back to San Francisco, work, and a summer watching over ROTC cadets at Fort Knox while we

watched fledging magpies riot,

marveled at the innocent incompetence of the new UPS driver [and were in retrospect glad he hadn’t his gloves to try to unravel the gate] as we were blessed with a couple of days

of rain…chill enough for a rare daytime fire.

FedEx,  who’d never dream of unraveling a gate, continued to deliver re-labeled packages

pre-opened and as the weather opened up

I made a first trip to town…a 216 mile round trip for groceries and two new brushes.

Up through Surprise Valley, Cedar Pass to Alturas, back down Surprise Valley through

Eagleville, then Duck Flat and over the still cricket-ey Buffalo Hills

to May’s fullish moon.