Train on the floor, Super Cub over head, bunny rabbits and moose at the window, dog in car, young writer turns 21, boys leaving

Kalib and Jobe have been staying with us for a few days, because their dad was suffering some minor pain that could be major if they jumped on him. Last night, Lavina and Lynxton joined them here, allegedly to give dad even a little more space, but I suspect Mom got pretty homesick to see her two older boys.

This morning, I came out of my office and found them all intently watching something. What could it be?

I was going to run around and take a picture from the other side so that you could see their eyes all focused on Thomas as he rolled 'round his track, but when I tried, Kalib came, too, and took the controls. Then Jobe started to come. Kalib was wary, because Jobe can go into Jobezilla mode at any time and wreck Thomas and his tracks.

It worked out okay, though. Jobezilla did not wreck Thomas. Jobe brought another Thomas onto the scene.

After that, I went for a walk. Soon, I heard pistons pumping and a prop beating the air, the volume and pitch rising. I knew it was an airplane, flying low, coming towards me. I looked and sure enough, it was this Super Cub. I wanted to be up there, not down here, but I was down here.

Two ravens held a discussion in the lower reaches of the sky.

Further on, a pickup stopped beside me. The driver wanted to introduce to his new dog, Juneau. This is Juneau. Sadly, his old dog got sick and died. I have a number of photos of that dog, too, whose name slips me - but it is recorded in my old blog, Wasilla, Alaska by 300 and Then Some.

As I neared my house, I saw Dan walking. Dan lives on the corner of Sarah's Way and Seldon, where the domestic bunny rabbits that proliferated in the neighborhood last summer tended to bunk down. By the end of summer, there were many rabbits. I asked Dan if any had survived the winter. Three had, he told me, and now there was one more, so there were four.

Not long after I returned home, two of the bunny rabbits made an appearance in our driveway.

Lynxton made his appearance inside.

I stopped by Metro Cafe at the usual time. Carmen informed that today was the 21st birthday of the young writer, Shoshana. Twenty-one is still young. She will be a young writer for some time to come yet.

As I drove home, I saw this boy running alongside a hill.

Not long after I returned home, two yearling moose calves took the place of the bunny rabbits in our driveway. One of them had a stare-down with Kalib. Neither frightened the other.

Lavina and the boys had planned to stay one more night and leave tomorrow, but Kalib got lonesome for his dad, so his mom decided to take them home tonight. Caleb said goodbye to Lynxton.

The boys got buckled in...

...and then Lavina drove off with them. I do not remember precisely what the time was, but I believe it was a bit after 8:00 PM. Before I left home, Alaska still had the shortest days of anyone in the country. Now Alaska has the longest - growing steadily longer the further north you go.

India and Arizona never get really long days - although this time of year Arizona gets a longer day than India does. Still, compared to Alaska, Arizona's spring and summer days are short. Even though I have been home for a week now, come night, I am still a bit overwhelmed by the lingering light.

It doesn't help solve this persistent jet lag problem, though. If anything, it just makes me feel sleepier. And I forgot to buy Melatonin today. So I guess I will go to bed pretty soon, then sleep for two or three hours again, then wake up, groggy again, not able to sleep or fully function.

Still, I functioned better today than I did yesterday. Today was the first day that I made what felt like some significant accomplishments. So maybe, despite how I feel right now, I am making progress.

All Wasilla: study of the young writer, Shoshana; the girl who walked away from the school bus; raven hops off dead tree

It has been a long time since I have run one of my universe-wide famous Studies of the Young Writer, Shoshona - so here she is:

Study of the Young Writer, Shoshana, #1,000,003: she stirs my Americano.

This is the girl who walked away from the school bus. The temperature soared to 44 searing degrees today (6.7 C). Snow is melting fast.

I spotted this raven perched atop this dead tree. I stopped and waited to see if it would hop off and how it would look when it did.

Sure enough, the raven hopped off. And this is how it looked when it did.

And be sure - I have at least two more White Mountain Apache stories coming and at least four or five more from India. I intend to finish them all before the end of next week - but none tonight. 

Physically, I still feel very strange. It is still hard for me to function. It is just about 11:00 PM right now - still pretty early for me, but I cannot keep my eyes open. I cannot think. I cannot write. I will go to bed soon. Then, if tonight proves the same as every other night that I have been home - almost one week now, I will fall asleep almost immediately - a rare thing for me, but something I have done maybe every night. Then I will wake up sometime between 12:30 AM and 2:30 AM and I won't be able to go back to sleep. Tomorrow, I will once again feel like hell, just as I did today, as I did yesterday. I take Melatonin almost every night, but now it occurs to me that I ran out of Melatonin after I reached Phoenix, before I returned to Wasilla.

Maybe that is why I can't adjust.

I had better buy some Melatonin tomorrow and see if that makes a difference.

Not far from the place under the sky where she was born, Margie and I walked on her Apache land where we had walked 38 years before

Margie first brought me home to her native village of Carrizo, Arizona, on the White Mountain Apache Indian Reservation for Christmas Vaction - 1973-74. She had been a little worried about it, because she was not 100 percent certain how her parents would react to her bringing a white man who would soon marry her home to Indian Country, but her parents and family all greeted and accepted me warmly - as mine had her.

After we got a good night's sleep, we took a long walk together along Carrizo Creek, the little river that joins with Corduroy Creek right on the edge of her village of 100 people and then flows on a rapid descent down to the Salt River in the deep canyon of the same name.

It was a magical walk. The sun shone brightly, the sky was clean, pure, and deep blue. Here and there tiny patches of snow held their place in the shadows in air that was a few degrees above freezing. Water flowed slowly down the creek, but there were many pools and puddles covered by a thin layer of ice and air - the air being trapped between the ice and the water.

We would bounce small rocks across the ice, causing it to sing as they skipped over it. Sometimes, we would throw the rocks in high arc and then they would penetrate the ice, which would tinkle like shattering glass as the rocks broke through.

Best of all, I experienced all this with this young, beautiful woman whose long, wavy, raven-black hair tumbled over her shoulders and who was about to commit the rest of her life to being with me.

As those familar with us know, Margie has broken her knee twice since 2009 and she walks much slower than she used to. Rough or rocky terrain is difficult for her to navigate. She hardly ever walks with me any more and when she does, we walk at a slow pace and don't go very far.

After we reached Carrizo on the afternoon of February 21, I told her I was going to take a walk along Carrizo Creek.

"I will go with you," she said.

I was surprised. I had not expected her to come. I thought it would be too hard for her.

We walked down the hill from the house where her mother now lives. Here she is, approaching Carrizo Creek, me right behind her.

The sky was clear, clean and deep blue - just as it had been that first day. The temperature was somewhere between 55 and 60 degrees, so of course there were no snow patches, no sheets of ice covering pools in the creek. In fact, in places where we had found pools back then, we now found dry earth.

Back then, we had used stepping stones on our many treks back and forth across the several braided channels of the creek. Now, there seemed to be no need of stepping stones

Margie found a good stick and made it a walking stick.

On that first walk, we had stopped many times to pick up and examine the rocks along the creek. We took a few with us. This is something Margie always does when we stop along a creek, river, or beach anywhere. She did so this time, too - including this basalt remnant of a once firey volcano.

Right out in the middle, we found a little bit of water, flowing through the main channel.

Margie tossed a couple of rocks into the water.

On that first walk, we had found a couple of enalmalware pots and pans in good condition, so we took them home. In the five years that we would soon spend living on the reservation, we would almost always find a couple of such pans or even coffee pots and teakettles whenever we would walk in Carrizo Canyon.

We saved many of them, but we don't have any of them, now.

On this day, Margie found another - old, rusted, pocked and weathered.

While the damage to the pot could have been caused by current slamming it against rocks, Margie also reasoned that the pot might have been crushed and left along the creek as part a mourning ceremony for a loved one lost in death, so she put it back down. We left it behind. Someone had shot it once.

It would be carried away the next time the river rose - which, given the snow that later fell in the mountains and the hot weather that has followed since, has probably already happened.

Margie's place of birth is further up the canyon, in the open air, where a wickiup once stood. I have often written about how weary she has grown of Alaskan winters - oh yes, she loves Alaska and wants to keep Alaska as home - but she is ready to return to her Native Apache home for the winters.

Given all that she has sacrificed to follow me and settle in Alaska, I believe this is something we are going to need to figure out how to do - and soon, while she can still enjoy it.

I don't know how. Sometimes, it feels impossible.

But we must do it.

When we do, for however many months we are down there, I will miss Alaska and its magnificent winter like crazy, but it is something we must do, a sacrifice I must make. But then, look how great her own Apache country is. 

See? Just look at her - at home, looking about at the quiet stillness of the Apache place that created her.

I think it is a sacrifice I can adapt to - so long as it is seasonal and we keep returning to Alaska.

Margie, in her Native Apache land.

Margie, in her Native Apache land... where the two of us took a walk, decades ago.

If you look closely at some of the trees in some of the pictures above, you will see little clumps of something high up in the branches - mistletoe. During that first walk we shared here, I found mistletoe lying upon the ground. I held it over her head and then when she discovered what I was doing - we kissed. There was heat in the kiss, and passion. More kisses followed quickly thereafter.

Whenver I needed another, I just picked up another sprig of fallen mistletoe - there was plenty of it.

Now, I held the mistletoe over her again. We kissed again.

Maybe only once, and perhaps there was not as much heat - but still it was mighty nice.

Some rocks are too big to pick up and examine, too big to carry home, but not too big to stop and look at.

We did not walk as far or as long this time as we had back during Christmas vacation of '73-'74. Still, where I had expected to now walk alone, we had walked together where we had walked all those years before.

Then we walked back up the hill, toward her mother's house.

When we reached the top of the hill, we saw the school bus departing. It had just dropped students off that it had brought back from school in Whiteriver, 25 miles away.

Lazy mode in three locations: WM Apache - Blue Bird, jet, fire, dog gets teeth brushed; Wasilla - Allie's poem; Carmen and guests; India - girl in temple

Boy! This is the worst case of jet lag ever. It should be all gone by now, but this is the hardest day yet. I can barely function. I went to sleep fast last night and slept soundly for about two hours, then came wide and desperately awake about 2:00 AM and that was it. I stayed in bed, hoping to go back to sleep for another six hours or so, but just stayed awake. This is not how one gets over jet lag.

So I continue in lazy mode, but I exercise just enough ambition to remind readers that I now have three story locations to thread together: White Mountain Apache, India and Wasilla.

So here is a picture I took in Carrizo, Arizona, the Apache community where Margie was born and her mom and several siblings still live, along with other relatives.

People make a lot of bread here, from fry bread to tennis racket bread to tortillas and some other kinds, too. Blue Bird flour is very popular and Blue Bird flour bags are most useful.

Margie stands behind the bag.

A jet, passing over the White Mountain Apache Reservation community of Hon Dah, where Margie's sister LeeAnn hosted us.

White Mountain Apache fire crew truck, Hon Dah. 

LeeAnn brushes Alfie's teeth.

OK - Wasilla: Today I had breakfast at Abby's again. Margie was in town, babysitting.

Allie poured me a cup of coffee...

This is the picture of her poem that I did not run two days ago because I did not want to publish her poem without her permission. Today, she gave me her permission. Allie just won a local poetry slam. Abby's niece Amber did the art work. 

In the afternoon, I pulled up to the drive-through at Metro Cafe. Carmen posed with her brother-in-law, Ron, and Carol, a very good customer. Barista Elizabeth politely tried to get out of the way, but didn't quite make it in time. I took some more after she did, but I like the picture better with Elizabeth in it than out of it.

Girl in a temple at Chittaurgarh Fort, Rajasthan, India. I was not going to post any more of my India photos until I had made a decent edit of them all, but I still have not begun to edit and I want to keep India present in this blog until I can edit and figure out my stories. I don't think this picture crucial to any of the stories I most want to tell, so here it is, in lazy mode, just to remind readers that I was just in India and have some India stories coming.

If I decide later that this picture should be part of one of my stories, then I reserve the right to include it, anyway, but I don't think that will happen.

Chicago now sleeps where Pistol-Yero once did; the big thaw seems to have begun

When I was in India, I wrote about how Pistol-Yero would curl up and sleep right by my head each night. Chicago would normally sleep somewhere near my legs. Jimmy would tend to sleep right on top of me, although he would shift around a bit throughout the night.

I have been home for two nights now and everytime I have woken up, I have found my nose practically buried in Chicago's fur. With Pistol-Yero gone, she has moved to the head of the bed - right by my head.

Chicago never liked Pistol much. She would often hiss at him. Pistol seemed to enjoy that. In fact, he would often encourage her to hiss at him. She never figured that out.

Today, I had to put Pistol in Jacob and Lavina's freezer until we can get his grave dug, because we can't count on the weather to keep him frozen anymore.

That hurt.

It seems I must have brought some of that heat from India back to Wasilla with me. It is still fairly cool in the mornings when everything is frozen good and solid, but by late afternoon today the temperature had climbed to 38 F (3C). Snow was melting like crazy.

So it seems breakup is underway. Of course, it is still a little dangerous to say something like that. Next week, Wasilla could go right back into the deep freeze, where it seemed to be the whole time I was gone.

I kind of doubt that it will, but there have been past years when I kind of doubted and it did anyway.

There is no guarantee yet, but there are signs I might be able to make it back to the Arctic Slope soon. I can guarantee you that even though it will definitely be spring there, too, it will none-the-less be still be what most people in most places would call deep freeze.

It will be good to go back. Very good.

I hope it actually happens.

Now, it feels to me like the impact of my jet lag is getting worse, not better. I can hardly keep my eyes open. I can hardly type. It is only 10:30 PM, very early for me, but maybe I will go to bed soon. Then I will probably wake up at 2:30 AM or so.

That's what's been happening.

I think this blog will be a lazy blog for two or three or four more days to come, yet.