Trailin’ Up

So Here’s The Dealio ~

Admission: when I write posts, I pretend that no one will ever read them; it’s the only way I can do it. And I guess I half-believe it at this point because I had no idea there would be so many questions about details!

So, to answer:
Re/ EMT ~ I’ll be bringing my pager with me and keeping it charged via solar as well. I’ll actually be closer than the ambulance to any calls that might occur on the mountain, the mountain highway, and the National Forest. I won’t make it to any calls that occur in town but will be able to help on anything that takes place on the mountain (and it sounds like the bulk of summer calls are up there, anyway).

Re/ the Farmily ~ Ricardo is not coming to the mountain, his favorite cow is one of the Special Project cows that stay down here all summer. As for the rest of them, it should go without saying that I would not be doing this if I thought it would traumatize any of them or put them in any greater danger than they are down here. Duh, right?

I think they’ll love it. The cows and horses will have knee-high grass and no bothersome flies. Eli has moved with me three times, Charlie twice, and Chloe once. They’ve never shown distress with any move and I believe that new experiences are really good for them ~ it allows them to use their brains in a different way.

I will be taking a camp trailer up the mountain and I pulled it right next to my house back in April, so that all the animals could have plenty of time to get used to it and associate it with “home.” All have spent much time in the trailer over the past months and it’s just an extension of home at this point, and will be a measure of consistency up there.

I will be setting up a fenced area on the mountain for Charlie (and Chloe) though they’ll also be allowed freedom there, too. The fenced area I have down here is not to keep Charlie from running away, it’s to keep him from getting shot by strangers or the ignorant, and to keep him from hurting anyone (he’s not demonstrated aggression against others, but just to be safe). He’s a coyote, but he is no more likely to “run away” than Chloe is. Which is to say, not at all.

Rue, Kettle, and Mushy have never roamed further than 100 yards from the house since they moved in. They’re homebodies. I expect that to continue up there, too. I hope Eli does not get eaten by a bear on the mountain, just as I hope he does not get hit by a car or killed by a pair of raccoons down here.

Mike once said it perfectly ~ their home is where you are.
Can I get an “Awwwww”?!

Re/ the baño ~ Outhouse!

The Process Of Doing

I am so exhausted right now (or, I was last night, when I started writing this post and could not finish; I’m sure the feeling will return by the midnight hours).

I’ve noticed that every time I do something “drastic,” I go through certain phases, in a certain order. I am filled with pure excitement, pure belief, when the idea hits. This carries for a while, and transitions into a slightly calmer but still fueled-by-excitement organizational phase. Then, when I’m hip-deep into making arrangements to put the plan into action, the terror strikes. I am pummeled, not so much by fears but by the discomfort of change. I float for a few days in ‘what the f*ck was I thinking?’ but continue to work on arrangements – and this is mostly due to momentum, not some noble strength – though perhaps without the calm and without the excitement that had fueled it previously. And, through that continued action, it always happens that the anxieties run their course and are simply gone one day, poof, and I enjoy another period of calm-excited preparation, this one cut short when it dawns on me that the time to actually go draws nearer by the second and I still have 400,000 things to do in order to be ready.

And so begins the panic phase, the manic phase, which I’m in right now, and it’s miserable; this phase is always miserable. It’s a race against time and the body’s energy capacity but the beauty of this stage, the gift of this stage, is that it ends when the adventure begins. Not a moment before and not a moment after. And it is such a relief to be done with this particular stage that the adventure itself begins with an absolutely glittering feeling of lightness, of bliss, of flying without even having to work at it ~ not because the adventure is easy but because the contrast from the panic phase is so drastic, and heading off into the adventure feels a lot like being released.

Misc:
Today (yesterday) I finally got a cell phone after not having one for six years.
I think I will miss ice more than I will miss a flush toilet.

Living Like A Nymph

I’ve alluded to big summer plans and it’s time to share details!
I’m spending the summer on the mountain, camping at 7500 feet.
And the entire Farmily is coming with me!

Last week, I shared photos of the spring pasture Mike and I lease for the cows. We lease another 1000 acres of private mountain land for the cows’ summer pasture. This land happens to rest smack in the middle of 10,000 private acres, grazing land for a handful of ranchers. Being there is like living in a dream, living like a nymph. I’m moving up this week, and will be there through September.

I actually thought I’d be up there by now ~ usually the snow has melted by the end of May and we trail the cows up the third week of June. But since it was still snowing in June, it wasn’t until last week that we could even drive in! There are still scattered snowdrifts, but that didn’t keep me from diving into a mountain pond after spending the day working in the sun :)

I’ve rigged up a hillbilly solar setup to keep my laptop and camera batteries charged and, while I will be offline 99% of the time for the next three months, I will continue to post here multiple times a week, and the daily photos for the Daily Coyote and the email subscription list will continue uninterrupted.