Friday, September 10, 2021 —(On September 20, the full moon, “Harvest”, will rise nearest to earth.)

It’s raining and predicted to continue steadily all morning, becoming lighter or more shower-like this afternoon.

Goodbye to the smoke! Hello to easier breathing, a sky that reveals clouds, and to a horizon of visuals from solar variables.

Yes real moisture, and now beginning to fall more forcefully. I’m thinking about rain from inside a shelter and experiencing moisture through my nasal and auditory senses. More abstractly I’m also considering moisture’s reality, its possibilities.

We know moisture is essential for everything living. It freshens and keeps skin healthy. It increases oxygen transference through blood vessels. Experiencing moisture can be one that’s partly-physical, like a combo of nose-ear-brain phenomena. It can be even more completely wonderful, for when stepping directly into moisture, it becomes a totally physical experience.

It might seem weird to compare moisture-related and movie-related thoughts, but my brain interweaves these topics. I’ve been studying the pros and cons of old movies from the sixties and seventies, the “new movies”, mostly were foreign films. They were a contrast to America’s more fantasy-like concoctions. The films were imports from Britain, Germany, Japan, Italy, Sweden, and France. Learning to watch and interpret them altered how many of us began to view all sorts of artwork.

The best art is that which touches all our senses. It creates an experience, visual, tactical, pleasing, suggestive, compelling, and the more art touches us, the better it is. Similarly, one views rain as a complex occurrence. It can be broken into parts, affects various senses, separately and together, and is a total experience.

Dear Friends: Today, no horse-driving, but one among a circle of dogs while streaming old movies. Diana

Thursday, September 09, 2021 —(On September 20, the full moon, “Harvest”, will rise nearest to earth.)

My next-to-last glimpse of last night’s sunset, above, red ball against a grey palette.

A wildfire burning in the Willamate National Forest named the “Middle Fork Complex” actually is two big fires. They’re burning in an area of snags and steep terrain, over 24,930 acres, and worse, are under an inversion layer trapping their heavy smoke. Well, not quite, for that smoke slowly is traveling directly west and into Central Oregon. All this week, Bend’s environment has been smoke-filled, murky, and not hinting at clear air coming soon.

Middle Fork is one of this season’s many wildfires spreading smoke, making breathing difficult, and transforming sky views. Last night over Bend, neither clouds nor mountains were visible. But against a sky of total grey was a setting bright red sun.

I’ve photographed previous smoky setting suns and this one, too, called me. After snapping the camera’s shutter a couple of times and seeing the sun seeming high enough for me to pause, I went into the barn and released horses from feeding stalls. It seemed only an instant later, looking upwards I found the sun totally had disappeared.

Where? It had been positioned high moments earlier. Too high surely to quickly have slipped behind the Cascade Mountains. Its glow must have been hidden by smoke thick enough to obliterate everything about a big bright-orange globe. Wherever that sun was, it didn’t leave a peripherally glowing wake, that I knew after searching the sky.

My last capture shows the sun starting to settle into darkness. If I’d have paused before attending the horses, wouldn’t have missed a narrow window that allowed more grabs of the unusual fading.

Almost nightly, smoky suns have been visible. But each evening’s combination of sun and sky has been unique, and all worthy of capturing.

Dear Friends: I’ll not miss smoke, obliterated sky, crappy air, but will miss eye-catching, unusual sets. Diana

Wednesday, September 08, 2021 —(On September 20, the full moon, “Harvest”, will rise nearest to earth.)

That’s the little squirt. She’s loose, supposed to be following the horses and me. She actually was following, but on her own terms, and couldn’t ignore the temptation of summer bunch-grasses.

I was bringing her home from a neighbor’s pasture, leading her with the horses. My property is hilly, and to make my climb easier, I release the donkey’s lead rope. Once I have the horses safely in a holding area, I look around for the donkey. If she’s not visible, I’ll go searching.

She’ll be nearby. She diligently follows her horses wherever they may lead.

Searching means I’ll start trudging upwards to find her. Less work than trying to lead her uphill with the horses. The donkey willingly walks with us, but it’s her nature to balk frequently and “think about” next steps. Releasing her rope eases my own walk uphill. Without a donkey-drag the horses moving faster sort-of pull me upwards.

Anyway, as I began climbing in search of the donkey, she came over the hill toward me while avoiding her dragging lead rope. I could see that she felt pulled in two directions. One toward those temping sweet natural grasses, the other toward a carrot in my high-held hand.

I can count on her adoration for treats to save my energy.

She’s smarter than a horse and a wonderful pet. I wish though that she’d walk normally with us all toward known destinations.

I’m anticipating daily struggles after an upcoming first deep freeze, when grasses stop producing sugars that cause weight-gains. Then my equines may graze freely. Daily I’ll walk my trio a third of a mile down-the-road to a larger pasture. For sure, during the travels there and our homecomings, my donkey will balk often. Pulling on her lead rope will wear me out.

Dear Friends: Happy she’s here, wouldn’t trade her for anything, but ohmigosh! Diana

Tuesday, September 07, 2021 —(On September 20, the full moon, “Harvest”, will rise nearest to earth.)

The French film star Jean Paul Belmondo has died. I’m fondly remembering him along with “those days” of new foreign films.

Everybody loves movies and for years Hollywood cranked them out, one after another, usually using tried and true script formulas. Some notable rebellions made it into Hollywood shootings, becoming standouts, like the creative actor Marlon Brando and the genius innovator Orson Welles.

In the early sixties, alternatives to the “Hollywood look” began arriving in tiny experimental theaters, usually refurbished old movie houses that sold tickets cheaply. They showed the films considered as “New Waves” from France, “Italian realism” from (of course) Italy, and (along with the Beatles) refreshing British views of youth and social maturing.

My family loved movies. They were family nights out. They were afternoon babysitters for kids out of school. I grew up watching Hollywood’s weekly putouts. As a youngster living in Oklahoma, I couldn’t get enough of popular singing cowboys with beautiful horses who always won against the bad guys.

As I matured and at first, I disliked new films popping up from overseas. Not the “usual movies”, they seemed pointless and silly against Hollywood patterns. It took my head awhile to “get it”, or to understand that a couple of hours of film content hinted at larger human stories, more complicated than a viewing episode captured.

The upshot was that new films taught me to view and appreciate art. They taught to look carefully at screen action and listen to dialogue, while my viewer’s brain toyed with often-abstract possibilities. They could broaden a film’s palette by hinting at and enlarging ideas into all-human stories.

Belmondo was a capable actor, a cool guy, his face not nearly Hollywood handsome, who spoke always in French. His on-screen work made everything come across, through voice, meanings, and intent. That era produced many more great, memorable non-Hollywood actors. Belmondo’s passing reminds me of many and some fabulous films in which they acted.

It’s time for me to stash these memories, get into the moment and go outside to feed horses. I’ll add that the actors, fine as they were, weren’t the New Wave’s primary driving force. Behind that new film art were creative directors, writers, and camera-folks who created the ideas, made the films. They occupy a special category in the history of great film art.

Dear Friends: Pauline Kael’s (1965), I LOST IT AT THE MOVIES, tells how film touches human hearts. Diana

Monday, September 06, 2021 —(On September 20, the full moon, “Harvest”, will rise nearest to earth.)

According to Edith Widder, we humans live on a very watery planet but most know very little about the variety of animals that live in water.

She has a Ph.d in oceanography, has made a career of ocean-diving. Her studies have been explorations of deep-water luminescence. They’ve revealed that huge varieties of animals living in the deep create an amazing world of underwater light. Enough brightness, in fact, that even after turning off all the lights in her diving capsule, there’s enough natural underwater luminescence that Widder can see and read her instrument panels.

Her interest in light began in college days when a surgery that went wrong caused her to become temporarily blind. Her new reality, of having to cope among shifting shadows, encouraged her lifelong fascination with light.

She points out that there are a few land animals that produce luminescence. Lightening bugs are an example, but only rare luminescent producers don’t live in water. In the underwater environment, there’s light manufactured by thousands of creatures which becomes shed in fascinating ways.

She has been a ground-breaker. This compelling read tells her personal story, explains her professional discoveries.

I’m writing about BELOW THE EDGE OF DARKNESS, because it’s well-written and enlightens more of our larger world. Also, because it’s a modern style of autobiographical writing. My reading it came on the heels of having read Susan Simard’s, FINDING THE MOTHER TREE. Simard’s story, subtitled “Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest”, explains her figuring-out that the underground world of plants communicates and shares resources as vigorously as humans do in an overground world.

Widder introduces the key life experiences that made her want to dive and explore the deepest underwater worlds. Her story brings that “other world” more alive, makes the greatest ocean depths become more relevant to “dry ground we”.

Both women have made extraordinary scientific discoveries, and recently, each produced her own awesome biography. Each reveals life experiences and learning, they encourage we who appreciate creativity to cheer their newer “real pioneering”. Gathering, assimilating, and making information relevant to the world requires sheer determination, grit, and bravery.

Dear Friends: We’re into a new era, it’s modern, creative, enlightening, and let’s hope it lasts. Diana

Sunday, September 05, 2021 —(On September 20, the full moon, “Harvest”, will rise nearest to earth.)

In the West continues this “burning season”:

Opening a door to outside smells like your deck is on fire.

Haze blocking distant landscape features turns faraway into “ongoing nowhere”.

Burning eyes are painful and undoubtedly more so nearer the Caldor and Dixie fires.

Water is scarce. During these historical lows less is allotted less and what’s used costs more. We wonder about the possibility of and how long it may take to recover enough of this precious resource.

Despite worries about resources and economics, we continue attempting to live normally.

Since my horses have new shoes, they’re again being hitched and driven. Now in action, it’s a little different. Each sneezes more, and periodically, Rosie leans forward and coughs. Hopefully the sneezes and coughs are because of smoke-filled air, not basic health issues.

Today begins as unusually smoky. Earlier, on opening a door to let the dogs outside, an immediate smell suggested the deck might be on fire. The atmosphere, widely murky, suggested a larger story of perhaps a new wildfire nearby.

Annually we’re hounded by wildfires and water shortages. This year seems more awful. One wonders, are conditions really worse? Or do they seem so because of communicating technologies that have improved, so that now, all together we’re “in the moment”.

Dear Friends: Other current severe climate factors are also compounding local impacts. Diana

Saturday, September 04, 2021 —(On September 20, the full moon, “Harvest”, will rise nearest to earth.)

Good gravy, it’s Labor Day weekend. As a retiree, most often I’m barely aware that a weekend is beginning, much less a holiday one.

Anyway our Labor Day weekends somewhat are drowning, because of upcoming September 11th anniversaries, and this year more so for a couple of reasons. First, it’s the twentieth year after that holocaust, and second, twenty non-winning years of combat are touted as one justification for pulling America’s military from Afghanistan.

That this weekend is a holiday fades as we worry about situations in the Middle East. We hold our collective breath, hoping for the welfare of ordinary citizens, as the Taliban scrambles to organize and create some sort of leadership. Many Middle East countries have economics that are deplorable. Once viable, sparkling cities are suffering, they’re confronted with inadequate supplies of the most-basic necessities, like electricity, gasoline, medicines, and bread.

Labor Day weekends were a way to celebrate America’s vibrant economy, good enough that merchants could close doors and take a holiday. Our affluent country supported employment that allowed jobs and bargaining. America had the ability to process the goods needed by workers to sustain energy and families.

After twenty years in Afghanistan, and just as bad, a couple years coping with Covid and its mutations, this weekend feels less holiday-like. Most shops won’t close their doors. The big stores remain well-stocked but noticeably less so. Declining stocks are blamed on “broken supply chains” that make prices shoot upwards.

I’m finding that a local huge supermarket’s deli counter is being closed during many daylight hours. That market has advertised for deli help, which perhaps isn’t available. Maybe there are other economic reasons behind its non-service deli, but those closings seem odd.

Also seemingly odd is too few job applicants to fill open positions. Maybe so, but one problem might be that our technologies aren’t in step. Candidate searching has used artificial intelligence to review initial applications. AI zeroes in on key words and now maybe less accurately can spot for contemporary needs.

Still though, wishing for a “Happy Labor Day weekend”.

Dear Friends: What’s happening anywhere, sooner or later affects us all everywhere. Diana

Friday, September 03, 2021 —(On September 20, the full moon, “Harvest”, will rise nearest to earth.)

It was thrilling to meet two world-class horses, both rescues, and now living with loving riders.

My farrier, Russ, comes to town regularly to work on some 20-25 horses. We who are accustomed to his work consider it the best. Russ was scheduled to trim and shoe a couple of horses nearby. I went to watch and meet them.

Ashley’s adoptee, a Dutch Warmblood named Avantos, is a 17-year-old, internationally-recognized champion jumper. Two or three years ago, Ashley learned he was available from a top jumper-trainer. Avantos’s hooves were in very poor condition for various reasons. The horse barely could walk, much less jump.

On learning that Aventos was being retired, needing a new home, Ashley asked Russ to evaluate if he could correct the hooves enough to make Aventos again rideable, at least on trails. Russ said yes and has done so. This summer, in a first Ashley and Avantos entered Bend’s High Desert Jumping Classic. The horse jumped effortlessly and placed high!

Russ, while working my horses, has told me about repairs to Avantos’s hoofs, and how Ashley has begun working with a jumping trainer. I went to meet this horse, he’s drop-dead gorgeous–tall at something like 16+ hands, has a body lean and fit, and gorgeous long legs. Even my novice quick glance could identify that born jumper.

Russ’s knowledge and efforts are maintaining Aventos’s hooves. Ashley explained that it’s all-day work to shoe Aventos. That’s anyway how Russ works, he’s careful and determined to achieve desired results. Ashley is thrilled and again is entered to compete with Avantos, in an upcoming California show.

My phone couldn’t capture a good-enough whole body of Avantos, but here’s a nice image.

In that barn, I met Chiver, another world-famous rescued athlete, a 22-year-old dressage/jumper belonging to Ashley’s friend, Kelly. Chiver had developed a small cloud in one eye that hindered his ability to assess jumps and needed a new home. Kelly has been as thrilled with Chiver as Ashley with Avantos. Together they are redeveloping these horses, and Russ is their hoof expert.

Chiver is another giant at 16+ hands. He’s muscular and stocky, and a breed new to me–a Belgian Warmblood Sport Horse, called a Zangersheid. His full name is ChevisZ to identify his bloodline. His hooves seen about the size of dinner-plates.

When I met Chiver, he was being harnessed. Kelly was going to work him in dressage. I tagged along to see this magnificent-looking horse in action.

And wasn’t disappointed. The big guy seemed light as a feather, like poetry in motion.

I understand the excitement of renewing a horse’s athleticism, and simultaneously, discovering in oneself an ongoing eagerness to work better with and learn from a horse. This excitement of such two-way learning experiences is knitted into my years with Sunni and Rosie.

It’s a joy, meeting like-minded horse-folks who’ve found opportunities to interact seriously with proven world-class animals. These adopters understand that re-developing a horse’s natural abilities also enhances their own skill levels.

Dear Friends: We made a down-to-earth plan, to team-up soon and go trail-riding in the forest. Diana

Thursday, September 02, 2021 —(On September 20, the full moon, “Harvest”, will rise nearest to earth.)

This charming moment captures a rider and pony both asleep during a horse show. I haven’t permission to use this image which popped into my Facebook feed. No telling who captured the original, or when and where it occurred.

It reminds me of delightful moments in past years at Central Oregon’s High Desert Classic Horse Show, an annual event that’s huge, crowded with horses and riders. Few sights are cuter than small kids in formal riding garb on their ponies. Somewhere are images from my camera that I can’t find, so, “borrowing” this one.

Yesterday, our farrier arrived to pull and replace worn and broken horseshoes. A California person, he comes here to work for a few days every five or six weeks. My horses without usable shoes were bored having just to hang around a couple of weeks. My job was to keep each entertained while the farrier worked.

He works in an old-fashioned method. His truck has a furnace that heats iron, before each shoe goes onto an anvil for pounding into shape. He’s back and forth from anvil to horse, for each shoe checking and adjusting fit. My horses usually travel on pavement, so he also forms and fits shock-absorbing pads between the shoes and hooves.

His visits are nearly all-day process, the shoeing always has lasted through the five or six weeks between his visits. This time is the first that the shoes thinned enough to break and be thrown. Maybe it’s a supply chain problem, with less-quality iron being used in manufacturing.

With the horses now ready for action, they’ll be rationed increased feed. They’ll like that, but best of all will love traveling across the road, to John’s place, and again being allowed to graze on summer pasture.

Dear Friends: For a trusting kid on a good pony, often it’s the beginning of a lifelong passion. Diana

Wednesday, September 01, 2021 —(On September 20, the full moon, “Harvest”, will rise nearest to earth.)

It’s definitely Fall. Chillier and noisier.

Before my Jersey Giant Rooster crowed and awakened the local area, earlier this morning we were visited by coyotes. While roaming on my property, they announced themselves with short screams before disappearing.

My dogs, all inside the house, noisily carried on for what seemed forever. They couldn’t be outside for another half-hour when likely the coyotes would be gone. The dogs found lingering scents while finally outside and renewed their barking.

I awakened to screamy coyote yips with a scary thought of my young chickens as coyote bait. Quickly though, I realized the animals weren’t hunting my chickens but just passing through. Coyotes scream to communicate, keep the pack together. A first short outburst outside my house was answered in seconds by a noisier outburst down the road. I estimated two animals were traveling and hunting.

In years past, bunches of coyotes visited during nighttime hunts. Over to the east is a large BLM, and north is a large expanse for growing hay. This side of town remains a bit rural with big grassy spaces inhabited by small critters that coyotes typically hunt.

Cooler weather brings out more wild ones. I toss seeds for the chipmunk population busily gathering and storing. Explosions of small beings invite more raptors, flying lower and circling over unusual places, like my property (always when I’ve no camera).

I wonder why it feels so important to keep my cat, Max, inside. It protects little wild ones but won’t save them from other predator types. I guess it’s one way of limiting outright opportunity. Max hangs out laying in my garden. When something alive pops within distance of a paw stretch, he’s simply grabs and gets. In contrast, those searching in roaming packs or flying overhead must work harder for victims.

Dear Friends: What more of the “old normal” will reappear in this developing cooler season? Diana