Much and Little

We are settling into our new California life, and even as I type California I have a hard time believing that this is home, at least home for now.  We are now officially living a sort of nomadic lifestyle; we go where there is work for Keith loading up all the this and thats of our life and setting out for whatever is next.  This next is California, and although I am at just the beginning of my exploring, what I have already seen is clearly a crown jewel in our American landscape.  Mountains, sea, desert, giant trees, fertile land, and creative minds.  Where else can you walk a sidewalk with the golden names set in stars in the hubbub of Hollywood, and by the end of the day and a car trip away be in what feels like the remotest place on earth: Death Valley?

Where I take Lucy the dog swimming.

Our new home is Bakersfield, settled in the southern end of the San Joaquin Valley amidst dust, endless carrot patches, orange and almond groves and oil derricks.  The land of plenty, Bakersfield is rife with produce grown along the city borders. Lemons fall into my yard daily from my neighbor’s tree (I wish their oranges would fall over here too.) And the back alley has forlorn, heavy-laden apricot trees that Keith and I pilfer from for our morning fruit.  I just made 6 jars of apricot preserves and could make at least 100 more, but I won’t because that would be ridiculous. 

Dry Bed, Kern River.

Yet with all the abundance of this new place there is a dearth.  The city’s Kern River is a dry creek bed with all the water being diverted for agricultural use.  A dry bed runs through the entire town, sort of reminding us that water here has a productive use beyond a simple visual joy.  Many homeless people live in the dry bed because I see their bikes and grocery carts lodged in the sand.  And for all the produce here, it is hard to find good produce at our grocery stores, because the best seems to be shipped out to other places. Our weekly farmers market downtown is weak and poorly attended. 

Yet everyone says Bakersfield is great because of all the attractions that are two hours away.  I mean everyone, even our realtor.  We are not the town people come to; we are the town people go from.  To escape the exhausting heat, the town appears to empty itself of life over the summer weekends. The normally busy breakfast spots are quiet on Saturdays and Sundays while most Bakersfield folks hit the cooler beaches at Pismo and Morro Bay. 

More dry bed, Kern River, near our house.

Historically Bakersfield’s history is as rough and tumble as it’s settlers.  “Okies” settled here during the dustbowl, they came to work the crops for the low pay that now the Hispanic field workers tend.  The Basque came too as sheepherder’s and they brought with them their food so that the most popular restaurants are Basque, with oxtail stews, pickled beef tongue, seasoned beans, and cheap wine.  Working men’s food.   But before the crops, there was oil, in 1865 oil was discovered in the area and the area burgeoned with oil workers: roughnecks, roustabouts, toolpushers, derrickhands, and the like. Today, the Bakersfield area is one of Chevron’s oldest assets with incredible margins with unconventional approaches.  And other oil companies have planted themselves here including Aera and Occidental and other smaller producers. Keith is currently working in the oil fields just north of town (in an area called Oildale) and some of the wells are over 100 years old.  The energy future of Bakersfield looks bright as more and more resources are being discovered (natural gas and shale fields abound on a greater scale than in North Dakota, so the local paper said).    

Montana D'Oro, 3 hours away from home.
Much and little.  I am getting to understand in a new way how resource rich communities that are migrant based give their hearts and souls for the bright produce departments in your town or the gas in your tank.  It is far more profitable for you to have fresh carrots on your shelves and it is far more profitable for us to have a dry bed running through town so that the precious water in this hot and dusty place can water the crop’s green hills that circle our town.  I cannot express how much I now understand the need for gratitude when I sit down at my dinner table with fresh vegetables, olive oil or butter, cheese and olives or whatever meat my freezer offered up.  There is sacrifice invested in my meals and yours. I am not trying to preach, because I am acutely aware of my position as a taker rather than a giver.  I sit here at this little computer desk and type my thoughts while young men and women are standing out in the in scorching heat picking my dinner.    Seriously, look on the side of your bags of Bolthouse carrots or Tamara and Antle celery.  Check out your bag of almonds.  The chances that your food came from Bakersfield or Kern County are pretty great.  

Winter Home

The Christmas tree is down and the neighbors finally removed the bright lights from their house perimeter. Christmas has sputtered to an end and our days are vacillating between unforgiving, unrelenting cold and mild and promising not cold (but not warm).  I went out the other night to meet with some new friends and my car thermometer read -5 degrees, which turns out far above how cold it got around midnight, -22 degrees.  Two days ago it was 40, nearly 60 degrees warmer. Temperatures are a protractedly discussed topic around here and maybe in North Carolina too these days.  We spend time thinking about temperature as much as we think about what is for dinner (and if you know me, you know that is a lot of time). I am always wondering things like, “Is it too cold to run outside?” or, “Can Lucy handle the cold today?” Even, “How many layers of clothing will it take for me to get outside today?” or, “Can we drive in this weather???” “Did you pack the candy bars in case we break down?”  --My mom always kept Hershey almond bars in the car during the more cold Minnesota winters. We never broke down, but the thought of eating Hershey bars between chattering teeth put a rosy spin on the idea of breaking down.



Old messy bath



The bathroom is finished! The goldfish mural has been subscribed to the trash heap, where maybe the mice are enjoying it. The two-layer linoleum has also been disposed of and a lovely mosaic tile has taken its ratty place. Keith does fine work, if I do say so myself.



We ventured south to Colorado over break for a 5-day getaway. Keith’s uncle has a cozy cabin high (9100 feet) near the Sangre de Cristo mountain range. The weather was lovely and we got to hike to near 12,000 feet, which was hard and great at the same time. The roads near Keith’s uncle had deer, big horned sheep and castles—no lie. Look up Bishop’s Castle so you can get a good idea of the kind of person who built this rock and steel wonderment. Keith and Jim (his uncle) went all the way to the top while I clung to the side nervously.



Bishop's Castle



Bishop's Castle



Now we are settling into Keith’s last “spring” semester. We have a few things to finish at the house before we can put it on the market in August and we have the summer before us in really very little time. Time is flying and just as I am starting to think of Butte as home it seems we are beginning to near the final chapter. One more year to enjoy our new friends and the lovely Montana mountains. I was thinking this morning how little things like running into someone you know at the grocery or on the hiking trail are little things that add up to making a place feel friendly and more like home. And how being friendly brings friendliness into life and how even though I might live in a dozen other places between here and when, just a simple thing like meeting someone on my daily walk will make a new place feel accepting and good.



Stopping by woods on a snowy evening

Last night it was just cold enough to snow and not too cold not to. That is the fine balance of things here. We sit so high that our temperatures drop too low for much snow. But last night at 32˚F, a good snow fell.

I have been off the blog for some time and Keith and I keep saying how fast time has been going since we arrived back in August. I guess that is my excuse, I have been part of time whizzing by. Now winter is enshrouding us and there is more indoor time, hence time for blogging. Maybe I have become just a little bit more of a Montanan, if the sun shines, I have been outside. These last few months have provided an extended summer, even the first week of November I went hiking with short sleeves and shorts! Now that it is the first week of December, I go hiking with 4 layers of clothing, not including underwear which would make it 5. It takes a lot of time to put all those layers on and additionally to take those layers off. Generally, it requires a herculean effort to get outside, which I plan on doing this morning because someone needs to take the dog out and I might as well get a walk in while she is doing her thing.

Keith shot his first buck (mule deer), which he said was somewhat of a humbling experience. When you go out in the woods to get your own meat and you come face to face with what you will eventually eat, it does make you grateful for the giving of life so you can be well fed. Now I must learn how to cook venison. I believe we will be eating a lot of chili this winter. One could do worse.



A moose walked through our yard last month, just out for a walk enjoying the sunshine. We have seen a lot more moose up close this fall. Even Keith’s parents got to see a bull, cow, and calf on Maude S. Trail. I came around a corner up in the aspens near the top of the trail and the old bull was within spitting distance. We had a staring, don’t move a muscle contest, before he gave up and wandered up the trail. I had Lucy with me and he kept watching us as we hiked and I watched him back. There is a moose at the golf course behind my house. I saw her when I skied there last week. So it turns out seeing a moose maybe isn’t that big of a deal. Or at least now it isn’t, since I am from Montana.



Being from Montana, Keith and I decided to cut down our own Christmas tree. The very first we have ever had. Here are the pictures to prove our fortitude and determination.



Heading out to find tree. 0 degrees F.



Our tree in its natural glory. Lucy likes it.















We are back home, or the home for now place. Thirty-six degree mornings and 77 degree afternoons, which translates into gloves in the morning and shorts by afternoon. I must admit after 11 weeks away, it was so nice to crawl into my own bed and look out my living room window at the lovely East Ridge mountains.
Lucy and I enlisted the help of family to ferry us and all the stuff I thought was so important to lug along. My sister kindly assisted me for the Asheville to Minneapolis leg and my father and mother squished in to drive from Minneapolis to Butte (same distance for each leg incidentally). My poor mom became a human wedge when we used her body to prop bags and boxes so they would not fly into the front or out the side. You could not see her when looking in the car, just the boxes and bags that covered her.

Our first goal was to make it to Glendive to meet up with Keith. Minneapolis to Glendive is about 11 hours. We reached Glendive on Friday afternoon after a stop at the North Dakota badlands Painted Canyon and Theodore Roosevelt National Grasslands: a vast brown, rust, and sage vista after miles of ND farmland.

In Glendive, we got to work immediately. Keith’s rancher friend invited us out to move 80 cattle across a grassy stretch and road down to a little creek (pronounced “crick”). Rancher Tim, his wife Amy, Keith and I loaded up at 5:45 Saturday morning. Tim had risen even earlier to saddle the horses and load them into the horse trailer. The early hours and massive amount of work required to run a ranch rubs a little reality into the idealistic vision of cattle ranching. This is hard work.

After unloading the horses, Rancher Tim told me to hop on Stormy, a large, white-gray horse. While standing on the ground the stirrups for Stormy were at my eye level. I, for a moment, envisioned if it were at all possible to do the splits while standing. While I was envisioning the impossible, I felt myself lifted like a bag of feed and the next thing I knew, Stormy and I were ready to ride. Rancher Tim wasn’t messing around.

Dear, dear Stormy. We crossed the grass, shouted at the perpetually pooping and wandering cows, rode round to set meandering cattle in the right direction…dear, dear Stormy. I don’t know how to ride, I don’t know how to turn this way or that. Wise Stormy did his job despite the flea on his back. The sky was blue and huge and despite the pain in my knees, life seemed pretty perfect. We brought the cattle down across the road and into the second pasture. Only a mile or so left, but with the cattle a mile can last over an hour. There is no rushing a herd of cattle. I went back to get a few wanderers and as we pushed forward, Stormy lurched to the left while a huge rattlesnake darted to the right. I shouted “Rattlesnake” to Rancher Tim (envision this) who galloped across the pasture, leapt off his horse, ran toward the snake and whipped the knot of his lariat repeatedly on the rattlesnake’s head and then stomped on the snake with a gusto. Rancher Tim then bent down and ripped the rattle off the now very dead snake. Eight rattles in all.

Wow, all in a morning’s work. Cattle moved, snake killed, knees sore beyond imagining. I keep being reminded that Keith and I are creating some pretty awesome memories. I just read that the best money spent is spent on experiences rather than things. I would add that you don’t have to spend money to create a memorable experience.

So now we are home. Keith is back in classes and we are settling in to life in Butte once again. Montana still has so much for us to explore before we leave here. Last week we visited Bannack State Park, a ghost town that once had at least a couple thousand citizens and now only has 50 buildings, sans citizens. A former mining town gone bust. I guess there are many of those sorts of town around here. In addition, we still haven’t visited Yellowstone or Glacier and that is on our list of things to explore. In the meantime, there is a Master’s degree to get and work to be done. We are feeling welcomed home.

Bannack State Park, school house.

Last days in these green mountains

I am tying up a luxurious 10 week stay in the lush mountains of North Carolina, while Keith still basks in the dry heat of eastern Montana. Today Keith is driving to North Dakota to spend a few days in the Bakken Oil fields. Halliburton is doing some "frac-ing" (pardon my made up spelling) and Keith is particularily interested in watching and learning. I am involved in more mundane chores of packing up summer and heading north.

"You have made your way around this hill country long enough; now turn north." That is from Deuteronomy and like the Israelites, I guess it is time to plod on home.

Baker Oilfields

Summer Days

I love the long days of summer. It is 9 pm and there is still enough light outside to see down across the field. I feel like I should be doing something instead of heading off to prepare for bed (yes, I am getting old and sleepy). But instead, I am preparing for my end of day despite the fact that the light outside is resisting this day’s end.

Keith has settled into his little apartment in Glendive, Montana and from here it seems far across the universe. We made a decision that I would spend the summer in North Carolina while Keith completed his internship with Fidelity Oil Co. So he loaded up his futon mattress, one chair, one cooking pot, a set of silverware and other singular daily necessities and drove from the high hills of Butte to the grasslands of NE Montana. I loaded up dog and every stitch of summer clothing I own (because when else could I wear it???) and headed to my in-laws who have graciously taken me in.

While I wile away my days by the pool, reading novels and moving lethargically through these long days, Keith is visiting the oil fields of N. Dakota and Montana, getting a feel for office life, and branding cattle on the weekends. Yes, I haven’t mistyped: Keith is branding cattle, mending fences, riding horses. He doesn’t have much in his apartment to keep him there and he met a rancher who invited Keith to come work on the weekends, which has meant 13 hour days, rolling in cows**t, and yukking it up with a bunch of true cowboys and cowgirls. Only Keith.

We return to our Butte life in mid-August, when the days may finally be warm there. My big plans for the summer (beyond the pool…yes, I do have goals) include painting and blueberry picking and heading up Minneapolis to spend time with my family. Keith will be dividing his time between the office work in Glendive and visits to the oil fields in Saco, Montana and other parts of the Bakken. Last week he was in Saco, where the mosquitoes are plague like. I guess they will suck blood through jeans as Keith can attest to.

May Day

It is May 1st, and outside it has been snowing almost all day and my friend just called to tell me she has breast cancer, stage 2. My friend, not someone in their 60s, which some of my friends happen to be, but my friend from college, the one that from the first day at my dorm hall meeting I knew I would be friends with. The one that helped me grow up in the second set of formative years that are college life.


I feel helpless only because I actually am. I can’t cure, perform surgery, or medically help in any way. This is the selfish Gena who just wants to be useful. I have watched many women march through the gauntlet of cancer from my days at Hope Cancer Center and I realize the depth of my ineptitude. But I have learned that life isn’t about abilities as much as it is about relationships. So I can offer in my little hands a little compassion and friendship hoping that weak salve can do some little thing.

So if you pray or meditate or whatever it is you do when the chips seem down, do that for my friend. I pray now for her and her children, husband, and family. When tonight these miles seems so especially long between here and my old life, I pray for mercy and hope, peace and healing.