Jawbones

This week I have been walking a lot. Every day, for hours. I pick up Sanford at his place and we just go. Spring is here on the ground as new plants push up past the skeletons of last year’s growth. Birds are out, butterflies are back from their migration, arrows of geese make their way over town to land in the marshy grass of Carpenter Lake. And a small woman walks among it all.

Walking through a field full of pussy willow bushes... can't say I've ever done that before!

Goose explosion!

Darin and I broke up early this week. He lives in Oregon, and the distance became too much for me, all of a sudden like a thunderstorm breaking across the highway, and no matter how slow I drove, the windshield wipers just couldn’t keep the rain from blurring the road in front of me. It is hard, and I am alone again here, but that is okay. I was alone here most of the time anyway, but now it is without his steady friendship.

I have been walking and thinking, and I have also been finding jawbones on my walks. Last weekend it was the jawbone of a deer I found nestled into a pile of fur from the animal’s body. Not a shard of bone visible but this piece of jaw, teeth still in. No skin, no other splinters of white. A few hundred meters later and there was another puddle of deer hair, barren except for the hair, a few hundred yards more, another. Sanford and I have been finding piles of hair, explosions of feathers, and the odd hipbone scattered around the bush. It makes me realize just how much killing goes on in the periphery of our warm winter homes, how many animals die slowly in the night without us knowing.

On Wednesday Sanford and I walked to a new spot, a piece of grassy plain beside the river, just off of highway 40. Only two cars passed us on the 2-kilometer walk to and from the piece of road that would take us to the river’s edge. I have realized that I can walk along the highway easily here without being disturbed much.

We meandered through the pussy willow bushes that are just starting to bud, following horse tracks left over from the fall. We found some piles of bird feathers, and in the middle of the trail another piece of jawbone, this time belonging to what was an elderly horse. I searched around for more remnants of bone to no avail, but there are lots of roots pushing up through the grass, bleached by the sun, that look like ribs from a distance.

Meandering...

Found a big green rock while bush-wacking.

Today's walk in a misty rain. It hardly ever rains here, and as a North Van girl I have been missing walking in it.

I got out horseback riding with Barrie yesterday after a lovely Friday night dinner with Ken and Shirley. They are so good to me, and live right down the road from Barrie so I thought I could have a little night away from my vacant home. Barrie's got some young horses that I’m going to help him get ready for a trip out in the mountains over the summer. I rode a young Appaloosa yesterday, but Barrie couldn’t remember the name of the horse (he does have 14 after all). The horse was a little frisky but did very well considering that we traipsed through the thick bush for part of the ride. It was fun and I am feeling very confident and solid in the saddle. I’m hoping to go along for the ride this summer but at this point I’m going to concentrate on getting through the next couple of months of work first. I think this week is going to be another one for walking. I’ll write when I can.

Barrie and the horse I rode.