Rainbow Chaser

Thursday afternoon's high winds became a brief thunderstorm about 7 p.m., and as I drove the last lap home across floodplain, a tall, vivid rainbow appeared, visible end to end. Excited, I found and wildly drove up the wrong side of a back road leading to a vista on a hilltop, scrambled out of the car and photographed the rainbow, by then fading. The chase itself was the day's highlight.

There followed a purple and lemon sunset so awesome I thanked God I was alive and outdoors to see it. During some sunsets, I'm indoors, working. It's a crime and I know it. On my one visit to the Grand Canyon I joined the people anticipating and gathering to watch the sunset as an event, as a one-time-only performance, and thought then, "This is the right way to honor a day of our one and only life." Having finished the drive home, I saw the sunset had changed its key, creating a Thomas Kincaid painting of my own dwelling. Sometimes I look at it thinking, "I live here? People can live in only one place. This is my home? The home I've chosen for my one and only life? How -- how awesome!"

When I moved here I was reverent about sunrise and sunset, grasses and moonlight, things that in the city are in artificially short supply. Thursday's rainbow invited me (and everyone) to renew that reverence, and the sunset sent me this letter, written with light.

R & R & T

I am a workaholic and realized I almost never spend whole days outdoors anymore. So out I go into the mists of October, scaring packs of deer who apparently thought this property was all theirs.

I have now re-engaged with recreation and hobbies. A two-mile walk today on an unexpectedly steep new trail I balanced with a half-hour of leisure in the zero-gravity chair with a pot of hot tea.

I'm taking Russian-language classes and barre classes. The Russian teacher lived four years in Moscow. She says, "Russia is the only country in the world where a poetry reading can fill a stadium." I plan to live on my Social Security in the lovely Silk Road city of Samarkand, Uzbekistan. They all speak Russian, and I'm glad they do, because there's no Uzbek-language classes around here.

Barre classes are ballet-inspired workouts but without the impact. I bought a package of 10 one-hour classes to deliberately invest too much to waste them. One hour in class draws only the most determined and addicted, because barre is torture and whips up those endorphins like, whoo-ee. The regulars -- there are lots! -- are all trim through the middle and have built a genuine booty. That's right, a booty worth writing home about. If I get one, I will post it. Twenty years older than most participants, I sometimes lag but never quit and after three classes am catching on.

Later I'll practice my bongos.

Janitor of Eden

After two weeks away, the first thing to do is empty the mousetraps. Very fortunately there was only one mouse cadaver, fresh thank God, because had it been two weeks old it'd be stuck to the floor. I'd left May 20, just when there's so much to do to ensure a good summer here. Like:

• repair the porch screen. My sworn enemies, the squirrels, chewed through it and gnawed the plastic gasket from the metal step-can I store those delicious sunflower seeds in -- but failed to get to the seeds. Nyah, nyah.
• buy basil and dill plants and soil for repotting into the pots they'll occupy all summer, pots carried into full sun every morning and sheltered next to the house at nightfall, because otherwise the squirrels overturn and uproot them out of pure spite.
• clean and refill hummingbird feeders. I almost didn't want to leave for two weeks because the empty feeders would disappoint the hummingbirds, but I'm hoping my extra-sweet nectar recipe will persuade them to return and trust me; I don't intend to leave them again.
• retrieve the seed feeder from the underbrush where raccoons had dragged and left it; soap and rinse it, dry it in the sun. Acquire a poison-ivy hickey on my left leg.
• greet new young turtles and rabbits who have no idea I live here too.
• witness a high-speed chase: Miss Turkey in hot pursuit of a hefty blacksnake sidewinding itself across the grass at top speed and beneath the propane tank, thus winning that round.
• pull and dry the spring onions before they form heads.
• refill those clever little outdoor mouse-poison dispensers with green-turquoise blocks of mouse poison. They work; they've cut the indoor mouse war by 75 percent.
• approach the bluebird box to clean it. Yes, one must clean one's bluebird box. I didn't want to. Last time I looked, the nest held three baby chickadees and a baby bluebird. This is unusual. I feared finding the nest holding one or more dead. With gloved hands I unhooked the box and pulled out the nest. It was empty. Everyone had fledged! I was overjoyed.
• inspect the forest floor where the summer mushrooms grow. Despite an inch of rain, found nothing. It's still quite early in the season. On the way, saw butterflies enjoying the blossoming milkweed.
• check blackberry brambles for incipient blackberries, due in about three weeks. There are indeed little blackberry bullets. Last year's drought meant we had no crop. This year I hope for better.
• buy at the fruit and vegetable stand every sort of fresh tasty thing: beets, apples, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, kale, berries, mushrooms, red onion, bananas, peppers, grapefruit, romaine -- to refill the fridge and to purify myself after two weeks away. And oh, yes, buy a bottle of wine, a rose, but I won't admit to that.
• clean the picnic table; apply a tablecloth.

All this activity was joyful. Give me a new computer stand and I'm in Eden! I'm so glad to be home, among the plants and creatures.

Breakfast Alfresco

"What would be fun?" I asked myself and could not come up with an answer. This is very abnormal because I think everything is fun, from hikes to mud to old trucks to blizzards. How else could it be, living in the world's most wonderful place?

When nothing came to mind, I tried another tactic: If I was in love, what would I be doing right now at 8 a.m.?

-I'd be serving breakfast to the loved one.
-I'd make this breakfast from the very best I had, to be the best and most memorable breakfast in the world, all for love.
-I'd skimp on nothing nor would I care about calories, because my loved one is perfect as is and thinks I am perfect too. So I'd use real butter and the works and serve enough to fuel the loved one all morning long.
-I wouldn't care about the number of bowls, pans, dishes, paper towels, or anything.
-I'd go to great lengths, even trotting everything outside to the red picnic table a total of four round trips, to have breakfast in the ideal quintessential vividly green July morning, the grass perfectly mown so any chiggers would have to leap really high to bite me behind the knees.

With day-old French bread, plus eggs, milk, sugar and cinnamon, syrup and some (uncured, excellent, local) bacon I'd frozen and forgotten about, I fixed the imaginary loved one the best possible breakfast and served it in the shade beneath the twin oaks. Then I ate it, in the company of one bumblebee attracted by the fragrance of syrup. Oh yes, memorable. I ought to do this every day for a year.

What Would a 17-Year-Old Do?

6:00 a.m.

It's August, perfect weather. Zero chance of rain. Time to put up the tent and sleep outside.

-I like my bed. I'll just open the bedroom windows. That's almost like sleeping outside.

The meadow was just mown, it's perfect.

-Nah. Then I have to put a mat in it, and sleeping bag, and pillow, and there are chiggers in the meadow. . .

Why'd you move here 15 years ago?

-Because I loved the cabin and the land and the woods on sight. I actually slept in the woods, in that cave-like area behind the waterfall; I built fires there; the woodpile is still there.

Don't like those things anymore?

-I love them more than life itself.

Remember when you were 17? You had passion and recklessness, a commitment to art, loved and believed, and dreamed of one day living in what you could call your woods, with a stream, cabin and everything: stargazing, animals, morning mists. . .

-Okay. The tent's up. The pillow and blanket are in it. Having rinsed my chigger-attracting legs with a 5 percent bleach solution and pulled athletic socks halfway to my knees, I bid you good night.

-And a good morning.

Please to the Table.

It's a work of yard art that Patrick built and delivered today, the table made of scrap wood abandoned in the garage--now back outdoors where it came from, and under the twin oaks, replacing the old redwood picnic table. I had no idea what the new one would look like and am delighted. Its legs, old 3x3s, are specially and uniquely textured with termite channels (see photo). Patrick and his son installed it on paving slabs that'll settle into the earth after a few rains. It's built so it will be great as a gardening table and for barbecuing, since all I have is a hibachi. Come see it! I'll give you lunch and lemonade. I'll make you espresso, too, if you want. A table is a holy thing.

Prepare a Table

Golly, the prices on nice new redwood picnic tables that come in pieces and are properly drilled so I'd have a cat's chance of assembling them, and on state-park-quality weatherproof synthetic tables I could leave outside 365 (no longer eager to drag them into the garage every autumn); a chintzy plastic table, the only affordable kind, wouldn't last two years in our I-love-you-I-hate-you Missouri weather. But I'd like a table again beneath the twin oaks. I dismantled the old rotted one screw by screw, about two weeks ago.

Thought then to look up plans to build my own. There's a lot of wood in the garage, all sizes and shapes, much of it just fine, like 3 x 3 posts, and big sheets of pine and plywood, and hollow wooden closet doors, and braces, and other pieces I did target practice on, but most of them whole. It's been there unmoved for seven years. I hardly even saw it anymore. I'd need certain kinds of varnish, paint, power tools (with no electricity in the garage; I once refinished a door by flashlight). Demetrius bought the stack of weights in the photo, becoming for the first time in his life a crazed health nut when diagnosed with terminal cancer; he was so human. And he bought all the wood, too, because we were going to have a treehouse, and just because. This would have been my first carpentry project. Never handled a power saw in my life. Changed my mind. (My mind is my power saw.)

It occurred to me I could ask and pay someone to build a sturdy outdoor table using these available materials. So I did. It might get started as soon as next week.

The White Sand Beach

And the object of crossing the creek was to get to this beautiful and secluded LaBarque Creek "beach" and find a perfectly smooth spot and lie there in the sun, in sand so silky it doesn't stick to your clothes. It also makes great quicksand, which I've been caught in only once, in the LaBarque beneath a highway bridge.

Fortunately I'd previously read about quicksand. The impulse is to put all your weight on one leg, hoping to pull the other one out. But instead of helping, that leg sinks deeper, and vice versa. It's impossible to describe the sensation of suction from which you can't free yourself. 1) Don't panic. Areas of quicksand are mostly no bigger than a puddle and no deeper than a knee. In very slow motion -- don't tread or churn, it only makes it worse -- free one leg, and feel around with your foot or hiking pole until you find solid ground so you can -- again, slowly and steadily -- haul the other leg up and out, or 2) if that doesn't work, having tossed aside your backpack, lie back -- and either you will locate solid ground behind you or you will float. Yes, you'll float in quicksand; it's sand suspended in water. Lie back and your legs will eventually float upward. Then use extremely slow and gentle swimming motions to get to solid ground. Better yet, use your hiking pole(s) to test for firmness before stepping in unfamiliar wet sand.

Black is the New Orange

I vow on a stack of hymnals this is the final time I will ever mention mu---ooms, but (look hard) here was such a miniscule living gem of a snail, exquisite as a diamond, tender as a rice noodle, discovered while I was wiping bits of dirt from a pound of fresh-picked chanterelles, and it too was the answer to my question: Who besides box turtles and pin-sized maggots chews up the Divine Property's mother lode of chanterelle mu---ooms before I find and get a hold of them?

Twenty Years and Tattered

Finally this afternoon the business of a too-busy summer was said and done, and for the first time this calendar year I had time and energy to set up my tent, because in summer I like spending a few nights a week sleeping in it, enjoying the cool earth and looking up through the netting at the fireflies and stars, and waking in the dawn amid mists and freshness. Having folded my tent carefully last fall, I unrolled it-- a six-sided, two-person dome tent--took the poles and stakes from the carry bag, and as I worked the tent poles through the sleeves for maybe the 200th time, remembering adventures in the Ozarks, in an Iowa county park, on a stony island in Wisconsin, and so on--heard: rip--rip. Shredding gave way to more shredding. The netting that formed the dome was kaput.

My first thought was to buy new netting of just the right kind, cut it hexagonally and machine-sew it myself across the tent top: good as new. But, impossible. The tent is 20 years old.  It cost precisely $20 at Grandpa Pidgeon's, a chain store defunct in 1999. The twin zippers haven't worked for seven or eight years. One of the poles is a replacement, and six inches too short. It is time for a new tent.

Was it really time? I asked myself. And answered: Yes; what perfect, perfect timing! Tomorrow, day after Labor Day, tents will be on sale everywhere and you will find the next love of your camping life.

Pink Rocks / Amidon Conservation Area

Among Eastern Missouri's most popular outdoor features are its rocky rapids through elephant-sized boulders called "shut-ins" -- and the best known is Johnson's Shut-Ins, but the most awesome is the Pink Rocks shut-ins on the Castor River at Amidon Conservation Area, about 8 miles east of Fredericktown, MO, which I visited with the hiking group today. Traces of iron in the ancient stone created the pink boulders and cliffs that DON'T ERODE, and pure chilly water rushes between them, with quiet pools downstream for dips and bass fishing. Formerly a teenage hangout, the Pink Rocks have been reclaimed so visitors can fish, refresh themselves, and picnic right on the boulders. Above, a fellow hiker, post-hike, enjoys herself in the shut-ins on this gorgeous June day, the final day of June 2013; and below's a view of the massive pink cliffs (look for the people. See them?). More info about Amidon Conservation Area here. Eastern Missouri's geology, south of about Hillsboro, MO, has a volcanic origin which created veins of copper, lead, silver, lime, silica, and barite--and its "Lead Belt" supported mining businesses from the 1700s to the present day. It's some of the oldest exposed rock on earth. I tell ya, Missouri has everything.

The Wide Missouri

Joined the local "Let's Hike" Meetup club to discover new trails, and they're all in my area. The group has many members  and usually about 10-20 people on every hike. They all come with many hiking tastes and paces and kinds of equipment. This photo was taken on the invigorating five-mile Clark Trail at the 7000-acre (no typo) Weldon Spring Conservation Area in St. Charles County, MO, about 24 miles from my home. Lots of persimmon trees! The river is the wide Missouri.

Tracks by the Creek

Whose tracks are these in the white silica sand by the creek? Hint: It's a bird people traditionally like eating today. But these birds are running free and wild on the Divine property, thanks be.

Scared to Grill? Who, Me? Nahhh....

Grilling is counterintuitive: You don't put the food on while there's fire? You wait until the flames go out? I finally accepted this as a reality and chose this year to acquire grilling skills. I have had $10 tabletop grills whose bellies burnt through on the first use; no good. Can't lift the propane tanks for gas grills. My best previous experience was with a cast-iron hibachi, so the next step up was the Lodge Cast Iron Portable (sort of; it weighs 35 pounds) Grill. Followed the step-by-step "be a grilly girl" article in the latest issue of Taste of Home Healthy Cooking magazine: Get self-lighting coals. Pile them in a pyramid. Don't skimp. Light. Light. Light, darn it! Why won't they *#***@* light? (Tuck a sheet of newspaper underneath those coals, girlfriend!) Oil the grill so food won't stick. Go away for 45 minutes and return with food packaged in aluminum foil. Grilling seems to require lots of foil.

The magazine's recipe was for grilled corn with olive oil and garlic. In a cookbook I found the recipe for grilled potatoes with onions in a packet (not shown; they were cooking in the coals). Online were instructions to shape the beef patties with a small hole in their centers. This way you can ascertain when they are cooked through. To keep fat from dripping and flaming fat from charring the meat, cook in a disposable aluminum pan until the last few minutes; then move them directly onto the grill to get that smoky taste and grill marks. The corn is that "butter and sugar" bicolor cultivar so popular and good they almost don't sell anything else around here anymore.

While waiting for the food to grill, sit down, enjoy the beautiful Missouri spring day and perhaps a beer. I didn't have one because I now get plastered and loop-legged after a single bottle.

The result was not bad for a novice. Practice makes perfect. I see so many great grilling recipes and don't want to miss out. (P.S. The following week I grilled a flatiron steak, my first grilled steak, and wrote about it.)

Everybody Loves Confusion

The light green hose is older and made of tough rubber that's gotten a bit stiff. It was in the garage when I moved here and nothing is wrong with it, except the car ran over and warped the brass coupling where it attaches to the dark green hose, and after that these hoses couldn't be separated.

Which was bad news, because the dark green hose, bought during hard times, is plastic, cheap and after a year developed semi-permanent kinks.

Last night I tried coiling it. I wrestled it. I pulled it to its full 30-foot length, took the twists out, and tried again. Tried to pinch the kinks open. Tried standing on the kinks to pinch them open. Then tried to coil it. It turned into knots, and kinked again -- Photo shows the best coil I could get. After struggling for an hour, it suddenly hit me: Throw this out. Buy a new one. And don't buy a cheapie!

Walk a Mile in My Shoes

Life in the country requires serious footwear, but sometimes I'm forced to go to the city, and for that I need dress shoes -- women's pumps with heels. But I'm very active, and can shred the soles of a pair of girly shoes in less than one day.

To slip and fall on the wet gravel in front of the Divine cabin, or on asphalt, or on cobblestones in the city streets, for me, would be no joke. I walk places, run in the rain, climb stairs. Three months ago, wearing stockings and a suit, in an emergency I vaulted a stone wall (using the old Western Roll). For YEARS I've pined for a pair of ordinary black pumps that could handle all this; and, oh yeah, fit my Extra-Wide, divinely crafted feet.

Finally in a Janesville, Wisconsin McDonald's this summer, I see an employee reading a shoe catalog called Shoes for Crews. Online I found their pair of passable-looking pumps with SERIOUS non-slip soles. I mean, these pumps have TREADS. And they're comfortable. Mostly they sell clogs, oxfords, sneakers, boots, etc. to working people: kitchen workers, nurses, construction workers, farmers. But I ordered their pumps and now have confidence that at least my shoes, even my girly shoes, won't hold me back or let me down. And I just had to let you know.