Finally Something Like A Week-end Off!

"Rest is the fitting of self to its sphere"

~ John Dewight

One of my mother's companions worked two 6 hours shifts this week-end and I spent the entire 12 hours out of the house involved in non-care giving tasks.  It was exhilarating!   My first break since my son's wedding in March.

This whole tour of duty has raised many issues for me about what communities should do to support at home care-givers but that is grist for another blog.  Coming soon to Wildwoods Retreat....

Spent Friday and Saturday immersed in the PRESENT.  What a joy!  Climbed through fields, walked back streets and traveled to Mt. Rose to catch the co-mingling of snow and autumn.  

Until yesterday had not seem Sarge or Winter (Mustangs) for a number of days.  Managed to catch the two of them on the Toll Road in South Reno.  Sometimes those Mustangs remind me of raccoons every where (only much bigger of course) ... they are very good survivors and great scavengers:

Found large fields in Reno that are home to wild things and people on horse back.  The fields were surrounded by barbed wire.  I wondered with Robert Frost about what was to be kept in and what was to be kept out...

And lastly I drove around the hills looking at empty houses that were for sale.  Each house it's own tale, I'm sure.  I'm not in the market but I love the romance of a good view and found one that was particularly good.  The deck looks out on the south valley heading toward Carson City.  

Imagine a comfortable chair on the deck and a hot cup of coffee or tea with the peace of the solitude.    Ommmmm.

Stretching out in Autumn

“My sorrow, when she's here with me, thinks these dark days of autumn rain are beautiful as days can be; she loves the bare, the withered tree; she walks the sodden pasture lane.”

Robert Frost

The time has come to write again.  It is daunting.  Some mental muscle stretches with resistance.  The resistance triggers old tapes that play a tiresome haunt: who is suppose to write in the family and who should not do so.  A defense begins to mount ~ this is a blog after all not a vetted scientific publication or some such thing.  Then it occurs in some dim recess of my mind that most of my life 'projects' begin in Autumn.  The Fall has a unique killing beauty that draws one's attention.  "Resistance is futile."

"Autumn is a second Spring where every leaf is just a flower"

~ Albert Camus

Okay, I'm holding on to that thought...the 'second Spring'.  Summer  is a blur.  One that was filled with pain, surgery and recovery.  Time to move on with life.  Time to observe that some trees are bare here and other tenaciously hold their leafs.  Certainly all the trees in my yard, those frisky wooden devils, (six in count) are holding on to their leafs.  The household has a gardening service but they "don't do leafs".   I can see myself, the electric leaf blower and trusty rake in the crisp and RAINY weather that is November...raking leafs on a weekend that was meant for an adventure.    Makes me wish my dogs had apposable thumbs so they could be conscripted into yard service.   Surely a smart Lab could learn to rake?   When my internal whine gets too loud, as it is now, I remember to ask 'would you rather rake leafs or be frantically stacking wood against the on-coming New England winter'.  Dang, I have to vote for raking leafs in the Northwest.  The pity party is forced to  close.

"But I remember more dearly Autumn afternoons in bottoms that lay intensely silent under old great trees."           ~ C.S. Lewis

Lying  'under old great trees' would have happened in my much younger years.  Some where between Utah and New England.  The past is the past and I prefer to not wander there often.  Today the past whispers in my ear...asking for a visit.  I remember Provo canyon, the whisper of wind in the pines, nature's patch work quilt on the mountain side and I remember that cold weather meant a kid could wander without having to listen for rattlesnakes.  But  then the deer hunters would be in the woods...a danger of a different kind.  Ah Autumn you are a frisky visitor.  

"Autumn, the year's last loveliest smile."

~ Wm. Cullen Bryant

Time to shake off the reverie, lace up and go to the gym and then head out to finally get some new photos.  There is much chatter here about it being an "El Nina" year.  What does it mean to a transplanted neo-New Englander?  Are they meaning six feet of snow and 40 below temps?  The Subaru sits in the garage willing and able to drive over six inches of unplowed snow.  Still have an emergency kit for the car.  I'll see what needs to be stocked for the house.   But six cords of wood ... not on the agenda! This Autumn, El Nina or not, can be viewed with deep appreciation.  Time is on the march ~ up and out of the house.

Brenda's Photo Challenge! byways and paths

"Whose woods these are I think I know....

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

 But I have promises to keep                                                          
 And miles to go before I sleep,

                                                                                

             And miles to go before I sleep."     ~ Robert Frost