So after 67 days of bumming around I'm back home and now Barb has a hard task ahead of her to house train me again. I returned home yesterday morning after driving a total of 6,232 miles, it was nice to get home and have a warm bed to sleep in last night!

A road trip of epic size I enjoyed the sight and sounds of mountains,deserts, farms, streams, lakes and oceans. Sleeping in a tent or in back of the car graced by rain, stars and moonlight is exciting and enriching for me. As is hiking and living out of doors. I'm feeling refreshed and ten years younger then I was when I left home back in September, at that rate in another forty years I'll be ten years old again!

I spent fifty days with my son Josh camping out in his back yard and helping him with farm chores, cutting firewood, and exploring and hiking the Siskiyou Mountains that surround his home. I also enjoyed getting to know the folks that are part of his community, good solid people that welcome you with acceptance for your individual uniqueness. Oregon still seems to be a land of promise, a good spot for a man to settle down in and call home. It's rich black loam grows wonderful crops of corn, hay, flowers and vegetables, a perfect spot for organic farming! I spent time in Josh's garden with a shovel turning the soil over and planting a cover crop for winter. It's the best of life when you can grow you own food right outside of your door, when you need a salad for supper all you need to do is spend ten minuets in your garden with a knife cutting greens. Josh is living in a beautiful valley surrounded and protected by mountains, filled with good people in tune to the natural world. It almost gives me the itch to buy an Oregon farm and spend the rest of my days being an old farmer!

Barb flew in for three weeks to spend some time with Josh and I in November. We spent our 33rd wedding anniversary driving into the redwoods of northern California and enjoying the rugged beauty of the Pacific Ocean coast. Driving under thousand year old trees and watching endless waves beat against the shore is a good reminder that in the few years we are privilege to enjoy this earthly life we should be filled with wonder and joy for the natural beauty that surrounds us. There is a lot more to this life then toil and strife!

After leaving Oregon I drove down into Arizona to visit my dad and stepmom, spending my first Thanksgiving with them in years. Dad will be 95 in a few weeks and my stepmom just turned 84. The folks are getting old, they remind me of old oak trees that have weathered one to many storm, they are listing in the wind a bit, the years starting to take a toll on their bodies and spirit. They still make music when they have the energy, dad can still play the violin with passion, he has been making music for eighty years or more! He recently put together a recording of his dads music, songs that he heard his dad play when he was a kid. So that part of dads spirit will be around for a few more generations to enjoy. It was with a heavy heart that I left there Friday morning; after life is said and done all that is left is the memory of hugs and love and photographs that fade into dust.

So I need to get settled in once more around home, there are chores to do and the wood furnace needs maintenance again. I have 1800 or so pictures to sort through and a journal to reread and make stories out of. I parked my car in the shed yesterday I'm hoping that I can stay home a bit and sink my roots a little deeper into this home soil of mine!

It's good to be home once again!

One of my favorite memories from my North Country Trail hike along Lake Superior of two years ago, was of the awesome power and beauty of green frothing waves drumming against the shore after a day of a wind driven storm. After a long wet day of hiking I had found a fallen white pine to hunker underneath which I soon determined was a good spot for that nights camp. Relieving myself of my back pack I put on dry night clothes and walked to the nearby beach. It was just a small cove of raw sand, exposed to the endless north east wind and waves. In the furthest corner of that beach there was the timbers and iron spikes of a ship wreak. Intrigued I spent a far amount of time exploring the site and relaxing on the weather worn beams.

After watching the waves and clouds a bit I went back to my camp and threw a tarp over my sleeping bag and crawled into my little nest. As I rested there waiting for sleep to claim me I listened to the roll of waves. Hunkered down safe and warm, I thought of the fate of those long-ago sailors as their ship was pushed into the shore. Did they scream in terror? Curse the Gods? Thought of loved ones far away? How many survived to tell of that storm and the green frothing waves that destroyed their cargo and voyage?





As I spent as much time with my brother Phil as possible these last few weeks I was reminded often about the adage that death comes like a thief in the night. No matter how much you tend to ignore and hide from the fact of eventual death, in due time, sooner or later, it will claim you.  I think that much of personal misery is due to that truth, people spend a lifetime seeking validation for their gift of life, hiding from the sorrow of eventual death with over indulgences of sex, booze, drugs, or work,.......whatever monkey it may be that is carried on our backs. 

As we shared with Phil his journey toward eternity I told a young nephew that a person needs to make friends with death. Somehow with time, experience, and some sort of spirituality a person needs to make peace within himself so as to accept this earthy life as the temporary gift that it is.

This morning as I grieve for the new void in my life I work to make my peace with eternity. I remind myself that after every storm there is calm and beauty.

This morning as I was enjoying my morning coffee six deer came into the cabin clearing to graze on the grass and nose around the fire pit. Sleek graceful animals, two being young spike horns, they munched along sampling the grass and oak leaves, black noses twitching and brown inquisitive eyes alert and ever watching for danger.

On a gray wet morning I enjoy peace and beauty here in my woods, balm for my wounded soul.

Two Sundays ago I experienced a day that will forever live in my memory, I had my third grandson born that morning and a few hours later my younger brother Phillip died. Life and death on the same Sunday, two life changing events hitting you hard and fast. Tears and joy mingle as the cycles of life roll along.

I spent the Friday night before Phil died with him, holding his hand and saying prayers with him. I marveled on how much Phil was like myself, our physical build was much the same, our hands entwined were the same two hands, his brown eyes staring into mine bared the same love for each other. Who comforts whom when life on this earth fades? 

A family gathers to honor the life and death of a brother, sisters came in from Arizona, Colorado and Oregon, in noise and confusion life changes and moves along.  Phil passed from this world in a hurry, within three weeks from when we learned that he had cancer he was buried.  For fifty one years he was a part of our family circle now he has entered the world of spirit and memory, slowly the pain caused by the void of his passing will fade.



Life Change 



But life continues with new generations, my daughter had her fifth child a few hours before Phil died. So there is new life to love and nurture, family love is important as the seasons and days of life speed along. 

New Generations

I returned home last night after a  sixty mile hike along the North Country Trail.  After thinking about it a bit I had Barb drop me off forty miles south of the cabin Sunday afternoon and then I started hiking northward toward home.   I had a great four days enjoying the peace and beauty of the spring shine northern woods, strolling along at my leisure and taking my sweet time playing in the rivers, lakes, and marshes along the way as the mood struck me.

My spirit always soars when I am meandering through a forest without a care in the world and natures grandeur as my only company!  Living under the heavens enjoying the play between the clouds and the sun and then sleeping under the moon and stars always seems to readjust the balance in my life.

I managed to take three-hundred pictures, the wetlands and the spring woods is alive with growth and beauty this time of year.  So today I'm resting my legs and going through pictures. With a digital camera you can have fun taking all kinds of pictures without undo cost so you can have fun snapping away.
 
Flowers are always a favorite of mine, the colors are so vivid it can take your breath away. So today I have three flowers to share with more pictures to follow another day.

Water Lilly  (related to the lotus)

Pink Lady's Slipper

Indian Pond Lilly

Lilly Pads

My mother passed away back in 1975 after thirty-seven years of marriage to my dad, leaving two kids out of the eleven of us at home for him to continue to rise. I was a youngster then building my own home and involved with establishing my own life so I was removed from the brunt of my dads grief. But I recall visiting him after mom's death and witnessing dad literally brought to his knees with grief. As a twenty two year old I didn't have a clue how to help dad and in hindsight I don't think there was anything I could have done anyway. Grief is a battle that needs to be fought alone, it's your personal demon to wrestle with.

Dad retired at age sixty two in 1977 and met Waneta, a gal ten years younger then him with three kids of her own, at a July dance and they fell head over heels in love. They married that November and started a new life enjoying their golden years in the warmth and peace of the Arizona desert.

Dad is now 94 and has been married to Waneta for close to thirty two years. This past Wednesday morning he called my older brother and ask that him and his wife come back to Arizona to help them out. Lately Waneta has been ailing; this past January she had her thyroid removed and it seems that the medication that replaces the thyroids function isn't doing the job. Taking care of a sick wife and trying to keep a household up is a bit much for anyone to handle. Dad has pretty much always depended on Waneta to keep things in order and run the household so he is foundering and scared.

I talked to dad yesterday and he seemed pensive and lost. One thing he mentioned was that they always wanted to remain independent, never asking for help from any of the family. I told him that at 94 he had a good run at independence but I can guess that's platitudes don't do much to ease the pain. This is the first time dad has asked for help in all of his years and needless to say it panic us, I didn't realized that Waneta was suffering so. When parents enter their eighties and nineties in the back of your mind you are always waiting for the axe to fall but you still aren't prepared when it does!

Looking back over the years I think independence was the best gift dad bestowed me. I was eighteen when I left home and pretty much have followed my own star since then. Having an independent spirit free from the undo worry of society expectations gives you a freedom to enjoy and experience life on your own terms.

Talking of independence I'm thinking of packing my backpack and doing a hundred mile hike starting tomorrow. Next Saturday my youngest brother is having a 70th. birthday party for my eldest sister and I'm thinking of hiking down to it. About forty miles would be on the North Country Trail and then I'm thinking of walking along a railroad and then a power company right-away. Once I leave the woods I get into farm country and denser population centers which will mean walking roads which is never fun.

It's been cool and rainy this week so I'll have water to wade through, the mosquitoes and ticks are out by the hundreds, and the ground is hard to sleep on. Perhaps I'll stay home and get old in comfort!

Anyway this is enough yakking for a cool Saturday morning. There's never a dull moment as the world turns!

We took a drive this past weekend to check out the back-country and the farm's,with June fast approaching everything is newly green and blooming. New life is all around and you can feel the excitement in the air as the land once again starts to turn sunlight into food and flowers.

The last two mornings we have been having a nice steady rain and you can watch the flowers and leaves open up and grow. Our woods is many different shades of green so vivid it almost hurts the eyes.

Lilac bushes in full flower with their aroma perfuming the air always marks the beginning of summer for me.

May Lilacs

Last Friday Barb and I drove to the Leelanau peninsula a few hours north of us. This area is noted for it's cherry orchards and vineyards growing on rolling dunes. Grand Traverse Bay is on it's east side and Lake Michigan on it's west which creates a perfect micro climate for the growth of grapes and orchards. The beech and maple woods was just coming into bloom and there was a magnificent carpet of trillium gracing the forest floor.

Trillium Woods

Trillium

We have been busy here at the cabin putting in flower gardens and lawn. About a month ago we had four yards of dairy -doo bought in, which is composted cow manure, and then ten yards of black dirt. So with my wheelbarrow and shovel I've made a vast improvement on the soil conditions of the gardens and yard. About ten miles southwest of us the woods gives away to farm country so I've made a few trips that way for field stone and rocks which I've used as broader for the flower beds.  Every spring as a farmer tills his fields there is a large crop of rocks, forced to the surface by the winters cold, which needs to be harvested before the planting goes in. Over the years I've gathered a dozen or so truck loads of stone from that rock pile.  I enjoy the texture and shape of stones and they add an eye pleasing contrast to the landscape.  I still enjoy working with dirt and stone......it seems as if you can take the boy out of the country but not the country out of the boy!

Yesterday we had one of those days of weather that was part rain and part snow, a cold damp spring day. I took the opportunity to go out in the woods to gather fifty or so white pine seedling's and bring them back to plant on my twenty acres. Around the base of mature pines the duff is a foot or more thick and there are hundreds of seedling's just waiting for a place to call home. It's fun to work in the rain and get mud under your fingernails, with the ground soaked you can dig up seedling's by the handful.  I live in a woods so it might seem silly to be planting trees here but it's spring and the old farmer in me has to be planting something!

I've been busy cutting fire wood these past six weeks, there are areas on my property where a few old oaks have fallen under the force of storms giving me a chance to gather wood and also leaving a large hole in the forest canopy. These damaged areas are good spots to plant pines, in a few years pine trees will be rushing toward the pull of the sun. So far this spring I've planted around eighty pine seedling's in these open areas and along the perimeter of my woods.

In the twenty five years that I've enjoyed this property I've planted a lot of pines, some are thirty feet tall already. Give a tree a little room to grow and some sun and they are very happy. Not unlike the growth a person can enjoy with a little room to blossom and to enjoy his light!

White pine is the state tree here in Michigan, before the era of lumbering this area was filled with old growth giant pines, on my hikes into the surrounding woods you still come across large stumps slowly returning to dirt.   They can live up to four hundred years so if the world is here  a few more centuries perhaps someone can enjoy a piece of old growth forest once again!

The sun is bright this morning, I can watch the flowers and grass turn green, another fine earth day!

Happy days to all!

18 degrees with a heavy frost this first day of spring, but the sun is bright and the sky is blue. Birds are busy at the feeders, fluttering around and singing.

I haven't been inspired to post much in this journal this last little bit. My life is dull and non eventful, I guess I get tired of posting how much joy I have in just the beauty of simple things such as living a quiet life surrounded by a forest of  giant trees. Trees that have no concern for the strife and turmoil of the greater world.

I sit back and watch as our world economy crumbles, friends are losing their jobs of twenty plus years, and wars and all sorts of discord is the talk of the land. Can an economy and social system last when it's built on the premise of "buy!, buy! buy!" and pay for it "someday"? A system built on credit, the promise of postponing payment for today's needs and pleasures to some far off day from jobs and wages that will always be there? When those jobs are gone where will the money come from to keep us consuming the products that are for sale? Products that are superficially to living a good life to begin with according to my thinking!

I view our economy as being built as flimsy as a house of cards and today a stiff wind is blowing; the very bottom of the deck is rocking and teetering. I'm afraid the time has come to pay the piper, the next few years will be pay back time for decades of excess spending on the promise of tomorrow's earnings.  Life will be getting nasty and ugly for a lot of folks as they lose their moorings.....
At least that is what I'm thinking. 

So I've been 56 years old for over a month now, I think I'm finally heading into official geezerhood, my sixth decade is coming on fast! But what are numbers?  I've just had a doctor's visit, I'm still " a lean mean fighting machine" according to him and his machine. I'm healthy and strong with only 15 % body fat so I guess mountain climbing and wood cutting is good for the old bod. Which is good because I have a lot of wood to cut and there are many more mountains I would love to stand on top of! Health is truly a great blessing, really the only thing that matters in the long run, the money I've hoarded for our 'golden' years is evaporating like so much fog on a cold misty morning. Once your health fails the real troubles begin!

Josh is home form Oregon for a short visit, last night my daughter and her gang were here for supper. Sharing, laughter, food and drink with loved ones is another pleasure that is priceless in the days of my life. This weekend we are having another gathering here of Josh's friends that haven't seen him in a while. Again there will be the sharing of food, drink, good conversations and laughter along with hot saunas. 

Life is good, in gratitude for all the days of my life time speed by. It's snowing a bit again this morning, old man winter is still king around here. I need to get out and cut a load of sauna wood this morning, I need fuel to keep the fires burning!

So I'm alive and well, enjoying peaceful quite times here in my woods.  The days are cold but sunny, I feel spring in the air, warm days can't be to far ahead! I look at the mountains of snow and think of the flowers that are slowly coming awake under the yellow spell of the sun.

Winter's are long but are the perfect time of the year just to kick back and enjoy the gift of life. A good bear would just hibernate, curl up with a pile of good books and read the days away, but I always seem to have projects to work on. With thanks for all that life offers the long cold days and nights don't seem so bad!

I've been keeping busy finishing my  projects around here, today I'm installing the mop boards and the last bit of trim in the new bath. Next on the list is to build a cupboard next to the laundry facilities for cleaning supplies and towels. Next week I need to install ceramic tile in the new entryway and then I will be finish with this home redo. A year ago March I started ripping out the old kitchen and building new cupboards so I'm pleased with my progress over the year. To  build a new kitchen, dining room, bath/ laundry and foyer within a year is good work for me, especially considering that I spent six weeks away from home last summer hiking and exploring mountains and then last fall I spent a month raking cranberries . Never a dull moment in my days!

We've finally got a new computer set up here, the old one died mid-november of last year. So I have a fancy new computer with a nice flat screen monitor to work on. Perhaps I should get into the habit of posting more often! I'll have to think about that..........

Great day today, the Shrub is gone, these last eight years have been a disgrace.
 
It was 21 below this morning a perfect day to sit indoors and watch history in the making.  For the first time in a long time I have hope that this country can once again be the home for all people no matter their color, creed, or whom they sleep with. 

Obama has his work cut out for him but he has a nation and a world that is rooting for him.  

 Hope springs eternal.......................


 

I spent the last two mornings shoveling four foot of snow off my roofs and woodpiles, this morning we have a wet snow falling, everything is covered in pure white drifts. It looks like a Dr. Seuss world with cones and caps on everything. The white pines stand like maiden aunts, arms down hugging themselves, the bluejays are at the feeders looking for corn. The snow banks along the driveway are over my shoulders, I'm running out of room to throw snow any higher.   If anybody is dreaming of a white Christmas they are welcomed here, but I just might put you to work with a shovel!    
                 
So Merry Christmas, may all of you find time to enjoy quiet times these next few days.  Our plans are to spend this evening with my daughters family then tomorrow Barb and I we be home here relaxing and watching it snow.

It's snowing and blowing and it's cold. It's a lot like Christmas but with wheelbarrows load of wood burning in my furnace Santa will get a mighty hot butt coming down my chimney. But then I suppose I haven't been a good enough boy for him to visit anyway. I've always held to the philosophy that the  bad boys have more fun then the good dudes. With  only one shot  at living life a full spectrum of various experience is a must! 

Happy Winter Solstice, the days will gradually creep toward the sunshine and growth. Life and Hope springs eternal!

It 's the season to be jolly, remember that perfection and bliss is mostly myth, a man made folly!

Vibes of joy to one and all!

So I'm alive and well, busy working on the cabin again. Since the beginning of November I've been adding a new bath and laundry room; tearing out the old rooms and building new. With the new kitchen I built this spring the old rooms were looking shabby and out-dated, so  I got out my saws and hammers and went to town on the old walls and floors. Out with the old and in with the new! 17years this coming January I started building this place-hopefully this is the last major redo to complete. 

A month ago our computer took a power surge and fried it's brains and we are just now back online with a used laptop.  I'll need to relearn the ways of computers and typing. 

Winter is here in all of its cold and beauty. We have way to much snow already, I'm already looking forward to playing in the mud come spring. Which is still some five months away!

Nothing much else is new, life continues on it's merry way.

Barack Obama is elected  our 44TH President !

I haven't felt this positive on the future course of this nation in years. Perhaps now we can have honest discourse among the diverse segments of this society and the world instead of insane shouts and wars.