BI-kin' in the rain .. i'm bi-kin' in the rain ...

There are SOME who thought that my weekly bike-ride to visit the pooch would be cancelled this past Friday due to the rains which so surprisingly have returned. But having been given a rain-poncho some time ago by a guy here who’d heard that i’d misplaced my umbrella -- which has since turned up -- i’d decided that i was makin’ the trip, come hell or … well, you know.

i left at 9 right after breakfast, but stopped only a few minutes later, to remove my t-shirt. it was cold enough that i wore sweatpants, but too warm under the nylon poncho and with the backpack, and there was no point in getting my t-shirt drenched with sweat. There was a nice breeze in through the sleeves and around my sweating arms and torso that kept a nice balance throughout the trip between warm and cool.

Stopped to check how much more of the boar carcass had decayed: from the road i could see a coupla more holes in its side; i didn’t feel the need to examine more closely for further evidence. Stopped at the General Store for my weekly cuppa coffee, and discovered they have a gift-shop! i got 3 postcards and a chocolate bar to send to a loved one on the way back.

My brakes were wet and squeaking to raise the dead as i descended the dirt road to Mike’s place, and i could hear the dogs barking down below when i was still about a mile up the hill. i stopped once to have a look at the torrent of water rushing through the place where last week Sandy and i had had our little dip, now completely submerged by another foot of roiling bubbling water.

It was with some pride when i stepped through Mike’s door a few minutes later, and found Mike sitting inside with Annie, the two of them relaxed with a day’s work rained out. “All right, show of hands: how many thought i wasn’t coming today?” a question to which Michael replied without hesitation, by sticking his hand in the air. “You bastard!” i laughed. Not having been expected i was even happier at having arrived, and alive.

i didn’t really care if there was work or not .. i just wanted to see and spend time with Sandy. Mike said Sandy stared at the gate last night like she was expecting me, and we figure she’s got the weekly pattern of my visits figured out by now, this having been the fourth in a row. She is after all half German shepherd.

Mike’s got new help, Zack: a kee-YOOT! 22-year-old dude from Idaho who is in town till harvest with his two white rottweilers, Mary and Dane. (A dog named Mary! That was a first for me.) We chatted some while Annie made us tacos, then after eating and a bit more chit-chat everybody took off, Zack to the upper greenhouses where he and his pooches would spend the night in a trailer Mike’s got parked up there, and Mike and Annie to his place in a little town nestled along the Avenue of the Giants. i had the run of Mike’s place the rest of the day and the night, which i spent reading (an anarchist newspaper from 2000, and the first two chapters of In the Spirit of Crazy Horse by Peter Matthiessen, one of my favorite authors).

Zack re-appeared a few hours later .. he’d been on his way down from the upper greenhouses and had stopped to watch a “ball” of six young skunks rolling in the grass. And before he could stop them, Mary and Dane were in the middle of things. Dane killed one of them unfortunately before Zack could rein in them, but in the process both man and dogs got sprayed, and i was glad that none of them were hanging around too long!

i sat in front of the fire and read an anarchist’s newspaper published in 2000 – riveting stuff – and then read the first two chapters of a book Mike had laying around: Legend of Crazy Horse by Peter Matthieson, one of my favorite authors, before lights out about 11. The Swiss mountain beast Heidi insisted on sleeping next to me, which Sandy obviously didn’t mind, since she was comfortably curled up where she wanted to sleep, and the three of us were shortly snoozing.

Coffee, toast and a banana for me in the morning before heading out the door about 11, again in the rain. The hill away from Mike’s place is too steep and long for much riding, so i walked most of it, and even then i was huffing and puffing. But my socks and sneakers had mostly dried out, and i had a nice ride, with the rain tapering off during the second half of the trip back.

i went to a meditation work-group Thursday evening at Lynn’s place. Lynn works in Enrollment and was one of the two women i was talking on the phone with when i was an applicant. She hosts a session structured loosely around The Power of Now, and i’d brought along my dog-eared and well-annotated copy to read from just in case i was asked to read from it, which i was. And i’ve been asked to lead next week’s meditation. i sent a request for any favorite guided-meditations to my old friends from my spiritual work-group in Amsterdam and Ulli has already come through for me and sent a lovely meditation that she copied out of Deepak Chopra’s new book Synchrodestiny.

Well it’s Wednesday morning here, and it must be last night’s coincidence of the full moon with the summer equinox that has made me late in posting this week’s update! i didn’t do the sauna as i’d thought i might after class last night (Tuesdays we get out of class at 9:15 pm), and instead headed down to my room to finish off this blog update. But Nile was feeling kind of down, and he and i had a long chat about stuff over a couple of glasses of red wine, until it was too late (and i was too woozy!) to think about walking all the way back up to the lodge, a ten-minute walk from our room in the “lower dorms.” There’s a week-long break from classes (but not from work) next week, and i hope to get caught up with a few things i’ve let slide for a while, like email, paperwork, and a bit of schoolwork.

But for today it’s off to Garberville. i’m saving my butt for the weekly bike-ride to visit Sandy, so for today it’s Have Thumb Will Travel. i’ve got a check to deposit from a few hours work i did last Wednesday at the home of Heartwood’s founder Bruce Burger -- shoveling stones to fill in potholes along the dirt road to his property, and a couple of hours of weed-whacking (to help with fire safety) – and want to hit the library, buy a toothbrush and shaving cream, explore the town a little bit more. (Btw: the link to Bruce's name includes info about my massage instructor, Bess Donahue.)