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27 October ~ 2007

I finished the irrigation line I started a couple of weeks ago at horse rescue. My feeling is that the trees didn't have much of a chance without it. It is too dry out there and too hard to drag the hoses out to water them. Now you just have to hook up the hose to one end and they are all watered at once.

I found that the fine clay soil there clogs up the holes I drilled in the PVC more than my loamy soil at home does. The solution is easy enough when that happens - just drill another 1/16 inch hole near the clogged one. So far only one drip irrigation hole has clogged.

Two of the trees we planted last year were dead this spring. I replaced them with some 20 foot Cottonwoods I found on fall clearance.

While I was working I liked to think of this row of trees thirty years from now - tall and full and stately.

I walked around the grounds a couple of times in the morning - checking the fences, looking for the gate that the project board said needed to be fixed, and stroking the necks of horses that came to the fence to see me.

After feeding was done young Kyle asked me if I needed some help burying the PVC line. He is now the Saturday barn manager and I can tell he likes the new responsibility. He seems quiet and a little uncomfortable during conversation, and I wonder if he is that way talking with ladies. I can tell he has a good heart and not doubt some young woman will persist through his shyness until she connects with him. (That is what happened to me when I was young).

Kyle told me he was going to babysit for his parent's adopted daughters tonight - two five year old girls. He said his parents were going to a halloween party. I remarked that that is a fun age for kids, near the kids I lead on nature programs and tell stories to. He agreed, as long as they are in a good mood. (I had forgotten about that. I am with the children and their teachers for only an hour or two, and their crankiness becomes their parents or teacher's problem.)

I mentioned the Grizzly Rose halloween party was tonight, and that I will just go as myself, since everything I thought of being seemed dorky. Instead I will do what I do every year - dance with all the halloween characters and let them show their stuff. My favorite over the years was a blond dressed up as a barbie princess, with big white gown and everything. Last year I recall dancing with a slender brunette with shorts on and six shooters strapped to her hip.

On my backpack trip last week I had a bunch of memorable dreams during the long full moon nights. Several times the dreams involved a friendship with my exwife. She was kind but not particularly warm. I can't figure out why I still dream about her, since I don't even know her anymore, not having talked to her in years. Something tells me she is a long ways from the simple woman who used to dance with me on Saturday night and sometimes walk with me along the river on Sunday mornings. Money has a way of changing a person, especially if their identify is tied up in having a lot of it.

Why do I still dream about her six years after we parted? She left and everything seemed settled and done. Does the heart have its own timeframe for ending the threads of a deep love?

(to see a 700 pixel wide image of the above collage, click here; to see a 1400 wide pixel image of the above picture, click here)