Saturday, December 28, 2013
Here comes 2014. Wow. It's been a hell of a year on the Isle of Crete. I'm listening to Tess snore after our morning run along the Bitterroot River, no pheasants today she seems to be dreaming. I'm happy for the year, you must know. Sure, took a major hit in losing Lyn to the strong arms of time, but she's not fighting anymore and for that I'm as happy as can be. Miss her every day though. My mystical, magical earth-goddess mate. Hard to imagine many who get to have one of those enduring and endearing long-term love affairs. I'm good.
Stopped to chat with my local bike guy, Randy. He's going to tune up my Fisher mountain bike and help me find a trailer to hook on so Tess can go riding with me on our bike trail. It's a dandy trail, running from Hamilton, heck maybe even Darby to Lolo following US 93 and the Bitterroot River those 40+ miles. That ought to be enough miles to get my hip back in it's socket, my shoulder to quit whining and whatever else the 'farming life' frustrated. I have multiple reasons for all these minor ailments to be sounding off. After all I really didn't have a routine exercise program on Blue Moon Farm. The menu was mostly, 'put your head down and get'r done'. That often entailed going for walks in the woods as well as eating a garden full every year. So, if you wonder what a guy does all winter in Hamilton, MT besides read and sleep, imagine Tess and I in our I-Haul Bike and Trailer outfit riding to Lolo and back (ha!, good one) for the rest of the winter. It's about 45 degrees here today, sunny and calm. That sounds like biking weather to me. Can't wait to see how Tess likes being screened into one of those kiddy trailer outfits you see mom's hauling their rug-rats in while dad scopes the biker babes.
The Holidays. Hope the world got together and had a blast. I lay low for holidays. It's a shopping psychosis I've been going through for some years. So much commercialization, both to get us to buy and fly, that I stay home (wherever that is) now. I've been enjoying being two blocks from downtown Hamilton though. Seems the town gets a good deal of shoppers and the coffee shops seem to be hauling it in. Tough getting a seat in a Joe Shop somedays with everyone being 'merry' and all. I did get some nice holiday cards from pals and family and my Bro set some money in an account for me at my Independent Bookstore (now there's and oxymoron) which I'm using up. Pears from Jess and no dog bites running Tess everyday. So, a good holiday season all in all. OK, so I had a couple shots of Evan Williams Kentucky Bourbon on Christmas Eve. Lyn had Johnny Walker Red scotch.
I've been working on writing some pieces about my trip to France between interviews with folks here for my Norman Maclean project(s). I've got three poems to complete as a result of running into three muses in France. It's 'a-musing' to me as a writer now to see how women I meet in my adventures turn out to motivate my writing. Lyn sure did. Our friend Lauren is a good muse and there are still two fleeting moments in France coming up as poems that need to come out. I've already reported about meeting Marie Helene near the end of my journey to France. The poem I'll post soon is about meeting the gatekeeper in a cemetery in Rouen. Okay, I know, "Cemetery"? Hey, it's a hell of a way to meet beautiful women it turns out, but mostly its a way to do some searching for ancestors left behind by my immigrant French relatives. There is much to genealogy that doesn't meet the eye right off. All that digging in archives and searching for birth and death certificates is awful tedious, but on those rare occasions, while sitting on a stone bench in a cemetery, when a darkeyed maiden comes strolling your way swinging a keychain with medieval keys on it, one perks up and begins to sense that there is life at the end of a 400 year genealogical search. Stay tuned for the rest of that story.
Oolong tea and shortbread cookies. Sounds like a good time to sign off on this post. Don't drink and drive.
Me and Tess and a Frog Names Moo.
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