Dear Ridge

Our last day in Texas, at Dear Ridge... we are watching Harper's Island, telling gravity hill stories and waiting for fireworks. Yesterday I got here- all sunshine and Texas heat, playing with the twins, lounging in the hot tub. Today more twins (super cuteness... they like my hair, think it tickles), off to get kolachies (can't spell it, but sure can eat them) and to the art galleries in Clifton...we saw a community theatre play- The Queen of Bingo- which was fun. Then back to the Ridge for more babies, pizza and getting ready to launch tomorrow at the 'crack of dawn'.

I could play outside in the woods here forever, they are so different from ours. Giant clusters of prickly pears, twisted cedars, mesquite (I suppose it is... looks like it, smells like it). The ground is so dry it cracks in places, and the rocks are full of fossils. Not just little things, but huge spirals, full snails, mysterious leaves... even a sea urchin. Strange bones found in dry stream beds, bone turned to rock long ago. Land a living memory.

I only found a bit of a fossil, but collected many tiny snail shells bleached white by the sun, a few fragrant sticks of cedar to turn into something. There are great logs and roots among the trees, wish I had Esmeralda here to drag some of them home (Esme is probably quite happy that she is not here in the heat hauling things. I don't think she'd care for that at all)

I love being at Dear Ridge, it's like living in the woods, in a tree- all wood and west and stone, part of the landscape. There is creeping rosemary around the flagstones, a red yucca (my new favorite western flower) and the plastic catci among the real ones. Bright pottery, a bowl of fossils, antlers twisted into a chandelier. Deer at the feeder in the evening, foxes, raccoons, opossums, wild hogs, tiny bright hummingbirds. I want to return to play in the woods, hunt fossils, talk and drift in the tub.

It's time to go home, and I miss my home. I can't wait to see my beloved manz, fuss over the boy, fluff up the doggs. Be back in my world of butterflies and Mexican coffee, constant laughing and someone special to hold on to...