Lonely Cowboy

I'm at work, on lunch, hiding out in the library.

I can't get thoughts of horses and cattle and ranches and wide open spaces out of my head.  Sometimes it's like a disease consuming my mind, and it absolutely paralyzes me.  This morning as I sat through back to back meetings, it was all I could do to feign interest.  

I'm sitting here with my headphones on listening to Willie and Waylon, feeling like I just want to go to sleep for a long, long time and wake up in a different world.

I want to wake up in a world with no staff meetings.  No long days staring into a computer.  No artificial deadlines.  A world that's a little less soft, a little more adventurous.  A little more rewarding in less tangible ways.

Eureka!

Well it's official.  I know exactly what I want out of life; no ifs, ands or buts about it.

I've been on this little farmstead going on five months, and already I can't believe I ever lived in town -- any town -- for so much of my adult life.  I have friends with farms and ranches, and I've spent a lot of time on them.  I dreamt for so many years about having a ranch in Colorado.  But always there lingered a question, a doubt about whether such a thing would really make me happy.  I might miss being in or close to town.  I might miss people.  I might miss the convenience and the culture of city life.

Nah.  No f'ing chance.  I've been back downtown several times since I moved, and each time I get out as quickly as possible.  Too many people.  Too many cars.  Too many vagrants.  Too much stuff going on.

I've only got 5 acres here.  And water use (a shared well) is a little restrictive, so no real irrigation is possible.  But I now have 39 chickens, four turkeys, two ducks, several thousand bees, a dozen goldfish, a great dog and a smattering of raised garden beds.  Daily I'm scheming about how to get more animals, and how to ensure they can pay for themselves.  Rabbits and goats are next on my list.

But even that won't be enough.  I am dead set on starting a cattle ranch, having a hell of a lot more land, and being further away from town.  I need cows and horses.  I need a few pigs.  I need way more chickens and ducks, goats and sheep, geese and rabbits, another dog, a cat and more turkeys, to name what immediately comes to mind.

For a long time my idea of a dream ranch really was more of a cabin in the woods.  There was certainly some livestock involved, but my fantasy was mostly focused on hunting and fishing and being in the cabin.  That dream hasn't changed except that the balance has shifted.  I now see myself spending the bulk of my time tending my animals, with periodic trips into the mountains for hunting and fishing.

I always had animals growing up, and being here has reminded me how much was missing from my life by not having any.  It isn't just taking care of animals, of course.  I've got a workshop and storage buildings.  I've got a yard to tend to.  I've got chores to do.  But the animals are what really put the life into my world.  They make me feel alive again.  Hopeful, even.

The Farmstead

So apparently some people -- who shall remain nameless -- think I change my mind too much.  I don't change my mind so often that it's debilitating.  I change my mind just as often as it takes for me to figure out if I like or want something.  Isn't that what life is all about?  Trying new things?  Finding oneself and all of that?

Regardless, I've moved into the house I mentioned in my New Year's post.  I have five acres of prairie just below the foothills.  I have a dog.  I have seven adult hens, and just bought ten new chicks a few days old.  I have a large shed with an covered extension that's partially enclosed by a wood fence and a small chicken coop.  I've come to call that little complex "the barn."

There's a lot of wildlife out here.  We regularly see coyotes, rabbits, prairie dogs, hawks, and a pretty wide variety of smaller birds, some of which congregate in great numbers very close to the house and barn.

Most mornings I wake up early, before sunrise.  I started drinking coffee several mornings each week.  Prior to this, I drank coffee about twice a year.  We cook every meal at home now.  Before breakfast I take the dog out, feed and water the chickens, and pretend for a little while that I'm a real rancher.  On a real ranch.

The morning chores, such as they are, are followed with coffee and breakfast of eggs, toast, bacon, butter, preserves, coffee, fresh milk, and apple juice.  All but the coffee came from either our chickens, a local farm, or is something I made with stuff I bought from local farms.  I churned the butter from raw milk from a local dairy.  I made the preserves from fruit I bought last fall at the farmer's market.  You get the idea.

When I'm home, I spend a lot of time looking out over the prairie, though its a bit bleak seeing as it's winter and we're in a drought.  I also spend a lot of time fussing over the chickens and trying to decide which projects I should actually take on, considering I'm just renting for a year or two (hopefully.)

Late this afternoon I ran down to the feed store just before they closed and picked up 7 bales of straw.  I put on my leather work gloves and relished every moment of stacking them neatly in the barn.  I love bales of straw and hay.  I always have.  I love the way they look.  I love the way they smell.  I love the little bits that stick to my clothes.  I love the way it dusts the ground, making a beautiful, soft bedding wherever it's stored.  You can use it as bedding for any barnyard animal.  They make great seats, especially at backyard parties.  You can feed it to most barnyard animals.  It's cheap (usually.)  It's biodegradable.  Stacked, it makes a great wind break or privacy wall.  It's great exercise throwing it around.  What's not to love about baled, dried grasses?

One of my best memories ever of hay bales was one beautiful Colorado afternoon after I had finished doing some work at a horse rescue.  I went into the barn (they had a real, very impressive barn) and I sat down in a perfect seat of hay bales.  Behind me were stacked hundreds more in a huge, rising wall like a fortress.  From my vantage point I could see and hear horses grazing, and beyond them the rolling prairie.  After a few minutes a barn cat appeared from somewhere among the hay bales and kept me company.  It was one of those simple, perfect moments one never forgets.

[sigh]

I tried going back to college.  (Mind you I have a BS, several certificates and have done some graduate work.)  I tried a second BS.  But I hated it.  I just hated being in class with 20 year old kids just starting out.  I hated the idea of tests and cramming.  I hated the idea of starting over at the bottom.  I've already been through all that.  I have a great career and a great employer.  More college, I now know for certain, is not what I want or need in my life.  There's no longer anything that college can offer me that would make me happier or more fulfilled.  You know what makes me happy?  You know what really fulfills me?  It's the stuff I do every moment I have free time.  It's hay bales and horses.  It's gardens and cooking.  It's chickens and goats and dogs.  It's fly fishing a gorgeous Rocky Mountain stream, hunting turkey out on the plains, or elk high in the mountains.  It's sewing curtains and churning butter, making peach preserves and butchering my own meat.  It's building chicken coops and hanging out in the barn. It's marveling at the beauty of the mountains and the vastness of the prairie, and laughing with friends and family gathered around a big table covered with great food.  All of that, that's living.  That's life.  That's what it's all about for me.  Everything else in my life is just a means to try and get more of the good stuff in my life, that's all.  College was a way to get a job, to make money, to be able to afford the life I just described.  What's sad is that work -- and I'm talking about a desk job, not the work involved in running a farm or ranch -- cuts way, way too much into the good stuff.  There's plenty of "work" that's good stuff, and even my desk job certainly has its awesome moments.  But I really feel like my heart belongs close to the earth.  Whether it's hunting or growing a garden or ranching a herd of cattle, my heart longs to be there.  I just need more "life" in my life.

Sometimes I really wish I were Amish.  Sometimes I think I could put up with -- even fake -- the religion, if the trade off meant that I could live in a community where a simple, agricultural life and a supportive community were so highly valued that people actually lived that way.  That's all I want out of life, to live much as people have lived for thousands of years.  Is that so much, really?  I don't need TV or computers, or even electricity.  I need something real and genuine and honest and simple.

I want to get a few goats and a pig.  And we're going to have a big garden come spring.  And I'm thinking about bringing one of my horses here.  I want a vibrant, living community here around me.  Words can't express how much joy the dog has brought me.  The chickens too, and these little baby chicks.  Feeding them, interacting with them, just watching them I can get lost for hours in the connectedness of things.  In one of my favorite books, Animal Vegetable Miracle, the author describes one of her Amish friends who describes his work plowing the fields (with a horse, mind you) and how the whole day to him is just joy as he soaks up the spring sunshine and watches the birds and animals go about their business.  It's a beautiful description of a feeling I know very well but don't get to experience as often as I'd like.

I guess I've rambled enough.  I need to go read something about ranching or homesteading so I can live vicariously.

Evolution of Self

Over a year since my last post.  I hadn't even thought of this blog in forever, and yet tonight, on the first day of the new year, I find myself unable to sleep and needing to clear my head.

So what's been going on since my last post?  Quite a lot.  I've done a lot of hunting, done some serious packing in the mountains, made some new friends, learned a lot, went back to school, and finally got tired of life in Boulder among much else.

While any of the above topics could make a lengthy blog post by itself, the major topic on my mind tonight is that I seem to be having a major shift.  For years, decades in fact, I've fantasized about a log cabin in the mountains.  I've always loved the West.  I still love it dearly, with all my heart.  But, having lived out here for many years now, my perspective has shifted.  I find myself fantasizing more and more not about living in a lonely cabin in the mountains, not even about a sprawling Western ranch, but instead about a lush, green farmstead in the East.  Weird. 

I grew up in East Texas, which gets about 40 inches of annual rainfall.  It's hot and humid in the summer, quite mild (but still humid) in the winter.  It's flat.  There's not an abundance of large wildlife.  There are no really large tracts of wild public land.  But it's green.  Where I grew up, the trees are tall and thick.  The lakes are muddy, but abundant. 

Where I live now in Colorado, we get less than half that amount of rain.  At about 15 inches annual, the short grass prairie is one step away from sandy desert.  It's sunny and dry, which makes for a very pleasant climate, but it makes for a very hard living if you don't depend on food and water being trucked in from far away places.  It's gorgeous here, of course.  The hunting and fishing are good (though, unless you live in a pretty remote place, you still have to drive to get to them.)  There are thick forests up in the mountains, but the soil is thin and rocky, the weather harsh, the growing season short.

It's very clear to me now that I suffer easily from cabin fever.  During the hunting season I'm good.  There's plenty to get out and do.  But during the rest of the year, I find myself going stir crazy, even when the weather is nice.  I've noticed that when I close my eyes at night, I'm no longer drifting off to a log cabin hidden deep in the mountains.  I'm not longer visiting vast cattle ranches on the lonely plains.  Instead, I'm on a quiet but thriving farm.  The farm is a patchwork of thick hardwood forests full of birds and deer, open meadows with waist high grasses, and old apple orchards filled with pink blossoms in the spring and crisp, sweet fruit in the fall.  Instead of a cabin, I see a quaint old farmhouse with a wraparound porch.  There's a big red barn, a huge vegetable garden, chickens, goats, a few dairy cows, a pig pen full of happy spotted pigs, a big old draft horse, a barn cat and a border collie.  There's a nice pond out back stocked with fish where I go skinny dipping in the heat of summer.  There's a root cellar, and a pantry full of home-canned produce.  There's a big stack of firewood I cut from my own woodlot.  There's an outhouse, a well, a stream full of trout, a big compost pile.  The whole place is alive and green in summer, bursting with flowers in spring, painted in deep reds and yellows in autumn, and of course at least a little snowy in the winter. 

Sometimes I really miss the tall trees.  I miss walking in the rain.  I miss thick, rich soils that support an abundance of lush growth.  I miss hardwoods, good for building and burning and smoking meats.  Often I find myself wanting to settle not in a cabin in the mountains with nothing to do 9 months out of the year, but instead to be part of an active, living farm.  I love pigs.  I love cows.  I love dogs and cats and goats and chickens and horses.  I love canning and growing.  The problem with the west is that, if you strip away the modern infrastructure, it's one hell of a hard place for a human to live, and is best suited for a nomadic lifestyle, just like the hunter-gatherers who once called this place home.  I want the safety and comfort of a farmstead.  And I want the responsibility that comes with it.  I need projects.  And I need companionship of animals rather than people.  I still want self-sufficiency, but I now realize I can be much more self sufficient on a farmstead.  I can produce far more on far less land, and I won't have to range over wild, rugged terrain to do it. 

I'm torn over this evolving perspective.  On the one hand I still feel like my heart is here in the West.  On the other, I find myself longing for a life like the Amish, only without all the religious bullshit. 

I feel a little better writing about it, but it just isn't enough.  I think I need to take a vacation, a roadtrip out east.  I haven't done that in probably 15 years.  I've always loved the Deep South.  Tennessee and Virginia were some of the pretties places I've been.  Even being from East Texas, I remember being struck and by how tall and thick the forests were in Missouri. 

Could I ever really leave my beloved Rocky Mountains?  It's hard to imagine myself being a resident of Tennessee or Virginia or Georgia.  But it's easy to imagine myself on a lush farmstead, too. 

I'm moving next month.  I'm moving out of town and renting a small house on 4 acres.  I'm already halfway packed.  I'm getting dogs, chickens, pigs.  I'm going to try my hand and being a farmer, or as much of a farmer as I can be considering I work a full time career and I live on a semi-arid plain at the foot of the mountains.  I'm taking this time to experiment, sort some things out.  I'm curious to see where this will go.

Brain Tanning

I've fallen in love with brain tanning. What is brain tanning? It's when one turns an animal hide into either a furry pelt or a cloth-like material (buckskin) that can be used for making clothes, bags and other useful things. And one accomplishes this not by using toxic modern chemical concoctions, but the animal's own brain as stone age people have done since long before the advent of agriculture.

It's interesting to see the process of turning a furry little squirrel or rabbit or deer into dinner, tools, and clothing. It's amazing, really. I mean who anymore knows how to prepare their own food? Most modern Westerners can't even grow a garden. Fewer still know how to successfully hunt and butcher a wild animal. And I can probably count on two hands how many people can take the next step of turning the "useless" parts like skin and bones into clothing using nothing but their own two hands and a few simple tools fashioned out of rocks and animal bones.

Everything we need, nature provides.

Flannel is Cool

Tonight I stopped into Alfalfa's for a couple of items as I often do in the evening. Upon checking out a cute young female cashier who I frequently see said to me, "You always wear the coolest flannels!"

What's awesome about that? First, that sense of community. It's nice to go someplace and be not just recognized but acknowledged. There are a number of places around town where people smile and strike up a conversation with me simply out of familiarity. The second thing that's so awesome about what she said is that I live in a place where flannel is cool. She's not the first to compliment me on my flannel. When I lived in Texas it was a big joke that only lesbians wore flannel, but I always loved it. At one point in years past, friends came over and persuaded me I needed to get rid of all my flannel and plaid and restock my wardrobe with something more fitting the urban gay lifestyle. I took their advice, but over the years my wardrobe turned plaid again. I couldn't be happier.

Squirrel Stew

Tonight we're getting our first real snow of the season; up to 19 inches are forecast by tomorrow afternoon, along with temperatures hovering around 13 degrees. Tonight we've got the fireplace going and I made a big pot of squirrel stew and cornbread.

Think I'll work from home tomorrow and keep my fingers crossed for a snow day. I love this time of year.

Cabin in the Woods. Again.

Hate is a strong word. Regarding my last post, I didn't mean to use that word. I just get really frustrated sometimes, and I am grateful to have a great career, especially in this economy. But overall I meant everything else I said.

This weekend I picked a burlap sack full of wild fox grapes and turned them into jelly. I also picked a sack full of chokecherries which I plan to dry this week. I couldn't pick enough chokecherries to make jelly. It's so late in the year now there aren't many left.

Chokecherries were one of the staple foods for the nomadic Native Americans. They grow abundant and wild in the Rockies, though few people today even notice them. The Indians typically dried them into fruit leathers or used them in pemmican, and European pioneers liked to make preserves and jellies out of them. They're tasty, nutritious, abundant, and once prepared will easily last the winter. And chokecherries aren't the only wild foods that nature grows in her Rocky Mountain garden. To name but a few edible fruits, we've got bearberries, raspberries, blueberries, haws, grouseberries, cranberries, strawberries, gooseberries, currants, huckleberries, false wintergreen, saskatoons, plums, grapes, nuts and more. That's to say nothing of edible barks, ferns, bulbs, roots, shoots, mushrooms and greens. And then, of course, there's the wildlife: mule deer, wapiti, buffalo (now extinct in the wilds of Colorado), white tail deer, pronghorn, beaver, bear, chickaree, Abert's squirrel, trout, grouse, ptarmigan, turkey, a host of waterfowl and a number of other lesser known creatures all make great meals, clothing, tools and shelter.

There's something wholly satisfying to me about going out into the forest and bringing a wild animal or a sack full of berries back home and preparing dinner -- and especially if I can prepare it and store it away for dinners yet to come during those wonderful, long winter nights. Conversely, there's something both sad and terrifying about going to the grocery store to buy faceless food -- food whose story I cannot know, from a soulless entity I do not trust. I liken it to the difference between a lion hunting wildebeest on the open Serengeti, and a lion lying in a cage at a zoo being tossed a block of meat at regularly scheduled intervals. It's disgusting. It's disturbing. It's amoral. It is entirely artificial and counter to the way nature operates.

I still get the majority of my food directly from local farmers, which I love, but I'm getting a larger portion of my food from the wild these days.

Tonight I'm dreaming of my cabin, off the grid, out of the system. I can see it as if I were in it right now: the big stone fireplace, the bearskin rug, the hardwood floors. I'm standing at the window in my cotton night pants. I feel the cold on my skin through the glass. The hour is late, but the full moon reflects off the snow and lights up the valley. It is silent and still, like a painting. The dogs are snoozing by dying the fire. The root cellar is full of smoked and dried wild meats, fish, mushrooms and berries, supplemented with a few barrels of potatoes, flour, sugar, onions, squashes, salt and apples that I picked up at the farmers market in town last fall. I've also got dried and fermented vegetables and a couple of wheels of cheese, and shelves stacked deep with jams, jellies, fruit butters, pemmican, maple syrup and pickled peppers. I have no refrigerator; I have no use for one. I have no electricity; I have no need of it. I have no indoor plumbing; it serves no purpose.

But from where I stand at the window, hot cup of tea in hand, I can see my smokehouse and my outhouse and the stream that brings me an endless supply of clean, cold water. I can see the cords of firewood I carefully chopped, stacked and dried all summer long to feed my wood burning stove throughout the winter. I can see my wood shop, and the barn where I keep the horses on the coldest nights. Over the fireplace hangs my rifle. In the dining room sits the table and chairs I crafted of Douglas fir some years ago. On the wall hangs the snowshoes I made, and which I use on winter hunting trips.

And from up in the loft I hear the gentle, rhythmic rumble of a man in a deep sleep, nestled in thick, soft blankets, keeping my spot warm. I sip the last of my tea and set the cup down without a sound. In the ghostly light of dying embers I give the pooches a soft scratch behind the ears, but they hardly move. Up the ladder I slip into the shadows, out of my night pants, and into a cave of blankets. I press against my partner, and his bare skin is so hot I give a quick shutter at realizing how chilly I had gotten down by the window. We curl up like a couple of bears settling in for a long winter's sleep. I am in heaven.

Welcome Back Rant

As my last post indicated, I tried moving my blog to Wordpress. I got it in my head that I was going to build a more robust site with "how-to" pages and other resources, but it turned out it was just too much work. I have little interest in taking on more commitments, especially ones that are technology-dependent. I also got sidetracked by Facebook for awhile, but I got sick of people posting about the mundane things in their ordinary lives. No offense to them, I'm just not interested. I suppose my life is plenty mundane, or at least odd and incomprehensible, to most of them.

Blogger gives me a release, without the complication of building a resource, and without the distraction and even greater complication of Facebook.

So I guess I'm back, and though I do try to avoid all-out rants, today I think is going to be a rough one.

Why today? I'm at work and wholly depressed, which isn't a big surprise if you've read anything I've written over the years. I have a high-paying job with wonderful benefits that contributes to a cleaner, greener world, my peers respect me, my work environment is low-stress and my employer is generous.

And I hate my job. I hate it in the way that a lover of fine dining might hate giving up juicy steaks, fine wines, crisp fruits, tender vegetables, crusty breads and silken desserts for the futuristic meal-in-a-pill. It isn't that it tastes bad, or that it lacks nutrition (assuming humans could actually achieve this), but rather that it tastes like nothing and leaves the soul malnourished. I feel like a suburban drone, passing the days not by the rhythms of nature but by the wholly artificial ticking of the clock. I feel unstimulated. Unmoved. Unmotivated. Pointless. Wasteful. Sad.

I have to get out.

My coworkers praise my work, my work ethic, and my good-natured personality. But I'm just going through the motions. My body is here earning money to pay everyone else to provide my "living," but my heart roams the forested mountains in search of something real.

I watched a movie called The New World last night. It was a little slow as it was more a love story than anything, but it put me in a mood. It reminded me (as if I needed reminding) just how f*ed up white people and Western society are and always have been. If I came ashore in America in 1607 I would join the Indians and never look back. They had it made. The mere fact that they managed to live on this continent for 14,000 years and not destroy it, and we managed to take it to the brink in just a few centuries speaks volumes.

I despise money and the clock and the calendar. I despise the Western social hierarchy, the greed and the gluttony and the backstabbing. I hate fashion and gadgets and everything that Pottery Barn represents. I hate that we're not only willing, but eager to trade timeless, unspoiled wilderness for a metaphorical minute of suburbia. I hate annual performance reviews and standardized tests. I hate car culture and television and processed industrial calories that pass as food. I hate human stupidity and I hate being part of the whole f*ed up system. I hate religion, especially the "big three."

All I want is to live deliberately. All I want is to hunt and gather and grow my own food, to build my own home, to laugh with friends, to breathe clean air and drink clean water, to walk among ancient forests and to wonder and ponder over the midnight stars. I don't need "stuff" beyond what I can make from what the forest provides. I don't need "culture" or "entertainment." I don't even need to own land. I just need to live with the land, and after I die let someone else walk in my footsteps. That's all. You know, the way most humans have lived for three million years. Is that so much ask? Really? I don't want fame and fortune, I have no interest in keeping up with the Jones', and you can keep your plastic suburban fantasy. I want to extricate myself from it entirely. If I don't do something soon I will go mad.

I've thought about going back to school and becoming a biologist, but even scientists often irk me. As Ian Malcom said in Jurassic Park, "what you call discovery, I call the rape of the natural world." I'm not at all comfortable with poking and prodding nature merely to see "what makes it tick." Some things, I think, are best left to the realm of the mysterious. I don't need to know what's happening on a cellular level inside of Clostridium botulinum, or even that it exists. Is it not enough to know that cooking certain foods keeps one from getting sick? Is it not enough to gain wisdom from observing and interacting with the natural world, rather than gain information by dissecting it under a microscope?

Why must I "get a job?" I'm not lazy, not at all. I love work. A few weeks ago I spent an entire day felling, limbing, bucking and splitting firewood in the forest using nothing but a double ax, an antique bucking saw and a maul. I used no fossil fuels except to drive my truck up in the mountains because I don't have and anyway wouldn't be allowed to use a horse drawn cart on modern roads. And anyway if it weren't for the "advancements" of society I wouldn't even need the cart or to cut down trees. Natives had small fires burning twigs and dung that kept them quite warm with no need even for harvesting firewood as we know it. Talk about efficiency!

That said, I'm not opposed to learning a trade. I need to work with my hands more. I need to walk and interact with things that are real, like wood and wildlife, not plastic and suburban cube-zombies.

When the weekend comes and I'm in the Rockies, I feel alive and happy and deeply interested. When the weekdays come I feel dead and numb, like my spirit is broken. Work is an endless procession of pointless days doing pointless work to live a life I don't want in the first place. How do I get out?

How do I get out?

Tales of the Mountain Men

I'm reading Tales of the Mountain Men, a collection of excerpts edited by Lamar Underwood.

I've been off work for eleven straight days. I've spent most of that time celebrating with friends and family, cooking, reading and snowshoeing (and shopping with mom, as previously noted.) Tomorrow I have to go back to the office. I'd rather pack up a string of horses and mules and ride for days deep into the mountains. There I would find my cozy little cabin nestled at the foot of the mountains on the edge of a wide meadow. I'd like to wade into an icy creek and set a beaver trap. I'd like to trap a few beaver, skin them out, tan the hides and sew them into a coat. I'd like to chop firewood for the stove. I'd like to eat fried beaver tail and winter pemmican. I'd like to hear the old wood planks creak gently beneath my feet as I gaze out the window across the snow-blanketed valley. I'd like to stretch out on the buffalo robe in front of the fire with my dogs and sleep away the long winter nights.

But that's only a dream. I live in cube land. I am a mountain man spirit trapped in the life of a cube bunny. Nobody ever said life was fair.

The Breed

The mountain men were a tough race, as many selective breeds of Americans have had to be; their courage, skill and mastery of the conditions of their chosen life were absolute or they would not have been here. Nor would they have been here if they had not responded to the loveliness of the country and found in their way of life something precious beyond safety, gain, comfort and family life.

--Bernard DeVoto
Across the Wide Missouri

Tell of Woe

Well it seems I'm in full-on blogger mode again, which means I've reverted to my Great Obsession.

It makes me want to laugh. Or cry.

It's finally snowing in Boulder. The wind is howling and we could get as much as a foot by tomorrow morning, along with sub-zero temperatures. Counting today I have four more days before I have to go back into the office. I plan to spend the majority of that time fireside knocking out a few books, doing a little blogging, and working on my novel.

So what brought my obsessive feelings back? Partly I wanted them to come back. I missed them, if that makes sense. I guess it's how I've come to define myself. It makes me wonder how I'd feel if I ever were to achieve my fantasy. I mean imagine you spent your whole life fantasizing of, say, going to Greece. Then you finally get to go. Upon returning home, what then? What comes next? Would you be satisfied thereafter? Or would you find that it was the obsession with Greece, rather than Greece itself, that you actually needed?

Partly my obsession was brought back by just not being at work. I haven't been in the office since last Wednesday. It's now Thursday of the following week. In the past week I've been to the Leanin' Tree Museum of Western Art twice, and that always catapults me back into hardcore Western fantasizing. It's one of the best little museums I've ever been to and the only art museum I've ever loved. It's in Boulder, it's free and open to the public, and it's usually very quiet so it's a good place to meditate on the things near and dear to my heart. And the art collection is amazing. Even my parents loved it. Often I'll go alone during some off-time when I'm sure to be the only one there and I'll spend an hour or two gazing into an intangible world that captivates me. Every sculpture, every painting is a moment frozen in time - yet they all tell a story, however brief, and give one a glimpse of what was and what would be, even if the stories are only based loosely on historical events.

The deep lines painted on an old Cherokee woman's face as she stares off into the desert at something only she can see; the cowboy about to be crushed by his sun fishing horse; the war party in the pale moonlight; the haunting spirit horse mourning the death of his warrior; the epic struggle between hunter and mountain lion; the tenderness of two cowboys at Thanksgiving in a rugged and unforgiving world; the packers after a successful hunt; breathtaking western landscapes with all their minute detail and a thousand things more. These images move me and haunt me; they fill my soul with something I can't get from the daily grind of "normal" life.

And finally, my obsessive feelings were brought back by getting out into the mountains. Rocky Mountain National Park is what keeps me sane, and it's not even the most perfect slice of the American West. That title belongs to Yellowstone, the only in-tact ecosystem in the lower 48 that still looks and functions more or less like it did before the arrival of the white man and all of his destructive ways. I think that when the day comes that I visit Yellowstone I won't want to leave. Wolves, grizzlies, wolverines, bison, untrammeled forests and meadows, snow-capped peaks and untamed rivers - Yellowstone is the last refuge of Wild America outside of Alaska.

For lunch today I sat down with a warm bowl of leftover homemade chicken soup: potatoes, carrots and dried oregano from the garden and chicken from a local farm. I served it with a leftover buttermilk biscuit I made from scratch for breakfast yesterday. In the glow of the Christmas tree I watched the snow falling outside, warmed by my soup and my thoughts. This is heaven for me, this moment.

I'm a philosopher. That's what I really am, no bones about it. I probably wouldn't make for an exceptional cowboy; I'm not reckless enough. I probably wouldn't make for an exceptional mountain man; I may not be tough enough. I don't make an exceptional analyst or businessman; I don't care enough. What drives me is a desire to become enlightened and to be inspired. What thrills me is to enlighten and inspire others. What comforts me is nature. What satisfies me is purpose.

I don't want to be a scientist; they care only for what makes a thing tick. I don't want to be a businessman; they care only for making money. I don't want to be an adventurer; they care only for the thrill of the moment. I don't want to be a politician; they care only for winning the game.

I think my calling in life is to be a teacher, a writer, a naturalist, a philosopher, and a non-academic historian. These things I am now, as much as I can be. I do want to know about science, I do want to have business sense, and I do want to understand the game. We need professionals in all areas I suppose. Thing is, I don't want to specialize in the activities. I want a bird's eye view of all of them, to understand how they form our world. I want to know who we are, where we came from, where we are going, why we do what we do, or don't. I want to inspire people to think beyond what makes a thing tick, to care for more than just money, and to realize that the game has no value but that which we assign to it. I despise the concept of money and accumulating wealth in monetary form. I despise the corporate ladder and the Western concept of "progress." Alas, this is the world in which I live, so I struggle to find a way to "earn a living" from the things I love, rather than from the unsatisfying activities that I know will work but leave me feeling empty. My body is clothed and nourished by my career success, but my soul is left destitute.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

Queen of the Mountain

Today mom proved what I'd been suspecting for awhile. When she's with my step-dad, she's a dainty, wilting flower who can't do anything but shop. When she's alone with me, she's a strong woman up for a real adventure. It's the weirdest thing.

Step-dad has been sick pretty much since they got here, so today me and mom hit the trail without him. She'd been saying she wanted to see snow before she left so I suggested snowshoeing up at Bear Lake. She always gets giddy in the snow. I figured it would be a stroll around the lake, at most, before scurrying back to the warmth of the truck. But no, we walked across the frozen lake not once but twice just because it thrilled her to walk on a frozen lake. She was throwing snowballs, falling and crawling in the deep snow, and then wanted to go UP the mountain! That blew me away. Of course she got winded not being used to the altitude and not having a lot of cardio conditioning, but I was proud of her. She said she wanted to buy some warmer boots and try real snowshoeing up the mountain next time she was visited. She was like a totally different person. I even pointed that out to her. I asked why, when she's around step-dad, she acts like a silly airhead who can't do a thing for herself and gets a chill with the slightest breeze, but when she's with me she wants to climb a snow-covered mountain in 30 mph winds. The answer was complicated and kinda cute actually, but seeing her out there being active and strong really filled me with joy. I love you mom.

Merry Xmas

Mom and step-dad have been in town awhile now. I love them both with all my heart.

I think I have what it takes to be a lonely old mountain man. I'm such an introvert. Even the people I love I can't be around too long before I start clambering for solitude.

Don't get me wrong. I love having friends and family. They're very important to me. It's just that people seem to drain my batteries; some more quickly than others. I need down time. Regularly.

When mom and step-dad come to visit, it doesn't take long for us to run out of things to do, mainly because Colorado offers little of the kinds of things they like to do. Or maybe it's just me. They are the poster children for upper middle-class suburbia. Mom's primary interests are shopping, shopping, fantasizing about having a bigger house, and shopping. And mom, bless her, wants to buy me EVERYTHING. I can't glance at something twice - a $1,200 bicycle, $200 designer shirts, a $5,000 bronze sculpture of wild horses - without her insisting I let her buy it for me. And she can't, for the life of her, understand why I don't just buy every little thing that catches my fancy. I try to explain that it's okay to admire something without feeling the need to possess it, but she looks at me like I'm speaking Greek. And doing anything outdoors more grueling than walking the Pearl Street Mall is pretty much out of the question. Try as I might, I can only spend so many hours in a week driving around Mapleton Hill and shopping the various malls and boutiques within 50 miles of home.

And sharing a bathroom. Do you have any idea how much toilet paper women go through? How is this even possible?

I look forward to late afternoon when mom and step-dad are pooped from a long day of shopping and lay down for a nap. I slip off to read Louis L'Amour or to write in my blog or just to lay down myself, close my eyes and imagine I'm in my fantasy cabin all alone deep in the mountains. What I wouldn't give right now to be there.

Go there. Totally go there.

I've always heard that tortured writers write the best stuff. Actually what I've always heard is that tortured artists create the best art, but I've heard it applied to a variety of specific art forms, including writing.

I love to write. My blog, often, is just me ranting or dreaming, but I think there's some good stuff in here. I've got some other writings that contain really good stuff. And I'd have to say all of my best stuff came about when I was either suffering terribly (as from my deep desire to be a cowboy-mountain man instead of a cube bunny) or when I was swept up with passion on a subject near and dear to my heart.

I also have to say I tend to blog most often when I'm feeling either deeply tortured or particularly joyous about something.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about how deeply I sank into my own misery over the last few years in my longing for another life. Not that my life is bad. It's quite good. It's just that often I feel like I'm in the wrong place and time, that's all. Anyway, often during those most intense moments I had (what seemed to me) the most brilliant insights, and created vivid imagery in my own head by blending fantasy with reality. What I'm trying to say is, I wish I'd put these down in writing because they'd make a damn good book. Actually some of them I did put down in writing, and fortunately the others are still burned into my memory so there may be hope yet for recalling the emotion that brought them into the world in the first place.

I've been relatively unmoved for a good many months now. I've managed to keep the cabin fantasy subdued and settle into a routine at work. This is good and bad. Good, obviously, because I'm not constantly fighting an emotional battle between what is and what I wish for. Bad, however, because it feels too routine, and a little bit like I've given up my dreams. Bad also because without the torture I have nothing pushing me to write or have those deep insights which bring me a sort of joy that I just can't put into words. Strange as it may sound, going deep enough into one's own world and having such insights or creative flurries or whatever they are is actually a kind of natural high. And when I have written as a direct result of such a high I've always gotten compliments and been told things like, "wow, you really need to be a writer."

I guess its in these moments that I can truly write from the heart, and maybe people pick up on that.

So I'm starting to actually miss being tortured, not for the tortured feeling itself which is miserable, but from the exhilaration, the creation, the self discovery it brings. Of course this makes me wonder if it's really the cabin I ever wanted in the first place, or if that was just my subconscious choosing something I could be so close to but not actually have in order to induce maximum, prolonged torture for the purest and highest high. :0) Hey, it IS possible, and if nothing else I try to be open minded and consider all angles.

So tonight I sat down and tried to put myself back in that place. I tried to recall some of my best moments and put down into words things that have been haunting me for too long. I closed my eyes and retreated within. In my mind I walked in the sand by the creek. I sat on my horse looking out over the ridge. I stood at the window peering out across the darkening meadow. My senses came alive and I was there. The scent of a moist pine forest after a summer rain. The texture of rough-hewn planks beneath my bare feet. The splash of icy snow melt on my face at the break of dawn. The sight of a moose ambling in the distance. It felt so good. The hard part is coming back.

Eclipse and Stuff

Tonight is the big eclipse - a very special full lunar eclipse occurring on the winter solstice. I read it'll be about 100 years before this happens again. We were going to go down to the observatory at CU to watch it but the sky is obscured by clouds. It happens.

People. Why do I continue to let them disappoint me? No one's perfect, I get it. I just wish people could a.) have a little more respect for one another, b.) get at least a few facts before jumping to conclusions, and c.) stop being so childish. Is that really too much to ask of a sentient race in a supposedly enlightened age?

I need a wilderness cabin. And some eggnog. Fortunately I do have the latter.

Back from the Dead

So I guess my blog isn't actually dead, because here I am.

I just sat down and read through some of my old entries. Wow. I can be pretty intense.

So what's new? I got the horse but she turned out to be way more work than I wanted, but as much as I feared. I had my heart set on a Morgan or a Quarter Horse, but this Thoroughbred sorta fell into my lap. She definitely lived up to her breed's description as a hot blood and wasn't suited for the kinds of things I wanted a horse for. I actually wouldn't have minded putting in the time, but I do have a full time career. Weekends weren't enough, especially considering I couldn't even spend every weekend out there with her. So now she's living the life of a cow pony somewhere in cattle country.

We took a trip to Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument, which was really great. We saw and photographed a lynx which was just awesome.

Work has been going well. I've managed to take my obsession for self-sufficiency and a cabin in the woods down a few notches, which I think explains why I haven't been posting anymore diatribes about society and office jobs. It's still something I fantasize about regularly, I just haven't been obsessing over it.

We've decided to start trying to meet new couples in the Boulder/Denver area and that's been fun. Feels good to be social again, especially since I don't have to go to the bars to do it.

And I guess that's all I feel like writing about today.

The End

It's been real.

Stardust

There's a horse I've been thinking about buying. I've spent the last few weeks riding some but mostly just hanging out in the pasture with her. I've also been studying natural horsemanship and Equus, the language of horses.

Last night I went out to the ranch and we had a nice chat. I did all the talking. :0) I told her that this morning I'd be back and we'd try a Join-Up. It would be her opportunity to choose me, rather than the other way around, and that would be the final decision.

So this morning I arrived at the ranch bright and early. I went out into the pasture and we said our good mornings. I took her into the round pen, and the ritual began.

I set her to running, which she began with an exuberant kick. Her breathing quickened, her ears perked up, her eyes were wide. I adopted a dominant posture, and kept strict eye contact as she circled me. After a few rounds, I made her change directions. This went on for some time. I was calm and in control, she was excited. And then I saw the first sign: her left ear turned like a radar dish and locked on me. I kept her running, and looked right into her eyes. Then her head turned slightly toward me, and her circle tightened around me - the second sign. Then a slight head bob, and then a deeper one. Still I kept her running, changing directions every 5 or 6 rounds, and kept my eyes locked on hers. Then her lips quivered and she started licking and chewing at the air, and dipped her head all the way to the ground in a sign of submission and acceptance. She was saying, "Okay, I think you might be worthy of being my leader. I'm ready to make my decision."

This was my cue to stop. I immediately dropped my rope, turned my back to her, slumped my shoulders and looked at the ground. I was saying in Equus, "Okay, I'm ready for you to make your decision. Will you choose me as your leader?"

Immediately she stopped dead in her tracks. This was the moment everything was leading up to, the moment that would make or break this budding relationship. There was total silence, except for the wind rustling in the cottonwood trees. I couldn't see her behind me. What was she doing? Was she just standing there? Was she even looking at me? Will she choose me or leave me standing here all alone? It felt like an eternity.

And then I felt it: a puff of warm air on my neck and the little hairs on her nose tickling my ear. My heart skipped a beat. She chose me. She chose me. Her head came over my shoulder and I reached up and rubbed her forehead. I turned toward her and she pressed her face into my chest. I was careful not to look her in the eye, but whispered my thoughts to her as I rubbed her face. After that she followed me around the pen, no leads, no commands. I took her back to the pasture and whispered a few more thoughts to her, smiled, and removed the harness. She ambled over for a drink, turned and gave me a long look, then quick as lightning the dust around her erupted with another exuberant kick and she bolted out across the field kicking and joyous, as playful as a kid on Friday after school.

"Let's do this."

Addendum: Yesterday evening, before this morning's Join-Up, but after I had told her about it, I lay down in the tall grass near this horse and watched her and the rest of the herd graze. The sun had set behind the Rockies and the sky was a dark, liquid blue during those long twilight moments. Cricket chirps replaced those of song birds. Field mice stirred. Toads emerged from their burrows to gulp down grasshoppers, and bats took flight. The prairie dogs had retired to their burrows, and I saw the silhouette of a distant coyote trotted along a ridge on the horizon. The meadow took on a new life, the life of night things. The chill of Autumn was settling on the plains, and the stars were spectacular; just spectacular! They looked like white diamonds tossed across deep blue velvet, and I felt like I was looking into eternity. I thought of the cowboys, the pioneers before them, and the Native Americans before them who must've spent countless nights looking up and dreaming. I thought of all the people who have ever gazed at the heavens and been overtaken with wonderment and awe. Ah, to be so tiny and yet so special as to have a metaphorical milisecond to peer up and into an unfettered sky and gaze deep into the cosmos, and to have the wits to appreciate it is just, well, miraculous. It was a splendid moment, precious and fleeting, and all the world felt right and good.

It was in those moments that I decided, should this horse choose me, I will name her Stardust.

And so it is.

You Can't Hide Your Lyin' Eyes

So the Fourmile Canyon Fire, which has been burning the mountains west of Boulder since Monday, is now officially the worst wildfire in Colorado history - not for its size but for the nearly 200 homes it has so far burned. They're still fighting it but it looks like Boulder is safe. A rain shower last night even cleared the air of the choking smoke.

I'm suffering from a severe lack of purpose. Big news, I know.

A couple of weeks ago I had another one of those moments where I decided reluctantly that my life is great, my job is great and I just need to settle in and enjoy it. And I did, mostly. For two weeks. Ish. But I knew it was fleeting. One can have everything in the world, but if one doesn't feel fulfilled then it doesn't matter much.

This much I do know: it isn't just the desk job aspect that I don't like. It's also the core of my job function that turns me off. I'm almost as sick of GIS analysis as I am of staff meetings and TPS reports. Surprisingly, however, I have found some spark of interest in web mapping; that is, making interactive , functional mapping applications for use over the internet. That's what's been keeping me moderately entertained at work lately. As long as I'm in the GIS field I definitely want to take my career in that direction for as long as it can hold my attention. Though still I know it's just a smokescreen; a distraction from the things I truly long for.

Anyway I decided to really try and get my mind off cabins and mountains and horses, but I'm like a mountain man junkie: I can stay clean for a little while but inevitably my thoughts start turning back to the things that consume me. It's a constant battle. That's why I'm blogging at 9AM on a Thursday morning instead of working. The blog is my attempt to help me organize my thoughts and get back to work, instead of heading out to the ranch or "running down to Boulder Horse and Rider - just for a few minutes to see what's new." Yeah right.

Gerard spent several weeks in Western Colorado and Montana this summer for an internship. He and some fellow student researchers were camping in remote parts of the Rockies studying pikas. At first, he said, it was beautiful. That gave way to pain and misery after the first day, because he wasn't accustomed to the rigors of "roughing it" and of spending so much time physically working and hiking. But after a couple of days he physically and mentally adapted and sort of fell into it. From that point on, he said, it was just awesome. I know the feeling. Every time I've been on an extended wilderness excursion or even in a physical working environment I've had the exact same experience. Gerard described Montana as the best. "It's very wild," he would say with a dreamy look in his eye. They saw bear, bald eagles, and heard wolves howling at night. The photos are stunning. Gerard lost 15 pounds during his time in the wilderness and didn't even notice. Mind you that was 15 pounds of "cushioning" he'd put on in the last few years since he pretty much gave up the gym. He looks good. He says at home he eats when he's bored. He exercises little and isn't really motivated to hang out at the gym and go mindlessly through some contrived routine. I very much know the feeling. This is a huge problem in modern Western society. Our lives are too soft and entirely too contrived. I despise the clock and the calendar like you can't imagine.

I once had a professor in college who was an archaeologist. He described a project he worked on where he lived in very primitive, stone age conditions for a month, and he described the same kinds of experiences that Gerard had. Even years ago when I was sitting in his class I was dreaming of how awesome that must've been.

I have another friend who was in the Peace Corps in Africa for two years, and he too described these experiences. He rarely got to call home. While talking to his mom on the phone shortly before his return to the US, she asked what he would be most happy to see upon coming back to the US. He said, "I can't wait to have a microwave again so I can easily heat up some water to take a bath." She paused. "Keith, you know we have hot water that comes out of the faucet here." He had to think about it a moment, then realized he had completely forgotten! I desperately need an experience like that.

In a scientific experiment conducted in Australia, a group (all volunteers of course) of older Aboriginal men who had lived the majority of their adult lives in the city, were asked to try living in the wild for six weeks. These men were all overweight, suffered from high cholesterol and high blood pressure and all the usual stuff. For six weeks these men lived in the Outback: no electricity or running water, no grocery stores, nothing. They had to make, catch, cook and gather everything. In six weeks all the men had returned to a normal, healthy weight and their medical problems had vanished.

I'm not saying life in the wild is all roses. It's the fact that it isn't that makes it so appealing and superior. There's a saying that there's no such thing as a free lunch. Modern society certainly offers a lot, but there is a high price to pay for all this luxury and softness, and I think I'm about tapped out.