Spring Maiden Moon
Needed something on which to make tea. So, from beetle kill pine by Jerry at Whispering Pines Design:
OMG!
Spring Maiden Moon
Blew the driveway twice in the same day for the first time this winter. Not sure how much snow we got, but the water content is very high. A good thing. Maybe 1 foot, maybe a bit less. (between 16 & 20 inches, actually) Knee held up through both times. Good sign, I think.
Head spinning as I read political news. Jeb Bush endorses Ted Cruz. Apparently some young shrub in Texas may be the next hedge hope for the White House and he’ll need Cruzian support. Cruz himself wants a police guard on Muslim neighborhoods in the U.S. Trump would close our borders until we got things sorted out. Like watching a building demolition in slow motion, seeing the Republican party try to make sense of the mess they have wrought.
Knee, Snow, Travel
Spring Maiden Moon
The knee, 20 hours later. Feeling pretty good. Almost normal. A bit creaky, a little twingey, but otherwise, pretty damned good. The cortisone effect can last from weeks to months. I’m hoping months. The big issue with the knee, beyond Asia, is my regular workout. High intensity workouts, which I’ve been doing for a while, require some speedier, more stressful moments on the treadmill. The cortisone will make them easier for now. Worth it.
In other news here on Shadow Mountain we’re getting what may well may be another foot of snow. And this stuff is wet. And therefore heavy. Of course it’s Wednesday, when the trash goes out. Gonna get the yellow Cub Cadet out, but if it plugs up all the time, I’ll wait for the solar snow shovel or find somebody to plow us out.
Up here the forecast can change quickly if a system moves a bit further north or south. Last night the forecasts were for 2-7 inches. But in reality.
Today, and maybe tomorrow, is going to be largely trip related. Finish photographing our stuff. Get necessary information onto a flash drive for portability. Open a dropbox account to put my writing in the cloud. Get our emergency box of important papers put together. Sign up for international cell phone plans. Figure out how folks can contact us when necessary. Fussy stuff.
Spring Maiden Moon
Black Mountain White
Imbolc Maiden Moon
Black Mountain is white. I can see it out of two windows here and its looming shape, it’s about 1500 feet higher than our altitude here on Shadow Mountain, blends in with the sky. The lodgepole pines and the few aspen that cover it are snow covered. The mountains, which seem-and are-the definition of stability and bulk still surprise me by how frequently they change appearance. In the fog Black Mountain disappears. After a heavy snow it changes color, becomes different from its green and rocky self. At night, if Bishop Berkeley was right, it goes away, only to return in the morning light.
(Black Mountain is above the trees on the left)
In the fall aspen light up its elevations, gold against green. The green becomes more vivid.
The Front Range is a physical barrier to a traveler from the east as they head west along the 40th parallel. It marks the end of the Great Plains and does so in a sudden upsweep of rock. Those of us raised in the humid east find ourselves in a new, startlingly new, land. A big part of the fun of being here.
Staying With It
Imbolc Maiden Moon
Latin. If I plotted my feelings on a graph, they would look like a roller coaster. Yesterday I read my written translations, rather than trying to pick my way through a sentence without consulting what I’d done in the previous couple of weeks. Very goods and atta boys. That made me feel more confident. Consulting the English after I translate a sentence has made me better.
It’s still about plateaus. This one is nearer to the goal than I’ve ever been. My skill is mostly adequate, with substantial help from the commentary and using English translations to make me rethink my work when necessary.
I’ve invested so much time in this project that I want to continue. Not an easy decision, but since I wrote about this a while back, I’ve made progress on my novels and on Reimagining while continuing to translate 5 or so verses a day. Switching my work flow to novels and Reimagining first, then Latin adjusted my work day to my priorities. Feels much better.
Vega
Imbolc Maiden Moon
Vega saw the vet for the last time, probably, for this incident. Her recovery took a couple of weeks longer than planned due to a rogue infection by an e-coli strain resistant to all but two available antibiotics. The final treatment involves putting Artemis honey on the remaining open area at her incision site. That means getting out a kitchen knife, dipping it in the honey, then slathering it over the open wound. Supposed to speed healing by 40%.
One of Vega’s learned skills is door opening. She pushed open the sliding doors off our deck in Andover and unlatched the main door we use here on Shadow Mountain. I was sad a couple of weeks ago thinking that her door opening days were over. Not so. She now rises up on her hind legs, flicks the latch with her remaining front leg, the right one, and leads the pack into the house.
Snowpack
Imbolc Maiden Moon
Winter snows have more long term relevance here than in Minnesota. The snowpack in the Rockies, especially the mountains whose melting snows feed the Colorado River, influences water availability in nine states including drought battered California. So when we get a late March snow like the one going on right now-about a foot when it’s done according to Weather Underground-there are lots of happy people. This snow and a couple more apparently coming next week are welcome because we had a dry February and a dry, up until now, March.
Come On
Imbolc Maiden Moon
The silly season. Amplified. A Congress that has done nothing but obstruct governance, especially the House of Representatives, now finds the upper house in the news for a stunning decision to avoid their constitutional duties of advice and consent. The Senate Republicans have chosen a politically odd position: we will not hold hearings and certainly not a vote on a new Supreme Court Justice to replace Antonin Scalia.
The calculations involved are cynical. No big news there, but let’s call it what it is. The GOP has had a mostly congenial court for several years with five conservative justices and they’d like to keep it that way. So they position themselves as the people’s champion under the slogan, Let the people decide by electing a President.
I’d say this is a big gamble on their part, on two fronts. First, the Republicans have more to lose in Senate seats up this year than Democrats. This intransigent stand, clearly against Senate traditions, US political history and the Senate’s constitutional responsibilities should hurt Republicans most in the races for Senate. I hope. Second, and even more likely, when Hillary trounces Trump, she’ll nominate a candidate even further left than Obama has. Then, the Senate will be one down publicly after this silly season debacle.
The Supreme Court matters. A lot. And this change will create more conflict as the months roll on.
Oh, I Feel His Pain
Imbolc Maiden Moon
He has my undiluted empathy.