Deep Water

I started writing this in January, 2026, when my lovely wife and I traveled to Hawaii for a little respite.  Deep grief and heart song had already begun.

Deep Water

 

I’ve traveled tough terrain before, crossed rough and stormy seas,

Been to the top of the mountain, the depths of despair,

I thought peace had come to me.

And then a tragedy unbidden, the worst or so they say,

A child lost before his prime, before he ventured out to play.

I cannot help but think of all the things he’ll miss

A glide across the skating rink, a lover’s tender kiss.

Firsts of everything, yet to touch his world

All the hopes and dreams man has had not yet unfurled.

I’ll never see him marry, or a child to his name

I’ll never feel his joy again, now only feel this pain.

Every single question, all the time, but the answers never come,

His frame of mind, was I unkind?

Like the beating of a drum.

One day those beats will soften, for now there is no end,

Their pounding rhythm driving deep, far past unfathomable bends.

That road now coursing down, deep within the well,

Opening that sacred place where tears and sunshine dwell.

Beyond the walls where pride clings

Into the halls where radiance springs

Where love soars on silver wings

That sacred place where sorrow sings.

I’ll keep walking through this fire, every single day

That’s how much he meant to me, that’s the price I have to pay.

God speed to all who walk this road, I know I am not alone

May our kindred sorrow sooth somehow, the loss we all must own.

Ground Control to Major Tom

Several days after my eldest grandson's funeral, I took the first of many DMT voyages since his death. What is DMT you may ask?  

DMT (N,N-Dimethyltryptamine) is a powerful, naturally occurring psychedelic compound that induces intense, short-lived visual and auditory hallucinations.  It exists, pretty much, in all living things.

Quick Onset: When smoked or vaporized, effects begin within seconds, peaking quickly and usually resolving within five to eight minutes, with slight after effects for thirty to forty-five minutes.

Ayahuasca: The classic South American psychedelic brew. Oral ingestion requires combination with a monoamine oxidase inhibitor (MAOI), so a couple of plants are brewed together. This method extends the experience to several hours, but it is not as intense. 

Perceptual Changes: Users report profound alterations in space, time, and body identity, frequently describing vivid encounters with autonomous entities or alternate realities. 

I had voyaged on DMT a few times prior to this.  What I have always preferred with this particular vehicle is the short duration.  A twelve hour acid excursions might be a bit much for my constitution anymore.  For Pete's sake.

DMT had always been a very pleasant, cerebral and colorful experience for me. Many folks have encountered any number of different kinds of entities, the only thing I had encountered (until recently) was a white serpent.  She was not frightening, she was not aggressive.  She kept her distance, but she also watched me very closely.  Geometric patterns flowed within her.

The incredibly bright colors and amazing geometric patterns you see while on DMT look extremely similar to Huichol Indian art.  Pretty sure some of these folks be time traveling...

                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Keep in mind, all the patterns move in an amazing concentric cosmic dance.

The DMT I had in my hot little hands I had been sitting on for a while.  I hadn't voyaged for probably six or seven years.  It had the consistency of moist sawdust, with a very pungent earthy smell.  And it sat, in a dark vial. Tucked away.  For a rainy day. Which unfortunately arrived.

I had no idea what to expect. Several days earlier I had wandered up to the greenhouses, again, spaces where Cash and I had spent an enormous amount of time prior to his death.  I had read a poem at his graveside service, four lines of which:

"I will look for you always in the bright autumn leaves,

I will feel your presence within a small breeze

I will seek your spirit in the sky above

I will see you always in the faces I love..."

As I sat on a large boulder, weeping uncontrollably, a soft breeze wafted over me.  I looked up and there was a hawk circling above me.

It was then Cassius came to me and said, "I am God. So are you."  

Totally Cassius. Layers upon layers. And maybe a little humor. Smart ass kid. We had shared many conversations about psychedelics and the spiritual realm, and here he was, actually in the realm, talking to me. To me, that was an invitation to come see and be.   

My darling sweet niece Ashley had come up immediately after hearing about his death and pretty much stayed with my daughter for weeks. They are very much sister cousins. And my darling sweet niece Ashley became the lucky psychonaut sacred space sitter for her uncle me. 

We chose a very ordinary place out at the farm.  There was still family commotion inside the house, so we wandered a bit away and sat on an old desk and office seat.  It was not fancy, it was kinda littered.  But Ash and I both maintain any place, EVERY place can be sacred.  It's all about what's in your heart.

All I knew was that my heart was open and raw.  It was from this space that I entered the holy realm, NOT consciously thinking about it. I took three long, deliberate hits, and within seconds I started drifting and was immediately hit by a lightening bolt right through my head and into my heart. The electricity and energy surged through my entire shaking body. I slowly drifted into soft chambers of down, bright blue and purple colors swirled about me.  A breeze came and I felt Cash's energy, the pulsation of his heart and spirit.

I lingered as long as allowed, and came back to my sweet niece sitting across from me in the classic lotus pose.  Soft blue, green and purple shafts of color still swirled as I re-entered this reality, taking another twenty minutes to assimilate and completely come down. 

Several days later I voyaged again. With Ash holding space, I blasted off.  This  time was similar, a lightening bolt entered through my head, filling my entire body with bright white light. My body trembled and shook as all the light and energy surged throughout my being.  It felt like I was being fuel injected with copious amounts of love.  

While I definitely believe it is safer and quite possibly more beneficial to voyage with a sitter, nevertheless, primarily because of scheduling conflicts, I felt compelled to venture forth a couple times on my own.

The first time I had the distinct feeling and impression that I was awakening, that I was waking up after a long, long sleep.  Like centuries long sleep.

The second time, I was hit again by that damn bright white light, and it completely ripped my heart open.  As I sat there, sobbing on my front porch, an ally, friend and healer appeared for the first time.  She was a beautiful black and red serpent, and she hovered over me like a very patient and protective mother.  Maybe she was the original white one I saw, but now that she was a part of me her colors had changed.

I knew my dear Ashley would eventually have to go home, so I sort of enlisted the assistance of another close friend of my children's. I approached Michelle with the the thought of voyaging with me, or at least space sitting, and she was at a perfect moment in life for a little spiritual adventure. She said yes.

I usually set sail with eyes closed, but this first time together I was looking at her as we  blasted off.  As I looked within her eyes , I saw and vibrated with her entire everything (heart, being, spirit, essence) completely. At that point I closed my eyes, and held her hand for the rest of the voyage.  During that time I could feel her heart and spirit and I could feel energy coursing through me and into her. 

The second time we voyaged together, with Ashley still holding space, we BOTH ended up together in the same amazing sacred space.  We wandered, in awe through HUGE, brightly colored rooms.  We were in a palace, with endless rooms as large as the Empire State Building. The colors were as bright as you saw above, all moving in incredible concentric, geometric patterns. 

It was then our paths diverged.  I ended up in a bright golden room with a dozen or more hummingbirds.  And she had a visit with a red eagle. 

I had no idea what was happening.  I knew I had touched the divine, had danced with the divine, and I wanted to share this love and energy with everyone.  At that point I had no idea my Kundalini had spontaneously awoke.  So what the heck is a Kundalini anyway?

Kundalini is a form of dormant spiritual energy that ancient traditions describe as a coiled snake at the base of the spine. My new girlfriend? When consciously awakening the kundalini through meditation, it usually starts at the base of the spine, or root chakra.

A spontaneous awakening, which can be triggered by trauma, deep emotional grief, psychedelics, or near death experiences, many times starts in the upper chakras. 

It was a rather heady experience for me, this spontaneous awakening.  I was dancing with the divine and was filled with a gigantic amount of love and energy.  I now know the awakening is just the beginning and takes a while to sort out, integrate and embody. But in the moment, I was thinking I could just do drugs and save the world. 

With the thought of sharing more energy and love, another friend sat in and held space for Michelle and I.  This time I opened my heart to the heavens and was bombarded with light and energy.  I became a part of the "crystalline grid, which is the invisible, multidimensional, architectural blueprint that connects consciousness, the physical earth and spiritual realms".  I sat there with arms out stretched to the heavens, once again trembling, bathed in pulsating blue and white light.  Michelle was with me all the way.  And by the way, the grid is not invisible when you're a part of it.  

The next time we voyaged together we did it with my skeptical but lovely wife sitting in and witnessing.  Cassius's father joined us as well.

The first round was light, but my hands, that I have since named Ying and Yang, had already kinda started their spontaneous kriya dance. What are kriyas you may ask?

Spontaneous kriyas are involuntary physical movements that happen during deep meditation or spiritual practice, when stored stress and life force energy release from the nervous system. Spontaneous kundalini can also awaken kriyas.  The hand dance is also a way for the body to release and express all the energy inside. I was beginning to give the spinners at a Grateful Dead show a run for their money.

My lovely wife commented on how the three of us reacted.  My ex son-in-law had been a stone, Michelle her beautiful, effervescent flowing self and then my lovely wife made fun of me and my wildly dancing hands.

The three of us decided to do it again, only more this time.  Once we set sail, I made the conscious decision to keep my hands still.  I think I sat on them. What happened next was wild.  Than energy needed to go somewhere, so my heart decided to burst open in an incredible array of color, light and love.  It felt like a 4th of July firework finale that lasted forever, emanating from my heart.  Michelle was there too.  We were both sitting there, giggling, as our hearts exploded in lobe and light.

Ever since that first voyage I have been bombarded with personal spiritual insights. Synchronicity has been off the hook. Empathy, ridiculous. These are all symptoms of a kundalini awakening, and most of these were happening without any substance ingestion during my day to day.

One of the primary insights I had was how I was dealing.  I stopped thinking about everything early on, and let my body and intuition guide me.  It became clear to me that I was not going to ever think or understand my way to heaven. I'd been trying to do that for decades and only got lost in the woods.  Every single time.  As soon as I started feeling my way I was there, in heaven, through my heart.

I was also not going to think my way out of grieving my grandson.  I now know that grief lives in the body, and it is there that it must be met. But at this early stage feeling felt right, so I rolled with it.

There have been several voyages since, but here's where the story shifts. Again. While these voyages were incredibly sacred and I danced with the divine, there was more.  I could feel it.  

 

 

 

 

 

Paddles of Tears

The following is from "The Smell of Rain on Dust", by Martin Prechtel.  If you have recently experienced loss, any kind of loss, or know someone who has, I highly recommend this book.  The author presents a convincing argument that most of the world's problems are due to a lack of grieving and actually feeling, really feeling the heart.

                                                    

Excerpts from the chapter, "Paddles of tears, canoes made out of old songs", beliefs of Central American Indian tribes:

"The old understanding is that when a person dies, that person's spirit needs to begin traveling away from the shores of this beautiful flowering earth across the ocean of time, without ever looking back, to arrive on the concentric shores surrounding and facing this reality we live in called the Beach of Stars, where ideally they are met by their last happy ancestors. 

In order for the dead person's traveling soul to reach the opposite shore to be initiated and transformed into a life giving force from a human spirit, all their living friends and relatives must show how deeply they feel the loss of the deceased in a real and honest show of grief. 

The distance to the Other Shores cannot be calculated by ordinary human methods, its distance being more akin to something galactic, so the arrival over this ocean of time is not something the deceased's soul can ever accomplish unassisted. 

The energy that impulses the dead person's "seed heart" or soul over the ocean of time to the Beach of Stars has to come directly from the grief expressed by the living, by those who have honestly loved the dead person.  It is by the presence of their feeling of missing him or her expressed in a collective way that creates "paddles of tears, with canoes made out of old songs," that majestically and assuredly chauffeurs the dead person's disembodied life force right into the arms of the ancestral pool of souls. 

If enough friends and relatives give it their all, the soul of the one whose loss they feel so deeply is not only carried safely to the Beach of Stars, but like a baby chick, has enough of a spiritual yolk sac supplied by the spiritual worth of the beauty of the grief and praise expressed to maintain them during the first stages of transformation into an ancestral force."                              

I read that passage last July to an assembled group of mostly friends of my recently deceased Grandson during a portion of his celebration of life.  My daughter put this event together at their farm and mirrored it a bit after a couple of grief retreats she has personally attended since our lives were shattered October 14, 2025.  We held two short assemblies underneath the large heritage oak he left this reality, and it all resonated quite extraordinarily with the forty or so attendees.

Last week I was back at the farm helping with harvest.  It has been extremely hard for me to go back into those spaces.  The echoes of his footsteps were everywhere, as was the tender, joyous sound of his laughter. But this time I noticed his presence was missing from the large shop area we had worked in together for the last couple years.  He wasn't there anymore, where I felt him just a scant month or so ago.

The next day my daughter brought up the "Paddles of tears" passage that I had read, and through the soft, bitter tears I have grown accustomed to she commented that he was almost there, to the Beach of Stars.  

I said, "I know."

We both could feel this, that he's almost gone, and through our combined tears we were feeling good-bye, again.  He's now in the wind, but forever a part of our hearts.  

I see Cassius taking flight near the end of this song and video:  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZyyrnEDDOw&list=PLDq9PQ39JpU3LKyopuETAVWbGAzkKbrZf&index=2 

Is it just that we have grieved so much that our hearts feel a little lighter?  Or has he truly reached the Beach of Stars?  I think both.  Does it all sound a little crazy?  Maybe, but I can tell you this with unfortunate clarity, NOTHING, and I mean nothing is insane when you've lost a loved one and start walking into this sacred territory. Nothing.

Cassius's death has completely altered my life's course. Instead of piddling around and watching James Bond and Leave it to Beaver reruns for the duration of my silver years, looks like I am becoming a warrior of the heart, or a grief walker if you will.   What are thosd you may ask?  I suppose you could say it is someone that faces the exquisite pain in the heart, actually pursues the exquisite pain in the heart, rather than turn away.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm not running around out here pushing myself to grieve, it comes pretty naturally.  Still.  But when it does come, I don't turn away.  I lean into it, going in as hard and deep as I can.  And the more this happens, the deeper I go.

I personally have no choice.  My Grandson beckoned me from beyond.  A parent or grand parent will many times state that they would lay down and die for their offspring.  I certainly did.  If that's the case, yet he's already gone, then I suppose this could be considered a cake walk.

Of course, the walk is filled with alligators, anacondas and fire.  Searing hot, piercing the heart fucking fire. Over and over and over again. 

I suppose I could try to ignore that flame. Many do. Push it down. Eat it away. Drink it away.  Pretend it never happened. Deny. Deflect.  But it will always remain, waiting to be heard.

I had no idea how deeply this body can feel.  And grief is a body thing, NOT a mental game.  I stopped thinking about it early on, and have allowed my intuition and body to guide me through these turbulent waters. No one will ever understand their way out of grief, or think their way out. Grief lives in the body, and it is there it has to be met.

My daughter and I have both chosen to face the fire, to be consumed by the flames.  The pain is agonizingly intense, how could all that lost love be anything other?  

Fortunately the body is wise.  It will only let you endure the pain for so long. And then it stops.  Until the next time.  A sight.  A scent.  A sound.  It doesn't take much to trigger when you're so open and raw.

There has been another element involved in this for me, which I will get into in a following post.  Yeah, I guess I'm back.  It's been about three years since I've been writing here.  Lol.  I have three unfinished posts, I guess I ran out motivation and things to say.  I just did not want to prattle on, although I can do that very well.

But these truths that are a part of me now MUST be told and shared. And it all boils down to one thing, love.

Choose love. Be love. It is what we are and what we are meant to be. 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w99NAM1eMsg&list=RDw99NAM1eMsg&start_radio=1

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Big's Safety Rangers

I've decided I'm forming a club.  If y'all want to join me you're in.  There's no membership fees.  No dues.  There's no silly hazing requirements, like standing on your head and eating a plate of spaghetti.  Or drinking a bathtub full of beer.

There's no dress code, so you can wear whatever you want.  There's no drug testing either.  So fire one up and read on.

The only requirement of membership is your desire to see the roads and highways of America safer.  That's it.  To that end though I am a bit of a stickler to not necessarily rules but to plain old common sense!

I get to make up the grading system because I have a little bit of experience having pulled a few dead bodies out of cars.  Back in another life I was a firefighter for a few years at a couple different locations in California.  A state highway ran through both locations, so besides the ever fun loving fully involved structure fires I also got to experience the not so fun aforementioned activities.

BTW, one absolute law of vehicle collisions I have learned is that if it is a big vehicle versus a little vehicle the big one always wins.  Always.

This last September my lovely wife and I were on the road, like every single weekend. We had a lot of stuff going on and there was a lot of time whisking by on the highway.  But even prior to this I had taken a shine to grading drivers who had pulled over to the side of the road.  For whatever reason; engine trouble, flat tire, bathroom break, sex.  

The primary grade is given for how far off the highway they have actually gone.  And if they could have gone further. Cause the further away from vehicles zipping along at 65 MPH the safer they'll be.   Higher grades are given for the further distance, lesser for the closer they are to the highway.

This is not to be taken lightly.  There was a Nevada County knucklehead a number of years back that got a flat tire on the driver's side of his van.  He immediately pulled over on the state highway during the very busy morning commute.  

The problem was, there was a steep up slope on the side of the road and there wasn't really any shoulder at all.  The left tires of his vehicle were actually on the right white line of the lane. Which of course would mean that in order to change the tire his body would actually be in the highway.  

He didn't last long.  I don't think he got a lug nut off.  

He of course would get an "F".  There was a steep up slope where he stopped so he actually did pull as far over as he could have.  There.  But if he limped forward about two hundred yards he would have had a turn out about the size of Bolivia to change the tire.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, he might have damaged the tire a bit more had he continued forward.  So?  He certainly won't have to make that decision again.

I have collected a number of cars on the shoulder photos which I am going to display, grade and then tell you why.  OK?  (You have to say OK if you want to be in the club.  I think this might be the only requirement.)

This car gets a "B".  He's about as far off the shoulder he can get there, BUT, it looks like the turn out might fan wider towards where the shot was taken.  This car should be back there.

This blonde, while pretty, maybe, deserves to have her legs shorn off by the next vehicle that passes by. She's got a lot more room on the grass.  "F"

This cop gets a "C".  Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever.  Those right two tires should be at least a foot onto the grassy knoll.

This car gets a "B".  He could be over another foot.

"F".  Puhleese.  Look at that football field to his side.

"A".  This person is even over the outer boundary line of the turn out.

"C"  The door opens onto the highway, but considering the problem she did the best she could.  I'd still probably keep that door closed.

The only reason this car should be here is if it doesn't run.  And even so he should be over kissing that guard rail.  "D".

This cop, while probably trolling for speeders, gets an "A" for position.  Any car pulling over here should be right on the edge of that grass just like he is.

"A" Nice placement, slow road.

 

The white car gets an "A".  He's definitely off the highway a good distance, and that brings up another point.  Don't pull so far off the highway that it's going to take a tow truck to get you back on.  (Cop gets an "F".  Hell, he's already been ht!)

This van gets a "B+".  He's still got a little room over there.

"F".  Geez.  Brake lights are on.  He probably dropped a roach and his crotch is starting to burn.  Even then I think I'd pour a drink (if I had one-which I usually do) or pee my pants rather than stop there.  That's an accident or a cop waiting to happen, and either one will certainly harsh whatever mellow had been attained.

This van gets a "B".  It's a lousy place to pull over, and that's why he doesn't get an "A".  But he's up there kissing the guard rail, doing everything he can.

"B"  He's got a little more room.

Look at that row of cars.  FFFFFFFFFFFFF.  Look at the turn out where the photo was taken.  That's where I'm parking.  

Folks do that up here in the summer accessing the Yuba River.  They all get tickets.

 "A"  Can't get much further off the road than that. Plus this guy is really prepared.

Anyway, I think you get the idea on the safe pulling over aspect of the club.  

Now that I think about it, maybe there's two more rules to be a club member.  The Safety Rangers ALWAYS use their turn signals, even if a squirrel in a tree is the only living thing that sees.  And we always turn it on in ADVANCE of our turn because it only makes sense.  Those individuals that turn on their signal as they are turning are either an asshole or an idiot.

The asshole part is easy to understand.  The idiot part maybe not so much because, well, they're idiots.  But if they gave it half a thought, anyone following would already KNOW they are turning by the actions of the car.  They didn't need to know AFTER the idiot dropped them from 50 to 20 MPH and started their turn, they needed to know BEFORE all that stuff happened. 

And Safety Rangers don't tailgate.  Unless, of course, the proverbial asshole or idiot pulls out, cuts you off and drops you from 50 to 20 and then only speeds up to 30.  Tailgating IS allowed for a mile or so to get your point across, as is any form of vernacular that might erupt from your mouth.  

But then we let Zen and safety win.

However, if they giddy-up and go a safety ranger will usually forgive and forget with only a few minor  eruptions.

That's it folks.  Be safe.  Be polite.  Welcome to the club.

Snowmageddon

Winter is usually the time of year around here when I get  take a break and rest.  Shorter days. Cooler temps. Warm fires.  Goodies in the oven.

I'm always running around here like a chicken with my head cut off in the summer.  Always trying to put twenty pounds of taters in a five pound sack, kinda because I have to.  Long days.  Hot as hell.  The constant noise of pushing air.  And no goodies in the oven.

A big part of that busy summer equation is our own doing.  I love to garden and my lovely wife is the cut flower queen.   

So we have roses, lots of roses.  We also have several 3x8 grow boxes devoted entirely to cut flowers, which, besides my lovely wife, bees and butterflies love too.  Then there's two twenty foot long strips along walk ways that get planted with bloomers every year.  And a ten foot lily strip along the potting shed.  Hundreds of iris bulbs all over the property and flowers in pots kinda everywhere too. 

This is a typical kitchen table scene during spring and summer as they await deployment all over the house:

Then there's the rest of the stuff.  Vegetables, a dozen fruit trees and assorted landscaping close to and all around the house.  Most everything is at least drought tolerant as far as the landscaping goes.  But it still needs some attention.  Especially during many of those hot hot hot summer days.

I have drip systems everywhere with eight or nine automatic timers.  A timed sprinkler system in front.  I've done what I can to minimize usage while keeping things alive, but there's still a lot to do.

It wasn't so bad a decade ago, but with the hot as hell summers now I gotta stay on top of things.  And I've kind of got a part time gig, which busy season happens to coincide with summer.  Summer is hot and busy as hell.  I'll take the shorter winter days anytime.

So just to interrupt and screw with my idyllic winter rest this year we had a major storm event here right after Christmas, 2021.  We are calling it Snowmageddon.  And Snowmageddon begat the Treepocalypse.  And the Treepocalypse begat an enormous, time consuming mess.

You see, here in the Sierra Nevada mountains, even in the foothills we get this snow we refer to as Sierra Cement.  It is very wet and heavy stuff.  Not like the fine powder many folks prefer to ski on.  Or put up their nose.

Nah, you could bury corrupt politicians and supreme court justices under this stuff.  At least until spring.  Then I don't know what you're going to do.  Those suckers will surface and start stinking, similar to what they're doing today only from a slightly different perspective.

Put a few inches to feet of Sierra Cement on top of drought stricken trees and you get the Treepocalypse.  

That morning, December 27th I awoke to the lovely quiet.  It had snowed overnight.  It was a winter wonderland.  We missed a White Christmas by two days.  Dang.  

It's what I've always been dreaming of.

We had no power, which was no big deal.  It also added to the quiet.  It would only take me a few minutes or so to run some extension cords and fire up the generator.  

I stoked the wood stove.  I had no idea hell was waiting outside until our son called about 7:00 AM.  

He said he had about thirty down trees on his ten acres, with at least ten across his drive, which is about three hundred yards long.  He said it was very scary outside because big widow maker branches were breaking and falling everywhere.  

It was then I got entirely attired for snow and started to wander around our property.  I quickly began to understand the magnitude of the situation.  This is what I encountered on our driveway after just a few steps:

 

 A little stroll down to the street greeted me with this:

 

That's our driveway gate up yonder.  There's another downed tree across the drive behind it.  It was only about four or five inches of snow, but obviously that was enough to create a situation.  And I had situations everywhere.

The above situation is what our tree guy Mike, the mess maker (530-575-2251) made when he took down those (there were three total) large, broken branches.  Everything landed between the potting shed and house.  

Mike's been doing our sensitive tree work for years now.  He has never been off an inch from where he's wanted wood to fall.  See Tarzan the Tree Man.  (That there's a link to another wonderful post by the way. )

I highly recommend him for any locals in Nevada County that would like a mess made on their own front lawn. He's bonded and insured and all that.  You can tell him I sent ya.  He'll probably charge more.

The only downed oak (above) not affecting ingress, egress or safety.  It was a favorite of ours and home every year to an assortment of nesting birds.

Then there was this monster that partially landed on the hen house.  Fortunately it took down a smaller pine, slowing it's descent.  Only one rafter and a portion of the overhang in the rear were damaged.

The other side.  As you can see, I had already been doing some cutting and slicing.

One thing I have learned through much experience is that trees always get bigger when they hit the ground.  If it was a small to medium tree, it gets big.  If it was big to begin with, well, it gets diabolically huge.  Trust me. 

We had a total of seven diabolically huge trees come down here on our property, three across the drive.  Sigh.  I'm getting too old for this stuff.

Once I had assessed the situation and realized I had about eleven thousand things to do, I figured I had better start with the first.  Which was get the generator fired up and the appropriate extension cords run. 

I also have a transfer switch on the well so that our generator will power it, but unfortunately a pipe broke and I was going to have to fix that prior to getting water to the house.  But the generator was on.  We had communication and charging capabilities.

As I mentioned, we heat the house with a wood stove, so heat was not an issue.  And there was plenty of seasoned wood.  We also have lamps, lanterns, candles and enough assorted batteries for a six month siege.  

I also always have enough propane on hand to run the generator for sixty-four hours, or four to five days at twelve to sixteen hours per day.  We'd be OK til the dust settled.  Or the snow melted, in this case.

I don't even want to get into the end of the world pantry.  I was a cub scout when I was a kid.  I've always taken being prepared to heart.  We had food for months.  It'd get a little weird after a while, like tuna and peanut butter sandwiches, but we wouldn't be starving.

My celebrated mother-in-law was still here from Christmas, and my lovely wife's tantalizing twin was coming up that night.  

She was coming up for an after Christmas couple day visit and then she was going to take Mom back to the Bay Area.  After conversing with my lovely wife she decided to rent a 4WD, which I thought was a dandy idea.  If our place was this much of a mess the county as a whole couldn't be much better off.

Bolstered with one of my patented edibles, I began what was to become a very long and arduous day for an aging old man.  I had a hundred yard drive to shovel and three diabolically huge downed trees to get out of the way.  Just to get to the road.  

Who knew what lay beyond that?

I forgot to mention in early December, three weeks prior, I cracked a rib.  It was the same area I Skewered My Spleen back in 2020. 

We had just returned from a live Christmas matinee dance deal loosely based on "The Polar Express" with our grand kids and I was out on the front deck.  

I had been nursing a non-covid cough for a couple days.  We felt strongly enough about it though that I did get tested prior to the matinee and massive public exposure.  I tested negative so we were good to go.  Which we did.  With our grand kids.  To the show.  

Hi-ho.

So I was out on the deck and I coughed, real hard apparently, because I heard a loud snap.

Another thing I have learned (unfortunately) through a bit of experience is that whenever you hear some part of your body snap it's usually not a good thing.  Generally intense pain is right on the heels of that snap, within milliseconds I reckon.   And then your body reacts, and depending on the location of that snap you could end up pernt near anywhere.  Doing anything.  

Like the Watusi for instance.

I usually end up on my ass.  One thing was for certain, I was NOT doing the Watusi.  Nor was I contemplating any other dance for that matter.

No.  I was down on my knees in a second.  Which coincides with both my above time frame reckoning's by the way.  

It took my breath away, that snap, and I almost puked.  So there I sat, on my knees, which doesn't make sense, for a minute.  My lovely wife was napping and the grand kids were watching the real "Polar Express" on TV.  

I was gasping.  Then I wheezed.  Eventually I sighed.  After a minute or so I was finally able to get up.  I shuffled into the kitchen where I freaking coughed again.  

And again I went down.  But this time I could not get back up.  The pain was too intense, it was beyond mere numbers.  But if I had to guess, it was somewhere in the hundreds.

If I didn't move I was OK.  But movement in any direction was excruciating.  I was down on my side for about five minutes, contemplating my dilemma, gasping and wheezing.

I didn't want to alarm anyone, but I seriously thought we were going to have to call the fire department.  I could not move.  It was so alarming I started to giggle.  Which made it hurt more.  I was screwed.

I used to be one of those firefighter type rescue guys.  It was a lot more fun on that side of the situation.  Plus you weren't the person in the dilemma.  Less pain too.

I didn't want to be the dilemma.  I didn't want to be in pain.  At all.  I'm not that kind of guy and I certainly do not need the attention.  Quite the contrary.  

And that might have been the deciding moment, I did not want to be a dilemma.  Cause then there's a whole bunch of hoopla and hoody-hoo and I'd just prefer not.  Not for this.  

Nah, let's wait until I'm dangling from a cliff, lop off a limb or have a bonafide hangnail before we engage the cavalry.

I excruciatingly maneuvered my torso to a sit up stage, then I was able to stand, gasping, wincing and wheezing all the way.  Boy howdy, it was a doozy.  

As I reflect on this misery, what I find a little concerning was this injury wasn't incurred doing something really macho, like log splitting.  Or playing rugby or Parcheesi.   

Nope.  I coughed.  That's it.  

If this is how this body aging thing is going to roll I could be concerned.  But then that's one more thing I'd have to pay attention to and I've already got enough to do.

I eat proper.  I take supplements.  I'm in reasonably decent shape.  I get a shit house howdy ton of exercise around here, too much sometimes.  Cardio and otherwise.  Yes, I could be stretching more, but how do you properly exercise your rib cage?

It's weird being the same age as an old person. And this aging thing is not for sissies.  I can't tell ya how many aches and pains I constantly got going on.  

Great.  Now I sound like a bunch of old folks conversing around the dinner table.  In three part harmony.  Which is also weird.  I don't sing.

My lovely wife took me to the ER the next morning.  I mean, I could only sleep in the supine position, and getting there took some yoga like maneuvers, which I don't have.  Because I don't stretch.

So I looked (and felt) more like a jerky, uncoordinated, spazzy old robot than a silky smooth, ice skating gymnast when I simply endeavored to lay down.  It was a process.  And not pretty.

I knew there was nothing they could do at the ER, I'd been down the rib injury road before.  But we went just in case, got x-ray'd and officially Covid tested since I was still coughing.  (I tested negative again.) 

The X-ray was also negative for any fracture, but ribs typically show that way.  It didn't matter, the Doc knew straight away my ribs were injured just by the way I was sitting.  A rigidly convoluted and unorthodox pose positioned perfectly so as to allow minimum stress to the affected region.  Which had to look weird and as uncomfortable as hell to anyone else.  It was almost comical.

He gave me the spiel, six weeks heal time, nothing they can do, just like a broken toe, blah, blah, blah.   

It had been three weeks by the time Snowmageddon occurred, and although the Doc said it would take six I was doing really good.  Let me tell you something though, which should be pretty obvious to any thinking person; shoveling Sierra Cement and running a chain saw are NOT conducive towards positive healing of an injured rib, or of an injured anything for that matter.  By the end of that day they should have taken me out back and shot me.

Fortunately our darling daughter called in the early mid-morning.  Her and her very capable fiance, along with a not so motivated teenager were coming to the rescue.  An extra snow shovel, an extra chain saw, and extra hands.  And without them I would have never made it.

They got here mid-morning, and by that time I had cleared one tree from the very bottom of the drive.  I had also managed to shovel out two tracks so they could get up the steepest part of the drive and stop on a fairly level landing.  It was touchy though, even with 4WD.  Our driveway is steep at the road.

They spent a good four hours here and helped clear two more trees and shovel the rest of the way up.  Her fiance also had the necessary pvc fittings to fix the well so that I didn't have to go to the hardware store, which wasn't open anyway.  I'd been so focused on survival in our little corner of the universe I hadn't really given the outside world much of a thought.

Trees were down EVERYWHERE.  At least thirty or forty just on our little six mile country road.  And we're not talking small taters either.  A couple down the road were Swiss Family Robinson type deals with three foot trunks.  Carpet and linoleum too.

My fabulous sister-in-law had to drive around one of them that had at least been cut to facilitate a one lane passage.  By a local for sure.  

(Local here is referring to anyone living near an area of impact that gets involved with said impact, usually in a positive manner.)   

The county was overwhelmed.  Hell, half the people that work for them probably couldn't get to work that morning.  Many, like me, had hours of work ahead of them just to get to the road. 

State Hwy 49 was blocked for half the day.  That's the main highway in and out of town.  And it was blocked by downed trees for hours!

The county and state had to start with the arteries and work their way down.   For the time being, many smaller, blocked public roads were being taken care of by "locals".   And neighbors were checking on neighbors, especially in the days that followed.

The city and county were a mess.  For days.  Power was out everywhere.  It was like a bomb went off.  Thousands of trees came crashing down on power lines everywhere, splintering many poles in the process.  

Over the course of the next couple days city infrastructure and commercial establishments slowly came to life.  The first stores to open did so with generator power.

We got our power back after six days, and I feel very fortunate.  It took two weeks for our son to get his power back, and some folks were out for almost a full month.  Folks with gas generators were spending fifty bucks a day for power.  (This was more than a month before the Ukraine War and the recent price spike.)

Once things semi got back to normal, it was clean-up time.  I had to turn a whole bunch of this

Into this:

And it had to be done toot sweet because of the fire danger.  Fire season seems to be almost ever ending around here anymore.

Twelve burn piles and about one hundred extra hours I never knew I had later I'm almost caught up.  For some really inane reason, at a time in my life when I should really be lazing about in a hammock, I'm really, really busy instead. 

And that type of work; land clearing, cutting, hauling and burning is the hardest work you can do out here in the country.  You definitely utilize every single muscle group in the process, with a lot of extra extra cardio living on a hill.  

Who needs a gym when you own a couple acres?

Happy spring y'all.