Summer Woolly Mammoth Moon
It’s late June and we have a spate of hot, dry, sometimes windy weather ahead of us. In spite of the rains over the last week or so, the fire danger has remained high and this forecast has put us into a stage 2 fireban. The underlying rule in a stage 2 fireban is, if you have to put it out, it’s forbidden. If you can turn it off, it’s ok. Charcoal grill. No. Gas fired grill. O.K. Lot of grumbling yesterday on Nextdoor Shadow Mountain about this ban because it’s in place the week before the fourth.
Makes me remember the inevitable conflict with our otherwise well-liked neighbors, the Perlichs, who lived across the street from us Andover. They loved fireworks. The week of the fourth always got to our dogs. Dogs don’t like sudden, loud noises. Some, like our dear Tira of late memory and Rigel of current experience, really, really don’t like them. A stage two fireban for us is fine, thank you. (Though it does mean I have to carry a water bucket and a pointed shovel with me while I finish up the limbing and bucking.)
Two friends have significant events today and, though I can’t say what they are, I can say that it feels good to have had the time with them last week. It means I’m a little bit more there for them and I like that feeling. Here’s hoping for great results in both cases.
Heat makes me turgid, slows me down. Shortcuts the thinking process. By mid-afternoon the only comfortable place in our house is the downstairs. It does cool off quickly as evening approaches, but for a couple of hours both Kate and me experience debilitation. I know, a strong word, but accurate nonetheless. We’re cold weather creatures who suffer the horrors of sunny days in summer with some grumpiness. The elevation moderates summer heat, yes, but doesn’t eliminate it.
Read an article about folks who move to the mountains and those who move to beaches. Mountain folks tend more toward introversion, beach folk toward extroversion. (and, in the latter case, skin cancer) I suppose if the heat encouraged me to go and find other sun lovers and, if I liked that, then the beach would make sense. Doesn’t, though.
To some extent I feel as if life is on hold while heat dominates the day. See the earlier posts about why I celebrate the turn toward darkness at the summer solstice. It gives me hope.
But, and I might call this the Emersonian turn, we cannot use the offerings of the past without remembering his introduction to Nature: “The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?”
Took Gabe to see Avengers: The Infinity War. We both liked it a lot. At various times I have the aesthetics of a 10 year old, a 12 year old and a long time museum docent. Not sure why, but I’m enthralled by comic book storylines and computer graphics. Vermeer, too. Caravaggio. Tolstoy. Wolverine. Harry Potter. Wabi-sabi. Sci-fi in books and on television. Guess parts of me just never grew up.
Trump. So, George Will wrote a column in the Washington Post urging members of his former party, the GOP, to vote against it in the upcoming election. Somebody has to check the “Vesuvius of mendacities.” Great metaphor. Even better idea. Of course, he believes that a Democratic congress will be as pusillanimous as the current GOP one, but it will not buckle toward the president, but away from him. He’s not become a liberal, hardly, just a pragmatic conservative who finds Trump abhorrent from a different place on the political prism.
Gabe and Ruth have been here since Thursday night while Jon worked on his house. Somehow we’ve finally sorted out a way of being together that seems ok for everybody. Hallelujah and hosanna. Kate has calmed, I’m not sure how, but she has. Wonderful to see. Gabe’s more attentive, more fluid in his speech, if not more fluent. Ruth cooks, sews, goes to the planetarium, talks about matters both important and funny. We interact, but on our terms, all of us. A family of introverts (though Ruth sees herself as an extreme extrovert) takes a while to find an equilibrium. Especially post-divorce.
Easing back (if that’s the right phrase) into high intensity interval training (HIIT), up to 9 minutes of 30 second, 20 second, 10 second intervals, moderate for 30, higher speed for 20, as fast as possible for 10. Once I get back to 10 minutes, two 5 minute sessions in a row with a two minute break, I’ll start increasing the incline on the treadmill. I’m only at 2% right now and I’d like to get to 4%.
Jon’s working on his house, creating maps of wiring he intends to install and getting ready to rewire much of it. He’s got so many skills and he’s very bright. He seems to be gradually getting his balance though it’s been a tough slog. Ruth and Gabe both have become much less reactive. Neither of them will ever be normal kids, just fine with that.
According to my weather system we’ve had 1.5 inches of rain this month. That’s 6.8% of our annual precipitation total of 22 inches. (Conifer does better than the state, precip wise, 22 inches on average with 105 inches on average falling as snow.) And most of it came over the last three days. Pinecam.com is abuzz with hosannas. Things were not looking so good when the four of us left for Durango. Now? Much better.
Writing, at least for me, is sufficiently compelling that I’ve continued to write over the years without success in publishing. That’s working without regard to the results. And, I found quite a while ago that that was enough for me. The writing is, itself, sufficient reward.
Mario is already in town, taking wildfire pictures with his usual acumen, traveling over mountain passes. Tom and Paul fly in today and we’ll have a slow cooker Irish stew up here on Shadow Mountain, all of us. These are friends of well over thirty years, men with whom I shared twice monthly meetings over that time, plus annual retreats. That bond was the toughest thing to leave behind when Kate and I moved out here.
Of course, one of the things I forgot to mention about my brief, successful excursion into small engine repair is this. Now I can mow the fuel. That clogged carburetor had given me a pass for a week or so until I decided to tackle it myself. Mowing the fuel is much different from mowing a yard. The purpose has little to do with aesthetics or neighbor pleasing. The fines, as the fire experts call them, are grasses and flowers that, when dry, serve as a fuse so that ground fires can travel from place to place.