Workin'

I've spent the mornings working outside and the rest of the day dividing my time between a number of different activities-- though have not spent nearly enough time preparing for my upcoming Teacher Training course in Chicago! I've been helping my mom sift through what seems to be thousands of digital photos from our trip in Europe and finding a way to print these out-- can't really put a jpeg in an album.

Even though the property here is not overwhelming in terms of its size, it is quite varied as to what the landscape is. This, compounded with the fact that the record of the previous owners with maintaining the property is almost unimaginable, makes for constant mornings of work-- that is, barring sub-zero temperatures or mounds of snow. Which is far from the case now, as that hot Coloradan sun beats down on you through the thin air and high altitude. Even after quite a few dumpster runs over the years, we are still finding all sorts of trash in some corner of the property, or buried or half buried in the ground or weeds. A week ago we took out a great deal of barbed wire, chicken wire, and weeds to open up a hillside. It was a contstant series of pitchfork and wheelbarrow runs to the firepit for what could burn, and some serious wire cutters to try to manage throwing this tangled mess away.

Then I got it in my head that it would be quite nice to help out in providing a nice path to make walking up and down the hill easier. I realized that with our property being as varied as it is, you'd see a lot on a walk in the way of views, trees, brush, water, garden, house, etc. At Vipassana meditation centers there is always a walking path, and somehow just the mere existence of one gives way to a greater number of introspective strolls. Why not create one here? I had no idea how to go about it-- I wondered if laying gravel would be best. Eventually I began digging a kind of trench (just to make the 'physchological' component of on-the-path/off-the-path clearer), and then I got some large rocks, flagstones, and bricks, and dug them in. Boy was this a lesson in trial and error! How to dig it out, how to make them stay firm in the ground, how to have curves up hillsides... but a lot of fun! Fun to be providing a nice service to my family, and fun to learn so much about the task. I have definitely found through experience that no matter what one is engaged at, to approach it with an attitude of humility, the lesson can really be profound. How much I learned doing my task of cleaning toilets for ten days at the Swiss meditation center! Not to say that it's always easy to go from presenting some academic paper at a conference to sweeping the floors, but the benefits are always worthwhile.

Unfortunately in my work outside I've disturbed the homes of many beings. Once I uncovered some boards to find a whole family of snakes! (just one managed to stay when I went back for the camera-- the first sight was damn impressive) Additionally I've come across a bee hive and all kinds of groundhog holes and squirrels (and acorns buried deep), as well as a very large ant colony living in a rotted out log. These are my days for now... may be headed up to the cabin this week!