Four New Hens and Lots of Pickin'

Yesterday we got four new "buff ladies" we named Swanmay, Thrasher, Butch and Elvis. They seem to be integrating into the flock well, but they think their house is my trailer. Maybe they like the way it smells. On that note, I've been writing lots of songs about living the classy country life and such. I'll be posting more up on YouTube as the satellite on the trailer can handle the uploading...

Here's my newest one (recorded yesterday!) called Rich:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2qrgprXhNI

Planting Trees!

Today we planted new trees, native bushes and berries: thirteen bur oak, five serviceberries, nine hackberries and one New Mexico olive. We also transplanted our two apple trees last weekend. I think everybody's pretty happy with it all. Thanks Whooville and friends!

Billy Ray's New Mexican Mocha (Workout Routine)

Boil water on the open flame or propane stove. (Tip: If your propane regulator is frozen from precipitation, while not recommended, you technically can dump boiling water on it to melt it and free up the gas line. It hasn't exploded yet...) While water is heating up, do twenty pushups, twenty crunches, five sets of mountain climbers and run in place or do jumping jacks until water is hot. Gingerly pour 12 ounces into warm Mason jar (if your jar is too cold it will bust...oops) with 2 tablespoons coffee, local from La Montañita Co-op or Ancient Way Cafe if you have grant money, otherwise Yuban in a big can is fine. Add a dash each of cardamom, cayenne, nutmeg and a few dashes of cinnamon.

You may decide to pamper your mountain mullet at this point to a little deep treatment with some olive or avocado oil. This is the desert after all, honey, we have to stay moisturized! Thanks Ma!

Let coffee sit in hot water while dancing like a superstar to one Lady Gaga song in athletic pants, a sleeveless tee, wrist warmers and a silver chain. If you're feeling really spunky and want some serious caffeine, follow it up with an ABBA song and include lots of spins and two finger air thrusts.

Strain with muslin or a tea strainer into whatever's fairly clean and jar shaped, add heaping spoonful of unsweetened cocoa and one heaping spoonful of local honey. Yes, alas, I am a honey purist, and perhaps this seems somewhat silly considering my apparent lack of concern with coffee and cocoa, but when you're financially challenged, you have to pick your battles. Stir and enjoy! You're now ready to haul water, chop wood and run through mountain valleys! Some would question whether you should drink coffee at all and your siblings might question your sanity, but here's to having a blast! Rock on, kings and queens!

Mountain Time

Every time I step out into the windy hilltop surrounding my trailer, I feel like I am seeing it for the first time. The stars seem new to me and they have names that have never been spoken. The moon travels so fast through the sky. A week passes and it's been a year and yet only an hour. Rabbits freeze in the brush. I walk downwind and on stone, but still all the animals know where I am. The sun is wandering north again and it seems like yesterday I was three years old, milking a goat with my big sister, it seems like yesterday I was a little lizard-bird, watching the fall of the greatest lizard species on earth. Tomorrow I'll watch the great red sun set from Mars, the atmosphere of the sun expanding and engulfing the planet Mercury, thinking that once there were Sky People who came from Venus and Earth. I'll draw them on rocks and speak in flashes of chemicals.

Dawn

Just before dawn I put the kettle on the flame and put Yo Yo Ma's solo works quietly on the speakers, a record I haven't listened to in years. By the time I poured a thick cup of coffee dashed with cardamom and cinnamon, the sky was transforming from grey into orange. As Yo Yo's cello wove a tender melody into the air, all at once I took my first sip of coffee at my doorstep, the sun peeked over the valley, turning the pines and junipers honey red, the Sanctuary wolves began to howl over the hills in the distance and our rooster, Rocky, squealed his wind-up toy crow, all in the space of a few heartbeats. Without thought or attachment, my eyes filled with tears. Being here in this moment is something artists since the dawn of time itself have attempted to express, that moment which connects you to everything that was and is and will be, all of its sorrow and delight, so raw that your heart breaks open.

The Mouth of the Train Back West?

The oceans and the rumbles of St. Helens keep calling me in my dreams to go back West. I have been weighing what it means to leave the desert. It means drawing myself inward, to glean from the cities what I can while they stand in their present form. It means finding something new about this thing called civilization that I've demonized so much in my mind. Isn't civilization just another structure of nature, like mounds of termites, hives of bees, hills of ants? Does it have to mean separation to live in a city? Frequent changes in geography help me understand my perspectives. What does it mean to live sustainably, really? Sustainability is a word that has been so overused and I think misses the point a bit in that it does not include the sheer passion for living that fires the simple life. It does not describe the cold slice of water from the well in the desert winter sun. It does not describe the feeling of triumph that sears through you when you have survived another sub-zero night without a heater and dawn sets the sky on fire through the frosted trees. These are things that don't have the same meaning when you can just turn on a faucet and crank up the central heat.

A year of living mostly without electricity and completely without running water has changed my life. This winter has been one of the harshest winters the old-timers of this place have seen in years and definitely the harshest winter I've ever experienced in my life. Multiple snowstorms left us stranded for weeks. We still sled water from a neighbor's tank and hike over a mile to the truck to pack groceries and feed on our backs. I got frostbite twice. Wet socks: don't do it. We haul water and split wood every few days. I bake four loaves of bread from scratch a week. Coyotes keep us up yipping during the fullest moons all night. I would do this every day of my life. I have felt so empowered by this experience. I feel a new confidence in all of the things life can throw me. Larger and larger things seem to be little inconveniences now, if not transformed to become something other than inconveniences altogether, but rather a challenge to live creatively!

I'm ready to see how this experience has transformed my perception of civilization. I know I'll be back, if not to this particular place, then back to the hills or the forest. Would I spend another winter in the mountain desert? Oh, hell yeah!

Kahlil Gibran - On Death

In Memory of Our Friend Dream Eagle:

"You would know the secret of death.
But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life?
The owl whose night-bound eyes are blind unto the day cannot unveil the mystery of light.
If you would indeed behold the spirit of death, open your heart wide unto the body of life.
For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.


In the depth of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond;
And like seeds dreaming beneath the snow your heart dreams of spring.
Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.
Your fear of death is but the trembling of the shepherd when he stands before the king whose hand is to be laid upon him in honour.
Is the shepherd not joyful beneath his trembling, that he shall wear the mark of the king?
Yet is he not more mindful of his trembling?


For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?
And what is it to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?


Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.
And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb.
And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance."