Feeling better than the time before [the time before being a year ago quite ill and depleted after a two day but much longer drive fleeing triple digits in Nevada with probable covid] one set

out to move in…eight months of flies, of course,

but also the Mud of Large Paws

gave pause not to mention

an initial mystery wherein 3000 gallons of water disappeared without a trace overnight.

Fortunately there was still plenty upstream so after a hectic second afternoon

the tank was filled that evening and within a few days L. had us reconnected with Jeremy Brett.

Before our week here was up we’d had the Festive Fourth, a time for True Patriots to be out mowing down their fellow citizens with their God-given automatic weapons while we,

eight miles up a dirt road, celebrated more judiciously* with a few like-minded friends.

Though rained off the porch the dinner in was enhanced by rainbows.

Mornings brought increasingly ambitious attempts at the ascent of Fossil Hill after L.

took the Taco to the ‘burg

and although after a week I still hadn’t made it all the way up she had and had also

retrieved the truck, its entire AC system replaced after the compressor’s clutch exploded.

I did manage to get to the studio,

if only for surveillance,

before the first week at Libre ended…

*A perhaps inauspicious term, given the state of things judicial these days…