idaho — Page 5

Lions and Lambs

March 30, 2011 by The Noisy Plume

It’s windy as bee knees here today,

glorious springtime weather with the fleecy white bleat of lambs and fierce tawny roars of lions blended together into a hair raising melody.

Plum and I are just down from the mountain and besides being thoroughly buffeted by wind, we were misted on, swooped on and nearly mud bathed (I managed to keep my feet though).

What a beautiful day.

RW has been away steelhead fishing in the central part of Idaho.

Last night, I stayed up far too late whilst watching this from the quilt nest of my bed.

Have you seen it?

I know it might seem perplexing to you to know that I am an avid sci-fi fan as well as a feverishly devoted supporter of period drama, but it’s the truth.

North and South is one of those classic BBC period dramas wherein the romance is so drawn out, so practically painful in every way, so annoying and relieving simultaneously — she thinks she knows everything about him and he thinks he knows everything about her and so they deeply loathe each other and then find each other to be rather pleasant and then there’s FINALLY that kiss in the last five minutes of the film……exhale…...

I love that kind of love.

If you adored Pride and Prejudice (either BBC version or the Keira version),

you’ll love North and South…if not for the story, than for that gorgeous Richard Armitage and his hawkish glare.

The cuckoo clock chimed twelve some time ago and I’m headed out to the studio to finish this bizarrely beautiful cocoon necklace I started two days ago. It’s one of those pieces that I’m just not entirely sure about whilst I’m building it — as in, I’m not sure how it will turn out. I have the image of the finished piece on the tip of my mind but I don’t yet believe, wholly, that it will exactly match the image in my mind when it’s finished…I suppose we’ll just have to see how it turns out!

Good Wednesday to you all!

Smooch.

The Plume

Filed Under: idaho, lions and lambs, mountains, New Jewelry, pocatello, spring, west bench

March 26, 2011 by The Noisy Plume

For every girl who ever loved a horse.

Plume

https://www.thenoisyplume.com/blog/2011/03/26/948/

Filed Under: cowgirls, free range beef, gilbert ranch, horses, idaho, inkom, pebble creek, rocky mountains, working cattle ranch

Il pleut.

March 16, 2011 by The Noisy Plume

It’s raining again and I don’t mind.

I’d rather the precipitation drift down in solid state but winter can’t last forever

and the tiny, pale magenta buds covering everything quick and vertical in the gardens have been

harbingers of the slow, green pulse of springtime and all the promises that transitional season will hold for me. Living in a climate that boasts four full seasons is good for the eternal optimist in me.

I always find something to love no matter where I am.

No matter the grip of the season I’m swirling in.

No matter.

I’m looking out the window as I type this and the daylight is so very hushed by the low grey of the clouds. It’s dim enough to be dawn but the clock already reads past noon.

I think some big hand reached down from the heavens and pressed a mute into the trumpet bell of daytime. We’re all slowly nodding our heads and drumming our fingers to the easy, mopey jazz grey of today. At least I am. I don’t know about you.

Then there’s the quiet chatter of the raindrops against windowpanes. The considerate and tidy wrapping of the world in crystal sphere — clean wet grace. I’m drowning in music over here. Everything keeps even time together — the squish of my galoshes in spongy ground, the gurgle of the gutters as they spit and drip their tithes and offerings all over the slate path that leads around the side of the house and down past the rose garden.

Inside, the dogs lay in their beds, pressed up against the heat registers, snoring softly.

Mister Pinkerton is without his sun pools and light spools. Instead, he curls up in the down comforter on the bed.

My hands are cold.

The rain causes delays.

There’s some primal urge in me to brew tea and coffee, to bake bread, to warm the house further for practical reasons, life sustaining reasons. But then I hear the furnace kick in once more and I settle into my formidable laze again. My soul is draped over a chaise lounge. Someone lovely has tucked me in beneath a warm quilt (beneath this dowdy sky). He or she is feeding me dark chocolate and reading some glorious tale about pioneers aloud while the kettle whistles at full heat over in the kitchen.

The rain makes me daydream.

The best thing about this weather is viewing the world in high-gloss. I’ll have no more of that eggshell, semi-matte business! Everything outside has a glorious sheen to it. Even that old cow skull in the pansy planter looks less chewed on and more beautiful than it did during the dry doldrums of yesterday.

I want to widen my mouth at the blunt ends of the twig tips and pour those smooth, gravity heavy beads into my soul. One by one. Sipping small universes. I want to drink deep. Find some inspiration. Glean a tiny fire for my mind. Quench a little thirst for my heart. I want to plant my toes in soft earth, dream of the barefoot days of summer, believe in the capable spin and tilt of this planet — the ability of the world to right itself — the need for Big Hands to steady us all and set us on our feet once more.

I do believe.

I do.

Rain is so clever.

Just Who dreamed it up, anyway?

Drink up drink up.

It doesn’t fall just for the trees and flowers, you know?

Avec parapluie,

Jillian

Filed Under: idaho, isn't talulah so darn cheerful, plume gables, rainy day

March 14, 2011 by The Noisy Plume

I go walking.

Plumbelina chases a low flying, red tailed hawk, it’s like watching merry shadow play; shrewd and hooded hunter eyes meet clumsy puppy body and zealous bounding. It’s just a pair of small animals dancing on a mountainside, but the clash of their fascinating contact makes the hills ring.

The woods seem filled with macro detail. The earth here is wet with snow melt and spring rains. There is the scent of mold, rejuvenation, the old death of autumn and the new breath of spring and all these scents are stewing together into a careful blend of nature swirl. I catch a glimpse of my own short life cycle, the broadness of my fleet existence here on earth. This temporary body. This eternal soul. I feel reckless, I hear the clattering of my hooves on the stone of old creek bed, I feel the stretch in my spine like the water seeking cottonwood. My senses drift in and out of the thick fog of spring, like ships in the night. Do you ever have that numbing feeling that comes with walking through steeped sensory richness in the forests, in the world, so thick you could cut it in two and then divide it once more?

[I can experience the same sensory overload when in urban settings but I usually wind up feeling stress and tension from all the sound and movement in a city. My urbanite friends seem to be able to connect with the energy of a cityscape and thrive on it like I do in the stillness and quiet of my world here…it’s fascinating that I can react so differently than them in such settings.]

In my forests, up the mountain, I feel a natural high saturating my spirit,

like Annie Dillard’s tree full of lights.

I feel my rough edges smoothed over.

There’s music in the push of the wind, the bowing grass, the drift of song birds on the wing.

I feel a part of it all. I feel it all. I feel it all.

The juniper trees are dressed in tidy lavender cosmic spice!

Pillows and billows of small berries beg to be gin.

I breathe deep as I walk.

The junipers are brooms, I’m swept clean

until my hollow ribs sing echoes into the quiet of the creek bed.

There’s a pale feathering of green growing up the mountainsides.

A sneaky creep of season change.

Impressions in the mud.

Herds on the move. The reclaiming of the high country.

I make my way, like we all do.

Slow and shambling, quick and rambling.

Breathing deep, pink in cheek.

I go for the sage.

I go to become sage.

I go for the windshine and the sunchime.

I go for nightfall and breezedrawl.

I go to muddy my feet, I go for the soulsweep.

I go for the heartsigh, for the spiritfly.

https://www.thenoisyplume.com/blog/2011/03/14/937/

Filed Under: idaho, mountains, pocatello, rocky mountains, walking

Birthday-ing

February 16, 2011 by The Noisy Plume

RW took me away for my birthday and Valentine’s Day (since one comes before the other…), quite by surprise!

We skied into the cabin that rests at the source of Warm River, in the shadow of the Tetons.

It was wonderful. Here, see for yourself:

[hullo moose]

[trick candles that were impossible to blow out…]

[pancakes for breakfast on our wood stove]

[the view from the front door of our cabin]

[to the right, the actual spring source of Warm River — that water flows straight out of mountain stone]

[breaking trail with the puppies in tow]

[that melodious clatter of splitting wood…]

[busy hanging the stars…]

[my sled dog hauled 50lbs on his sled, into this cabin, I cannot convey how incredible this dog of mine is…there’s nothing he can’t do]

[heel nipper]

[the Idaho side of the Tetons, on the road home]

Thanks to everyone who sent me a birthday note or zipped me a letter, card or package in the mail. It was wonderful to return home to your love.

Happy birthday to me!
Happy Valentine’s Day to you all!!!

Plume

Post Scriptus:
Want to see these images larger? Just click on them.

Filed Under: backcountry, birthday, idaho, ski