A year has passed since I last posted on this blog. A long year, an epic year; sometimes glorious and sometimes tragic. Our nation spins into a historic place in the universe, where anger and anxiety erupt like the burning lava from restless Kilauea.
Photo U.S. Geological Survey
As the nation reels toward some dark unknown, I reinvent my life at home. This July 4th, I won’t go to the barn with apples and carrots once the fireworks start. Larkey isn’t there anymore to become anxious and need my company. He passed away suddenly, catastrophically in May. He not only isn’t there in form — I can’t find him in spirit anymore.
We got in one spring bath this year.
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I am reimagining the barn space because I won’t replace my horses. I work too far from my home to acclimate and train a new horse. They are herd animals, so more than one is better. I can’t be sure I’ll be around for the entire life of a couple young horses, and it isn’t easy to find a new home for equines.
But I can’t bear the silence, the vacancy walking through the barn. I am never lonely without people, but this feels alone, and lonely.
So I planted flowers in Larkey’s hay bins, to honor him and to soften the memory of what happened in the outside paddock. When the barn swallows are done nesting in September, I will clean his stall, repaint, and turn the space into an outdoor painting studio for the warm months. Maybe then his spirit will come back and keep me company.
The outside wall has been decaying, and needs reinforcement and new surface. It is a perfect, sunlit surface for a green wall, an herb garden. A coworker helps me find an idea and I start cleaning out the space within.
I will clean the horse trailer and sell it. I will never need one again, and this one has been sitting unused for years, unless you count bird visitors. The proceeds can go toward a camper van, maybe.
I believe this is a Pacific slope flycatcher nest. Last year, a Bewick’s wren nested here.
After decades with horses woven tightly in the fabric of my life, I am wandering adrift in the starlit dark searching for a new universe to occupy.
This is what I was doing instead of blogging- thousands of hours of work storytelling. This ESRI Story Map is best viewed desktop with Chrome or Safari.
The neglect of this blog did not mean I fell silent. I had trailed the story of the North American buffalo across thousands of miles and hundreds of hours of research. I labored to create this story in a multimedia online platform- something different, maybe something that would attract a younger audience. Maybe they would care and step up to support prairie and bison conservation. I spent hours every night on this project, missing time with Larkey, missing time to exercise. It published in January and was better received than I expected. The project gained a life of its own, with a blog and social media channels that needed tending.
The badlands of Grasslands National Park in Saskatchewan were as far away and unpeopled as I could find.
With Lark gone, I took to the road to process my new life. I had already gone to Nebraska for the sandhill crane festival, then France for a conference and vacation. But I needed away again, so I traveled to Montana and Saskatchewan. I drove, and wandered grasslands, and slowly the nightmares and sleepwalking ended.
I am very blessed to have a home of my own. Sure, it’s a lot of work, but it is a quiet place –and my own place.
Now I am home again, digging myself out from an explosion of greenery, and figuring out what is next. The barn swallows are back from South America. Rufous hummingbirds have arrived from Mexico and joined our resident Annas hummers. Red admiral and swallowtail butterflies appear on warm sunny days, dancing on the breeze.
I count my blessings. I am lucky to have been tested young and learned how to adapt. I am resilient, and have the ability and resources to recreate. As the world gets darker and narrower, many find themselves trapped. I am not, at least right now. The terrible memory of Larkey’s death still sneaks up on me, but I am not an anguished parent adrift in a strange country with no idea where my children reside. I am not now in a war zone, wondering when the bombs will detonate.
And I have things to do. More stories to tell, artwork to create, images to capture. I need to get back into shape to backpack in the fall. I don’t know what the next year will hold for me, for the nation, for the world. But today and every day I can find something bright, and count myself fortunate for the time being.
My remaining horse, and all the animals I’ve cared for here are also a reason for gratitude. I bought this house, located in such a perilous place, for my horses. Here I am now, down from four horses, two dogs, and two cats that came with the house. I one horse left, and he’s ageing and looking sore on one leg, and we can’t figure out what it is. I’m feeling the loss of my other horse, and this animal’s aching.
This sanctuary is where I learned to heal the land and make a home for wildlife. Teaching other people what I learned over a decade of habitat restoration has made me a better communicator. Volunteering to give workshops lets me give something back to the world. My habitat project has helped my really see and understand wildlife. Animals have driven my art, my interests, my travel. The drive to restore even more every year keeps me moving, digging the earth, creating hedgerows and gardens and wild, tangled refuges.
By the end of holiday break, I could see my house as far more than an object and investment again. I slowed down, puttered around, rearranged my space, reconnected enough to see it as more than a snapshot. Not racing by, on a schedule to get things done, as a place of chores and responsibilities and somewhere to rest between work days.
Silver Snag Studio 