Julie R. Neidlinger: Lone Prairie Art Works

Stinky.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 3 comments link this post

Do you know what you find on the drive between Cando and Bismarck?

A lot of country music radio stations, and a lot of roadkill skunks, and not much else.

I can't help but believe there is a connection.

Labels: nature, north dakota, observations

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Need grace, not grace notes.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 3 comments link this post

I am feeling musically overwhelmed.

For weeks now, I've been training myself to remember that a "B" is an open string on the guitar. I struggled to stop using violin fingerings for the guitar.

You can see where this is going, I'm sure.

I left work in a rush, having an hour and fifteen minute drive north ahead of me. I arrived at practice with my violin, preparing myself for the usual Canon in D and all the other wedding music, the violin case dusty (never the sign of a practicing musician) and my mind befuddled. The music was impossible for me, and was also badly organized in my violin music "organizer."

I'm such a Columbo, sometimes. And I didn't have the musical chops to make the evening beautiful.

Double stops. Grace notes. Double-stopped grace notes! Good grief -- it was more than my unpracticed-since-Christmas fingers could bear. And, of course, I'm now messing up and thinking guitar fingerings instead of violin.

Aargh! The "B" is one finger down on the A-string! Remember this! I would holler at myself in my head, rosin dust flying as I bizarrely thought that if I played louder, it might somehow get on tune.

Obviously, I need to get serious about practicing these instruments. As it were, some words that could be applied to my playing are squeal, squall, squalor, squelch, screech, scratch, and scream.

Mary and I were playing the second part, but not in the sense that second equaled the easier part to play. On the contrary; we were playing counter-rhythms and continuous runs and all these bizarre double stops while the others were playing clear one-note melody. Mary was doing great, and Gail, on the cello right behind me, helped to drown me out.

But.

"Do you think you seconds could play that intro?" our leader asked. The firsts didn't have any intro, but we had some bizarre stretch of runs and grace notes that bounced around the strings.

"I'm sure I can play some notes," I grumped, "but I won't guarantee it's what's written."

In one piece, where both Mary and I got lost -- not so much in the music, for we knew where we were, but just in the realization that we could not play at the current bow-ripping speed the rest of the group was flying along at -- she began to hum our part. I burst out into a cackling snort and laugh. The rest of the group, no doubt disgusted by my impropriety, continued to play beautifully.

And of course, I remained a bottom-dweller in the few pieces of music that weren't written for a group, but that we were trying to play as such. As in:

"We need some more harmony. We have too many playing the melody. Julie, what are you playing?"

"What I usually do. You know, stuff from the bottom." This meant I was pulling notes the piano was playing out of the bass clef, tossing them up an octave or two, and then, in some parts, playing notes that would go with the chord for the measure.

I leaned in close to Mary and whispered, "Sometime, I want to play the simple, clear melody and have my music all written out as I should play it and just relax."

Don't even ask me about the organizational qualities of the actual sheets of music and the hodge-podge method of "can I share off of you?" and how many times I tipped my music stand over. Music from a musician like me, at a wedding, leads to a divorce.

And then there was fun driving home in the dark, after the long, hand-and-wrist-aching practice.

You know what a moose is, don't you? It's a meat-based insurance fiasco.

I slam on the brakes and wait for it to think about moving on before finally moving on. Moose tend to consider their next move, and I tend to respect that consideration.

You know what ducks are, don't you? They're bottom-heavy waterfowl capable of flight but choosing instead to waddle into traffic and get hit which causes decreases in their numbers making men in urban areas like Minneapolis and Osh Kosh and Fargo call into radio programs and gripe about farmers and then spend money on conservation programs to increase the wetlands when what they really should do, if they wanted to boost the places the ducks like best, is re-gravel the township roads and consider a little shoulder work on Ramsey County number 3.

And also, my vehicle hit 199,000 miles today.

I hear violins playing.

Labels: music, my life, nature

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Invasion, my deer, an invasion.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

You know the deer infestation / invasion is complete when, while slowly pulling your car into the parking spot in the shop, you have to slam on the brakes to let a deer out of the building lest you hit it and wreck your vehicle.

Dad puts a heat lamp in the corner during the winter for any stray cats that may need some warmth. I don't know if the fool animal was trying to huddle up under it -- nigh unto impossible, seeing as how the lamp is less than a foot from the ground -- but I certainly startled it, and it me.

Yes, I make it past the wildlife preserve at the corner of Highway 17 and Highway 3, only to find a beasty in my parking spot.

Labels: nature

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Lunar eclipse.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 3 comments link this post

8:02 - The moon has a little bite out of the lower left corner...

8:17 - Almost halfway covered...

8:38 - Three-fourths covered...

(Some people live-blog news or political events. I blog lunar eclipses. It's a much healthier pace and, frankly, more relevant in the long run.)

9:01 - The moon is dark. (Or, reddish dark.)

(The eclipse is proof of movement, even when it feels as if there is none. There's your life lesson for today.)

10:25 - And the eclipse is one-fourth on its way to the bright side. It was lovely.

Links:

Labels: nature

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Swearing like Looney Tunes.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 3 comments link this post

Going to work was a waste; I'm sure I didn't even cover the gas it took to get there and back. The wintery weather had me leaving early and I now sit here, at home.

I'm constantly amazed at my own disconnect with the obvious around me. All morning, working at my computer, I'd noticed a lot of white outside the large glass windows of the store, and I certainly understood that there was snow and wind, but it never occurred to me that there was snow and wind.

"Julie, you might want to go home earlier today, or you could get stranded here in town," a co-worker finally said to me.

"Why?" I asked. "Is it storming?" She looked at me oddly. My intelligence is well known among my co-workers.

"Haven't you looked out the windows?"

"Oh. Right." Now I just felt silly. "I guess I didn't realize..."

I didn't realize there was winter weather right in front of me, but, while on the phone with Network Solutions listening to annoying background music which was periodically interrupted by a voice telling me that higher call volume and inclement weather meant longer support call waits, I did find myself thinking -- not kidding here -- that I hoped there wasn't any snow on the servers.

"You should probably go a little early today," she said.

So I called my dad and asked what the weather was like in the far north regions that I know as home. He agreed that an earlier leaving time might be advisable.

I punched out at the time clock, and then opened the side service door. The wind immediately stole my breath and replaced it with ice crystals. Trudging to my Jeep, I began muttering about the shoes I was wearing.

I was wearing shoes, when I should have been wearing boots. I wore my snow boots yesterday, when it didn't snow, and so today, when it was snowing, I didn't. My snow boots, incidentally, are what I call Captain Jack Sparrow boots; if you saw them, you'd understand. They are very pirate-y, and evidence of an idiot who goes shopping for snow boots at the peak of the season and is relegated to whatever is left.

I threw my purse into the Jeep, and started it up. The heater, which started to die about three weeks ago, began squealing. Apparently there was a flock of banshees inside that I hadn't gotten around to eradicating (i.e. fixing the heater) yet.

My muttering increased to what I call a "Looney Tunes swearing" level¹.

I shut the door to let it heat up and stop squealing, stumbling back inside the store. I couldn't take that racket; I'd tried, on the drive in, turning up the radio to drown out the noise, but even the AC/DC song the local rock station was playing couldn't cover the shrieking.

Toni was sitting at the break table. "Back so soon?" she asked.

"Yeah, I'm gonna let old Bessie get through squealing before I go back out there," I said, pealing off my jacket, cap and scarf. Toni burst out into laughter as I explained the heater situation.

Eventually, I got out on the road and headed to a store to run the errands -- kitty litter! fabric softener! -- I had planned to do after work. I was trying to breathe as little as possible, which is really tough. The windows were fogging up, no surprise considering the heat source responsible for keeping them clear.

"For all your shrieking, can't you expel some hot air?!" I hollered at the heater. I yell at my car a lot. Yelling, of course, made the windows fog up all the faster.

Let this be a lesson to you.

I started smacking my hand against the steering wheel in annoyance. It's because I'm Irish. I blame my irrational, quick temper on that, rather than take personal responsibility.

All that smacking of the steering wheel made the windows fog up even faster.

Even faster!

Let this be a lesson to you.

Arriving at the store, having driven blindly thanks to a near completely fogged windshield with only a fist-sized patch of clarity (talk about your metaphors for life), I left the motorized beast to run and (hopefully) clear the rest of the windows in my absence.

Once the errands were done and I was on my way out of town, my winter storm survival instincts kicked in and I stopped at the drive-through coffee shop to get an iced mocha.

-----------------------------

¹ Looney Tunes swearing sounds something like this: "ricken fracken shricken dracken". Think Yosemite Sam.

Labels: friends, my life, nature, north dakota, work

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That's a lot of sausage.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 2 comments link this post

I blame that mock investigative Geico commercial that refers to Jed Clampett as "out shooting food" for making me view wildlife not as majestic creatures but as food.

Like grouse, being chunks of flying meat.

Last night, driving home from work, I passed a herd of about 40 deer huddled up in a field. Then, two miles later, I passed another herd of about the same number. Then, four miles later as I was nearing our farm, lo and behold...another herd of about 40 deer.

"That," I found myself thinking, "is a lot of sausage."

I don't even like deer meat.

I'm disturbed by my thought process in this matter.

Labels: my life, nature, north dakota

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License and lights.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 8 comments link this post

Today I renewed my driver's license, and about all I can say about the travesty of paying $10 for a horrible photo that you have to carry around with you is that at least they no longer advertise the weight on the North Dakota license. It's probably hidden somewhere in the bar code on back -- "this one needs to lay off the chocolate!" -- but not out for display on front.

Yes, officer, I may have been speeding, but you'll never know at a glance what else I lie about.

Horrible photo. I don't have to tell you how it goes when it comes time to renew. You know how it all works out. A dark day, indeed.

Stop, turn, hair messed up? Double chin captured. Perfect.

My eyes are opened at an oddly wide angle, making me look like I'm on meth. Five years with this beauty, I thought as I left the building. Five years.

"How'd it go?" an older man said as he saw me looking at my new license.

"Not so great," I replied.

He shook his head. "It never does."

Karate was tough tonight. The others tested for higher belt ranking. I'm not ready for that yet, seeing as how I just started back up, but I still did some of the practice and I was again reminded of all that I had forgotten, with no memory at all of the Japanese words. Sensie called out the instructions in Japanese, which left me fumbling and tripping about, trying to figure out what the others were doing.

I was informed I'd be testing in April. It's a little overwhelming.

Christmas, birthday, Nicaragua, karate test, 5K. Looks like a busy start to the year, I thought. Strange thoughts. Sensei made me a DVD of the Heian Katas (1-5), so at least I can practice at home. I very much appreciate it.

On the way home, thinking about the day, thinking about the annoyance that is a photograph, thinking about all the work I will have to do to get up to speed and not embarrass myself in a few months in front of the rest of the class and how much I felt like I was far out of my comfort zone, I looked up.

For 10 minutes, from that point on, I had a difficult time remembering to watch the road. The dark, clear sky, pin-pricked with stars, was putting on a small Northern Lights show, complete with two meteors that flashed through the handle of the Big Dipper. Two wishes. I used them.

The Northern Lights faded about eight miles before our corner, and dad told me later, when I mentioned the Norther Lights being out for a while, that the yard light hadn't come on as normal and indicated that the Northern Lights were probably the reason.

Interesting. When one light goes on, another goes out. They seem to take turns.

Labels: family, my life, nature, work

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The great winter ballet.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 4 comments link this post

Yesterday I found myself waiting in a Grand Forks hospital parking lot for over three hours, and I got to watch the opening sequence of The Great Winter Ballet.

A reality of heavy, thick snowfall is that, as long as you are at home, comfy in a chair, looking out the window and perhaps holding cocoa, it "blankets" the ground. For all others out in it, fighting it, dealing with a motorized vehicle that is not a snowmobile, it smothers. There is no lovely blanketing.

In between running the vehicle to keep warm and trying to keep the windshield wipers from freezing in place, I watched people return to their car and begin doing all kinds of contortions, both in body and face, to get their vehicles running and out of the parking lot.

Flailing, leaping, twisting, leaning, kicking, hopping, smacking mittened hands together...

There was the Pointy Knit Hat Girl and the Woefully Ill Prepared Man Without A Scraper and the Vain Woman With Inappropriate Winter Shoes -- they all performed magnificently. My part in this great ballet was that of the Too Short Woman With Frozen Windshield Wipers That She Can't Quite Reach Because The Suburban Is Too Tall.

I wrote a poem or two, memorializing these people, but most were badly rhymed and in no way acceptable for my current repertoire. It's hard to be successful with iambic pentameter when your mittens, socks, and pants are soaked.

The drive home from Grand Forks was not fun. I had to put up with Act II of this great winter ballet, which involved the Huge Roaring Semi Driving Much Too Fast For Conditions Trying To Pass Everyone And Creating A White-out From The Pillow Drifts. There was ice. Filled-in parts of the road that no car was going to get through. But, home it was.

Where, after mom and dad got out of the car, I found myself facing the unwieldy metal doors where the Suburban is parked, plus a yard full of knee-high (and higher) drifts. Pushing and pulling the doors, using both feet, hands, and a few minor expletives, everything was soon tucked away and the snow could resume blanketing.

Until this morning, when the final act commenced.

When I got stuck.

It was about -15 degrees.

Reverse, drive, reverse, drive, reverse, drive, shovel, dad, reverse, drive.

For all those people who believe four-wheel drive SUV-type vehicles are vanity and only a gas-wasting monstrosity, they are not. With the yard not cleared and the roads to the highway in not much better shape, without my Jeep, I'd still be at home, safe and warm in bed, and not at work on break, writing this.

Stupid Jeep.

Labels: local, my life, nature, work

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Ever-present wind.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 1 comments link this post

The wind is always present on the prairie. A truly still day is rare and unnerving.

Today, during my walk, the wind blustered with a steady pressure, giving anything with enough mass a voice. The sound of the grass against grass drowned out the distant sounds of combines and grain trucks. It made white noise essential, and silence impossible.

I watched as a hawk lifted itself off of a low hay bale in the ditch, its body and legs jerking and twitching in exaggeration as it fought against the wind with its powerful wings. Such massive amounts of energy to do so little! But then it hit that perfect spot, a high-enough place where the wind became friend instead of foe. The hawk seemed to sit in the air far above me, wingtips as far apart as could be, riding the wind.

I know that wind and that moment of soaring. I know the struggle to rise out of a low spot, when the smallest things -- getting out of bed, answering email, making something to eat -- seem to require excessive energy that dwarfs the need for it. But then, always, that moment where the thing that I'm fighting and beating my wings against, the thing that seemed to be pushing me down, becomes something I can use. I can ride on its energy, use it for something good or creative or helpful. The wind that pushed down now pushes me on, and higher, a springboard for something new.

There is always wind. I have to land sometime. But not always do I have to be on the ground.

The hawk was helpful today. It seemed to soar forever.

Labels: nature, personal

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Snowless blizzard.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 4 comments link this post

I spent today at an arts/community development meeting in Langdon, leaving me with a lot of thoughts, information, and ideas to process. As I was driving home this evening, heading west into the setting sun, I felt like my mind might revolt.

It was then that I noticed what looked like snow billowing across the road and slicing through the sky.

Shiny, flashing particles filled the air, blown north by the strong wind. Cattail fluff. Everywhere. The sun was intense, making everything -- furrows, grass, buildings -- shine on the south side and the cattail fluff glitter as it whipped through the air. Everything gleamed, edges sharpened by that unnameable autumn phenomenon that rests somewhere between brittle and waning.

I'll write more about the meeting in the coming days as I sort through my notes and thoughts.

For now, snowless blizzard.

That, I can process.

Labels: local, nature, north dakota

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Frog and toad. Got mowed.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 6 comments link this post

Every year, at this time, damp and ever-cooling pre-fall, it happens. Mowing becomes murder, and today was no different.

I hate it.

"What is this, Egypt?!" I shrieked¹, the ground alive with little frogs -- green and brown and tan -- flinging themselves in all directions, randomly snapping their back legs in an effort to avoid the mower, the blower of the mower throwing them far out onto the lawn.

Amphibians -- frogs and salamanders -- are cute. Dark beady eyes. The underside of their chin moving in and out, mouths in a kind of perpetual smirk. Little clingy toes. Smooth skin. They are among my favorite creatures. Salamanders in particular.

As is inevitable, even though I carefully watch the ground in front of the mower, stopping to allow frogs to cross and catapult themselves out of the way, I always dread the next pass of the mower. The next pass always revealed what I chopped up the previous round.

There, laid out spread-eagle (minus a few vital organs) are little frogs. The salamanders that get whacked are even worse. The lawn becomes some kind of Hamburger Hill.

The salamanders dart out from tall grass and low areas of the yard, doing their best to run away. Frogs fling themselves, landing on the mower and on my feet and sometimes under a tire.

No frog weapon formed against the mower shall stand.

Frogs, either.

--------------------

¹ I will be playing fast and loose with the descriptives.

Labels: cartoons, my life, nature

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The end of time.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

I watched the sun set, purposefully.

The evening was one of those cloudless, almost still nights, a gentle breeze coming from the south, filtering through the cattails on the side of the road. I watched the sun, a bright orange and unfettered disk, seemingly slide down the inside of the sky's dome.

I remembered sitting at the beach in Poneloya, Nicaragua, seeing the sun fall from the sky and disappear in the far water, all within moments. The sun doesn't set that fast up here. It seems to take its time, flattening out as the horizon grabs at it, bit by bit, fading into a pale purple-blue.

It's as if the earth spins slower up here.

As if there is slower time.

The silence was loud. The soft wind, a kind of voice of God, maybe. The sound of creatures gently moving about in the water behind me, perhaps another kind of voice.

Lately I've been thinking and writing about (here and in my journals) the pace of time and life, the speed of those caught up in it all. I think, just by watching the sun set slowly in the northwestern sky, that I slowed time down for me, if only for a short while. I heard the voices, felt the breeze across my arms, and I watched the fire leave. The moment is still here for me, in a sense. Time stopped. Like a living photograph.

Being caught in that kind of slowness can be painful. The cut is created much slower, the pain drawn out. There is nothing to do but turn things over in the mind gradually, nothing to distract. I don't know that I want the fire to leave.

On the other hand, it was all very beautiful, despite (or because of) the things in my head and heart that made me sad. I am hoping for another moment, as many more as I can find, to slow time before the end of time.

Labels: nature, personal

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A walk through no-man's land.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 2 comments link this post

The gibbous moon and the garish sun, perpetually at war, stared at each other across the no-man's land of green wheat and dark, silent waters. Though their wins and losses be equal, neither would give. The edge of the road that stretched between the two was littered with crushed and faded shotgun shells, evidence of hunters who had shot the messengers, missing the war above. Instead of gunfire, the only sound now was mourning doves.

The moon was about to win this one.

Labels: nature

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The Eddie Bauer all-weather outdoor journal.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

Supposedly, you can write in the rain on it, its paper specially coated to repel water. It works.

For about three minutes.

And then, because the paper has been cut to fit the notebook, the water seeps in along the edge and creates a borderline disappointment. I will admit that, after setting the notebook out to dry, it did recoup the momentary dishevelment and looks to be in fairly good shape.

It was during this moment of rain (see video here) that I wrote the following, trying to describe it in the same way I would jot down momentary ideas and thoughts when I was a reporter and tried to capture a scene for later:

Summer Thunderstorm

Never-ending thunder that sounds like a machine, rolling, booming.
Winds whipping the rain into a hazy veil across the slough.
Lightning, like strobes, flashing bulbs.
Cold air, a relief from a thickly hot day, sticky, waiting to explode.
Rain water pelting the gravel driveway, hollowing out around the larger stones.
Rain water, pouring and pooling down my back, like sweat had been earlier.
Standing here with dad, in the soaking, rumbling storm, on the front deck, maybe a couple of crazies.

Labels: family, nature, writing

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Fly-over country.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

Today on my walk I saw and heard an early rising owl, a shrieking red tail hawk, a warbling vireo, a bunch of black birds, a mud hen, a blue jay, a woodpecker, a few gulls, some Canadian geese, a killdeer, a couple of varieties of swallows, some ever-present sparrows, a marsh hawk, a lot of finches, some mourning doves, a pheasant, some grouse, a couple of pigeons -- I'm not into birding enough to know correct names. But I know there were a lot of birds, and a lot of music out there this evening.

Fly-over country is lovely.

Labels: nature, north dakota

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The outside spigot.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 1 comments link this post

When you have to do a quick clean-up of face, legs, arms, and hands at the outside spigot before entering the house, you know:

You are incredibly dirty.
You are from the farm.
You are on the farm.
The well water is ice ice ice cold.
You've spent another national holiday lawn mowing, pruning trees and hedges, and making brush piles.

How did you spend your holiday? I spent the day decapitating the lawn, getting dehydrated, and creating blisters on my hands.

And I'm not even done.

I've pretty much had it with God's creation.

Labels: lists, my life, nature

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Caraganas.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

I did mow today. But nothing is as satisfying as taking a chain saw to the caraganas.

I really hate those trees/bushes. I've said it before.

If the wind mildly blows, some large branch splits off and drops to the ground, still staying attached to the main, tangled mess, yet wreaking havoc for those attempting to mow and keep a nice yard.

Caraganas, for those that don't know, were created after the fall of man. This means they are inherently evil. And fallen. And that is precisely why I hate them: they're always a fallin'.

Having a chain saw in hand is like having a sprayer filled with Roundup. Suddenly everything looks like "overgrowth."

I worked my way through half of the clump of caraganas, cutting them from a few stragglers that were tall and the rest which had fallen across my mowing area because some bird had probably tried to sit on a branch. Halfway through, however, and I was beat.

Cut some branches. Haul them out to the driveway. Cut some more. Haul some more. Cut some more. I just didn't have it in me. For shame. I generally like the chain saw...

Dad finally took the chain saw and finished cutting, while I just kept dragging the branches out in the open so he could get them with the loader and take them to the brush pile.

Filthy trees lose. I win. This round.

Labels: family, my life, nature

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Some bad poetry for you: Snow in May.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 1 comments link this post

::There are few things as freeing as writing bad poetry. It's the truth.::

For a week, it has been raining.
Dripping down from a flat, gray sky.
The sun
(You pathetic weak, thing!)
Shows up once in a while,
Thinks about making all dry,
But leaves. And I go on paining.

Today is the keeper of them all.
Happy Spring! If you like cold.
The sun
(You deadbeat star!)
Is nowhere to be seen
And so the snow falls, bold
and heavy. This feels like Fall.

Labels: nature, poetry

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Wind.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 4 comments link this post

It's yet another cold and windy "summer" day here in North Dakota. The sun is shining, at least. Nevertheless, the house is chilly and I have my sweatshirt zipped up to the chin.

The cat is sprawled out on the floor, basking in the warmth of a sunbeam through the window of the front door.

Space hog. I wish he'd move over and make room for me.

Usually the windiest days are the days when:

The flowering trees are at their best bloom, so that the wind blows all the flowers off and no one gets to enjoy them for more than two seconds.
The poppies have all just exploded into bloom, so that the wind blows all the petals off across the yard, and no one gets to enjoy them for more than two seconds.

In regards to #1, yes, our white flowering tree is mainly just a tree. In regards to #2, it looks like next week will be windy. The poppies are about ready to bloom.

For this spring and summer it seems that the common denominator in all weather is going to be strong wind. Chicago has nothing on North Dakota.

UPDATE: It is now no longer "cold" but sunny and warm. And still windy. And cold inside the house. Bah.

Labels: brutus, nature

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Skunk. Stinks. Gross.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 0 comments link this post

I'm getting ready to go to bed in preparation for a long drive tomorrow, and I can smell that a skunk just waltzed by the window.

Swell.

Hard to sleep when I'm gasping for air, though it be a continuation of today's theme of olfactory offenses.

I guess I like continuity...

Labels: my life, nature

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Feathered burro.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 4 comments link this post

There is a pair of pheasants in our trees.

I've come to the conclusion that pheasants, vocally speaking, are the burros of the bird family.

"They're loud," I said to dad.

"That they are."

"I could shoot them."

"That you could."

"It's illegal, though."

"That it is."

They are very loud.

I just never associated noise with pheasants. I associated stupidity with pheasants because of their proclivity to fly into passing cars in some kind of roadside-rock-picking interrupted panic.

Stupidity, yes. Noise, no.

Labels: conversations, nature

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Stinky.

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Need grace, not grace notes.

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Invasion, my deer, an invasion.

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Lunar eclipse.

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Swearing like Looney Tunes.

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That's a lot of sausage.

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License and lights.

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The great winter ballet.

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Ever-present wind.

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Snowless blizzard.

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Frog and toad. Got mowed.

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The end of time.

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A walk through no-man's land.

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The Eddie Bauer all-weather outdoor journal.

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Fly-over country.

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The outside spigot.

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Caraganas.

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Some bad poetry for you: Snow in May.

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Wind.

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Skunk. Stinks. Gross.

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Feathered burro.