Category Archives: Shadow Mountain

Commentary on Religion, Family, Health, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

You know, daily life.

February 20, 2017 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc Valentine Moon

Sundays still exist out of time for me, as if they’re not quite real. They are my rest day from exercise and I usually read, watch TV or movies, do something outside the house. This is psychological residue from years as a Methodist, then Presbyterian. I often worked on Sundays, but just in the mornings. Now, with a pagan sensibility, that old imprinting, the mood of Sundays, still prevails. Seems odd to me, but it happens anyway.

Today is Kate’s colonoscopy. She’s been prepping since 6 pm yesterday. For those of you who’ve had one, you know that’s the fun part. The actual test itself, tinctured with some conscious sedation, is not a big deal, unless of course it reveals some precancerous polyps or actual cancer. They’re relatively quick, over in a half an hour. Then, a good lunch.

Ruth, here for a day of President’s Day skiing with her dad, got sick yesterday afternoon. She spiked a fever in the late evening. “I want my daddy!” Daddy was in Denver finishing up the move I mention below. He did finally get home and things took a turn for the better.

Red flag warning tomorrow, high winds and low humidity mean real and present danger of wildfire. Time to find the pole saw and get to work. The next phase of fire mitigation, which I didn’t finish last year, involves trimming branches on the lodgepoles up to 10 feet above the ground. Branches lower than that potentially become ladder fuel, allowing a grass fire to climb up the ladders into the tree itself.

Well, time for my workout. I’ve successfully shifted them to the early morning, mimicking my appointment times at physical therapy. It will be better in the summer months, too, when the heat builds in the afternoon and mornings are still cool.

Art and Culture, Colorado, Dogs, Faith and Spirituality, Family, Friends, Jefferson County, Judaism, Memories, Minnesota, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Park County, Shadow Mountain, The Move, The West, Third Phase, Travel, Weather +Climate, Woolly Mammoths

Becoming Coloradan

February 18, 2017 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc Valentine Moon

No snow. 10% humidity. A spate of small wildfires. Result: stage 1 fire restrictions put in place by Jeffco. In February. Winter has gone on holiday and the outlook for summer is fiery if we don’t get more moisture in March and April. Like death, oddly, I find the whole wildfire possibility invigorating. It motivates me to work on our lodgepole pine and aspen and it brings those of us who live in the mountains closer together. A common foe.

Lodgepole pine. From our bedroom window I look out and up to a jagged line of tree tops. On clear nights stars often align with the tops of the pines, giving them a decorated for Christmas look. Sometimes stars also align with branches further down, emphasizing the effect.

Which reminds me. Monday or Tuesday night of this week I looked up at the pines, as I often do before falling asleep. They were lit up with what looked like lightning bugs. What? The phenomena went on for quite a while, small specks of light flashing off and on. Obviously in February and up here on Shadow Mountain, no lightning bugs. A complete mystery.

While waiting on the Rav4 to finish its spa day at Stevinson Toyota I spent some time considering whether I had become a Coloradan yet. First thing. I left my prostate and significant portions of my left knee in Colorado. No flowers in my hair, but I do feel I’ve contributed in a meaningful, whole body sort of way. Then, living in the mountains. Everyday. Learning the rhythms of mountain seasons, the wildlife, the vast number of hikes and sights and sites to see. And we’re adjusted to life at 8,800 feet. A very Colorado and mountain thing.

Of course, there are Jon and Ruth and Gabe, family links to schools, synagogues, sports, life as a child in the Centennial State. Our dogs, too, as Dr. Palmini said, are mountain dogs now. Due to the spate of mountain lion attacks on dogs in the last month or so, I have a concern for their safety that is very Coloradan. In fact I bought a powerful LED flashlight and have my walking stick ready to do battle with a mountain lion if necessary.

Congregation Beth Evergreen, in addition to a religious community, also facilitates ties with people who live up here like the lawyer, Rich Levine, we saw last week. Many others, too. Kate has integrated quickly thanks to the two sewing groups she belongs to: Bailey Patchworkers and the Needlepointers. Her integration helps mine.

The town of Evergreen has many great restaurants, as does Morrison. We go to jazz and theater in Denver.

That’s the coming to Colorado part of the story. The other is my relationship to Minnesota. Of course there are the Wooly friends, especially Tom, Mark and Bill and the docent friends, many of whom I connect with through Facebook, but also through visits, e-mails, the occasional phone call. Those connections are still strong, even though attenuated by distance.

Minnesota will always occupy a large, 40-year space in my heart. That’s a long time, enough to become home. So many memories, good ones and bad ones. But, it is just that now, a 40-year space in my heart. I do not want to return. Life is here, now, and that, more than anything else, tells me that, yes, I have become and am a Coloradan.

Family, Garden, Shadow Mountain, Woolly Mammoths

Three Score and Ten

February 14, 2017 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc Valentine Moon

Got a birthday card yesterday. 70, it said, in large numerals. Wow. A new decade begun under a three quarters Valentine Moon.

vintage-valentine-with-swans

We finally got around to having our estate plan updated yesterday. We saw Rich Levine, a member of Beth Evergreen. We wanted to know whether our documents needed any changes to make them comply with Colorado law. “The law is very good with dead people,” he said, “Everybody dies and we inherited English common law.” He meant there was a significant body of law already in place about death and how to tidy up after it. “So, the good news is that most documents are good across states. Yours are fine.” They just need a codicil here or there.

will-testament_audible-wisdom-org_CC

Health care directives are a different matter. There, state law differs, so he’ll have new ones drafted for us. Kate asked about right to die since Colorado enacted it last year.
“It requires two doctors to certify that you have a medical situation that qualifies, so there’s nothing we can do about preplanning for that.”

All good stuff to get done as I join Kate in the 70’s. Yes, we wink out at some point, as Rich said, “Everybody dies.” I find the certainty of death and its relative closeness invigorating.

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Over the years, with so many dogs, so many of them Irish Wolfhounds who die very young, I’ve come to treasure each moment with each one of them. I know they won’t be with us forever. Of course, there’s sadness associated with that, but there’s also an incredible intimacy that comes from sharing their time with us, knowing we will see their death. I’ve begun, of late, to transfer that awareness to myself, to Kate, to the time we have left with our grandchildren, children and friends. This awareness is visceral, felt in the deepest part of the heart, and so valuable.

My 70th decade will find that awareness grow and become more and more a guide to my life. I know it.

Family, Judaism, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate, Writing

Dry

February 12, 2017 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc Valentine Moon

I’m finding myself dry today. Starting and restarting topics, not settling into flow. Yesterday was busy and I missed my post. I also didn’t get my 750 words in on Superior Wolf though I did get my workout in at 6 am. Missed my newly started Latin work, too. Rhythm, for me, is critical to long term projects and rhythm needs consistency, even missing a day can disrupt a hitherto productive schedule.

There are matters more important than productivity. Quite a few of them. Two of them showed up here on Friday night: Ruth and Gabe. Yesterday morning saw me at Beth Evergreen twice, once earlier and once for a wonderful seder for Tu B’shevat. After that, it was nap time.

Following the nap Kate and I took Ruth into Denver for a birthday party for her buddy, Augie. They did parkour. Before taking her to the party, however, she and Ruth went shopping at Joann Fabrics. They found material to complete her costume for her Destination Imagination play. She’s the main character, a dragon. They also found cloth for Renaissance Festival costumes. Kate, Ruth, Gabe and I are going to dress up and go. Ruth wants to be a wealthy medieval woman. Gabe will be a version of Robin Hood. I’m leveraging my sparse white hair and white beard for the role of a wizard. Kate, I’m not sure what she’s going to do.

After dropping Ruth off at Augie’s home in the new urbanism shaped grounds of the former Stapleton Airport, Kate and I went to the New York Deli for supper. Kate had her favorite, chicken noodle soup with a matzo ball and I had the featured dinner, corned beef and cabbage with new potatoes. This place is an authentic Jewish deli and is a mile-high city branch of a deli of the same name in New York. In fact, their baked goods are still made in New York and flown frozen to the Denver location. They believe New York City tap water is the key to good flavor in their bagels and bread.

It was raining in Denver and in the 60’s. By the time we reached Shadow Mountain it was 32 degrees and snowing. It was good to be home.

Commentary on the news, Politics, Shadow Mountain, US History

Sanity in Interesting Times

February 3, 2017 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc Valentine Moon

I’m weary of politics, bet you are, too. A sports columnist compared Trump’s flurry of executive orders to a strategy in basketball where one team fouls the other so much in the first five minutes that referees are less careful the rest of the game. It turns, she said, into a very physical game after that. That’s why we need to stay angry, but stay cool. This is a long game and we need to stay in it.

It’s also why we need to point our anger at its source, not its symptom. The source is the cynical manipulation of fear and despair that Trump and his team of mediocres represent. The symptoms are those who feel fear and despair. Solutions to the current crisis, and it is one, lie in a two-pronged approach: 1. resistance to the actions of Trump and his team of mediocres and 2. finding policy solutions to those matters, principally economic, that drive the fear and despair he and his team exploit.

The resistance has begun. Organizing for Action-Conifer is a local example, but there are thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions participating. Again, and probably again, I will quote Rabbi Tarfon: “It is not your responsibility to complete the perfecting of the world, but you are not free to desist from it either.”

I do not see much evidence, yet, of people proposing policy solutions for the divide that seems most troublesome of all: the economic prospects of U.S. citizens with a high school education or less. Such policies exist, many of them are well known, but the ones that will not work are those that count on the free market. Rising tides do not lift all boats, especially those not seaworthy. Counting on the ocean that sank the smaller boats in the first place is not a plan, it’s a recipe for disaster.

Make no mistake. This time is the direct result of Democrats and liberals ignoring fundamental politics, the politics of financial well-being for those not in the 1%. The shift away from these fundamentals was done in a good cause, this change in focus away from the old union, working persons emphasis of the Democratic party of my youth. Here’s an excellent article that explains how the shift happened and why it’s been so problematic, while also accomplishing a lot of good things along the way: The Peculiar Populism of Donald Trump.

I know. The drumbeat of political war drums can rattle the best of us, make us want to hide until this is all over. I get it. I feel it. Why not just stay up here on Shadow Mountain and let the flood wash up against the foothills below us? Tempting. But not who I am and, I imagine, not who you are either.

Dogs, Health, Jefferson County, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

Lack of Snow and Mountain Lions

February 2, 2017 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc Valentine Moon

Last year we had 240 inches of snow. This year, hardly any. These are El Nino, La Nina patterns, though I don’t understand how they relate to us exactly since the mountains west of the continental divide have had an unusually heavy snow year. Summit County has had 8 feet of snow and has issued warnings to shovel roofs. Crested Butte has had snow so deep that I saw a picture of a guy on a mound of snow, with a snow shovel, shoveling snow off his roof. This is a region, especially in the mountains, of microclimates. Geography is meteorological destiny here.

Of course, with the knee surgery, I’ve been glad to have less snow during my recovery period, but I told Kate the other day that the next storm, I’ll fire up the snow blower. The new knee, not exactly like the old knee, but pretty damned good is ready for some outside work. I think.

The lack of snow has meant that the persistent snow in the backyard-it faces north-has been compacted by doggy feet, melted by 50 degree days, then frozen again at night. The result is a hard, slick surface that the dogs don’t like. Rigel hurt her leg yesterday, not badly, but enough to make her cry out. Her pained yelp brought me running and I saw her with her left rear leg held up, off the ground. I went downstairs and let her in the house.

In local news there have been several reports of mountain lions killing dogs. The latest happened yesterday, well south of us, but in Conifer. A couple reported two mountain lions took their dog, a blue heeler, off their front porch, around 5:30 pm. They saw one of the mountain lions carry the dog away. Heartbreaking.

Mountain Lion, Feb 2 Jeffco sheriff photo

Mountain lions are crepuscular predators, meaning they hunt at dawn and dusk, when their usual prey, mule deer and elk, are also active. 5:30 pm is dusk right now. I admit I’m a little worried about our dogs, but having three makes things less risky. Kepler would fight back and probably be effective. Rigel and Gertie are older now, less able, though Rigel is bigger than most mountain lions and a fierce hunter in her youth.

Colorado, Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, Great Wheel, Great Work, Holidays, Mountains, Plants, Politics, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, The West, US History

Imbolc, 2017

February 1, 2017 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc Valentine Moon

Feb

Imbolc, or in-the-belly, celebrates the time in Ireland when the ewes would freshen. Their pregnancies meant milk would be available after the long fallow season that had begun at Samain, Summer’s End.

Imbolc lies halfway between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox, what the Celt’s called a cross-quarter holiday since it falls between two quarters defined by the solar year. That milk is also a promise, like the gradual lengthening of days after the longest night of the year in late December, that spring and the growing season will come.

It’s easy for us in our refrigerated, grocery stored world to gloss over these signals of the natural world. It seems like we don’t require them anymore. After all we can buy milk, cow’s milk, at any time of the day or night, 365 days a year. And the growing season particular to our latitude and longitude also seems irrelevant since it’s always the growing season somewhere on earth. The occasional gaps that even modern transportation can’t resolve can often be filled by greenhouse or hydroponically grown produce. We’re good, right?

I’m afraid not. Celebrating Imbolc or any of the Great Wheel holidays will not resolve our alienation from the sources of our sustenance, the sun and mother earth, but this ancient tradition exists to call us back home. The Great Wheel is a reminder that the cycle of life continues, even when the fields and animals are barren. The power of the sun, working in harmony with the soil, with plants, with animals that eat the plants does not disappear. It can be trusted.

awakening

It is though, that alienation, evident in so many ways, that drives climate change, that creates produce modified for harvest and storage, not human well-being, that underwrites the paving over of cropland and wetlands. We imagine that somehow the droughts in California will stop there. We hope they’ll be confined to somewhere else, somewhere where we’re not. Global agriculture means we’ll be affected wherever the damage occurs.

Colorado River Basin

Right here in Colorado we have a key example of the interdependence for which the Great Wheel stands. Our snowpack, high in the Rockies where the Colorado River rises for its journey south toward its ancient destination in the Gulf of California, determines the amount of water available to nine states. Including California. Winter snowfall, melted by the increasing warmth of spring and summer, nourishes millions of people, cities like Las Vegas, Phoenix and Los Angeles.

common ground

In the age of Trump and rising nationalist, right wing populism, the need for the Great Wheel has never been more profound. It softens our in the moment, human conflicts by lifting up the long term, the cycles of life in which all humans, all life participate. The Great Wheel reminds us that there is no other when it comes to living on this planet. We’re all here and bound to one another, connected. My hope is that someday, perhaps someday soon, we’ll all realize that and adjust our politics accordingly.

Colorado, Dogs, Family, Jefferson County, Judaism, Memories, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, The Move

Glad We Live Here

January 30, 2017 Charles Leave a comment

Winter Valentine Moon

The dogs after delivery by Tom Crane and Kate, before the boxes

The move, two years plus later. On October 31st, Summer’s End of 2014, we closed on 9358 Black Mountain Drive. Later that same year, on December 20th, the Winter Solstice, we moved in. At the time we still owned our home in Andover, Minnesota. When the boxes piled up in all spaces of our new house, we looked at them, breathed in and out heavily and took a nap. We were to breathe in and out heavily for three months or so as our bodies adjusted to life at 8,800 feet.

The winter weather on Shadow Mountain that preceded and followed our move was snowy and cold. Even for two Minnesotans. We had to learn mountain driving on snowy, slick roads though the Jefferson County snowplows did do an excellent job of clearing and sanding our main road, Black Mountain Drive (Hwy. 78).

IMAG0927_BURST002 — Progress, January 2015

Even so, living in the mountains was what we wanted and it was everything we hoped and more. Every drive took us past rocky, conifer covered mountain sides. We were on and among the Rocky Mountains.

Of course, yes, we moved out here to be closer to the grandkids and to Jon and Jen, family, 900 miles closer. Jen had expected us to move closer to them and was upset we decided to live in the mountains. We never did get her to understand that our move had two related, but distinct purposes: the first was to live in a place that we loved; the second to be with people we loved. Now that the divorce is over and the apres divorce time underway we are certainly glad we chose our home based on our dreams rather than hers.

Jon and Ruth clear our drive before the moving van comes

Kate rapidly found a quilting group, the Bailey Patchworkers, and began meeting with them monthly. Out of that group came an invitation to a smaller group of needle workers who also meet monthly. I didn’t find that kind of local connection until a few months ago when we both started attending Congregation Beth Evergreen. Since then, I’ve also found Organizing for Action-Conifer. We’re both gradually becoming part of our community here in the mountains; actually, communities, because we have as much affiliation with Evergreen, perhaps more, than we do with Conifer.

It’s been a medically eventful two years for me with prostate cancer in 2015 and the total knee in 2016. Kate’s rheumatoid arthritis led to hand/wrist surgery over a year ago and she continues to have degenerative disc disease related pain. Combined with the divorce, which began in earnest in May of 2016 and continues as Jon still lives with us, it means we’ve been very inwardly and family focused the whole time so far. We both hope this year gives us a break on the medical front and that Jon finds a new home for himself, Ruth and Gabe.

20151114_111107 — fire mitigation, 2015. Just before the solar panels were installed.

Every once in awhile, we say to each other: I’m glad we moved here. And we are. The mountains teach us, every day, what it means to be mountains and what it means to live among them from snowy weather to elk and mule deer to rushing spring streams to less available oxygen. We’re very glad we’ve been here to support Jon and the grandkids. Those two reasons for the move have both manifested themselves in positive ways.

We’ve begun our third year on Shadow Mountain. Can’t wait to see what happens next.

Colorado, Commentary on the news, Jefferson County, Park County, Politics, Shadow Mountain, US History

What Time Is It?

January 28, 2017 Charles Leave a comment

Winter New (Valentine) Moon

Something’s happening here. I attended a meeting last night of Organizing for Action-Conifer. This group has gone from 20 to 180 in four weeks and that in the rural mountains of southwestern Jefferson and eastern Park County. Resist was a big word for the night. Many of the women had on their pussy hats from either the Washington March, five women, or the Denver March, most of the rest with a few men.

We broke up to form issue working groups: ACA repeal, women’s health, immigration, climate change, marginalized groups, Jefferson County issues, Park County issues and redistricting/midterm elections. Though climate change is very important to me, I sat with the Jefferson County folks. Why? Because I believe the Republicans, especially the Tea Party and the Koch brothers, stole several steps on progressives by focusing on local and state elections. This move, very successful, allowed them to control state legislatures and often governorships, which in turn gave them power over redistricting.

The whole moment gave me a boost although my days of late night political strategy sessions are past. By 8:30 p.m. I’d begun to yawn, feel heavy since I’m usually in bed by that time. (and up at 4:30 a.m. to milk the cows. well, no. to feed the dogs) These kind of meeting times are necessary though since most folks work during the day.

So I’ve found some allies who live nearby. We’re already making phone calls, writing letters, visiting legislators at the state and federal levels, marching, planning for a sustainable group and getting focused on issues. I’m still waiting to see what Beth Evergreen creates. Something, I hope; but if not, OFA-Conifer is already at work.

Aging, Holidays, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

Love Is Still Its Heart

January 27, 2017 Charles Leave a comment

Winter New (Valentine) Moon

I turn 70 next month. Not a particularly notable achievement since the silver tsunami includes millions doing the same thing this year, but, hey; it’s my only chance to hit three score and ten. Kate’s been there ahead of me and knows the territory, so have many friends. Thus, the Valentine moon.

kileaua

The old man on Shadow Mountain, that’ll be me after Valentine’s Day. One piece of gathered wisdom from the time so far: life is still precious, love is still its heart.