Sunday, September 12, 2011— (On September 20, the full moon, “Harvest”, will rise nearest to earth.)

I spent most of yesterday working to rescue and keep safe a beloved old hen.

She’s the last survivor, 11 years old, from my first flock. She came home with me at just days-old, out of a “sick tank”, and at a marked-down price. I rigged a special baby tank and heating-light in the living room. In it she grew, became strong, and later became integrated with the other chicks, all still very young.

Welsummer matured into a beautiful and sweet hen. She wasn’t the most dominant and always took care of herself among the flock. I knew each bird as an individual and loved the entire group. They communicated constantly, a flock with leaders and losers, with clowns, thinkers, and hunters.

Well, few places might be more violent than a hen-house. The birds huddle and constantly vie for dominance. Stronger ones pick on those less aggressive. My first hen that passed did so from natural causes when the flock was five years old. After that, maybe once-a-year, a least-dominate bird would pass away.

I hated losing any bird and tried keeping one or two of the declining hens alive. An experienced veterinarian medicated them and helped me do all possible to bring each from the brink. My successes were brief, and finally and clearly, I understood that when a hen gives up eating and drinking, and behaves differently, she’s decided to go.

This spring, knowing Welsummer won’t last and realizing I’d miss my chickens, I acquired new babies and brought home seven, all different breeds. I raised them apart from old Welsummer, who didn’t want them around. They were visible and interactive with her through fencing, and as they matured, I periodically released them with old Welsummer. She chased and frightened them greatly until they grew larger.

Eventually, all the birds became integrated.

Meanwhile, it tured out that one baby’s a rooster and happens to be huge, He’s a Jersey Giant breed, and already taller and heavier than all the others. He’s begun watching over and protecting the hens.

Yesterday, it became evident that he fears and dislikes Welsummer.

While hurrying from the hen-house to greet me, in mid-tracks she had to reverse and run squawking. The rooster chased and leaped attempting to attack her. She escaped, and he left no doubt abouts what he’d have done if managing to capture the old hen.

Yesterday, Welsummer moved into new quarters, in my garage. She hasn’t yet enough space but is protected. There’s a roost on which to perch, and best, she’s willing to eat and drink. Today, I’ll figure out how to enlarge and improve her area. Once she’s accustomed to and comfortable in the garage, we’ll proceed. I’ve always thought it would be cool to have a “house chicken”.

Long as she independently eats and drinks, Welsummer’s old age will be safe and comfortable.

Dear Friends: Who’d have imagined? That danged rooster better not ever attack me! Diana

Saturday, September 11, 2011— (On September 20, the full moon, “Harvest”, will rise nearest to earth.)

Twenty years ago today, people throughout the world, horrified, numb, unable to process information, saw on television, and in real-time, passenger jets destroying New York’s Twin Towers. The world’s attention followed Flight 93’s diversion from D.C. to Pennsylvania fields, to more total destruction.

As a little kid watching Movietone News, and later periodically on television screens, I’ve seen the aftermath of an event, equally-awful and equally-surprising, of planned mass destruction with civilians as innocent victims.

From the early days of atomic development, we’ve seen videos showing enormous plumes of deadly black smoke arising after American planes dropped the most powerful bombs ever created on Japanese cities.

The world never has nor ever will recover completely from such vicious attacks, they’re so-beyond-violent, against mass humanity.

Before the advent of modern communications, the whole world didn’t witness horrific events, but learned about them from group or individual memories. Learned from news stories, books, and history lessons. These days, we learn differently.

In December, 2001, the Pentagon released a video of Osama bin Laden discussing with his colleagues the terrorist attacks on America.

In May, 2011, the world applauded news, that the U.S. military and CIA operatives, upon raiding a compound in Pakistan, had located and killed Osama bin Laden.

Now, and again in real time, the world is witnessing an aftermath of war. The world is fearing a potential for mass destruction of innocent civilians on Pakistan’s streets.

Dear Friends: Humanity is vulnerable to such powers as leadership, ideology, technology. Diana

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