Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

Pace of change picks up

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Beltane                                                        New (Healing) Moon

Very windy this morning on Shadow Mountain. The pines sway and the thick clouds of last night have dispersed. Rain again yesterday and last night.

The sale of the Andover house–still a cause for joy here–has started a cascade of small and large changes on Black Mountain Drive.

An electrician came by yesterday to give me an estimate on installing our generator. I have to schedule a plumber to run the gas line to the west side of the house, then Eric will position the generator and the plumber will connect it. After that the automatic transfer switch goes up and connects to the generator.

Kate’s interviewing a housecleaner today.

Our bookshelf order from Ikea for my loft comes today. Jon will begin to install them when he gets back from Chicago next week.

After the deputy chief of the Elk Creek Fire District gives me a mitigation plan on Thursday, I’ll begin to implement it. Once I know what he recommends, I’ll also call in a stump grinder to clear the many stumps in our back yard. That will make the yard much more useable as an outdoor space.

Still to come: new bed and mattress, kitchen remodel, shower remodels.

All part of settling in. Good to be in a place to do these things.

 

 

Family, Memories

Summer Haze

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Beltane                                                        New (Healing) Moon

photo by sister Mary
photo by sister Mary

Summer as a boy meant trips to Morristown, Indiana to visit grandma and grandpa Keaton, Aunt Virginia and Uncle Riley, and their kids Diane, Richard and Kristen. Charlie Keaton, my grandfather, pictured in a post below, was a horse trader. He made his money, as I understand it, by driving around in his car, listening to the stock reports from Indianapolis, and buying up cattle and other livestock, then selling them for a better price in the stockyards.

He loved horses, was a railbird at Churchill Downs and owned his own harness horses which he kept on the farm about three or four miles outside of Morristown. He lived in town in a big house. Set on a corner lot it had a wraparound porch, large trees that shaded it, so it was always cool, even in the humid southern Indiana heat.

Uncle Riley continued the harness racing tradition after my grandfather died. Richard picked it up from Uncle Riley.

Morristown, more than Alexandria, where I grew up,  is a place where I have roots. Even though Mom and Dad’s graves are in Alexandria, it feels like a temporary place, someplace I was for awhile before moving on to my real life. Morristown, on the other hand, has that summer morning haze off the river feeling, a place where my people lived and where they still live.

hanover cemeteryNowhere is this more evident than in Hanover Cemetery where the first row of grave markers are Keatons and near them are Zikes. Charlie and Mabel are there. Uncle Riley and Aunt Virginia. Aunt Barbara. Uncle Paul and Aunt Gertrude. Aunt Mary. And many more.

The farm, the one that grandpa won on a wager at the horse track, is just around the bend and up a slight rise from the cemetery. Keaton farmland runs in back of the cemetery and to the north of it.

What positive feelings I have about Indiana come from this small town, Grandpa’s big house, the farm and this cemetery. They represent, they are, for me the spot where family and place have the most coincidence.

Politics, The West, Weather +Climate

Toddler Politics

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Beltane                                                                         New (Healing) Moon

“People “should not be forced to live on property with brown lawns, golf on brown courses or apologize for wanting their gardens to be beautiful,” Yuhas fumed recently on social media.”

“Drought or no drought, Steve Yuhas resents the idea that it is somehow shameful to be a water hog. If you can pay for it, he argues, you should get your water.”  Washington Post, 6/13/2015

New hashtags #watershaming, #droughtshaming underscore an intensely personal political divide now being made clear in California. As water recedes, civility is among the drought’s unintended consequences. Steve Yuhas, quoted above, has given voice to what many undoubtedly feel. I have the money to do what I want.

That at least some of the wealthy feel this way should come as no surprise. This is a key difference between those on the right and those on the left. The left believes we are all in this together; the right believes personal accomplishment trumps communal responsibility. To be fair, Yuhas includes in his complaint the fact that he pays high property taxes on his Rancho Santa Fe home. And, he probably does.

Yuhas only states what American culture itself implies. If you can afford it, you can buy it. That can has become should be able to under any circumstances is a logical extension of this idea. No one likes restrictions. I get that. But how many parents have used these words, often in frustration, “You have to learn to share.”

There will always be the 1%’ers who feel as Yuhas does. They are both a historical and current reality. In the ancien regime in France they said the villeins should eat cake. In England they instituted a poll tax under Margaret Thatcher. In Tolstoy’s Russia they worked their serfs like slaves. I don’t personally begrudge them their attitudes; I do begrudge them their sense that they should be able to act on them without consequence.

Perhaps this drought-induced rant will lay clear the difference between right and left. The right want to do what they want to do. Let’s call that toddler politics. The left wants to share the results of our common labors. Let’s call that “You have to learn to share.” politics. Which one makes more sense for a nation?

 

Family, GeekWorld, Mountains, Park County, The West, US History

Summertime

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Beltane                                                               Closing Moon

Summer. A time long ago sealed in our collective memories as special. School ends and a long, delicious emptiness opens up, one filled with spontaneous play, vacations, reading in cool corners of a yard or home. Granddaughter Ruth is here for an overnight after she and Grandma spent the afternoon at the Maker Faire held at the Denver Museum of Science. She built a tool box out of sheet metal, a catapult out of sticks and rubber bands, a musical robot, and a cardboard skyscraper among other things. Just right for summer.

Summer is also the time for family reunions and I’m missing both the Ellis reunion held in Texas and the Keaton reunion held this year at the family farm just outside Morristown, Indiana. The Keatons were my primary extended family since we lived in Indiana, not Oklahoma where most of my Ellis relatives reside. I was born in Oklahoma though Mom, Dad and I moved to Indiana when I was not quite 2 years old.Grandpa and Mabel Keaton

My sister, who is attending the Keaton reunion this year, sent this photograph of my grandfather, Charlie Keaton (after whom I’m named) and grandma Mabel in the hat, the couple on the left. My sister commented on grandma’s hat and the fact that I look like grandpa. Guess I do.

Summer is also a time, for me, when U.S. history seems to dominate my interests. This year, once I get past the interesting literature on my prostate, I’m going to focus on reading about the West and mountains. Before July 8th, my surgery date, I also plan to do some exploring of Park County, southwest on Highway 285.

My hope for you is that you have a summer filled with ice cream, fireworks, family and travel.

Beyond the Boundaries, Faith and Spirituality, Feelings, Health, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Third Phase

Tomorrow’s Wall

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Beltane                                                                           Closing Moon

As I wrote here before, my internal timeline comes up short, now around July 8th, does not, will not extend much beyond that. This interferes with the kind of dreaming that moves projects like becoming fluent in Latin and writing a novel forward. With no time in the future-it feels walled off-there is little incentive for the incremental work necessary to move long term projects.

This is frustrating, of course, but the effect, and probably the underlying sense behind it, focuses me on the here and now. This cancer. That appointment. This work around home that needs to get done. Stay close in to the center, don’t try to project your Self and your work out ahead right now.

I trust the anxiety when it comes, as I trust the relief from it. This is not new for me, but the oscillations have become more apparent, their purposes more clear.

General, Weather +Climate
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Beltane                                                                    Closing Moon

And yet more rain. The weather alert of the month is for flash flooding. June has come on a good bit like May. It’s raining now and the forecast is for more today. This is the remnant of Hurricane Blanca which dissipated in the Gulf of California a day ago. It’s so green here.

Aging, Beyond the Boundaries, Faith and Spirituality, Family, Friends, Health, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Third Phase

Surgery July 8

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Beltane                                           Closing Moon

The consultation with the urologist went well. My cancer has some outside the prostate presence, which makes the situation a bit more dire, but still one within the reach of a radical prostatectomy.

Kate and I both feel good about Dr. Eigner, the surgeon/urologist, and his experience. He’s done hundreds of robotic prostatectomies and hundreds of open prostatectomies. Practice is important.

We discussed the options, from hormone treatment to radiation to surgery. The moderately advanced nature of my cancer, my age and general health (good), make me a logical candidate for surgery. Kate and I had decided that already.

On the irrational side, I want that organ out of me. It’s no longer on my side. On the rational side surgery gives me the best chance of negative margins, a procedure in which all the cancer is removed, none showing at the tissue margins.

I feel good this evening, at peace with the choice, confident in the skill of my doctor and the support of family and friends.

Aging, Beyond the Boundaries, Faith and Spirituality, Family, Feelings, Friends, Original Relation, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Third Phase

A Yamantaka Moment

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Beltane                                                        Closing Moon

Yama
Yamantaka

So. Today is June 11th. I feel a small hole in the pit of my stomach. Not often you meet a day when your life is at stake, but this is one of those days for me. This afternoon we’ll find out the stage (severity & aggressiveness) of my cancer. We’ll also decide on a course of treatment.

It’s been an interesting time since the initial news from the biopsy. Once I absorbed that information and read the Schwartz book on Surviving Prostate Cancer, I’ve let the matter go for the most part, at least at a feeling level. There was a bracket around the time between then, late May and now, mid-June. In that bracketed time no new information could be gained and no action could be taken.

Now that bracketed time is over and the next steps, the real choices are just ahead. My confidence level is still high. Kate’s knowledge and support is essential as is encouragement from friends and family. Dr. Eigner is competent and practiced, and, unusually, open to serious questions and probing. I’ve done my research, have a list of questions.

The appointment is at 2:30. More later.

General
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Beltane                                                                  Closing Moon

Response back from Colorado wildfire central. External fire sprinklers aren’t a good option here. Too many things can go wrong. So that means we’re down to defensible space, good roofing and fate. Well, there are plenty of us. At least whatever the Elk Creek Fire District guy recommends it will be something I can do. Learning how to use a chainsaw and ax, peavy and splitting wedge will come in handy here.

Big rain again yesterday and last night. So far the humidity and the rain feel a lot like Minnesota, though I noticed Andover hit 92 the other day. There the nights are warmer already and the days have begun to heat up, too. We remain cooler and more bearable during the day, cool enough at night.