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Of Wind, and Grass, and Fire….

Too many years ago I wrote a review of Norman Maclean’s Of Young Men and Fire, about the deaths of fourteen firefighters in Mann Gulch in 1949, using the title above. I was experimenting with a particular voice, thinking about trying to break into creative nature writing. That little review is one of the pieces I kinda like, more of a mood piece reacting to the work rather than an out-and-out review where I mused on the likelihood that those of us going out to the woods could get caught in a similar situation.

And then the thing hit the street on July 5th 1994. The day before fourteen firefighters on the South Canyon fire on Storm King Mountain in Colorado died in similar circumstances as the firefighters in Mann Gulch. The timing rocked me back a wee bit, but I guess it only had a meaning for me as we went camping through another dry, hot summer with high fire danger.

Time passed. We got too busy to do a lot of camping, and started focusing on other things. Woodland fire was a concern but only as it affected specific events, plus we went through several cool summers.

Now we’re back in a long, hot, dry summer. We’ve moved back to a rural community where fires can affect our lives not just by air quality but whether we can go out to the woods to harvest firewood, where we travel, and possibly even where the horse lives. We notice things like how green the grasses are under the trees and how many little burn scars by the interstate are new since the last time we drove through.

We survey the horizons, and pay attention to wind patterns and cloud formations in the hope that lightning will bring rain. Most of all, we think about the autumn rains to come.

But the rains are still at least six weeks out. That’s a long time when the world around you is a tinderbox.

Six weeks or more of thinking about wind, and grass, and fire.

Hopefully thinking is all I’ll have to do about it.

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Bad Horse Falls…or why I’ve been silent

Wow. It’s been over a month since my last posting. Not for lack of interest, simply because there’s been a lot of travel between Enterprise and PDX, which means less-than-optimal access to the LiveJournal blog mirror when I’m not in Enterprise. Then, when I’m in Enterprise, I’ve been going great guns…okay, I was going great guns until July 11th. Since then I’ve been hobbling around.

What happened? Well, Mocha and I went to a show at the Fairgrounds on a dreary, drizzly day. We didn’t realize how slick the footing in the arena was, so when we went out to do our first large fast circle in reining, Mocha was ready to run hard. Except that she slipped and we fell hard and fast on our right sides. It was one of the quickest falls I’ve ever had on horseback. Usually there’s a moment of Wil-E-Coyote hang time giving me a moment to relax before hitting the ground. Not this time. Wham. Hard. One minute we were going about 20-25 mph, the next we were on the ground, with about half my lower leg under Mocha. Near as I can figure, I got partially thrown out of the saddle, which was good.

The aftereffects? Let’s just say we were both lucky. Mocha and I both sprang up at the same time. She trotted off with a “what the hell just hit me?” bewildered look and I hobbled around hollering “I’m all right!” as I headed for her, relieved that she wasn’t limping. At least I could put weight on my right leg so I knew it wasn’t broken, just a bad sprain. BTDT. The judge caught Mocha, told me I was DQed (hit the ground), and I climbed up on Mocha to ride back to the trailer. No way I could make it back on my own and we both needed that short session in the saddle to help banish any future riding worries.

Back at the trailer, I pulled off my show boots and wrenched on my lacer packer boots because I knew they would give that ankle more support. Hubby helped me untack Mocha while she stuck her nose in the trailer opening, clearly ready to go home. She loaded nicely for him and was thrilled to get back to her home and pen.

Three weeks later, we’re both still achy and sore. I’ve been on her twice, working at a walk because she’s still stiff and needs light work to help get past the issues. The first week and a half with the ankle was difficult and painful, but having had an even worse sprain in my past, I kinda knew how to manage this one. Even so, I’m at the stage where the darn thing just plain aches at times and there’s not much to do for it.

But it could have been worse. Looking at the pattern of mud I had to knock out of the saddle skirts and the pattern of mud on stirrups, boots, and helmet, I don’t even want to think about what sort of contortions my leg went through when we hit the dirt. I’m just grateful I didn’t break something, and that I don’t have osteoporosis which would have made that more possible. Mocha is gimpy and sore, but she works out of it so we’re back to reconditioning and rebuilding strained muscles. At least she’s happy with her new home now.

Anyway. I am going to start experimenting with writing posts in batches, and scheduling when they go up. It’s a Grand Experiment made crazier by the vagaries of the LJ-WordPress interface. We will see how that works.

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It’s been a crazy April

Um. Yeah. So let’s see. Hubby retired. I am madly scribbling on the rough draft of Netwalk’s Children, sandwiched in between snarking about Sad/Rabid Puppies, dealing with moving shit, packing, packing, packing, and oh, did I mention packing? And other stuff.

We hauled a load of furniture to Enterprise with the horse trailer. Outside of one scary moment when someone cut in front of me in Portland with a heavy trailer behind (and oh yeah, having to adjust things out of the driveway because we’d overloaded), it was uneventful. Slow, long, but uneventful. I had one chivalrous fella ask me if things were all right when we stopped to check fluids and such at Hermiston rest area before heading over Cabbage Hill–nope, just SOP stuff for newbie trailer drivers used to nursing along older vehicles. But the truck pulled a heavy-laden trailer over the Blues just fine (I was considering the irony of retracing ancestral steps except that’s right, the ancestors came in on the Applegate Trail and didn’t go anywhere near the Blues. Fools.).

Then back to PDX, coping with a sole bruise on Mocha’s problematic left fore, and packing, packing, packing, and did I mention packing? We have a good chunk of the house packed up and the son is getting antsy about the rest of it. Eh. I’m at the stage where I’ll abandon stuff rather than haul it. The joy of being a retired teacher is that you replicate this stage of packing every year at the end of the school year, so I’m kind of jaded at this point about this stage of packing. It is The Stage That Goes On Forever. And Ever. And Ever. I can remember years when I succumbed to the frantic urge to Throw Shit In Boxes, and the regrets three months later. Nope. Not going there, at least with the boxes I pack. Won’t say anything about the hubby..;-)

After killing ourselves with packing, we headed down to our friend who lives near Astoria, to spend four days chasing razor clams at low tide. We had new clam guns and boy howdy, were we ever gonna use ’em. So. After the drive down, we got a routine going. Prep the night before, hubby and I fixed breakfast and coffee, friend drove to the beach, we got our limit of clams, stop by Freddie’s for a little shopping, back home to clean clams (guys) and write like mad on the book (me). Over the course of four days of digging we came close to getting ten pounds of clam meat, the guys decided to keep lots of data on the harvest so that’s why I’ve got the numbers. I collected a lot of sand dollars and am thinking about ways to use undrilled freshwater pearls, broken stone beads, and other stuff for crafty sorts of things. Done right, well….

The way this clam stuff is going, I may have more material for a steampunk/rococoa/steamfunk/deargodsomethingweirdwestevenifIdon’thavealabel from the Astoria exposure. It’s very early in the creation but I recognize that something is getting tweaked on the creative end.

Meanwhile, I’m cranking away on Netwalk’s Children. Dear God, I was right to dread writing this book. It’s hopelessly complex, but yet very fun to put the rough bones together. I just don’t know if it will be together by Worldcon…which…sigh.

Worldcon.

I can haz a Worldcon job. I do have a Worldcon job. I am the Sergeant-At Arms for the World Science Fiction Business Meeting at Sasquan. Starting next week, I’m gonna be looking for friendly warm bodies to help me make sure that the actual mechanics of running the Worldcon Business Meeting (Kevin Standlee, please forgive me, I’m learning all the formal terms) flow smoothly.  It will require an ability to show up at a morning meeting. I’d like to have enough people to rotate through several days of meetings so that no one person gets tied down to showing up every day unless they want to.

My priorities:

1.) Protect the integrity of the voting floor while

2.) Doing my best to facilitate the process while

3.) respecting the individuals involved.

This means dropping agendas. This means respecting process, and respecting people that you don’t agree with. This means keeping in mind that we all love speculative fiction but that we come from different perspectives, and short of overtly, nasty, godawful ugly shit, it’s–well, it’s politics. It’s making sausage. It’s compromise, and it sucks and I know a number of my friends on Facebook and all will sneer at me for being this way. But goddamn it, I’ve been the single issue politico; I’ve done the purity dance, and while that side is needed…I’m not the grrrl for the mad dog run any more. That’s for a young person to do. My job to find the middle path, to forge the agreements, to contribute to and support the process. That’s what you do as an elder, and that’s the path I’m approaching.

So.

I will need people to run mics, check credentials, and possibly help with crowd management. Patience, tolerance, and a balanced perspective with a sense of humor will be paramount. I won’t ask people to do something I wouldn’t do myself. If you have experience with the Oregon Country Fair or music festivals…then yeah, drop me a line here.  A Pratchett perspective is welcomed.

Netwalk’s Children, alas, is at the stage where I’m just throwing things at the page. I’m at the 3/4ths point, and almost at the final cataclysmic blowup. Three POVs are almost too many for this book; I may drop a POV for fifty pages and with the pacing of this book…everything is happening in a very short period of time. Lots and lots of stuff unfolding. I’m not satisfied with the structure, which means I may go back and rip things to pieces. Except I don’t have the time and luxury to do that because I’m moving stuff. Except I need to do it. ARRRGH. Maybe I’ll have a better perspective when I do the scene tracker, except that’s going to be

And then I keep thinking about Astoria, and the maybe steampunk book. Way back when I was writing the River story for Alma, I had something Columbia River-themed in mind. I just haven’t figured it out yet. I suspect the South Willamette Valley/Southern Oregon story (Bearing Witness) will come first, and then I’ll be able to write about the Columbia. Years ago, I wrote some lovely stuff when interning for a few months with Nalo Hopkinson. I can’t use that world because, well, stupid contract shit. But pieces of the writing still haunt me, especially the singing of the sails and the trip upriver.

I can’t write ocean stuff because, well, body’s pretty much issued the ultimatum that I’m a landlubber. But there’s a pretty strong and intriguing theme brewing there. Just not sure where it’s leading me yet.

And I find it ironic that maybe I finally find the freedom to write about the Willamette Valley after committing once again to the Wallowas. Though the Columbia could well insert itself into the mix first. We shall see. Several worlds out there stirring and roiling as I wind up the Netwalk Sequence.

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A quiet Christmas

In past years, I’ve spent Christmas running around doing this or that. When the son was still in school, I was also active in the church and doing Christmas Eve mass liturgies, either as reader or singer. Then, when teaching, there was always the crazy buzzing around as we counted down from Thanksgiving until Christmas. We had to do productive work, but whatever unit I brought on line had to be quick, easy to do, and fun. I did like turning the Christmas/winter picture books into one act plays (Jan Brett books are great for this) as a class writing project, but as test scores became more important and I got sucked into doing more paperwork stuff and test prep stuff, the plays went into the trash heap. Too bad, because I think the kids enjoyed doing them. Oh well.

This year was definitely a transition year. Sometime in October I suddenly switched out of Teacher Brain and into Retail Artisan Brain, otherwise known as oh crap I have NOTHING READY FOR CHRISTMAS PROMOTION. So, um, I’ve been fixing that. I know I’ve commented on this before, but between urgent rush production stuff, scrambling to meet some anthology deadlines, bringing horse back into condition, and other stuff, I’ve–uh–been busy and not being paying a lot of attention to the house and to the season. Knowing it’s a transitional year is also an issue, plus, damn it, the snow levels are such that I’ve not wanted to go up skiing yet (and, in fact, there’s not been enough snow to contemplate skiing unless I really wanted to turn my skis into rock skis).

Last week I also did something incredibly stupid and bricked my phone. Then I panicked, and went to my cell phone provider to deal with it instead of Apple. Needless to say, I’ve learned that going direct to Apple is the wiser course these days, and had many thanks for my son who helped me recover from the idiocy. But that was a day and a half or so lost due to dealing with those issues.

And then last Saturday, with a holiday book reading, was kind of the end of the promotional year. I did put Christmas Shadows out as a separate story e-book,  put it into Kindle Unlimited, set it to go free on Christmas Eve, and I’m now mulling over the results. Very interesting. I did make it into the Amazon Top 100 Free Under One Hour Romance list–well, okay, on last look I was still there. I think my highest was 45 and last look was 59. Hmmm. Food for thought.

Meanwhile, a good friend shattered her heel while setting up an artisan shop. I’m trying to pop in and see her a couple of times a week and help out when I can. There’s other local friends with issues. Plus the remodeling at Farpoint is now kicking into high gear, and we’re probably going for the home stretch big finale now. I have many things to do, and I’m scattered between all of them. Things like making curtains, buying construction materials, etc.  Shoot, the “buying curtain fabric” stuff ended up taking about three hours and two trips, in the long run.

So yeah. This year was a quiet Christmas. Yesterday, hubby, the son, and I went out for breakfast. Then hubby and I went to the barn while the son went to do tech stuff for a friend. We gathered in the early evening and had dinner, presents, and veged out. More vegging today with a nice breakfast, pizza for lunch, and then Peacock Lane and leftovers for dinner. I worked on a story I have due to an editor (rough draft almost done, yay) until I’d thrashed that thing to death, then cut out curtains before going to Peacock Lane. I worked a little bit on a show ribbon wreath this evening, and I’m now fading.

The year heads on toward its conclusion. 2015 is going to bring in a new era. Damn, I hope I can pull some of this stuff off.

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December at Farpoint

Winding down after another day at Renovation/Remodeling World, Enterprise Version. Hey, we had mountains this morning, and then the fog moved in. But it was a high fog, and temps warmed above freezing, so with ski base layers and other stuff I could move around freely. We are within striking distance of getting the basement free of dust and stuff (old coal dust….we still have the old Fairbanks-Morse coal stoker in the old coal bin, and pulled out about ten pounds of coal. But still. Coal dust. Must go.).

Tried to write this morning but with the urgency of various errands to run around the County, including a 20 mile drive to Wallowa to pick up insulation, I got maybe about 300 words in. Doesn’t have the flow of the words I lost the other day, but oh well. Words got put down. Then it was drive down to Wallowa in the Dakota to pick up what I thought would be insulation rolls…but turned out to be batts. 30 packages of batts. 4 at a time in the Dakota. Luckily, I was able to figure out a way to keep from having to drive so far so many times and we got all 30 packages to the house. Then, after further Adventures in Basement Cleaning, we met with the contractor for Phase II (floors, porch and more windows). After that, between the two of us, we hoisted those 30 packages to the attic, for further work. Not me doing that, fortunately…just the hubby. But we got an oil delivery done, got the insulation on site, and are now down to mopping the basement. Getting there.

Meanwhile, I keep searching online for more information about that Fairbanks-Morse coal stoker and getting nowhere. It’s definitely a 1920s-1940s thing. Burgundy and cream, and when the tongue of the stoker was buried under junk, we thought it was possibly a Coca Cola cooler. Nope. It would be nice to find out if it’s worth anything, but unless there’s major $$$$$ involved, I’m not pulling it out of that corner now.

Since we don’t have TV service here, we went out to watch the Ducks game (seriously, this is not a place where rabbit ears or anything short of a subscription will get you even basic TV). Good grief, the team I grew up with snatching defeat from the jaws of victory is now winning and is #2 in the country. Huh.

And now the publisher drama has escalated. Apparently they are “redefining their image” to be family friendly. Not sure what that means yet. Hoping that means they will be willing to release the fantasy novel that I absolutely don’t think will a.) meet their criteria and b.) is not something I want to revise to meet that criteria. Drama continues. Of course it all comes to a head when I’m out of town and have iffy Internet. Isn’t that the way it works? I can hardly wait to get reliable Internet access here. Right now I’m limited to cell phone connectivity, and that’s iffy. Tonight is an exception because I have access to regular Internet.

Thinking thinky thoughts about where I need to go as an independent writer. Somehow, I have to get past my usual trend of catching the wave just as it’s broken and not earning a good ride because of bad timing. Somehow, I’ve gotta figure out a way to balance family and myself so that I can catch that break at just the right time.

My gut tells me this next year may be crucial. But dear God, what obstacles lie in my way? So freaking tired of freaking obstacles, while watching others seem to glide on through with no problems. When will it be my turn?

Ah well. A brief moment of angst. Sooner or later it will happen…or not, as the case may be. It didn’t happen with horses, much as I wanted it, because I realized what I needed to do far too many years after I had the physical capabilities to do it. The recession and those fucking education reformers exploded my hopes and dreams for making a difference in special education work (my perception is that we’re going to have to fight to regain where we were in the late 90s, pre-No Child Left Behind). Damnit, one of these days I’ve gotta find something that works.

Or maybe not. Maybe I’m doomed to the same curse as my ancestors….coming to the end of my days with nothing more than a small ripple of effect on the world, my stories barely heard, my voice effectively silenced, despite years of raging and fighting and arguing against being silenced. Thirty years ago I was being silenced because I was young and cute and blond. Now…it’s because I’m old and female.

Damn it.

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Well, that was a birthday

I am now the same age as the last two digits of my birth year. Auspicious or what? I’m taking it to be a promising new development and plan to make the most of it. The day started out pretty well with my first email being the notice that Shadow Harvest is now live on Kindle. Let the promotional games begin….

I went onward to showers of birthday messages on Facebook. I have to love that part of Facebook because the birthday messages started the day before and they’re still trickling in, as people check their Facebook accounts. There are some things that social media does right and that’s one of them. Once again, thanks to everyone who shared. I couldn’t answer all the messages but I loved every one of them. Thanks, folks.

Mocha time was pretty anti-climactic, nothing big or dramatic there.

Then I joined a friend for a drink, plus a visit to a comic book store. We shared a few laughs and thoughts, then I came home. Had a lovely takeout dinner provided by the husband and just plain partied out (as much as one does as a member of Club 57).

So I’m a little slow and fuzzy this morning, but that’s okay since I am just plain waiting around for a serviceperson. Have some work to do, primarily promotional for Shadow Harvest, plus finishing off Alien Savvy, then plotting and planning for two short stories and a novel.

Onward.

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Another Farpoint weekend–Hat Point

As this summer that just won’t die winds down, it’s been a good time to not be driving forty miles one way to work. Between smoke from the big Estacada fire and the heat (I can just imagine how hot my classroom would be getting), I’m grateful. It’s still taking time to recreate structure and routines, but I’m getting there.

We did a flying trip to Farpoint for grouse hunting and house business this weekend. DH ended up with a bad attack of food poisoning which was really nasty; mine was thankfully much milder. Nonetheless, the two of us were healthy enough to go on one of those long all-day hunting drives out toward Hat Point with a friend. It had been at least twenty-four years since we had been out there; nearly thirty for our friend.

Hat Point is not necessarily an easy drive, even with a four-wheel drive rig. The road has improved by quite a bit so that it’s feasible to take a passenger car out there, but it is still a rugged gravel road with some long single track passages winding up steep canyon walls.

Like this:IMG_1093

Not the best pic. Basically, that line between the burned and unburned canyon wall? It’s the road. There’s about five miles like this early on, and there’s always a possibility of encountering trucks with trailers carrying wood or horses. That can make life somewhat exciting. However, the road was significantly improved from the last time we had driven it. Much more gravel, but it’s still going to be iffy there because of the big fire in the Imnaha canyon this summer. You don’t get burns like this above and below the road without risking some nasty washouts in the rains.

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But it wasn’t all fire at Five Mile Viewpoint. I also got a few stunning pix of the Imnaha River canyon.

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Though my best pic was from Granny View, further along.

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And then there was Hells Canyon and Hat Point. The road has been redesigned so that it ends at Hat Point with a nice picnic area. You can climb sixty feet up into the lookout tower, which gives some stunning views of Hells Canyon, Snake River, and the Wallowa country…or it would if there weren’t a few fires around.

IMG_1192IMG_1195IMG_1204IMG_1198IMG_1207 Pictures–Hat Point fire lookout tower–I hiked 60 feet to that platform. Easier than the Arc d’Triomphe, even at 7,000 feet. We spotted several jet boats and rafters cruising down the Snake River, though it took binoculars to pick out the rafters.  The others are pretty much self-explanatory.

On the way back, we went out to Cyuse Flat (no, I don’t know why the “a” is dropped but that’s the usage). Friend and I hiked it to kick up grouse, plus we investigated an old barn and line cabin. Gorgeous stuff, but way too many pix. I got some good pix for later writing reference. But here’s a shot of Cyuse.

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It’s a big, wide flat on top of a long ridge, full of native grasses and some introduced timothy. We poked around an old cabin and barn and I got lots of pix. Gonna be writing a lot of cross-genre spec fic stuff with these pix. Breaks my heart (not!). This is pretty typical country for this area, high elevation pasturage that gets snow in the winter.

On the way back home, we kicked up a small herd of elk just above Five Mile Viewpoint.

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They weren’t particularly worried about us, though they didn’t hang around, either. After that, friend and I bushwhacked down a draw and shot four ruffed grouse.

On Sunday, we primered the molding around the new windows, visited with a friend, then drove home. Quite a full weekend.

 

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A productive weekend

As summer of 2014 winds down, we’re engaged in activities both seasonal and for the future. I finished preserving the bulk of the Gravenstein crop with five and a half more quarts of apple juice, leaving us with plenty of juice, applesauce, and a small amount of apple butter. Plus numerous crisps and a couple of apple pies.

The Blue Lakes have been poking along but they aren’t heavy producers this year. We’re getting good tomatoes, enough to justify making a taco salad tomorrow.

We’ve got our own firewood stacked and stored, but yesterday we helped a friend haul and stack three cords of his winter wood, with three more to go. It was delivered to one area easy for the delivery guys to reach, then needed to be transported by pickup to the storage shed. We’ve been nibbling at it all summer, and yesterday was the last transport day. Then it became stacking.

Today, we worked on a new skill–driving the truck with the horse trailer. This was my second time out, and I’m pleased to announce that I’m now approaching the speed limit on the back roads. No horse in the trailer yet, but DH and I cruised the backroads around the barn practicing.

DH is also preparing for the annual deck treatment. Today he trimmed vegetation around the deck.

Crickets are chirping out back. Last night I thought I heard an owl calling back there–not a hoot owl or a great horned, but perhaps a barn owl. Definitely not a screech owl. There’s a cool touch in the evening breeze, damp with the promise of forthcoming fall.

On the one hand, it feels weird not to be contemplating the beginning of the school year. On the other, I just don’t miss it. I’ve missed being able to enjoy my fall, and now I can again. Things sound sufficiently ugly with Common Core issues and the like that I am glad I’m not around for this year of turmoil. But I think good thoughts for my friends who start work tomorrow, and miss them.

Winter is coming. I’m thinking of snow. Time to get fit for skiing.

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The rest of the trip

It’s been a busy week, but there was more going on during our trip than Spocon. We drove up to Spokane the day before. It was a lovely day for a drive, offering opportunities for pictures like this:

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And this:

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Lots more cool views than pictures. In the Spocon post, I talked about waterfall pictures. We took a long walk from the hotel (Fairfield) along the river and walked from the Upper Falls to the Lower Falls and I found these stunning shots along the way.

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And many more.

Sunday, after my last panel and all the goodbyes, we hopped in the car and drove from Spokane to Enterprise. We had not driven the road between Spokane and Lewiston, so we enjoyed new views. One of the con attendees was puzzled that it would take so long to drive a short distance (4 1/2 hours for around 175 miles), at least until she pulled up the map on her iPhone and saw the various snaky grades…down the hill into Lewiston, then up the hill from Asotin. But it’s past Antone that things really get wild.

It’s called Rattlesnake Grade. DH and I have not traveled it for over thirty years, and we only did it once together. But we both had memories of a long, winding grade both up and down a steep canyon. We’d completely forgotten about all the plateau country on the Washington side before we got there. And, before we descended into the Rattlesnake, we spotted a pair of wild turkeys–tom and hen–scratching gravel at the edge of the highway. Cool.

The Rattlesnake takes thirteen miles to descend to the bottom of the canyon and the Grand Ronde River. Then it goes a short distance straight up the bottom of a creek before climbing the canyon wall. We stopped for pix before climbing.

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And yes, people do travel this road regularly in winter, with ice, snow, and below zero temps. It is our shortest route to Spokane. Otherwise we have to go west through Elgin and Milton-Freewater to reach Lewiston and then head up.

On the top, near Flora, I had to slam on the brakes because a set of gangling wild turkey poults skittered across the road and, being young and fledglings and somewhat on the foolish side, they weren’t really eager to move for some big stupid stinky metal thing. That was still cool.

We stopped at Joseph Canyon Overlook. We’ve not been there for ages–I think it was after the fires of 1986. This is also the area where the upcoming Andrews Ranch (better title forthcoming!) is set.

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And then we reached Enterprise and Farpoint, to discover that despite what we thought, the contractor had installed all of the windows. Even better, he had been able to get a full greenhouse window into the kitchen window (he had thought he couldn’t get one that would be big enough).

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I am soooo happy about this. The window shelf is glass instead of wire like the one in the Woodstock house. I can haz planz.

And because it’s required, a mountain view.

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Other stuff happened, mostly pleasant. And then we were off to home and another week in the life. But my, this was such a pleasant five day trip in many ways.

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Getting on with it

Part of the reason for writing this post is to get myself over the hump of my last few weeks at work. I counted down the days today and tomorrow is Day 30 with less than seven weeks to go; okay, now I will let myself count down the days on the board rather than let them silently slip through my fingers.

Not that I will be in the classroom this week. This week is Round Two of reading tests, so I will be in the computer lab instead, wrestling with the computers. Because of course today had computer drama. My work laptop does not talk to any printer but my personal confidential printer. Even when I ran the other drivers, it didn’t want to talk to it. Sigh. That presents a problem when you are printing out passages and needing to manage them in test site confidentiality. Nonetheless, that problem got solved. A minor glitch, but one that still caused some issues.

There are other things going on that I won’t talk about, but suffice it to say that not all is paradise in Narnia. In fact, things appear to be…well…sigh. Deep sigh. I had hoped….

Isn’t there a proverb somewhere out there about hope and foolishness? Or the foolishness of hope? I remember how the unease came over me when I fielded a summer call from work while driving through Illinois. I excused the unease, of course. Wrote it off to experiencing big changes. But what I didn’t realize was the effect of those changes.

Not that I could have done anything.

Anyway. Time to get on with it, to stop letting the pains of body and soul drag at me and slow me down. Time to do what it takes to survive these thirty days. Seven weeks.

I can do this.

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