Clouds In the Valley

Mill Creek Valley Full of Clouds

Point and Click at 75 MPH

Sometimes on the way to work in the morning, the valleys east of Buffalo Mound are full of clouds.  It must be the warm waters of Mill Creek and the Kansas River responsible for this beautiful sight.  Naturally, I am always in a hurry to get to work, and it against the law to stop except for emergencies, but I discovered my new camera can take acceptable photos at 75 mph.

When I see Kansas at sunrise like this, I consider that before human beings ever set eyes on these hills, even before the tipis of the Plains peoples were ever staked to this soil, the valleys were filling with clouds in exactly this manner.

What if the waters were pure again? What if there were no roads, no interstates cutting through the natural landscape?  No fields, no invasive plants, no trees, no human beings?  What if all man-made noises were to cease? 

The beauty of the earth will endure beyond our selfish and destructive sojourn here.  I am certain of it.

North from Buffalo Mound

Stinky Drool Face

My daughter with the new puppy.

This photo was taken Saturday, the first few moments after the new puppy's arrival at the farm.

He is a cute little guy.  I have been calling him Stinky Drool Face, which is totally inappropriate!  I am having a difficult time coming up with this little guy's name.  The shelter people called him Aladdin, but that does not seem to be his name, either.  No matter.  Eventually, I will know what to call him.

Duke is so happy to have someone to play with, though at 80 pounds he is too big to play unsupervised.  Before long the new pup will be big enough and strong enough to play and they are going to have a great time together. 

I have spent a long time looking for another dog to be Duke's companion and to eventually take over the farm duties.  Duke is 13, an old guy.  This last year he has aged the most.  His face is almost entirely white.  Though he still flops over on his back in the prairie for a great stretch and back scratch, and he can still outrun me, that is not saying much.  His eyes have the blue cast of old age, but no cataracts.  He cannot always bound up the front stairs with his normal exuberance and I have not seen him tear out after a rabbit for a long time.  Duke still dutifully makes the round to remark his territory every day after the coyotes and other unknown wild beasts have been prowling through the night.  He still barks to keep me informed, but he deserves to take it a bit easier now.  He deserves a comfortable retirement, and to have a younger dog take over his heavy work.

The three of us made the first trip to the barn yesterday together.  We had to wait for the baby to sit down and rest a time or two.  Coming down the hill, I was struck by how much this pup looks like Duke at that age.  They are so similar in body shape and coloring - they looked like father and son trotting down the hill together.  (As Duke aged, the German Shepherd coloring on his face disappeared.)  If this little dog is even half as good as Duke, then I will count myself lucky.  The Good Dog Duke's paw prints are going to be too big for any pup to fill.

Strange Skies

Sky Graffiti

Strange Weather Makes for Strange Cloudscapes

The day before the weather shift that would bring in the long awaited rains.  The contrails lingered for hours and hours in the sky.  It was beautiful.

We Grew Old Together....

When I moved to Topeka in my very early 20's, finding a doctor before I needed one never occurred to me. On the fourth day of intensifying pain and the escalating fever of a raging strep throat infection, a moment of alarming clarity prompted me to go directly to the emergency room at the nearest hospital. There I met the man with whom I have had the longest, most enduring male relationship of my life: Dr. O. 

By the time I went for medical attention, the infection had almost reached the tipping point. The young emergency room doctor was brusque and his demeanor was quite stern. I feebly tried to joke with him, but he ignored all humor and made sure I knew how ill I was, in his professional opinion. I thought he really needed to smoke a joint and listen to some Santana. 

It was strep throat that brought us together again a couple of years later. Dr. O was no longer an emergency room doctor but an internal medicine doctor in family practice. I recognized his name in the phone book and was lucky to be accepted as a new patient. Aside from the OB-GYN and a few specialists, I never strayed to another doctor's office. 

For over three decades, Dr. O was the go-to guy. His professional face never changed from that same stern, no-nonsense expression. He was always so serious that I just could not help kidding around with him. I usually had to explain, "It's a joke." But I never, ever had to sit in his waiting room for more than a couple of minutes. I rarely had to wait more than five minutes for him in the examination room. His nurses and staff were excellent, professional, on time, and they dealt with the insurance companies like elite ninjas! I once wrote a thank-you to Dr. O and his staff for the excellent organization and finely tuned management of their office. I once told Dr. O he had ruined me from ever seeing another doctor. He almost smiled, then caught himself. 

He did not like it when I disobeyed his orders, but he did not seem to take it personally. My most serious rebellion was not going in for emergency gall bladder surgery many, many years ago. Last January when I finally had the gall bladder removed, I believe he was quite pleased that his original diagnosis at last came to fruition, even though 14 years passed between Dr. O's recommendation and the actual surgery. 

He was always a careful, respectful and excellent doctor. He mentioned several times I was not a "frequent flier", which was true, but still my file was very thick simply from the amount of time I had been his patient. In the last ten years or so of our relationship he had lightened up considerably and actually smiled at some of my jokes. He even cracked one or two of his own. (Santana and pot? Maybe!) 

I have to say, I took our relationship for granted. One day it occurred to me that he might actually retire.  I asked if he was planning to retire any time soon, because I was getting to the age I was probably going to be needing him a lot more. He actually chuckled and replied that he had three kids in college, so he was not going anywhere. I was relieved. 

But all good things must come to an end. Dr. O retired in December of 2011. I did not get to tell him goodbye or thank you for all of those years. When I attempted to get set up with another doctor in his clinic, the woman on the phone was such a pain in the ass that I finally hung up on her. Apparently, Dr. O's staff retired, too. 

I found a group of women doctors practicing family medicine and luckily for me, one of the doctors was accepting new patients. I met Dr. R last week in my initial patient interview. I like her a lot. She commented on the length of time I had been Dr. O's patient. I sighed and said "Yes, we grew old together....". She laughed! She knew it was a joke. We are going to get along just fine. She did not know Dr. O, but mentioned she was getting a lot of his patients. (I must not be the only one who could not get past the dragon lady!) In discussing my overweight status, I deadpanned that I no longer looked cool riding my Harley. Her instant response was "EVERYBODY looks cool riding a Harley!" That made me laugh.

 

To kill some time while waiting in the new, foreign examination room, I took out my camera to review the photos I have recently taken. That is how I was able to record the following horrific images:

Profound torture can and does happen here...

Innocent enough.... until I saw this:

No one wants to see this combination!

Just Add Water

A reminder of the prairie's color - just add moisture!

This winter's mild weather has been something of a phenomenon in northeast Kansas. It has seemed like early November since... early November. Yesterday, the 69 degree weather was a siren call to everyone on two wheels, from mopeds to Harleys. I always turn to look when I hear a big twin engine coming down the street. I cannot help myself. For a fleeting instant, it always feels as if someone I love is coming home. Of course, these days it is usually an old graybeard (someone my age) on his first Harley. I can always tell how long someone has been riding by how soon they put their feet down when coming to a stop. The sooner they put down their feet, the fewer the road miles.

But that is not what I genuinely want to write about this morning. Due to this lengthy dry and mild weather, the prairie has lost her color. The hills are a grayish dead wherever you look. On the way to the barn there are clumps of individual plants that still retain their reddish hue. This might be from the various holes in the water hose, now that I think about it. As drab and as lifeless as the prairie looks now, it will only take a small amount of moisture to revive her and restore the colors.

I was looking for something to post today and revisited these early November photographs. The first was taken from my road. It is the pasture just to the east of mine. The second one, taken the same day, was the view from the shoulder of Interstate 70. (It was not an emergency stop - I am such an old anarchist!) I had forgotten about the orb in the highway photo. Some people believe orbs are spirits, paranormal evidence, but most people say they are simply artifacts of digital photography. Whatever their cause, they do have an ephemeral quality. To me, it looks like the moon untethered and freely roaming the prairie.

Mundane

It is a cosmic mystery, this physical life. We accept outrageous events as mundane and take miracles for granted. How can human beings seriously entertain boredom or sadness during a lifetime on such a planet? We are as mysterious as the planet.

Realized Dreams

Geese and Human Beings in Flight

Since the first human brain crossed the evolutionary threshold into the capacity to dream of what could be, the dream of flight was paramount. It took us a good long while of dreaming, but once we made the jump, it was an exceedingly fast evolution, from December 17, 1903 to July 20, 1969 when Apollo 11 touched down on the lunar surface.

My first time off the ground was in a small private plane above Wichita, Kansas. My first commercial flight was from Kansas City to Philadelphia, and we flew through towering white cloud canyons and brilliant sunlight the entire route. It was too enchanting to be frightening even though each change in the angle of the airplane caused something loose within the walls of the plane to rattle from one end of the cabin to another.

We are such an arrogant and difficult species that we take the miraculous accomplishment of routine air travel for granted. To add insult, some of our troublesome brethren have instigated the foolish conspiracy theory that walking on the moon was an elaborate hoax. If western civilization suddenly falls into ruins or gradually declines into obscurity, the human race may indeed forget men first walked on the moon in the twentieth century. Some future historian may uncover bits of the fake moon landing theory and cast the hateful light of doubt forever upon one of mankind's most amazing achievements.

Now in the twenty-first century, America has given up the dream of flying to other worlds, agreeing to hitch rides into space. America has been conquered by the frightened, the small- minded, the angry and the hateful. We have killed our collective shining dream, once given voice by our young President when he said "We choose to go the the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."

Despite the political vagaries, the rise and fall of fortunes, the ebb and flow of civilization, nature will hold the dream of flight for mankind. As long as it is necessary, wild geese will migrate, making their long seasonal flight high in the cloud canyons. And beneath the night sky, a human being listening for their traveling calls will feel the old evolutionary urge to follow them into the sky.