The last of the living blue.

December 3, 2013 / Gin Getz / 6 Comments

White washed.

The snow mounts while the temperature drops.

The last of the living blue.

A live Blue Spruce. Vibrant blue green.

Have you forgotten the fragrance, the sweet sap, moist needles, the soft pastel color?

Now take a closer look.

Pin holes, running sap, slipping bark and yellow needles.

Another tree is lost.

The mountain across river, and the mountains as far as I can see from our little bit of paradise surrounded by a lot of wilds once were blue green. Now they are red and grey. Oh yes, still beautiful. I will always find beauty in these wilds, no matter what we go through together, how beat and burnt, stripped and stark, old and withered we both may become.

Some days it gets to me. Today was one of those days. Watching the next wave of dying trees lose their needles, lose their life.

Maybe you don’t see it. It’s easy not to see if you remain safe behind a desk, or just stop in the woods from time to time to take a look, and leave. But for those of us who chose to live amongst the trees…

This is my community.

And can I do no more than sit back and watch through beetles and burning?

And then there is hope.

Baby Blues.

A line of spruce trees barely taller than the snow is deep behind my cabin.

Forget titles and stereotypes and labels and names your big brother has called you. Instead I ask you this: Have you ever hugged a tree? If you haven’t, try. A really big one that takes three or four of you to wrap around like a Giant Sequoia, or a Ponderosa with a vanilla fragrance when you bury your nose deep in the warm crevices of her bark, or the big old Blue Spruce with pokey needles and sticky sap that stays with you all day, or the soft sensual smooth skin of a Madrone wet in winter.

I used to get attached to trees. Forrest and I would name them. Maps across the ranch and mountain, landmarks. You could plan your route around them, explain where you were, where you were going.

The last we named was Grandfather Tree. He was dying a slow death by beetles. We cut him down. A loud crash on a quiet mountain and the scar of his big stump remains. Now he will be a base log for our new home. A Giving Tree.

Gunnar and I cross the frozen river and listen to the whisper of the running Rio beneath. My snowshoes stay above deep tracks of a bull moose who broke trail into the woods. A tall, cold grave yard that still gives me comfort even in its empty embrace.

Snow already over my knees and the winter has not yet begun.

It’s not enough, this snow. This won’t change the drought. That’s what they still call it, you know. A twenty year drought. Not a change. Oh, no. Just a drought.

What will happen to this snow, sprinkled with dead dark needles to absorb the sun that now filters through the once dark canopy of tall stripped trees?

What will happen to these trees, these mountains of dead standing fuel no longer with a windbreak? What do you think their fate shall be?

It’s a package deal. The trees, the river, the rocks, soil, wildflowers and wildlife. The cold white winters and blustery springs, monsoon summers and flamboyant falls. This is the world I live in.

Yes, there are people too. They come, they go, they take what they want and leave no more behind than the winds can blow away and the snows will cover. Or maybe they do more.

It is for them that I write, though I try not to care, I do. It’s a package deal. People are a part of that package.

Because I want them to see what they cannot, do not. So I share with you what I see.

Look.

I have less of some things

More of others

Learning to let go of

identifying myself with

how many hours each day I toil

And still I must justify myself to you

for no longer

keeping myself too busy to think

Now is the time of

intentionally slowing down

Taking time to see

to smell and taste and touch and feel

And listen.

Yes, now is the time to listen.

Hear the shiver in the wind.

The adventure of standing still.

November 23, 2013 / Gin Getz / 9 Comments

Morning, warming by the fire, with coats and hats and mittens hanging, dripping, drying. Outside, the snow continues, amasses, piles a heavy load. Just back from feeding horses. They are worked up, snorting and running about because there’s a big old bull moose out there who doesn’t get that he’s not welcome. Now safe and warm inside, I watch from the big south window at them milling around, but they’re still upset and won’t put their heads down to eat. All but Norman, who has his head down and wastes no time on such silly things that the others can take care of.

Evening, warming by the fire, with coats and hats and mittens hanging, dripping, drying. Just back in from a ski with Gunnar along the river, oddly still open and full and shiny black against the flat white landscape. Blurred lines in heavy snow. Soft silhouettes of geese, duck, hawk and eagle. Now warming my hands and pulling out dry clothes before heading back out to feed again. And still it snows.

Winter. So far, so good.

A big one rolled in and has remains with us for days. White sky, white ground, white on the horses backs, the dog’s nose, deep up to our knees. The truck is out. We are in. Here with a deep winter world.

The horses don’t particularly like it. It’s a warm wet snow which is harder on them than a cold dry one. It won’t last, but the next couple of days might be not fun. They are grouchy, short of temper, snip and snap and one another. I will not work with them now, but feed quickly, and walk away and wait for this to pass.

The adventure of standing still.

Remaining.

Time to write.

And to keep up with friends.

“A very simple life. I make it full yet not stuffed and filled, if that makes sense. Time to walk, think, write, watch the snow fall, and feel the cold outside then the warmth of the woodstove inside. We all rate success differently. I wouldn’t trade my life for anyone’s. And still a creation in progress, as you too show me, life always is, always changing.”

“I need seasons. Here, there, where ever. I need that balance of time like putting your garden to bed, letting it be, fallow and dormant, and then reawakening after a deep slumber. In summer I work. In winter, I dream. I know that’s kind of weird, and very extreme, but it works for me, and connects me more to the land.”

“Professionally, as a writer, I do not know. What is my responsibility? As writers… what matters most? A wonderful challenge presents itself. Truth or beauty? Responsibility, environmental concerns, social ethos, pathos, or simply… entertainment?”

Except for my love of my family and four leggeds, my love of the land is my greatest passion. Unlike Mr. Berry, who said, “I have never not known where I belong,” I have spent a lifetime searching. I have been on this mountain only a dozen years. I tried to leave her. I could not. Now I watch her standing strong in this volatile time when the trees are dying – not just a few, patches here and there – but mountain after mountain after mountain in these great big waves that turn blue and green into red and brown. And then I saw her burn. A hundred thousand acres up to a few miles away from my front door. Not much press. Not much people around here. Just trees. And trees don’t scream.

So… I’ll write. (No, I don’t scream much.) I’ll carry the burden of the world we love because we are here, we see, we feel, we are intimately connected with the land. And because the land can’t speak for herself. Or maybe she does. We just need to listen.

I’m no greenie, no environmentalist, in fact, I don’t want a label and don’t want to side up with anyone from behind a desk who likes to call me names. Maybe mother, wife, horsewoman, fencer, builder, baker, cook and cleaner… Mountain Mama. That’s about it.

Now it’s time this woman wrote about what she sees.

Final thought to leave you with.

On aging.

Forever looking forward.

When I was a little girl, I used to flip through the fashion magazines and say, “When I grow up, I want to look like that.” By the time I was twenty, I did.

Now at nearly fifty, I see a picture of a beautiful, classy older woman, like Doris Lessing at 90, and still I say the same.

“When I grow up…”

A quiet voice from a high, harsh mountain.

And yet today, she feels so soft.

Today.

September 1, 2013 / Gin Getz / 4 Comments

Today.

Another week passes, with rain on the laden heads of grasses rich and bursting, waist high and ready to spread their store, and frost out on the flats along the Divide silver sparkling in first morning light, and clouds white and heavy and full of mischief enwrapping the stoic mountains that keep their stone face in spite of the teasing and tickling of the continued rains that drip and cover and pour and wind little ribbons of silver down charred matte black hillsides and let you know really, it will all be ok. Some day.

Some day. Today.

And now the water flows. In the ditch we have so carefully tended. It’s not our water, but we watch it, mesmerized, dancing down the course we have cared for.

A rare occurrence for this time of year. For our ditch. Perhaps it is the rains. Work is disrupted. A bittersweet parting.

Dare I complain about that which I so longed for only months ago as the moss cowering beneath the barren branches of the stripped spruce trees shriveled and dried and the grasses wilted and browned and my spirit became still in the wake of the winds that stirred mighty fires?

Today.

Now what? I ask myself as I stare at my hands held before my tired eyes. Eye lids drooping over a once solid steel grey stance. Do I already have too many years of squinting while working in the strong high sun? Too bad. I’ll take the wrinkles I have earned and hope my husband finds them as enchanting as the wild ride of a life that produced and continues to feed them.

My hands. I see calluses I have worked for. Only to watch fade away for now their work is done. For this season at least. What will the next one bring?

I hate to be done. For where does that leave me, what must I do today? Only that which I seek out and find, not that which is pressing and forced. It’s a matter of choice. And is that not often a bit more than we can bite off and chew?

Unless I knew the answer to the riddle for which I am always stirred to dance.

“What’s next?”

What’s next? Let me tell you as I try to figure it out myself. Make it up as we go along.

We leave camp, leave even our Little Cabin by the Big River. Leave silence, simplicity, hauling water, listening to the river roar brown and milky about the constant rains and the mud slide up river. Leave the outhouse, the bunk beds, the cabin twelve by twenty which we moved, for those who remember when, by snowcat away from that which was to that which will be. We’ll build some day. Soon enough. Bigger. Fancier. With a toilet and a kitchen sink.

As I move back up to main camp and luxuries like solar power and flushing toilets and washing dishes in the sink, I wonder.

Better?

Today.

Diving in… the Ditch Diaries continue

August 25, 2013August 25, 2013 / Gin Getz / 2 Comments

Diving into the Ditch Diaries.

Twenty days in camp and counting.

After a week off, we’re feeling good. Strong, in shape, recovered, ready to hit it hard.

Not bad for a middle aged woman from the Big City, I think.

Some ask me why I don’t volunteer, help the Forest Service crews clear the trails, stop complaining and get out there and get it done. I can’t afford to, for one. Volunteering is a luxury many cannot afford.

And as much as I love working with my old fashioned tools and have utmost respect for the simpler ways, I also love an outlaw.

Besides. They don’t want me. I know. I’ve tried. Maybe you’re either a Yes-Man or a I-Don’t-Think-So kind of person. You know which one I am. My reputation precedes me. We can leave it at that.

Woke this morning to an odd scratching sound and a beeping which reminded us of a back-up warning signal on a dirt mover machine. Not something you’d expect to hear out here. What we found was a porcupine with his head hiding under the log on which we store our saddles. Glad I saw him before the dog or horses did. He’d already done some damage to Bob’s old heavy saddle, chewed on the fenders and back cinch strap.

Always something.

Early morning after putting the horses out to graze. Gunnar and I hike up the North Fork trail. It has been cleared. Traditional methods. I’m impressed, but glad I wasn’t around to witness. Mid season, and I can guess by the number of trees I had counted that need to be removed and were – what was that, sixty four? – that there may have been a good size crew or it took a while.

Yes, it’s sticking to the rules, but is it lower impact on the forest? Or the visitors to the forest?

First time in how many years I could walk without climbing over dead fall. I’m grateful, but skeptical. A usual reaction from me.

A friend tells me she tried to hike up the Ute Creek trail to Black Lake and spent too long finding her way up, over and around to make her destination. Could have sworn there was a Forest Service crew parked there with horses and a group of volunteers for about ten days. What did they do if not clear the trail?

After my indecent proposal of suggesting we take chainsaws into the Wilderness once a year, early season, before the tourists, and properly address the growing problem of dead and falling trees and resulting closed trails, the reactions I received will not surprise you.

Those in the Forest Service were adamant about sticking to the rules, the traditions, at all costs. Everyone else, not so much…

The rules, the traditions… but folks, it’s all changing. Wake up. It always does, only now, more so than ever. Things are happening, fast. Haven’t you seen? The trees are dead or dying. Now they are burning and we all know the risk and know it’s far from over.

This is a growing problem. First the beetle kill. Then the burns. It’s not going to go away any time soon and if we bury our heads in the sand (or under a fallen log like my chubby porcupine), it’s still going to remain. And probably grow.

This is my mountain. This is my forest. These are my trees. These are my trails and my back yard and my home and my business and you know what? I’m going to do something about it. If nothing else, I’m going to grab you by your shoulders, give you a good shake, and make you open your eyes and look.

It’s yours too. What are you going to do? Tell me to hold onto the past and stick to the rules? I’ve never been big on either one.

Open your eyes. Open your mouth. Breathe in the thin air that’s probably going to be a little thinner when all these trees are gone.

Maybe that’s all we can do. But I swear, that’s a helluva lot better than burying your head and pretending it’s all the same today and maybe even tomorrow as it was yesterday and everything is just peachy.

It don’t look so peachy to me.

Gunnar is lying in a big nest that is our double sleeping bag, still warm from a night of tangled flesh, while steam rises from his wet back and his nose is tucked into his fat fox like tail. Bob is getting the fire going, the coffee is done percolating, condensation on the tent roof drips, the moon has set behind the wall of fuchsia sunrise, and the horses are hiding head down in the sea of fog that settled at the base of the mountain where the thick grass grows.

The changes we are witness to. Needle-less trees provide less protection from hail, rain, and I remember when in the years before we allowed ourselves the luxury of a tent, Forrest was at ease tossing out his bedroll under the boughs of a big spruce tree and that was usually enough.

Now the birds of prey fly through and hunt in among the trees.

Grass grows taller when not in the shade.

Raspberry bushes take hold.

There’s no shortage of firewood.

There are some silver linings to these clouds of dying trees.

The first flock of geese flying in formation for this season, heading south.

We step outside the tent to listen.

No motors.

Silence after they pass.

That’s the best part of being out here.

Solace of solitude.

No, I don’t want the chainsaws all the time. Don’t be silly. You should know me better than that. Don’t you remember what I asked for? Just one week, early season, to let my horses ride in safely. I even offered to help.

And what about the noise pollution of small planes that fly low over camp and buzz our horses out in the meadow regularly enough that they no longer lift their heads?

One hundred and forty feet of ditch in a day. Not dug from scratch, but cleaned up. Vegetation removed, upper bank cut to the perfect slope, bottom slipped and shoveled, lower bank raised, compacted, re-seeded.

At the end of the day, you lean on your shovel, look around and think it’s all a work of art. The ditch. The dirt. The slope. The calluses on your hands. The view. The sun going down behind the Pyramid. The horses grazing in the thick wet grass. Hillsides, even with dead red trees. Maybe even when they’re black and burned.

I’ll find beauty. I’m here. I’ll look. Closely. An intimate view, connection, touching, tasting, finding. And in the meanwhile, I’m going to care. About every fallen needle, deer in the distance, slope of the bank, and tiny little transparent green-grey trout fry swimming in the still pristine waters of the North Fork of the Pine River.

And caring sometimes might mean speaking up, stirring the waters, and splattering a little mud. Otherwise, like that porcupine, all you’ve got is a shallow view and a sense of self preservation that probably won’t last too long.

At the end of the day… you sleep pretty well out here.

Enough of a good thing. I’m tired of the rain, wet boots, cold hands, heavy shovels, soggy Levi jeans.

What a strange summer.

Sadness in the air, heavy as the sky cries.

We mourn the loss together.

Something about our team. The three of us. Links in a chain. The secret ingredient to making it all work.

At the end of the day, we balance each other out. With chores, interests, humor, drive… You take this tool, I’ll take that. We’ll get it done, together.

I’m the one to give lectures. They listen. Conversation is killed.

Follow your passion, I tell them, live like no one else. Life is an adventure, live the life you’d be envious of if you knew someone else was living it. Be the person you want to be. Start now.

Dare not only to dream, but to make your dreams come true.

They put up with me. I don’t know if they listen, but at least they don’t interrupt.

Just before lunch another hail storm hits. We’re in the tent, steaming ramen in flimsy paper bowls perched precariously in our laps, looking out the tent flap to a ground turning white. It’s loud on the tent. Oddly enough, it makes you sleepy. Why not indulge? It’s not like you can get much done out there in this, and you know it won’t last too long…

Rodeo.

All hell breaks loose around ten a.m.

Norman’s been on edge this year. Something about his confidence. I need to help him through it. If he’s part of the team, he’s got to work too.

In the meanwhile, he explodes, all fifteen hundred plus pounds of him, bucking, four feet in the air, head down, sacks of rocks flying off, metal racks tossed in the air, and away he goes a half mile across the big wide open meadow on the Divide with the dog and me behind him.

No matter how I tried, this time, I could not keep hold of the rope.

Work season is winding down. Then the fun begins. Hikes and rides and pack trips with nothing more in mind than to be here, appreciate the wilds, make the most of where we are.

I hope to do that every day.

Even while digging ditch.

My dirty little secret

August 3, 2013 / Gin Getz / 7 Comments

Another week worn and older and more work done at the ditch. We do good work. Life as a work of art. Work as our palette. No matter if it’s digging ditch.

Frost already in the morning. Rain so hard you wonder if you’ll ever dry and suddenly fire becomes a treasured gift though I don’t know if I’ll ever look at thunderheads the same way and not see plumes of smoke rising from the raging flames. Our views are tainted. Maybe it’s just me.

Get on with it. Dig. Sweat. Soak through. Cringe when you pause, rest against your shovel and watch another backpacker in the distance not figure out the way across the great Divide. The spine of the sleeping beast. I feel her roar, tilt back my head, and join in her wild howl. Maybe the backpacker wonders what scary beast lurks in this high country besides the usual fear of bears. It’s just me. Some crazy middle aged mountain mama out here digging ditch for a living.

Wild life, changing seasons, strawberries beneath every step on the hill up from the horse pasture. In camp come does, bucks, bull moose, mama grouse, and Gunnar flushes out a few little ones that spook the horses as we lead them to the river for water.

Here’s life’s simple. It’s no secret, really. It’s about hard work, silence, the disturbance of airplanes, simple living, simple food. Everything tastes better when you’re tired.

Dirt work, dirty work. This week Norman packs in two hundred pounds of lumber and we lay down our shovels, pick up our hammers and hand saws for two of our days here in the wilds during which time we reframe the diversion box that was sagging almost as bad as an old barn ready to fall over under the next load of snow.

I’m out there and I want to get further. I fantasize about owning the valley. Maybe the whole mountain. I don’t want to see the bright white or fluorescent colored pin point prick of a backpacker a mile away. I want to be alone. With my boys, my critters, my hard work, the wind, the wilds. A part of the elements. Even the dirt. I’ll take it.

I never thought I needed money. Maybe I finally do. I want enough to buy a valley – both sides – so no one is in my view. And no one is near enough to hear, to roll their eyes as I run around howling like the wild woman I can be.

I don’t think it’s that I’m anti-social. I just like to be alone.

In praise of the chainsaw.

Sixty four. That’s the number of trees across the trail on the lower half mile of the North Fork of the Pine River. Most of those down are beetle killed. Trees dead, dried and snapped in the wind. A few are still green. Their needles now enough to catch the wind in this thinning forest.

Of course if the chainsaw were always allowed, like any motor or wheel, we’d be out of work in the Wilderness. Instead we have horses, shovels, the two person, cross cut saw where it’s all about rhythm. Part passion, exertion, sweat. And part Zen, losing your mind to the back and forth push and pull.

The trail is still open. In theory. No “closed” signs or reports tell you otherwise. Though crossing horseback might bring tears to your eyes and a few rips and tears to your horses’ legs trying to find a way over, around, through.

A part of the Divide system, it’s still not a popular section of trail. In peak season on a normal year, you might get three or four groups passing by on any given day, going up, going down. We know because we see. Our ditch crosses the base of the trail and every once in a while a curious backpacker or lost Forest Service Newbie takes the wrong turn and comes down the ditch instead of the trail. Water only flows down the ditch when “in priority.” Otherwise, the ditch is a dry channel. I guess I can see the possibility of someone mistaking it for one heck of a well used trail.

It’s not a popular section of the Wilderness. Our use numbers are low, elevation high. It’s far away, even to get to the trail head, away from any city, without cell phone service and internet access. This is the real back woods. The high country. Left for the hard core. Left.

Well, I haven’t even mentioned the chainsaw yet and this section was going to be about that.

Here’s the deal. The trees are dead and falling, and trails are being blocked far faster than a dandy group of young and ambitious Forest Service yes-men-and-women can get out there and clear them. The trails are becoming impassable. The point of the Wilderness, for man to come, travel lightly, enjoy the pristine and untrampled, and leave, is being lost. Man – or woman – and the few that do come this far – can barely get in there and get around. The place is a mess. It’s a disgrace in places, and getting worse fast.

So, here’s my proposal. Tell me what you think about this. As chainsaws are about 400% faster than my dear cross cut saw, what if, for say, one week at the beginning of the season, early season, you know, when no one is really out and about up here yet for the year, we let them (or better yet, they let us, if you really want this to be about efficiency, but I know it’s still about more, like rules, regulations, control and bureaucracy…) take in chainsaws for just a few days and clear the trails, open up the access, clean the place up, allow our minimal use to continue and the tradition and dedication that made these trails possible in the first place to carry on in a respectful manner, to land and man, wild and curious.

Now we’re back home. Guests have left early so there is an empty cabin with running hot water. Showers feel especially good when it’s been five days and you’ve been out there really working. So does bed.

Home is still simple. For us now, a one room cabin, still propped up on blocks of firewood until we build something else, a little bigger, down here some day. For now, we have bunk beds. Forrest on the top; Bob and I down below. In the middle of the night a cat forgets we’re back and jumps from the top bunk and lands on my face. I awake to a bloody nose and can’t find a flashlight to find my way to a little water in the jug on the counter to wipe myself clean. Sometimes a little too cozy.

Though earlier I visited the outhouse in the dark of night with the door open to the sound of the river below and a spectacular show of distance lightning in the sky above. Beat that.

Simple pleasures. You think it sounds like fun, but do you really want to be here? For how long? Are you ready to give up your bed, toilet and kitchen sink, medical insurance, job security, regular payments towards your debt which has allowed you a bigger better life? Trade that for bugs and cold and wet and dirt and sore muscles and regular cuts and bruises and a bloody nose at best? Is it not enough to come here one week out of every year and dream about if for fifty others?

You may have more comforts and luxuries and fancy foods and nights on the town and you won’t get me to want to trade places.

I’ll take my dirty life.

Into Tomorrow

July 9, 2013July 9, 2013 / Gin Getz / 6 Comments

A Celebration.

We have been blessed.

We have been untouched by smoke and fire, and now there is rain. Sweet, sweet rain. The smoke and plume that passed through lower ground is being replaced by afternoon sprinkles. The sky clears. The earth heals.

Our wonderful county, our beloved country, all those who worked so hard and risked their lives, we thank you. You have been amazing. Over a hundred thousand acres, and not one house or cabin lost. We are so proud of you, so proud to be here.

We at Lost Trail Ranch have remained untouched by these frightening fires. The only scars we see are in the silence of this time when there should be children running in the damp grass, laughter in the woods, singing up the trails, and tight lines along the river.

In this silence, we are reminded of why we are here, these cabins built, Bob’s major renovations, Gin’s meticulous cleaning. This is not for us. This is for you.

We await your return to your little bit of paradise. Come share in the celebration of life.

Know too that life is ever changing.

What we knew yesterday is no longer. Today is something new.

And sometimes, to change, the past must die.

Now is a time of cleansing.

Tomorrow is rebirth.

I stand in the middle of time and worlds and shed tears for what I knew and have shivers of anticipation for what I will see tomorrow. And no time, I see, is more rich than here and now.

I mourn for the mountain I already saw die, and now see strength in this purging, beauty in knowing what will come. The great mystery. Do more than open my eyes to watch. Be alive within it. Be a part of the rebirth as we are a part of the death

These words I write to Ginny and she tells me I should share: “I feel the mountain, and feel the burning is cleansing, she rids herself of the century of suppression (the Forest Service policy for over 90 years of putting out wildfires) and the beetles which have taken advantage of the situation and have ravaged. That for me was harder. That is when the trees died. This is in a way a release. Caused by the skies. She heals herself. All we need to do is get out of Her way.”

What do we do now? Where do we go from here? What have we learned, and how will we handle the rest of the trees that will burn?

And then what, we are wise to ask? Because there will be more. And I’m not going to forget. Brush it all under the carpet and call it quits and just be glad it wasn’t my part of the mountain that burned, because next time if could be.

I want to be positive, encouraging, build back my business that continue to be closed, but I also need to realistic. Responsible. And what matters more? The income I have lost and continued to lose? Or the mountain, mine, yours, the one that will be here for my grand children and their children that I hope will be here long after you and I are gone. That is our job. Mine and yours.

We are lucky to not have to rebuild. We do not even have to clean up. We just swallow the loss and deal with the debt, open our doors when the road opens and hope people come, carefully. That part is actually easy.

What about the rest? Our neighbors down mountain with a charred back yard. The river, the fish, down river for how many miles. The rest of these trees dead standing. The long term effects, including, as one friend brings up, the impact on our air. What could be more basic?

At times I’d like to turn a blind eye. Out of sight, out of mind. Wouldn’t that be easy. Today we’re fine. Who cares about tomorrow?

Only I can’t. Never could. And I don’t plan on starting now.

It has been an interesting few weeks. Holding out, holding up. Remaining in the evacuation zone. Trying to go on with life, maintain your balance, but life is turned upside down and staying upright isn’t so easy.

We stayed here because this is our home, and they knew that, and I shall always thank them for letting us remain. Understanding. We fought to be here before. We can fight for it again.

What would it have cost us if we left? We are already losing too much. But its money, only money. Look what we do have, what matters most. Home. Each other. That’s the biggie. No money in the world could buy me better.

Day before yesterday, the boys head to town for the first time since well before the closed road. I’m about out of wine, the silly little loaner hens haven’t been keeping up, and those darned squirrels are eating more of my lettuce, chard and kale than I can grow.

Our world is slowly opening. A summer homer is hanging out somewhere up here and the cowboys are hard at work gathering cows that have been scattered for miles with open fences and closed roads.

We’ve managed just fine. And not alone. The community, though far away, at times seem close. Among the many thank yous that I would like to say: Greg for his compassion (not to mention hard work), Eryn for her generosity, Sammy and Clint for their offers to help (and believe me, you both were part of the plan if push came to shove), Camille & Melvin, Betty & Jack – for helping feed us, and the Swansons for being the neighbors if you could choose you would choose, and lucky us, we can. The county, our commissioners and sheriff’s department and firefighters and EMTs. The brave and skilled crews that came from far away. All of you who have written, shared your stories, reached out, touched in words and yes, that does mean a lot to me. Karen… for more than I can put in a post… And my boys. Always my boys. Because sappy as this sounds, they are the sunshine in the smokiest of days.

To all those family and friends that have cared, shared, reached out, expressed, thought about the future more than just holding onto the past.

Thank you.

We will get through this. You know it. We will look back and say, “Remember that year with the terrible fire?” Only I know it’s not over. Maybe now, for this year, this time. But not in the big pictured, the long run.

Sherie writes, “…Make your witnessing loud & vocal… Draw the line on the map… Do it, Gin, use your ammo.”

Wise and challenging words. Thank you. This is what I need. To see the big picture. When it’s too easy to focus on me, mine, here, now, and a little business in a big forest.

I’m between a rock and a hard place. Support and encourage my business, or work for the mountain, the trees, the birds and fish and flowers, moss and air.

I feel I must. I am obliged. How can I say I care so much but be willing to do nothing? As I would fight for the life of my child, so I feel I must for the mountains, the Earth.

Ultimately, I must choose the greater good.

In the deepest darkness

light

A view from the charred hillside where a forest once stood

Green grass begins to grow.

Beauty everlasting

everchanging

Not what she was yesterday

now free to fly with great bright wings

into tomorrow

Finding beauty in a broken world. *

*From the book of that title by Terry Tempest Williams.

Gin Getz

On the intimate connection between person and place. Sharing words and images of wilds within and around.

climate

The last of the living blue.

The adventure of standing still.

Today.

Diving in… the Ditch Diaries continue

My dirty little secret

Into Tomorrow

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