As The Crow Flies

I found big tufts of fur laying close to my cabin. I followed the tufts of fur until I found this skeleton. I never did find the head. I don’t know if the coyotes or a mountain lion did it.

Sometimes the coyotes will move close to my cabin with their “Yaaaa Hoooo! Yip yip yip yiping.” Once when they where really close, I went outside and yelled, “Quiet!” But they kept on yipping. So I stood on the hill and imitated them and they stopped. The next night they moved farther away. Up close they sound like a bunch of drunk red necks.

15-20 years ago I took a 9 month course called, “Developing the heart and hands of a healer” We did stuff like crystal healing, shamanic drumming, chanting, and meditation. At the end of the course we were supposed to make a power object. There were some cleaver and artistic people in the class that made some really nice objects.

I cut a hole for my head in the middle of a blanket and draped it over me like a tunic. I used some of the extra blanket to make a hood and a hand warmer pocket, then I sewed a bell on the end of the hood, and called it my journey cloak.

On Mungo says Bah’s site he writes about a cool way to make a hooded journey cloak out of a blanket without having to cut up your blanket.

When you set out hiking a long trail and along the way, in a hot exposed waterless stretch, someone gives you water and a place to sleep out of the wind and when next morning you are rattling around in their kitchen fixing yourself a cup of tea and they tell you that you need to leave because something has come up, you should cheerfully thank them for their hospitality, leave a donation and hike on. Staying on to do your laundry, stiffing the donation box, angrily huffing off, and taking a picture of you flipping off your host’s house is considered very bad form.

Yeah, I’m reading trail journals, again. Maybe, I understand the former resident a little better.