this crazy life

While i was away, the elk came through my yard and dug my garden.
I feel quite frazzled as it is too. But am though like raspberry bushes and roses.
So i imagine the roses and berries to be quite content too having been grazed over by the Elk.
I have so much on the go lately, that i do feel happy but quite overwhelmed.
I did get published as a writer, but am waiting for my editor to say if i can make a link here. He first want you to be able to pick up a copy of the magazine before you read it here.
The magazine is What's up Yukon. It was amazing yesterday when i was skiing on mnt. Sima, how many people read the magazine, and had recognized m being in there.
So know i enjoy this bit of fame, i better keep writing and let the Elk do there thing.

And a little update on the feral horses, luckily the government didn't catch them all. I had a conversation Friday with a horsewoman. And she know too that the feral horses are better of in the wild, than they are being kept in a coral with all the water and food that the owner can give them. She even believes that the rate of survival is very high when they live in the wild.
And i know for a fact that they look healthier than the neighbour's horses.

Let us all roam free!

flying

soar the sky with me

there's freedom in confinement

a storm could break loose

the print of my wing

i only touch down for love

water from the spring

a little footnote from me:

i blog less, am into other things, but then somehow when i am into it (blogging),

my camera still acts up and now this new photo program doesn't
work very good. so have patient with me, i will be here again as i used to be

hey ! it was above zero C today!!!

ahhhh

There are still clouds on my horizon
but the weather warmed up to...
i just ran out to see
minus 1 Celsius
can you believe it!
(this morning out and about, it's just so pleasant, wetter yes, but without hats, coats open, gloves not really necessary, the snow as cold the air feels warm)

the snows on fire!

ahhh with a new photo program, i am playing, while i was on the computer to fill out an application.

that's it with me so easily distracted when it's called fun

and really i don't want to tackle the hard stuff

so... for Don and I, none of us really want to invest time and energy to truly figure it out

so there we are, living together apart

its okay

it's good the way it is

full moon today

ahhh i took that picture last night, i enhanced the color a bit, is that allowed or is that cheating?

I feel when i tell it's not really cheating. Or is cheating allowed? They are only my own rules.

So, i stopped smoking again today. I started again 6 weeks ago. Again not much, but too much

according to my own idea of what is acceptable or not.

In my marriage it came to a confrontation, different then all the others before, and this morning we are starting over, we are on the same side of the fence, for today. I stopped smoking, he stopped drinking.

I will respond to him from my heart

and not some kind of avoiding answer, because i fear his madness and really my answers/reactions have underlying deviousness because i feel i don't know how to protect myself from his negativity and use revenge in the way i respond slyly.

something like that.

And he will be nicer, not criticizing every move i make.

Ahhhh that is a lot to ask for one day, so beside that i will just vegetate a bit, that works best for me, when trying to change, focus on that and only that. Here the blogging is good; i love it, it's non threatening and cost me little effort and

most of all! you will be behind me! supporting me!

Thanks!!!!!!!!!!

creak crunch squeek

creak crunch squeak

creak crunch squeak

fluttering bird song

creak crunch squeak

chickadeedeedeeravens croak

a puffed up grey jay

on the road there is 'talk' in ones step this cold

on the pond snow blown about, slightly hardened

on the edge of the forest sinking knee deep

on the creek there is deep holes

at the spring i can't find no water

creak crunch squeak

that's the sunny sound of me

fences and rocks

The weather here warmed up a little bit.
Often when there is a cold spell like this, you do not want to be in town. Here in Mendenhall on those days it's sunny and no wind.

I am still posting photos from New Mexico.
November 24 2010 we often came to fences like this, to keep the cows in or out. we open them , drive through and close them behind us.
And as i like to contemplate on things like that. In life sometimes one has to open the gate, go through and close of the things that now lay behind. In life one can't always go back that easily. when you enter a new period in your life that's it. I already started the journey, but i wonder when i really will go through that gate and don't come back?

In the often desolate landscape, there are always everywhere i walk, the most interesting rocks, i collected them of course, but couldn't take them with me.

It's all in the beholder of the eye , all those good things. And i have to be open to see it. In life the joy often is in the little things. And i feel i have a knack for seeing them. And i feel very happy these days.

But there is something essentially wrong in my life. How long before i go through that gate and close it behind me. I know the treasures i will find won't be better or worse. One side of the fence looks identical to the other side, and it's just a matter of who leases the land and where you want your cows to be. I giggle about that one, maybe i am the cow and i want a different rancher. But i like my pasture with all its freedom within and it's beautiful rocks. It's just my marriage is not good, really actually the thing is we are not on the same side of the fence anymore. The companionship is lost.........

forty below

For blogging sake, i just went out in my bathrobe, to check the thermometer down by the outhouse, it is already reading -43C . I will post tomorrow's temperature at daybreak :) ha we might hit 50 if we're lucky.
The photo's underneath are at a tat warmer temperatures. Taken November 23 2010
The only similarity of those photos and today
Is that a photo doesn't always show the deep beauty of something
These photos were taken in the Animas mountains on one of my longer hikes in New Mexico, I hiked that day by myself. The photos seem kind of dull, but truly the desert is full of beautiful soft colors in the rocks and the plant life amazing, the ridges steep, the views endless.

Everything on the mountain 'planted' as in some amazingly designed park.

As i like to hike with a partner, to hike on my own the senses are open wider

and i love the freedom of choosing my path as i go.

Today in the extreme weather that freedom is restricted, downtown in the ice fog the world becomes small. Driving in ,the impossible to heat, car, i am aware of my vulnerability. Every bump in the road, shocks me, the tires frozen solid. The stirring mechanism stiff, better to go straight home.

Still...when heated by wood fire or warm to the bone from sweet sleep, the world crisp and still, somehow soft, where you breath careful as if somehow not wanting to speak, to break this delicate air where *conversation ghosts remain.....

*thanks john, for these words to end the post:)

no story tonight

Nov 22 2010, there is a story that goes with these pictures, in the third picture you see the little road we camped at for a few nights, in the fourth you see what we ate But the story that goes with it, i send it to an editor, who i recently met. He never read anything of mine, so my hopes are not high, but he wanted a story that has never appeared anywhere..

And I got a beautiful other job offer this week, i have worked for the man before and proved to be able to do the job well, but i was initially hired, only for the look of my long legs.

And then this week, someone wanted to buy a photo of mine, they seen here, but i am unable to send them the high resolution original, because i do not have it anymore.

So all i can say, live is often startling and slippery like a snake and when it doesn't bite you, it actually might taste okay.

centuries

ominous lines in the sky

preceded the moon

a bird builds it nest

in the thorns

it starts small

a little agave

patiently

it grows in the dry desert

till blooms high in the sky

still it shows me
so i can imagine
what it was like



how can a this land produce all these wonders
no water in sight

sunset on beacon hill

well what can i say.....

hmmmmm

tonight

my heart is so full

my life not that easy

the desert

it's that simple

..........

dream trail

climbing castles
Arizona Barrel

This was a very incredible hike in the Florida mnt., but i tell you about another walk close to Bosque Del Apache. Most incredible... ever.

That very morning we both woke at 3 am. still in Albuquerque. You know how sometimes in the middle of the night, you are just very much awake. Now normally... i would do something or not and relax again to fall back asleep.

Michael says: lets pack and go!

we did!

I love it.

So somewhere driving South on the highway before the Bosque we turn into a mountain road. Coming into the mountains, the dirt road is build on an arroyo (dry creek bed).The rock walls turn into a steep canyon with overhanging vertical walls. and one turn after the other it meanders on and on.

All sense of direction gone, we do come out on the other end, and actually people live there, one, a true lover of life, a rancher, with love for where he is, it's showing in everything.

We go back the same way, and i go for a walk. I climb into a crevice into the steep walls to get up on top. I follow the ridge, which at a place turns out to be so narrow, i have to jump across the rocks, the road on both sides wondering if this ridge can actually fall over anytime, where the water will create an oxbow. hmmm it's been a while...memories are coming back.. i saw a little animal living on that ledge.

Eventually i find my way down again, and where the road is very long (meandering) the distance actually very short. Below i check the wall if i can actually look through it, find a crack that shows the other side, but i can't. It's real it's not a dream.....how lucky can one get.

2011

Can you believe it? 2011.
And i don't know why i am so darn happy?
Going into 2010 i tell you, i felt quite different, through the endless tears i cried, i cannot remember if on that new years morning if i maybe saw a little light of what was to come that year.
Hey :) nothing really changed in the big picture, here i am sitting behind the computer. From yesterday to today a lot changed; it is -4 C. outside, hot hot hot we call that. Yesterday the wind blew most of that snow of the trees.
I didn't even stay up to midnight, i did not bake oliebollen, still i am all smiles, my heart surges with joy.
I know it's called being loved, i know it's more pathetically than you think.
It's also me, loving me.
It's also my family happy.
I phoned my mom this morning. It happened to be that ALL of them where together (except me and my brother here in Canada that is) I could here them all laughing and noisy as we are (all this quiet here i tell you i am from a very loud family).
Bart (my favorite nephew:) answered the phone. My mom was so happy, she could hardly hear me. She had spend new years eve on her balcony with her best friends watching
the "incredible beautiful" fireworks from her balcony. She lives in the middle of the town. She didn't like the big 'bombs' exploding all day, the house shaking. I do miss the wildness of New Years eve in Holland. Even now i know you still here some firecrackers.
Here, here all is still :) the sky is turning morning blue, the stars are fading, no sound, no wind, when i stand in the soft weather long enough i hear in the far far distance a Raven talking....