windthread

how it is

they have just left.  It's newly dark,  only 7 something, earlier than usual.    They load themselves up...kids finding their shoes,  collecting their little screens of whatever,  their papers,  Alyssia strapping Emrie into her car seat,  the dangling musical flamingo who we call Flemie,  dangling and playing her car seat song...a sweet song, really.  Tay is sprawled out on the floor in front of the pull down "couch", bed,  where i have chosen to sleep.    As i listen to the crunch of gravel from the tires, i begin to make my bed.   I go back into the "bedroom" of this travel trailer,  which seems miles away from everything, and bring them out.

it's the same sheets,  pillow cases, quilt that i got at the animal shelter garage sale maybe 15 years ago.  Familiar.  Same  ones from New Mexico,  that street in Polvadera.  Linens.  Stuff made of 

cloth

Make the bed.

another day has spun through.  The pull down bed bordered on the West by windows and when i wake during the night i can look out and see stars by the zillions.  They are so BIG,  the stars here and so CLOSE.  More so than ever before anywhere.  I asked Alyssia if she noticed this or if it was just me and she said that she has seen this too.  Stars here,  near the edge of this continent are CLOSE.  There must be a scientific explanation for this?  I'll try at some point to find it,  know it,  but in the meantime,  I wake,  off and on.  Looking out the window.  If Tay sounds an alarm, I will get up,  put on my socks,  my pants, sweatshirt,  shoes and take the Fat Max spotlight OUT into the dark to be sure things are ok and i will look up

at the stars

that are so close they are in their own way, frightening.

 

 

 

 

Puppy Merced Hill...as seen through the Morning Window

the dumpster kitten.  In one moment an orphan.  In the next, a part of a Hill Story.  She was ready.  Completely ready.  As if she was born for it. 

I didn't want to bring her.  Most because of Tazmeena who is old and being in a cat carrier from N Mex to this point in California still 200 miles, 3 hours from a destination in the Unknown.

a quote ...Eudora Welty...via Maria Popova, Brainpickings

"Writing a story or a novel is one way of discovering sequence in experience, of stumbling upon cause and effect in the happenings of a writer's own life.  Connections slowly emerge. Like distant landmarks you are approaching,  cause and effect begin to align themselves, draw closer together.  Experiences too indefinite of outline in themselves to be recognized for themselves connect and are identified as a larger shape"

She slept that first night in this truck on a towel.  But with morning, first morning,  she was brought out an let go.  And as we walked this land  for my first time,  Tay's first time,  Puppy ran along.  Maybe 6 weeks old?  Less?  a tiny cat....small even for her short life,  she ran along.  Like a puppy.  and so she is Puppy.  Merced for where she was born.  Hill for the world she chose.   At that gas station parking lot,  as i walked Tay on her 12 ft. lead,  she jumped out...toward us.  Tay sprang toward her.  Puppy stood her ground.  As Tay and I backed away, Puppy came forward,  following.  Ready.

in the 2 months since then she has claimed her world.  Almost everywhere you look, Puppy is somehow there.  I look out the window this morning, it's not yet light and there's Puppy walking around in the midst of the Goats.  She has become arboreal.  Sometimes following along not on the ground,  but leaping from branch to branch through the trees.  Now,  when the door has been left open,  she will be discovered on the back bed.  Napping next to Tazmeena,  backs touching.  Tazmeena doesn't like her but has stopped Hissing.   She follows the kids everywhere...parallel play with leaves and twigs.  She is with me during the night when Tay alerts and i get out of bed to check on the Goats...she was with us that night when we captured Sunny Ray and hauled him back to the original buck yard.  She stood with me  afterward as i soaked in the intensity of that,  she and Tay,  just standing.   I have only just recently begun touching her.  Have pet her twice.  Her purr is enormous.  The kids carry her around and you can hear that purr from a distance.

Like i feel about Tay,  Puppy is not a pet.  She is an entity unto her own Self.  A sentient being.  Wild choosing Domesticity.  She is unafraid of all the dogs,  of all their mindless dog energy.  Her brain has mapped this entire Hill and knows how to keep safe..where to run and she's faster than any of them.   and Knowing,  as in out of volition,  she puts herself places like in that playpen when they are all here.  It had been tipped over because of the rain, covered with a tarp.  Right up next to the trailer,  right in the middle of Things.   

she has no tail.  We can't tell if she was born that way or if it was from her beginnings in Merced.

a snake in every garden

many years ago, upon setting out for Oregon,  from Michigan,  setting out to create a new and different life that made sense,  sitting at a picnic table in a remote part of Glacier National Park,  wondering about what i'd done,  what i wanted to do,

an old woman appeared and came to sit with me.  She asked about where i was from,  where i was going,  and then she asked why.  I felt relieved to tell her the LONG story of it and did,  slowing at the end to tell about how i imagined it would or could all be.  She had listened silently through it all and remained silent for a time when i had run it all out .... and then said,  "There's a snake in every garden."  We shared some food and then she walked a way and i could hear her drive off.

The snake now is in the form of dogs.  And i really can't say much at all about it because i can't get a good enough distance from all the Feelings.  But as this is a journal, it needs its place here in this moment,  in the beginning of it.

There will be 5 dogs living here.  Alyssia's,  daughter Jenny and her man's 3, and Tay.  Right now,  Jenny brings her 3 sometimes when she comes to work.  There is a lot of joyfull comotion.   They run and spin and are thrilled to be away from their small yard in Chico.   There is also a prevading tone of Laissez-faire on her part.  There's a lot more that could be said about this, but i don't have it right now.  Going on into the Now,  so far Tay has done well enough with this...has been ok with trying to learn a way to be a part of it all,  but recently there is a shift and she is confused.   A lot of the shift is focused around Puppy.  A major player in this Big Story that i have not talked about yet.  Puppy is a little cat now.  We found her on the trip here from N Mex,  next to a gas station dumpster,  and as we thought we were walking away from her,  she simply followed, undaunted.  Maybe 6 weeks tops...hardly weaned.  She ended up being put in the back seat of the Old Cowboy's truck,  burrowing into all the stuff there next to Emrie's car seat,  PURRING.    Long story short,  from the first moment here,  as we moved around this Hill,  taking long walks through this forest,  Puppy would follow along.  Sometimes she would lead the way.  She was very tiny.  She acted like a puppy,  and so,  named Puppy Merced Hill.  Merced for the dumpster's city.   She stays outside,  has a box in one side of the horse trailer.   continues to follow everyone everywhere,  the kids especially,  and now often goes tree branch to tree branch.   Over time, when the door to this travel trailer is open,  she has snuck in and also over time has gotten past the initial hissing from Tazmeena to the point of napping with her on the back bed, shoulder to shoulder. Tay chases her.  She flies fast and knows all things cats need to know.  Tay chases her less and less,  and often doesn't chase her at all.   

This is getting too long.  It will need to be in two parts and the next should picture Puppy.  So for now,  the Issue that has arisen often begins with Jenny's dogs trying to catch Puppy.  I think this is true.   They are always told No,  but they continue and in the past Tay had joined them.  But the other day things changed.  Her dogs had been told NO very very loud many times all morning as she tried to keep them in the Old Buck Yard,  them escaping over and over,  her pulling them back etc.  A tense thing....Tay being kept inside a lot to not add to the confusion.   At the end of that day,  they were again after Puppy who was under Emrie's outside playpen.  and something changed.  I  THINK that Tay deccided she needed to become some kind of Enforcer and she got into a very loud and toothful exchange with the 3 of them,  had to be pulled off and away.   

ok.  am going to quit here.  Think more.  before going on.  But the crux of it is that i don't know how to go forward.  It's all very peaceful when it's just Tay.  But it's NOT just  Tay and it won't be just Tay.   So will leave it at this for the moment and try for a pic of Puppy.

the pic here is of a Pinecone House that the kids made of one of the old fallen pines.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wild and Domestic

there is a small seasonal stream.   Water travels.  I can't say for sure in which direction yet, i think from North to South?  It runs  along the other side of Carefree Way,  the little semi private road that you see in the pic that finally got edited into the last post,  the little road that Emrie's all terraine vehicle is parked on,  that runs along that bottom acre or  two  of the Hill where Alyssia's  house will be....across from "her" meadow.   It sings the sounds that water makes as it travels over rocks and fallen wood,  sounds of small waterfalls  then trickles it's way along.  Down the way it joins the CanalCreek,  a larger  (by comparison)  body of water that was created for run off from Lake Oroville which then travels on into the Feather River.  Coming home from  the drive to Oroville,  to the post office,   it's Olive Highway.  Then turn onto Old Olive Highway , go along, not far,  and looking up to the left,  a forested Hill rises,  all wild from this vantage point,  just Wild.  But upon turning, you find that it holds these 3 campsites.   Those words,  Wild and Domestic are strong within me at this time...   How wild?  and How domestic?   What can domestic mean?  and Not?

 

work, different kinds

 

they work,  They work with the rented Auger,  drilling holes for fence posts.  Under the shallow earth here,  there is granite.  The auger cannot do granite.    Those holes that meet granite early,  need to be chipped with shovel and sometimes a pick axe.  Its slow going.

 

there was hope, because of aesthetics,  of no fence.    To leave it free.   But there are those wolf/dogs that at some point we will need to deal with head on.  But for time being,  a fence.  To ensure that we have met our own end.  Ok.  Compromise.

The "stroller" ....an all terraine vehicle, me and Emrie,  from a gift from Martine.   You can load Everything in it,  including a baby.

  

 

 

 

 

me and Emrie,  we study grass.  we study all manner of things that weave into the earth here,  native grass, dominant,  but others also.  We look,  touch,  admire.  Love.....

trees

trees.  trees.    just the word for them, trees.  

tree.  maybe tree could be Emrie's first word?   If i show her enough?,  say it enough?

that tree in the pic yesterday, the splayed out Live Oak,  ......these along with some kind of giant Pine that i don't yet know the "name" of,   they comprise the Forest here.    Amidst them are other lesser trees,  size wise,  small,  but no less because of size,  their  "will"  no less.   And all manner of shrub.   

 I drove into Oroville today,  Oroville being self named,  City of Trees,   ....  and all along that drive through the cut granite of Earth,  trees are everywhere and in the moment today,  all trees that flower in spring are flowering....  how strange and wonder FULL because it's February,  even in the desert where i have come from,  it is winter...but here,  it is Spring,  maybe some earlier than is usual for even here,  but not a lot...February.   Spring.  I  don't quite know how to think about it all.  Has been so many years since i have lived among trees.   Trees.  How they cleanse the "air".   Down by Alyssia's campsite A., we think about trees...which ones to plant?    We will most likely choose ones that will benefit the Bees.  And i would ask....Everything you can, please lend energy now for the Bees. If nothing else,  go to Aavaz.org and follow their work there for the Bees.  

Trees.  Bees.  All One.   Me.  you.  Emrie.  trees.  bees.  All One.

how it is, which is how it can be

this is the Morning Tree.  just out from the little table here where i wake up.   Alyssia had put this pic here for me almost 2 weeks ago now and i didn't post it because it wasn't "right".   On the camera,  it is a magnificant image...of burnished copper/bronze brilliance....that same kind of magic that sometimes happened in New Mex...how Sun provides a magic show.   But "reduced" here,  you don't see that .  So i didn't post it.  I guess i can sit here forever,  waiting for something that might never happen how i want it to.  or,  i can just go.   my decision.

at this window,  the table.  coming out from the wall with two bench seats on either side.  Table is 3 ft x 2 wide.  Between the end of the table and the stove and sink,  there is a 2 ft space where Tay usually lays in case someone drops food.

Still living in Chico,  Alyssia drives here to Oroville to take the kids to school every day.  She and Emrie spend the day here.  She picks up the kids after school  and we have late afternoon and then dinner.  Dinner at the aforementioned  table.  Tay on the floor.  So...an 8 yo and now 10 yr old, almost my size,  a mother, an old Nana 

AND a 6 month old human being in a booster seat.  it's tight.  the conversations are always a little loud and fast.    I suddenly really SAW this scene a couple nights ago,  for what it really is,  and most striking was Emrie.  She's so little,  so well, NEW.  But she takes her Place at the table...offering what she can....grabbing at spoons,  squeals,  sometimes makes shrill and loud sounds,  laughs and is so fully and completely a PEER.