Raven Dancers

Ray Shepard cutting the rug at the SE AK. State Fair 2011. Image by Micah Bochart

Happy Summer Day

Heading up the Chilkat!

It's Cloudy Clear From Where I Stand

This summer clipped by, fueled by visits from family who traveled great distances to be with us at 39 mile.
First, our Micah-man came home for ten days, making time away from his abundantly busy life in New York City. We had opportunity to feast, visit and adventure together. He and I took a boat trip up the Upper Chilkat River with our friend John Katzeek, passing through interwoven river corridors lined by glacier clad mountains toward the spectacularly beautiful river gorge where John's Tlingit ancestors journeyed to access the Yukon's interior.  Micah and his sisters Merrick, Hannah and Captain Joe also journeyed to Tiasanka Harbor. Fair days were condensed and rich. Micah jumped in to film our Geppetto's Junkyard performances. This year's extravaganza, A Circus of Dreams, included a life-sized elephant, an aerial performer, and classic dreamscapes both bizarre and ridiculous.
My sister Melody and her fine crew from the Berkshires visited for two weeks as well. Each seemed to find what worked best on an individual basis, some wanting a more rugged experience and others learning about our community lifestyle and homegrown arts scene. Somehow, as though by special request for our visitors, the bug season didn't happen beyond the middle of June. I'll be sure to post pictures soon from Jeff, Peter and Dakotah's flight-seeing trip into the Kluane Icefields and their camping tour of the Golden Circle, Pleasant Camp to Skagway.

Hannah (pictured above) has been with us all summer happily working with Reach clients. In her down time she's writing songs, participated in the puppet show and helped to host our visitors. Next week, Saturday the 27th, the Big Brothers Big Sisters end of the year event will be held at 39 mile. We'll share our backwoods goat trails, late summer plant identification and offer a world class rock tossing event followed with a bar-b-que. That afternoon we'll burn up the road miles to the Palmer State Fair in hopes of catching our buddy Garrison Keillor and A Prairie Home Companion. Garrison is planning to retire next year and I couldn't possibly miss the show while he's here in Alaska. May we make it in time. Wish us luck!

And, with the damp weather settling in around us, I'm looking forward to lots more writing time . Thanks for reading and please, be in touch.

Adrian
rilkemaid@gmail.com

Elves in the Understory

Until Then...

Writing requires thought time, which I'm privileged to have a stunning abundance of. In fact, I'm profoundly wealthy when it comes to having time available to shape as I choose. It's a lifestyle choice I made long ago supported by living very simply. Monetarily, there's not a lot of extra grease. The freedom to observe the world around me, reflect upon it and offer back what I learn, is large.
This last season I've found most of the writing I'm doing is 'processing', the soul work that keeps one aware that there's still a lot to learn. Perhaps someday I'll be capable of shaping it into a form that will be useful or entertaining to others. For now, the words and thoughts are piling nicely into spiral-bounds with a number two pencil.
All Things 39 sends out a lot of love and hope for well being to all.
Adrian

A Stone's Throw

Two houses, shared by old friends, connected by a wooden walk that vibrates.

The Buzz of Summer

It's one of those damp, still mornings when the grey layer hangs on the mountains near the 200' level. The moist blanket amplifies the hum of the first batch of mosquitoes as they flurry on the screen door, whining a song of hungry frustration. A foot away, I dance a little self congratulatory gig for having the gardens and trails tended to, Before the Hatch.

My daughters and I earned our brush and bug creds for the season while climbing the mountain above Thirty-five mile hill two days ago.

We wove our way through tangles of Alder, prehistoric False Hellebore (chest high and luxurious) and spires of towering Devil's Club. The alpine meadows are in full blossom laced in the decaying snow pack. All, but the very highest reaches, though shockingly beautiful, were swarming with hungry hordes on wings.

Last week, we added a wonderful new family member to the next generation from Thirty-nine Mile. Tu-pher is a three year old Husky sled-dog who comes to us from the Stanford family -via- Haines Animal Rescue Kennel. She'll inherit Mason's crown as lead trail boss, when he's ready to pass it on.  I've kept the two little Oberhasli does born this spring. Together, they're mastering necessary backwoods skills; logs, stream crossing, steep inclines, staying out overnight, and are not far from graduating to small packs. We should be an awesome quartet.

Fair, bountiful summer. Ha! Dare I say it? I miss the freedom of moving across the winter landscape.

Trio in May

In May

The evening hums on wings designed to hover and travel in reverse
Breathe in the chill and sap rising
Wonder

The Song of a Green-belly Appetite

Two stand on the river flat and call; insistent, purposeful and loud enough that spring avalanches are only background rumble. Eight bodies with four bellies each and I'm the goatherd, happy only two are sheep.

Hooky Herd

The electric wire is strung, a request that you remain there while my attention and love are fastened over here.
Wait..., I love you more. So-long, rhubarb crown. We're away.
~ Dear, tonight, the milk carries the fragrance of willowherb.~

 

Happy in the Garden

The sweet intimacy of the last month has been superb. Our four Obie-goat kids have learned to cross streams, browse on tiny willow leaves and climb the steep forested hillsides with the adult herd and Mason and I. We have several bowers for resting where the little ones crawl into my lap, (though more than one can no longer fit.) We each get to nibble on the uncurling fiddlehead fern, twisted stalk, and purple shoots of fireweed. Happily, the mosquitoes aren't up and running--yet.

Before I invite the critters to join me, I groom each trail through the deep woods. While sorting broken branches and lightly raking the path I found the wild beauty of Violets, fragile and fleeting, peeking from beneath a shadowy bolder. The cold cloud cover today will keep them hidden and shy but perhaps tomorrow I can capture an image.

Tomorrow we begin milking again. I figure the day after The End of Days is a great time to start such a delight. Jackquie's fresh cheese next week!

Right now I'm inside loving the Spring Planting Show on A Prairie Home Companion, via WNYC FM. We're too far out the highway for our beloved KHNS FM. While the cast is taking time to put their northern gardens in and the repairs to a 1978 Winnebago satellite transmitter are completed, (Summer Love Tour 2011? Let's go!), Garrison Keillor is sharing a high spirited Spring compilation. So, though I'm cleaning the chicken coop this evening, right now I practicing my dance moves in heels.

What can I say? It's spring.

There's no help for me. Springtime makes me soft.  I yearn for intense warmth in steady abundance and this year, I'm in luck.

The older barn residents and I are taking part in the education of four new- comers, born a week ago. Mama Jackquie, a six year old Oberhasli grandmother, gave birth to two little does and two baby bucks. This week, there's innocence, beauty and a whole lot of laughs springing around on sixteen gangly legs.

Our garden variety sheep offered up a tremendous amount of beautiful fleece, as well. I'm busy carding, dying, and felting small things.

Like I said, there's no help.

A Sere Abundance

January was feathered in furry courtship. Now, two days after a late Easter, the forest is bursting with life. We’re springing in snowshoes across a network of buried ice-clad alder at the base of the cliffs. It’s warm enough to get down to our sweaters, Levis and boots.

Micah chooses a gentle climbing route. Green and burgundy shoots poke up along with signs that most of these early plants are being munched on. We pass a tousled bolder and an exposed root system: icy, moist and musky, telling of a larger appetite.

Sunlight glints off a limbed nest in the crown of a hemlock, two hundred feet up the hillside where three eggs were hatched. Hatched, or are the broken shells from eggs that have been abandoned, a reluctant offering, a snack for an array of flying or tree climbing predators, those who work tirelessly to feed many tiny mouths? On bold legs, fuzzy babies will totter a small advance beyond the warmth of the covey to paw, and claw, learn to snap sharp teeth and snatch sustenance with stealth. We spot feathers, tufts of fur and bone.

This is Micah’s last spring at home. The first born of three is ready to explore a larger life than the magnificence that surrounds him. I recall our earliest time together. Late at night his vitality was so great his tiny body would vibrate with anticipation. A rugged lifestyle was essential for him to grow up well. Now he’s ready. And-- I’m still getting in shape.

Our steady progress up the hill brings us to an outcropping of rock, covered with crunching orange lichen. Dropping our packs and stripping away the sweaters, we pause for a snack.

“I like your backyard, Bochart.”

“Yea, this has been one hell of a place to grow up, Mom. The freedom and ongoing inspiration has made me ready to learn about other places. I’m thinking East Coast as a base for a few years while working, going to school and traveling. I have to see parts of Africa and South America, and I’ve become really interested in South East Asia.”

Below, the glacial valleys are drenched in sunlight. The entire universe is thawing today releasing the sweet smell of a freshened earth.

“My love, wherever you go you’ll bring life and a bright new perspective. Now, THAT’S a mom talking!”

Across the ravine, we spot a brown bear and her new cub at work finding twisted stalk and fireweed shoots. At the base of a fallen spruce the young mother digs shoulder deep to harvest an ant colony while the little one examines her toes.

She’s aware of our presence. We’re compatible.

(Personal history written as an exercise for the class, Klukwan Writing.)

The Dance

Spring is Weighing In

The wind and cold are biting through everything but wool. Still, promises of warmer days are present in each of the garden starts from little green broccoli snipplets to cabbage, cauliflower, delphinium and phlox. Increased light and that compressed sense of 'gittin it ALL going', multiplies around 4 a.m., minutes after the moon sets below the mountain tops. The waxing energy is intoxicating.

The sheep are ready for spring. Winter was so dry that those with fur are still dealing with itchy skin. The ewes are attempting to rub their abundant coats off before the weather warms. Anything with an edge offers relief; the loft ladder, keyhole stanchions or low hinges on the stall. Following a fresh start for the woolly ones, the arrival of this spring's baby goats will occur. I'm going to be a barn maid this week. If it was a bit warmer, moonbeams through the hayloft window would be enticing.

Instead, it's time to build a fire in the woodstove. I'll watch tonight's sky cozy-ed up in front of the sliding glass door. Join me?

(The cottonwood and willow tops are wearing a greenish-yellow flush. The Fair Light Review couldn't resist donning a similar look. Now, if I could just catch that fragrance, both to wear and share here. I'll keep trying.)

As the Snow Melts

Mountain goat wool, drying in a cool spring breeze, ready for spinning.

Hightop moccasins made from native tanned deer and Klehini Valley felt, wool from the sheep at 39 Mi.

Exploring the otherside

Mason shows Okum and Young Bear (YB) the ropes.

Of Peas and Pods

“Claude Revenaugh was first a cowboy then one of Teddy’s Rough Riders and a merchant marine. He married late and then I came along. We tried working the land with teams of horses but the caked dirt was used up, limp sac-clothe. He dreamed of starting over in Alaska.”

Horizontal rain pummeled, flexing the loose window casings. My thoughts scrambled through lists for tomorrow’s classes when the dozy, old husk caught a second wind:

“The last ten years of his life he repaired automobile batteries. Kept a moderately lucrative business alive during the Great Depression. He was a big man, nearly as big as you. Great White Hunter type. Saw me as timid, a Mama’s boy, I suppose. ‘Hold the reins. Turn them, now, hold’em!’ Christ, I had nothing to prove.”

I can’t leave him stuck in the recliner, alone, but I’ve got to get to bed. Ivy will stay up visiting. He’s traveled to Alaska to say good-bye, accompanied by his eighty-three year old mother. The flight attendants who assisted the pair worried that one or the other might die before leaving the plane. Neil and I carried him, fireman-style, up eighty-seven slippery stairs from the street to the front door. Grandma was ready to go fishing. It’s been a long week.

“Were you in the service? No, I suppose you’re smarter than that. The war offered a lot of guys the chance to get the hell out, myself included, though once I was in, I couldn’t wait for it to be over. Uncle Sam paid for a college education, and a chance to see the Pacific from a mine sweeper. I was a sonar man.”

He’ll hold you in a web of story for several hours, cover the most abstract subjects; politics, religion, modernist social strata, literature, backed by vivid accounts of the people involved. Then, ask suddenly if you’ve been formally introduced. It takes getting used to. Like body surfing.

Ivy leaned in from the dining room, kissed her poppa on the head and pulled a recorder from her robe, magician style.
“I’m holding the best friend a journalist ever had, primed with fresh tape to document the evening. What do you say, Revenaugh?”

“Well, Daughter, they tell me I’m dying of cancer and the disease is effecting my short-term memory, (hard on a reporter.)
There’s some concern I may not make the trip home to my companion of the last few years (we’ll see if I still hold influence with the airlines.) I’m honored to be with you, always, and I’d like to introduce you to a friend of mine, (if he’d be so kind as to remind me who the hell he is.)”

Ivy winked. April Fools

The Bridge

Patches of Blue

I marvel at the trees so heavily endowed with cone there's no way for them to stand under all that potential. Hemlock, spruce and scattered patches of pine, droop. From a distance, the entire forest is rusted over. Pepper-birds, chirpy siskins, filling the airwaves with music, harvesting cone across gray, white and charcoal hills. Rust never sleeps. The woods ring with thrush and robin.

Mornings, I'm filling seed containers with home grown starter mix and though I wake to a skiff of ice, rain, or snow each morning, the late afternoons peak around 60°. Planting never fails to offer that sorely needed jolt, "Pick it up, Girl! There's a lot of living to do."

I grieve the end of winter. I adore snowshoe scrambling across the hillsides, making camp with a book and journal; watching, listening, conjuring. This winter pushed hard with deep, continuous cold and terrific wind, breaking deadwood from the trees, sculpting the mountains and snow across the river flats. Hooked into and surrounded by such a force helps keep perspective.

This year many peers from our community took quick and permanent departure. My friend, Garrison Keillor said about writing eulogies, something like, "if I start now, where would I quit?" I walk with mental recitations of good times spent in and around valley residents who've died and all of us left holding.

It helps considerably that I'm married to the idea of new starts being hatched from rich, old material, including break-up come spring. My winter bridge across the Klehini gave way around midnight. The rush of water soaked snow and ice, suddenly running free, filled the night air with green sweetness.

We traveled up to Anchorage last week to pay a visit to old friends and take advantage of the state's positron emission tomography scan for Merrick; a PET Scan.
Happened also to be Fur Rondy, the kick-off celebration of sled dog race season.

It was terribly cold and windy.

The scan showed what we expected and hoped for. The large tumor has been dissolved. Chemo treatment around the world, operating like lounge centers for those fortunate enough to have medical funding, are finding ways to chemically halt the rogue cell production of some cancers.

The way in which people turned out to raise funds for Merrick's treatments still stuns me in the middle of the night. Our community has had many cases of cancer; many who survive and many who don't. We should all be able to have affordable health care and enjoy the love and support of friends and neighbors.

And, the loving support to die well.

I'm watching for signs of spring. Much longer days are making their presence known. Somewhere, beneath the snow, the rhubarb is turning blood red.

I've been away and guess who's watching the 'stead?