powerless mornings, electricity comes on with the sun so lots of trekking back and forth to the inverter shed monitoring readouts I don’t know how to read, pogonips and ever the watercolors.

Monday Seth W., who I’d heard was helping Tara over at the Parker, came by and spent most

of the afternoon getting the ’82 sorted to the point where I could drive it over there and – barely – back. He promised he’d return to finish but meanwhile I missed my bath-running window

of sun [the water heater works when the power’s down, not the pump]

so went stickily into the darkness and on to Tuesday, last day, finally getting the correct

screenshot to Rody to definitively determine [slightly premature] battery failure as well as a lot of texting back and forth with Dave about Seth after it became clear he was not only the mechanic but maybe meant to be the guy to take over from Tara though to what extent

remained obscure.  I squeezed in last watercolors, lunched while trees were trimmed* as dogs went crazy and by afternoon had not only taken the belated bath but done all the loading and

closing that should have happened earlier before a last look around…

Wednesday dawn saw a small walk,

the truck loaded, a quarter hour wasted at the gate looking for a vanished phonecord, then

on to Gerlach and over the hill; all dry all the way.

Fast valley traffic, gas seventy cents a gallon more in Benicia than Reno

and a damper cold too though

with springlike afternoons

in January, if flowers or unwrapping the ’45 Chevy count for springlike, I found myself

still a little sore getting in and out of it.  Still, though not quiet; Nani’s fan ran all night the first

night…uneasy sleep.

*EX-treme tree-trimming; large split and fallen trunks extricated and dragged into the field for future cutting…

…