Ice forming on the Rio Grande Reservoir

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Storm coming.

Our new site is under construction and experiencing some technical difficulties.  My sincere apologies for the inconvenience.  We should be back up and running shortly.  Please check back soon!  In the meanwhile, please feel free to write us directly if need be at:  highmountainmuse@gmail.com. 

Warmly,

Gin

Pole Mountain in early winter snow

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I apologize for the inconvenience, but look forward to seeing you there…

Gin

Lots and lots of doughnut holes

A good snowy day treat.  Here, if you have a craving, better look around the pantry and see if you just can’t make it yourself.  So, when Bob hinted at “doughnuts…” you know we couldn’t head over to the nearest Crispy Creme shop. We had to make our own.  A rather messy project, but when it’s snowing hard outside, finding an excuse to linger longer in the kitchen is OK with me…

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tufts of grass on a cliff collecting snow

It does not happen all at once.  It is often slow, subtle, easy and soft.  Layer upon layer it builds, piling deeper and deeper, smoothing out the landscape to a gentle even white.  With time, with layers, rocks, roads, brush, even fence lines will become absorbed.  Our world will be buffered by snow…

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Icicles on the porch.

We drive home in the dark.

The outskirts of town fade quickly; the oncoming flow of blinding white lights was short lived and is gone. We leave the high beams on, ready at each turn to flick them lower if need be. Few vehicles come, and none follow us further up the mountain.  Now we pass but the occasional home, most closed for the season, an invisible part of the dark landscape surrounding us.  Those with lights have the tell tale blue glow of a TV screen.  I know there people in there, sitting and watching some story from far away, perched before their modern evening altar…

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The roll and swell of an autumn hillside.

Inspired by (and with gratitude for) Kim from Enlightened Horsemanship through Touch and her series with this name, I take a moment to reflect on how much I have to be thankful for. How easy it is to be tangled in the web of the day to day weavings, or overwhelmed with issues and conflicts and schedules and appointments and pressures.  We forget to slow down, to stop, and look around us, within us, our lives, our worlds, our dreams, everywhere, in every home, in every person.  We must look and find it.  It is there. Everywhere.  If it is hiding, lift up the rock and look underneath.  It is somewhere.  Something to be grateful for…

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November under Pole Mountain with naked Aspen.

The woods are still, though I know there is a gentle movement in the cool air along the treetops as I hear the whine of two aspen rasping against each other, irregular yet steady in its own rhythm of the woods. I stand by the wallow and look for recent elk tracks.  There are none.  The water is static and transparent. No one has stepped in to stir up the muddy bottom. Not today, at least. I wonder how long it may have been…

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The kids on pasture on an easy November afternoon.

As if it wasn’t bad enough…

My husband asked me once if I thought this place was cursed.  I laughed and said of course not.  Perhaps just the part of his family that has cursed themselves with their own misery. But no, not the land.  Never the land.

I still believe that. However…

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Big Horn Sheep, ewes and lambs, above the Rio Grande Reservoir (photo by Bob)

As we leave the ranch just for the weekend, the splendor of the mountain overwhelms, breathtaking both literally and figuratively. The low light of the early morning, late autumn sun light sparkles like so many diamonds across the smooth expanse of the reservoir.  We stop to look, to fill ourselves with this magnificence, so that we do not find ourselves empty in the city over the weekend, lost in a land of dazzling lights and blaring noises…

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