Morning Mist

I leave(Texas)tomorrow. This morning I got up and had some of that rocket fuel coffee and went out walking, further than perhaps I have before. I was attempting to find a place that has not been covered by concrete and pavement, and I did find a place like that a fence that has markers along it to indicate that it has been surveyed for future building. Fudge!! I did also find a big owl in one of the remaining trees very patiently waiting for a tastey morsel to show it's face. The mist and rolling clouds were lovely and nourishing until I turned to face the wind which is decisively bone chilling....but not too bad. I know I have to toughen up to survive at home, I think they are warming up at a bit, at least I hope. ( I also saw a coyote trotting along the fence early this morning, only this time it was on the house side of the fence and not the other side...looking for some cat for breakfast, perhaps. Someone's declawed cat has been missing for a couple of weeks, and I am supposing it was a good meal for those who are out on the prowl.)
Anyway, I found a little frog pancake on the road on my way home. Tires had rolled over it enough to make this once perky anphibian into a leathery chunk of debris on the concrete. One of the problems with autos is that the machine can roll on top of something smooching the life out of it and never know what it has just done. I sometimes wonder how badly the animal population has sacrificed it's memebers so that we as humans can travel as quickly as possible from point A to point B. I shutter to think what those numbers are...the body count would be worse than any ethnic cleansing that we have waged on each other. I wonder sometimes if I might be from another planet to give a flying thought about it. Hmmmm.

More Bisbuzz Photos from My Trip

No pink houses in this Texas

I miss the colors of Bisbee ...                

(But this is not Bisbee, folks.)

Here I am landed someplace near Denton, Texas  and I re-commit that I will hopefully never live in a gated community where all is the same and predictability rules. Yuck. Give me the open range, thanks. I am here to help with my father-in-law who is fairly self sufficient, but gets dizzy( light headed he calls it... I'm not very sure I know the subtle differences of that topic) and needs maybe a check on once in a while more than anything.

The house where I am staying oddly backs up to Ross Perot's ranch and there are coyotes and bugs out there.( I found a perfect dehydrated little frog in the Kentucky blue grass sod that seems to go on forever...thrilled to find it however.) The other night I went to see a film (called Cookie's Fortune which I enjoyed very much!!) and when I was going into the "clubhouse" there were coyotes howling up a storm and singing to the nearly full moon. I was very appreciative of them and  appologised to them for having the humans smack dab in the middle of their paths that their families have had most likely for hundreds of centuries. There has been a recent bulldozing of trees and shrubs to make room for oil drilling that is happening all over the borders of this little "safe haven." I am glad to hear there has been some public outcry on this issue, but the economy has been the wrench that controls that activity more than anything, I think.  There is heavy machinery resting within a couple hundred yards of the back fence and that is grating on the nerves and sensibilities. There are big piles of woody vegetation that have been wrecked for this project. Thoughts of horrible little vigilanty activities bubble up in my mind...am I really made of criminal material? HMMMMMMMM we'll have to study that one carefully. The jury is still out on that one. (Depends on who you talk to I think.)

Anyway, word from home is 10 inches of snow and a high temperature of under15 degrees. That makes this misty and cool weather much welcome and not that bad. I will be back in the winterish stuff soon and so I need to go out and soak up some more of this southerly weather, and I think wearing two pair of pants from the airport to my house may be an option.The Soltice will be here in about two weeks or so and then, magically the days will grow longer and the time will come to start seedlings and get all excited and ansy for the coming spring, right? Right.

BusyBustlingBoilingBisbee

TODAY is called Black Friday. Yikes, all that was quiet about Bisbee was taken away today...the hordes are here. It became apparent that it is indeed a tourist town, and what keeps it alive are tourists, and it's true that I am one,(and I did buy some jewelry and honey and postcards) but I am not much of a fan of the crowds. We have canceled plans to eat out tonight and nibble on left overs, of which there are plenty. I have been scooting around taking pictures of patterns that catch my eye and different ways folks have decorated their yards and stuff I might see that has many conjugations. Tomorrow we have plans to venture off to Benson, which I believe has little or no appeal to the masses, but our main purpose is to hook up with some folks from Tucson and are good, good friends. I think we can manage to have a picnic and  a place to have conversation. Here's some of the photos, I am having the best time taking them!! We had a lovely (but massive) baking and eating day yesterday.It's SO fun to have this time here and to hide away at the J&R hotel...

I'm going to try this again. I am not having the best luck with my posting, but if at first you don't succeed...

I am loving the diversity of the natural and the human inspired creations, and it is apparent that the"juice" is flowing here. I am also nourished by that blue in the sky, and the transformation of an old mining town into a dig for the artist types. People seem friendly and fairly down to earth. I was thinking that mostly there were young folks here, but today, I saw some of the elders tromping around with walkers and canes(these are my people!!) Today is the last of the way warm days before I leave on Monday. The forecast is mentioning cooler temps with chances of rain and ...snow(?!!!) I'll just have to run away to Texas.

Bisbee

I landed into this funny place called Bisbee on Monday evening. I've been here before but not for about 45 or 46 years. Things were a bit different then and I was only 7 years old in January 1964. I went to the courthouse today and somehow it was a tiny bit familiar, but a lot of what I remember has been modernized.

I came to see my daughter Juda who adopted me some time ago. She(and the side kick dudefriend,R-man, and dogis) has an adorable house(all decorated with shells, rocks and shells) and works downtown at the coffee roasters. We walked up and down the hills earlier today and very ingenous and bold that humans have figured out how to stay on the sides of canyons and build all sorts of constructs to dwell in, many of which have disappeared with the wind and dust, but some whispers remain, steps that go nowhere...a wall here or an ore car that was used as a crapper there.

There are quite a few creative folks who have painted bright designs or outrageous colors on random houses...some murals and sculptures and contageous energy. I stopped by the chocolate shoppe and asked about their hours. ( I didn't buy anything there, yet...)I guess they are just opening after a bit of time off...

Anyway, it's refreshing and invigorating to visit a fun community like this and see how the kids are doing down here. Looking forward to having a great(buttered up) holiday and then blasting off to my next stop in Denton, Texas!! Word to y'all eating tomorrow...pace yourselves and keep some time for walking in your day, you may need it for more than one reason. Love to all you friends and fellow inhabitants of the planet.

The brains that study the brain

After shoveling and scraping and shivering for awhile, I drove slowly over to the Hilton Hotel to listen to those who know more about aging than I ever even thought about...(it was a conference about aging) about how the mitochondria has bits that have markers of aging parts, how older skeletal muscle recovers compared to those of the young adult...and grafts and charts after charts of data collected for many years. It's interesting to hear scientists talk of their fields, especially when you have little or no idea of what it is that obviously has them so absorbed and thrilled...it is evident that the passion is there and that they have formed their world around this little aspect of life that they have dived head first into researching. I was hoping for more stories, but there was very little of that; although some had little quirky stories of other researchers or each other...I think some of them haven't really had much of a social life with many other beings than mice. It also made me think of how mice, and maybe other species, have been giving of their bodies and minds so that these types can make their grafts and charts. (This is not to say that I am particularly fond of mice, but after I looked at many slides of their sliced and stained brains... stained with dye so that we could see that they had Alzheimer's or Parkinson's ...it made me think of their supreme sacrifice.)

Anyway, tonight might just be our coldest night yet, and I'm thinking it was not long ago I had taken pictures of sunflowers blooming in the yard. Ahh, how time marches on!!

Marble, farble, garble

Marble is supposedly compressed clay, and, indeed, when you cut it globs of clay form on the saw blade.(we did cut off one edge) It is seductively smooth and tantalizingly gorgeous in the colors and patterns it holds in it's body. I'm in love.

This piece has many flaws and a crack...did it get dropped? Don't know anything of it's history, but the beauty prevails, for sure. There are many variations of red, black, grey and even some orange and green. There are shapes of two eyes in the designs, which is difficult to capture in a picture, (and even more difficult for me to get on this post apparently, but I will keep trying as I learn more about how to do this!) It is a wild aspect to see that in the rock.
I'm also impressed by the weight of this slab we carefully rolled and walked, scootched , jacked, and finally slid into place. It is a pleasure to glide the hands over it and feel how smooth and cool it is. WOW; it's a way out experience!! The diversity of what the earth/universe provides is mind boggling and humbling to know we are made of the same stuff, actually.