My kind of high.
June 24, 2018 by
Tripping Over Little Blessings
June 20, 2018 by
Pronghorn are probably my favorite animal in the West. They’re incredible. They’re also my favorite animal to hunt and I think they’re my favorite wild meat — plenty of people can’t comprehend how a person can claim to be utterly in love with a creature they also hunt and harvest so you can take that as you will.
If you know, you know.
I tripped over this set of twins while out watching the mustang herd. At first, I thought they were strange, enormous cow patties until I looked closer and my eyes registered their shape and colors. Their mother was off in the far away distance. I’m sure she was willing them to be still, to not breathe, to wait, to not be afraid. I took a few photos. Suddenly, a coyote burst out of the sage behind me and galloped away as fast as she could; I watched her leave the country and I hoped she wouldn’t come back. The number one predator of pronghorn fawns is the coyote. I hope these two get to grow up and become fast and strong and all seeing, like all the pronghorn that came before them.
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June 16, 2018 by
I think I began using crosses in my work about three and a half or four years ago. These are not plus signs or x’s. These are crosses. They are employed in my designs with intention. I am drawn to the shape for many reasons and I like my crosses to look a little rugged, imperfect, or to be placed on a surface that is organic (like my SOS nuggets) so that they look like something that is the process of being refined. Moreover, the cross is a symbol of my faith and every time I place a cross on a piece of jewelry it represents, for me, the Holy, the Divine — Christ in me — me, the untidy work in progress.
It’s my way of giving thanks to God for breathing inspiration into me, for revealing the loveliness of the world to me, so my work can continue, so that I can move forward in my life, in my healing and growth, so I can help translate the beauty of this world for myself and others. And the beauty of our world exists in everything — in joy and sadness, in life and death, in suffering, in victory, in survival, in redemption, in freedom — everything I experience when I am out on the land that feeds me and stretches me and nurtures my spirit.
I want my work to be a reflection of the creativity I see all around me when I am outside, the perfection and beauty and dynamic nature of the ecosystems my life is so closely stitched to. I think all creative work has its roots in the Spirit of God (in the invisible that makes itself visible from time to time) which is all around us, all the time, even when we are numb to it or in the process of rejecting it or denying it. Even when we feel it has left us, when we feel alone in the heart of the darkest nights of our lives, it is there. Faithfully. It is there.
I place tiny sterling crosses on my work because I always want to acknowledge the hand of God in my life, the way I am being changed and molded and reformed like clay, the way the work of my hands shifts and grows as my own heart experiences shifts and growths. The way I am raised up, time and time again, as the old versions of myself die away and the new versions of myself hatch into being.
I use the symbol of the cross in my work because I need something to tether my life to or none of this holds meaning. But also, because I think I do believe.
Each cross I saw out is thanksgiving, every cross I stamp with steel into sterling silver is a dedicated prayer, every turquoise cross I employ is the very hue of hope and peace! When you wear these pieces that bear this symbol, you carry with you my greatest efforts to love, to live — my joy, my sadness, my failure, my redemption, my honesty, my hope, my faith and the pure goodness of grace. 
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I was unaware of the fact that this medium would, in good time, over the distance of a decade, refine the essence of who I am. For every time I have run a hot and tidy flame over metal, an invisible flame has feathered the edges of my self so that now I can finally see true beauty emerging on the brightly burnished bends of my soul. I work for you. I aim to serve you. Somewhere along the way it made me a better person than who I used to be. I owe you all my gratitude, all my thanks, all my love. Your support is making me who I am, who I am called to be.
Thank you.
+Of The West+
June 16, 2018 by
Upon returning home from a short trip to McCall to see Robbie, I spent yesterday setting the farm and gardens in order . In the late afternoon, I saddled Resero and took him for what might have been the longest ride of his life. I pushed him and I’m going to continue to push him in the months and years to come because he’s a high-strung animal, just like our birddogs, and I believe these kinds of animals need to be physically and mentally challenged in order to thrive, but also, a good horse or dog is a tired horse or dog. Yesterday we did an 18 mile ride. It was tiring. This morning, Resero is a quiet, sleepy, sunbathing beast in his paddock. He reaches down from time to time to grab a bite of grass but he’s not his usual highly reactive self. I should also add that I am thinking about doing endurance races with him. This horse comes from a competition background and I think he needs it in his life so these long miles have a purpose beyond exploring and pleasure riding.
While we were on the great, long ride together we saw pronghorn, mule deer, coyote pups, one badger, red-tail hawk, quail, pheasant, chukar, Hungarian partridge and the country was huge and sweeping and laid out before me like something pure, earnest, brimming with life and glory. I felt so lucky to call this area home and to have a good horse to explore it with. It was there, in my heartland, that I found myself alone with my thoughts and I began thinking back to a time when I didn’t know when to stay quiet and when to speak up, when I didn’t know I was worthy of defense — that I could defend myself! I expected someone else to come along and save me, fight for me, defend me and no one did. I didn’t stand up for myself because I think I didn’t believe in myself, my work, or that I was worthy of my own defense (and I was). I think it was wrong of me to expect someone else to come and save me from the spiritual and emotional violence of that time.
If I was alone and hurt or attacked in the wilds by a terrible beast, I wouldn’t wait for someone to save me, I would do my best to save myself, I would fight, because I’m worthy of life and living and surviving. How is navigating humanity any different than a tussle with a creature or a bad fall on volcanic rock that leaves an ankle badly sprained (or worse)? I guess this is all to say, so many things about me have changed and shifted and shattered and died and rebirthed over the years, I’m thankful I’m becoming someone I believe in, trust in and can stick up for. I can lay it on the line for myself and for others but more importantly, I’m thankful to be learning when to stay quiet and when to take a stand. Some things are worthy of of my energy and other things are just pishy caca and not worthy of oxygen.
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On a different topic:
It’s ok to be happy and merry and joyful and to earnestly and honestly convey that to others — to share it.
It’s ok to be successful.
It’s ok to not be a starving artist.
It’s ok to have dreams and to have your dreams come true.
It’s ok to be learning and growing and to carry the emerging beauty of transformation on the surface of your skin.
It’s ok to like yourself.
It’s ok to be liked, to be loved, to be cherished, to be uplifted, to be carried in the hearts of others.
It’s ok to be worthy.
It’s ok to be strong.
It’s ok to have the color of skin you were born with — to be brown, black, white, whatever. It’s ok.
It’s ok to be self-sufficient.
It’s ok to be capable.
It’s ok to need help from others.
It’s ok to help others.
It’s ok to to practice charity privately and quietly.
It’s ok to have faith and to practice a faith.
It’s ok to pray.
It’s ok to be healthy.
It’s ok to be alive.
It’s ok.
All of those things are ok.
You’re ok.
I’m ok, too.
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In farm news, we took our first cut of hay two weeks ago and it’s the best cut so far in our hay farming career despite irrigation issues early in the growing season. It’s difficult to believe we’re 1/3 of the way through the growing season and fire season! Time has wings — I ride it like it’s a bird!
My gardens are aiming for the stars. It’s my great pleasure to watch the bees working in the flowers I planted just for them. I’m eating zucchini like it’s my jay-oh-bee.
I have seven broody hens. I’m fit to be tied. A sister can’t get no eggs around here!
The turkeys have been threatened by a marauding night beast. It arrives, on the prowl, around 3AM. It’s keeping me awake at night. Our jenny is such a great mother to her brood and she’s equipped with strong survival instincts. She has started roosting with her turkleteenies in a different place every night to thwart potential attacks. I trust in her capabilities as a mother and protector so I’m letting her do her thing. This might be a place we simply cannot free range a turkey flock due to wild animal attacks and I feel I need to let the situation ride so we can know, one way or another, if free range organic turkey raising is a niche market we can pursue. We’re in such an experimental stage with the farm right now. It’s a dizzying amount of work but rather satisfying when we figure things out, one by one.
The summer solstice is looming. Isn’t the light so warm and rich and tinged with the everlasting? Go out into it. Let it get in the marrow of your soul bones and then let it write itself all over your shining faces and go forth in all you do, beaming bright.
I love you.
XX
Jillian
June 7, 2018 by
Every day I look around at this blooming, lush oasis of a farm and I feel shocked that I get to spend my time, my life, tending to it. I know exactly how we wound up here and I’m so thankful we made the decisions we made that led us to this place. When immersed in a luscious, thriving environment, one can’t help but do the same.
It’s amazing how distracting a garden can be. I have three. Well…I might have four…I just started a large plot of earth that is committed solely to iris varieties. Gardens, shrubs, perennials are a kind of infrastructure. I’ll see the magic of my efforts next year, and all the years to follow. Each time I stroll past one of my garden spaces I accidentally linger, find myself weeding, deadheading, or simply enjoying blossoms or leaf and stalk details. My growing spaces draw me in, draw me near, draw me out of myself, draw me into the essence of green — tranquility and quiet — like floating on a lake surface or being carried bodily by a gentle, fizzing rapid on a wide river.
I made a run to the city for provisions yesterday and wound up picking up eight new roses and another bevy of aforementioned iris. I drove the Tacoma which is experiencing a permanent lapse in air conditioning and I chose to wear cowboy boots and 100% cotton jeans which made wrestling and wrangling eight thorny roses into the back of my truck in 90F heat utterly miserable. On the drive home from the city I kept looking at my merry roses, bobbing their heads in the breeze in the back of the truck and I felt I was with friends on the drive home and George Strait was on the radio so everything was swell.
I have been feeling lonesome this week which is a different feeling for me than being lonely — one feels like an ache and the other feels like being isolated.
I’ve also been feeling worried. Let me tell you something! I’ve never fretted for Robert in his work. This is his tenth year in fire and his eighth year smokejumping and I’ve never been the wife who sits at home wringing her hands wondering about the fate of my man in the wee dark hours of the night. But this summer I feel worried. Robbie has jumped a round canopy parachute for the duration of his smokejumping career. This year he is going through the transition training for Ram Air parachutes which has been extremely intensive — this new parachute flys and operates differently. In the past two weeks, there has been a cut-away in his class (someone had a main chute malfunction and had to cut away the shoot and deploy a reserve all while hurtling towards the earth — it’s a rare occurrence in the smokejumping program and there was an inquisition) and there have been two crashes, one resulting in injury and the other miraculously resulting in no injuries. This stuff happened NOT because there’s something high risk about this new parachute, it’s just a matter of statistics and bad luck and maybe a combination of the two. Anytime there’s a parachute malfunction or an injury or death due to parachuting in the smokejumping program there’s a full on investigation that goes on and to be perfectly clear on the matter, the smokejumping safety record is incredible. They do an awesome job of training jumpers so that when these guys leap out of a plane, they’re almost flying with muscle memory, all the details of how to fly and when to pull a rip cord have been so deeply impressed into their bodies and minds their bodies go through the motions with sureness and steadiness.
That said, after the craziness of the past couple of weeks and Robbie’s reports of injuries and the terrible cut-away, I have had this niggling sense that Robert’s number is up. I don’t need anyone to tell me that it’s not or that I shouldn’t even put such thoughts out into the “universe” and tempt fate. It’s just a feeling I have and the feeling might be right or it might be wrong.
One of our favorite movies is “Always”. It’s a fire movie with Richard Dryfus and Holly Hunter in lead roles. Here’s the run down, he flys tankers for the forest service and she’s a dispatch girl. He flys like a cowboy and takes unnecessary risks that make her supremely anxious. One night, in their wee cabin, she tells him she needs him to ground himself, she can’t handle the stress anymore and she feels like his number is up. After a long, heartbreaking conversation about it, he agrees, because he loves her. She practically faints into his arms with relief. Early the next morning, he gets a call that the forest service needs a tanker to drop retardant on some insane wild fire and they can’t find anyone else to do it and they’re in a pinch. He agrees, he’ll do this one last job. She looks at him and says, “Don’t go. Don’t fly. Your number’s up.” He goes anyway…
If you haven’t seen the movie I won’t spoil it for you. I love that movie and this week, I relate, and it’s hard on me. All I can do is trust that Robbie is putting maximum effort into flying the way he was trained to fly and that he’s pairing that technical skill with his intuition and survival instinct when he’s in the air. The rest is out of my control.
In the meanwhile, I have eight new roses that need planting today, two fat and sassy horses that need riding, bird dogs that need running, gardens that need weeding, meals that need cooking and a huge batch of jewelry that requires finishing. The sun will set and when Robbie phones in for the night I’ll feel relief and we’ll end our conversation with “I love you” and another day will be done.
