Posts from the ‘woods’ category

A bad year for purple

We are just past the half way mark for official Summer. But, in Montana, I call it 3/4 :)!

Despite a wet, cool Spring and a bit of rain almost weekly, it is drying up.

The grasses and woods vegetation is getting crunchier every day. As I write this, there is the rumble of thunder but so far, just a few drops of rain now and again.

Weeds and wildflowers…they were very different this year. I have both read and experienced that depending on weather and soil conditions, the things that grow can lie dormant until the specific conditions they like cause growth.

This year seemed to favor yellow things. Although the Lupins had a banner year, other blue-purple things have not.

Not looking so good at the moment, but whatever this is…a kind of yellow clover – it grew gangbusters all over my woods. It was like walking in sunshine until a week ago.

Another overachiever this year was St. John’s Wort which has some medicinal use, but is not good in cattle country and is declared a noxious weed in Montana. No photos as I’ve pulled it all.

It is not just my woods, though. St. John’s Wort is prolific everywhere in the valley this year.

This is what the Lupins look like now… crunchy. But they were gorgeous and abundant in the late spring/early summer.

Miniature wild asters… usually these start in mid to late July and are all over my woods through mid-Fall. There are just a few this year and they look to be nearly done, now in early August.

Even the spotted knapweed, another noxious…in fact, one of the worst noxious weeds… the few that came up looked sickly AND they pulled easily…root and all.

Thistles…I have a love/hate thing with thistles. I LOVE a few of them…the blossoms are beautiful and they attract butterflies. But there is no way to have just a few thistles. Birds love the seeds. Birds eat the seeds. The seeds go through the birds and get deposited, WITH fertilizer…everywhere. There will always be more than enough thistles, just not where I’d like them.

Even the thistles aren’t as robust as usual.

A bad year for purple!

The woods I live in

My name is on the deed and I have probably called them my woods on occasion but I have always felt more steward than owner and I believe that is as it should be.

I had these woods logged – for the health of the woods and for fire safety…theirs and mine.

For the past 5 months plus 11 days especially, these woods have been my steward.

I have been able to relax with Karl in the last weeks, but there were weeks when I kept him very close – watching, being with him. I walked the woods in pitch dark, tethered to him, trying not to interfere with him and not once did I trip or fall…something I am able to do easily in daylight hours on my own :)!

One night, he had an intestinal bug – I believe unrelated to everything else. It came on quickly…you know the thing – the vomit/diarrhea bug that makes you want to sleep on the bathroom floor. We were out in the woods through the night, nearly on the hour until 3 a.m. when it started to slow down. It was November. It was snowing. Thankfully it was not cold – not arctic cold as it had been the week before.

I have never been afraid in these woods – day or night. I am watchful and I listen. I watch Karl and the birds and the deer and the only thing I have ever felt was peace.

The woods I live in.

An hour after Sunrise.

Dream on

I have had visions of the way I’d like my life to be from the time I was old enough to be making some of my own choices.

Hanging in my pre-teen/young teen bedroom was a poster of sunlight in the woods. Our family vacations were taken on a beautiful lake in Northern Michigan where we stayed in a cottage on the lake for two weeks every summer. The area was wooded, hilly in actuality but it seemed mountainous compared to northwest Ohio, where we lived.

I had this vision that the perfect place to live would be with a mountain and woods behind me and a lake at my feet.

I grew up, finished school, went to work, married. Normal stuff. Every day on my way to work as I’d pass houses with lights on, I would think that I really just wanted to be at home…working at home. This was in the 70’s, before personal computers and the internet. Working at home meant housewife.

I divorced. I moved to California. I still worked…and then, personal computers. I taught myself to program for a small business I worked on with another. I went to work for a startup software company – not as a programmer, I was the distribution manager…I set up the order entry department, leased a warehouse and equipped it, set up the shipping department. The startup never took off. While things were slow and before they finally laid me off, I used the extensive library to teach myself other computer languages. I loved programming and it fit me.

I was laid off in June. I spent the summer at the beach reading Robert Ludlum books. I drove cross country – my first cross country driving trip – to visit my folks in Florida. September – maybe I should start looking for a job… The old vision, though…

After several half-hearted job interviews, I phoned the software company and asked if they knew of anyone who needed any custom programming. They did. I got the consulting job. I went to buy a computer and got a lead on another job from the salesman at the computer store. Summers & Co., which became Beardog Consulting was born. That was 25 years ago. That phone call started everything in motion.

And now…the mountains are out my front door, through the woods. Flathead Lake and Echo Lake, within minutes…and rivers which are now my most favorite of waters. My little house in the woods where I stay home and work.

This last week, I’ve started my mornings not on the front porch, but in the back of the house…on my chair. Karl is near watching and listening – the game trail runs down the hill behind the house and we hear the movement of deer, a great horned owl on occasion and sometimes just the quiet.

It is nearly pitch dark looking forward across the yard and into the woods. But looking up, there is light in the sky.

Although overcast and this morning, foggy, the waning moon still lights the sky enough that the trees are dark in contrast.

All week, I’ve had an almost overwhelming feeling of happiness, contentment, peace and gratitude.

This morning, that young vision came to mind as well as thankfulness that everything was put in my path that was needed to get to this place – to this life that is right for me, in this perfect for me house, in the woods, by the mountains, with my dog and my cat.

I have other dreams and other visions – simple things – but I see them. The dreams, the visions – they do not get in the way of enjoying and loving what I have now. They serve the purpose of guiding choices – helping me to say yes or no to how I spend my time.

On this foggy morning, in the lovely stillness, in the company of my good dog – I thought about how dreams have come true.

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with success unexpected in common hours. —Henry David Thoreau

Dream on.