It’s my first overnight stay . . .

here at the cabin since we opened it up from its winter hibernation. 

I would’ve been up here sooner but as usual, nothing good comes without a price. This season, apparently the price is going to be paid to the plumber. It took us a month to get someone up here to look at the pipes and fix the winter's damage. And now the pump has stopped working. 

Once again I am reminded how integral water is to life. Or at least, how integral running water is to a nice couple of days up here at the cabin.

Aside from the water problem, it is as quiet and peaceful and astoundingly beautiful as it has always been, with 17 bazillion different shades of green playing a constantly changing visual symphony around me.

As the trees slowly leaf Big and Little House Mountains disappear behind them.

Soon the cabin will be encircled in a fortress of green and the mountains won’t reappear until late fall.

Sitting here on the porch, drinking my early morning tea I can hear the wild turkeys calling, and nearby there’s a woodpecker going crazy on a rotten tree. And a hundred other sounds fade in and out as the creatures go about their morning ways. 

There doesn't seem to be anything as insistent as the mockingbird in our yard in town who cycles through her entire repertoire at the top of her little bird lungs every morning, perched in the lilac just outside the living room window. She even drowns out the weed whackers and lawnmowers that seem to go from dawn to dusk every day from the beginning of March to the end of November in town, although she can’t hold her own against the life flight chopper or the ambulance sirens from the nearby hospital. Or the cacophony of police and fire engines screaming through town.

On the other hand, there are no mice in the house in town and when you turn the faucet on the water comes out without having to go down to the cistern and pump it up the hill. 

Or not pump it up the hill, so you have to call the pump guy to come out and replace a worn-out machine that’s just tired of shoving water 300 feet through a 1 inch black plastic pipe for the past six or eight years. However long it’s been since we last replaced the pump. Not that he's going to come out on a Sunday morning anyway, no matter how beautiful it is up here.

It’s always something up here, a constant struggle against a space that was perfectly happy before we took over and attempted to tame it.

 

The spring ran just fine at the bottom of the hill before we captured it, forced it into confinement in a cistern, rammed it into a pipe and sent it upwards against gravity.

The woodpeckers found plenty of dead trees to knock against before the cabin was built, although I am sure they appreciate the bounty of carpenter bee larvae seemingly stored just for them in our eaves, waiting for them to drill out each spring.

The mice had plenty of surfaces to run across before we provided them with our counters, and even the ants probably managed without us somehow. 

The only thing I’m not sure about are the wild turkeys. I can’t imagine how they could possibly have conducted their courtship every spring without me, sitting bundled up in the cool dawn light, paying rapt attention.

Youse guys . . .

are NOT paying attention.

I has this book, see? 
And it swell, be.
Youse can have it free
as a book-e.

All you gots to do
is write a line or two.
Don't even need to be you,
your kid can write one too.

www.storycartel.com
I tell you, it's da bomb.
Sign up your dad and mom,
even your uncle Dom.

I need stars and reviews,
like them to come from youse,
and in return, you see,
you get some poetry
a tiny piece of me
and absolutely free.

www.storycartel.com

Do it. Do it now.

Tank youse.

And you can click on this,
give amazon a miss,
Barnes and Noble too
all of the giants who
take half of each sale. True
and sometimes even more. 
Or, visit a local store.
But if you go through me,
I'll sign your book for free,
give you a discount too, 
dedicate it to you. 
www.margosolod.com

Psst . . . Hey, guys-

Want a free e-copy of my new book? With pictures and everything?

Here's how you can get one and help me out at the same time-

https://storycartel.com/

Go there. Sign up. It's free. 

All you have to do is post a review afterward. They even show you how to do it.

And it's not just my book you can get for free. They have hundreds of books in all genres, all available for download to your computer or e-reader or phone.

Although of course you should read and review my book first.

If you read it to yourself you don't even have to use the silly voices.

And did I mention it's free?

Of course, you also want a real copy to hold in your hands. And you want it autographed and personalized. And you want it at a discount. If all this sounds like exactly what you want-

 http:/margosolod.com

Hit the button. Buy the book. Tell me what you want me to write.

Oh, that the rest of your life could be this simple.

I am reminded . . .

Almost daily by the gods of the book of face that it has been almost two months since my last blog post, and that ever so many people are, apparently, dying to hear from me.

Partly, I blame winter, as we closed the little cabin in December and I seem to find it easier to blog when I am in the woods.

My new book is also to blame, for how many times can I announce, I’m writing a new book! And I think it’s good! And now I have finished the first draft! And now I have finished the second draft! And now I am checking for typos! And now I am revising! before I begin to sound tiresome even to myself?

But now spring is coming. And the bush who shall not be named

(at least by anyone we know so far) is alive with bees,

a fine portent of good weather to follow. 

And we all know that in spring a young man (or woman)’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of sea creatures.

Well, yes. You read correctly. Sea creatures. Or to be more precise, birds and fish and mammals and crustaceans and others of that ilk.

Do you need more hints? Have you not been paying attention? Shall I stop beating around the proverbial kelp stalk?

My new book! Silly sea poems for kids! Illustrated!

Now I know I've mentioned this a time or two before, but perhaps it's gotten lost in the incessant clamoring I've been doing about my new new book. 

This is my newest to be published book.

Here's a taste:

We are oysters, him and me,

we live in a community

of hundreds which we calls a bed-

We have soft bellies which is said

to be the food that's gods were fed.

(there's more, but that's all you get for free)

And it is coming out in less than a month. April 11, to be exact.

And you can order a copy here: www.marinermedia.com/booksite

Or you will be able to purchase it through your local bookseller or on Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

And you can even get it as an e-book.

I am telling you people, it doesn't get much better than this.

I haven't worked out the details of putting books on my website so that you can purchase directly through me and I can personalize it, but I am working on that.

Or, I will be, soon.  Because right now, you see, there's this new book I'm working on . . .

In the meantime, have a very happy vernal equinox.

When the falling snow blinkers your vision . . .

down to the 2 inch slot between the visor of your hood and the zipped up neck of your parka, you see the world in odd rectangular bits. And you notice things you might not have noticed otherwise.

This first snowy morning walk with the dogs shows me that, the same as every previous year, the amazing triple coat Ladybug sports is capable of carrying a full half inch of snow without showing the slightest inclination to melt. The insulating properties of this coat are legendary. She’d be a great Alaskan sled dog.  As long as the temperature never went above -20.  And, of course, if she could be persuaded to run without food dangling in front of her nose.

Chance’s short  hair and high metabolism used to melt snow on contact. Now he sports a 4 inch white band from his tail up along his back, evidence he’s either grown a thicker section of fur coat this winter, or  added another subcutaneous layer across the hips.

It happens as we age.

No one’s trodden the sidewalk along our usual route from my house to the park before us. Or, if they have,  fast and furious snow has wiped any indication away. Before us lies a clean slate.

New snow, but the same dogs, a year older than the last time we scuffled our names in fresh powder.

Chance’s signature looks much the same, but Bug’s pawprints are slurred. Deep straggles link her front and back prints, showing me how the dragging of her hind legs has worsened. Arthritis calcifies her hips and its progression is slow and steady enough that I can convince myself, most days, that she is no worse than she has been. Until a late and heavy snow begs to differ.

This first snow, coming as late as it does this year, is trying to turn me maudlin. The shuffling of an old dog, a bright red parka from Antarctica, bucket list trip now two years in the past, even this snowy walk itself, along a city street instead of a wooded path –

new snow should signal fresh new beginnings, not provide constant reminders of how quickly the past falls behind us. But perhaps not this morning.

Tuesday I stood in line at Kroger’s behind a woman buying two red plastic snow discs. I bought two identical discs at a hardware store on a small town main street in Vermont to slide down the hills of Johnson State College with my new friend S.K. He had just found out he was HIV+. It was pretty much a death sentence.  This was 1996. 

That was the last time I went sledding, at least intentionally. I don't know about S.K. I could ask him. We've stayed friends. Advances in medicine have allowed him to live a long and amazingly active life, full of travel, adventure, and now even grandchildren.

It’s barely 3 weeks into 2016 as I write this.  New year, new snow. Old dogs and older friends, both a little whiter of hair than last year.

But always the chance for new trails, a new signature in the snow, even if the writing implements, (both mine and Bug's) are wearing down a little.

Happy first snow. Happy new year.

All the leaves

are off the trees up here at the cabin. No more loud reports as acorns bounce off the tin roof. No more loud reports as gunshots echo across the mountains, everyone scrambling to get his or her meat for the season. My own freezer is full  courtesy of our neighbor who hunts our land.

It’s been weirdly warm, and there is far too much green under the brown carpet of leaves for mid-December. In  town our quince is flowering again. Everything seems confused and unsettled.

 Or perhaps that’s just me, trying to anthropomorphize my surroundings in attempt to understand them.

Now that the trees are bare I am  again reminded just how close the mountains are.

My views of Big and Little House Mountain differ from the familiar tabletop view most people know. But these mountains don’t feel looming so much as protecting and sheltering.

When I was graced to be able to live up here full-time, when I thought I would be here forever, I would rarely let more than a day or two pass without going into town. Deborah used to laugh at me for what she claimed was my inability to sit still long enough to enjoy, to appreciate. But I was searching for a sense of purpose  and the tasks up here seemed too big, too heavy, too complicated for this weakened and battered body to accomplish. I fled what I felt to be my limitations, my failings, my sense of overwhelmedness  for the easy productivity of a trip to town. A doctor’s appointment, a run to the grocery store and the post office and I could feel as if I had accomplished something for the day.

It has taken moving into town, (three summers and falls now, two winters and springs) to point out the obvious. It has taken this many weekends stolen from the noise and busyness of even a small town to point out what should’ve been obvious all along. But isn’t it a truth that it is most difficult to see what is right in front of us?

The need to feel productive is too ingrained in my being to change at this late date. But how did it take me this long to realize that productivity does not always equal motion? How often must I relearn what I have known all along, that spending the energy I have left trying to do leaves me no energy for trying to be. Being here, now, present for the little things.

If I am not here to notice, who will? If I’m not here to be a part of this natural world, will the natural world care? As prideful as it may seem, my answer to that is yes.

It is my responsibility, to myself, to others,  to the planet. Perhaps the more people who watch the more there will be left to see.

I can only do what I have the strength and energy left to do. And that is to watch the mountain through the fog,  through the bare limbs of trees. To watch, to listen, hopefully to learn, and to bear witness.

I know, but it's good . . .

this thing I'm writing.  I know it's been over a month since my last post. And I have no excuse for the first couple of weeks. 

But I've been over the Blue Ridge Mountains to Virginia Center for Creative Arts the last few weeks.

And I'm writing again. 

Finally.

And I know it's not very modest of me, but it's good. I'm excited. I don't want to tell you too much about it because I don't want to jinx it. But it's the young adult novel I've been wanting to write for a long time.

So instead of telling you about the book, I'll just give you a quick look at VCCA.

my studio

inside the studio

in back of the barn housing the studios. mine's the corncrib on the right. i stole this picture from a fellow writer, cliff.
http://http://vcca.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/Virginia-Center-for-the-Creative-Arts-49840417711/photos_stream

Instead of me spending time taking more pictures, just go to the above links. 

Oh, ok. One more.

 me reading to other writers, visual artists and composers



Now leave me alone. I'm working here.