Mountain Musings: The Unexpected

Mountain Musings – A guest column by Dottie Simmons who lives in eastern Humboldt County describes life at her rural homestead:

[Photo by Dottie Simmons]

When you wake in the pre-dawn hours and look out the window and see a shooting star… and then another! And you are lying there awake watching for a while and then you hear… gurgle…gurgle…gurgleThis is the sound of the last of the water draining out of the pipes in some unknown location.

So… given that my partner, Maintenance Man, has a bad cold and needs his sleep, I arise and dress, grab a headlamp and the dogs and I are off on an expedition in the frost crisp night.

Greeted almost immediately by another Geminid meteorite. I take that as a good sign, but to be safe my attention is on the slick ground and grasses, not the sky.

We pick our way down to the lower greenhouse, where water was on a timer yesterday for the cole crops and greens growing there and turn off the water at the faucet. Ditto the upper greenhouse where Asian greens and cilantro are. I can’t think of anywhere else to check in the dark in this wet world that I would be able to tell.

I turn on the pump and the generator, as it will be a long time before the sun boosts the batteries to cover the extra load the pump uses.

And I stop to admire the crescent moon, dancing its celestial dance tonight with Spica and a twinkling audience of stars.

Now I have rev’ed up the fire in the woodstove and the kettle heats for a cup of tea. I will enjoy the peacefulness of this time until there is water enough in the tank.

This life may be inconvenient, but it is beautiful. And it is always interesting.