“I’m sorry I’m late! There were sheep on the road!”
I’ve used this excuse a few times while trying to get to city appointments on time and it always manages to make me and the person (or professional) waiting for me laugh. Though this state of mine is being shook awake by an huge population influx at the moment, groaning with growing pains, shuddering beneath the thundering speed-enhancement that comes with multitudes of transplanted Californians…I like to think the heart of our rural spaces remains unchanged.
On the way to the post office yesterday, the shepherds were moving sheep across the river and up the road. It’s a thrill to see them working with their dogs and horses at this age old business of flock tending. I love the sight of the woolies moving as one across the sage, grabbing rogue bites of weeds and plant matter as they move, tramping the road flat, murmuring and bleating as they flow into empty space. They’re down from the high country now which means winter is on the way and I’ll testify to the fact. Idaho summer begins and ends with the yellow of balsam root and sunflowers as well as the bleat of sheep on the range.
…I owe us all a couple of real posts and I have plenty of thoughts and stories to share so here’s hoping I can use some of my time for blogging this week! I hope you are all well.
Two weeks ago I was in New Mexico with a shoot crew making photographs at Ghost Ranch and around Abiquiu and Georgia O’Keefe was everywhere. I missed my horses even though the crew had me running a horse through the Rio Grande for them and galloping around in the sage on horseback along the rim of the gorge outside of Taos at sunset. I came home and discovered the bands of mustangs that have existed all this time on the wild public lands that sweep between the farm and Nevada (and beyond). I have moved into comfortable silence with my wild horses, watching from near-far as they move through their territory, I yearn to know them better and I will, with time. I have pressed my hands to the faces of my own horses, felt their sun warmed velvet on my calloused fingertips and the smooth bone that runs beneath their hot breath and wide set eyes. I did all that and I saw all those things and I lived my life with my own lovely steeds and out popped rings featuring horse skulls: An ode to Georgia (I dislike her flowers but I adore her skulls), a whispered prayer for the wild ones I have come to know as my own, and a love letter pressed in sterling for the two I ride and cherish.