Nature in Tune, Nature in Check

A heavy snowstorm hits the eastern half of the country and cities grind to a halt. Flood and snow hit the west, catching many off guard. I pay attention to weather, the forecasts, the chances for a really bad day. I've learned first hand how nature is more than happy to cut off your breath with a choking whisper of disregard.

Few do. Hollywood actors return from the political fundraisers to their houses build on hillsides that do, and will for eternity, burn to the dirt line every few years. People move to the mountains, build houses the size of New Hampshire, including green lawns that have to be watered in the high desert and then wonder why there's a water shortage and they have to dig a new well so often.

As that commercial from my childhood went "it's not NICE to fool mother nature".

You never know from whence your own moment will come. A couple of winters ago in my own area, a woman talking on her cell phone on ice slicked roads drives into a small pond and drowns mere feet from the bank, somewhere else, someone killed by a falling branch, heavy with ice as they took the dog out. There will not be a Spring storm where someone doesn't try and cross a rain washed street only to be washed away and drowned. The unwary, the naive, don't last long in the world we live in now.

As a child I lived right on the edge of mountains, which I could see out my window, where I could hear all that was around me in the still, dark nights. In those days before the big box marts moved in and a highway came on through, you could live the sound of nature right outside the window at night. I'd listen for the screech of the owl, the tiny fairy feet of a chipmunk on the deck, the lumbering gait of a raccoon, looking for something good to eat, the tiny tracks in the pristine snow. So young, so idealistic, I'd yet to understand that nature often wears a benign disguise to hide the evidence of how both man and beast craft their own survival.

Later, as I was learning to hunt, I'd see the predators, a bobcat shadowing me, or the deer that I was stalking. There in the edge of my vision, deer rifle slung over the shoulder, I'd be watching him watching me. He turns, so thin as he moves sideways that his form seem no larger than a branch, a shadow of tooth and claw, and then he's gone. Today you weren't worthy prey, tomorrow who knows.

There's been times where I've turned the key in the ignition of a little Cessna, took a long hard look at the sky, and shut down the engine, tied it back down and headed in. But there were also times I flirted with the cold and the dark with the abandon that one gets when their youthful flesh is untouched.


Fear is a gift of nature, so that the field will be more fairly played. I still spend just as much time outdoors as I did as a young woman. The walks are often alone, but on my hip is a weapon always, especially when out West when the four legged predators are a little bigger than they normally grow in Indiana.

Such was it the other night. It was a grey twilight, the light filtering through the trees like sun through a kelp bed, no sound but my feet crunching upon the ground, the random shouts of squirrels. The moon is up over the little lake nearby and standing at the shore line is a night heron, it's reflection the only thing moving on the rippling surface. It waits and waits, in defiant countenance. Waiting for what? Dinner, or simply the water to respond to his presence. Maybe it waits because fate does not wait for him.

Time to get in before the night has completely fallen. What is night but short space when the dark dims so soon, and the echo of a owl's wings brush against the windowsill? Just a short interlude in the sun's dance. Despite the bitter cold I enjoy these times, lazy days that draw up into warm folds of dark cloth against my cold legs, a fire in the fireplace and a mug of hot tea to brush away any remains of chill. Just sitting as the brightness dims to a fog shrouded glow of a streetlight. Breathing deep as I watch the trees, a few remaining leaves of last season, tattered flags against ancient wood, branches a canopy of familiar order. Sitting until a half moon rose, and eased a heart quickened by a stressful day in the field.

I look at the phone that whispers to me with the deliberate murmur of its waiting. I know it's going to ring, somehow I always seem to know. It does, late in the evening, nearly dark. Somewhere on cold air, buzzards soar in strong wind, the stiff breeze giving them the illusion of regression. The truck's warmed up, it's time to take my things and go.


As I head down the road, a yawn escapes from me. My breath is frosty against the window as I turn past the cemetery, where angelic forms in shadowed marble muse, their eyes raised up above as if to ask why.

I can not answer that question, I can only drive the truck north to where I've been called, scars hidden underneath a dark blue jacket, the letters that spell out my calling, splayed like snow across the back. I watch my path closely, eyes straight out on the road, checking for downed limbs or water underneath the clearing sky. I look out at the shadowed form of fence and trees, broken branches drooping, the landscape empty and uncaring, even as it flows as liquid past, from right to left. What is left is silent blur, posts and caution signs, shattered with ice, dissolving into ground, each in their ordered place so soon to be disregarded. I open the window for the sound of nature, and hear it in all its glory, a song simple in melody and tone. It's repentance, and retribution, ecstasy and bereavement. A tune spun on the night air, a disembodied wind singing a lament for those who trod where they should not.

I close the window, the air too chill. Outside, the sound diminishes as the window closes, growing quieter and stiller, until it was gone.

One of the blog gang is in the hospital for repair.

Blogger, and a friend to many, Stephen is in the hospital with a bad infection. I just heard the news from a couple of mutual blog buddies. Those of you who can, say a little prayer for him and his family. He's good people.

Brigid

It's Better With Bacon - an afternoon with friends.

The morning was busy, doc appointment, ortho surgeon follow up, followed by the yearly. . . knock, knock. . . mammogram! (I'm not a glutten for punishment, but all the visits were in the same medical facility which is a fair drive north for me).

When I was done with all that, I was ready for company, so the truck was loaded up and off I went to meet Midwest Chick and Mr. B. for a bit.

We each arrived bearing presents, as we'd originally planned on exchanging gifts at Og's home holiday gathering. But when the knee went all jihad on me, I was unable to finish my shopping.

So today, we arrived, a few weeks late, but bearing brightly wrapped gifts (OK, one of the ones I did was just a silver tin used to hold either cosmetics or BB's, with a bow, but it was SHINY).

The conversation had enough laughs to make me forget the pressing issues of the morning - homemade fudge wars (I made white chocolate with dried cranberry, toasted almonds, orange zest and the barest hint of Cinnamon and Midwest Chick made dark chocolate with ancho and chipotle chili), Barkley, the newest paracord bracelets we made (you know you can get a clasp that has a tiny little handcuff key built into it) and how much we missed weekends hanging out. Midwest Chick showed her new fancy phone. The ringtone when I call them? Captain Mal saying: "Ain't we just. . ." Big Damn heroes - HA! Then it was time for gifts!

Midwest Chick knows I like two things very much. Lemon and bacon. Yellow is my favorite color and I love the taste of, and scent of lemon. Seriously, I'd take lemon meringue pie over chocolate any day. So imagine my delight when I opened up the box to find several small wrapped packages, several of which were lemon scented, body butter, lip balms, soap, lemon sugar perfume.

But what is that in the corner? Bacon Toothpicks that Mr. B. found, and Bacon perfume?? Yes!


Scent by the gods. I sprayed it on. It didn't smell like I was dipped in bacon grease, it was a very elegant and subtle floral/spice/citrus scent, with the most decided undertone of BACON! Even after the "dry down", where you can tell the quality of the oils in a perfume, it smelled not just like BACON, but like a warm, spicy woman who just fried up a pound of bacon.

I couldn't help but sniff my wrist. So did everyone sitting within two tables. This stuff smelled incredible. There were two bottles, Bacon Classic with a floral/spicy undertone ( I detected cedar wood, citrus, pepper perhaps and bergamot) and Bacon Gold which had notes of citrus, nutmeg and pepper in it. And Bacon Salty Goodness.

I imagined what would happen when I left the restaurant and stopped at the truck stop across the street for gas. Truckers would follow me home. A blue haired lady's chihuahua dog would attach itself to my leg and not let go. It wouldn't stop there. Barkley would eat my sweater. EJ would miss his next flight overseas. Mayhem would ensue. Sniff Sniff. Dang.

The bottles were medium sized, but slender, perfect for a purse. Forget pepper spray for muggers. I have anti-jihad spray for extremists!!

I was ready for anything, including the trek out.

So, if you pass a tall redhead in a huge black four by four pick up, headed for the State Line and huffing her wrist like an addict?

That would be me.

On Artistry

She works late, hunched over a table, narrow, spread fingers splaying out thoughts while the last of the light straps around the strong beat of her heart. Outside lies a world forgotten as the words fly, sullen leaves and dead ashes swirling, branches stirring like water, drowning in the fading light.

He works late, bent over a shop table, hands scarred and toughened by work, stitching, molding, creating something that will hold a life. In the corner a fire, warming his hands, driving him to completion, even as his breath quickens with the effort, drawing into his lungs, the searing dark.

What defines art, and what makes an artist?

Art is the province of every human being. It is simply a question of doing things, anything, well. It is not an outside, extra thing limited to drawing or painting or music. It's simply a part of your inner self. I know artists who write, who craft with wood, who create things from fine leather, who take photos, who play an instrument. All leaving that permanent mark of their souls occupation.


Creativity for these people, the expression of it, through picture, word or craft, is a way of celebrating, of showing what it means to be alive, and the most salient feature of existence is the unthinkable odds against it.

For every way that there is of being here, there's an infinity of ways of not being here. Historical accidents wipe out whole universes with each movement of the clock. Statistics label us ridiculous. Thermodynamics prohibit us. Life, by any reasonable measure, is impossible, with random acts of irrationality and loss wearing us down, pulling the color out of our blood. Yet, for some of us, we keep drawing in breath after breath, pulling in precious moments of oxygen with the remnants of our happiness, until our blood darkens with strength, slowly filling up those empty chambers in our hearts.

For the artist, creating is a way of taking that breath, of saying in the face of all that impossibility, or dangers that lurk in the dark streets and minds of man, just how worth celebrating it is to just be here. I am here, I created this, this little piece of me, whether you like it or not, it IS me, and it will be here long after I am gone.

You can tell much of a person, of even a country, by what they value as art. We all have our own taste, I prefer old pieces, nothing modern or abstract. I like to look at art and see something that was actually real. Artists of the 17th and 18th century knew this so well, depicting it in paintings of luscious fruit and wildlife, a ripe red apple next to a fox so carefully wrought that a single drop of blood can be seen along a fine whisker. In studies of faces that bloom in layers of ancient varnish, the curve of a a child's cheek revealed gradually, the glint of light on a coat of arms or the promising, secret gleam in a woman's eye that belie the fact that the persons in these visages are hundreds of years gone. For that moment, in those paintings they are still with us.



When the artist is alive in any person, whatever their kind of work may be, they draw people in. They educate, provoke, enlighten, opening our minds to discovery.

Art tends towards order, balance, a judgement of relative values, yet limitless boundaries. Where those who are not artists are trying to close the book, the artist opens it, showing there are still many more unwritten pages. The world would stagnate without them, just as the world is beautiful with them; for they make us think and feel and strive as they themselves gain in the work, not outside of it.

The true artist would create even if they had no audience. Yet they regard their work as a means of talking with mankind, not with their lips, but with their mind. Being an artist is not a question of pay. It is not a question of willing acceptance on the part of the public. If they are recognized and earn something for their creatvity, to further it, that is good. But even if not, they would still have spoken. And we are all the better for it.

Dressing Well on the Road

As you all know, I spend a lot of time traveling. I take as little as I can get away with, plus gear for varying temperatures as I don't always finish my trip where I started. The wardrobe is easy as I'm either in something that looks like Joe Friday wear, or resembles bio hazard gear.

Both easy to wash and wear (or simply incinerate).

At least I smell good.


Still, I'm sometimes looking around my hotel room for things to make myself more presentable in case I'm going out on the town while on an overnight in a city where I have friends.

This for example. At a very fancy hotel (I got a cheap rate) there was an additional sink and dressing area in the master bedroom with something hanging on the wall. . . what is this?


I have to tell you, after my shower, I used it for 15 minutes and it didn't dry my hair worth a %@*#.

So, while I look around for the 3 ounce bottles of cosmetics that scattered like BB's on the floor as I pack for a few more days out, I'll leave you with some real travel dressing advice from my favorite engineer.

After work is done tomorrow, I have four days off, so some posts will come up, slightly wrinkled but legible.

Cheers - B.

Getting Away

Quiet.

I've enjoyed getting back to work, the routine that's anything but, the noise, the activity, the lines of reasoning and questions. The "Hey B!", "Doc!" or simply, "I need your help". But on a daily basis I need just a little bit of quiet time, just to myself, no cell phones, no TV, no schedule. Just the secret, strong murmur of silence.

Some people have a real hard time with the quiet though, finding it illuminates those things within themselves best left hidden. Quiet brings that time in which you can ponder the extremities of loss and the destiny of flesh, something most people don't want to put the remote down long enough to consider.

But there are noises that bring only a smile. What is a the first sound that you can remember? As a child, I remember the sounds of the kitchen, my Mom cooking something. I remember the sound of the front door, a heavy hardwood door that shut with the announcement of "Dad's home!". Dad would walk in and kiss my Mom. Not a peck on the lips, but a long kiss and she'd giggle, there with flour on her face and that is the sound I first remember.

I remember the sound of bat meeting ball as we played with my oldest brother out in the back field. The CRACK as aerodynamics and physics joined, the ball just a spherical dream of speed heading out into the trees as our dog Pepper raced to recover it before we did.

I remember the sound of the piano, as I practiced hour after hour as a child. Beethoven, Bach, Debussy. The sounds of the music filled the house, filling me, the opening chords of Rhapsody in Blue awakening something in me I was too naive to articulate.

I remember the sound of taps played at a funeral of someone I knew, the wreckage of duty crashing on the ears of those who are left. But it was a sound that fell without lasting damage for we were raised to be fighters, stronger than wreckage, taller than fear. Honor the fallen and continue the fight.

And always and forever, I remember the outdoors, walking or fishing with Dad. A way to get away from the artillery sound of traffic, away from school, worries, bills and whatever it is we need to occasionally shed the load of, even if we always hold the responsibility. Dad could spend all day in hip boots,in a Western stream poised with the relaxation of that first cast of the line. No sound at all, but the gurgle of the water, the wisp of a line as it traveled through the air, with a sense of direction more than speed, carefully seeking those quiet pools where sustenance lay. When he came home we sensed something in him much bigger than the steelhead that he laid on the table. Something he had needed, and somehow found.

My escape has been the hunting camp where even with friends I could seek the inarticulate solitude of a cathedral of trees, where I could watch the moon grow round in the darkening sky as I waited for the flash of a white tail. In the woods even the the most profound acts seem simpler. The crack of a rifle, the crash of a large buck, that act of deliberately taking the life of the game of the forest to put meat on the table; so clear and closing in its sound that no words needed to be spoken. The echo of the shot, the strident fall of the deer remained insular, wrapped up quietly within the chronicle of outdoor life, only to be spoken of in reverent, hushed whispers around a campfire.

Just as there were days of plenty, there were the days of cold feet and a cold barrel but we wouldn't take them back for anything. Whatever we could gain that would set us free of obligation to the suburbs might have been beyond our reach that day, but not beyond our desire. We wouldn't throw down our weapon and stomp out of the forest stopping at the nearest mini mall for takeout. We would wait, there in the blind, there in the stain of dying brush, waiting for it when it came, and doing without if it didn't. Sometimes those meals after, of beans and fresh biscuits and bacon, were the best of all, as we looked forward to the next opportunity to head back out to forest and cornfields ripe with whitetail.

But too soon came time to return to neighborhood and work, hours of travel, the groan and rumble of an airplane, the vibration felt from the yoke to my bones, the cadence and sorrow of air rushing past, left behind in the wake of strained metal. There were hotels in the city, waking to the staccato bursts of sound from the street, cars, shouted curses, and horns. Even where I used to live,with neighbor's far apart on sometimes acres of land, but the Starbucks three miles away, there was no such thing as real quiet, There's the neighbors lawnmower at 9 pm, dogs barking or a shouting match off in the distance between people caged too long.

You either adapt to it, or you get away. I voted for the getting away part. A four lane addition to the road from a less than good part of the city to the north end of our little town brought with it gang graffiti and crime. Properly values were crashing. We had our first rape. A woman was beaten to death with a claw hammer. There were a number of break and grab burglaries in my aneighborhood, kids, the cops said, taking small electronics, cash and booze, but it worried me. I realized that I was close enough in that if there was trouble, I wouldn't be able to defend the place too long even with back up. I wanted to be further out. If not full time, at least a place for the weekends and holidays. Not so far out that when I go walk along the creek I hear the sound of a banjo, but far enough to be away from the major roads and cities in the event of a disaster where the unprepared come to loot the prepared. So I made the decision to sell the place before prices dropped even more, and save for a chunk of land.

Someone said "you're going to get your own Walden Pond?" I've read Thoreau, who chronicles his life off the grid in his writings. I found his words moving but found little in common with a middle aged man who probably couldn't field dress a deer if he had to. But there was one thing he wrote of that I have always identified with. He talked of judging the cost of something but how much life you had to expend to get it. I left a relationship long ago for that reason, because in terms of cost to my being for what I got from it, it violated my sense of thrift. It's the same reason I got rid of a huge house of space I didn't need any longer and unnecessary possessions. Things are precious when they are few and carefully selected. If you squander yourself on things that give you nothing back, someday, when you need that part of yourself to survive, you may find yourself bankrupt.

So I gave away to those in need or sold half my possessions, rooms of furniture, all the useless decorative clutter, keeping only the art that I truly liked, my books, the furniture that's hand crafted and comfortable and the tools of my life that I really need. Some said I was foolish, as a woman alone, there's safety in a busy town, a steady finality in the noise of a large neighborhood. So there is, as well, in the sound of the scrape of metal against a pine box. These are the people who also tell me that I shouldn't have a gun, the police will take care of me; those that speak imperious and loudly, not hesitant of opposure or argument, simply impotent to conceive either.


I'm renting a small place away from there. It allows me to save quite a bit of money and it's in a safer area, further from the city but close to where I can get in to work. Hopefully in a couple of years I will have saved enough to build a small cabin or buy a small farmhouse with cash, a place where the world will only intrude if I wish it to. I'll likely keep or share a small apartment or house in town for work if I'm too far out, but as soon as I clock out, it will be empty as I drive towards the quiet. There will be my time alone, walks out, firearm on my hip, lest I encounter a mob of chipmunks. There will be my times to just sit, out on a felled log. Time to stop, without schedule as I watch the sky turn from the subtle grey of an unpainted church to the deep purple darkness of a priest's robe, the stars impenetrable and invisible, as if waiting for us before they showed themselves.

Barkley will be sitting by my side, hoping we're under a dog biscuit tree, soon to shed its fruit. We'll wait, serene and still, the moon shining on nibbled shadow, content to just sit underneath the starry sigh of heaven. The only other lights are as far off and distant as memories of shame or pride or loss, barely remembered like the smell of decay, sensed only in the instant of its knowledge and then fading to dim memory as you move away from it. Dark and far away, as such things should remain for as long as possible.

From where we sit, an owl will call, the sound unintelligible amongst the vernal branches. As a satellite tracks the sky, the owl calls again, a call to go home. And within, there will be an old Victrola, a ham radio, lots of books and some board games for when I have those I love stay. There will be my little computer to write and communicate. In much of the daily breath I draw there will be noise, but it will be the sound of a blade striking wood, the sun shimmering off of the blade like silver. It will be the crack of a rifle shooting on my land, the tool I will use for provision and protection. It will be the hum of machinery as the shop takes shape, room for more tools, room for more freedom. There will be voices, but they will those of reasoned discourse among friends, as though many of us chose to live away from civilization, we are not so naive to think it doesn't deeply impact us, our safety and our liberty.

It will be a life of still, dense sound; the sound of freedom. A life of remote quiet, the world outside spinning slowly into green smoke. It will be life on my terms as best as is possible, walking the uncertain spaces that open before me in the deepening fields, walking out into the constant trees, alone when I need to be, but not forlorn, intractable and accountable. Walking on forward, rhythmic steps into the hushed, secret shade of life off the grid.

Happy Birthday Tam

Tam - For all the adventures, cat hair, Barkley care, books, bikes and boomsticks.

For IPA hoisted with cheers and tears. For the Mongolian Hordes, for Gargoyles, for the poor hippies that probably won't ever try Farmer's Market Roast Pig in Broad Ripple.

For never asking if we've run out of ways to cook bacon.


Happy Birthday my friend

Stick to Your Ribs Supper

It's Monday, you're bone tired and wanting something nourishing with a bit of a kick for dinner. Something to satisfy you after a long day or two in the field, zombie attacks or a list of weekend honey do's and chores, which may have included tree stump removal (note to self, C4 may work better than in-laws bush hog), scraping wallpaper in the guest room and finally, escaping to do more important things like determine if indeed your electric garage door is strong enough to lift an inline six cylinder engine out of a vehicle.

If you'd made this sauce over the weekend instead of that wallpaper scraping thing and let it sit, you'd be in business. It's a sweet yet smoky sauce that is worth the patience to let it sit 24 hours before you eat it.


Gnaw on the Bone Barbecue Sauce. (click on the photos to enlarge)

The recipe can be halved for smaller households.

1 extra large Walla Walla sweet onion, minced
8 cloves garlic, minced (you can used the pre-minced in the jar)
1 and 1/2 cups Bourbon (I know you're just cooking with it, but use a good quality one)
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
pinch of cayenne pepper
1 tablespoon salt
2 cups tomato sauce
1/2 cup tomato paste
2/3 cup plus 4 tablespoons (not quite a cup total) apple cider vinegar
4 tablespoons liquid smoke flavoring
1/2 cup Worcestershire sauce
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup honey
1/8 teaspoon dry mustard
1 teaspoon Scoville Brothers Heavy Metal Heat Hot Sauce

Directions: In a large skillet over medium heat, saute the onion until it caramelizes and just starts to turn golden brown (about 5 minutes). Add in garlic and bourbon and simmer on low 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Mix the remaining ingredients, turn up heat just past low, towards medium and just until it comes to a slow boil (careful not to scorch as it does have a high sugar content). Reduce heat back to low and simmer for 20 minutes, again stirring occasionally.

Let it set 24 hours before serving. (Right after cooking it will be too sweet, too smoky, but after it sits - oh my, it's get your fingers out of that!) This sauce gets its complexity over time and is awesome after sitting a day. It does well on a grill as the sugars in it do this mind meld thing when exposed to flame that will have you you going back for seconds. But for winter, pour it over some ribs or chicken in a crockpot and let it cook on low all day.


Add some garlic mashed potatoes with some smoked cheddar and some carrots for crunch and it's a meal well worth the wait.

Flakes of Snow in My Hair

Snowfall.

We've had our first big snow and spray of freezing rain. I am glad to be in safe and warm for now for I remember too many nights traveling as winter shook its fist at the forecast. I remembered the snow as I traveled from the field to my hotel, hesitant to leave, yet physically more than ready for warmth, food and rest. As someone drove me the miles in, there was nothing else braving the elements but some poor, cold creatures trying to seek shelter as best they could, some cattle, and a couple of forlorn horses, waiting to be brought back in to the glow of light in the barn. If I looked out onto the snow, beyond it, trying to see past the grass and the water and horizon, it appeared to come down ever so fast, frantic, furious. A life. . these years, can seem to hurry past that way if you let the vision of it trick you. Too fast, too hurried.

In my house I have some photographs of horses running free; over the sofa, a large painting of wild horses running through snow. I love looking at it, high desert snowflakes at home in their manes, hooves barely touching the ground, running to one accord, mighty, free forms cleaving the air. The artist has captured their movement, as they appear to fly, the steam of their breath, the cold hard air of the desert, the thudding heat of their freedom, laid out in strokes of color, particles of white.


At the hotel, despite my exhaustion, I got out of the vehicle and just stopped and looked at the thickening snow. Despite the bitter, bitter cold, I stayed outside for a moment, looking up into the overcast, looking at my life as I looked as the snow as a child. As children, growing up where we did, "snow days" were infrequent. The world didn't stop for snow where snow was not uncommon. When we got one, we'd be outside the door before the breakfast dishes were even put away. Snow was not cold, it was not work or worry. It was a divine benediction which spread itself out onto the world where we waited with glee. Grabbing an inner tube to ride down the cleared foothills, shoving a couple Archway cookies in our pockets and heading out into the dazzling white, we'd heed the siren call. There I would simply wait my turn on the hill called "widowmaker", content to just sit and look up into the wonder as we waited our turn.


Then, I'd launch myself with abandon out into it, flinging my form down onto an inner tub that was traveling downhill much faster than my Dad would approve of. There was nothing but movement and emotion, snow in the amber fire of my hair, my cheeks flushed, body arching up into the air, trying to maintain the moment that I knew would come crashing down much too quickly. At the bottom of the hill, chest heaving, I'd simply look up into the sky and say thank you, for that moment, as time gathered itself back up and started ticking again.

Then, face flushed with anticipation, I'd pat my pocket to make sure my cookie was secure and I'd trudge back up the slope again. As I peered down into the void I'd say, "I probably shouldn't do this ", as I launched myself off yet again into space, remorseless and laughing, flying down the slope, potent, strong, as free as an eagle, not knowing yet as a child, that even for the eagle, all space can still be a cage.


That's the snow I wish to remember. Looking up into the heavens trying to see where it originates, then the slow fall of it, parachutes of white dropping down, slower and slower. This is how I wished to view my life, at that slower wondrous state of snow, one where you live twice as long, and see twice as much wonder, and love twice as hard. You can't catch the snow, you can only watch it fall to you, grasping it briefly, stretching out your hands to clasp a wisp of air and hold it for the moment.

As pilots, flying through snow is unique, and we cry out like birds as we enter its first bands. surprised by how suddenly it envelopes us, one second a peaceful gunmetal sky, and in the next, snow emptying out the pool of grey, color tumbling down til nothing is left but a bare canvas of heaven, pushing our craft through a cotton blanket at subsonic speeds. Flakes as big as an apple strike the window, sheets of snow and sleet pasting against the glass like discarded newspaper. When you fly through the snow, despite the chatter of the controllers, you feel totally alone, with an underwater hush, that cotton stuffed in your ears silence of snow falling, and you can't imagine that there is anyone else out there. Anyone else that feels as you do about such things, as you do at this moment.

For in those quiet moments between thought and action, there is desire, and for just a moment, we smile there as the snow hits the windshield like flack. But the moment is fleeting, as it's time to get back to total attention to task on hand.

Does anyone really know what piles up like drifts in the recesses of our heart?


Does anyone really know us. I bet many of you reading this will say I know my girlfriend, I know my husband, my child. You may, but there are all parts of us we keep in, murmurs of thoughts, voices in the background, hope, remorse, sounds evocative of places and times we've been conscious of our whole life without really knowing it, things we think that only God and ourselves know, unspoken, yet part of us. If we close our eyes, we see such things, see them as hard printed pages that guide or simply the faded and weathered letters of our past.

We all have our secret selves, those things that make us laugh or cry, that even our own family doesn't understand, things that lie waiting for someone else to give validation to them. But such thoughts are best left for a night in a quiet room. For now, it's been a long night in cold air and I'm ready to land where it's warm and quiet, where my body will curl into itself for sleep, as the cool blue fingers of winter run around in my lonely bed, brushing up against me as I try to rest. After a long night in the field that stopped only due to the need to rest, sleep will not be coming quickly, my form tossing to and fro, my own fingers lying like agitated birds against warm skin, wishing to work, not to sleep. I run my hands along the curve of my arm and it trembles beneath a curious hand.

It's obvious I'm not going to be going to sleep quickly, even if I've worked all night. I shuffle into slippers and put on a robe, opening the door to the patio of my suite, drawn by the sound of geese heading to home while there is still a splinter of moon still embedded in the sky as in the East, the sun struggled to rise.

I saw a flock of geese above, trying to fly through the white. I admired the sureness of them, the determination, as their gray and black shapes winged through the white, the world trying to tumble them upside down, trying to bury them. But their force and speed, flying through all that cold brightness, held true and onward they headed to the dark waters, to safety, falling at that last moment like planes crashing, but landing silently in a sheltered cove. At that moment there was nothing in my world but the sound of their mournful cry, black against white; nothing in my mind but the sureness of wings, the echo of sanctuary, the sound of sadness and suggestiveness, as if saying, come follow me. But I can't. Not quite yet. For now I am earthbound, while snow flakes gathered at my feet, tumbled in the wind like rose petals blown about like a lovers departure.


But though I am earthbound, I am happy, even as I stand in the shadow of the snows embrace, flakes touching my cheeks, turning them to blush. I should come inside, but I need to see clearly just another moment, just long enough to look at the outline of something, my future, perhaps the shape of it, the touch of it, through the heavy falling snow, a future filled with hope and promise, and perhaps sanctuary.

From inside, my phone rings and I recognize the ring tone assigned to a certain phone number, bringing with it, a smile. I quickly turn towards the light, my feet barely touching the ground, seeing my future through the diffused glow. Like those horses I passed on the drive in, I see the golden glow of the door and the comfort and sustenance within. It beckons.

There is the door, and soon I would fall in, landing safely, flakes of cold in my hair.

Weapons of Beauty and Character

Several of us own things, in our shop, in our homes, that strangers would only politely say if they saw them, "well that has character", even as they went on to exclaim as to the beauty of some other trinket without real use or function.

It's man's nature. Beauty awakens the souls natural response to living. Man acts on it as we know it is rare, and yet , it is usually a fleeting gift, sometimes with no other value.

Beauty may coexist with character, even as it can be absent of it, blinding us to that fact with its promise.


Character, as well, may be totally bereft of beauty, possessing no more than what is necessary for dependability, its light hidden.

Beauty is uplifting, but when cunning and wisdom is betrayed by evil and ice, gravity and fire, beauty may be as empty as a promise.

Character is calm, the ability to function and endure even with the foreknowing of defeat.

Beauty is the promise of satisfaction, character is the affirmation.


When faced with hard choices, evil thundering towards you to crash loudly into your world, what would you reach for?

Would you reach for the beautiful firearm that sits on the shelf to be admired or the one on your hip. The one unmarked, polished and perfect from its protective possession or the plain and well traveled one with a few scuffs and dings. The one pristine or the one with marks of your courage, etched into the very wood and steel, not to instill envy, but for the hurt and pride and liberty for which men long ago gave their lives for.

I know which one I'd reach for.

-Brigid

COME TO THE BARK SIDE - Bacon Maple and Whiskey Scones

Bark Bark Bark!

The day dawned clear and really cold and I'd overslept past when I normally get up and let Barkley out. My day off, I still needed to get up and hop over to the Physical Therapist's.

Barkley really wanted a walk, but I can't for some weeks yet, so he went out on the zip line to take care of business, then grudgingly came in for breakfast. He seems to understand I'm not moving normally. But even though he's getting extra pats and treats, he still needs his exercise. Fortunately, his Aunt Tam has always taken care of him any time I asked her to and coworkers and my friend EJ have walked him a number of times.

Bark Bark. Stop and give me the "don't you feel guilty the way you mistreat me I'd call the SPCA if I had opposable thumbs" stare.


When I got home, I called some of my team who work the early early shift to ask if anyone could walk Barkley after work. Everyone has been great at work, moving things around where I can get to them easily, getting my coffee and stuff from the printer and offering to help with house and dog. Sure! a couple of them said, passing by my place on the way home. The more the merrier. I put a pot of coffee on and set out to frying some bacon and preheating the oven.

Nothing quite says "thanks guys" like warm from the oven Bacon Maple Whiskey Scones .

click to enlarge. . .

They are flaky and tender with a hint of genuine Canadian maple syrup and nutmeg and studded with chunks of Northern Indiana Amish bacon, then drizzled with a sweet maple whiskey glaze. The recipe doubles easily, and I'd suggest it if baking for more than 2 or 3. Several were consumed warm around the kitchen counter while Barkley tried to climb everyone's head. I saved one, and the rest were wrapped in foil and put in containers for all to take home after Barkley got a quick walk and the trash was taken out. Thanks!!


Come to the Bark Side. We have bacon.

Love - Brigid

Wind in the Wires

Words fall softly
lighting on my
skin like snow
A rhythmic whisper
drifting down
that melts in warmth
like rain
Words with meaning
they've never had
and never would again
Unique as flakes
that live for now
between the frost
and flame

-Brigid

The night is cold. And it is raw.

Wind blows off the plains, the low moving east, pulling the chill deep out of the ground and throwing it in your face, daring you to fight back. It was the first real snow of the upper plains.

Looking out across a flat horizon I wonder why this view looks so different from where I grew up. Certainly I can put on the scientist hat and say it was the glaciers that moved down from the north in the Cenozoic era, or the giant dust storms that followed that carried the soil away, then replaced by layers of volcanic ash from the West, creating a vista of fertility. But the difference is more how I live in it, as opposed to it's geological origins.

There is something about being able to see so near and so far. Some people feel exposed out in the open land, I don't. I walk the fields, gun in hand, nothing more than a moving lightning rod for those things that might wish to strike me, but they don't. I feel a lot out here in the open heartland, my black lab by my side, and it is not fear, it's comfort. It follows me as I walk, the sound of my breath, the whisper of God there in the corn, the vista of open miles of ground in which I perceive the absolute truth about the past, a truth beyond the buildings and billboards of illusion.

I remember a flight when I was newly settled out here, taking a small twin engine plane up North with a flight student who owned it. Thunderstorms bearing snow and ice were due to roar later through a segment of the Northern plains while we tried to get a recalcitrant airplane out of the hangar well before it was a threat. Airspace in severe weather is reminiscent of that graceful ballet that is a hockey game and controllers were performing small miracles getting the planes in and around the worst of it with consummate skill. Even in a small multi engine airplane with basic deicing what was coming was not weather for a small craft so we were anxious to get going.

The enroute weather was holding up, but on the way, the heater went Tango Uniform. We had plenty of clothing but it got really cold, really fast. We donned our hats and gloves and the extra coats. I was tempted to take a picture, we looked less like dashing pilots and more like overweight ice fisherman. I recall thinking, "ah, there's a little thermos of hot coffee" and I pulled it out of the little sidepocket by my seat. It didn't pour. It was frozen.

We landed at a little general aviation strip, covered with snow and I remember walking into the operator's business there to find a cozy wood stove, a dog asleep in front of it and the warm welcome you don't get even if you bring a new business jet to the door in some places. Welcome to Minnesota in the winter. Now, sitting safe at home, the temperature outside plummeting like one of those rides at Cedar Point, that is not for the faint of heart, the day catches up with me. It's not a safe place to be outside, I think, as the howl of the wind reaches in the window trying to grab me as I sit safely inside.

Trees throughout much of the northern plains are few, taken down so that the soil may be tilled, only a few remaining as protection against the marauding wind that cuts through the land late at night like a Viking horde. The cold presses down, pressing deep, into layers of topsoil, and the bones of ancient buffalo, who bury themselves further down to get out of the wind, strataform of bones and life and death, forming the coal that drives much of this area.


Tonight, this close to the window, I can almost smell the cold, the odor of a whetted knife, carving shadows into the night. My body responds in a way as ancient as these lands, and I pull my black sweater across my chest, tight and warm, and turn away from the glass.

"You ought to move back to the south", colleagues say. "How about California or Florida?" I enjoyed as a youth, like anyone, days snorkeling or diving for treasure, blue water dreams and tropical sun. But that is not where I want to live year round. I am not at home in such places all of the time, preferring these months of quiet cold, time to think, to write, to dream broad dreams, icy fingers down my neck making me shiver, the fire, melting marshmallow against my skin, melting me.

The lamplight dances along the walls, my shadow following. Barkley is asleep in his favorite spot, exposing his warm fur to a remembered sun of August, feet chasing dusk colored rabbits in his sleep. I think back to tales of my ancestors on my Mom's side, who came to the United States settling in Minnesota. Of great grandpa, new to the country, moving a household across miles of land, risking all he had to form a new life out where winters are raw, beating miles of ocean and illness and pain, only to lose most of his money, belongings and food as wind swept fire roared through where he lay sleeping one night. But he got out, accessed the damage, and gathered those small coins he had left to him, and moved on to safer ground.

The wind sings its siren song against the eaves, daring me to leave, to admit that moving to the Midwest, to the new land of my ancestors, where I had no family other than a cousin near Indy, or friends, was wrong. But I won't. The price that was exacted for learning my way alone out here left my heart an almost empty purse, with just a few scattered coins tinkling in the bottom. Yet I know it was a journey I had to make. You make decisions with what is in the heart at the time, and when the chill wind blows, you take stock of your life and your decisions and seek shelter elsewhere or you stand and fight for your life and heart, and what fuels it. To do otherwise is to wither and die. Out here near the windswept plains, the price of innocence is high.


There's food stored that will last a couple of years. There is fuel for a fire, there is ammo. Many nights I tend to it, restocking as necessary, bending over a press like a chemist in a laboratory, utterly contemplative, as if waiting for something. Outside tonight, the wind howls, mute in its anger, with no breath now but a sigh. We flee inside with drumming hearts and warm hands and hoist a challenge to the cold as the fire ignites the night. Here and there faint windows glow, while the trees outside lay their shadows across my shirt like scraps of black velvet. I close the curtain and pour the wine and listen to my heart.

They say the Rockies are God's country, but so is this, a small juncture of trees and grass and an old easy chair. A small point in space among a great expanse of glory, where the Trinity is intact because it had never been otherwise, simply tested by the fragility of youth and the passion of yearning. God lost and then found, postulated here in the open miles of our faith and need.

I think I understand why my grandparents settled here and I find, more and more, that I am like them. I belong to this cold landscape, surviving like the small creatures outside, by wit and heart. As I turn back towards the fire, I listen to the wind, tapping the glass with the resonant sound of a few small coins that are left in my heart, ready to be spent. I know that I'm where I need to be, as snow brushes the window like a kiss and I wait for the knock of wind at my door.

SOPA on a Rope - Blatant Product Placements

Knees by Curad Camp Camo. Knee surgery with just three bandaids. Pretty cool.

I'm back to work full time, and let's just say it's been pretty wearing, even if assigned to desk duty. After whacking my leg really good in the kitchen the other night, it was quite swollen and I went to put the ice pack on it, the knee brace by itself not really doing anything more than putting creases in my leg. The ice pack was warm. Let's see what else in the freezer. Ahh, there's something I can use.

Then I sat down to watch NCIS.

There I am happily watching away and I feel something slowly trickling down from my knee to my ankle. This is not a good feeling. The stitches had been out a few days, one of the wounds still not completely healed after the tech dug out a stubborn stitch or two. I was aghast to see a thin stream of dark, viscous red trickling down from knee to ankle.

Eeek!

But wait, nothing hurts, well no more than normal, and it smells, not like copper. . . but FRUIT?

Apparently the bag of frozen berries that I had wedged under the knee brace had thawed and sprung a leak.

The world safe (if a bit fruitier), I cleaned up the mess and went back to the show.

McGee is talking - "The DSA Uses RSA Secure-ID. It's a hardware technology that generates a token every minute." Intoned in a voice like he was announcing the winner of American Idol I laughed (as would anyone with even a bit of knowledge of crypto) at the obvious product placement.



Advertising is everywhere, on TV shows, on blogs. I don't accept paid advertising or comments from strangers with a link that goes to a business I'm unfamiliar with. But I will tell people which products I like in my kitchen or shop, without expectation of anything. But that is my choice. Others rely on advertising for income, and new customers.

It's part of life, just like technology. Both help us work more informed, work smarter. I work virtual a day or so a week, often on the road. It's nice having the technology to get connected, even if in parts of my life I like things old fashioned, well built, proven over time, dependable.


But back to work means up early, virtual or not. Breakfast the last couple of weeks has been an English Muffin or cold cereal. Snap Crackle Pop reminded me too much of my knee and the Special Weigh Diet Granola I bought after seeing it advertised, looked like what remained after someone bitch slapped someone with a Nature Valley Granoa Bar (I always have a bunch of the oat ones my flight bag. I know what they look like when they get squished). What? no nuts, no fruit, no big clusters of honey goodness? That's not granola! I decided to make something different. So for lack of any erudite post tonight, as I was expecting the SOPA blog blackout going 24 hours, a recipe for everyone.


Corn Casserole with Butter and Maple Syrup.

I gave this recipe to friend Laura B. once and she made it (along with some other fine dishes) for some visiting lawmen and it was a hit.

The original recipe calls for a box of Jiffy Muffin mix. If you've got one on hand go ahead and use it. I really like Jiffy. It's handy, it's tasty, it's certainly cheap and their baking mix, for taste and price, is better than Bisquick. But cornbread is about as simple to make as anything, so if you buy in bulk you can do it better and cheaper (without artificial or possibly hydrogenated ingredients).

This recipe makes the equivalent of one box of Jiffy, to which you would add the egg and milk if you were going to make muffins. But we're not going to have muffins with our Mausers today.

"Jiffy" Style Baking Mix:

2/3 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup cornmeal
3 Tablespoons sugar (if using this for a casserole I reduce sugar to 1 heaping Tablespoon).
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons vegetable oil.

Mix ingredients until free of lumps, use promptly.


You can use it to make regular "Jiffy" muffins OR you can add this:

For the casserole:
1 (14 ounce) can creamed corn
1 (14 ounce) can whole kernel corn (most of the liquid drained)
8 ounces sour cream (not non fat, you're not making this for your health)
2 Tablespoons sugar
4 Tablespoons butter, melted
1 Tablespoon sugar(approximate for topping)
Directions

In large bowl, combine first four ingredients well.
Stir in dry corn muffin mix.
Pour into slightly oiled 9x13-inch pan or a cast iron skillet (my preference).
Drizzle melted butter over top and sprinkle with sugar (I used a mix of maple sugar, vanilla sugar and table sugar)
Bake in preheated 350 degree oven for 50-60 minutes (my oven was 55 minutes).

Serve with pure maple syrup and my all time favorite blatant product placement - BACON! (seeing as how I killed the berries).