Wall Spring, where one typically doesn’t use the car for at least seven or eight days at a time

[thus satisfying Moore’s Metric of Disruption which dementedly seems to equate such interruptions with a lack of productivity] whereas looking back over the past coupla weeks here it’s rare to go more than two days without venturing at least as far as Gardner if not Pueblo, Walsenburg, La Veta or some combination thereof…in spite of which we’re finally, not without struggle, inching our way up Dry Creek despite a mere two days after our trip to La Veta and the ‘burg

it was time to gather up the previous two weeks’ trash and descend to Gardner for the Farmer’s Market and on the way out El Depot* where, as traffic was backed up in both directions

and the gates inexplicably closed, we drove on.   With the trash stashed under a 55 gallon drum pending another trip to town we were out again that night for dinner sharing old peoples’

conversations of dead pets, dying friends and local gossip over hors d’oeuvres with old friends.  We learned El Depot, under new management but still ostensibly open every Saturday, had been closed without warning [even the vendors of smoked goat cheese and homemade tamales were not alerted] to honor this week’s Sun Dance.  Lots of rotting garbage including ours went back into the hills as a result, all the better to attract bears [to be fair it hasn’t been a big bear year. Yet.] as we partied on with exuberances of cornbread, chile, masses of roast potatoes, wine and talk until way [for old peoples] late.  The next afternoon Aggie, L. and I

climbed the knoll to see if there was evidence of Sun Dancing but it was Sunday, and done.

Around then the heat finally abated, even moreso in the wake of an afterdark electrical spectacle which eventually resolved into rain.   We made it still further up a wet Dry Creek

the next morn, were treated to a three-county three-hour squirrel-caused electrical outage

during an otherwise

uneventful day

ending in rain, flash flood warnings and quiet.

Tuesday brought an unprecedented  third uninterrupted day around home, creek and studio…

until the evening when we ventured across the valley for another of Those Dinners…less gossip and old peoples’ talk but an inspiring studio visit, extraordinary pigmeat, fine wine,

a cherry tart and good times.  Good times seem to leave us increasingly diminished of late

but the creek beckoned nonetheless and yet again…followed by Research [my new favorite painter the Oxnard native Henry Taylor], also “The Patch”; John McPhee at his best** …etc.]

and time spent loading the truck in preparation for the next day’s trip to the ‘burg where they have a friendlier less fly-infested transfer station happy to accept all our bottles, cardboard and worse [not shown, but the bear-baiting saga ended uneventfully] .

and so on…

*El Depot being the former recycling and current transfer station conveniently located ten miles away in Gardner.

** John McPhee at his very very good best has temporarily supplanted my  Jaime De Angulo binge, to which I intend to return in good time.