Stirring frozen waters.

March 21, 2014 / Gin Getz / 12 Comments

This is dedicated to the angry old man who was so afraid of noise all he could hear was his own shouting for silence. And for the folks so busy tooting their own horn they miss the symphony behind them.

I wrote this article a couple months ago for a magazine I thought would be brave enough to publish it. They were not. Am I? Silly question.

This piece may break some peace, stir some waters, ruffle feathers, raise fur and churn up mud so comfortably settled at the bottom of the still forest pool. My sincere apologies if I offend any individual and I hope to hear your response and opinion if so. You matter to me. My intention is to share my view, and in doing so, open eyes. Maybe even open a few hearts, minds and souls along the way, but that is asking a lot of a little article. It’s long. Take your time. I hope you will enjoy.

So the other day…

We’re at the Rio Grande Reservoir Dam. The westernmost edge of the nearly 110,000 acre West Fork Complex fire that burned deep into the Weminuche Wilderness last summer. It stopped here in part because of the powerful prompts of the powers that be. The District that owns and operates this dam, and depending on how you look at it, owns a lot of the mighty Rio Grande. When the fires erupted in June, the crews were here working on the hundred year restoration of the dam. Water is powerful. Here in Colorado, powerful enough to hasten firefighting efforts, mechanized and otherwise, into the Wilderness and keep the fire from damaging more of the fragile water shed or dam restoration efforts.

In the snow, the charred trees to the south and east look like the pencil hatch marks of a black and white drawing. The hills are somewhat sensual in their stark exposure, now revealing the undulations, curves and crevasses. It’s beautiful in a different sort of way.

I forget about the burn some times. Out of sight, out of mind. Finally. The scars on the land will last a lot longer than ones within me. Left quite an impression on us in early summer as our family remained on the otherwise evacuated mountain while the hills below us burned. And then later after the rains began we’d stare at the gathering thunderheads and wonder. I remember friends in San Fran after the big shake up of ‘89 that would wake in a sweat when they felt a rattle for a long time afterwards.

An hour ago, my husband, Bob, rode his snowmobile here to meet his cousin, Ty, who is coming up from the farm on the valley below to play in the mountains for a couple days. He’s also delivering the Cat tracked skid steer. Bob’s new toy. Yes, you could say, Bob’s Cat. And our big splurge. The secret weapon for building our new log cabin. We’re cutting down all the beetle kill, which I guess means all the trees, on our land along the Rio now while the river is frozen, dragging the timber back across, and stockpiling, all in preparation for building our new little family home this coming summer on the bare bluff above the Rio.

That’s why I’m here now. I need to ride that snowmobile back with Gunnar on my lap, the almost eighty pounds of semi-feral- almost-four-going-on-like-six-months-old German Shepherd dog, while my husband slowly follows in that Cat. Otherwise, I’d manage pretty well to stay away from even this white ribbon that hints of leading to civilization. It’s not that I’m anti-social; it’s just that I like to be alone.

On the way here, Gunnar and I alternate between running and walking along the six and half miles of packed snowmobile track from our home to this spot. Just past Halfway Hill, there’s a dead moose spread across what would in summer be a road. The head, spine, and a few legs are still intact. It’s like a speed bump in the snow. I can see from the tracks that Bob drove the snowmobile right over it. I lift it up and drag it to the side of the road. Gunnar sniffs. He does not care for rancid meat. Not much remains. The spine is already speckled with bird droppings.

Just past the pile of bones, I feel it before I hear it, and hear it before I see it. I’m like Radar. By the time the helicopter comes round the mountain, I’m standing there pointing my big old SLR camera with telephoto lens (no, I do not own a smart phone with built in camera, or any phone for that matter, there’s no cell service around these parts anyway; and yes, I do run with this big beast of a camera around my neck). I recognize the yellow. Same one that came up two weeks ago in a storm looking for the Big Horn but I think when he got this far, they were happy to leave. The pilot flew directly over our house and all he got to see was my horses huddled against the fence and maybe some crazy woman running around in the snow. Wild life indeed.

There’s not a lot of noise around these parts in winter. You learn to recognize motors. We’re at the kitchen table at breakfast and walk outside if we hear an airplane. Funny thing, funny for lack of a better word, is my horses get buzzed a few times every winter. They no longer flinch when the copter flies over head. Let alone run like we watch the moose do from the kitchen window, out there across the deep white pasture trying to seek shelter in the trees. I don’t know if the needle-less timber provides much shelter anymore.

Now, the pilot sees me and does a quick 90-degree maneuver, high tails it over Finger Mesa and out of site. I wonder what he thinks when he sees some woman way out here ready for him before he knows I’m there, with a camera pointed at him? Better that than a shot gun. I’m guessing he’s heard of me. Not a lot of other half-feral women live out here.

I continue on, Gunnar blazing the way, following Bob’s track to the dam. This is where the plowed dirt road that eventually leads to a plowed paved road that after a while leads to a little town ends. And this is where the snowmobile track that leads to our cabin and then into the great white yonder up to the Continental Divide that may seem like the end of the world to some and the big back yard to us begins.

There are people around in summer. An abundance of Texas tourists, ATV riders, fishermen fixed up in Cabela’s finest, hunters in camo and blaze orange with big diesel trucks that they drive even to their office in some flat land town but here actually might get dirty and kick into four wheel. Maybe.

I live for winter. That’s our time. Me, my husband, our four legged and feathered friends. Our son, when he’s not off to university or like this winter, working at the South Pole. (You might say growing up here was in preparation for such a position.) No one has lived here before us, and probably, no one would live here after we move, if we ever do. High and harsh as this mountain is, I’m in no rush to leave. And it’s not summer now. Those tourists are a long ways away right about now.

Only, here they come. One, two, three, four, five, six… a parade of big diesel trucks moving up the mountain and pulling into the little snow packed parking area at the dam. Safety in numbers. Only that’s not why I live here. The wildlife would probably say the same if they could speak, or if we would learn to listen.

It’s not tourists. Not really. It’s the Colorado Division of Wildlife. I wonder what they’re here to chase down, shoot, tranquilize or trap today.

The herd of trucks drive up and stop dead in their tracks. They’ve arrived at what they may think is the end of the world, but for us is just the beginning. I can be sure my presence is not a welcome sight. My support, or lack thereof, is not unknown. It’s kind of fun being a little woman intimidating a bunch of big men.

Turns out to be the moose’s unlucky day. We cringe to hear this. Last time they went for the moose, four were killed in one day. The tranquilizer didn’t work very well. Oops.

One more cow moose was left for dead a mile below our ranch. We watched over a span of several days in sub zero weather as she lay there still in the open snow, and then she was gone. She was one of the lucky ones.

Before that, there was the lynx project which I understand they finally tiptoed away from with their tail between their legs. It’s 1998. Global Warming is getting hot in the headlines. But hey, let’s see what happens if we trap some lynx from up in Canada and bring them over 1500 miles down to the Southern San Juans! There might be a few that remain. Most starved to death, or high tailed it back north where they belong. I hear a few got hit crossing a highway on their way. Several years before they scrapped their attempts, I read the program was called a success based on numbers. That year, they counted more kittens born in the litters than they recorded deaths. I always wondered: how many dead did they count?

Today, they’re here to collar the moose, they say.

Right. So, I’m thinking, the plan is this: they’ll chase down the already taxed moose from the air, sharp shoot and tranquilize it, hope the tranquilizer works this time, strap on a collar, and hope the animal makes it so they can go back to town and watch the wilds from the comfort and convenience of their computer on their desk in their office.

Today, I keep my mouth shut and fire up the snowmobile instead, call the dog who jumps on board and off we go, back up the mountain to the safe haven of our home, wait for my husband to slowly follow in the Cat, and then sit back and watch the helicopter fly back and forth for the rest of the afternoon, right over our house or across our pasture. I know my horses won’t be any more bothered than me. But I worry about the moose. I hope they get the tranquilizer right this time.

Among the crying trees.

February 25, 2014 / Gin Getz / 2 Comments

I remember the day it burned. I remember the giant plume and we were up here, out of touch with the rest of the world I have never been able to be much of a part of anyway, and together in our awkward silence we watched and worried and wondered what was burning, something big and angry and then we saw the news.

I remember walking up the Box one fall during hunting season with my son when he was still close to my height, maybe even just a little smaller. We had left the old Blazer by the summer homes at River Hill and Bob dropped us at the bottom of the Box and Forrest and I kept to that trail all the way back up, high on the hot hillside above the river, following the one-horned big horn sheep we nick-named Tighty Whitey.

I did not cry going through there yesterday. I did not think. I did not judge. I did not contemplate how I “felt.” I simply observed. I took over five hundred photos. I was with my boys and they made me laugh as they skated down the river on their knees.

It was a good way to see it, starting a little bit distant from the center of the frozen Rio Grande, the hillsides softened still by snow, the air warm and river singing loudly below us as she broke open to her black abyss at times and left you wondering so many others. By afternoon the new days water ran over the old winters ice and the dog learned to trust it would still hold him up.

On one side of us where the fire had raged were a lot of black sticks in white snow and long grey shadows. On the other side, the south facing slope, the snow had mostly melted off exposing places where spot fires had burned and the ground was ash and thick and dull and scratched into by the melting snow. Sometimes a footprint of no more than a single tree. Other times the size of a Walmart parking lot.

I look at the pictures now and want to cry but can’t. I feel I should because I know it is sad and a tremendous loss. But I am over it or distant enough or maybe still in denial. I know I should be concerned still because of the fragile soil, destroyed wildlife terrain, and inevitable years of a blank stare that these hills will remain where we are all so excited to see a new blade of grass and a spouting willow emerge but will never see a spruce forest again in our lifetime.

But there is finality there. An open slate. Ready for rebirth. And in that starkness, there is great hope.

As we drove home, back up the mountain and found ourselves passing by the last of the burn and then into the beetle killed hillsides, then is when the sadness hit. I stared out the smeared window as the trees moved by in blur of paling green and fading brown. These hills are still dying, slow and steady, in their silent way. I was tired. Too tired to shed tears.

Among the crying trees.

Today I walk the trail to Sweetgrass Meadow. The tallest of trees still standing though not a needle remains on their dried branches.

Almost fifty out after lunch and the warmer air gets the sap running.

A new batch of dying trees emerging. A new generation of expiring trees. The next wave of the slow tsunami comes to conquer.

Trees with green needles. Like watching them take their last breath, an extended exhale that will last all spring until the needles fade and fall and so silently they weep, without drama and attention, flames and fanfare, plumes or headline news. No one hears, no one listens.

I stare at a long drip line of sap sparkling in the afternoon sun and let my eyes lose focus in the light and for a moment it is almost beautiful. Watching the life blood leave the tree.

I wrap my arms around one tree and press my nose against the slipping bark and dried sap and breathe deeply and smell very little. How can I describe this odor? It is dry. It no longer smells alive. Yes, you can smell death. With my trees, it smells like nothing at all.

Now I can cry, we shed our tears together, and to them I say farewell.

Into the burn.

February 24, 2014 / Gin Getz / 6 Comments

Yesterday we went into the burn.

Down Box Canyon, along and on top of the Rio Grande, from the River Hill Camp Ground all the way through the Box to the road on the lower side of mountain where the hills are speckled by vacant subdivisions and within sight of a paved road, though we saw no signs of so-called civilized life stirring. That’s not what we were searching for. Though I sincerely thank our dear friends and summer neighbors for helping make this possible by bringing our truck down the mountain so we could get back up. What a welcome site that was to see rattling down the road towards us when we made it through.

Eight hours, about as many miles and it seemed like we each hauled that many pounds of food just to keep us going. My husband, my son, my dog and me.

Today I’ll share only my photos, not my words. I hope the images speak for themselves, each to all in a different way, but words of truth. These images are completely untouched, only reduced in size to share with you.

Just another day.

February 11, 2014February 11, 2014 / Gin Getz / 6 Comments

Logging continues. Now it’s the three of us and the dog. Sure he helps. Supervising. He lies in the deep snow of the river bed, head up, alert, and every time you look over at him, he’s looking over at you. When that gets old, he’s off barking something we never see. It must be working, all that howling, because nothing got us yet.

It’s forty degrees and snowing and we’re standing on top of the Rio Grande roasting hot dogs on long willow branches over the burning pile of slash. You can hear the river louder now, a little angry and thus a little frightening. A few places you see the black void broken through the solid white. The great unknown. You wonder how deep it is, how thick the ice upon which you stand.

More snow. Heavy, wet snow. Coming in waves. Too warm even to stick to my snowshoes.

And in the middle of it all, the red-wing blackbird arrives. A week early. Always seems like they choose stormy weather to herald their arrival, and I feel justified in leaving out seeds each morning on the picnic table outside our kitchen window so, selfishly, I can see them. There is comfort in attracting what little life remains on the mountain around us.

If the silent land

Would learn to scream

Then would we finally

Listen?

Expose.

January 24, 2014 / Gin Getz / 2 Comments

Forget the fancy fluff that poetry can bring

when all I meant to do

was show you that which lies before me

at my feet uncovered by the melting snow

in the silence of the early morning still dark blue

red raven comes and settles upon my mind

I remain hidden

behind the looking glass

Talk to me I tell you

and you turn to me and stare

into your own eyes

Within.

January 16, 2014 / Gin Getz / 3 Comments

For a moment, I look within. Not too long. It can be scary in there.

Not out side, at the trees, the mountain.

For a change, I don’t look around. My eyes are closed. My heart is open instead.

I’m sitting in a perfect circle of exposed dirt at the base of one of my favorite big old spruce trees just a little ways up the Ute Creek trail in the Weminuche Wilderness. My back is pressed against the rough bark and my snowshoes stick up before me boldly on the ends of my outstretched legs. Gunnar is beside me of course, sitting, on the look out. I’m safe.

Forrest’s Throne, we call this tree. Another one with a name. For the many times we stopped here, stared out over the Rio Grande Reservoir in all her seasons, and he rested at the base enwrapped in the bulk of aged roots.

I am sitting there now, thinking deeply about what Amy shared in response to my last post. Wisdom, insight. More welcome when it comes from a friend, a dear friend of the family as she has become, though none of us have met her yet. Perhaps the words she shared would not have rung so true if I was not battling this concern within my mind already. A confirmation. Drilling it in.

On anger.

Answers come.

Less with mind than with heart.

Anger moves, motivates, and must be left behind.

A hot coal under my seat.

I jump up. Put out the flame. Set back and breathe again.

Balance the flame of passion, of anger, of how to draw the line.

Whatever happens, please don’t let me fizzle out and turn lukewarm.

And don’t let me burn too bright I scorch, burn myself, turn you away.

Seek.

Try.

I will make mistakes.

As I will make love, and may make you mad.

Not intentionally, of course.

It’s just part of living life the fullest way I can.

At times, my heart acts stronger than my mind.

How does one find balance?

Anger.

It opens my eyes, but closes my heart.

My eyes are open.

Now, it is time to leave it behind.

Will you see a gentler me?

I’ll try.

Though as a friend visiting the other day said, there’s something about those Jersey girls.

Can I use my “spunk” (his word, not mine) in positive ways?

Yes, I can.

Just watch what I can do.

Anger.

As a form of passion.

Passion can be our greatest motivator and raison d’être.

Or it can eat us alive.

Let it move me forward. But not leave you behind.

This is the message that came to me, Amy, in my walking meditation:

Get on the right path and watch doors fly open.

How do I get from here to there?

Step on board.

It’s that simple.

Move on.

Forward.

Positive.

Partner with the enemy. (Your wise words, Amy, and those of Nelson Mandela.)

Just write and write well.

Show the intimate side of this situation. That’s what I can do.

Yes, leave the “why” behind. I am not a victim.

Turn towards the “what” and the “how” and the “where” and “when.” Share what I see. Be a part of the solution.

Maybe that’s why I’m here.

Stick with my path, share my gift, and perhaps you can use it, perhaps you will hear, perhaps it will help. And maybe it won’t. But at the end of the day, I’ll sleep better for believing at least I had the guts and grit (and spunk) to try.

To try. To stand for what I believe in.

Without burning bridges.

Anger may be what got me started.

I’ve started. Now I can let it go. Of the anger, not the path, not the movement. Anger will no longer bring me forward, only hold me back. Leave those I care about behind. That’s not what I really want, is it?

Let it go and replace it with… sharing my gift. Writing about the intimate view I have, I see, I touch and smell and taste and feel. I am here for a reason. Anger helped me remain here; anger helped me fight to be here. I swear, if it were not for anger, I would be long gone by now. It gave me strength when I needed it. Now I own it. I am here. And it is time to leave that anger behind and move forward.

I don’t need to fight for it; Maybe I just need to listen to it now.

Let me tell you what I hear.

Listen.

I’ll tell you what I hear. I don’t need to say more.

Where? Where will I go? How will I get there?

Start.

Write.

Share what I see. Share what I feel.

Look deeply, write passionately. Bleed, as Hemmingway said and we writers will do. Bleed, I do like the trees with their sap. Bleed to share the life, the beauty, the reality of the world I live in, we both care for. Passionately.

Our weather comes from southern Cal. The rest of Colorado may be watching the Pacific Northwest and the Great Basin, but here in the southern San Juans, we watch what hits Baja and get excited when they get rain this time of year. That means we’ll get snow.

So, the continued California drought concerns us. We’ve been in what some say is a twenty year drought. Call it what you will.

Every year we hope. Every day we watch the weather and look for another Big One. And as is typical for this region, more often than not, it isn’t there. It isn’t coming. Though don’t get me wrong. It’s hard to complain about blue skies and sun.

Back to my snow shoe. Trying to balance that anger, that passion; working with you, not against you and still shaking things up without turning my back or having you turn your back to me.

I return home after feeling I found the answers only to see the news. Fires on the north side of L.A.

So the positive? The answers? The direction that I long for, I lust for?

I’m still working on it… back to square one… something to do with trust in the Earth, and belief in her eternal beauty.

Call me what you will: angry, passionate, or a Jersey girl. But I do have that.

Belief in eternal beauty of our Earth.

Down…

January 7, 2014 / Gin Getz / 14 Comments

~

~
Most days we’re down by the river. You can’t hear it or see it but it is there. Like blind faith. Or common sense. Dormant under the frozen surface. Silenced by the season.

Underneath, I know she rages. The Mighty Rio. Uncontained by elements and as strong as tide, she flows.

Without concern to her, we are on top, dragging logs, back and forth by snowmobile, snowshoes, culling dead trees, wondering if any will remain. Looks like we might be working here a while.

I thought it would be healing. Maybe eye-opening is healing.
~

~
The things we are seeing.

We’re deep in dead wood. Dang it, you can’t even find an undisturbed aspen grove around these parts without a great percentage of death.

But the spruce, the once blue spruce. That is what I see. Red.

I don’t know the numbers. You can look them up yourself. All I know is we’ve been watching the beetles kill mountain after mountain year after year. Like a wave. Starting at the top and spilling down. Then onto the next. And going back to finish off the stragglers.

Please don’t tell me to cheer up. I’ll be just as likely to tell you to wake up. Open up your eyes. Get out here and see for yourself.

It’s quite ruthless. Not what I have seen in other parts. I read we’re not the only ones, but right now, we got it bad. And there’s no end in sight. I just came back from a snowshoe on this side of the river and saw the tell tale signs. Again. It’s making its way down Pole Mountain and hitting the trees behind us. Pin holes, sap and slipping bark. Will they be red by summer?

I’m not hiding the truth or sugar coating this to find the pretty parts. I’m telling it like it is. Don’t read it if you don’t want to know what’s happening in this part of Colorado, here in the Rio Grande National Forest, here where the Weminuche Wilderness borders our land. It’s easy to avoid. There’s not much out there on the subject. I’ll share with you what little I’ve found. Though some of it is nonsense, and the rest, well, you probably don’t want to know.

Remember the year the deer and elk were trapped by the sudden snow? Remember how many of us had broken hearts watching our wildlife starve to death? We started to feed, until finally the Department of Wildlife was tired of being the bad guy telling us it was “natural” as if that would make it all OK and they got in on the action too and tried to help by distributing feed. Sometimes sticking with your heart, doing something rather than nothing, helps. It didn’t save most of the deer. I remember driving to Gunnison that spring and seeing a carcass rotting on every hill, far too many for the coyote and crows to finish off.

But do nothing? Easy to do if you leave. Go home. Don’t see. But if this is your home? You would do something too.

What can I do except share with you what I see?
~

~
Secrets unveiling.

For those daring to dive into the depths, dig in, cut through to the dark blue wood.

Bundle up ‘cause the sun don’t shine down there where we’re working, the sugar snow is deep and loose, and the wind still blows.

There, I’ll show you what I see.

Nature’s foul infanticide. As small as we see they can grow, we see they can be killed by beetles. It only takes a few pinholes.

Mistletoe on most every tree. Odd. I’m not going to turn into a biologist and claim to have the facts but sometimes, many times, I wish I knew more. Why are these parasites thriving as the tree puts out their last sap, and then goes down with its sinking ship shortly after?
~

~
Last night two owls were talking back and forth in the tall green trees behind my cabin. What are the chances of those trees being green this time next year?

A chickadee lights above me on a branch of healthy aspen as I’m fiddling with my camera. I talk to it. It chirps back. We discuss what will become of all of this. We agree (I think) we will adapt.

Next tree over is a big old spruce. One of the elder trees. At the base is a pile of loose bark chipped by the woodpecker seeking out the larva already within. Farewell for the old wise ones.
~

~
Knowledge. How do we find answers? I would have thought quoting science would give me backing. Instead, it seems, if I mention “climate change” or “global warming” I become political. No thanks.

I grew up in lefty liberal world; my husband in a righteous right wing one. We chose to sit back, watch, and think for ourselves. What a concept. What I see is this. People accept politics as they do religion, with just as much blind faith, but lacking a god or the golden rule.

I’m for thinking, observing, making up my own mind. I’m not going to try to convince you to believe what I believe. Beliefs are personal. You can (and should) make up your own mind, be smart enough to think for yourself, change your mind when you learn and grow (assuming, that is, you do…), and then… keep it to yourself. Those with the loudest voices tend to have the least to say. One more reason to stay up here on the mountain and keep away from town. I never was much of a conversationalist.

So this isn’t about science, data, or personal beliefs. This is about cold hard facts. OK? What I see before me. That’s it. Maybe you see something different. Like a paved street or sidewalk or another concrete building or pretty suburb street with groomed lawns and a shiny new SUV in every driveway. Fine. Whatever.

Me, I see trees. Dead standing. Hillsides of them. Big hillsides. Entire mountains you can find on the map with names like Ute Ridge and Simpson, Pole and Finger Mesa.

Come stand before my kitchen window and look outside with me now.

Tell me what you see. Not what you want to see. Not what you are told to believe.

I don’t care about who or what you believe in. I care about what you see.

~

~
Enough, already, I hear you say
So I’ll save the rest for another day.

Enduring and endearing.

December 6, 2013December 6, 2013 / Gin Getz / 3 Comments

So it’s Thursday afternoon and we stop working on the new snowplow blade to bring the horse trough into the house by the fire and get water heating on the wood stove.

It’s bath night.

Think of the folks working their tails off to afford a fancy bathroom with a shiny bathtub that’s easy to fill with water that you probably don’t know where it came from anyway, but that tub is quick to fill and simple to drain and it has to be easy because you’ve been working all day at a job you don’t like just to pay for all this and don’t have time to mess around. Long hours, big debt, no time for a bath anyway – just jump in the shower and get to bed because tomorrow you’re back at it.

Or, a hundred buck investment, an old garden hose, and all we have to worry about on this chilly afternoon is heating water.

No, I don’t have a car, a cell phone, TV, a hairdresser, a hairdryer, or fancy clothes. But I got a tub, and my husband has time to fill it.

Now it’s seven below zero and dropping and we’re sweating in the horse trough inside by the woodstove.

I step out with bare feet (and bare butt) dripping onto the snowy deck to let the dog out for one last bark and still I’m warm to the bones from my bath.

Maybe, just maybe, the heyday of consumerism is passé.

Another morning of fifteen below.
(nothing compared to what Forrest is dealing with down there)
He loves it.
And really, so do I.
The cold
brings out the wildness
chills your lungs as you howl as the sliver of moon reflecting on the flat white surface of a snowy pasture.
weeds out the weak
sends them south
and to lower ground
then again, most everyone I know
lives at lower ground.

Cold reminds me
of the fragile threat
of existence
When I can see it
at each exhale
Steaming forth like a dragon’s fiery breathe
or so it seems
a delusion
delicate like hoarfrost
as my eyelashes freeze closed
for just a moment and
I remember to blink
after every mouthful of air
escapes

But for our four leggeds
my beloved horses
out there in the cold

seeking relief of the sheds
the hay
my presence

the promise of more hay
the sun coming over the mountain
and hitting flat across their

solid brown sides
winter is too long
too cold

too harsh and white
and makes them too irritable
with frost on their muzzles

icicles dangling from their manes
and snow gathering on their back.

Three were given.
Three were born into my arms.
(Fragile life upon this hard harsh land
that through too many untimely deaths
I learned
this is no place to be born.)
And two have more than paid for themselves
through their offspring
not to mention their years
of carrying us
caring for us
and letting me care
being there with us
when really maybe
like on days like this
I’m pretty sure
They’d rather be somewhere else

Some days I think
they think
they are the luckiest of horses
with a balance between time to work and time to play
point and purpose, and spoiled rotten
wild and free, and my little ponies.
Other days, like today, I think
they think living in some stall on the outskirts of a city sounds pretty darned nice…
They don’t hate me
though at times I wonder why not
for it is only because of me they are here
And if resentment within them builds
(though I think a horse is beyond such things)
they forgive me fast when they see me
trudging through the snow three times a day
with the wildly barking dog
to feed them.

PS.

Carlos and Indi, please don’t write home now. These guys don’t need to know how nice it is for you in Hawaii!

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.

The burden and blessings of home.

November 18, 2013 / Gin Getz / 9 Comments

The burden and blessings of home.

The dirt road out (and in) blends into white hillside, disappears with the last storm, strong winds set it smooth, a white horizon before the black timber. Defining lines disappear.

(before the last storms, looking back at the burned mountains from far down at the paved road)

Naked aspen and stripped spruce hold the bounty of another early snow, fat and plump and plentiful on otherwise blatant branches.

Smoke in a steady stream trickles into the pink morning sky from the cabin I find myself living in this time.

Passing time. A season. This one of change. After a decade of dormancy.

Funny it would be now, in the snow, the time of year you’d expect us to curl into our cave and slow our breathing and wait out the long white season.

Instead we’re out there
in
of
a part of
together
with the elements

In snow so deep the horses have stopped pawing
we learn to breathe again.

Deep powder
Deep thoughts
Bury my burdens and cover the past
Watching each flake land on my hand
Remain for but a moment
Whilst a fairy dances within each one
Then turns to a drop of water against my humid flesh
And disappears
As will my burden
Vanish into the comfort of husband, home, four legged friends and a warm afternoon.

Maybe it will melt out. Some of it. Not all. Not for this season.

It begins. I accept, embrace, welcome with open arms.

The season of white descends, I tell to you with a shiver of excitement.

Silence in the snow as the river begin to freeze and traffic (what little remained from summer) has come to a halt. No one’s around for miles and miles and miles. No where I need to go. And next thing you know, the snowmobiles are out. At least the big old beast of a work sled with its gentler purr than the play sleds. Hauling fire wood. The best use yet for all these beetled killed trees. My version of a controlled burn. In my woodstove. And second best is this: Logs to build the walls of the next home we shall build together.

Death upon our own land becomes new life.

A grove of young trees
Needles blue green
Laden with seed cones
Red and ripe with life

Odd how beautiful and exotic it seems now here in the snow. Something I remember but have not seen in so long.

(Desire cultivating devotion.)

Lettuce seeds in the planters along the front windows have sprouted.
Things grow.

We say it’s too late to leave Nature alone to manage Herself, but I laugh to see her power of rejuvenation no matter how much we mess up. I may not have much hope in humans, but the Earth, I think she’ll be just fine.

Seeing the forest for the trees. Alternating with seeing the trees for the forest. Every needle. Brown and fallen on the snow.

And then suddenly.
The young ones bust through the whitewashed landscape defiantly. Holding the colors of the deep sea. Here so far from the warmth and waves.

Are we better to live our lives as sailors navigating in the wind
Or the seed gently accepting and landing where the wind will take her
Or do we strive to balance the two
Manning our own ship, but when the storm sends us off course, recovery may be found only in letting go.

I let go.
Toss the seeds to the wind and will see them only again when they have flowered.
Their sweet smell will draw me back.

last seasons remains
blushing
in the Early winter
as the young lover peeking from beneath
the comforter of freshly
fallen snow

I leave you then with this, this week, words of wisdom not my own, but those shared by the wise, wonderful, beautiful soul, Amy, of SoulDipper. She who sees well before me what seems to take me so long:

So be it.

I am done.

And back to living.

Share this post

Share this post

Share this post

Share this post

Share this post

Share this post

Share this post

Share this post

Share this post

Share this post