Positive Mental Attitude

Good Tuesday Evening!

So, I’ve been working hard to hit this fall with a good attitude. 2020 seems to have made keeping a good attitude more important than ever - being thankful for what we have, and trying to keep pushing forward on the good things.

I wrote in September 2018 (2 years ago!) about my conflicted thoughts and feelings on fall, and I’m trying not to let a season of life be taken from me by being negative, even if I still feel some of those feelings. As my wife says frequently (though mostly to my daughter) - “You are in control of your reactions to those feelings”.

So we have been out this fall, enjoying the color (which seems to have come early!). Enjoying each other’s company, and yes - trying to maintain a positive mental attitude.

Hope y’all have a great week.

This Is My Home (2)

Good Wednesday Afternoon!

I forgot to post yesterday, haha. I got done at work, and was ready for my bike ride, and that was that.

So, a day late, the next installment of images that I’ve made this year that remind me of home - and how I am incredibly fortunate to call this place home.

The forests in Appalachia are some of the most diverse and unique in the world, with plants and animals here that have intermixed since the last ice age, full of little micro-climate hollows and mountaintops. They also have been hammered by human development in the last 200 years - timbering, mining, dam building. Sometimes I wonder what it might have looked like before. Before all of that development. It makes me wistful for something I’ve never seen, and can only imagine, as I look at forests that have been clear cut since I was a child - and now are thickets of thin trees and blackberry and multi-flora rose brambles.

So, I tend to prize the patches that have been left - like this one. Maybe not “virgin”, but untouched for many decades, with all the shades of green in the world in the same little patch of forest. Dense, beautiful, and hinting at what it might have been like.

Hope folks have a good rest of their week.

this is my home

Good Friday Morning!

The fall is starting to come upon us. I see forecasts this weekend for temps in the 30s and 40s - with frost possible in the high country. I’m trying hard to have a good (better?) attitude toward fall this year. I’m excited about getting out, about maybe having a fall or winter sport that I can get psyched about, and I’m hopeful that maybe - just maybe - we’ll get some snow.

Because this is my home, and I love it.

I’ll be running some images next few days that I made this summer that screamed “home” to me. This first one is something I think about every time we talk about home - my dad building a fire in the summer and fall and sitting out under the stars. It’s the same thing my grandparents did - sit around and talk - but with the bonus of not being on the couch. This is what good counsel, and laughter, and shrugging off stress looks like for me.

I hope folks have a great and relaxing weekend - tough to do these days, but worth striving towards.

Talk soon.

Falls On Wolf Creek

Good Tuesday Afternoon!

Sometimes, we can get so far into our stress and panic and “managing” our lives that we lose sight of what our core values are. We can lose what makes us, us.

That happened to me this last year. I lost my interest in “going”. The thought of writing these little stories up for y’all felt overwhelming.

Finishing school.

Work.

Covid.

Everything in the world today.

But the thing is, this little operation is what helps me get through those things. Just like getting outside, I need to do these things. I need to find new things. I need to make. Create. Fix.

So, I’m going to try and double down. This is a nice little example. I saw this place in a historic photo, and decided to try and find it for myself. Carmen is trying to get up on plane as well, and is launching a creative writing project that she has been working on for a long time, y’all should check that out as well!

Whatever it is, keep seeking your joy. Keeping making things better. You’ll feel better - and we’ll all be better for it.

Hope folks have a great week.

Sleepy Creek Reflections

The geography of West Virginia is such a conundrum sometimes. Growing up in southern WV, I would read about parks and lakes in WV that were impossibly far away from us. Trout Pond and Blackwater Falls were both more than 3 hours away (especially on the old roads which weren’t 4-laned yet - RT19 didn’t become 4 lane until I was in college!).

So, now that I am a grown up, it’s been a bit of a mission to go to all of these places, and todays photo is one of those. This is Sleepy Creek Lake/WMA, near Martinsburg. I usually don’t think about there being big patches of woods or public land out in the panhandle, but this place was lovely. Another park down. :)

Hope folks have a good week!

Just Over That Ridge

I read the Hobbit when I was a kid, and “The Road Goes Ever On” always pops in my head when I start a bigger trip.

“The Road goes ever on and on, Down from the door where it began.

Now far ahead the Road has gone, And I must follow, if I can,

Pursuing it with eager feet, Until it joins some larger way

Where many paths and errands meet. And whither then? I cannot say”

The bigger trips have been tough this year - we had a trip planned to New England that didn’t happen, and no idea when it might. So we’ll just have to console ourselves with the backroads here. At least there’s not a real downside to that, when you are greeted with views like this one.

Hope folks have a great weekend.

Jewel of the Mountains

I think I write a paean to the mountain laurel flowering every year.

Who can blame me, though? The Japanese have the cherry blossoms - beautiful, of that place, and a reminder of the preciousness of life and being in the moment.

I think the mountain laurel do the same for me - once a year, a brilliant and intricate display in the mountains, short-lived, and reminding me to take a moment and realize the beauty of this life we live.

Have a great and mindful week.

All Night Show (Milky Way over Summit Lake)

Good Friday morning!

So, it’s 4th of July weekend, and most fireworks around have been cancelled. What to do?

Well, option one is buying your own, and we’ve had some fun with that over the years. I’ve seen some home fireworks shows that would rival the bigger ones we see around towns in WV.

Option two, and the one I hope to use, is just going out under the stars, maybe building a fire, and watching the world wheel overhead.

Hope folks have an epic holiday weekend.

mountain mama

I started this post a few weeks ago, thinking about it for West Virginia Day, but wasn’t done, wasn’t ready, and wasn’t totally sure what I wanted to say.

I am proud, damn proud, of being from this state. I am proud of the people that live here, and the sweetness and toughness that we are known for, historically. I am proud of our legacy of joining the Union in the Civil War - the reason the state exists.

That said, I’m puzzled by the general sense of complacency and compliance as another set of moneyed interests from outside the state make their way around, buying up land, buying up resources, almost all destined to go out of state. I’m puzzled by watching our folks happy for the table scraps of a few jobs, at the expense of degraded environmental conditions and capital flight.

As a friend of mine wrote on WV Day “Our succession was not about human rights, it was about money. You bet that since then, life under the fat cat thumb has taught most of us about those human rights”.

Hope we don’t find a way to repeat that going forward.

Paradise

Sometimes this place exceeds my expectations, stops me in my tracks, and provides a living, waking example of why we want to be here, why we think this place has a magic - a gravity - that defies explanation.

This was one of those times.

Carmen and I were hiking after a few days of rain, and had just picked a random drainage - no real plan - but we saw water running out, and the maps said it was steep enough that maybe there would be a waterfall somewhere up there.

As we made our way up, the stream turned into a hidden glen - and this. This glorious, lush green glen reminded me of things I’ve seen on Hawaii, and there was a waterfall - springing right out of the ground. “Being brought to tears” is a cliche at this point, but this place did it. For real.

No park. No trail. Just the quiet hand of nature, doing what it does and has done for millions of years in this place, the oldest mountains on Earth.

hope y’all have a great weekend.

Summer

Hey Gang!

So it’s officially summer now. Our time to shine. It’s a tradition around here to get up and spend the entire day on the solstice outside, doing something we like. This year, we were up for the sunrise with coffee, then loaded up the canoe to the lake, went for a 2 mile run at Coopers Rock, had lunch, then went climbing in the afternoon and finished with a fire and some drinks in the yard for sunset. Not bad.

I hope folks are getting up and getting moving for the summer, and I’ll apologize if the notes get shorter next little while - we’ll be trying to be outside. :)

Have a good week.

Thanks Dad

Today’s post is a simple one.

I have a wonderful father, and I’m glad to be able to say so on Father’s Day. He has taught me a ton of things - from wiring up a house, to fixing a bent wheel, to how to grow raspberries.

But most importantly, he taught me a lot about justice, and fairness, and patience. He taught me how to think independently, how to learn, how to be curious.

Thanks dad, I love you, and thanks for having something to teach (even today!) every time I see you.

Can It Be Good If It's Easy?

My daughter is a teenager - and like many parents (and many teenagers) - I find myself frustrated by her lack of “go” sometimes.

I was a weird teenager - I was worried about failing. I was worried about “not making it”. I was worried about disappointing my parents. And that manifested as only doing things I could do well - and obsessing about doing. Idle time was (and still is) something I feel guilty about.

“Don’t you have something better to do”

Now, I find myself putting that onto her - “why are you in your phone again?” “Why are you watching TV again?”

Because in my mind, any time spent on the couch is time that could be spent making, doing, building, creating, fixing, or learning.

This image brings this up, because I brought her on this hike. North Fork Mountain is probably the most stunning “per mile” hike in West Virginia. And she was super grumpy about how steep, and how hard. And seemed unimpressed by scenery.

And I have the opinion that it probably can’t be good if it’s too easy.

Am I wrong? Or is she?

Hope folks have a good week.

Reflecting

I struggled with this post today.

Our summer is starting out pretty well. The garden is in and going, we’ve had a chance to visit our loved ones and get out into the woods - always good for us.

But I know this isn’t true for many, many other people.

I’ve made decisions that brought me back to West Virginia to make positive impacts on this place that I love - but I recognize that this change is slow. That we have to make the best impact we can, and that the results will be obvious over time.

But man, the things going on feel like we need action right NOW. Friends losing jobs. Inadequate social safety nets. Folks going to work - even in the face of covid - sick, because they can’t afford to lose the job they couldn’t afford to lose before.

What to do?

Lucky for me, calm, peaceful places to think are common around here. But I know that’s not true everywhere.

We’ll keep doing our best. Y’all do the same. And not just for yourselves. But for the folks around you. For your neighbors and friends and family. For strangers having a bad day.

Have a good weekend.

No Cheating

I love finding “new to me” waterfalls in West Virginia, and love the homework and map work and hunting it takes to get to a lovely place.

Carmen had mentioned this one to me a little while back, and on a bright Sunday morning, we found ourselves in the right part of the world to see if we could find this one. The hike was a little confusing, somehow uphill both ways, but it was lovely and I was excited to get here - and then, right as we turned to drop over the bank - people!

A friendly couple came up over the hill, and the gent - decked out much like me, with a camera and tripod - joked “I’ll hurry up and get my photos posted”. I laughed - because I knew it would be a few weeks before I got this one - but I wasn’t worried. I seem to pick different (not always better) compositions when I go to these places.

Sure enough, I saw his photos online the next night, and laughed - we definitely took different photos. No cheating. ;)

Hope folks have a great week.

Time Makes It All Clear

It’s been an absolutely insane 3 months in America, with no obvious end or answers in sight. My feelings are all over the place, and while fear isn’t an emotion I spend much time indulging around here - fear in my mind is always best addressed by taking action and understanding where that fear is rooted - fear is definitely the dominant feeling.

Fear for my parents with covid-19.

Fear for my family as unrest and disease roam the country.

Fear for our futures, as I watch government find ways to arm the police, but not protect doctors or regular citizens.

But, as with all things, time will make it all clear. It always does. All I can control is what I can control. What I do. And we will stay committed to trying to make things better and treating people as well as we can.

Love y’all and have a good weekend.

The Best Thing We See Today

Good Friday Afternoon!

The unofficial slogan of this operation has always been “the best thing we see today”. I’ve joked for years that I’m a poor landscape photographer - I don’t have the patience to sit in one place for hours, waiting on the light. Maybe someday.

But it does mean trying to be ready to capture something at a moments notice - and sometimes the best thing isn’t in some far-off locale, or vacation destination.

This sunset scene happened right off my front porch, this image taken from the end of my driveway. The day had been stormy all day, and we had been hiding inside, listening to the rain on the windows. Near dark, it stopped raining, and for a while it all looked just ominous - but then, right at sunset, the clouds started to break up - and this. The glow on the wet street, entire palette of colors in the sky.

The best thing we see today.

Hope folks have a great weekend.

The Back Way

Good Tuesday Morning!

So this weekend marked the first time we’ve traveled south to see my folks since this all started - more than 60 days ago. That would be the longest I’ve gone without visiting them since I moved back to West Virginia more than 15 years ago.

I was glad to get out on the farm, and take in the spring in the mountains - it’s one of my favorite things in life, and only happens once a year.

That all said, it was a little strange still - and I think will be for a long time. I don’t trust the reopening. We fuel up in Morgantown and do everything we can to not stop until we get to the house. We’ve historically enjoyed stopping at little restaurants along the way home, and I don’t know when I’ll be ready to do that again. We’ve started traveling like we did with my folks when I was a kid - cooler and a picnic always ready in the back of the truck, only stopping if we need fuel, and only eating what we brought with us.

The good news about that is, if you are setup to travel that way, you can take most any route you want.

Even the back way.

Hope folks have a great week.

She Will Take It Back

Good Friday Afternoon!

Through all of this “closing down” its been fascinating to watch as folks realize that nature comes back very quickly when we quit messing around. Critters in the streets of big cities, clean air and water in places that are historically known for smog and polluted rivers.

For us, we hate the trash, and we hate the pollution, but if they stop, and the soil will support plants, this little “jungle” that we live in will take over quickly. I don’t know how many places we’ve been to - abandoned towns, abandoned parks, and if you didn’t have an older map or historic photos, you’d never know - it’s all gone.

Talking with some of my botanist friends, our beautiful woodland spring flowers, such as trilliums and bluebells, take a long time to reproduce - like 5-7 years from seed to flower. So maybe this tire has been here a long time. But whatever else was here? No idea. She’s already taken it back.

Hope folks have a great weekend!

Revival

Good Tuesday Morning!

So things are getting back to normal, sort of. This whole thing has really laid open the strengths - and in maybe more cases, the weaknesses - of our system. The strengths are clear - we have incredible people working at the front lines, and I’ve been amazed at the resilience, the imagination, and the drive of my friends in medical and other “essential” roles.

Some of the weaknesses are also clear - our social safety net is no where near to handling something like this. Unfortunately, I would have guessed this, as I’ve watched as those systems have failed people in more “normal” natural and economic natural disasters for a while now. Systems that didn’t do much for miners, or help folks recovering from floods and hurricanes.

Where this one is really hurting us is in making historic strengths into weaknesses. The community churches in my home neighborhood have always been leaders in responding to natural disasters, and rallying the community. Unfortunately, this time around, those same community ties becomes weaknesses. I’ve read too many stories - including a nationally publicized one right here in West Virginia - about congregations becoming “hot spots”, with terrible effects on these local communities. I hope that folks will recognize the strengths of these groups is in the people - not in the all being in the same room together. The revival will come soon enough - we just have to be patient.