Category Archives: The Move

Colorado, Friends, Minnesota, The Move

Restless

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Samain                                                                  Closing Moon

A rambling, aimless energy. A similar feeling to the one just before a major holiday, when preparations are mostly finished, but the time is not yet. Wandering, a bit difficult to focus, not sure what’s important, since most of the important things have either been done or cannot be done yet. We have a mortgage, a new home, a fence contractor at work, a moving company scheduled, workers ready to renew our old home after we vacate it. Yes, there are a few things left for us to pack, but they’ll be finished soon. But we don’t leave until mid-December. An odd place.

This is no longer the neither here nor there feeling, nor the liminal space of living in the move. This is a before the move feeling. We’ve pushed Sisyphus-like this boulder up, up, up the hill and now it’s about to take all that momentum and careen down the other side. But. Not. Quite. Yet.

Off to play sheepshead tonight, perhaps my last time unless I teach the game to Jon, Jen, Kate and Barb. A good distraction. And another farewell.

Just went online, put in Colorado sheepshead and found, to my surprise, a meetup with 10 members, formed Oct. 25, 2014 for players of sheepshead. I joined. Who knows? Might be fun.

Forgot to mention that I also got an invitation to be introduced to the Conifer Rotary. I’ll probably pass on that. Sierra Club or the local Democratic party are more likely affiliations for me.

 

The Move

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Samain                                                             Closing Moon

The moving documents have been signed. The oriental rug is inside from the truck, carried on my back, an action barely within my physical limits. The guy at the American Rug Laundry makes it look easy.

After completing my Latin quota for the day (which I’ve set aside for nearly a month until yesterday), I’ll be back to packing. The goal this week, finish packing my office. Then, there are files and papers I haven’t touched in years and may just choose to pitch. After that, I’ll have to stop and think. I may be done or will be close to it. By mid-week next.

 

Cooking, Friends, The Move, Woolly Mammoths

Rich in History and Rich in Memory

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Samain                                                                               Closing Moon

Lunch today with Ode, discussing a brochure, a sales book for our house at the Birchwood Cafe. Dinner tonight with Tom, Roxann and Kate at Cafe Zentral. Each of these moments, extending friendships, adding to the years of time together, and in that sense not all that remarkable, are nonetheless remarkable. And poignant.

At lunch today Ode passed me as he came to sit down, placed his hand a moment on my shoulder. In that brief touch was twenty-five years of shared history, of knowing each other. We ate, spoke of our move to Conifer-“This is really happening,” he said.-his upcoming long trip to France with Elizabeth, about the cutting boards he was making of exotic woods. Then, we discussed which pictures, what words, might help that one person or couple see our property as their next home. And we were done.

Kate and I came early to Cafe Zentral, a relatively new restaurant at 5th and Marquette in the old Soo Line Building. The blue line runs beside it, on its way out to the airport and the Mall of America, on the way back to Target Field where the Twins play.

This place is dim, in the way that upper end restaurants often are. The food was excellent and continued that trend I’ve experienced elsewhere. That is, you get less food as you pay more for it. Gotta be one of the few products for which that’s the case.

It was not the food though, not the restaurant, not the blue line or the downtown location, but the friends. Tom and I have been Woolly Mammoths exactly the same length of time. We were initiated at Valhelga together, a year or so after the Mammoths came into existence.

Again, we spoke of this and that, but even the content of the words was not so much the point, but the being together, the being seen by each other, the acknowledging of those years, the now long years we’ve known each other.

So today I am a rich man. Rich in friends and in history. And able, thanks to long years of analysis, to say good-bye and retain these friendships. To see the parting not as final, not as abandonment, but as the closing of a chapter, the end of a period of time. I’m grateful to all these friends who value me enough to say farewell.

 

Colorado, The Move

A Bit of Whining

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Samain                                                                             Closing Moon

Back to packing this morning, but the heart’s not in it. It’s not a reluctance to move on, not at all. Rather, it’s a weariness, evident today. Push, push, push. Out to Colorado, home, out to Colorado. Home. Now confused about location of home. The task seems impossible, even though I know it isn’t. We’re 85% packed and the movers will do at least half of the remaining packing. Just. Tired. Of it.

Not surprised I feel this way. And, I’m ok with it. I just hope it doesn’t last. Gonna be tough to move us if we’re not ready.

 

 

Colorado, The Move

A Few Shots

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Samain                                                                          Closing Moon

A few shots from my recent trip to Colorado. Not sure what happened to the one of the three mule deer bucks looking at me in our new backyard. They let me get very close.

Dining Room
Dining Room
Reading Area from Dining Room
Reading Area from Dining Room
Brookforest Inn - our closest dining
Brookforest Inn – our closest dining
From grocery store parking lot
From grocery store parking lot
The Road to Minnesota
The Road to Minnesota
Colorado, The Move

A Compression

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Samain                                                                             Closing Moon

Kate's Realm
Kate’s Realm

A snow quiet afternoon. A pause, an interlude between stronger bursts, then the second   helping, a large white scoop to fill out the rest of the dish. Yesterday it was fall. Today, it’s January. Whiplash.

We worked hard over the last month or so at outside tasks emptying the sheds, harvesting, then fertilizing and mulching the vegetables, the same around the base of the fruit trees, cutting back the perennials, having a contractor prune and mulch, scrape away the dog’s many holes. We put up fence to protect the scraped over areas to prevent new holes until a snow. I repaired a hole dug near the firepit. We moved bee woodenware and other accessories into the garage. I removed the angel weathervane from the honey house and the Davis weather station from its post in the east section of prairie grass.

This is not so much a downsizing, though there is that element to our move, as it is a house and garagecompression, a reducing of the outside work load. Our interior space will be smaller, somewhat, but very differently organized. I’ll be up in the air overlooking Black Mountain while Kate will sew and quilt in a former two bay garage. Our reading area will be our reading chairs facing a wood fireplace while the tv will be downstairs, outside our bedroom. The laundry room is down there, too, all just five steps from the main level.

Kate’s space is behind the double windows on the right of the house and mine is above the garage to the far right.

 

Colorado, Health, The Move, Weather +Climate

Minnesota!

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Samain                                                                               Closing Moon

And the award for first roads driven while snowing goes to… Minnesota! Colorado, at least Conifer, is still blessedly shy of snow which means the fence posts will get in. It won’t last. Conifer gets 90″ of snow compared to Andover’s 45. More snow falls there, but the sun, closer by 8,800 feet, also melts the snow faster and the colds don’t get as intense, at least on south facing surfaces like our driveway. The result is more snow, but less snow cover.

The roads on my way to the eye doc this morning were icy, but plowed. Folks drove sensibly for the most part though there were the occasional frozen minds talking on the phone or even texting. A few also followed too closely for dry pavement. The laws of physics will not be repealed, no matter how confident a driver you are.

Not bad for the first storm, really.

At the front desk, on the way out, I signed a release for my medical records so they can be transferred electronically to the next ophthalmologist  The same will happen when I visit Dr. Massie in a couple of weeks. This is much more convenient and better for me as a patient, too. Thank you, difference engine.

 

 

Colorado, Garden, Memories, The Move

Good-Bye Midwest

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Samain                                                                  Closing Moon

Laid down two year old straw in the orchard, covering up exposed landscape cloth and soil2010 10 04_0347 put in to repair holes dug by various dogs. Brought inside the garage all but two hive boxes, making the bee colony left for the showings less intimidating. Started taking up the silt fencing that protected the area we had scraped over to fill in even more dog holes. The snow coming should make digging a non-issue for the remainder of our time here.

These final outdoor chores, more than anything else we’re doing, say good-bye to the world of the Midwest, the agriculturally focused life that has been around both of us as we grew up. We participated in that life here in Andover growing vegetables, fruit and flowers. Growing anything in the very short growing season at 8,800 feet will require season lengthening strategies such as hoops for plastic tents and starting plants indoors.

Whatever we do, it will be on a much smaller scale than here. We’ll have all winter to plan it.

Colorado, Great Wheel, The Move

Winter Solstice 2014 on Shadow Mountain

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Samain                                                                             Closing Moon

This full moon, shining on the early weeks of Samain, illuminates important nights in our life. Already within in this new year we have purchased a new house, contracted a mover, found fence, painting and carpet contractors and readied ourselves for the final push psychically, fiscally and logistically. We will, still in the season of Samain, move into our new home and begin our new life in that house.

Then, only two or three days later, the highnight of my sacred calendar, the winter solstice, will come and we will celebrate our first solstice on Shadow Mountain. This is a potent beginning to a new year and to a new phase of life.