Fall into Winter, Journal Entry No. 2: Drives, Books & Daydreams

September 27, 2017, 8:14 p.m., 58 degrees Fahrenheit.  The nights have warmed; the song of the crickets and cicada have returned.  Outside the air is rich with the aroma of wet earth and cottonwood--deep, vital creek-bottom smells, the odor of spring.  It even feels like spring after two nights of frost.  Clouds have moved in and obscured most of the sky.  I didn't notice if it was moonlight or the last hues of day that made the clouds visible.

. . . . .

I spent my afternoon driving back and forth across 35-miles of this great valley that stretches 70 miles west from Dry Creek almost to the Nevada border.  I made the 45 minute commute home, picked up Everest, and then drove back across a good portion of the valley again to take him to the Chiropractor.  Then it was a stop at McDonald's before heading back home.  But I seldom mind driving here.  This wide-open valley is my home.  Having less than two people per square mile, its wide-open roads are about as traffic-free as roads can be in the twenty-first century.

I particularly love a forest of Russian olives and a single, giant cottonwood that has grown around some springs that seep out into the desert a ways out.  There are hundreds of the silvery-gray trees massed thickly together.  When driving past, I always imagine what it would be like to have a house hidden back there under the shade of that one giant tree.  A narrow lane could wind through the Russian olives, barely visible from the highway.  One could trim the olive trees and put in footpaths.  One could wander around his own little oasis for eternity and no one would notice.

I can kind of do the same thing at Dry Creek--although I seldom do--but it would be different out there.  Our property runs along a canyon at the edge of the foothills, borders property of the state Fish and Game, and sits adjacent to the National Forest.  You expect woods here.  But out there in that big expanse of desert--now that would be something.

. . . . .

After returning home, I read from The Mystery and Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls by Hershel Shanks.  Again, my mind started to wander--this time to the Wadi Quamran settlement near the shores of the Dead Sea.  The book covers multiple theories about the people there, and as the author presented the pros of each theory, I saw the complete society form before my eyes, and then as the author presented the cons and postulated the next competing theory, the community would dissolve and bleed into a new one.

I had the idea that it would make a great novel--to start several historical novels about the same place but erode each narrative until it was incomplete, fragmented, and then bleed the narratives into one another, layering up the stories like strata of an archeological site.

Maybe some day I will get around to writing such a book (or any book).  But Marci is home from her second job, and it is time to enter this strata, this place, this now.  There will be more time to wander the different landscapes of my mind later.

Fall into Winter: Journal Entry No. 1

Mt. Katherine from Dry Creek 9.25.17

7:45.  The last of the light.  The evenings have been silent for a little over a week now.  Cold has cut off the song of the cicada, the song of the cricket.  Now there is only stillness except when Oreo, our blue-heeler, barks.

A fire glows in the fireplace and is reflected onto the coming of the night through the front window.  Today edged above 60 degrees, but last night we had our first frost.  Most of the garden survived though.

I came home, put a pizza in the oven that Everest had preheated, and then put some dishes in the sink and headed outside. 

I caged the apple tree we planted in the spring.  The deer have returned for winter, and last week they stripped off its leaves.  Luckily, they haven't chewed off the branches yet.  I also caged the new cherry tree.  Then I came in, ate some pizza and watched an episode of Escape to the Country, a British show that I like.

After that, I did up the dishes and returned outside.  I transplanted an aspen that was in a pot sitting on the front walk.  I am slowly planting a forest west of the house as a sun and wind block.   The ground was still plenty moist from a heavy rain that turned to snow in the early hours of the morning Sunday.

Then I brought in firewood and lit a fire.

Things are generally simple here.  Lots to do.  Lots of routine.  I'm ready for that at this stage of my life.  I don't even mind dishes.

I love being outside, even if it's just to get firewood.  I love the smell of wet wood, of chimney smoke.  I love little noises--a distant dog barking.  In the morning, there is the yelp of coyotes and our rooster crowing.

I am glad the heat is gone.  Summers are getting far too long.  I don't see how anyone can deny climate change anymore.

Although we could have fires all winter, we only have them in the fall (before we switch over to the furnace), at Christmas time, and in the spring (after we have stop using the furnace).

There is no heat like fireplace heat.  It sinks in deep, warms you down to your bones.  But sending smoke up the chimney constantly is hard to justify anymore.