“For the first time,” Larry said, “I don’t really feel like coming down here.”

I had dozed off, but this got my attention. Did I feel the same? I was tired from the debut Tues. evening of my new so-called band, “Spotted Cat” out at the Milwaukee Elks (but that’s another story).

A cloudy day, spits of rain. Same old I-5 on the way to Salem. It is a dumb, long trip, and we knew we’d have to go again on Friday. So I took my emotional temperature, looked at my mood ring glowing orange, worried that Larry’s state of mind may be infectious. I don’t expect 24/7 euphoria, but was this the first crack in a heart breaking?

That sounded melodramatic, didn’t it? Well, dear Reader, no. I can report that the sun came out, we decided to confound all our best intentions, and pulled into McDonald’s for a sausage muffin. Feeling better, we continued south to meet with an electrician to discuss connection to the barn, to the well, and for the eventual road gate.

Then on to the Alpine Tavern to meet Steve and go on to another neighboring property, to look at their restoration work. The Halseys have 250 acres, and have been working on conservation for 20 years. Much to see. Including a family of wild turkeys. “Hope we get some of those,” Larry said.

I didn’t love this property as much as I had the Tyee farm of last week. Trying to understand why, I decided that it is that it’s the wildness of the landscape. Messy. Randy Gragg once suggested that it’s fair to include beauty as an important value in conservation work. Have to be careful, here. “It takes a practiced eye,” he had said, “to appreciate the artistry of nature left to her own devices.”

We have our cows, as you know. Mark, Cow-Guy, has not wanted to join with the government in practicing rotational grazing, but will be glad to work with us on whatever plan NRCS may devise. The Halseys put some of their land into a lease agreement with NRCS, and tell the story of the time an agency inspector visited their property, found an undocumented cow in their field, and immediately fired off a registered letter threatening serious consequences for this breach of contract. Wasn’t even their cow. Could you just pick up the phone? Maybe Mark is onto something?

I admired this field of flowers, for example. Wrong. Weeds, apparently, wild radish. Excuse me, but if it’s not invasive, do we care if it’s a weed and it’s pretty? What makes a weed a weed, anyway? Answer: a plant that is growing where you don’t want it to be.

Laurie and I fell into walking across the land together, the men up ahead (in the usual way of these things). We learned that we’d gone to the same high school, had the same number of grandchildren, loved to read, and had been married the same number of years. We laughed. We could be friends!

They have constructed tiny out-buildings on the land, which they can Kivas. Wood-burning fireplace, a bench or two. Small sink and shelf of wine glasses. One has a sleeping loft for the grandkids when they visit.

“We just celebrated our anniversary,” Laurie told me as we approached another little building, constructed entirely of found material. (Our anniversary was the day before! Getting eerie) “Took a bottle of wine down here,” she said, “and our gifts for each other. I’d gotten a drum for Warren, and a little flute for myself. So we meditated a bit, played some music, and looked out to see 5 great bull elk just outside.”

Question for you all: Do you imagine that Larry and I would ever celebrate our anniversary in such a fashion?

No, I didn’t think so.

I was thrown back to thoughts of my one-time best friend, Donna. Highschool sleepovers and boyfriends and great plans for the future. A clone of this Laurie, down to the lack of self-consciousness it must take not only to play the little flute and drums, but to tell someone else about it. Donna would build little kivas from found material for sure. But she closed me out of her life one Easter Sunday and I haven’t seen her again. Well, no wonder I like this Laurie. I liked Donna.

To be fair to the Halseys, here is a photo of one of their ponds. Very pretty!

Back at our place, we met with a man to consider disposition of hunks of oak the arborists left behind from our butchered signature tree. He operates an on-site mill, and told us that no, there wasn’t much he could do for us. Well, yes, maybe there was. It would only take about a half an hour. He has, after all a hoist on his truck, but first we are to speak to the above arborists to see if they have an opinion on how we should proceed. He drove away. We shook our heads. What did we just learn?

Heading home. Larry drives, then asks me to drive and he sleeps. Only fair.