Monthly Archives: June 2015

Family, Our Land and Home

A Library

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Beltane                                                                   Closing Moon

Jon came out yesterday with Ruth and Gabe. The kids immediately go to their room, the one with the painted mural, the legos, the reading nook, the small dvd player. There they play. Gabe puts together lego constructions. Ruth, yesterday, made a duct tape messenger bag and watched a video.

Jon’s primary purpose for coming out was to get started on the built in bookcases for the loft. He measured and we looked at bookcases we can purchase through IKEA. He’ll use the bookcases we buy, then put a molding around them so they look like built-in’s. The pedestal cabinets will get a wood top from Paxton lumber and the lower built-ins will have a surface from them, too.

I’m excited about getting my books off the floor and into final places. Mary said all libraries need “bibliographic control” or they’re useless. The built-ins will allow me to achieve bibliographic control again. In addition to her Ph.D. Mary also has a masters in library science.

360 205370_10150977727553020_150695969_nThere will be, too, metal cabinets for my banker’s boxes that contain manuscripts and novel notes, other research. Jon will also adapt the large wooden crates we had built to ship our two largest paintings into dividers to mark off spaces in the loft: workout area, large project area (tables for spreading things out), reading area and writing area.

Jon’s an amazing guy with lots of different gifts, just like his Mom and his kids. I’m lucky to have married into this clan.

Art and Culture, Colorado, Jefferson County, The West, Travel

Golden

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Beltane                                                        Closing Moon

To the Colorado Geology Museum on the Colorado School of Mines’ campus. Introducing Mary to the geological and mining heritage of our new home. Struck up a conversation with the clerk in the gift shop, always a School of Mines’ student. She was a geological engineer and headed for work in a petroleum or mining related job.

“Both are cyclical,” she said, in response to my question, “But both are at the bottom of their cycles right now.” She has no job and her geological engineer spouse does. “But,” she said a tad ruefully (they both graduated last month), “teaching middle school science.” In St. Louis.

I’ve not yet raised the question about environmental effects with any of these students , still feeling my way into the local culture. But, I intend to.

After the Geology Museum we went into downtown Golden. It has this odd theme: Denver stole the title of capital from us and we’ve been working ever since to bring you things worth seeing. Snarky, a self-put down and, to me, unpleasant.

We had some yogurt. Kate and Mary went to the quilt museum which apparently had a wonderful exhibit while I wandered the main street poking my head into shops. None of them really grabbed. The art galleries were full of yesterday’s ideas and tomorrow’s kitsch. The gift shops had the usual assortment of inexpensive gemstones, bottle cap openers with your name on the handle, hats and t-shirts and sweatshirts with Golden somewhere written on them. I did see one piece I liked. A pillow with a hand sewn Colorado flag featured an elk in the lotus position. Sounds cheesy, but the execution was good.

Eventually I sat down in the shade.  Just another 68 year old guy waiting for his wife to come to the quilt shop.

 

Colorado, Family, Jefferson County, The West

Visiting

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Beltane                                                                  Closing Moon

Mary always brings gifts, this time beautiful cloth for Kate from Indonesia and items of anthropological interest for me, including a small book of odd superstitions common in Singapore. In another post I’ll share some of them with  you.

Visiting family and friends requires real commitment on her part since it’s about 9100 miles from Singapore to Denver. That’s roughly ten times the Minneapolis/Denver distance. How she endures all that international flying, I don’t know. I find it exhausting and maddening, one in direct relation to the other.

Last night we all three went to the Fort, the restaurant I wrote about before that was built to imitate Bent’s Fort, an 1830’s trading company’s place of business in what is now southern Colorado. They serve what would have been available on the menu at Bent’s Fort: bison, elk, quail, lamb, beef though I notice Shrimp Veracruz and Quinoa, which Mary had last night, have been added.

The Fort is all adobe construction with thick tree trunks as support beams and pillars. It overlooks, from high among the red rocks of the Fountain Formation in Morrison, the twinkling lights of Denver about 20 miles in the distance. The staff dresses somewhat like voyageur’s, appropriate since Bent’s Fort did business with French trappers and traders who worked closely with native peoples here as they did in the far north.

 

Faith and Spirituality, Feelings, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.
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Beltane                                                               Closing Moon

When attention defocuses and my mind heads toward default, it no longer picks up a stray red flag: What about the $%*&$NG house in Andover? This creates space for other thoughts to arise, of course, like: what about my prostate? But that’s fine because action on it is ahead and noticing it does not create anxiety, just resolve. This means I now have some free space, some room to expand my horizons. That makes me feel good.

Anoka County, Family, Feelings, Jefferson County, Shadow Mountain, The Move

Closing Moon

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Beltane                                                                      Closing Moon

The closing moon has presided over the sale of 3122 153rd Ave. Northwest, Andover, Minnesota, 55304. We only needed one buyer and, in fact, had only one offer. But, it was a good one, from a couple that will continue our work with the land and with bees. That they want the raised beds, the orchards, the hydroponics, the bee woodenware and will use them all feels like a legacy. And a profound one.

Feels so good to have this behind us. A settled feeling, residing somewhere below the heart, has begun to permeate me. There is no longer that agitated sense that we do not quite belong on Shadow Mountain, that a tie from yesterday makes us not fully present in our new home.

Over the weekend I entertained, briefly, what would happen if the deal with the Vorhee’s fell through. The house would have to go back on the market. We’d continue with two mortgages and utilities. The uncertainty would continue, perhaps through the summer. And, we would have to drop the price again. That felt dismal, like sinking in the great swamp of that name.

Now I can concentrate on dealing with prostate cancer with a single focus, not one divided by financial concerns. I’m confident that the prostate cancer journey will have a good outcome, too, but the path forward still has some unknowns, mostly what sort of treatment we’ll choose. That unknown should disappear on June 11th, after then only the execution and recovery.

 

 

Colorado, Family, Minnesota, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, The West, Third Phase

I’m An Old CowHand From the Rio Grand

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Beltane                                                           Closing Moon

Three things of significance today. Picked up Mary for her first visit to Black Mountain Drive. I’m wired up with leads and a belt holster, ekgs available at the push of a button. This is for thirty days or until I have 3 episodes or events.

And. The Andover house closed, almost all of the money is in our bank account. We are no longer cash poor and paying two mortgages. Yippee, Yi, Ya as we say out here in the West. It hasn’t quite sunk in yet, but we’ve looked up our bank balance and it’s pretty damned healthy. Great to have that uncertainty behind us.

Now the entire circus tent has been struck, all three rings, loaded on the train and the train’s left town, heading west. Our last physical and fiscal ties to Minnesota ended today around 3pm. The friendships, the cultural and political ties, those will remain.

But today we are wholly here from a business perspective. Black Mountain Drive already feels like home, as does the Front Range. How long it takes for our souls to take root in the mountains is an unknown, but a pleasant one, a process of taking the mid out of the midwesterner. It’s already begun. Gotta go now and hitch my hoss to a post.

 

 

 

 

Anoka County, Faith and Spirituality, Family, Feelings, Health, Minnesota, Third Phase

Chunks of our life

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Beltane                                                     Closing Moon

Word on Real Estate Street is that our closing may, if the gods of the under(writer)world are appeased, happen today at 2 pm. May it be so.

Holter monitor gets strapped on at 11:45 this morning and then it’s out to DIA (Denver International) to pick up Mary. She’s flying here from Minneapolis where she goes to see her financial advisor. Mary gets around. She’s been in Greece, Indonesia and I don’t know where else already this year. Her home is still in Singapore.

Which brings up Mark. Brother Mark. Who reports that Riyadh is hot. He also sends me news of bombings and shootings in Saudi Arabia, many of them claimed by the Islamic State. He says he feels safe, especially since he lives near the King’s palace.

Steadier internal seas, less distraction. Even cancer can recede when it becomes ordinary, a part of the inner furniture. That’s not to say it’s out of mind, just relegated to the we’re doing something about this and have to wait pile. This will, I’m sure, go through changes, but right now, a good place.

(How I will feel after the closing actually happens.)

General
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Beltane                                                      Closing Moon

And so I was able to translate verses in Ovid, 4 of them, enough because this was one long sentence and difficult for me.

Felt good to have the concentration necessary.