north country spring, snowing all day with a couple inches on the ground. it delights me, these changes, and it has meant that i’m working inside and the daylight is clear. off into the trees the green haze is softened by falling snow, or is it the other way round? it doesn’t matter, it’s lovely, hopeful, changing.

realizing that this felt i’ve been trying to figure out reminds me of snow, maybe because it looks soft, but isn’t, looks gentle, but isn’t, has it’s own mind so to speak. even cutting it is a different thing. easier than expected, needing a knife, not that damn rotary cutter. anyway, here i sit pondering living in this edge of a place. it’s an odd thing, how this place, only 4 miles from my old farmhouse it so different!

monday’s first task was going to the dump, no longer that dump, but the transfer station. this is on the way, i’ve stopped here several times before…

my hands come away sometimes with a gift from this spot. I grind it up and add that gift to pulp

i’m interested in these soils and rocks and they delight my eyes. they wouldn’t be seen if it weren’t for dynamite and the eagerness of road builders to eliminate bumps, at least on the main roads. here i stand and look, this time it felt right to bring home few pieces to color pulp.

this is what i’m thinking about now that my class is over and grades have been turned in. despite how dreadful teaching remotely has been for me, i’ve been so impressed by my students, the ones who tried despite pandemic. there were some fearless, beautiful books made.

basket came to me along with a kitchen table and a desk and chairs, and three other baskets, but this is my favorite thing. a local auction house doing an online auction, that pleases me; no crazy social interaction or head games that i never get… and once done i go over and fill up my subaru, three times actually, and my house is set.

several days ago, i was enjoying breakfast at my new old kitchen table, not rickety, but very strongly used.

feeling like things are lightening, like there is a way through this pandemic, that social justice might actually become a reality in this country that carries the brutality of history shamelessly, instead of like the evil sickness that it is. there is hope, or the beginning of hope. finally.

a grace note, two toms and four hens here early the other morning, after roosting the night in the tall poplars behind my house.