The Dog Days of Winter

At some point, this afternoon, a girl put her torch down at her soldering bench, walked up the back steps of her house, wandered into a spare room a boy was busy renovating and said, “Let’s go for a walk. Let’s go for a walk and let’s take the Happy Dog and the Weenie Dog.”
So they did.
The sun flexed its puny little brink-of-spring muscles and the girl took a chance and wore nothing but wool and a teal dress.

When they arrived at the other side of town, the girl and the boy released the Happy Dog into the park.

The Happy Dog ran free and wild.
No other dog could keep up with his pace.
He frothed at the mouth.
He whirled and leaped in the February sunlight.
He peed on a couple of rocks.
He bit his sister on the bottom.

He even managed to get his own spit all over his face.
Then the Happy Dog turned into Psycho-Ewok-From-Hades (which is sort of like a Basilisk in its ability to cause death with a single glance).
The Weenie Dog, quaked and trembled atop her digger paws.
The girl quaked and trembled in her Birkenstocks.
The boy yawned, looked at his wrist watch and said he was hungry.

Then the Happy Dog used the facilities as the heavens above opened up and shone down on their chosen canine of goodness, gladness, sniffiness, and excellent Master Hunter skills.

And the Happy Dog looked out over his domain and
thought, “Idaho is a darn tootin fine place!”

And the humans were happy too and so was Weenie (even though she’s blurry in this photo).

And on the way home, they all stopped at the squirrel tree and laughed
out loud as five of the pests poured out of the squirrel hole and ran up the tree trunk.

And they all had burgers or kibble for dinner
and it was a good day.
________________
DEDICATED TO CY
BECAUSE HE LOVES FARLEY SO

In consecutive order:

1. A twirl up and through the mountains.

2. Clipping in.

3. Gliding off.

4. Settling in.

I haven’t a clue what you’re up to today (except the Dove, she and I, together, are planning our play list in our studios and jamming together from afar) but I hope it’s something good!
I’m off to flip around in the studio like a silvery fish!
Glub glub!
XO
JSL
PS My sister just sent me THIS.

Oh!
It’s you!
Were you spying on me?
Come, let’s go for a walk in the timber.

We’ll collect rose hips for hot tea later this evening when the wind begins to sweep up the valley and the chill deepens.

I’ve got a similar line drawing,
in dark, permanent ink, directly over my heart.
Forever North.

Be careful of where you step. Tread lightly. We’re under the surveillance of populus tremula.

Farley and RW will harvest our dinner. That’s a beautiful, organic and wild ruffed grouse the bird dog has brought to our hands. By the end of the day, he’ll have helped us find three more.

Splendid plumage, indeed.

I’ll spend a little bit of time rooting through the leaves, that’s where I find the best ideas. You should look too, there are handfuls of interesting detritus, bugs and bones down there beneath a thin shroud of autumn. Today I’ll take home a fascinating little gall, two small bones and a pocket full of rose hips. Who knows what you’ve found, but your pockets are bulging and your hands are full.

We’ll grasp onto handfuls of the last yellow. The wild roses like to hang on to their colors until the bitter icy end. It’s a fortitude they come by honestly and naturally. They’re afraid we’ll forget the sweetness of their pale pink blooms forever should they fade to thin naked sticks laced with razor sharp prickles too soon. I won’t forget but they’ll still burst into a hurried pink in June, like a pretty rash on the hillsides.

We’ll delight in the oddness of nature; smooth shapes wrapped around sharp blades, the curvature of the the earth, the rotund nature of stumps on the forest floor and the ubiquitous, dark canopy of boreal forest blended with trembling aspen on the sides of the mountains.

The creative pulse beneath our skin will swell and sing and our ideas will sprout in all directions.

And still we’ll walk further into the deep dark woods
seeking the next bend,
the next peace,
the next open space.

https://www.thenoisyplume.com/blog/2009/11/09/546/

Morning Has Broken

I woke up feeling like I’m a different person than I was yesterday.
I crossed the street and meandered up into the hills this morning. I was actually in search of a sunrise. With a perfectly blue Idaho sky I knew the sun would pierce the night with certainty and clarity.
I wanted to pierce the night in the same way, so I sought the sun, young in her nest, winging her way high.
And she did not disappoint.
Mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning…
Up in that holy blaze with the mountains in the distance and the sage at my knees I did a bit of thinking, a bit of singing, some strolling, some smiling, some praying, some glad hearting…
…and still the sun came on strong.
It became tangled up at one point
until I reached down and set it free once more.
Smooth sailing in endless orbit again.
Oh sigh for the sun the wind the rain the earth the
even keel of the universe.
Keeping on.
Keeping on.
Up in the hills, I’m part of something larger than my little plot of earth; my solitary prayers.
I’m untouchable when I’m part of the greater whole.
I’m under a wing.
I’m on the back of a bird that carries fire in its mouth.
I’m poured out on the earth in a sad stream.
I’m lifted up on the hands of the wind.
It’s all apparent.
My hurts and bruises fade to pale white and I find myself unscathed.
Healed.
I’ve been inoculated against the woes of this world.
Baptized in tree sap.
Washed in holy rain.
Broken down and raised up again fresher and finer than before.
Clean and glad and pink enough to have the frost of morning settle on my cheeks and hands.
Joyful enough to spot Talulah wagging her tailpipe at me, begging to be started up and warmed out of her chilly October nap.
Cozy enough to stroll in my front door and into the arms of the
best fellow I know.

It’s going to be a very good day.
The sun said so.
I’m going to make it so.
Love you,
JSL

Morning Ride

A coffee date this morning with Kate!
I was running late (as usual) and was tempted to take the car down to the University area but at the last minute I hopped on a bike instead and cruised on down the hill for a bit of caffeinated libation and conversation.
Whilst headed home, I considered hopping on this thing and winding up who knows where but I learned my lesson about riding trains the first time I heard RW’s train hopping story (he’s lucky to be alive and furthermore, lucky to be walking).

I took a good long squint at the Hotel Yellowstone, one of my favorite buildings in Old Town Pokey. It was then that I realized that I didn’t want to be done riding my bicycle around town for the day so I headed for one of my favorite places in town. The cemetery.

The first time I ever saw Idaho or Pocatello, for that matter, was when I rolled into it on the wheels of a Uhaul truck. The first sight to greet me in this fair little town was the cemetery. Cemeteries are such quiet places — everyone there is sleeping so hard they’re turning to dust beneath their marble and granite pillows. The trees in the Pocatello cemetery are maple and elm mingled with some ever green conifers. It’s quiet there.
So I grasp on, push the door open, and find the silence.

Trucks rumble past but I can’t seem to hear them.

I’m not even sure what I think about in this space but there’s rest for my mind here and quiet for my eyes. I go to the cemetery to look at the changing colors of fall, to tell the dead they aren’t forgotten, to recognize the fullness of my life. To listen to the grass grow and if the season is right, to hear the snow fall.

For being a place of the dead, there’s so much life here.
So much scope for the imagination.

And when I had enough I biked home, stopping only to sketch an idea by the river that flows through town.

I didn’t have the time to make the time for this today
but I ignored that fact and sucked a little marrow out of life instead (I had a sort of crummy day in the studio yesterday and it put me into a bit of an emotional tailspin…).
Sometimes it’s alright to push at the deadlines, to expand my immediate space and take a little time of my own and squander it how I will.
And now you know,
I sometimes hang out
in cemeteries.
See you tomorrow!
XO
PLUME