be away from their small yard in Chico.   There is also a prevading tone of Laissez-faire on her part.  There's a lot more that could be said about this, but i don't have it right now.  Going on into the Now,  so far Tay has done well enough with this…has been ok with trying to learn a way to be a part of it all,  but recently there is a shift and she is confused.   A lot of the shift is focused around Puppy.  A major player in this Big Story that i have not talked about yet.  Puppy is a little cat now.  We found her on the trip here from N Mex,  next to a gas station dumpster,  and as we thought we were walking away from her,  she simply followed, undaunted.  Maybe 6 weeks tops…hardly weaned.  She ended up being put in the back seat of the Old Cowboy's truck,  burrowing into all the stuff there next to Emrie's car seat,  PURRING.    Long story short,  from the first moment here,  as we moved around this Hill,  taking long walks through this forest,  Puppy would follow along.  Sometimes she would lead the way.  She was very tiny.  She acted like a puppy,  and so,  named Puppy Merced Hill.  Merced for the dumpster's city.   She stays outside,  has a box in one side of the horse trailer.   continues to follow everyone everywhere,  the kids especially,  and now often goes tree branch to tree branch.   Over time, when the door to this travel trailer is open,  she has snuck in and also over time has gotten past the initial hissing from Tazmeena to the point of napping with her on the back bed, shoulder to shoulder. Tay chases her.  She flies fast and knows all things cats need to know.  Tay chases her less and less,  and often doesn't chase her at all.   

This is getting too long.  It will need to be in two parts and the next should picture Puppy.  So for now,  the Issue that has arisen often begins with Jenny's dogs trying to catch Puppy.  I think this is true.   They are always told No,  but they continue and in the past Tay had joined them.  But the other day things changed.  Her dogs had been told NO very very loud many times all morning as she tried to keep them in the Old Buck Yard,  them escaping over and over,  her pulling them back etc.  A tense thing….Tay being kept inside a lot to not add to the confusion.   At the end of that day,  they were again after Puppy who was under Emrie's outside playpen.  and something changed.  I  THINK that Tay deccided she needed to become some kind of Enforcer and she got into a very loud and toothful exchange with the 3 of them,  had to be pulled off and away.   

ok.  am going to quit here.  Think more.  before going on.  But the crux of it is that i don't know how to go forward.  It's all very peaceful when it's just Tay.  But it's NOT just  Tay and it won't be just Tay.   So will leave it at this for the moment and try for a pic of Puppy.

the pic here is of a Pinecone House that the kids made of one of the old fallen pines.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

there is a small seasonal stream.   Water travels.  I can't say for sure in which direction yet, i think from North to South?  It runs  along the other side of Carefree Way,  the little semi private road that you see in the pic that finally got edited into the last post,  the little road that Emrie's all terraine vehicle is parked on,  that runs along that bottom acre or  two  of the Hill where Alyssia's  house will be….across from "her" meadow.   It sings the sounds that water makes as it travels over rocks and fallen wood,  sounds of small waterfalls  then trickles it's way along.  Down the way it joins the CanalCreek,  a larger  (by comparison)  body of water that was created for run off from Lake Oroville which then travels on into the Feather River.  Coming home from  the drive to Oroville,  to the post office,   it's Olive Highway.  Then turn onto Old Olive Highway , go along, not far,  and looking up to the left,  a forested Hill rises,  all wild from this vantage point,  just Wild.  But upon turning, you find that it holds these 3 campsites.   Those words,  Wild and Domestic are strong within me at this time…   How wild?  and How domestic?   What can domestic mean?  and Not?

 

 

they work,  They work with the rented Auger,  drilling holes for fence posts.  Under the shallow earth here,  there is granite.  The auger cannot do granite.    Those holes that meet granite early,  need to be chipped with shovel and sometimes a pick axe.  Its slow going.

 

there was hope, because of aesthetics,  of no fence.    To leave it free.   But there are those wolf/dogs that at some point we will need to deal with head on.  But for time being,  a fence.  To ensure that we have met our own end.  Ok.  Compromise.

The "stroller" ….an all terraine vehicle, me and Emrie,  from a gift from Martine.   You can load Everything in it,  including a baby.

  

 

 

 

 

me and Emrie,  we study grass.  we study all manner of things that weave into the earth here,  native grass, dominant,  but others also.  We look,  touch,  admire.  Love…..

trees.  trees.    just the word for them, trees.  

tree.  maybe tree could be Emrie's first word?   If i show her enough?,  say it enough?

that tree in the pic yesterday, the splayed out Live Oak,  ……these along with some kind of giant Pine that i don't yet know the "name" of,   they comprise the Forest here.    Amidst them are other lesser trees,  size wise,  small,  but no less because of size,  their  "will"  no less.   And all manner of shrub.   

 I drove into Oroville today,  Oroville being self named,  City of Trees,   ….  and all along that drive through the cut granite of Earth,  trees are everywhere and in the moment today,  all trees that flower in spring are flowering….  how strange and wonder FULL because it's February,  even in the desert where i have come from,  it is winter…but here,  it is Spring,  maybe some earlier than is usual for even here,  but not a lot…February.   Spring.  I  don't quite know how to think about it all.  Has been so many years since i have lived among trees.   Trees.  How they cleanse the "air".   Down by Alyssia's campsite A., we think about trees…which ones to plant?    We will most likely choose ones that will benefit the Bees.  And i would ask….Everything you can, please lend energy now for the Bees. If nothing else,  go to Aavaz.org and follow their work there for the Bees.  

Trees.  Bees.  All One.   Me.  you.  Emrie.  trees.  bees.  All One.

this is the Morning Tree.  just out from the little table here where i wake up.   Alyssia had put this pic here for me almost 2 weeks ago now and i didn't post it because it wasn't "right".   On the camera,  it is a magnificant image…of burnished copper/bronze brilliance….that same kind of magic that sometimes happened in New Mex…how Sun provides a magic show.   But "reduced" here,  you don't see that .  So i didn't post it.  I guess i can sit here forever,  waiting for something that might never happen how i want it to.  or,  i can just go.   my decision.

at this window,  the table.  coming out from the wall with two bench seats on either side.  Table is 3 ft x 2 wide.  Between the end of the table and the stove and sink,  there is a 2 ft space where Tay usually lays in case someone drops food.

Still living in Chico,  Alyssia drives here to Oroville to take the kids to school every day.  She and Emrie spend the day here.  She picks up the kids after school  and we have late afternoon and then dinner.  Dinner at the aforementioned  table.  Tay on the floor.  So…an 8 yo and now 10 yr old, almost my size,  a mother, an old Nana 

AND a 6 month old human being in a booster seat.  it's tight.  the conversations are always a little loud and fast.    I suddenly really SAW this scene a couple nights ago,  for what it really is,  and most striking was Emrie.  She's so little,  so well, NEW.  But she takes her Place at the table…offering what she can….grabbing at spoons,  squeals,  sometimes makes shrill and loud sounds,  laughs and is so fully and completely a PEER.    

ys
 

 Ok. Where did the pic go?

-Here it is…and then it wasn't.  

but yesterday.  while fumbling around. i see that it is in Draft.  but then,  somehow there suddenly was no mouse.   So wait for my tech support to arrive and while Emrie feeds herself banana stars,  the mouse is retrieved from the nether lands.  

what i'd intended to write here 2 days ago has morphed into Now.  There is a blood moon out there.

I stop off and on throughout the days to see if i can feel the Four Directions.  North  South East and West.  How we mentally place ourselves seemingly at some point at some kind of center within that construct.  i still have no real sense of it.  Will continue.  but  this morning,   i orient to that Moon,  going out between sentences here to look….It moves so fast…now is visible through the trees at the center of the Doe Forest.  It's becoming light.  

RTwo weeks or so ago, give or take,  the next property over guy's two wolf dog hybrids were here.  One coming up the drive. the other IN the Doe Forest.  Alyssia and i try to get that one to leave.  He won't.  We go the fence that divides the properties and call out.  Finally he comes and  says things like they are just curious etc but. really wants to say that he cannot stand the smell of the Goats.  He gets the dog out.   Later, a conference here and it's decided that the bucks need to be moved as a gesture, if we hope to hold him to keeping his dogs out of here.  Ok and it gets done.  To the far other side, the south side.  Tenzen and Nogal, regular fencing.  But we try a new plan with Sunny Ray and Jack Flash.  Deer fencing.  Which is flexible and can be woven in and through the trees.  Done.  This seems to be good until one night, around midnight, Tay and i wake to very very strange sounds and see an apparition in the corridor between Nogals area and the south side of the doe forest.  It moves quickly between, back and forth.  It's Sunny Ray, loose and crashing horns with Nogal,  banging into the doe fence.

it had rained for two days.  Wet.  Slippery. Dark.  I go find the lasso and walk into the action,  Sunny Ray being startled and rushing toward me brushing by his horn on my hip, but turning, realizing it's me and being confused both by the spotlight i carried and by his own self,  miraculously was tethered with the rope around his neck, my other hand gripping his horn and with Tay mouthing him on his other side,  we walk/slide/pull him back into the original yard.   I stood, just breathing.  and all around was so still and saturated with wet and energy.  a Primordial scene.  And the fragrance of it all,  both the visual and the sensual was close to overwhelming.

So yesterday, we finished a third attempt.  Re using the deer fencing but adding 3 tension wires to hold it taught.

and if it works,  we can turn attention back to the road, getting it good enough for the truck to deliver my hut.

real Real Surreal…when you find that surreal is really Real.

and i need to say that all that good intention about sending post cards fell by the wayside.  aside from transitioning mailing for  bills etc.  all i've managed to do is respond to letters i've received in the mail.  I am sorry.  

 

 

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7  days a week.  week days mostly in the afternoons till dark,  weekends, all day.  They work.   A steady pace.  Making decisions as they go,  finding sometimes that things need to change,  changing,   all at a steady pace.  Every day.  Here, they are hauling this tarp stacked with poison oak vines.  They are separated from branches of trees.  It's possible that some of those branches can be burned at some point, maybe,  but the poison oak can't.  Will need to be hauled to the dump.   Only around the home sites and where Goat fencing needs to be placed….but it's a Huge undertaking.   They had all the Goat areas fenced,  but the next property over….2 wolf hybrids…and their owner not liking the "smell" of the bucks,  so…all that to change.  It's a long story and i have tried to post it twice,  but at the end of those long posts,  found that the internet had disconnected and the words were gone.  So, it's still awkward and the internet remains ify.  Alyssia found a way to go into my pics and adjust the definition and post them here for me. Am trying this….coming back in and editing…adding words.  If this works,  and i'll find out in a minute,  I will go forward with it….