nature writing

Unleashed

/ Gin Getz / 8 Comments

Photo by Tomek, shared by Pia  (My hands)

“There is so much I have wanted to take the time to share with you, but simple as my life seems, sometimes ‘time’ is the hardest thing to find…

We just spent the last week down at the Little Cabin, a one room cabin without indoor plumbing on this side of the river just across from the seemingly endless wilds of the Weminuche Wilderness.

We rented our house out – funny the things one does for money – but really it was a good excuse to have a retreat. It was wonderful, though I’m now very behind in things like correspondence… and laundry!

Twice in one week I have heard ‘there is no coincidence,’ though I always thought there was. It’s been an eye opening week for me. And door opening. Those that have seemed locked for so long.  Swinging open with the autumn winds and the last of the fallen leaves stirring in this thin air before the snow presses them tight to the earth.”

Finding answers in a never ending question.  Listen as the Earth speaks.

We close up the Little Cabin, a bit reluctantly, and return to Big Haus.  Return to running water.  Laying in a hot tub at night, sitting on a warm toilet seat in the morning. Simple pleasures. Already missing the show of the Milky Way overhead each night as I step out with a little tin cup and my toothbrush to spit under a willow bush.  The Grande Universe spread above like your plastered ceiling or city lights.  Deeper, farther, infinite.  Silent but for the soothing song of the Rio Grande whispering below me in the quiet of the drought.

Slow settling of the season, mild temperatures and abundant sunshine.  Winter is not harried to be here.

Another long day horseback while we can. This time saving the cows.  A few strays from the open range herd here in summer.  Somehow stuck above treeline, on frozen ground, sparse dried grass and only wind blow snow for moisture.   They chose a “barn” in the last of the timber where from the tell tale signs of their manure, they planned to remain.  If the hunters had not seen them, I imagine there would be nothing more than a pile of bones found there next summer. How they got there, and why they stayed, we’ll never know.  I don’t read the minds of cows, and wonder in cases like this, how much to their minds there really is.  Yet the depth of their understanding and appreciation after we pushed them off the mountain top down to a familiar trail (and running creek water)… I could see it in their eyes.  Perhaps it is just the sympathy within me, but I swear they were loving us, and will look at a German Shepherd from here on in as their savior (for Gunnar of course was there with us, up front, moving the cows to lower ground).

In spite of the mild season, winter comes.  Easing down the mountain.  A measured, slow freezing.  We know better than to be fooled.  It can slam and settle any day now.  We are ready.

And within me, a deep stirring in open waters as a pot boils with a new recipe, and new plan. Where did this come from?  The wildest dreams. As unexpected as the sudden shock of red on the throat of the hummingbird.  At the same time as calm and powerful as destiny, as the Red Tail rises overhead, without a beat of his wings.

(Pardon the quality of these photos – I’m still resorting to my little old camera when horseback; haven’t figured out how to handle a little horse and the big camera at the same time yet.)

Mid September Song

/ Gin Getz / 2 Comments

Heavy clouds holding in the mountain 

Containment, wet and shallow

Not deep enough to drown

The rage of waves

Ocean lures

Stirs me

I wake

Tumbling

Upon the spine of the sleeping beast

Land of dormant fires

Awaiting the chance to ignite

And then it clears.  Then it dries.  We return to blue bird sky and say this is how it should be.

Twenty five degrees and a heavy frost this morning.  The garden has turned to mush once again.  Heck, it’s later than I expected, later than most years.  I gather the bounty of my harvest.  Three baby zucchini and a couple of green tomatoes.  That’s it.  More than most years.  Yes, I know.  A greenhouse goes on the south side of my next house…

Colors turning early yet cold arriving late.  The Aspen begin their show, gaudy as fluorescent flashing lights.  Dazed and dazzling.

A long season coming to an end.

I am as weary as the grass, browning, turned to seed, swaying in the rains, bent over with drops of raining clinging like children to their mothers dress.

Big Haus

/ Gin Getz / 17 Comments

(a rare photo of the three of us, thanks to Tomek, in honor of our anniversary, today…)

 

We sit before the campfire, just my honey and me, the big cabin behind us empty but for three old cats.  The house looms large.  Unused.  Wasted.  Too big.

I’m calling it Big Haus, for big is how it feels.  Approximately 2,200 square feet.  The Census Bureau reported the average size of a U.S. house in 2011 to be 2,480 square feet, a slight increase from the 2,392 square feet in 2010.  Looks like we’re pretty close to average.  Funny. I’ve never considered myself much a part of the norm.  This fact somewhat frightens me.  So much for being different, breaking barriers, stepping outside the box.

2,480 square feet, and still I hear a heck of lot of complaints.  The same old stuff.  Things like the price of gas being too high.  A fact for which I hold little sympathy. Seems to me you don’t HAVE to drive around alone in that big fancy truck or SUV.  Your God Given Right, you tell me.  Whatever…  What on earth matters most?  Cheap gas?  Get a life.

Bigger is better, or so I hear.  I’m not biggie size person.  I like small, simple, old-fashioned and conservative of natural materials.  What a concept.

Just last week there were two other people with whom we shared the house and the size seemed just right. But today, the upstairs is looming, the downstairs seems hollow, and the space in between is too much.

I think about heating it this winter, trying to keep it clean, wasted firewood and a full morning twice a week to keep the dog and cat hair in check.  I should have better things to do.

Is this the empty nest syndrome, grumbling about too much space to heat and clean and collect clutter?  I thought “empty nest” referred more to the sadness one feels when the children fly the coop.  This year I feel no sadness or loss, only excitement for the positive current and future life of my son. Dang, I’m happy for him, proud of him.  And sure, I won’t deny, a bit of excitement already for Christmas break when he’ll be back home.

Lessons I send a young man off with this year.  Same as last year.  Same stuff every year.  This is what matters to me.

1.  Live life fully.  Live each day with passion and purpose.

2. Be involved.  Take a stand. Stand up for what you believe in, who you believe in.

3. Be yourself.

How dull a life if lived without passion. How shallow a world if we stand for nothing.  How boring a person if not unique.

What else is there?  Half Life.  Living life without meaning, integrity, point and purpose. Direction and belief.

To live without a backbone along the backbone of our continent.  Spineless, drifting slowly to grave.

We are surrounded at times with a leisure class that cares more about cocktails than kids, more about gossip and rumors than building, growing, giving, sharing.   And heaven forbid, caring.

Like jellyfish, turning to mush in my hands as I squeeze my fingers to a fist.

The more they hold back, the more I want to push forward.  Suppression in the air stirs a strong desire to bust free.

Ah, yes. So there we are, out by the fire, our backs to the house that seems so big, so empty, so underutilized and perhaps even unnecessary.  And we start planning.  For the next house, you know.  Of course.  The one by the river.  Because although we’ve got the Little Cabin there for now, there will be THE house, our house.  Not a big house, not too little.  Just right.

Because life is not about yesterday.  Holding onto the past won’t build your dreams.  Take a chance.  Make a change.  Step out and stand up.  Participate in life.  Build it better.

And in the meanwhile, I’m here.  Big Haus.  Stocking up a lot of wood for winter.

Moving On

/ Gin Getz / 9 Comments

First, my apologies.  Our internet has been dysfunctional the past few weeks.  I suppose I am lucky to have it at all out here.  Unable to post, keep up, respond, check in as I would like to.  There will be time to catch up in the future.  Winter comes.

Though I care for many of you, in my odd and quiet way. Strong and fiery as my voice may sound at times.  To those who noticed my absence and wrote to check in, thank you.  Yes, I am alive and well.  Not even too busy or depressed, off in the wilderness or on the road.  No real good excuse except the satellite connection, or lack thereof.

Second, an update.  Where I am.

Where I am is where I was is where I will remain.

Where I am meant to be.  For now, if not forever, for who can portend the future?

Full moon on frosted grass in the dark hours of morning.  Silver lights shine underfoot with almost as much mystery as the sparkle of the overhead stars.  Familiarity is lost to magic of the moment and I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Changing of seasons, of stages of life.  Aging, passing, birth and death.  A dying forest surrounding me, calling for my voice to speak where it cannot.  A hawk circles me, confirms, accepts, allows.  We speak a silent dance for just a moment.  Long enough.

So much changes, remaining where I am.  The soothing blanket set out to dry in fierce winds.  Refreshing.  Discomforting.  Take not the console of comfort for granted.  Too easily lost.  And found. Changing.

The first of leaves fade brown and yellow.  An early passing this year. You know I am ready.

Forrest returns to university, to Canada.  Bob and I to our empty but busy nest.

Plans for winter projects, putting up hay, groceries, firewood, chickens, starting winter lettuce to grow in my kitchen this fall…

Third, some thought of gratitude, words of thanks.

Thank you for joining me here.  Some strangers, some friends, even a few I have never met but have become a part of our family over the years…

Thank you for being there, for sticking with me.  Allowing me to speak.  Quiet as my voice may be.  Allowing me to listen.  To challenge and talk and argue…No, we won’t always see eye to eye… I don’t need to speak with a mirror.  I would rather speak with you.

Thank you for being there, for reminding me none of us are
ever really alone.  All we need to do is reach out.

Today I send a long arm out to you with a slow embrace through the wires or wavelengths or whatever makes this stuff work.

Namaste.

 

Under a rainy spell

/ Gin Getz / 5 Comments

 

Rain.  And somehow we know it will soon be snow.  I take great comfort in that, awaiting the days, yet savoring the mild meanwhile. The long cold winter peaks coyly around the corner.  Lures me with promise and intrigue, a sweet melody drawing me in to the dance.  I am unable to resist.

Our season.  Our half of the year.  Farewell to the fair weather folks.  Then it is our time, our place, our mountain, and we learn to breathe again.  We flourish like winter blossoms, brilliant of color and rich of fragrance. The dormant season in which we awaken, spread our petals to the glaring sun and soak in her soft white wash of snow.

How comforting to say it is finally mine.  My home.  The place where I belong.  How many have told us that this summer.  So glad to see us back.  Their map of the world somehow more complete knowing we are here to stay.  I am jarred by their comments, flattered and frightened at the same time.  Accepting of the truth.

It often takes walking away to realize what matters most, leaving to find your place.  If we had never left, if we had not had to fight for what is ours before then, if all the drama and trauma had never happened, the deep binds that I now feel clamping tight to my toes while roots grow deep each day from heels, bare feet becoming the soil, allowing the dirt to become me, between my toes, whilst I can still adorn naked feet in the field.

This is my home.  Not what I had expected it would be.  Where are the gentle brook and shade trees and hot summer nights and cow pasture I used to dream of?  This dream evolved.  Still evolving.  As if every day I rub my eyes and see the world before me more clearly.

And still I am confused. I don’t fully let go, give in, accept.  Perhaps one should not.  One should always put up a bit of fight, keep the claws sharp, though let the tongue soften.  For you never know when you might need to charge into battle again.  I have proven this if nothing else.  I am willing to fight for what matters most.

Though now I see.  It is because of the battle we defined our space.  We became this land.  We found our home.  If it was easy, it wouldn’t be mine.

I’m ready for a little easier.

Scattered thoughts like early autumn seeds.  Does any of this make sense to you, dear reader?

Ditch Diaries

/ Gin Getz / 5 Comments

Week 4, Day 1

We ride back to camp mid morning, the horses smooth and solid with their understanding of where they are going, what is expected of them, what they should expect here.  They know the routine.  A job they realize well by now. They are a good group.  A family.  Literally.  Father, mother, son… and Norman the New Guy.  Now in his second year with us.

Earlier this evening, a neighboring camp invites us to join them for wine.  How unexpectedly civilized, imbibing from camp coffee cups with the sun setting behind the Rio Grande Pyramid before us.  The greatest pleasure beyond the view is the opportunity to meet new people, hear new stories.

And now a light show from up high.  The most brilliant, dazzling display of a lightning storm we have ever seen.  Seemingly nonstop flashes, blazing up the sky a brilliant blue and pink that lasts but an instant.   The Pyramid and Window appear for a fraction of a second and then the horizon returns to black.  And just when your eyes begin to adjust to the darkness, another strike illuminates the high clouds and horizon and you’re blinded all over again.

As exhilarating as the Forth of July.  The rumble in your gut as each crash of thunder follows the blinding flash.  A little bit frightening, or it wouldn’t have quite the impact, wouldn’t leave quite the impression, wouldn’t draw us from the comfort of our tent to stand there on the hillside and stare at the sky.

Closer and closer the flashes appear.  We are filled with an odd combination of anticipation and excitement, that intricate balance of fear and awe.

The cracks get louder, lightning closer and finally the intense and sudden rain chases us back into the relative safety of the tent.

We lay there warm and dry, silent together, listening to the storm now directly overhead, the tent glowing with each flash, the pattern of the rain on the fabric, the heavy rumbles turning to a odd and powerful and mesmerizing lullaby that takes us each away in our own tired dreams.

 

Day 2

Writing under the glow of candle light.  My hands are sore.  Even holding the pen seems trying.

Something new today.  Learning to single-jack hand steel.  You may laugh for what’s new for me is that which is rather old.  Such are the skills we rely on here like felling trees with the crosscut saw and moving dirt with horse and slip.

Clang, clang, clang, the rhythm of the steel.  Pulse and movement, swing and strike.  I keep it up until my hand can’t hold up the hammer.  This is no game, banging away for few minutes of fun.  It’s all morning long, keeping at it, stamina and staying power.  This is grit.  Steeling holes in rock.  Not for some praise, cheers and competition.  Simply to make holes in otherwise solid rock.  And into those holes we pour a material thick like just mixed concrete which will slowly expand and eventually break rock.  A deliberate, powerful force.  None of the drama of explosives, but similar results just the same.  Breaking stone.  Allowing us to remove obstructions from the ditch, and use the material to rebuild a weak bank.

This is a job.  I am surprisingly grateful it is short term for I know I could not keep this up day in, day out, month after month.  This week will wipe me out, I’m pretty sure.

A point and a purpose.  I could no more bang away at the rock for fun.  I believe it was Ray Hunt who said the horse knows the difference between running around in circles and running to get somewhere.  A job to do.  Point and purpose.  Direction.  Meaning to this madness.

Bob asks me if I ever imagined I’d be doing this when I was a little girl.  I tell him no, I did not.  I could not.  For I did not know these things existed when I was a little girl.

 

Day 3

A darn good day of work.  Our bosses get their monies worth with us.  Eight hours of hard labor, plus taking care of the horses, tending camp, cooking, gathering firewood and hauling and filtering water.

Simplicity is hard work.

I am sore head to toe. It feels good for it is earned.

Today we hooked up Norman to the old steel slip and dragged the entire ditch bottom – all but the last section we will take on tomorrow – just to clean it up.  If you can understand cleaning up dirt.  It’s not like it’s going to go away.  Maybe “clean” is not the right word.  We just make it look better.  And work better.  We move the dirt around.  From the high spots where it would be an obstruction when the water flows, to the low spots where the water could flow over if the bank won’t hold a full load.

Simple pleasures.  Hard work with a purpose. I wonder if our draft horse, Norman, feels the same.  I somehow feel he does.  Why wouldn’t a horse feel pride in his accomplishments, in doing what he was bred for so many generations to do, what he does so remarkably well?  I’ll sing Norman’s praises, for he can’t sing himself, but I swear, he knows he’s something special.  And he is.  One gentle giant of a horse willing to be out there with us, part of the team, getting the work done.  Does he know the ditch we maintain for a few weeks each summer will flow water that provides for households and farms in the San Luis Valley eighty miles below?  Of course not.  And as for us, it’s not about who owns the ditch we are hired to maintain, who owns the water that has become liquid gold throughout the West, or where the water ultimately ends. It’s really quite simple.  It’s just about doing a good days work and doing the best you can with what you have.  Here in the Weminuche Wilderness, our tools are simple. The greater reliance is on our man power, woman power, and horse power.  And although it’s just me, my husband, our son, a few horses and our dog, Gunnar, on days like today, I swear we can be a mighty powerful force.

Powerful, but quiet.  If it were not for the clang, clang, clang of the hand steeling, I wonder if a passerby would know we were here.  Or see our camp with our tent tucked into the timber unless the smoke from the morning fire was drifting down to the valley below.

Over dinner we talk about what it might have been like for those who build the ditch way back when.  When?  I’m afraid to say I don’t really know. Perhaps the 1930’s. Someone saw the river flowing down the west side of the Divide and thought, heck, I’ll just put in a ditch a mile long, bring this water over to the east side, and call it my own.

And like back then, I bet those who owned the water were not the same as those who built this ditch.  I imagine a team of strong and silent individuals, loner types, private people with good working stock willing to put in a good days work. Perhaps a cook tent for the crew, a wood stove, you’d need a wood stove, without a wood stove we couldn’t be here working as we do through the monsoons.  One can only stay cold and wet so long…  And tents… What kinds of tents did they have back then?  For you’d need a place to rest when the work is done.

These are the kinds of things I think about when I’m very, very tired.

 

Day 4

What were we thinking?

So there we are at ten in the morning busting through the ditch bank, knowing full well tomorrow we’ll be packing camp and heading home.

Why?  It was an insubstantial section of ditch bank. A weak link to the chain. A thorn in our sides.

We’d known about it for some time, but were unable to dive in until we felt certain we could do it all in a day – break it down and rebuild it.  For we would certainly not leave a job half done.  Water doesn’t flow down a ditch with a broke open bank.  Finally, between the hand steeling and breaking rocks, and Norman’s hauling power, we felt we could get the job done.

At noon our moods are short, our muscles burning, breaking rocks and hacking away at the hill for dirt.  Fear and hesitation. What if… we won’t say it.  None of us will.  We only think it. What if… we can’t get it done, or do it well?  We break for a rushed lunch.  We’re in no mood to talk or rest, just refuel and head back out.  Moods as tense as our muscles.

At three p.m., Norman pulls the rock that our old half-draft horse, Gizmo, back in the day could barely move.  It’s been a landmark of sorts for us, left in the bank when we just couldn’t move it further.

“Where do you want it,” Norman seems to say.  He gets it.  He moves it.  It’s in his blood and he understands.  This is his job.  He’s part of the team.  And I swear this horse is pretty darned proud of himself and well he should be.  Norman rocks!  He not only moves rocks; he raises our spirits.

By five in the afternoon, we see it happening.  The bank is being built back up, and better than ever before, with solid rock and soil, held firm by our tamping rods.  We keep it up.  Sure, we feel beat up, tired and sore and know we’ll be putting in over time, but somehow certain we can do it.

6:30 p.m.  In the soft golden glow of evening light, with strong and long shadows adding drama and intrigue, we step back from the ditch and admire our work.  What a beautiful bank we just rebuilt.  What a lovely ditch we’ve worked on!

I know.  It’s just a ditch.  It’s just dirt.

But remember the importance of pride in your work. Love it or leave it.

Love it I do.  Though tomorrow I will leave it.  And sad as I know I will be to leave up here, I’m ready for a hot bath.

 

Day 5

6:30 a.m. and waiting for the coffee to percolate.  A mild morning.  No frost, not even in the bottom of valley where the tallest grasses grow, the sweet spot where we led the horses out to graze at first light.

I think of how many mornings mid August have been harsh and frigid, horses shivering on the high line, pawing until it is their turn to be led out, bull snaps on the picket lines frozen shut, my fingers burning from the cold.

A mild season.  And still the most subtle signs show changes coming.  It happens.  Is it from the light, now just a little lower in the sky, and little less each day?  Perhaps because I know what to look for, having looked so closer at this ditch bank, the valley, the mountain back drop for six summers now.  The slightest signs.  The show begins now.  Lay low, be still and silent, and take a look.

Grasses turning brown, seeds heads tall and arching, fully ripe and letting loose in the wind. Leaves of the wild flower transforming from green to vivid orange, purple, red while the few remaining blossoms now look tired, battered by hail and time.  Red from the hills of the beetle kill sweeping down to amber of the dying, drying valley.

Today will be our last day of work here for the season.  I am utterly and completely exhausted.  Yet leaving is always bittersweet.  I love it here.  I need not tell you why, for I feel you already know. You understand by now, don’t you?

An odd relationship with the land.  I believe it is staying with her, seeing her through all her changes, moods, dark seasons.  That is what makes a home. Here remains a mystery.  Somehow out of touch.  A forbidden fruit I am allowed to taste, touch, but never own.

There remains with me this, and I shall take this with me as I leave, as I return home and recover from this hard season of work, back to soaking in my tub each night and putting back on the weight that is taken from me here each year.  An appreciation for every mild morning that remains, knowing what is coming, what is going, full of excitement for what secrets will be revealed right around the corner, the next bend in the… ditch.

 

Ditch Diaries

/ Gin Getz / 7 Comments

Week 3, Day 1

Missed working here last week due to the unexpected encounter between mountain lion and horse.  Left us with the feeling (the reality!) of more work to do in less time.  One worries if one can do it.  Will my body hold out?  I know the miners and loggers and true pioneer folks did much harder for much longer.  Perhaps we humans have softened.  My son tells me I’m pretty tough as he rubs the muscles in my back which don’t seem to release, relax and let go.  Muscle memory.  I imagine soaking in a hot bath and hope my muscles will ease under the almost painful pressure of his hands.

Riding in to camp this morning.  A challenge. The trailhead we use blocked with tourists in their RVs asking for directions, work men scrambling about, drilling rigs, back hoes and water trucks and I don’t know what all we had to ride through.  I pretend it’s an Extreme Challenge race for my horse, Flying Crow, and he’s winning. Guides us through the worst of it. Success! I’m proud of him.

Finally. And finally, I’m proud of my training. Some days.  Two steps forward, one step back.  Always a process. Working with this little Arab, training him as a stallion, has been a huge lesson in patience, trust and learning to read the horse.  It is working.  I have never had a more difficult horse to work with.  His natural balance of flight and distrust and questioning everything (“Do you really mean it?”  “Do I have to go there?”  “Will it bite?”  and the most often he tells me with his not so subtle body language, “But why?”).  I once read that Arabians are for people who really love horses, and really can ride.  You have to do both to put up with these guys sometimes.  It’s not easy.  Not the training, not the testing of your skills, knowledge, love and patience, not the ride.  And it’s not boring.  Always interesting. Always a challenge.  So there we go, through our Extreme Challenge.  And winning ribbons.  Though of course, only in my imagination, for there is no winning circle in the wilds.  You just make it through or not.

We made it.

 

Day 2

Lunch break.  Extended.

We sit in the sun by our tent watching our little herd of horses graze in the pasture below us and a formidable flock of charcoal grey clouds form above, into what appears a solid bank, rolling high and heavy over the Window and Pyramid, approaching our valley.

In minutes we are overcome, in shadow, embraced by portending doom.  The storm arrives.

Now horses safe in the trees and we in our tent, we listen to the clap of thunder arrive at the same time as the lightning flashes.  No time to count, “one mississippi…”  Sound vibrations roll back and forth across the valley, a game of ping pong between the two mountains.

Gunnar sits at the open doorway of the tent, knowing it will pass but quite content to wait this one out as the rain on the top of the tent turns louder and the ground turns white with hail.

Time and again the tapping overhead slows and the sky lightens and we prepare to head back to work, only to be confronted with thunder so loud you jolt and clap your hands over your ears at each blinding flash of lightning.  These clouds seem to be seeking a path up and over the Divide but instead roll around from side to side, circling above us, above the valley, round after round of intense storm.

Wait it out.  This too shall pass, I remember the words of a dear friend quoting her mother.  We will have plenty of time to complete our work.

The boys have dozed off. Even Gunnar left his post by the door and is sharing the bed with Bob.  Me, I refuse to give in to heavy eyelids.  I want to get back to work.  But holding the pen becomes harder and harder, my written words scribbled and incomplete, and I give in to the sweetness of a brief afternoon nap.

 

Day 3

Night time.  The Big Dipper just to the north of the Pyramid.  Stars so close you feel surrounded, embraced, overwhelmed, very, very small.  It all looks so big.  Unanswered questions overhead.  Unlimited curiosity, unlimited view, unlimited world of which we are a very small, very quiet part.

Today in the ditch.  A small group of backpackers asking the way.  The trail has been all but closed.  Dead trees fallen.  The newest findings of this changing environment.  Fifty one across the trail in the first mile above where the trail crosses the ditch.

They are already tired.  Yesterday, downed trees pushed them off the trail, finding their own way three and a half miles through the timber this side of the Rio Grande Pyramid.  I am impressed they find their way without the trail. We see so many completely trumped when the visible trail becomes uncertain.  There is comfort in the worn path.  These kids relied on common sense and a sense of direction, two of the most valuable wilderness skills.

We lead them to the trail, point out the route and reassure them that if they make it through this first mile, things do get better.  At least, as far as we’ve gone.  They are going farther.  The Continental Divide trail, they are doing, from Stony Pass to Wolf Creek.  I think the highest continuous section of the Divide.  And the most truly incredible, like being out there beneath the stars, looking up and out at this huge and beautiful world beyond what you’ve ever seen before.

Their journey would have taken them on a two or three hour section above treeline today.  Mid day, when they would have been up and out there in the wide wild openness, another violent storm befalls the mountain.  I thought of these kids, and somehow was not worried.  Somehow I thought if anything, they would be so filled with wonder by the magnificence of it all, by the sheer immensity of the beauty and power of the storm and nature, and respectful of the simplicity and powerlessness of ourselves out there in it.

 

Day 4

Dinner bubbling on the woodstove.  Here where work can be so hard even Hamburger Helper tastes great.  Standing over the little stove, stirring. Keeping on my wet boots for that one last trip to bring in the horses from pasture.  Wet feet.  Forever cold and wet they feel here sometimes.  I prefer to cook with cold wet feet then allow my feet to dry, and then have to stick them back in wet boots.  How good it will feel when I’m done for the day and finally slip on warm wool socks.

Today, more felling and bucking in the rain. Oil the old cross cut saw to help it sing through the wood.  Stumps left standing with the tell tale blue wood from the beetles’ deadly kiss.  Curious to me the number the hikers up the mountain right now, and how few stop to ask what we’re doing.  I don’t find myself that intimidating, and actually enjoy stopping to talk with the few who ask.  Forrest called me Mother Bucker.  Lady Logger. I like it.  Sounds big and bad, but remember, I’m a forty five year old mountain mama from New York City who weighs in well under 120.  With my wet boots on.

An evening walk after work across the big meadow where our horses graze, to inspect the work done on “the big ditch,” the one more often seen and found, owned and maintained by the Colorado Division of Wildlife.  An organization I’m probably better off saying little about as I may not find anything nice to say.

Workers had been there for a few days this week, this year, still trying to repair damage from the year before.  At this rate, from the work we saw “completed” it will only be a few more years before they send in the big crew to fix it again. A big ordeal made bigger. Trucks and trailers lined up at the trailhead and news of a formidable work force sent into the wilds, long pack strings following just to bring in their gear. This was no typical Wilderness adventure to stumble upon for those tourists trekking the Divide.  Perhaps it is no wonder that the backpackers we see would rather let us be then stop for a welcome visit.

However work aside (and work here is important to us, as with all of what we do out here, from horsemanship to felling trees, we take such pride in our work and strive to improve ourselves each year), the greater upset was the way the wilds were left.  Disgraceful.  Wilderness Ethics were not a concern, or to be polite, perhaps just were not known.  Horses tied to trees along side trails (the Continental Divide trail, no less), trash left in fire pits, sections next to the trail of grass tromped down to dirt from the large crowds, and worse yet was the hillside trashed, used as their toilet without bothering to bury.

My fury over such disregard of these beautiful wilds is washed away in the gentle storm that swept over us as we walked back across the meadow, looking ahead at where our camp is tucked into the trees, invisible to the passer by, arched overhead with a perfect subtle rainbow.

 

Day 5

3 pm and the storm has not passed, only varied in intensity.  We are ready to return home for the weekend but the prospect of two hours horseback across the Divide in rain, hail, thunder and lightning allows us to wait it out.  The storm stays longer than we would have guessed.  I am anxious. Ready to move on.  Stresses of home have returned. Sitting and waiting, not working, they sit there with me and hold to me like a ball and chain.

Waiting out the storm.

What have I left behind to be here?  Running water (unless all these lovely little creeks can count) and internet connection.  Financial burdens, personal obligations, communications, keeping abreast of the modern world when here our world is gathering firewood, cooking in the tent over the little woodstove, horses and handtools, hand steeling, double jacks, shovels and slips, wedges and the six foot crosscut saw I sharpened just the other day along a felled tree, and will have to do so again before we fell the next big tree.  The beetles have provided us with an endless array of dead trees to clear from the water way.

What have I left behind?

I will return to clean jeans, a hot bath, sipping a strong cocktail, and slipping my feet into warm slippers.  I will return to stresses I am able to leave behind here and now and need not think about as long as I am here.

I have here with me that which matter most.  There is great peace in that realization.

We will leave when the rain lightens, the lightning storm passes.  And in the meanwhile, this is a good place to be… waiting.

Reflections from mid week

/ Gin Getz / 3 Comments

Rain.  A sweet sweet song playing on the metal roof. Steady rhythm, pulse, cadence.  I fade into the dark clouds, black black sky, like the deepest sea, behind which the promise of full moon rises.  Somewhere else someone else can see it.  In their own silence, far from the stream of rain drumming primordial chants above me, over, on top, around, surround sound embracing me, accepting me and allowing me. I breathe.

I’m home.  Ditch work for this week is cancelled.  We’ll make it up next week.  Sticking around to care for our little red mare, Canella, who, so it seems, was attacked by a mountain lion, and won.  One more reason to love this horse.  However, with a ranch full of little kids and a few little horses, too, sticking around to keep an eye on matters probably isn’t a bad idea.

So, I am left with a week unplanned, able to be filled with time to write, time to work the (other) horses, and time to get out and explore.

In my need to get out there as the confines of high summer weigh somewhat heavy upon me, the past three days found me on foot (not horses), hiking to places I have never been before.  Spontaneous adventures leading to who knows where.  Yesterday led us to the base of Brewster Park, about four miles up the Rio Grande from where we began, and back along our horse trail which seems so different viewed on foot in summer.  On foot, one finds more time to look closer, slower.  A different perspective.  Perhaps more intimate with the mountain.

Time.  This summer my goal was for more time.  Time to do what we’ve had to put off for so many summers.  More hiking.  Fishing.  Early morning photo safaris.  Pleasure rides, the pleasure of riding with just each other and even alone.  Building a bridge – our bridge, something just for us.   Writing just to write; playing with the written word, wild thoughts.

And it was on one of these hikes (it matters not which one, now, does it?) I noted the first yellow leaves of Aspen.  Bunches, small trees, a leaf strewn across the path before me.

Summer promised to end.  I feel her bowing early as early she came on this year. The hour glass empties and as always is only so full.  How short she really stays up here.

A part of me grasps for the hope of enough sun and warmth to bring on tan legs and a ripe tomato.  I am rather sure I will see neither one.  Another part of me trembles with anticipation of my wild winters returning.  So close.  My breath quickens and I am lost with her, alone, and exactly where I want to be.

 

She touched the face before her

A hard and cold reflection

Slick surface on delicate hands

When really what she wanted

Was a soft embrace

Listen to the wilds cry

/ Gin Getz / 9 Comments

Listen to the wilds cry

Confessions heard in dying trees

An intimate look at a big forest ravaged by tiny beetles

If anyone had told me ten years ago that the hills as far as I can see and beyond would be filled with such death, that I’d be surrounded by miles and miles of mountain hillsides draped with dying trees, up to the top of tree line on both sides of the Divide… I would never have believed.

I believe now.  For this is what I see.

Green turned red, brown and grey.

We try to be optimistic.  See the few green trees remaining.  Some smaller Spruce, and of course, the Aspen.  Glimmers of hope.

It’s not enough.  Look at the rest.  It’s dead. Dead, damn it, dead!  We are living surrounded by death.

I try to find the beauty in it all, and if the light is just right, it’s there, you can see the softness in the setting sun on the dying needles.  A more open view when you’re in the woods.  But really, that’s it.  It’s dead, death, and lots of it. It gets to you some times.

Genocide of the mountain and we sit back and say there is nothing we can do.  Rape of the land I love.

It’s not that bad, you say.  There’s still so much beauty, so much goodness, so much life.  Oh, I know.  I see it every day.  I do my best to appreciate.  Wildflowers, grasses seeding out, steel grey clouds, trout surfacing the river, captivating colors in the rocks, a rainbow, a sunset, the flash of the blue bird on the old cedar post.  But there is also so much death.  And dark clouds do get gloomy, intriguing as they may at first appear.

Cheer up, you say, it’s still so beautiful and always will be.  Oh, I promise you, I know and I see, very clear and very deep.  For I am here, remaining when your fairy tell ends.  This is our home, our reality.  So how can I turn a blind eye to this devastation?

I saw a stand of smaller trees, two, three, four inches in diameter, standing dead with tell tale signs of beetle kill.  Dripping sap turned hard, pin holds and chipping bark, needles falling off like rain, teardrops of the wilds as I ride by horseback and brush too close to death.  I tip my rim forward and let the needles fall onto my horse’s mane and neck.  He is used to this.

This was not supposed to happen.  None of this was.  I remember the first such ravaged land I saw, devastated by the beetles, back fifteen years ago or so in Carson, New Mexico.  Didn’t know what it was back then, as we watched the four and five hundred year old pinon trees that were here when the Spanish settled, wither away in one season.

I’ve heard all the “expert” opinions, and know it’s just a guessing game.  It will only get the pinon, or perhaps the ponderosa, scotch, limber, lodge pole, fir, bristlecone, spruce…  It will only kill up to eight thousand, then nine thousand, ten thousand feet…

Last year they even told us once it’s dead it might not burn as bad.  Colorado learned the hard way this year.  I don’t want to call it all “lies.”  The intentions of the so-called know-it-alls might be good.

Face it.  No one knows.  I’m tired of hearing predictions that don’t pan out and ideas to fix the forest or save one single tree that just won’t work when the entire view – yes, miles and miles and miles, how many millions of trees – die before me.

Death.  That’s the problem.  It’s not that it is ugly per se, though most of us who live in it still have a heck of time finding true beauty in the rolling red hillsides or one individual, unique dead standing tree, just one more in a forest of so many.  The problem is that the hills and mountains that once sang with life and promise now stand silent, stripped and exposed like a bleeding heart.  Our trees have been raped and killed.  And not just one or two or a hundred or so.  But mile after mile, mountain after mountain, millions and millions and millions of trees.

Dead.  Don’t tell me it’s a natural cycle and it’s all going to be OK.  I’ve heard enough of that.  You’ve proven you have no idea what you’re talking about, what is happening. But it’s happening.  It’s happened. These trees are dead.  These mountains are dying.  It’s death and it’s ugly and it’s real. So stop sugar coating the view before me because I take off the green tinted glasses and I see red and brown and grey.

I’m tired of lies.  Of guesses.  Of ignorance for which I am guilty too.  I’m tired of listening for what I want to hear, taking solace in the latest glimmers of hope like blind faith, as the plague continues to spread and we place our bets on how far it will go next year.

My child’s children will never see these mountains as tall and green and lush and majestic as I once did.  But no longer do.  Now I see red.  I am red with anger.  The mountain may silently weep.  But I can rage loud as the color red.

 

(…to be continued)

 

OK, friends, readers and passer-bys, on that happy note… I’m off again this week for another round of ditch camp.  See you at the end of the week.

The other side

/ Gin Getz / 2 Comments

“You were made to contribute,” I read and these words felt strong and true.  But what do I have to give?

Isn’t there’s more to my calling in life than providing a vacation for tourists?  Building my world so others can enjoy it for a brief stay away from their own reality.

“Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you should set up a life you don’t need to escape from.”  Seth Godin.

I believe this and have tried to live my life this way, yet I’ve been providing that escape for others.  And doing so is what has enabled me to live the life others dream of, but don’t dare to walk away from safe and sound and secure to create.

Have I no further talents, gifts, abilities, that can help in some way?

Seriously, life is hard sometimes.  Why can’t the answers just present themselves?

 

I’ve been told they are out there.  Be still, silent, and listen.  I don’t hear them yet.

I try to find a quiet time alone with her.  Hear her wisdom.  In wind and water and hard earth beneath my feet.  Above the river, across the river.

Here, our Rio Grande, her stories are not old, but fresh and new, like fairytales heard as a child.  Here, only miles from where she emerges from snowbank and spring to tint, trickle and trail the mountains and wind her way through my land, my world, my dreams.  Here, she is new water, strong and pure, not yet softened and slowed, diverted, polluted.

Step in, she calls me.

And I do.

I thought you would be harsh, blunt, cold, shocking.

Instead I find you have softened with age, sun, seasons.  You are summer waters.  Childlike.  Or very, very old and wise.  Hard to tell the difference in your silver face.

Rolling over rounded rocks, as have I.

Take me to the other side, I ask of you, in a current too strong to remain.

And now I walk above you. And am there.  On the other side.

Washed away by white noise of the river.

Stepping upon last year’s leaves still untrodden.