an intense wind storm has come by, for about a week. for the most part it hasn't been below freezing much, but rather barely above it; still, the wind cuts and makes it feel much colder than freezing. it snowed once or twice and then the snow blew around a lot, but in general, it's been dry: dry, cold, windy.

it seems to come from different directions, sometimes from the north. they say it's from differences in temperature - extreme warmth in the midwest, very cold winds coming down from canada, and then they mix all together and start this twenty or thirty mph business.

we've been lucky in the sense that we've had power all winter, and haven't lost any major trees in the neighborhood, with destructive results. apparently one split on the hill and some neighbors just got out, cut it all up with chainsaws, and got it out of the way. that's kind of how they do it in this area. they consider that long road through the national forest to be an extension of their own driveway, no sense waiting for the county or the state to take care of it. my neighbor regraded my own road one time after massive rains had just gouged it out until it was virtually impassable. once again, no sense waiting for the county. it's ruining cars and trucks now. and the county's busy. it'll do it, but when it does, it'll do it in a hurry.

i had jury duty today - wednesday dawned cold, windy, clear, and the phone rang, and i realized i'd forgotten all about it. i quick got dressed, got in the car, and went down to the magistrate's court tucked back in by the driver's place. if i'd had my wits about me, i would have said i've been coughing, and they would have simply sent me home, no sense even letting me in the building.

as it was, i wasn't really thinking of myself as a risk or even at risk, and i let them plunk me in a seat in the corner of a small courtroom. twelve jurors with masks were already seated, spaced apart, facing the front. in the front, to the right, were two women, recorders or bailiffs or whatever. a lawyer/judge was conducting the hearing. i also was in the front - unfortunately unable to hear well masked speakers who weren't facing me - and this was apparently to space out jurors and alternates so that everyone had plenty of room twelve jurors in all in the main section, another alternate besides me, and me, in the back to the side of the lawyer/judge.

i felt a little left out, to tell the truth, because i could hear so poorly, and because i'd missed the whole first half - but they apparently had what they needed to decide, and did, with or without me, as i was only an alternate anyway. i can't go into the details of the case, obviously, but i'm not sure if i even caught them correctly anyway. some people were harder to hear than others.

yet here i am, retired, finally with enough time to sit down and listen to both sides of a story. too bad it's all so unclear, like a good song in a duststorm.

it's a rainy christmas eve here - rain is pounding, wind is howling, and in this situation we mostly hope the power doesn't go out. that's because, when it does, i have to go out in this nasty stuff to get the generators going so we can all huddle around and live our lives out of a couple of big orange extension cords.

that's not to say it isn't worse for the power boys, who often have to go out to some remote outpost where the wind has knocked down some pole or wire, and then they have to make sure all connections are true, and they have to do this in nasty snow and blizzard and windy conditions knowing that families like ours are huddled around in the dark hoping they hurry up.

but i want to stress that this hasn't happened yet, so i sit here with my four teens and wife, and four dogs and two cats, watching this rain experience and carrying on with carrying on. my wife is into cooking, and this in general is good - it means lots of good smells in a small house and it's more cozy with the different teens conspiring about one thing or another while we just carry on with the usual christmas routine. most of the presents are wrapped. i'm way late - about a week late - on cards, but i'm finding it fun to write them all out instead of having a single letter that explains all the wretched details and then just putting my name on that letter and a few other notes. this way i feel like i'm actually talking to people. and though they will be about a week late, they will at least be a little more personal.

one puppy has decided that my lap is the place to be. the sounds of people talking are mostly echoes, but i can feel the puppy's heartbeat so i don't feel like i'm missing out on anything. teens for the most part scorn most of my world but when we're all cramped in this small space it's ok, they're respectful and i can sit here typing in peace.

lately i've taken to making fires at night over in the kids' bunkhouse where there is a nice woodstove and of course, i have five acres of dead wood to burn one little box at a time. i start with newspapers and sticks and then put a few logs on there - no question, i'll have enough to last the season - and it's great to be able to use some of the wood for home heat regularly instead of just burning it out in the open where it can catch the whole dry forest on fire. this is a bit-at-a-time, warm-space venture that has to keep being done over and over, but is ok because i've figured out how to keep most of the wood dry and keep it moving so that i have a steady supply.

figuring out how to go through the most remote parts of new mexico around new year, given the possibility of weather and the fact that the eastern plains are the most wind-prone, desolate parts of the whole state. family gathering, up in the panhandle of oklahoma, and i'm likely to see five out of eight grandchildren and have lots of action. by action i mean grand-kid kind of action, where they have an incredible amount of energy but you get to just sit there and enjoy them while their parents do all the disciplining. nothing could be better. if you get that far, you can appreciate that you are getting your reward, just for making it - the reward being to be able to just watch, as the whole world just comes up to take your place.

cold, dry winter so far - this is what they said about another la nina year, like last winter, cold and dry. maybe la nina is bringing rain and floods to whole parts of the country, or maybe another country. in these parts, it's cold and dry.

i've kind of run my string of read-for-reads - i've read as many fantasies as i can handle, and the choices before me are increasingly limited. more fantasy, or, worse, nothing, because i've read every single book up for offer. just about most people who are willing to try my books have already tried them, leaving me with only the ones who wonder if they can shill me by pretending to read, or blow me off altogether. i read some book, while they blow me off. that makes me mad and won't last forever.

one way of dealing with it is wait a while, then go get their book, and give it a two. don't even read it. a vengeful person might have done this already. as for me, i'll most likely wait.

i make fires in the older boy's wood stove. oh how gratifying, to get rid of so much of the wood hanging around the property. every night, just a little - a handful of sticks, a few logs. a little at a time, i get it out of here. that's what i want, and, on top of that, i turn it to heat, and that's good too. the old wood stove gets real hot and just radiates for hours. a gentle woodstove smell permeates.

so the good is mixed with the bad, and sometimes i do my zooms over in the cat trailer and the cat comes up to me and luxuriates on my lap - starved for attention, he lets me do the zoom, but most wants to be petted for maybe an hour at a time as he's gone a while without. his buddy avoids me at all costs. people, he wants nothing to do with, although he'll eat our food and let us clean his litter box. that second one is black, and like a zephyr - he disappears behind some furniture or something, and you just never see him. when you do, he's fast, and he's going the other direction.

the zooms are full of life - family turmoil in the first, quakers in the second. everyone living through their own dramas but at least getting together for an hour a week to check in.

then there are these blogs, of which this one of course is the champion. i let them slip sometimes. i just can't always keep up. i do my best but then i forget for long periods of time.

but this is my life, and i give it to you.

my grandma wallace appeared to me in a dream last night, and it was wild. i've been working on a book about her mother, my great-grandmother, so i told her about it. we had a bit of a conversation.

she was dressed up, which was unusual for her, as i virtually have never seen her outside of her kitchen. but, as it was when i knew her, I didn't see it clearly; it's was like I had a kid's view of it. and, like she was when i knew her, she was busy. we were at a reception of some kind and she was running around, preparing things, serving, etc.

she recognized me right away and noticed that i'd grown quite a bit since last time she saw me i was maybe sixteen or eighteen. she herself was seventy or eighty. nobody had asked her about her mother in quite some time.

she didn't deny anything i said about her mother - it was true, what i had was the facts. but i was trying to get at certain important facts - what happened to her and her brother when mom did these performances - and she was unable to answer, because she was too busy. at one point my aunt showed up and entered the conversation.

my aunt is still alive - maybe about ninety-nine, and in a nursing home, and pretty much out of it - but in this dream she was young, if not in her prime, pretty close to it. and i recognized her from pictures, since i didn't know her until well after she was in her forties. my aunt mentioned someone named dorothy wallace as being her favorite of the ancestors, but this name not only doesn't mean anything to me, but would obviously be from the wallace side, which would be the family my grandmother married into. well, i don't expect dreams to make sense in everything, anyway, but at the time this seemed like a diversion and i was frustrated because i felt like i was about to get an answer out of my grandmother.

but there was no answer - she was gone, and i woke up - remembering the dream, but not having any special new information. i remember clearly her presence -her concern, her careful listening, her careful responses - but of course she didn't tell me anything i didn't already know.

one odd thing is that a reception like that would probably have all kinds of other people - my mother, my brothers and sisters, my grandfather, the whole crowd, and that would make the dream go on and perhaps stay interesting. but it ended somewhat abruptly with my aunt, who, after all, is still alive, and surely would have some memory of my great grandmother as well.

falling a little behind on my blogs. i have about thirty, and some have fallen into total disuse, but i've been steadily more commercial on a few of them, with the intent to have them do what commercial blogs do. not this one, of course. this one is just the real me, spilling out words with no caps, every once in a while. i have to give you some pictures pretty quick too. these words only go so far.

getting steadily colder here, but it's still the most beautiful time of year. it's like it's still november. dry, brown, cool, clear, pretty - i still love the mountains. the animals look at you with intensity. they're already convinced you're a hunter.

it gets quiet at night. i sometimes get a lot of tinnitus even with my hearing aids in. lately they've been blocked and i've had trouble hearing. the steady erosion of my hearing seems to have abated. the problem was, my inner ear was full all the time, or much of the time. i seem to have resolved that. this is not the quietest of environments - there are plenty of planes around - but in general, i find a few deer and elk to be mostly what we hear - no reason to amplify really. i'd like to take the hearing aids out more, and just go for long walks. they're mostly for talking to people, and who needs more of that? i've become a little anti-social.

ah but you may not care about my world. it's just deer, elk, bear, lions, raccoons mostly, critters around that make the dogs bark. the turkeys come by every once in a while. they say they travel in packs of all-male and all-female, but i still don't know the difference by looking at them. they're hearty, though, they seem to do ok out here. as do most of them, best i can figure. even in the cold of winter, they look at me with those intense eyes. they'll make it.