SNEAK PEAK

...

And off  marches Mamm, head high and back straight, with Catan’s face tipped arrogantly into the air at her side.

Later, after the afternoon tasks are completed, the evening’s chores done, and another meal passed and cleared in quiet contemplation, the family gathers at the south fireplace where they take their seats in the hearth circle there.

Mamm’s question comes.

‘Where were we?’

For a moment there is silence.

‘Umm…,’ says Dothann.

‘I know!’ shouts Rua. ‘I know!’

‘Well?’ asks Mamm. ‘Are you going to tell us?’

‘LittleMamm and David leave from Iona to go to the Far Western Lands!’

‘Oh yeah, that’s right!’ pipes up Dothann. ‘Go with the protection and blessing of the Holy Trinity – wherever you travel – in safety and in joy!’

‘Yep. And Mamm, our OWN Mamm, has become the Keeper of the little oaken chest, with the tears still locked in the wood of it! We can still see them if we look, right Mamm?’

‘Ah yes, right again you two! Nicely done.’

And Mamm of Dunnottar resumes the telling of the Story of her heirloom under-bed storage chest, its adventures, and the lives of its Keepers.

    

     We find the son and daughter of David and LittleMamm, a few years after that farewell on Iona, at home on Dunnottar where they are being raised and trained.

     Ataulf and Mamm have but rarely seen their elder brothers Davidson of Chattan in the north and LittleEthan of Tarnos in Gaul; they are busy with their studies and both Davidson and LittleEthan have been brought up in the responsibilities that will become theirs when they inherit the holdings in Chattan and in Tarnos that their parents will not be around to inherit, being as the two of them have sailed off to the Far Western Lands, at long last unable to resist the demands of that Call.

‘Right! That’s right, Mamm!’

And Mamm smiles at the curly red head of Rua.

           

Ataulf looks at his little sister, Mamm of Dunnottar, disbelief clear in his copper-gold eyes.

‘You want to do WHAT?’

The grass green eyes of fire-headed Danann of Perth and his daughters the equally fire-headed Warrior Twins Sass and Saille would look out of place beneath Mamm’s dark curls but for the adamantly fierce look in them, making it clear that this youngling girl has inherited more than simply an eye color from her famous warrior great-grandfather.

Eleven year old Mamm may not have gotten the fiery red locks, or the height, but seems to have received a double dose of the fiery temper.

Ataulf on the other hand, with a mere dozen years under his belt, is rapidly approaching the legendary size of Danann of Perth although his coloring is that of his father David: brown hair and those coppery-gold eyes. He has long outgrown his little sister and is now about three times her size. Were their parents standing with them on this day he would tower over both of them as well.

But LittleMamm of Iona and David of Chattan have been gone for several years, following the Call of their Destiny to the Far Western Lands. It is now the year 388; it has been five long years since they sailed away.

These their two youngest have trained on Dunnottar for all of their short lives, LittleMamm and David providing the first years of that training themselves before finally giving in to the Call that filled the two of them for all of their lives.

Every waking moment has been filled with learning – their eager and fertile brains soaking up knowledge like sponges even before birth.

Their desperate parents have sought to instill in them the Wisdom of the Ages, knowing the Call to the Far Western Lands cannot be resisted forever.

They have Shared as much of their Powerful presence as the minds of their young offspring can hold, knowing all too well that their together time is short.

Now they have gone, LittleMamm and David, trusting to Dunnottar, and to TallUllin of Iona, these their younglings, Ataulf and Mamm.

Their eldest, David Davidson, is training in a whole different way, heir to the lands in Chattan which David his father will not be around to inherit.

Likewise LittleEthan, their second son, trains in preparation for accepting, in his mother’s stead, the Tarnos holdings of her parents, MammTwo and Ethan.

The siblings have long been parted by duty and by Destiny.

Mamm wants to fix that.

‘I want to go visit our brothers.’

‘That’s what I thought you said.’

‘Well? Are you coming with me or not?’

Ataulf straightens to his full already-intimidating height, throws back his ever-broadening shoulders, lifts the square chin of his father, and looks down his nose into the Power swirling in those brilliantly green eyes.

‘No.’

‘No?’

‘No.’

‘But Ataulf, will you make me go on such a journey all alone? What would mother and father say? You’re supposed to watch out for me!’

Ah the guiles and wiles of a young girl.

Mamm lets her brother have a good look at the tears suddenly swimming in her luminous eyes and lets one fall from thick dark lashes before lowering her face to her hands.

Well of course she’s peeking through her fingers, watching the emotions play across the face of her big brother.

The stern look gives way to brows drawn in suspicion as his eyes narrow into a squint. Then he tilts his head a bit to one side, thinking. Up goes that chin again in determined resolution. Up goes one hand to ruffle his hair in indecision.

While the hand is up there it snakes over his shoulder and pulls the short sword from its scabbard between his shoulder blades.

Mamm is maybe a bit startled when the point of the sword appears beneath her nose.

Maybe.

At any rate she clears her hands from her face.

Her eyes just a little too wide and round to present a convincingly startled look, she stares up at her big brother.

‘Do you threaten me, Ataulf? Put that thing away.

‘No.’

‘No?’

‘No. Not until you promise me on all that’s Holy to do always as I bid and to obey my will in all things, forever, little sister, and to defer to my superior wisdom at all times.’

‘No.’

‘No?’

‘No. Don’t be so dumb, Ataulf. We do not use what is Holy in any such manner and you know it. I will not add to my already long list of wrongs by profaning the Holies. Nor, just so you know, will I now or ever swear to any such an oath as you have demanded of me – neither to you nor to any person on the face of God’s green world!’

The fire having returned full force to his little sister’s eyes and Voice, Ataulf lowers the point of his sword from her face, lowers his arms, and lets his shoulders slump as he looks down at the grass of Dunnottar’s Grove beneath his feet.

Two can play at this game.

Raising his unencumbered hand, Ataulf rubs the space between his brows and raises not his head for many moments, eyes closed.

Recognizing this ploy for what it is Mamm stands silent and still, waiting.

Finally she gives up and pokes him in the belly with a long slim finger.

‘Ataulf?’

No response.

Another poke.

‘Ataulf? Are you in there?’

No response.

A tug at his bent elbow.

‘Ataulf!’

Finally a reaction.

‘Let me be, Mamm. Can’t you see I’m thinking?’

‘Oh. Forgive me, Ataulf. I’ve never seen you think before.’

This earns her a hot glare through one slitted eye before said eye closes again.

‘Well alrighty then. You think. I’m going to go pack for my journey.’

And Mamm of Dunnottar turns to walk away over the green and gold dapple of the floor of the Oak Grove of Dunnottar.

She knows full well that behind her Ataulf has opened his eyes to watch her leave.

‘He’ll catch up,’ she tells herself.

And so he does.

Upon learning the plans of the siblings, Dunnottar refuses to allow these two younglings to go traipsing off across Albann to Chattan (let alone to Tarnos in Gaul) without an escort.

‘It isn’t safe. The way is long between Dunnottar and Chattan. We’re on the east seaboard, remember – and Chattan is clear up north. You would have to pass through the lands of some who are not all that friendly toward us, and you’d have to go through the Cameron Lands before you could get to Chattan. And you know what bad blood lies between them and Davidson already. You would be a fine pair of hostages, wouldn’t you?’

‘We’ll go to Tarnos first then, and bring with us kin for escort and guard to go to Chattan.’

‘No, no, no. The sea is treacherous. There are pirates and raiders roaming about out there; would you become slave to some foreign owner? You are but eleven and twelve years. It is not reasonable for you to make such a journey.’

‘Well, for the Mother’s sake! Our mother was traveling – alone, mind you – between Iona and Chattan when she was years younger than we are!’

‘That’s different.’

Well really, you know, it isn’t all THAT different, but Dunnottar doesn’t see it that way.

‘How is it any different?’

And there is no logical answer.

‘She snuck off, that’s all. Would you prefer that we do the same? At least we’re not sneaking.’

‘Regardless, we cannot in good conscience give our assent to this. No. You can’t do this thing,’ they are told.

Now, telling anyone of this lineage that they can’t do something is a bad idea. It’s the equivalent of dumping a boat load of oil onto a flicker of flame.

Eyes of stunning green and, higher up, eyes of copper-gold blaze hot enough to create a vitrified stone wall.

Everyone backs away except for TallUllin who coughs into his fist, covering a grin.

‘I’ll go with you two, since Sass and Saille are who knows where doing their Fienne Warrior thing and there’s no telling when they’ll be back in this area. Having those two Warriors along would be nice, but . . . they have to be where they have to be and do what they have to do. There’s business I have to tend to anyhow. We’ll make a pilgrimage of this journey although I’m not sure you’re ready for it. Dunnottar does not deserve the blaze of your tempers. You will apologize straightaway or this deal off, do you understand me?’

TallUllin has not his name without just cause. Taller by a head than even Danann of Perth at full height, his gaze is far-reaching. And he sees more than his gaze alone can account for; he looks also with his Spirit and listens with his heart.

In Mamm and Ataulf of Dunnottar he recognizes regret and knows the apologies will be real and not just feigned for show and expediency.

And so they are off on their journey.

‘Will we go first to Chattan?’ asks Ataulf.

‘We go not to Chattan at all,’ is TallUllin’s curt reply.

‘But . . . but,’ says Mamm. ‘We’re going to see Davidson! He’s in Chattan!’

‘He is not in Chattan. His is even now on his way to meet us at the Sacred Yew. He and I have things to discuss before I go on to Iona. You will see your brother, but you will not see Chattan, not on this journey.’

The coals of a returning blaze begin to kindle in eyes of green, in eyes of copper-gold.

Ataulf Speaks his mind.

‘We would see our brother, TallUllin. That is why we are here. Yet it is not Davidson alone we would see. We need to go to Chattan where his herds are pastured. We are, both of us, of an age to be horsed. You well know the heritage and the pedigree of the Chattan herds, TallUllin. Our mounts await us there and they are ours by birthright. You cannot deny us.’

‘Oh.’

TallUllin dismounts and folds his long self onto a rock more gracefully than one would expect of someone with his gangly limbs.

‘I forgot.’

Mamm hops down from her pony and stands hands on hips.

‘You forgot,’ she says. ‘You forgot?!’

Stamping her little feet with great emphasis she advances on the seated TallUllin whose bald head is growing progressively more red with each emphatic stamp.

‘How could you forget such a thing, Ullin? How COULD you?’

Voice rising in tone and decibel with each word, Mamm continues.

‘You know we need to be horsed! We cannot make this journey mounted on ponies. The horses we need are in Chattan, not at the Sacred Yew. How dare you forget that? We cannot and will not go on pilgrimage un-horsed. WE WILL NOT!’

Now Ataulf adds his voice. He’s perhaps more calm but those coals are rapidly heating behind his copper eyes.

‘We do need the horses, Ullin. Would you have us shamed before our ancestors by being ponied rather than properly horsed on this pilgrimage? Our ponies are not strong enough for such a journey – and it has been long that I ride with my knees almost to my ears on my small mount! He is too small and I am too tall.’

TallUllin’s head, now scarlet, drops between his shoulders.

‘Davidson is already on his way. There is no time to get word to him, and no time for us to travel to Chattan. The need behind our journey is urgent. We cannot delay.’

Mamm stands silently shooting flames at the top of TallUllin’s already burning bald head.

‘Then what are we to do?’ asks Ataulf. ‘No other horses will do. We must have our own, bred to meet our requirements. And you know as well as we do that the Choice must be between rider and mount. We must go to Chattan, to the herds, so the Choices can be made between them and us. You know this, Ullin.’

‘I know, I know,’ mumbles TallUllin from behind his hands.

Now Mamm turns it loose and goes to full burning blaze.

‘You know, you know! But you forgot! What are we supposed to do now, Ullin? Huh? How are you going to fix this?’

TallUllin of Iona raises his head and looks at Mamm’s blazing face with a bit of steel coming into his normally placid chestnut eyes.

‘Mamm,’ he says.

‘What?!’ she shouts.

‘Sit down and shut up.’

Shocked out of her rage, Mamm does just exactly that, suddenly remembering this is TallUllin of Iona she has been ranting and screeching at. He not only out-ranks her (and everyone else) by a Roman mile, he’s a whole lot bigger than she is. Not to mention several thousand times more Powerful.

So yes, Mamm of Dunnottar sits down and shuts up rather abruptly.

‘Now maybe I can think.’

The contemplation doesn’t last long before TallUllin jumps to his feet and begins pacing in a circle, muttering to himself.

At last he comes to a halt and gazes down down down at Mamm who in return looks up up up at him.

As the gaze holds, Mamm’s face changes expressions. She isn’t smiling; not quite, but almost.

TallUllin of Iona Speaks.

‘I can’t fix it, Mamm. I just can’t fix this. But you can.’

‘Me?’

‘You.’

‘Ha. I didn’t get us into this mess; you did. Not only that, but I’m only just a little youngling girl. How do you expect me to fix anything?’

‘Call your mount, Mamm. You have Called hundreds of times when need demanded. Your need now is great. Call your mount and she will come to you. The Mother will send her.’

‘Oh.’

And so she does, closing her eyes in deep concentration.

Ataulf, left out of this little conversation, stands with arms folded across his chest, glaring at first one and then the other of his travel companions.

When Mamm finally opens her eyes back up it is to immediately encounter the hotly furious ones of her brother.

‘What?’

‘What, she says. What! I’ll tell you what, little sister. If you think for one minute that I’m going to pony along behind your royal highness, up there on your fancy blooded horse, you can think again. I’m going back to Dunnottar.’

‘What in the Mother’s name are you going on about, Ataulf?’

‘You can Call your mount. Good. Fine and dandy. Whoopee for you. You’ll be up there having a high old time riding one of the best fecking horses the world has ever known, all the la-de-dah fancy lady. Well more power to you. I’m going home.’

Ataulf stomps over and mounts his pony.

And the pony promptly bucks him off, hurt to the core by the insults he has just perceived in the rant of Ataulf.

TallUllin turns away to hide his grin; but Mamm has no such qualms when it comes to her brother and bursts into gales of laughter at the sight of Ataulf on his backside in the dirt.

Getting herself under some semblance of control she walks over and offers him a hand up.

Swatting at the hand, Ataulf gets himself onto his own two feet and begins stalking back in the direction of Dunnottar.

‘Ataulf! Ataulf, wait!’

Mamm runs after the stiffly proud back of her brother, darts around him, and plants herself in his path.

She’s not much of an obstacle. Ataulf brushes past her without a look, continuing on his way.

‘Fine! Be that way! You’ll have to ride fast and hard to catch up with us – by the time your horse finds you on Dunnottar we’ll be halfway to Iona and you won’t even get to see Davidson! I hope you’re happy.’

This gets his attention and Ataulf wheels to face Mamm.

‘What mount, Mamm? Huh? Can I Call my mount? No I can’t. I’m male, remember? No Calling allowed. Remember? I no longer have even a pony to ride, apparently. My walking pace would slow you down in your urgent business. I’m going home I tell you.’

‘Pfffft. I have no urgent business. That belongs to TallUllin and Davidson. And what do you expect of your pony when you speak such things before his very face? He has served you well for years, Ataulf, and you talk like that right in front of him! I don’t blame him, nor my own pony when it comes to that, if she decides to put me in the dirt too. We shame ourselves with our words on this day, Ataulf.’

Ataulf glances over to his pony, who has followed Mamm and listened to her words.

When the pony turns his head away, Ataulf’s eyes soften. He goes toward his pony but the pony steps from him, head still averted.

‘I’m so sorry.’

And Ataulf croons a little song long known to the pony as he again makes his approach.

This time the pony stands still, then turns to tuck his head under Ataulf’s elbow for a moment.

Mamm’s pony now trots up and both are again mounted, heading back toward TallUllin who is pacing a circle in the dirt.

As they ride, Ataulf looks sideways at his sister.

‘You Called my mount as well as your own; that’s what you did, isn’t it?’

‘Yep.’

. . .

I CAN'T KEEP UP WITH THEM!

I'm doing the best I can, but I tell ya:

The Dunnottar Folk are way ahead of me!

Even so, we're making progress here and there, now and then - so to speak.

I'm not sure whose brilliant idea it was for Dunnottar to take off on a horse-trading expedition to Perth, but it's sure as heck thrown the whole lot of us for a loop.

As the two story lines come closer in time, things are getting a little 'confuzzled' to use the word of Caileen.

We've got Mamm, of course ... but the closer the 'old' story line gets to the 'current' one the harder it gets for her to tell the story.

Ullin of Iona isn't in much better shape.

So who steps up to the plate?

Alaric.

UFFDA

And I'll say it again:

UFFDA.

METHOD WRITING SEEMS TO BE A LOT LIKE METHOD ACTING

Of course it could just be me being me to think such things, but I'm getting the impression that if I had to tag myself with a label when it comes to my writing it might possibly be 'Method Writer'.

We all know about method actors; if you don't, look it up.

These are the ones who do their best to 'become' their characters, in whatever way it works for them to do so.

Me, I'm not exactly doing that, not quite.

My focus is to learn as much as possible about the time, place, people, events, politics, lifestyles, yada yada yada, that my stories are about.

It isn't necessarily because I want to 'become' a Character - they've all got their OWN roles to play while mine is simply observer and recorder. Still, as the one who's writing all this stuff down, I kind of have my own role to play.

So it's not quite the same. I don't have to 'become' anybody else; I just have to get to know them as we go along our journey together.

Even so, I just read some stuff about method acting and realized that in some ways that's exactly the path I've been taking.

Not on purpose, per se, but the more I learn the more I want to see if I can even begin to do a few of the things my Characters did.

Like dyeing fabric - or making a basket - or cooking with wood - or using the Storying itself to get me through the Long Darks that Dakota throws at us every year - or dressing as they would have dressed - or trying my hand at making a torc - just stuff, you know, that I'm curious about.

And in the back of my head I can hear some of the Characters watching and listening as I mess things up all the time.

*laughing*

On the one hand it's like they might be pleased that I'm trying - on the other hand I can just hear a couple of them:

'Are you out of your mind? We did things our way because that's the way it was - really - you think we'd have done all that hand stitching if we'd had a sewing machine? Use the machine or your clothes are liable to fall apart, for cryin' out loud.'

It just so happens that I really love the comfort and simplicity of most of 'their' clothes, and I don't want them to fall apart. So yeah, I use my sewing machine.

Since I have neither the time nor the skills to become good at any of the things those guys would have done all the time, I take comfort in the philosophy of each and all of us finding out what we WANT to do and then doing it to the best of our ability. 

Ha.

I don't have to do all the stuff the Characters do!

I just get to be my own self and do what I do as best I can, just like everyone else!

WHEW!

Luckily for me, I happen to totally enjoy immersing myself in the times and places I write about; the research is amazing, and the writing that comes out of it is a journey I would never exchange for anything. 

These next few days 'off' I get to spend as I choose (as soon as I get my yard mowed and my house tidied, which come to think of it is my choice as well so that fits nicely I'd say) - and I will hopefully be able to get to the time and the place I need to be in order to get the Characters to when and where THEY need to be and doing what they need to be doing.

Looking forward to that, I surely am.

Maybe I am sort of a 'Method Writer' after all.

So when I say I'm sometime else, I really do sort of mean it.

I'll be back when I get back.

PAST CATCHING UP TO THE DUNNOTTAR 'PRESENT'

Yep.

Only sixty-five years to go ... 

Sounds like a lot, but many of those are years of peace, broken up by battles now and then that Mamm just HAS to participate in, sigh.

And only one more really difficult scene to get through.

So we're getting there, indeed we are.

Before you know it I will be back on Dunnottar and heartily thanking God for it! 

I love these Characters . . . and the story . . . still, it will feel kind of like being at home again with the Dunnottar folk!

Hurry, hurry I'm told by more than one reader.

I'm hurrying as fast as I can, believe me.

OKAY LAS ANIMAS : WHAT IF ...

WHAT IF WE HAD US A FEW BEES?

I've been seeing on line stories about Southeastern Colorado and even specifically Las Animas, which is intensely important to me as the 'seat' of our particular family for six generations now. 

The news is dismal and when I was there recently I found the conditions and outlook to be almost as bad as the news tells of.

BUT ...

Ah yes, this is me and there's always a BUT ... 

And there's always a WHAT IF to go along with the BUT.

WHAT IF ... 

What if the farmers and ranchers who sold their water rights were to get at least a portion of those rights back? 

Yeah right ... I can just hear you ... and just how exactly do you think that's gonna happen, and just exactly who do you think is going to revitalize those farms and ranches? 

Hell if I know but brainstorming comes before actualization, so hush for a minute and let's take a little ride down memory lane.

I'm an old lady now, there's no denying it.

My early memories seethe in and around Las Animas, Colorado.

As a little girl my favorite things were simple enough: sitting in the porch swing with Grandma or Grandad; going to the store with either of them (Thaxton's); the clear sweet honey from the ranch that our Uncle Bob brought in; cantalope and home-made icecream and Roooot Beeeer in glass gallon jugs from A&W; looking for chicken nests; digging in the  sand pit for water; watching the horses; riding them; snow-faced red calves out at the ranch; Jimmy the bull; sunflowers along the fence line; glass bottles of orange, strawberry, grape pop in the stock tank ... the list goes on and on and on ... the little things that make a childhood joyful.

Then, things were different.

Today, it's not enough to sit around and moan and groan about how things have gone downhill.

The Valley needs water.

Hello, people.

It also needs more than that.

So what are we going to do about it?

Hmmm ... 

You know, I live in North Dakota.

Not just because I love it here but because it's been  like the only ONLY place that's remained stable over the years. 

ND, like the Valley, has been agricultural in nature - but nobody has come along needing our water. We've got Devils Lake rising and rising and rising - with an aquifer beneath it that runs clear down to Colorado. Did you know that? Now you do. And there are those who have known it for a very long time. Think about thata for a minute.

Onward with the brainstorming.

No matter how you cut it, agriculture in the Valley is going to take time to re-establish, even if they get the water they need.

What can we do in the meantime?

Me, I'm a writer.

I write fiction.

Just last night somebody asked me who my publisher is.

Me.

I publish my own books, get them printed, order them from the printer, and sell them. It keeps food in my belly.

The concept of books being fresh in my mind, and the dilemma of the Valley likewise being fresh in my mind, it crossed my mind to wonder ... 

What if, in lieu of agriculture for the time being, the focus went to culture? 

The towns are strung like gems on the Arkansas River along the Valley of Southern Colorado. 

Pueblo - Fowler - Manzanola - Rocky Ford - La Junta - Las Animas - Hasty - Lamar - Granada - Holly

And I know I missed one, that little place where you have to make a curve and go under an underpass or some such ... ach ... it will come to me.

Anyway, these are the towns along Highway 50 east of Pueblo - there are others, of course, but I don't know them as well (or at all) since this is my regular route and I'm altogether too familiar with it.

Now, all I'm doing here is thinking. Brainstorming. Maybe only brain-raining, but at least it's drizzling ... 

This necklace of towns reminds me of the area around my ND home. The towns have been dying for a long time - remember that awful NG article about them a while back? Now, of course, the focus is all on the western oil stuff - but let's not forget that ND was already well in the black (no pun intended but what the heck, there it is!) even before that boom happened.

Still, our small towns are dying or already dead. North Dakota can't save them. Nor can Colorado (even less) save theirs. And the small towns certainly can't save themselves. 

Me being me, I see yet another BUT coming up here.

Yep.

Here it is.

BUT ...

The little town my house is located in has been growing some just lately.

Maybe it's the attention ND has been getting from the boom, or maybe it's people 'out there' doing their homework on line and finding possibilities they hadn't thought about before ... whatever it is, they're coming.

From the Greater America, they're coming - and they're bringing their families and a bit of a new life to this little town.

Houses that stood empty for years are now occupied.

New ones are going up.

I'm trying to think of just my own block here. There are ten homes in our block (I think). Bear with me; I hibernate a lot. 

One of those homes sits empty, waiting for the people who now own it to do something with it besides gut it and leave it to fall apart.

Of the other nine, only me and one of my class-mates from high school (and grade school for that matter) are what could be termed 'locals'. The rest are 'outsiders'.

And that's just my own block.

If it weren't for the 'outsiders', those homes would probably be sitting empty.

So.

What's bringing them here?

You got me, but here they indeed are. 

One family came from Utah I think, a multi-generational family whose elders wanted to retire and whose younger members intend to raise their families here.

One came from somewhere down south I believe, and they are occupied with the ag stuff here - mother and father both - and the daughters babysit and work at the local store when not in school.

One lady came from down south too; she works at the nursing home in a nearby town, and does cleaning.

The rest I don't know about but one of them does in-home day care (now that there are at long last younglings again in our midst).

The point here is that they have found homes here.

Me, I'd rather live in Las Animas - it's got a lot better climate - but we tried that, my family and I, several years ago. I ended up working three hours and fifteen minutes away, up in the mountains. That commute was horrific to put it mildly, but I had a family to support. And that was then - things are exponentially worse down there now.

Why do I think I ought to be doing something about it? I can barely support myself and Duke my dog with what I'm doing HERE. I don't have anything at all that would be useful to Las Animas in any real sense of the word.

Well geez. I'm just THINKING.

I can still do that at least.

So get on with it already, b.

Okay.

Back to the WHAT IF.

What if ... for example ... somebody SOMEBODY ... thought to tap into that aquifer?

Hmmm?

It's RIGHT THERE, look up the damn thing on line. 

All that water.

There's water there besides what's in the Arkansas River, you know.

Out at the ranch Grandad had a water witch come out and there are two wells down there in the desert country south of Purgatory. Far enough south so they don't have to meter the water coming out of those wells (not in the 'water table' of the Arkansas).

So there's that.

Maybe not much, but there is that.

There's also a well on the homestead place, further south yet.

Just sayin'.

It won't help the Valley, but it's there.

Here's another thought.

How come they can lay a pipeline for oil and such but not for water?

How come they can't pipe up some of the water that's flooding our Devils Lake region and send it to the Valley?

Because why?

I don't want to hear it.

It is TOO worth it.

Where now the Rocky Ford cantalopes? Where the big sweet onions? Where the hot hot peppers? Where all the rest of the abundance of the Valley?

Sold down river.

What the hell is wrong with this picture?

Which ranting and raving is getting me exactly nowhere in my little brain raining session here.

What if the Valley, for the time, could develop the resources it CAN get its hands on?

Like what?

Like its people, for example.

Otero Junior College is right there - education isn't extinct in the Valley, you know.

Give the ones that are left a reason to go to school and learn to manage businesses, or to provide services - call it a leap of faith.

Me, I publish my own books and could well do the same for others if I had time in between my shift-work, writing, artwork, housework (which is rare, granted, but still needs doing), yardwork, yada yada yada. IF I could afford it, I would set up down there and teach others to edit, format, publish ... do all that stuff.

Right now I can't, but the thought lingers.

SOMEBODY could.

They could.

What does it matter where books are published from, or printed?

Why NOT someplace like Las Animas?

For that matter, there are any number of non-agricultural things that could find homes in the Valley. 

North Dakota's small towns are dead or dying because the support structure for them went away - family farms are few and far between these days.

Other things have to take the place of the old support system.

The Valley isn't devoid of life.

Some people do remain.

I can hear the scoffing all the way up here in my ND study.

Unskilled workers.

Well and whose fault is that?

Give them skills.

Give them a reason to find their own personal strengths and put them to use.

So.

The Valley has people and can get more, just as our little town up here has somehow managed to get more - from the outside, true, but here they are.

What else does the Valley have?

It's been for always a travel route.

Use that, and lure people into stopping to LOOK instead of just passing on through.

Give each gem on that necklace its own unique personality and make it 'the thing to do' to travel that necklace and stop to examine each of the jewels along it.

Move the stockyards AWAY from the travel route (yeah I know, but nobody and I mean NOBODY wants to get hit with that as they drive along).

Lure the Boomers into investing in the climate. Use the very absence of big population centers, but string medical facilities along the necklace, and supply centers.

I tell ya.

Were my situation even a LITTLE bit better, I would buy myself a home in Las Animas in a heartbeat and settle myself into it to write and publish to my heart's content. I'd have me a little studio and get some artwork done.

So where are all the wannabe writers and artists who, like me, would dearly love a little stone or stucco home in the dry heat of Bent County, where the winters hardly ever bring snow or even freezing temperatures and where even the high heat of summer is DRY heat and won't suffocate you.

Why would I want to go THERE you ask.

Here's why:

It's affordable if you have anything at all (which I don't but am working on).

It's that climate.

It's the raw beauty of the countryside around.

It's the fact that it's been forever a major trade and travel route.

It's that the mountains are nearby, VERY nearby at the western end of this necklace but within shooting distance along all of it.

It's peace and serenity.

It's the smell of the settled dust right after an early morning shower.

It's all of the things I loved as a child.

It's all of the things I love as an adult.

For me, it's home.

Ye gods and little people - I'm rapidly writing myself into wanting to pack up and head there right this very minute. 

I won't do that, but oh the temptation is very powerful.

I like this little town I live in up here in Dakota, truly I do.

I like it a lot.

But, you know ... 

I love Las Animas.

Brainstorming tends to be a convoluted procedure, long and tedious.

And I'm okay with that.

I'm perfectly fine with knowing that I've long lost any audience I may have started out with.

I myself can't do much of anything for Las Animas or the Valley - but ...

BUT ...

Maybe I can do a little something for myself. 

And if, in the doing, it turns out in the end to give even just a little something back to the place that has nurtured six generations of our family ... so much the better. 

We, along with almost all of everyone else over the generations, have long left it in the dust - but it endures - and it will welcome us back should we choose to go. 

I find strength and healing in my hills, the Colorado Rockies.

Strength and healing are also to be found in the rocky deserts.

And, you know ... the mountains don't need me.

Las Animas might could right about now.

And you.

And you, and you, and you, and you.

Just sayin'.

My sister is right.

I'd best hurry myself up and finish this set of books I'm working on.

Because as soon as they're launched I'm thinking that there's another set Calling - really loud and really powerfully.

Oh yes.

There it is.

Right down there. 

Down in the Valley.

TRANSCRIPTION IS NOT MY FAVORITE THING TO DO IN THIS WORLD

It is, however, done for the time being.

And thank God sez I.

It's been a strange kind of day, but at least my Characters are at a logical stopping place and I've gotten the text safely electronically stored so can quit writing little notes all over my handwritten stuff now.

*laughing*

I still have to go through it all one more time and make sure I didn't miss anything, and also read the thing all the way through to see if it makes sense. 

I'm hoping to find that it's all just fine.

I'm also hoping that nobody else decides they need to jump into this story line. 

For it having been a day 'off' I'm pretty well tired out.

Tomorrow promises to be another strange day so I'd best probably go see if I can rest myself and see if I can Dream a good poem - which is on my agenda for tomorrow along with a bunch of other stuff. The poem, that is. I hope to NOT spend my day Dreaming as I have a meeting to get myself to in the morning.

I can't let my writing schedule get too far awry as the days available for actually getting any writing done are few enough already.