Stepping Back From the Border

and then there is Harry

2009-11-06T17:59:00.000-08:00

I wonder if Shelly, my daughter, had any idea what she was doing when she suggested I name Harry after Harry Houdini...I wonder.

When Harry and his partner Bess first came to the ranch the end of April this year, I fell in love, in love and out of love a million times. I was going to name them yin and yang, after all, one yellow female, and a black male...how fitting. Well, that didn't quite work, then I suggested to my daughter that I may call them Bonnie and Clyde, as the pups were a rowdy twosome and always in trouble. Oh no, Shelly said, you will be sorry. They will act the part.

So why then did she suggest Harry and Bess? After the Trumans, I asked. No, she replied, after the Houdinis...Harry and his wife Bess, who helped him get out of so so much through the years.

We had to build them a kennel like Fort Knox. That was the only way we could keep them in, and even then they got away from us...usually on a walk. I am sure the neighbors dreaded those early morning phone calls, telling them the pups were on the loose again. Ethel Sanders, my delightful 96 year old neighbor, spotted them one day running back and forth between her ranch house and the pond. She called, and I came and grabbed them up and hauled them home again. Louise, Rob and Sharon and Jeff all had their time in catching the little devils.

Finally, on their latest escapade which took them to the top of Cottonwood Canyon, and a few more feet and they would have gone over the top to points unknown, some hunters found them exhausted with blistered feet, and brought them home. I never could figure out how they always ended up back at the ranch. They crawled out of the camper that night the dirtiest two dogs on the planet, and too tired to do much of anything but sleep.

Then one day Tommy and his wife came out from Tucson, fell in love with Bess and I let her go home with them...and that left me Harry. Harry that can jump over fences that would shock most people, can clear the half door between my office and my home, and has become such a momma's boy that he can't bear to be separated...at the moment I wake up with little black hairs stuck to my cheeks from where he has cuddled up so close during the night. My bed has been turned into a dog's bed, between him and Dharma. No wonder I am not married, there isn't any room for a guy in this bed...unless, of course, I give the dogs my bed and I move to another bedroom.

So I have to admit a week in a hotel room is a lot to ask of any dog, of me even, but here we are, and yesterday I left Harry in the car while I was looking around a property, with his leash attached to my gearshift so that he couldn't get out, and when I returned he wasn't in the car. He had jumped thru a 5" opening in the window, the leash still attached to the gearshift and up and out thru the small crack in the window, and he was on the outside looking in. I was mortified. This dog weighs in at about 75 lbs. It was a wonder he didn't hang himself. Today I left Dharma and Jessie in the hotel room much to their delight, as I can't even get Dharma to go near the car anymore without tugging and pulling on her...anyway, I took Harry with me and we spent the day checking out more houses and just doing our thing. He was perfect. Then I brought him back to the room to be with the others, and I went down the street to get me something hot to eat. I was gone 30 minutes and when I walked back into my room Harry was gone, Dharma and Jessie were visibly upset. I had left the window open in the room, which was hid behind a curtain. 5", we measured it. And it had a lock on it so it couldn't open any more than that.

I was so angry with him. How dare he do this after all the hell we had been through since his arrival in April...and now that I just found a house, and mind you, not exactly the type of house I would like to live in, but perfect for the dogs, the horses and the burro. And then he goes off and does something stupid like this. Damn I was angry. I went outside and walked around the building, then, off in a distance at the other end of the parking lot, I saw him. I yelled his name, and he came running like I have never seen. The cutest thing you ever saw, and the anger dissipated and once again I was happy that I had chosen the house I had chosen. I think we should have named him Winston, and maybe he would have behaved more like a gentleman.

a friend wrote:

2009-11-05T06:06:00.000-08:00

I read your blog today and was given to think of those cows. Did you pause to wonder what their thoughts were as they watched you? I wonder sometimes as animals watch us if they wonder why we are so helter-skelter all the time when we could just relax, smell the roses, feel the breeze, watch the sun's beauty as it rises and sets, after all we are all awaiting the same fate....be it a slaughter house, chasing a car down the street (like a dog or Secret Service Agent) or a serial killer showing up at the door.....just something to think about when you catch those wonderful furry friends looking at you with their head cocked sideways.

the old, the new and where the hell did I get all of this stuff

2009-11-03T21:36:00.000-08:00

It was in New Mexico where I saw the old and the new struggling to survive. Actually there seemed to be room for both out there on the open rangelands, and I wondered if they would be able to survive side by side. I pulled off onto the dusty shoulder. The dogs, of which I had always referred to as the girls, and now with Harry in the mix, I don't know what to call them anymore, but anyway the dogs got excited when I stopped, so I snapped on each of their leads and we got out. Harry, in all of his excitement and not-quite-two-year-oldness, stepped in my cup of hot tea.

Across the little two lane country road were two windmills. One from another century spinning in the wind and pumping as fast as it could. It was old and dilapidated, but it was doing its job and what a job it has...bringing water from deep in the earth up to the parched surface to water the livestock. The water tank below it was filled to the brim with that liquid gold. Water in a land baked and brittle, after several years of drought and no summer monsoons. The cows were gathered around...the choice was easy...there was no question. They had to walk a long way for a blade of green grass, but the water held them close to the tank. Not far away was a 'new' windmill, larger than life, with its shiny blades reaching to the heavens...this one gathering the wind and turning it into electricity. It, too, has a job, a big one...that of harnessing the wind's power and giving the earth and the people on it a better and more lasting source of power.

We walked and I watched the windmills, my thoughts soaring with the huge silver blades, then coming back to the cows and watching them as they stayed in their 'comfort' zone. Get Up! I wanted to scream... you are missing life. Water is not your only life blood...you must graze and explore. You are just going to lay there and then go to slaughter. Good lord - don't you want to live? But they just laid there in a lump, basking in their knowledge that for now they had water. That was a sure thing. That was me at Sunglow. Sunglow was my comfort zone. The only one I had ever experienced...but I know about stepping out and living the experience. And it is time for me to do that again. I missed the experiences of not knowing...and of doing and of being. I changed at Sunglow. Everything about me changed. I lost my zest for life.

For me, I needed that break. I needed to stop long enough to find my strengths and my passions. I think 10 years overdid it a little, but you get the picture. But I found for me - comfort creates stagnation and with that came all of this stuff. I sometimes wonder if I bought all this 'stuff' trying to stuff my feelings like I do with foods. When I started packing, I was appalled - how in the hell did I ever buy this much stuff?

We are who we are. Some are meant to stay in one place, others are meant to move....
During my younger years while I was raising my children, I moved a LOT. Once I suggested to my mom that she must have been messing around with a gypsy when she got pregnant with me, but through the years I discovered she was the gypsy. So for me, I was meant to move, so while I wait for my 'stuff' to arrive via semi truck, I have to start thinking about why I have so much, and what to do about it, and how to lighten my physical and mental load.

It's Colleen's fault, or is it Chris' fault

2009-10-31T18:19:00.000-07:00

Isn't that the way it is...always blaming someone else...

The road was getting weary on that second day. Tiredness was setting in on me, all of the everything was huddling in around me. I could hardly hold my eyes open, when I remembered that colleen had given me a bag of goodies... these goodies were to get me down the road, she had said with a knowing smile. Looking inside I saw all my good intentions going right down the drain, or the throat, so to speak. Pringles and Wheat Thins all stashed so beautifully in the bright colored papers.

Part of the excitement about the move was I would be away from the Sunglow Cafe and get a handle on this nervous eating I had been doing for years... 30 lbs worth. I thought the hours of driving would allow me to face the demons that drove me to the cookies and the Pringles...those damn Pringles.

Chris started it all. At first, he made nachos with that great Vermont Cheddar cheese.... and he was such a perfectionist about it all, that he made each one individually and baked them until they were just right. Succulent would be more like it. That was such a wonderful afternoon treat...and he only made a certain amount, so I couldn't over indulge in them... then came those damn potato chips. Pringles to be more specific.

Actually, I never was a potato chip eater until Chris started bringing in a can of Pringles about every day, and even then, I don't think I would have found them enticing except he started cutting up that fabulous Vermont Cheddar cheese to go with them.... anything would taste good with that Vermont cheese...and so goes the new habit of eating Pringles, and now I don't need the cheese.

If any of you watched Food, Inc. you may remember that Pringles aren't really potato chips.... they are actually flakes of dried potatoes pressed with chemicals and the like into perfectly formed chips. If we think about it, we know potatoes don't come quite so uniform....anyway, this isn't so much about the quality of food as it is about why we consume this garbage.

So, I am driving along. Dharma had been sick all day the day before... leaving me to believe that the half eaten package of ground flax seeds with pomegranates that I had found Harry chewing on the day before we left might have been mostly consumed by Dharma. So today Dharma is feeling a little better...the dogs are quiet....no radio stations out here in the middle of this culinary wasteland.... and the new IPod I had purchased, I haven't figured out quite yet....so quiet it is...

And what comes out of quiet... that uneasiness, that something that tells me I am going to miss sunglow something awful... what about my friends... trying to think forward instead of backwards....thinking of starting a new business, thinking of moving and starting a new life.... finances, all of a sudden I was overwhelmed by exhaustion...that was when I started looking for something to eat...and that was when I remembered...Pringles and Wheat Thins....and I found some awesome chocolates too.

So by the time I pulled into Clinton, OK (in case you are a little confused here with me being in Oklahoma, I needed to visit my parents in Missouri before going on to Idaho) I was one sick soul....I had done exactly what I was so excited not to do...I had consumed every piece of edible (that is questionable) whatevers I found in the car. I was so ready for that exploration of my inner space...so ready to call a halt to this mindless eating....but I was so tired, and if I eat I can stay awake. I am a vegetarian for God's sake.... I eat organic, so what drives me over the edge....
stay tuned, some more of this mountain therapy coming right up.

leaving sunglow ranch and a new beginning

2009-10-23T11:02:00.000-07:00

Some were saying it was the end of an era, for me it was a new beginning. I quietly drove down the long drive away from the ranch towards Sunglow Road, afraid to look back as there had been too many tears, making for a sad, sad day.... the three dogs, Dharma, the 5 year old Turkish goatherder, weighing in at 127 lbs, Jessie, my little red Aussie who is now 14 and suffering from the signs of old age, and Harry, the black lab not quite two yet, who wandered in with his partner Bess the end of April.... abandoned....they were all as quiet as I was...knowing their lives were changing before their eyes, and their beloved home was no more. One of my friends on the border came and fell in love with Bess. I let him take her knowing that would break the running and hunting habit the two had used to survive...so now we are three dogs, two horses, a burro and me. We had moved Doc, Apache and Frijole, the burro, down the road waiting for mom to call and say we have a new home and bring them to me....

I didn't get far, just down past the Blank Draw, and the tears overwhelmed me.... I got to the cattle guard, and pulled off, the magical Chiricahua Mountains in front of me. They seemed to know, it was my time to go...there were so many things I wanted to do before I left. I wanted to hike up to my favorite places, Rustler Park...well not quite to Rustler, that place where I break off and drive for a ways until I can't drive anymore, then I would take the dogs and hike up to the crest and just sit and listen to the soughing of the pines, not another soul within a mile. At times, I could see a truck go down the road far below me...they had no idea I was up there alone and loving the aloneness, the dogs understood my need and lay quietly waiting; Cave Creek, where I would park just off the road and walk in the mile to the trailheads so that I could just experience the quiet, watch the birds, wonder about those caves far up in the rocks above my head....knowing the bat guano that fills them and that it is the perfect place for a female cougar to give birth to her young.... and the Chiricahua National Monument.. the land of many rocks... what a natural wonder and all the people who work there..they are a natural wonder as well....the nature trail behind the ranch that allows one to explore the 400 pristine acres.... Whitewater Draw where the birds come in to 'hang out'.... all the places that I, of late, had no time for.

At the sweat lodge the night before I left, a friend had given me a pouch of tobacco...so I reached for the tobacco, and stepped from my car. I said a silent prayer, feeling the mountains embrace me. I prayed for safe travels, and that I cause no harm to others nor them to me, that my canine friends and all other animals stay safe, that no birds or animals dart in front of me while driving, and that the mountain lions I love so much stay protected from human predators ... I also asked the Great Spirit to hold my dreams in his hands and protect them, so I wouldn't lose them on the way. I laid a pinch of tobacco in my hand and held it out.... I watched as my prayers and the tobacco were carried up to the heavens with the gentle breezes of late October.

Sunglow Ranch, it seemed as if it was a 'give and take' relationship, like most relationships. I don't think I realized it as it was happening, there were times I felt I couldn't give it anymore...that I had nothing left to give, then I would step back into the hills, and that was when I could see how much the ranch and these mountains had given to me. A friend from college who came out to work with us off and on through the years once said, Susan if one isn't ready to face themselves, these mountains will kick their butt and send them packing....I believe that, the mountains are like a mirror, reflecting the true inner self back at you every step of the way.... Mitchel Sayare, the owner of Sunglow Ranch, years ago when I first came to work for him had expressed concern that the ranch may be too remote for me, and I laughed saying I was thinking it may not be remote enough. I had had many relationships thru the years, and it was time for me to be alone and learn about myself first, before bringing another man into my life. Little did I know that it would take me 10 years to learn who I am and through the complexity of my relationship with Sunglow Ranch I was able to understand my weaknesses and my strengths...my struggles and my triumphs. So, after many years of 'mountain therapy' I look at this as my new beginning.....and for this I give thanks to Sunglow, to Mitchel Sayare, to my fabulous staff, to all my friends in southeastern Arizona and to my beloved Chiricahua Mountains.

Moving North

2009-09-20T14:11:00.000-07:00

When I typed those words, moving north, immediately I thought of all the people coming from Mexico and points south, and their move north to America...but actually, when I first had the vision of moving north, it was about me and my decision to move north to Idaho, which I will do in mid-October, and away from the Mexican border.

This is a tough decision, as I have lived on this border for about 13 years now...but I have decided to leave my position as the GM at Sunglow Ranch (www.sunglowranch.com) in the Chiricahua Mountains of southeastern Arizona after almost 10 years. It is time, and I have a novel-in-progress, actually so close to being finished about this border and the people who have made it what it is today.

Now, as it is, I feel I can't see the 'forest for the trees' and as I step away the picture will become clearer. This blog will be about my time on the border, my experiences and the people I have met. It also will be about change, change in me and others as circumstances have presented themselves. I hope you enjoy and feel free to send your comments and questions, and I will respond...