Category Archives: Jefferson County

Aging, Cooking, Dogs, Family, Health, Jefferson County, Memories, Minnesota, Shadow Mountain, The Move, Third Phase, Weather +Climate

No Need to Push Into the Future

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Lughnasa and the Labor Day Moon

Thursday gratefuls: The lovely Labor Day Moon hanging over Black Mountain. Orion’s return. 44 degrees this morning. Snow in the forecast for Tuesday. Kate, dealing. Rigel, eating. Kep, smiling and jumping. Brother Mark at work in the Sands of Arabi. Retired Mary waiting out Malaysia’s quarantine policy. Murdoch and Brenton’s new chocolate puppy, a real cutie. Alan. My cataracts.

So. Tuesday. According to Open Snow, a website for ski enthusiasts and those who live in the Mountains, Snow. Could range from showers to 6 inches, depending on the forecast model. The full winter after our move, 2015-2016, Shadow Mountain got 220 inches of Snow. Surprised these Minnesotans used to deep cold, but nowhere near that much Snow. More like 45 inches on average.

Another tough day for Kate yesterday. She canceled her appointment with Amber, the wound care therapist. Nausea. General discomfort. Enough problems with breathing that she wants a wheelchair for her out of the house times. Shifting from the rollator, a sort of moving walker with four wheels and a seat. Whatever she needs.

The arc of her symptoms is not a good one, It bends not toward health, but toward increasing infirmity. A telehealth time with Dr. Gidday, our primary care doc, today. If we could get a good grip on the shortness of breath and on the leakage from her feeding tube site, she could improve quickly.

These days are just difficult, not knowing what to expect from her body. What can I get you? A new body. If not that, new lungs. We laugh. We’ve cried enough.

Rigel. On the mend. Eating more like her old self, now dry food as well as canned. Smiling more. Looking brighter. What a joy. I’m taking her illness in, yes, I know it’s there, but I rejoice with her improvements. A gamble, a good one as of this morning.

Kep has stopped nipping at his skin. The last two times we’ve had him furminated he’s developed itchy skin, which he nips, sometimes bites. Licks. He ends up looking like a dog with mange. He’s healing, but what we’ll do the next time his double coat starts releasing fur for his comfort, I don’t know.

We’re as much medical clinic as we are home. Nurse Charlie tends to his various charges. Changing bandages. Preparing and serving food. Giving medications. Paying attention to changes. Scheduling appointments.

An oddly fulfilling role. Satisfying, I think, because I can do something for each of them, help them. Not my role to cure them, fix them. Though stressed, I remain calm, unworried about tomorrow. Today has plenty, no need to push into the future.

Colorado, Denver, Family, Great Wheel, Great Work, Jefferson County, Minnesota, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Park County, Plants, Shadow Mountain, The Move, US History, Weather +Climate

Bloody Sun

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Lughnasa and the Labor Day Moon

Tuesday and Wednesday gratefuls: Kate’s DEXA scan for bone density. Ruby’s a.c. for the drive. Euphoria on HBO. Ruth’s new favorite show. Rigel’s improving appetite. Amber. Mountain Waste. The blood red morning Sun. Teenagers. The complexity of their lives, made even more complex by Covid. The orange excrescence and what he’s showing us about our country.

The dawn Sun here bleeds for the Fires burning through the West. The clouds show their concern with reflected color. Northern California and the Western Slope of Colorado are aflame. Their smoke and ash foul the Air we breath even up here on Shadow Mountain.

We live in the Arapaho National Forest, filled with Lodgepole Pine and Aspen stressed by drought, valley meadows with a summer’s growth of Grasses, also dry. The National Forest Service warning signs have pegged their highest mark, Extreme, for weeks now.

Western life. Punctuated by drought. Rejuvenated by Fire. Relieved by heavy Mountain Snows. For thousands of years. “Go, West, young man.” We did. But we white folk are not nomadic. We do not know where a village can be safe. We just build. Glass and steel. Hardie board and shingles. Permanent. As if there were no fire. No drought. These are strategies of the humid East, dangerous in the arid West.

As Greeley’s famous invitation flooded the West with people from the East, pushing out, slaughtering the people who knew how to move with the seasons, we made the same mistakes over and over. I’m living in one right now. It’s beautiful here on Shadow Mountain, but this house will burn. And that’s what Lodgepole Pine Forests do. They burn. All the Trees. Leaving fertile ground for a new Ecosystem.

Humans make mistakes. Often. And the consequences are sometimes horrific. Sometimes wonderful. Human life is one long unintentional adventure in empiricism. Oh, if we do that, this happens. Some of our mistakes lead us to lives otherwise impossible. Like our life here on Shadow Mountain.

Kate and I understand that we might be living here when the Forests catch Fire. That our home may be temporary. We choose to stay for the same reasons populations of us Eastern folk spotted all over the Mountains and Intramontane regions out here do. It’s beautiful and close to the Wild Life, a reminder of a world not controlled by humans.

Oh, yes, there’s a paradox. Live where it’s not safe. Why would we do that? We’re mistake makers, non-linear decision makers. We’re human.

Colorado, Cooking, Denver, Dogs, Family, Feelings, Health, Jefferson County, Memories, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Plants, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, US History, Weather +Climate

Water

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Lughnasa and the Labor Day Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Jon, Ruth, Gabe. All here to celebrate Grandma’s birthday. The specific Animals that gave their lives for our meal: scallops and a tri-tip steak. The heat. When it leaves. Jon and Ruth’s happiness with the gift of Ivory. (our 2011 Rav4). Gabe’s “Air hug. I love you Grandpop.” Rigel at home. The chance to cook for a crowd. Kate. Always Kate.

Didn’t do much for Kate’s birthday on Tuesday. Lots of stuff going on before, that day, and after. But we hit it yesterday. Grandkids. Scallops. The gift of empanadas from Jon and the kids. Rigel up and about. When they left we both collapsed, as usual. A good exhaustion. Happy to see them come. Happy to see them go.

Record heat in Denver. Hot up here, too. Not by other spots standards, I know, but we’ve become acclimated to a cooler day.

You can’t see the Mountains from Denver. Jon. All this smoke and haze, heavy particulates has obscured us. We’re still here. The haze is here and the smell of smoke hangs in the Air like a harbinger. It’s bad further west, but the Wildfire threat is extreme here, too. Humidity at 16. The Ground Water evaporates. The stress on Trees and Grasses grows with the lack of precipitation. A grim reminder that we’re all part of this Ecosystem.

Ruth said that Animals from the Foothills are fleeing into metro Denver. People have been asked to leave water out for them. Can’t do it here. Habituation. Which kills Animals rather than helps them.

The arid West is not the humid East. The Mountains are not the Plains. Whether we realize it all the time or not, our lives have Water as a disruptive actor. The lack of it. Water from the Western Slope, for example, goes to Denver through huge tunnels and pipes. The southern burbs of Denver have depleted much of the Aquifer that sits beneath them. Long periods of dryness lead to extreme conditions for agriculture, Wildlife, and our Forests. The Colorado River Compact promises more Water to its downstream users like Las Vegas, Arizona, and Los Angeles than actually flows through it.

Diane, my San Francisco based cousin, told me about the book, Cadillac Desert, long ago. That piqued my interest in Water. I’ve been fascinated ever since. The way the Plains states like Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, and even parts of Oklahoma and Texas have based their economies on the Ogallala Aquifer, an enormous reservoir of mostly ancient Water that underlies them. No Aquifer, no amber waves of Grain, no fruited Plains. The Great Lakes. Now, the Colorado River.

Consider the Water where you are. It is Life itself. Worthy of your attention.

Coronavirus, Jefferson County, Mountains, Original Relation, Our Land and Home, Science, Shadow Mountain, US History, Weather +Climate

The Mountains skipped like rams

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Summer and the (new moon), the Lughnasa Moon (moon of the first harvest)

Monday gratefuls: Clean floors and toilets. Chex Mix. Cinnamon rolls. Shrimp. Claussen’s picked up the pallets. Neowise. Samwise. Tolkien. Robert Penn Warren. The harem of Elk in the lower meadow. The confused Mule Deer Buck on Shadow Mountain Drive. All of our wild neighbors. And, our human ones, too.

When Kate and I went to see Amber last week, the meadow at the bottom of Shadow Mountain Drive had a harem of 20 Elk Cows, several Calves, and one proud Buck, strutting, head high. It’s a large meadow that lies between Conifer Mountain and Shadow Mountain, at the base of both. It has a Marsh that attracts Moose sometimes and an expanse filled with Grass that gets baled for hay later on in the year, this Meadow also attracts Mule Deer and Elk.

Seeing wild Animals living their lives is thrilling. Makes life in the Mountains awe-full. Delight, joy jumps right into your chest. The Mule Deer Buck that couldn’t figure out what to do with the metal barrier on a curve closer to home evoked concern. I flashed my lights for oncoming cars to warn them. The courteous dirt bike rider behind me was cautious. The Buck was unpredictable. In the five and a half years we’ve lived here I’ve seen only one dead Deer along the road, so these situations work themselves out.

As I reached in to pull out the Denver Post, I looked up at Black Mountain. A few small cumulus Clouds crowned its peak. The ski runs are dry, jagged brown scars down its face.

Unbidden, as happens often, we live in the Mountains wrote itself on my inner screen. A muted sense of wonder followed and I stood there, the latest doom-scrolling in my hand, captivated by the Mountain summer.

When Israel went out from Egypt…The mountains skipped like rams,
    the hills like lambs. Psalm 114, NRSV

The Mountains are calling and I must go. John Muir

These are not ancient Rocks caught in the stupor of inanimacy. These are not piles of Stone pushed up from the Earth’s Crust and left alone. These are Mountains. Tall, steady, confident. Like Vishnu they are stability, order, toughness made real. Shadow Mountain allows us to live on its peak and on its sides, but it could take away that permission. One massive burn through its forest of Aspens and Lodgepole Pines and our houses would be gone. Shadow Mountain would remain. The forests would grow back.

We are so Mayfly like to these sturdy beings. Our kind may not last as long Shadow Mountain. Surely won’t if we don’t change our behaviors. Yet it gives us a home, like it gives a home to our wild neighbors. A Mountain forgives those who tread its flanks. Except, perhaps, for those who shave off its peaks, ruin it with strip mines. Or, hard Metal mines that pollute Streams, kill Wildlife.

Time though. Time is the Mountain’s friend. It waits as its colleagues Rain, Snow, Ice, Lightning, running Water scour what human’s leave. Tumble it down through Creeks and Streams. Dilute it, spread it out. A million years on Shadow Mountain will look much the same, perhaps a bit shorter, perhaps a bit narrower, but still substantial. 9358 Black Mountain Drive will have long ago become a forgotten pimple.

We can learn from the Mountains. Even our Mayfly lives can gain from patience, from being slow to react, from purification in the waters of the heavens. We need these lessons now, in these Covid 19 times.

Cooking, Coronavirus, Dogs, Family, Health, Jefferson County, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, Travel

Needed

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Summer and the Moon of Justice

Wednesday gratefuls: Mary’s recovery. Nasal polyp removal. Anitha, her bestie caring for her at home. Meeting with our financial advisor, RJ. Zoom. The health of our corpus. The three Earth countries sending visitors to Red Mars. Tianwen, Perseverance, Hope. China, USA, UAE. The night sky. Our stumpless front yard. Needing a break.

Want to set this burden down. For a bit. Need a vacation. A staycation. Something. Always on. Dogs. Kate. Cooking. House maintenance. Cleaning. Mail. Groceries. (Kate pays the bills.) Cars. Insurance. You know, all that domestic stuff. Work outs. Organizing stuff. Laundry. (Kate folds. Thank god.) My own health. Doctor visits. Imaging, hospitals, emergency rooms.

A bit whiny, maybe, but I do need a break. Of some kind. Not gonna happen either. No place to go, for one. Thanks, Covid. So even if putting the dogs at Bergen Bark Inn and Kate in respite care weren’t expensive and a hassle in itself (something more to organize), the virus makes travel unfun.

Having Seoah here was wonderful, of course. And, she did relieve the cooking and house cleaning. But not the overburden of responsibility.

Trying to figure out what I can do here on Shadow Mountain. Just crossed off workouts for a week and a half. I always go back, so that’s no danger. Problem with them is I moved them to mornings so I wouldn’t miss them so often. I used to work out around 4 pm. Too hot now. Plus cooking the evening meal. Other things. The move to mornings has worked well. I’m very regular with the exception of morning appointments out of the house.

But. Not getting any writing done, painting. Reading has shrunk to news and serious material like Art Green’s Human Narrative. Some pleasure reading in the evenings.

I want to finally finish, I’m oh so close, the loft. Then get back to writing and painting. I’ll take early morning hikes. Read some more fiction. Watch movies. I’ll buy takeout for the next week and a half, too. That should help. Ah, hell. I could take two weeks off from exercise. I might. Jump start a renewed Covid, stay-at-home life.

Yes. This sounds good. A respite. Needed.

Anoka County, Colorado, Denver, Family, Friends, Holidays, Jefferson County, Memories, Minnesota, Mountains, Myth and Story, Our Land and Home, Park County, Politics, Shadow Mountain, The West, Third Phase, Travel, US History

#244

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Summer and the Moon of Justice

Saturday gratefuls: This country. These purple mountain majesties. The lakes of Minnesota. Lake Superior. Evergreen. Conifer. Shadow Mountain. The great plains, rippling wheat. Corn fields of Iowa. Lady Liberty. New York City. San Francisco. Puget Sound. The Colorado River. The Mississippi. The South. New England. The first lighters up there in Maine. Jambalaya. Gumbo. Devil’s Tower. El Capitan. Crater Lake. The Mackinac Bridge. Protests. Alexandria. Muncie. The Big Medicine Wheel. The sacred Black Hills. Cahokia. Carlsbad Caverns. Marfa. West Texas. From sea to shining sea. Haleakala. Waipio Valley. Waimea Canyon. Da Fish House. Denali. Kodiak. Salmon. Grizzly. Wolves. Lynx. Wolverines. An amazing country still.

244 years old. Lot of candles for that red white and blue cake. Hard times. Like the Civil War. The First World War. The Spanish Flu. The Depression. WWII. Yes, it’s been hard before. Will be again. We navigated the churning, stormy waters of all those. We can get through this one, too.

A canard? Maybe. Yet, I believe it’s so. Rising out of this fire may come a nation truer to its ideals. No more Trumps. Ever. No more easy white privilege. No more easy oppression of people of color, women, lbgt. A more just economic and medical system. If we do, the pain will have been worth it.

I love this country. From Route 66 to the hot dog shaped hot dog stand in Bailey. From Coney Island to Puget Sound. From the Minnesota angle to the bayous. It’s my home, my place, the spot on this earth to which I am native. It can be tarnished by the political class, but not erased.

Here are my friends, some of my family, the graves of my ancestors. Here are the roads I traveled as a young man, the streets and fields I played in as a child, houses in which I’ve lived, the cities I’ve loved and fought for. This is the land of memory.

Let’s celebrate #245 with a 46th President. And with 45 in jail or disgraced. Make it so.

Aging, Anoka County, Coronavirus, Denver, Dogs, Faith and Spirituality, Feelings, Friends, Great Wheel, Health, Jefferson County, Kabbalah, Mountains, Myth and Story, Original Relation, Our Land and Home, Plants, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, The West, Third Phase, Weather +Climate

At Her Funeral

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Beltane and the Moon of Sorrow

Thursday gratefuls: Gauze sponges. Wax o-rings for Kate’s leakage. Stoma powder. The chance to care for Kate. A forty degree morning on Shadow Mountain after 92 degrees in Denver on Monday. That silly Rigel, not acting her age. At all. Kep, the serious. Dog groomer today. The Kabbalah class. Folks liking my presentation. Workout yesterday.

Pine pollen season. Yellow streaks on the asphalt. Pollen lying on wooden tables, adding some color. The winds rushing through the Lodgepoles, shaking loose enough for a yellow storm. Part of the turning of the Great Wheel. That I could do without personally. But, how would we get baby Lodgepoles otherwise? Sneeze and bear it.

Wildfire danger remains high. Dry, Windy. Yesterday the Humidity in the loft was 2%, outside 6%. The arid West. A positive note. It was 80 degrees up here and a slowly rotating fan was all I needed to stay cool. Rigel, we’re not in Andover anymore.

A woman in my kabbalah class wants my Grammar of Holiness read at her funeral, “…whenever that may be.” A strong positive reaction to it from the class. Rabbi Jamie’s going to reprint in the synagogue newsletter, the Shofar.

Always thought my reimagining faith project would be a book, a radical theology with chapters and footnotes and acknowledgements. Nope, two pages. There it is. It feels said to me. We’ll see if I continue to feel that way.

After reading several pieces about Covid and underlying medical conditions, Kate and I have decided to become coronavirus hermits. Our hermitage, Shansin, on top of Shadow Mountain. We’ll ride it out with as little flesh and blood contact as we can stand. Would sound bleak, but Zoom helps, and we’re introverts, happy with each other, ourselves, and our dogs.

And, given recent news, I will add: white, privileged, financially secure, and aging with good medical care.

Still no word from the Singapore government. Seoah may fly there next Tuesday. May not. Covid has impacted lives in so many different ways. This is just one of them, but it’s personal, right here.

From Shadow Mountain, where the sun is rising and the morning is cool.

Beyond the Boundaries, Faith and Spirituality, Great Wheel, Health, Jefferson County, Mountains, Myth and Story, Our Land and Home, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., The Move

A Year Ago

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Beltane and the Moon of Sorrow

Tuesday gratefuls: Lululemon, it delights Seoah so. Arlet, the clerk at Lululemon who wants to be Seoah’s friend. The Highlands neighborhood of Denver. Its shops and restaurants. Hwy. 285. I-70. All those other drivers. Evergreen. Safeway. Curb pickup. The Mountains. Snow on the Continental Divide. The winds.

Had an idea for yard cleanup. I’m going to text my neighbor Derek, see how much of our wood he wants. Then, I’m going to post on Nextdoor Shadow Mountain for anyone else who heats with wood. Free fuel. You move it, it’s yours. That’ll get rid of the trees. The slash will go to the curb for chipping. I should be able to handle the rest along with Jon. Some of the remaining stuff belongs to him.

One year ago today two Elk bucks jumped in our yard and began eating Dandelions. Shansin, or his Rocky Mountain avatar, sent those angels to our house. You belong here, Charlie. Neighbor.

Resonated then, and now, with the Consolation of Deer Creek Canyon from 2015. The Mountains rising on either side of Deer Canyon Road spoke, but I was still deaf to the full meaning. The unimaginable age of these young mountains, millions and millions of years since the Laramide orogeny pushed them up, let me put my diagnosis, just received, in a different context.

I drove back from Dr. Eigner’s office, stomach hollow and sour, thoughts flitting from imminent death to it’s a mistake to I can handle this. I can handle this. I can handle this.

Deer Creek Canyon helped me see it was just death. Nothing more. How many deaths since the Laramide mountain building? Uncountable. Insects. Deer. Elephants. Mammoths. Humans. Dogs. Whales. Barracuda. Coral. So much death. Yet, these Mountains were young. My death had nothing unusual about it. I would become part of that uncountable number. That soothed me. Not sure why. Maybe because I didn’t feel singled out, picked on, targeted.

With the recurrence a lot of those old fears and those old reassurances came marching back onto the field. No, said the Angels. This is new. We have come, neighbor, to tell you it is both new and old. The Mountains will embrace you each day as you drive to and from the radiation. Our brothers and sisters will hold you in their wild hearts, as you hold them in yours. We know death and pain and whatever your journey, your ancientrail becomes, we will not abandon you.

Three Mule Deer bucks stood in my backyard on Samain, 2014, when I came for closing on the house. We spent a long time together. They were the wilderness welcome I didn’t even know we needed, yet there they were.

This year three Elk bucks came. This year, probably not until November, I’ll find out whether I have a cure. Again. Reassurance again, from the wild hearts beating all over our home in these Rocky Mountains. More than enough for me.

Aging, Anoka County, Colorado, Cooking, Coronavirus, GeekWorld, Jefferson County

Imminent

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Beltane and the Moon of Sorrow

Saturday gratefuls: Our Kenmore 19 Frostless Freezer. Its good years of service. A good temporary solution to its imminent demise. Crowhill Appliance. Dave, the tech. Seoah’s help. Kate’s smile when Rigel lay down on her quilt. The gift of pleasant days. Pine pollen. Fish. Curtis Spitler Ellis. Gertrude Eliza Ellis. Judy. Raeone. Saturdays.

Symptoms of a pandemic. Remember all those folks buying toilet paper? Even though Covid doesn’t have g-i effects? Or, the whole PPE scandal with no masks for medical personnel? Out of stock items on Amazon like hand sanitizer, toilet paper? Discovered another one yesterday.

On Wednesday Seoah told me about an alarm going off in the garage. I spent my usual minutes of frustration trying to find it. Not the cars. What else could it be? Oh. The freezer. Temperature alert. Red light flashing. Uh-oh. Remember those meat bundles I bought from Tony’s? Yep. In danger.

I looked at it. Opened the door. No frost buildup. The meat might have just started to defrost. I pushed the quick freeze button, shut the door, and the alarm went off. OK. On Thursday it was beeping again.

We bought this freezer near the time we moved to Andover. That was 1994. It’s been a good mechanical servant for all those days. I even hit it with the car once and it kept on ticking. Had an incident last year when it frosted up. I removed everything, left it open for a day, and the frost melted. I loaded it back up and it continued to work. Until Wednesday.

Time for a new freezer, it seemed. I started looking first at Consumer Reports. OK. GE makes good freezers. I hunted for them online. Looked at Best Buy. Ah. They have it. $900. Reasonable. Wait. That button changed from yellow to gray. Oh, out of stock. Well, understandable. It’s a good one.

I checked Lowes. It was out of stock there, too. Appliance Factory. Out of stock. Specialty Appliances. Home Depot. All out of stock. Ok. I looked for one of the others Consumer Report recommended. Out of stock, too. Decided to check for any old freezer. Out of stock. Kate suggested I look for a chest freezer. Out of stock.

There is nowhere in Colorado that you can buy either an upright or chest freezer. I suspect that’s true everywhere. According to a salesman I talked to, only two manufactures of freezers remain, Amana and Frigidaire. They make all the other brands. Not sure what that means for all the Consumer Reports subtle gradations. Anyhow, they’ve told all their customers there will be no stock again until early to mid-fall.

That put me in a funk yesterday. I like to solve problems and when I have a problem that seems unsolvable. Not good. Hundreds of dollars of top quality meat in a dying freezer. Damn.

Went to bed for a nap. See if some sleep might refresh the circuits. While waiting to go to sleep, I remembered the freezer in our refrigerator. It’s a pull-out bottom freezer and has a fair amount of space. I imagined the packages of meat I’d bought from Tony’s. Huh. They should fit.

My funk lifted. Today Seoah and I will switch the lower value foods stored in the refrigerator with the meats in the dying Kenmore. When I asked Dave, the tech from Crowhill, how long he thought the freezer would last, he said, “A day. A month. Several months.” And shrugged.

They don’t do compressor repairs anymore. That’s because at $900 to $1,000 they’re more costly than a new unit. If, of course, you can find one. I thought briefly about going ahead, but then realized I’d have a brand new compressor in a freezer over twenty years old. Other stuff in it is old, too.

We’ll continue using the Kenmore until the compressor ceases to function. If we lose some popsicles, frozen veggies, or tater tots (yes, sue me. I like’m.), that’ll be ok. It was the thought of losing all that meat and not being able to do anything about it…

And, when Amana and Frigidaire crank back up, we’ll get ourselves a new freezer. Sometime this fall.

Dogs, Family, Friends, Health, Jefferson County, Mountains, Myth and Story, Original Relation, Plants, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, The West, Third Phase

Sanshin Speaks

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Beltane and the Moon of Sorrow

Sunday gratefuls: Two Elk bucks, eating dandelions in our backyard. Kep, stepping on my eye in his surprise at seeing them. Seoah, bleary eyed, “I got video!” Sanshin reminding me of the reassurance he sent last June, just before I started radiation therapy. Reassuring me now. Wild neighbors. Who go where they want, when they want. For whom humans are at best a nuisance. For my heart, which follows my wild neighbors

Kep likes to get up, then lay down on me in the morning. It’s part of our getting up ritual. When he does, though, he can see out our bedroom window. This morning he let out a bark and lunged forward, putting his right foot on my right eye. Ouch. Good thing eyelids move fast.

As I let Rigel and him outside, I saw what had caused Kep to react. Two Elk bucks stood on our drainage field, eating dandelions. Talk about the web of life. They are huge, as big as the Cow Moose I saw last week, perhaps a bit bigger.

Neither Rigel nor Kep barked at them. The two Dogs and the two Elk eyed each other. Kep and Rigel went off to pee and wander around the yard. The Elk continued eating dandelions. Elk Bucks, healthy ones anyway, can fend off Wolves and Mountain Lions, so Kep and Rigel were no threat to them. Kep and Rigel seemed to get that, too.

At first I thought these couldn’t be the two who came last June 17th to reassure me before my radiation therapy started. One of those had only one antler. Then. Oh. Yeah, the horns grow back each year. Could well be the same two, back to their secret stash of the yellow flower. Right now they’re resting among the lodgepoles in the northeast corner of our property. Last year they stayed the night.

Yes, the radiation has been on my mind. It was a year ago this month that my imaging work was complete, the new diagnosis finished. I knew the radiation would start, but I wasn’t sure quite when.

These two Elk, come again for our dandelions, have also come again to soothe the part of me that remains anxious, uncertain. No definitive news on the effectiveness of the radiation until November. Dave died last week and a needleworker friend of Kate’s died last week, too, also of glioblastoma. Cancer always wants to kill you.