At the turn of the century I moved to the front range of the Rocky Mountains to work for a lively dot com startup providing B2B software solutions for healthcare providers. Having planned for the move about five years earlier while living and working on the Gulf Coast, renting a split-level home with Pikes Peak towering overhead just a few miles to the west and a Bear Creek Park trailhead within short walking distance of the house, I was thoroughly enjoying the new experience

Ricky stopped me at the local 66 station late one afternoon to tell me about the job opportunity. A trucker needed help dropping a load of fiberglass pipe out in The Breaks. He told me how much we'd be paid but I didn't really care about that as much as getting to spend some time in a place I enjoyed being with someone I enjoyed being with. So I hopped right into his car and off we went. Following the trucker, we zoomed along talking and laughing the way we always did when we

Siamee died last night after living on the family farm for more than fourteen years. He didn't show up for his supper yesterday evening. After midnight I woke up worrying he might be dead somewhere out on the highway, but he apparently died quietly in his favorite private place underneath the trailer used for decades building and maintaining two homesteads. Showing no signs of bodily trauma, and laying on undisturbed ground, he appears to have died peacefully of old age there

Last night's dream was excitingly vivid. A lifelong dream of living in wilderness and composing music for the sheer joy of it was fulfilled about 20 years ago when I began living fulltime on the first homestead situated in a remote canyon just four miles downslope from a place called Gascon Point. Surrounded by national forestland, the peace and solitude was complete there and rarely disrupted. This allowed new music to flow copiously from mind, through instruments, and into

Unable to swallow any doctrine, religious, political or otherwise, since turning six years of age, decades of thought on what is and is not has led me to conclude through repeated empirical observation that the world is not a grand, pre-scripted stage on which we are simply cast. Instead, the world is what we make of it. Nothing more, or less. And our progress is not quatitatively measurable aside from the sensation of always moving forward. Existence is a vast probabilistic

There are no clues of this kitten's story. At 3:20 AM, August 8, 2025 Skye alerted me to her presence with odd behavior she exhibits when something is in the yard. Something that has never been here before but something she didn't want to kill. Running back and forth from me to the rear garden box, snuffling and woofing with excitement, all I could tell was that she desperately wanted me to check it out. Cautiously approaching, wary of skunk and rattler and bobcat, not necess

The stray, still unnamed, is venturing beyond the fenced yard now, taking it all in, wondering what everything is and what potential such things must surely hold. A reminder to do so too. Tiny new life With curious gaze Braving meadow and woods Its mind unfurls Its body thrums In wonder of it all

The stray kitten is finally venturing beyond the bounds of the back porch. The question now is what its name will be. Skitties is one suggestion since it has been so skittish since arriving here. Another is TaleTail because its tail is so expressive. Pretty sure now that it's a female, so maybe she'll soon populate the food forest with some effective mousers. A big barred owl has been hanging around. Hopefully it won't get her before she has any.

Decades of shifting reception hurdles demand adaptability. And so, the antennascape changes every few years. Tossing out the old seems rash. It might come in handy again. The Data Must Flow

The old one isn't concerned with frivolous frolicking. A new stray demonstrates the joy of it.

The cat never misses opportunity to chill. A reminder to do it too.

At the end of the 70s I finally returned to college after a two-year hiatus, entering my sophmore year via audition for jazz guitarist Jack Petersen. I didn't expect to be admitted to the performance guitar program at UNT (called NTSU back then) but had to give it my best. So after practicing hard on three original guitar compositions up to a day before, I arrived on time for the audition and played two of them for Mr. Petersen. I made no mistakes and managed to instill some

Recent rain totaling seven inches overnight caused a little localized flash flooding, some of it topping out at eight feet, flowing over and breaking the top wire of a nearby game reserve's brand new fence just a mile east of the new homestead parcel. Here, it caused no damage, but it did trigger a population explosion in the cellar, which I totally missed witnessing. Too busy tying up loose ends in the battle with FEMA, the snails emerged, mated, multiplied, and almost all d

The visitor wasn't a bot. That's about all I know except the city of access and the day they visited the web site... Now if only someone in Antarctica will visit.

This is exactly as I posted to Google Reviews: I yanked open their door a couple of minutes before closing time with Skye–muddy and bloody in my arms–and damn near shouted "SHE'S RATTLESNAKE BIT!". They leaped right into action, applied antivenin and put her on IV. The 4-foot long diamondback had struck her repeatedly on the right cheek just below the eye. They assured me I got her into the clinic before it was too late, urged me to go on home and not to worry. I didn't think

Badly wounded when I hit it with the bush hog while mowing the adjacent area outside the fence, it made its way into Sky's half acre to hide from the assaulting blades, just trying to find a safe place to survive. Late in the afternoon, around 4 PM Sky sensed its presence in the garlic bed beneath the burl oak at the southeast corner of her half acre and investigated, then attacked. By the time we went outside to find out what she was going on about, her muzzle was blood soak

Talking a few days ago with my brother about my search for a new parcel of wilderness property to replace the one destroyed by the United States Forest Service, we got into discussion about the horrors of HOAs. I guess HOAs serve good function in the burbs, but I know I would hate to be living under control of one. After renting a house for a while which was under HOA surveillance, I knew I'd never buy property governed by HOA regulations. This beautiful rural lawn would neve

Saw a hitchhiker yesterday while waiting for a takeout food order. It's been a long time since I saw one. I gave the last one spotted (in early spring 2006, I think it was) a ride up to a local ski area near the end of season, a college student carrying a snowboard who wanted to spend a day on the slopes. The one spotted yesterday was carrying a big backpack which was obviously heavy and a United States flag. Not sure that flag would be much help to him. I used to hitchhike a

Green is returning to the land. Always a pleasant transition after the long, gray cold. Cool spring weather projects are in need of being started and finished before searing heat of summer sets in. I'm not eager to sweat anymore than absolutely necessary then. Best to stay near air-conditioning until autumn cool returns. Lots to do. Better get busy while spring lasts.

Spotted this young coyote yesterday afternoon during a short pleasure drive down a country road. It apparently had invested a lot of time and energy digging under recently erected tall fence which had trapped its mother inside a large exotic wildlife enclosure a little over a year ago. Being an adventuresome youth, it wanted out to see what it could see on the other side. Now it can't get back in because the landowner laid down wire on the ground just outside the vertical fen