seasons

Slowly snow

/ Gin Getz / 12 Comments

 

Snow

Dusting the deck as we finish dinner

Steak au poive under candle light

All that remain is my sweetie and me

Our four leggeds

The silly little coyote that refuses to run away

And snow

Illuminated by swelling moon

Diffused by slender clouds

Soft grayish whitish powder silky sprinkle

Clouds softer and lighter than those of summer

Without the depth and weight and drama of rain

Carried within them like a swollen mothers breast

But holding instead the sparkle and light and crystal air of

Snow

A silent promise

Little more than a whisper

That holds all the mystery of today tomorrow yesterday

Ten degrees to start to-day

The height of afternoon remained right at freezing

Ice begins to form upon the mighty Rio

Slowing her flow thick like ink of

Black pens I use to scratch out a poem in my weathered journal

There on the river in the dark of the trees still holding needles

Ice spans from bank to bank

Fragile as the thin shell of an egg

Only looming growing expanding each day

No longer chased away by mid day warmth

Portending as the melodious clouds above

Frozen ground hard beneath my boots

Steel on the horses hooves pound like thunder

As they run to me

Hungry

Frost beneath the blue spruce on the north slope

Growing like mold on moist bread

The loaf that will be left out all winter to flourish

She settles, the season, slowly oozing into to her ice age

Of hoar frost and solid creeks

And still silent white wintriness

And taking me with her into her ashen solace

But here I will not remain

When even here is not far enough away

 

So for the friends and family and those who read this who know and care, this weekend I head up to British Columbia to visit Forrest.

 

And this winter, well this winter…

I am here, now, and tell you only of that for now, for here is where I am.

For now.

And tomorrow, well…

 

Adalante!

 

 

Remembering splendor

/ Gin Getz / 11 Comments

 

 

The morning after

Muscles moving with soreness and shivers

Dripping where once was dry

The cage door swings open

Feral beast unleashed

She bolts and does not look back

Stops to catch her heaving breath

Sweating along creased brow

Narrow vision of passion

It is all a blur

Mind blending memories with desires

How do we separate the two

After they have intertwined?

 

 

 

 

Fallen leaves

/ Gin Getz / 6 Comments

 

The Grande Finale.  Washing away in early morning rain. Giving in, giving up. Pacifying rain.  Perhaps the last of its kind for the season.  I listen to its placid song on the metal roof.  Quieter now without the rustle of the leaves and their subtle refrain, now stripped from the trees and tangled in the dried brown grasses below.

Fallen leaves.  Bare trees standing static. Awaiting.

Darker days, longer shadows, I prepare for the inevitable quieting of mountain and mind.

Yesterday’s deep, rich, ripe orange. A juicy peach full of fresh life and sweet promises. The color of the Aspen leaves before they let go.  A hillside on fire now paling to grey. Where even the evergreens are no longer green.  I will find a subtle beauty in this too, you know.

Swollen with a passion as brilliant as the fiery hillside before me, then accepting expiring flames, blowing out.  We are left stark, silent, solitary, each of us on our own paling hillside.

 

 

(For a greater display of the brilliant fall color from earlier this season, please see: http://www.facebook.com/#!/media/set/?set=a.4184427821999.164195.1623616997&type=1 )

 

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

The time between

/ Gin Getz / 3 Comments

On a high pine bow at a bend in the river rests an osprey. Motionless. I see only the silhouette of the black and white bird. Perhaps awaiting his next meal from the gently moving waters below. Or perhaps for the raptor this is no more than a respite. The time between.

The waters remain unfrozen. A mild autumn. A silky flow of silver over smoothly polished stones. No more than pearls of ice form on low limbs overhanging the north side of the embankment. Small patches of hoar frost spread in secret spaces hidden from the sun along the shore. White as fresh snow, a reminder of what should be, what will be.

It is not easy to get here. A tangle of vines and fallen trees, grabbing my jeans, snapping branches, leaving welts of whip marks across my cheeks if I don’t duck in time. Keeping the river wild. Deer tracks. Signs where the coyote has crossed. No tell tale signs of rubber tread ahead of us; only our own following. Huge ponderosa stumps, roots and all, pile up like a log jam at a sharp bend. The water is choosing, creating a new route, cutting into the softer bank on the now receiving side of this flow.

They say winter is late to come here this year. I have nothing to compare it to. I seek references, association. There is a comfort in knowing. Putting the view before us in its proper place. A tidy jar on a shelf. Likewise, an unease in everything seeming so new.

We read about the many storms that have covered our old mountain, tucked her in tight for the season. That we understand. It fits into the links of the past we carry with us though we try to let go. If we were there, now would be our time for reveling in our solitude. Reconnecting with the trails and secret places that only we go. Reclaiming our big back yard.

I am aware of the selfishness of solitude. On one hand a breeding ground for deeper thinking. Undisturbed silence to allow our brains to bloom. My thoughts, my terms, my time. On the other hand is community and intelligent conversation. Are greater thoughts raised in the back and forth between interacting minds, or in the void of solitude? The challenge of defining and defending.

We are not there. We are here. A new mountain, new land, new back yard. And newness carries unease that only time can soften. The time between. Between the hardness of discovery and that softness of understanding.

Newness reminds us nothing is known for certain. We float precariously. Perhaps that is a more realistic point of view than feeling grounded, solid on assumptions.

I look down river again and the osprey is gone.

Snow day

/ Gin Getz / Leave a comment


I know it won’t last. Like a lollipop. If you’re gonna enjoy it, it’s gonna go away fast. By late afternoon, our tracks are down to dirt, muddy foot prints, tell-tale signs of our busy day.

It’s only October. The sunburn on my cheeks and nose is testament to the power of the autumn sun. Today, perhaps mud. Tomorrow dry ground. Though deep in the dark timber, traces will remain until spring.

Enjoy it while I can for I know it won’t remain. I won’t remain. Chances are, it will be gone before I am.

Snow. Here and now. No indication of what winter will bring, and no matter to me as I will not be here. No one will. Isn’t that funny to note? No one was here before me, and when we close the gate behind us, no one will remain.

All I know is what is out there now, and right now, there’s snow. Sledding tracks, a snow man and a giant snowball in my front yard. Obstacles for the work at hand.

A story to pass the time. This was written two years ago, just stirred up in a pre-moving cleaning spree, and a pile of memories I’m happy to leave behind. There is a funny twist to this story that reveals itself years later. I don’t know if you believe in karma, and I don’t know if I do either. But I do know this. One should never seek revenge. It hurts the bearer of bitterness far more than intended victim. Yet in the end, it seems as if justice is paid in better ways that I could ever dream up. The more I wash myself clean of my own anger, the easier it is to clearly see. And what I see is what looks like karma catching up. You know, like people who dig their own graves, figuratively speaking of course. Now I sit back with an admittedly twisted smile observing misery enjoying his and her own company. No vengeful act I could ever create would have come close… and I admit I take a certain sick pleasure in that. I know that’s wrong, but…

October 2009
We ride up the trail in the late morning, my husband and I, joined by another outfitter. We have a job to do up the mountain. We move along noiselessly except for the cadenced patting of the flat feet of the horses on the hard packed trail. We are in the autumn sun dappling through the golden aspen leaves sprinkled along this winding path. We are riding a trail of sparkling gold, floating along in these incomparable riches granted free in nature. I turn to see the men and horses behind me. All are aglow as we silently travel forward, each in our own reverie. I am enjoying the rhythm of the horse, my good and solid Quattro who knows these trails as well as I do. I am mesmerized again by the mountain. I am grateful to be allowed to be here.
On the next section of trail as it again turns into the trees, there are two ATVs parked alongside the trail and a few folks working on a fence. Not a regular sight to see on a trail where more often than not I am alone. Quattro knows. He stops abruptly, hesitates, tenses, and continues on. In front of him stands my husband’s brother. His presence alone is enough to frighten the horse. He is a big man. His demeanor is even larger. The horse fortunately trusts me as I take a deep breath, touch my hand to his warm hard neck, and assure him we will be fine. I too am used to questioning. We have been confronted too often. The tension in my stomach is a regular occurrence from these encounters. I can only hope he will let us pass in relative peace this time. We are always left to wonder. More often than not, he will choose conflict. Conflict. This does not come naturally to me or my husband. I am grateful for that.
A part of me is amused to see him there, replacing a gate which was broken or missing. This is the very same location, the very same gate, his wife had come years before to remove from its hinges. Why? I never knew. I added this to the inconsistencies I realized I would never understand. This act was as much of a mystery as their removing the gate by the drift fence right behind the ranch. For years, the mother would open that gate to allow the cattle through. I was told their bellowing as they bunched up by the fence disturbed the afternoon nap. Perhaps they finally figured it was easier to simply remove the gate altogether than have to sneak out in the afternoon to let it swing open. Story has it that very same gate is hanging in the brother’s yard. A trophy of sorts, I am told he has bragged. I am not impressed.
There is a third person there working at the gate, the last to step back as our horses make their way around the obstructions in the trail and continue onward. It is a woman, probably not much older than I am. She stares up at me and I briefly look back towards her, directly into her eyes as we pass by. I look for recognition. A fellow woman working, trying to make a living in the mountains was what I wanted to find. What I see instead is a look that sears. Perhaps I am presuming wrong; I hope this is the case. Yet somehow, in my heart, I felt a sting, a disappointment, a rejection, from a woman I have but met. Surely I am imagining. How could she look at me with hatred? Perhaps it is just a silly notion on my part, but I feel it, somehow, and it hurts. Why? How could a stranger have hatred for one she has never known? I look to the brother with his broad smirk standing their leaning on the shovel with more inflated confidence than I will ever know, and I fear I know the answer.
That longing for wanting to be judged, if one must make judgment (and few among us are strong and wise enough to make it through this world without) on me, on who and what I am and have done, not on the stories of angry and envious and threatened in-laws. This has been a regular experience, one I have been too familiar with in meeting strangers in this land that has for all these years reminded me I shall never belong. The stories are there before me. I am sized up and sentenced before we even meet.

A return to black and white

/ Gin Getz / 1 Comment

There is no black, no white, only shades of grey. Facts and stories, people and places, yesterday and tomorrow, blending together into today. Shadows and suggestions, questions and ambiguity. This is what makes life such a challenge, yet brings great depth of beauty, interest and intrigue.

Grey, the laden clouds loitering low along the sides of the mountain now recently stripped of fancy foliage. Grey, shrouding the peaks now covered in a lighter wash, snow in the faintly brightening sky, spilling into the tree line, blending with dark timber, softening the harsh defining boundaries. Grey, in layers laid like swaths of blowing silk as far as they eye can see fading to a paler wash. Grey, between earth and sky and a part of each; that which bonds and unifies, connects and conceals.

Unadorned

/ Gin Getz / Leave a comment


Your peaks were painted with snow yesterday. And for just a moment I stopped my work, stood outside and looked at your white laced mountain tops, and felt the same stirring I have felt each year, a yearning for the excitement of anticipation of the season. Primal and uncontrollable, yet still soft and deep enough no one ever really knows.

For how many years have I worked on our little piece of land here on your big broad mountain side and looked over my shoulder awaiting your leaves to put out your final fiery display and then blow off, taking with them the last of the summer tourists, leaving you here with me, unadorned, as we remain and near the stark white season, that which settles in and consumes, quiet and calms, allowing me to hear my breath in your winter winds.

And yet this winter will find me on a different hillside, a different mountain to cradle my fears and passions. A winter, hushed and sleepy and snowy, awaits me but in a new land, new places to explore, touch and tease me, unfold before me like lacy golden wings, delicately covered with frost in first light of an early winter morning.

But will I find wilds? Will I ever be embraced by the wilds that have surrounded me here for half the year? The solitude and silence have become me. I have identified myself more with the mountain than the people who come and go, and from both I step away. I will find them again, that which matters most, the wild places and spaces, elsewhere. Some of us belong somewhere just a little more wild. Or is it that perhaps we don’t fit in the other places.

Starting with a typical day

/ Gin Getz / 7 Comments

And us…

Starting with a typical day.

Yesterday.

5:30 a.m. and my world is already light.  I hate that.  I’d rather rise not only before the sun, but before the light.  But somehow, when we don’t finish dinner till after 9, then clean up, wash up (ah… the beloved bath… enjoy it while I still can as another summer without indoor plumbing or running water awaits us), catch up and reading to unwind… somehow this makes waking earlier harder. 

In spite of the bath, I wake with sore muscles.  A pleasant reminder of how much we got done the day before. A permanent part of early spring.  Taking it easy and going slow is out of the question when you’ve waited for months to see the ground.  Now is the time to DO.  Winter will come again.  Though this coming winter promises great surprises.  For us as well as you. I’ll explain all that another time.

The pup has learned his place, quiet beside me, ignoring the cats that remain always frisky in the first of morning.  I sit on the sofa with his warm furry body on one side, the wood stove softly purring on the other, and the computer on my lap.  Less creative writing, more correspondence as tourist season approaches and the mountain and our world prepares to open up.

Chores, feeding the horses, a pleasure right now, as the panic of winter has passed and the horses have this easy calm about them.  Soft eyes and ears, they’re happy for breakfast when it comes, but are not tense in anticipation.  Now they have time to look me in the eye as if saying a polite, “Thank you,” then lower  their heads with a gentle sigh and graciously take what is given to them.

The last of their winter coats are still holding, despite daily brushings and their spring de-worming.  Another week, and they too will be bright and shiny as was the description of our greatly anticipated Norman, the new draft horse arriving tomorrow from his family in Texas. Almost a swap, for Texas is where our old draft, Gizmo, was allowed for an early retirement.

Then we jog, on this morning, just Gunnar and me.  Yes, jog. Usually all of us.  As if we didn’t get enough exercise throughout the day, you ask?  Heck, I’m only up to two miles.  A long ways to go before any marathons.  But not too bad for 10,000 feet elevation. Part training for the pup to stay with me at a heel, and training for us two leggeds, for it began just a month ago inspired by Forrest’s fundraiser (the High Country Hustle).  In any case, we started on packed snowmobile tracks, then frozen slush, then mud.  Biting snow blowing in our faces as we faced into the morning storms was not unusual.  We’re hearty. And you can’t let your life wait on soft sunny days. Get out there, I say! So there we were, in muck boots, if you can picture that, the three of us with our long skinny legs running up the mountain in tall rubber boots.

Now the road is back to dirt. Hard, dry dirt.  And I don running shoes.  And truly, it feels fabulous!

We return and the boys are up. Sort of.  Silently stumbling around, but at least with smiles. I get breakfast going on the old cook stove.  Homemade toast fried in the big cast iron skillet, home grown eggs with big and brown shells and glowing orange yolks.  Nothing fancy, but hearty and rich.  “Eggs and toast again…”  I’ve heard them complain.  Forrest has yet to have cold cereal for breakfast.  Ah, college will bring many surprises for him.

Then the day really begins.  There’s a gate to fix. Bob’s out there welding.  We bring the horses in for training and grooming, brushing off their winter coats, and polishing up old manners, teaching good new ones.  Two yearlings, two three year olds, and a few that just need to shine up the rusty patches.  I know the feeling.  Working with the horses, sitting in the saddle or on their soft warm backs, feels awkward again at first.  For maybe the first two days.  Then I’m back to wishing I had nothing better to do and could be there all day (and I swear the horses wish the same).

Nearly fifty by noon, but a good biting spring wind to remind us we’re in the mountains.

But we have lots more to do.  Getting the ranch and cabins set for our final season.  And construction.  Always construction!  Starting with the bathroom remodel.  The last of the old bathrooms from the original guest cabins… We ripped it out, exterior walls and all, last fall. Figured we’d just start from scratch.  Had the big cavernous hole to the cabin blocked off with tarps for the winter, and only now are we able to break up the ground to dig in new pipes – with a jackhammer.  Frozen solid soil.  Testament to how deep our frost line goes and how late it remains.   (Don’t worry, Bob P – we’ll have it done in time for you!)

Anyway, that’s just part of it.  Suffice to say I find myself quitting before the sun does, wishing I could hold out longer, but fantasizing about how good that bath and a hot dinner will feel.  Except of course, then I have to cook that hot meal. Thus the late dinners in Spring.

So… the rest of my updates will wait for another day.  I’ve got work to do.  But as Maggie reminds me, there should always be time for keeping up with friends.

Stormy spring

/ Gin Getz / 2 Comments

Though the world outside my window might not look the part, as I write this, my thoughts are on spring.  Spring in the high country.  Melting snow, brown waters, exposed hillsides, and mud. 

Every day for a week now, it has snowed.  Just when we were ready for spring.  Just when we were ready to work the horses, fix fences, turn the garden soil, and put up new roofing on our little cabin. 

If this had been winter, we’d have called it “awesome.”  My son’s school work would be left and he’d be out in it.  Maybe the mild winter was a good thing.

But now it is spring, and we’ve got things to do.  This was not in our plans.  Yet, as you know, here one cannot complain about the moisture.  Just when we were beginning to worry about another drought year. 

And then, before you know it, it will be summer.  Days will be warm. The down jacket left on the hook and the heavy mud boots pushed under the stool in the entrance.  The ground will be dry.  Leaves will be coming on the trees and the grass will start to green. Me, I’ll be in the garden, out riding the trails, visiting with guests, enjoying a leisurely lunch on the deck.  The river will be calm and clear, fish jumping at the latest hatch.  Someone, somewhere along this beautiful stretch of the Rio Grande, will be tossing lines and trying to emulate a part of that hatch.

Everything changes in spring.  Snow recedes.  Roads open.  And with the open road, the tourists slowly trickle by, seemingly shocked that spring has not yet made it up this high. An odd curiosity to arrive and not see what you remember.  Unfulfilled memories of long, leisurely lingering days for those who come to get away.  They turn their backs to the blowing snow and turn their vehicles back downhill.

There is much more to this mountain than summer.