The Life and Times of the Plume — Page 182

The Glorious Wind Pinking

October 28, 2011 by The Noisy Plume

Oh!

Oh what autumnal joy is mine!

Today is the first day in three weeks that we have not had a house guest or two in our home. I loved, very dearly, visiting with our friends but let’s be honest, if you’ve been reading this blog since last December, you’ll know that we have had at least two weeks worth of house guests at The Gables every month since last January. Life has been full. The love has been so thick — thick like Canadian maple syrup.

That said, I am a smidgen tired.

November begins in just a small handful of days and it is the first month since last December that we do not have any friends or family booked for a visit and I cannot wait to fall head over heels into a creative habit again. I love the people who have visited, with all my heart, but quite frankly, they were bad for my work! That’s just bare bones honesty for you.

So, since this was my first day (in quite some time) in a quiet and private home, I found myself in a long hot bath this morning with my steaming cup of coffee followed by a breezy bike ride through the autumn wind pinking with a stop at my favorite vintage shop (HELLO YOU WONDERFUL VAIN AND VINTAGE GIRLS) where the ladies and I talked about my new/old beautiful airstream trailer! Hurrah! Also, I found a beautiful blue and gray pleated, mid length wool skirt that will be utterly gorgeous for winter walking with tights and boots. It’s so lovely! It’s so Sylvia Plath at the country stone cottage. I can’t wait to wear it. I had a wonderful batch of sushi for lunch and chatted with a kind fellow from Boise who has a heart for the arts. I peddled around a bit more, coasted across the university campus (and daydreamed about the weaving class I hope to take this spring). I talked to a friend on the phone and we laughed out loud and groaned a bit before exchanging Iloveyous and hanging up.

I listened to this while I pedaled my bike.

I love that low, growly, womanly voice…well, I also don’t mind sandpaper kisses…

[ the record version is amazing…go hear it]

Then, oh then, oh then of all thens,

I went to my Ace Hardware store and finally bought

the Swedish wrap I have been coveting there. I know, this all sounds strange…a Swedish wrap at the hardware store?

The Pocatello Ace Hardware is the kind of thing legends are made of. Come visit and I’ll show you myself. This particular Swedish wrap is a sensual sort of furry hood that has a scarf attached with pompom ends and it makes me look like a Ukrainian princess in exile in hip deep snow with nothing to eat but cold borscht.

I’ll be wearing it obsessively this winter and I’m sure you’ll see it in a photograph or two before spring does its springing.

I’m so spoiled,

Spoiled rotten.

But some days, it’s a good day to be spoiled rotten.

Some other tidbits you may enjoy:

I finally watched this! I loved it, though it was tremendously sad — it made me wonder if some people are born melancholy.

It made me hold my favorite melancholy mistress tightly in my heart.

If you’re in Pocatello and you haven’t been up here yet this fall,

you’d better hurry. The fall colors won’t last forever!

I’m going to finish reading this tonight.

I can’t believe I’m only one book away from finishing this amazing series — I feel like the characters in these stories are some of my best friends. I can get like that with books. For example, when Dumbledore died I felt like I had lost my grandfather.

Actually, when Johnny Cash died, I felt like I lost a grandfather.

Perhaps I am one who easily attaches?

Maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to love?

Perhaps I allow myself to be too transported by books?

Lastly, this arrived in the mail today. It’s tremendously beautiful.

I have been a huge fan of Lana’s work for some time now

and finally claimed this rust and gray beauty from her.

It’s delicate, robust and generally amazing.

At any rate, this is all to say that I wish you

a merry weekend.

Oh, and Taternator is the cutest quadruped within a thousand mile radius of my home. I’ll be sure to give him a smooch for you (he’s eating Rhubarb, the cat, right now).

Tater! Stop that!

MERRY FRIDAY!

Be well, brave hearts.

Don’t let the man get you down.

Filed Under: pocatello, random junk

Isadora

October 27, 2011 by The Noisy Plume

I had a tremendously and gloriously happy night last night!

Robert, and our lovely friends who are visiting at the moment, went bird hunting with the dogs over by

Little City of Rocks, here in Idaho.

When they came home, they were dragging a 1964 Airstream Sovereign travel trailer!

AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

It’s so beautiful!

I’d kiss it but my lips would stick (it’s cold here)!

Best of all,

we paid $500 for it which is a shockingly small number!

We’ve been searching for an Airstream for a few months now. When they come up for sale, they sell quickly and usually go for somewhere between $2500 and $3500 in Utah, Idaho and Montana.

To find this Airstream in such wonderful condition for such a low price felt a bit sinful.

I’m so thankful for it.

Why did we get this hulking pile of travel trailer bliss?

Let me tell you why:

Sometime this summer, RW called me up from the jumper base in Winthrop, Washington and at the same time we both blurted out that we couldn’t do summers apart anymore. We’ve been repeatedly blurting this very thing for a few years now but suddenly the impetus to make a change in our lifestyle materialized and we found ourselves with a plan. The main detail that has prevented me from living in Winthrop these past two summers is the lack of a studio space. After humming and hawing over the phone this summer, we decided that we needed some sort of trailer I could use as a travel work space and after pondering our options we, quite obviously, settled on an Airstream trailer because:

1. They are awesome.

2. They have serious character.

3. There is a subculture of humans that celebrate these trailers and we love being part of such subcultures (we belong to the VW bus subculture as well and it too, is wonderful).

4. And of less importance, but importance nonetheless, Airstreams match our big, hulking silver truck….

This winter, we will entirely gut Isadora (prior-to-renovation-Isadora photos will be coming) and thoroughly renovate her interior into a small studio space for me and a larger living quarters for our little family. I’m excited about it! But I’m even more excited about living in the same place as my husband next summer and being a part of the North Cascades Smokejumper family all fire season long.

After fire season, we will probably find ourselves doing a few extended trips to the deserts of New Mexico, Arizona and Utah where Robert will bird hunt and I will work in my little studio space during the daytime.
We have the hearts of nomads beating here in our chests.
Isadora is going to allow us to explore even more
than we already do. I adore her.

All this is to say, welcome to our family Isadora!

You make me feel like I’m living in a Miranda Lambert song.

We’re going to shine you up bright and fix you

up with some tender loving care.

Soon, you’ll be like a silver streaming star in the night sky, shivering, glittering and guiding the moon into her place.

Yee haw!

Filed Under: airstream, smokejumping

Tater Nation

October 24, 2011 by The Noisy Plume

Officially, officially.

This is Montana’s Honky Tonk Tater Tot.

Also officially, he is a little bit crazier than his sister Plumbelina was and some of us know how darn crazy darlin’ Plumbelina could be! This just goes to prove,
he’s not a Plum, he’s a Tater.
Every moment I spend with him, I see flickers of Plum’s spirit and some of her expressions cross his face. It makes me miss her even more but it makes me happy to have a tiny piece of her living on in this pup.

We’re very lucky he was available for us to claim.

We love him.

He’s healing our sad hearts.

He is tremendously welcome in our little family.

He’s going to be a hard working little bird dog

and my best friend.

We call him:

Tater, Tater Nation, Taternator, Little Man Tate and

Smallmungous Smoochie Love Beetle.

He says:

How do you do?

Filed Under: german shorthaired pointer, honky tonk tater tot

October 23, 2011 by The Noisy Plume

On this beautiful autumn evening,

I am here.

https://www.thenoisyplume.com/blog/2011/10/23/1121/

Filed Under: idaho, sagebrush

Yellowstone

October 22, 2011 by The Noisy Plume

A small cabin on the edge of West Yellowstone.

Funny drinks.

Frosty mornings.

Nights filled with: wolf howl and elk bugle:

laughter and pranks.

Me in bed with the small one in my sleeping bag, curled about my neck or wound in a puppy circle between my knees.

RW restless with his kinky-train-accident-back on a rustic bed frame.

The snores of our friends and family coming from the

bunk beside us or

the next room.

Rosie on the floor by the stove, sleeping in glorious, fire crackling shabbat shalom.

Cooking on a woodstove.

Early mornings.

Blue light.

Log cabin cozy cast iron:

Has anyone seen the oven mitt???

The potatoes are finished!

Can someone deal with the cheddar?

Dinner by candlelight.
Red wine.
The slow hunger of the fire in the stove.

That calm that comes with spaciousness.

Frost on the entire world.

Tall grass.

Golden sunrise.

Don’t-lick-the-truck-your-tongue-will-stick!

That broad back,

narrow waist,

swinging rhythm of wood cutting…boys, can I get some kindling?

Nope.

That’s not enough.

Boys in trucks and camouflage toting 30-06 rifles headed out for more elk hunting

on the snow laced razorbacks of Idaho

(a kiss good-bye, in the dark):

lodgepole pine,

3000ft vert (x4),

quakies turning orange and yellow under autumn sun,

wolf dens four feet deep in conglomerate rock,

grizzly bears hunkered down on narrow trails

shaking their blocky heads

and unafraid (take a wide path Jimmy, walk fast, don’t look back).

Yellowstone National Park

dressed in autumn gold

and the clear, rippling foil of running water in all directions.

The crackling of steam vents, the boiling mud, the turquoise pools of water burgeoning fresh from the earth’s crust.

My girlfriends and I cruising through

the space of the park.

Me, squeaking at every bison I saw,

counting the points on the bull elk.

Praying for wolves.

The quiet murmur of Old Faithful–

the stand up column of white wet hot.

The high places.

The closeness of God.

The thoughts I never spoke.

The speaking aloud.

A small and eerie lake formed by earthquake.

A bag of candy.

Two strangers at a trail head with the freshly cut pelt of a yearling wolf — that coarse hair and intelligent face stone still in the afternoon light.

A little sadness in my soul.

A snowflake on my arm.