Photography by Ed Book
This morning, I went out to feed the llamas and came back in wet. Not the only thing wet. The llamas are wet. They have a small shelter (a frame by the fence covered with a tarp) big enough for a couple of them and their comfort zone but I’ve only seen one go into it once… Quinault, walked in soon after I put it up in the summer and looked around for her throne and left. I need to put up their permant shelter. I have almost all the material needed but since I hurt my shoulders in the traffic accident in April, I haven’t been able to do any of the heavy work needed around here. I had a lot on my list to do this summer but none of the big things got started and the work that was in progress stopped abruptly. For expample, the roof on the planting shed needed one more panel on the roof and I tried to put it up four times having to stop because I can’t do any work overhead. I’ve had difficulty even carrying a camera on a carbon fiber tripod and can’t carry it on my shoulder. I’ve been going to the chiropractor and physical therapy a couple times a week since April and although it’s improving, I still can’t do any of the hard work. The pile of logs that I was supposed to cut and split and stack for this winter is still in the pasture waiting and now getting wet. We heat exclusively with wood and can’t afford to buy firewood cut by someone else. The accident although it seemed minor (I was rear-ended) has made a big difference in my physical activity. No hiking with a pack this summer or autumn and to carry my camera pack with minimal equipment was difficult. So much to do so little ability. hrumph! Some how, I’ve got to get the wood cut and covered and the llama shelter built… My son, Seth, is still healing from his fall into a fire and has his hands full with his class schedule and job this semester. Sooooo…. I’m going to have to call on the help of all those knomes that hang out around here… The only ones that I ever catch sight of however are old and very short in stature and are busy with their knome duties… That leaves it all up to me… somehow, I’ll get it done… I will do it, I will do it, I will do it, I will start today…. I’ll think about it today and will start tomorrow…
Peace
I’m sorry to hear that your injury is still bothering you.. I had a car accident 4 years ago that seemed somewhat trivial at the time (no broken bones, just torn muscle) but it still gives me problems with my back! It’s hard to remember to do things only one thing at a time
Good Luck with all your activities, I hope they’re painless in every way. I hope llamas are fairly patient creatures in the mean time
You sound like you’re living as close to the earth as is possible in today’s world. Please forgive my curiosity but… do you live in the mountains? What kind of dwelling? Do you have your own gardens?
I once dreamed of living in Thoreau’s Walden, and it sounds like you have it!
I don’t think the little cabin he lived in would have been very comfortable, no internet, or telephone, or indoor plumbing or running water, or microwave or television or vcr or power tools or… well you get the picture… thinking about it maybe not so bad… We live on a peninsula in Puget Sound and hour ferry ride west of Seattle… but not quite far enough away because we are becomming inundated by commuters to the city and all that comes with it. What used to be a village of about 500 counting the surrounding area, Silverdale is now the home of a regional mall and has been mostly paved over. When I found this location about twenty five years ago on Nika Trail (I named the street) it was a side road off a dead end dirt road four miles from Silverdale. If I saw anyone on the road into town, I probably knew them and we stopped to talk (and let the dust settle before passing) and if I didn’t know them, then, I would meet them. Now, all is paved and there’s the third high school of the local school district about two miles away. I used to know everyone along our road and now know few. At least we have a long driveway and don’t hear any traffic as we’re at the end of the road a mile away from the busy traffic coming from town. The last three families moving to our street, Nika Trail, are commuters to Seattle. A half hour drive to the ferry terminal in Bremerton and then having to be there a half hour to forty-five minutes to ensure getting a place in line to get on the boat… $15.+USD for car and driver and an hour ride (beautiful and relaxing) to hurry hurry land… and the same on the way home… I rarely go to Seattle but bypass it via a different ferry north or by land and bridge through Tacoma or land to Olympia or via floating bridge to the Olympic Peninsula to the west. We live on 2-1/2 acres in the forest (not a high quality forest as it’s been logged three times and burned during WWII by Japanese incendary balloons and most of the trees are scrub alder or western red cedar growing crookedly off down logs… and of course some two foot diameter douglas fir. Our house, I designed and then decided would be beyond my abilities… I hired a contractor to build it and finish the upper floor. It took me many years to finish the other floor and an addition and garage/shop and shed. I didn’t start landscaping except for a grass lawn till four years ago when I came home from a long trip and decided that the plants growing wern’t native but weeds… I have lots of work to do yet but no money or energy or time to get much done. It’s a work in progress… I’d like it to at least look like it was finished. It’s a wood framed house with attached garage and looks like many except layout as in many developments of the 70′s… I didn’t have much imagination when I designed it… and tried to keep it affordable… It’s not city and not suburbs… yet… I like it because I put so much effort into it but sometimes it’s a burden… mostly it’s a burdon… But, I can’t imagine moving anywhere else because of our mild climate and cools summers and cool winters… rainy and dark in the winter and long days and drought in the summer… Now,
ifwhen I win the lottery, a big one… I’ll give this place to my kids and buy a place in the San Juan mountains in SW Colorado and a place in the Smokies in the southern Appalacians, and a place in northwestern Montana and a place near Algonquin Park near you and a place in Maine and a few other places… for starters…no, not that close to the earth but closer than most… If you mean this dirt under my fingernails…
Peace
opps forgot gardens… well, I wanted to have some low maintenance gardens and so started four years ago with raised beds … no vegetables, although I’m a vegetarian, veggie gardening seems too much work… hah! as if these flower gardens aren’t enough work… I’ve posted images of the gardens around the house etc in the past in my LJ… you’ll just have to go look for them…. If you do and find any broken links to pictures please let me know because my online image server changed url addresses and messed them all up for a while and I may have missed fixing some…
Peace and Simple Life
…”hurry hurry land”… I laughed at that…
It sounds like things have changed since you’ve been there. That’s unfortunate. However, your choices of places to live, should you win the lottery, are perfect! Now I have more travel ideas!
Have you indeed been to Algonquin Park? I’m desperately trying to relocate up there by finding a teaching position in that area. So far no luck. I guess the population isn’t booming enough to warrant bringing in new teachers.
I’m there
I am ready to help you out with the work.
It would be the best thing in the world for me.
I’ll take care of the firewood, Ed.
I learned how to split logs up in Northern CA a few hundred years ago.
As for your injuries, the one thing that cured my neck after my car accident was a vigorous 6 weeks of acupuncture and herbs.
It was incredible. 15 years later I STILL benefit from that treatment in the way my body deals with pain now.
I truely enjoy hearing about your life and seeing your amazing photos.
*
Algonquin Park, yes,,, wonderful place… photographed Moose close hand when they came up onto the road, I had to move to the other side of the van… and a family of foxes… watched them for hours as mom came and went and after she would leave, they’d come sneaking out to see if she were gone and would all come out to play… she’d return to find them out of the den and would run them back in and go off looking for dinner again… and out they would come again… one time she waited to see if they would and then scoulded them when they peeked out… there was a hawk circling overhead for an opportunity… I made photographs with a 500 mm lens from inside a fir tree and didn’t approach too close… I’d love to return in the autumn when the mosquitos are gone and take a canoe trip… winter would be good too… someday…
Peace
Re: I’m there
when the accident happened, I was taken by ambulance to the ER (my seat belt made my chest sore and my heart was racing and blood pressure elevated- normal for an accident I would think- they didn’t want to take any chances) They x-rayed me and sent me home with instructions to go see my personal physician on Monday… by Monday, I was pretty sore and my personal physician prescribed massive doses of ibuprophen… a week or so later, with no improvement I went back and he prescribed an increase in dosage… and said I’d probably have to take that dosage for a few months or longer… a red flag to me….. what other body damage would that cause? kidney? liver? I don’t even like to take more than a baby asprin a day for blood thinning… being 55 and vitamins/minerals/other beneficial herbs… I went to a chiropractor who found some bones shifted… we’ve been dealing with trying to get them back into position since April… and getting some strength back to my shoulders… I’m a firm believer of letting the body heal itself… our big challenge is that the muscles that are holding the bones out of place are so tight that we have to rely on hot soaks and deep muscle massages (ouch) so that the chiropractor can get the bones to move… in the mean time all the things that I normally do have had to sit idle…
thank you for your offer of help… but… Ilene is the jealous sort… I like that…
Peace