Home is where the Dead are

Homesickness...i’ve got it bad. Started when i got the news that my uncle david died this past weekend. I feel very far away from my mother and the whole stupid funeral process and the sudden smack you in the head reality that is death that everyone there is dealing with....that i’m here dealing with on my own.
I’ve told folks that when i die i want to be buried here on the land....and none of that formaldehyde coffin crap.....just dig that big ol’ hole and put me in it....fetal position....covered in dirt. Back up in the woods next to where my wolf-dog lupa was left dead and eaten by a mountain lion.
But when i get to yearnin’ for home i start to wonder.....maybe burn me and scatter me here and also back in new york. Over mendon ponds...esp. the devils bathtub, and the most magical Mt. Hope cemetery.
My mothers side of my family, both Ambrose and Fink , have been in the rochester and finger lakes area since the 1880’s. I’m some adventurous and stubborn queer sheep way out here in the high desert on my own.

Sometimes i weep from the desire to be lost in the humid green of swampland, to swim in the mid-summer ponds where the plant life reaches up from the bottom to brush my legs as i swim, the chorus of crickets at night, the familiar rhythm of the rolling hills between long slender lakes....
damn....i’ve got it bad.
So i say my goodbyes to David Ambrose from afar....
I forgot to ask my mother where they’ll bury him. Possibly at Mt. Hope near my uncle Paul.

ahhhhhh....youth.

I'm so sleepy and can't wait to crawl off into winter slumber but i feel compelled to share some old photos since i've finally got a scanner and i can make this old photo stuff happen.....

This is me when i was maybe 3 or 4 in mendon, n.y.. Everyone thought i was a boy, while i fancied myself to be a dog(seriously, i ate dog food and everything).....i'm chillin' in the yard of the farmhouse with my dog penny. the bulding behind me is an old carriage house full of old carriages. I used to love to tell other kids about the scary old man that lived in there and ate children. I was a country, only child with a flair for the dramatic. Guess i've come full circle then eh?

and this was my best friend bren and i (more like 5 yrs old), playing in the sandbox. no one ever knew what gender either of us were. he once showed me how he could aim his pee all over and even write on the wall.In this photo, I love the hands on hips seriousness with the red stethoscope in his ears.We used to set up these amazing obstacle courses in the pasture with buckets and poles from the horse jumps. Sometimes i wonder whatever happened to bren....

lost and found

so....i'm getting a book of my poetry published later this year and so right now i'm wading through all this older poetry...looking for gems....and there are some, needing a bit of dusting off, sprucing up. Its lots of fun. I'm even combing old journals that might have unfinished bits and pieces. Anyway...this one is about 10 yrs old....and what makes me chuckle my old whore chuckle is that i can't remember who i wrote it to....


ode to a butch top

i was walking through the woods in late afternoon sundown
when i came to a sudden stop
and for the longest time simply stood staring
at the mountains absorbed
in the memory of the precise moment
your hand finally reaches my cunt your fingers
sliding into my pleasure your need
pulling me apart from the waking world
your easy fingers making me
blood and water rolling standing so still
as the sun set completely lost
in the moment you come in.

borregas y sol

what cracks me up in this photo is the super serious -i am going to ram you- stance that lupe (the white one) has towards pup eva. lupe is always the protector....she'll nail the dogs pretty hard if they don't watch out.

I had dreams of gettin’ outside today and doing outside sort of things in the almost march sunshine but alas, the wind has other plans for me. looks like i’ll have to put some groovin’ music on and dance around in the sunbeams that come into the kitchen....then settle down to spin. Some knitting folks in santa fe are interested in seeing a sample of my yarns and thats great but i don’t have any yarns to show much less a sampling...just bags of fleece crammed under my kitchen table.
I did sit for a bit in the sun on my wind free porch with the sheep....they like to huddle with me there and it gives me a chance to pick unwanted matter from their wool...like rose bramble...thats the worst.
i’m really happy with their fleeces so far....the colors are gorgeous. I’m especially fond of diosas. She’s mostly churro, then cotswold but she has something like 10% karakul and it really shows. Too bad she is so hard to photograph...she’s a lustrous pitch black and always on the move.
unlike godiva here...always ready with a pose and a smile.

This

is a very tired child after a long drive followed by a high mountain pasture romping, sheep walking, woodstack helping kind of day.

how awesome is that.

a spinsters life

ahhhhh....the ups and downs of an environmetally ill, only child, scorpionic spinster life. Today i have visitors coming. Its the first time in 6 months there will be human bodies in my home. And this is a good friend, and accessible! She's been scent and chemical-free for years.
Needless to say I'm really excited. When i woke up this morning it was like freakin' christmas.
now, my visitor is coming a long way...and as it turns out she's getting a late start this mornig and probably wont be here till midday which is a couple of hours later than had been discussed the night before.This means that my 6 hour day with human company will only be 4 hours. And on the phone with her this early a.m. i feigned indifference....pouted a bit like a child in some sort of mockery of my deep churning dissapointment to be losing a couple of hours of humans in my home. When we got off the phone i sobbed like a 5 year old that just lost some knee skin to the driveway......ohhhhhhhhhh......the pain. But it gave me this sobering view into the vast pool of -holding it together- that collects in my gut. How well i store loneliness and tap into all my -never very popular only child- skills.

I've been pleading with the mountains for a while now....please let the weather be kind when the humans come to visit!!!!!
pleeeeeaaaaaasssse. The wind just needs to bite her tongue till sundown...then she can let it rip all she wants.Last thing i want to do is scare off some city folk visitors with the harsh reality of high mountain climate.

and now i must get to cleaning the house....its such a different chore when its for others comfort.

brain time at the okay corral

this is pancake....she's waiting patiently for winter to go the hell away.


'round here i feel like i’m in a dream space of waiting waiting waiting for spring. Its so quiet and just snow snow mud snow me and my animals...tick tock tick tock.
my body is in a lot of pain... i need some warm sunny days in the green grass!!!! I need a hot bath in plenty of water. I’m dreaming of that almost sedating, deep and heavy smell of the tiny mountain roses in bloom.
I’ve really had to learn to hone my patience living here. i ‘ve learned how to make not enough food last long enough...how to quell hunger and keep my blood sugar from dropping. How to make peace with the silence, my health and the subsequent lack of cash flow, the lack of human touch... patience.
if i know anything for sure, its that everything changes...always....better or worse.
spring will come in good time. people will come to the land. the grass will come up. the roses will bloom and stop me in my tracks as i go about my day.
and really, the warm season is just the time when mountain folk get ready for the next cold season. House fixing/building, food growing, wood gathering, hay baling,canning, shearing, and on and on....its all about surviving winter.

what the winter does offer is much brain time. I especially love it when i remember some forgotten tale of my past. I’ve done so many many different things in my half lived life. Today it struck me that i really need to write about some of my past lives...like when i was a sex worker in the bay area....esp. when i worked as a dominatrix. theres some real gems in there. oooooo lordy. i remember this one guy...he was a regular at the dungeon...we called him “ lou the underwear man”....

its no wonder i’m here on a mountain top.

i remembered

to bring my camera to the post office. funny though when i got there i felt sooooo silly pulling out a camera. thats what whitey texans do here...so there i was trying to be all stealth, which the high winds helped a lot with since i didn't want to leave the truck anyway.

this adobe gem is down in the village proper. some 120 years ago it was a store and a gathering place. about 2 years ago the tin started comin off the roof and really thats it for an old mud house . meltdown begins. My guess is that the original roof was wood shingles like the porch.


this is the road up to my house. Thats gambles oak on either side. They didn't do to well last year with the drought...very brown all summer. Sometimes a whole stand will die at one time. This year they'll hopefully be their waxy dark green with big fat acorns...hope hope.


and this ofcourse...is the post office. That is a genuine mid 70's single wide on cinderblocks baby!
Its really fucking tiny in there... and when the wind howls like it is today, it feels like that post office is just gonna blow right over.

winter blanket

i sold a rug today. and damn don't i need the money. Barely a day off the loom and it sold to my neighbor down the canyon from me...i had shown it to her one day when she got her truck stuck in the mud that shoud be the road past my house.
she liked it....and knows i need the money.

and this is no wealthy woman, by any means. but really, it doesn't take much to be wealthier than my poor ass.
i think she is hoping to turn it around at a fiber arts show....sigh.....
but i need a sure sale....can't afford to hang it in a gallery and wait. not it the middle of winter.

Its a gorgeous rug....more like a blanket really, a thick heavy lambswool blanket.3 and half feet by 5 and a half yummy feet... 6 pounds of handspun yarn! i even dyed the yarn by hand.
And the wool is from here in the valley....i do believe a lamb named "fifi" supplied a good amount of the white.

i'm gonna miss that damn blanket.
someday i'll get to keep one.

coyote life.

weather folk say i might see 50 degrees next week.....mmmmmm.....50 whole degrees.
wind right now is kickn' up snow so thick i can't see my frozen hand in front of my frozen face.

anyway....i caught a picture of this coyote passing in front of the house a few days back. I'm tempted to say its a male due to the size...and i think he's the one i see with this small very white female. they were the pair that made off with an aborted calf fetus last spring on my neighbors land....wached the whole drama unfold from my front porch. They came back several times each in order to carry off another big piece. I'm sure it was quite the feast for the whole family.
I've had encounters with them in my pasture and each time they were less afraid of us all....so a few months ago when i went outside to find coyote right by the garden just staring up at the house.....i let the dogs after him and gave him a good scare.
its no good having friendly coyotes around, and no good for them either. they need to stay wild and afraid of humans. 9 outta ten around here would have shot him...which makes me think of that kingsolver story, "prodigal summer" and the bit about how if you kill off coyotes they will reproduce in greater numbers ...givin' ya even more coyotes.

there is another really huge male that i've seen and folks down the valley have seen him as well.He is grey and black and rumor is he's a wolf cross....everyone always loves a good wolf legend. ghosts they are really, like all truly wild things....romantic, a little frightening.
if only we could be so lucky to have that predator back in the woods...
everytime they try and re-introduce mexican wolves back into the wilds of new mexico they are quickly shot by cattle ranchers or hit by cars.....that just about says it all.
poor planet.