Well one well was anyway, but leaking pipes dampened things despite clear crisp days

until several in by which time I was rather considerably stiffened from in ‘n’ out of the crawl

space and firing up the trucks.  The Tundra, five months in the repo, had to be coaxed though the ever faithful ’82 Chev was immediately up and running to the burnpile twice for

the only times out there all week as it turned out.  Bright mornings,

bright evenings, mornings with house water woes until finally, all hope abandoned, James

showed up with just enough 1/4″ tubing to resuscitate the pump before a low flowed in over

frozen diminished ponds bringing mad winds,

dust and splats of rain inspiring an interior day of popcorn [not shown] which

finished off clearing into low cold

end-of-day light.

Night brought small rains; Saturday’s laundry dried slowly and life went on.

Days ended, days began, days warmed

eventually to accommodate lunches [and even a breakfast] on the East Porch…the Ideal Deal.

Weird Wall Spring things left all summer [and then some] were returned to…and left again.

Later days on the Smoke Creek with Storm

Queen, the sculpture park…

in November.

So it ended, much like it began; all too briefly with Tuesday

morning promising another one of those perfect days…but instead requiring a trip down

the desert into Sand Pass wind,

the dust of Doyle,

more dust on 395 [closed at Hallelujah Junction but nominally navigable on 70 as shown]

and California [“No Trespassing” signs = California] where the only surprise was the

absence of a massive chain with about forty zillion padlocks on the gate to say “Welcome” to a Red Zone of another sort.

Welcome!  And why hasn’t anyone SHUT the TRUMP UP yet?