January | 2020 | Michael S. Moore

…the first two numbers being the current weight of each of our tiny puppies at eight months,

vastly overshadowing the Little White Dog, Aggie, at 36 pounds.

Monday Linda went to Denver to watch paint dry and we walked to the library

and back

home for

a Terry Allen revival in the studio

as dogs faithfully awaited her return, all day…

So on went the week, cloudy and uneventful save for fruitless attempts to figure out [in the absence of any information whatever] why the valves in the pumphouse were so mysteriously set and why even after being properly adjusted and the pump restarted we still had nothing

coming down the line, all of which wasted much of Wednesday. A full day Thursday precluded

further investigations as we made that last trip to Walsenburg with bottles and trash, cruised by the Habib and the laundromat’s poignantly appropriate mural before

making our way to La Veta where one lunched

with old friends at a place so new it had virtually no signage*. “Legends” promises, however, to be the best midday option in town; authentically New Mex Mexican, all homemade, all good.

While there our neighbor Leon, further down the line, called to say he’d sorted out the water – a valve absentmindedly left closed during an abandoned attempt to fill an upstream tank, no excuses, no explanations but…water was making it through to him as it would [now] to us.

Once home I walked around turning valves which resulted in ten

inches an hour all the sunny afternoon and into the night, the evening spent enjoyably feasting on potatoes and beeves with Joan and Robert at Mountain Water, talking of art and books and coming home at ten to a full tank. 25 degrees, stars not shown, I drove around turning valves,