Home from the cancer doc with Coop. No news is good news. I’m one year out from treatment today. I’m going to stay out of the wind and read and give old Coop’s paws a break from our rocky trails. Everything’s OK. And thanks to Lori for being our friend.
Kinda lonely — wind wearing me down — but always different ways to see.
Coop still makes it home. And we’ve got better than cactus for supper.
Western sky from Placitas. No end of wonders.
Reporting on sunset. Our trail tonight.
Later, I went to look at his moon but saw it upstaged when the biggest shooting star I’ve ever seen — technically a fireball, I guess — flashed in a short, brilliant arc in the northern sky. I wasn’t fast enough with my pocket camera, so all I can share is the moon.
Here are the hands on my clock, clouds and light.
Here is the sky I photographed last night and the sky I photographed this morning as I rose late from bed, remembering that I had forgotten to move the hands on my watch, reminding myself as I tried to catch wispy clouds, “Spring forward, fall back.”
It is the same big sky, though, and the time really didn’t matter.
My head has always been in the clouds. I am a lifelong day dreamer, too philosophical for any practical good. I could have gotten a Ph.D. in window gazing, except that my dissertation still has a shaky beginning and an uncertain end. My first thought today, after a mental walkaround of self and dog, was about the form of these ethereal clouds.
I am still trying to spring forward, reaching for intellectual discipline, instead of falling back into drifting clouds. But I am also stuck with me.
Going through old photos again and what do I come across?
More chickens. This time they’re on the Robertson side of my family.
This photo of my aunt, Barbara Carol Robertson, was taken in the 1930s on Burg Street on the outskirts of Granville, Ohio.
Barbara had what we call these days developmental disabilities. She was non-verbal until her death at age 66. But her family loved her and she lived at home until my grandmother, Ethel Robertson, died at age 92.
Barbara struggled with all kinds of things throughout her life, but she always loved animals and they always loved her.
Another recurring themes in my family photo collection is dogs. No matter what side of my family, or which family member is represented, there usually is a dog in the photo.
Here is Barbara with two of them, identified as Jara and Blackstone, on Burg Street in Granville.
Rough day. Soft evening.
Super Monday. 
Super Tuesday.
I woke as usual, running through a silent inventory of body and sky.
Is it clear as it almost always is? Are the limbs still working ? Am I ready for this day?
The sky seemed gray too late in the morning, after pink should have become blue. I squinted harder, seeing snow.
It’s been so warm, my first thought was excited: Snow in June!
No, as I wiggled a toe, rotated an ankle, lifted my hips, stretched my back, raised my head — all parts apparently in working order — I realized it was February as February should be.
It’s hard to grasp the scope of climate change. It’s hard to foresee the map of cancer cells.
But I went to the kitchen to boil water for coffee. Looking out the window for my old buddy Cooper, I knew it was another lucky day.
dream ranch 