Coop's Corner

Monday, April 14, 2025

Valley Going's On - 2025/04/15

Getting awfully close to a month since I last made anything public here, no good reason really. Busy is enough of an answer without a lot of IMPORTANT to say....or share. Just little things, the little things that keep us all going and hopefully out of trouble. You should know that as far as I know, I've been out of trouble.

Much to the amazement and a bit of disappointment to my friends, I've had virtually nothing to do with the motor bikes. Before the end of February, license tabs were sent for. This year I didn't stand in line at our local License Center, rather it was an online and USPS endeavor. Until the day before yesterday, not a single sticker had been stuck. The Guzzi has a bright red "26" and so does the Classic Stealth 500. That very black Enfield's rear wheel was removed last night, a new tire mounted soon using my as-of-yet still new tire changer. I'm looking forward to a much less strenuous new rubber ordeal. Been a long time since I've pinched a tube. I may or may not share how this one turns out.

Other stuff, not necessarily in order of occurrence......

Back in early March our valley deer were getting as tired of winter as the rest of us. Try, though I doubt that you can, to imagine 40-50 turkey's showing their stuff AMIDST these browsers which is what we've been witnessing this past week! I'm not sure that even a Disney camera could cope with it all. It's almost enough to put Arthur into shock.

I'm always happy to go back to DST, an hour early is relatively easy for most of us....

Both Peg and I get plenty of exercise helping Arthur make his discoveries....

I spent much of the week before Christmas cleaning out our Mobile Home. It's been a catch-all, storage for Important as well as storage for lots of Other. It should have been gone long ago. By the end of March, it was gone. The Boxelder trees that were attempting to hide it were gone. The excavator is still here but it too will (hopefully) be gone. In their place, a leveled off area.....for me to mow though I'm told there will soon be some replacement trees planted.

Valentine's Day weekend marked a three week-long cold that I believed to be centered in my upper chest. My cold went away, 2 new stents made my upper chest feel a lot better. It was a very inconvenient break from my school bus driving. I can't tell you how good it is to be back in that front seat, behind that big steering wheel. Not only my Route but the Band, Speech groups my after hour ride-alongs. Only 8 more weeks of school before our summer break!

I've been curious about Teri's jam....I've know full well how her Strawberry Rhubarb is going to Delight. This Kentucky Bar Fight is an exciting taste of purple!

Just today Peg whipped up some Wild Blackberry from last summer's harvest. Yes, there are seeds and yes, it's chunky. There's no shake in these jars!

We lost our Green Ash trees, now a bunch of the Boxelders are gone (I saved the Basswood) so yesterday we planted 3 Sycamores. Hopefully our wildlife will have some respect for those which we're trying to nurture. I've also been made aware there are more trees that I'll be mowing around in our newly opened area.

Only a month from now, you should join us! I missed it last year and have no intention of doing so again.

Others say....

"it was auspicious to approach any situation from a deferential, inquisitive place. Conceding that there is much to learn is the best blueprint for discovering something new." ----B. Fuller

The Man straightened stiffly above the block of salt fixed to the stake and looked at the young cattle ringed about him. The pasture was holding out well and the stock was looking good. This bunch would be ready to sell in another month, maybe sooner if the market was right.

A stir among the cattle down near the river brought him round to face the swinging bridge he'd built years before. Someone was coming toward him from the bridge. Someone in breeches, but it didn't look like a man, somehow. What was a woman doing in his pasture this time of night?

He bent over the salt again; maybe if he paid her no heed she'd go on past and let him mind his own business. He heard her footsteps come nearer and stop. "Good evening," she said.

Her voice was smooth with book learning but friendlier than most, and somehow almost shy. When he made no answer she went on, "I've been sitting on your swinging bridge....I thought I'd like to say thank-you...." Her voice stumbled a little, then she tried once more.

"You are Mr. ____". His name sounded strange in her voice, but she went on to tell her own.

"That's what they've called me the last sixty-eight years," he said, looking past her face to the hills fast darkening under a single star. "I reckon the woods are free for those that like to walk there."

The unfamiliar voice laughed a little. "That's what Emerson said: the grove belongs to the man who walks in it with an open heart....On that basis I guess I've owned part of your woods for a good many years.....". She made a final effort. "I've always wanted to thank you....."

Something deeply hidden stirred in him. "There's a stump up there, in the notch of the woods", he said slowly, "that before the timber grew so tall you could stand on it and see all over this country."

He kept still a minute, remembering, then, "I used to stand up there an' look at things, an' wonder how they come to be like they was, an' how the hills was created, an' all the things in Nature.... I told my wife I guessed all the religion I ever had I got standin' on that old stump, a-wonderin'..." He turned his face away from her.

She helped him out. "I know about that, a little. This afternoon I saw......." Her account of a thing she had really taken time to look at eased him, and he answered with telling of the badger den at the foot of the swinging bridge.

When she had gone, he turned to watch her. After a moment she stood clear and unmoving against the sky. You could hear the sounds of the river where she stood. She was one that could stand still long enough, he thought, really to hear what a body was saying, or a river.

Then she walked down the farther side of the slope and was gone. ------Margaret Snyder from A Chosen Valley

Fall was the end of harvest, end of the growing season, a burst of color and sun-warmth before killing frost turned the land gray and cold. Fall was a moody time, full of both life and death, a time when we were reminded of the power outside of us, reminded that the seasons happen to us. We do not invite the change to come.-------Ben Logan, from The Land Remembers

When you get those rare moments of clarity, those flashes when the universe makes sense, you try desperately to hold onto them. They are the lifeboats for the darker times, when the vastness of it all, the incomprehensible nature of life is completely elusive. So the question becomes or should have been all along, what would you do if you knew you only had one day, or one week, or one month to live. What lifeboat would you grab onto? What secret would you tell? What band would you see? What person would you declare your love to? What wish would you fulfill? What exotic locale would you fly to for coffee? What book would you write? ------- Ben Tyler

We were also cautioned about journeying far from home. As an example of the dangers, the town had a badly crippled lady named Lucy, who as a girl had traveled to New York City. As she traveled along a sidewalk, sightseeing, she was struck by the outstretched hand of a suicide who had leapt from high above. Her spine had been shattered and for the rest of her life, she was to walk bent forward at the waist, tapping the sidewalk with two black canes. Whenever the subject of travel to a big city was raised, someone would say, "Just remember what happened to Miss Tripp." ---- Ted Kooser, from Local Wonders

"Steamboats are like wedding cakes without the complications...." ----Mark Twain

"It's not about having lots of money, it's about having lots of options......." -----Chris Rock

As the very proud father of three former ponytail wearers, hopefully I can get away with this....."For the past few years it's been fashionable for young women to wear ball caps and to snap the strap on the back under their ponytails. I like the looks of that, their shiny ponytails jauntily swinging, but it's hard not to think of the rear ends of horses. There's a piece of harness called the crupper that goes just under a horse's tail to keep its nose down. If the horse lifts its head to look for a way out of whatever predicament it's in, the crupper tightens and hurts the horse. But it's foolish for parents to think that a ball cap might keep a young woman from running away. Anybody can see they're made for running." ------Ted Kooser, Local Wonders

"I tell the guy's girlfriend that the only difference between the book's main character Phaedrus and myself is that I am neither brilliant, tortured or insane, she looks at my bike and there is an uncomfortable silence." --------ahendepe (a.k.a. Vermin)