I came up here to work on a big web project. Most of my time has been spent planning two websites, shooting video, planning an internet radio show, and working out a comprehensive marketing plan. I loved it!

I also went for some nice walks and got to see a little of the Berkeley area. I actually stayed in Richmond, CA which is next to Berkeley and on the east side of the bay. The energy here is interesting. Palpable. There is a real concern for both the spiritual body and the environmental community. It can often seem that people talk less than they walk, but I do not get that sense here. People care. It is also a higher energy than I am used to in Arivaca, but still laid back and accepting.

This is an area I have thought about living in before and after spending a week here, I still see it as a possibility. I love the weather and beauty and the culture and the opportunities. I love the people.

October saw the Mesquite Harvest Festival, an event that I put a lot of time and energy into. I made sourdough mesquite pancakes for the pancake breakfast at the community center and later played music for a few hours at the hoedown. Although we had less people than we expected, we still made quite a bit of money for the community center.

A lot more happened in October than I will detail here, much of that time spent with dear friends, building community and developing my sense of place for Arivaca. However, travel and exploration is in my blood and by the end of the month I found myself making plans to travel to San Francisco to work with an extremely creative woman on a conglomeration of web projects, including an internet radio show. Next month’s post will talk about that in more detail.

Our new place is beautiful and peaceful and we have an incredible 180-degree view of the mountains.

I have a feeling of peace and expectancy, like something is about to change in my life. Not an external change or another move, but something inside and spiritual. I’m going to relax and let it happen in its own time.

I started a batch of prickly pear fruit wine this morning. In another few weeks it should be ready and I will bottle some as wine and make brandy out of the rest. Tomorrow morning I’m gathering more fruit and will make more wine. I also want to try making mesquite wine and brandy which should have an interesting taste. I also need to figure out how I want to distill the wine. I could buy a distiller or I could build my own from parts I buy. The kind you buy costs $500, so I don’t think I’ll go that route!

We had another great meeting/potluck for Arivaca Local. There was another big event going on at the same time, so we only had 10 people show up, but I enjoyed the smaller group and felt more connected to each person. We started by talking about the upcoming barter faire which then segued into discussing local economy in general.

1. Eating freshly butchered (and roasted) chicken. The meat was tougher, but I realized that I liked it better that way. It tasted more like real meat than the mushy crap from the supermarket. It was also much tastier.

2. Making sourdough bread. I made the starter completely from scratch, so it is filled with native, wild yeasties. The starter took off like crazy, so I know I have some really active yeast. I have the first loaves rising as we speak and I will let you know how they taste.

3. We started drinking fresh, raw, goat’s milk and kefir… yum! I love the food scene here. We’re also part of a local CSA (community supported agriculture) and will be getting a load of fresh vegetables every week. Oh, we also get fresh, free-range eggs. Damn, we’re eating well!

4. The monsoon rains are here in full force. We got plenty of rain in July, right around the average, but now it’s here for real. At 4:00 p.m. yesterday afternoon there were a few fluffy clouds and by 4:30 it was starting to rain. Around 5:00 the wind started blowing extremely hard and erratic and the rain came down in sheets. We later found out that there was a microburst nearby and we were feeling the effects of that. For those unfamiliar with microbursts, they are large masses of colder air that suddenly drop to the ground and can create tornado-strength winds. There are places here where metal t-posts are bent almost in half because of a microburst. They are also responsible for a lot of the plane crashes that occur as a plane is just landing or taking off.

5. I’ve started working again… for now. I’m working a couple of overnights and a couple of days, working with people with developmental disabilities. I’m glad this opportunity is here in town, because there is no way I would drive 3 hours per day to work in Tucson. I have mixed feelings about the work. On one hand, I’m thankful for the chance to make some extra money, on the other hand… it’s work! I’m still doing my web design and have other projects going

6. The music scene is getting bigger and better here. Someone I met last year has moved to the area and he plays old-timey clawhammer banjo; along with fiddle, guitar, and mandolin. We’ve been talking about putting together a string band called the Arivaca Ramblers and I would play fiddle along with his banjo and our resident washtub bass player might join in as well. There are also three jam sessions a week going on and I’m working on having a fourth. I don’t make it to all of them, but it’s nice to have them available.

7. Sara paints every day and is currently working on a new, looser style that I love. Awesome colors and powerful style. It’s nice to see her feeling well enough to do this. Two days ago she spent the day making a butt-load of banana bread using raw coconut oil and agave nectar for sweetening.

8. I’ve joined a group that practices gentle hatha yoga twice a week and Sara plans to attend also. We meet twice a week and practice for an hour. Last time, my back felt sooooo much better and I was hooked.

9. After yoga class on Mondays, we have an hour-long quiet meditation. Although I practice meditation throughout the week and take moments of mindfulness throughout the day, it’s nice to sit with other people. The energy is different.

10. Twice a month we meet to watch a DVD of Adyashanti, a spiritual teacher from the Japanese Zen tradition with a practical and often humorous bent. I love listening to this guy because what he says makes sense, is helpful, and he’s very down to earth.

11. I joined a video club called Earth Cinema Circle where I receive a DVD bi-monthly with independent films related to environmental topics. I’m not sure if I’m going to simply pass around the DVD or if we’ll try to have a bi-monthly showing as a group. I think this will fit in well with our Arivaca Local group.

12. Speaking of Arivaca Local, the group is continuing. The website is up and people are participating in the forum and last week we had a very good turnout for the potluck. We have decided to have the potlucks the last Sunday of the month and the barter faire the second Saturday morning of the month. We have also talked about other ideas, such as Sara’s idea to have fundraisers and then use the money for such things as sending people to workshops, bringing speakers in, or even starting our own local Heifer International-type program. I’m excited to see how this all grows.

And that is a little taste of what has been going on in our lives here in Arivaca. This is such a difference from what we experienced in Las Cruces. Arivaca is alive, energized, vital, and… home.

The three victims were still on the roost when I got there and one by one we brought them out and chopped their heads off and let them drain. They were beautiful chickens with black feathers and bright combs and I felt very connected and thankful for this opportunity. We de-feathered, gutted, and rinsed them off and I threw them in my cooler and brought them home. I finished cleaning them in the kitchen sink and chopped off the necks and wings to make stock. Sara prepared one for roasting by rubbing it with olive oil and salt and then inserting cloves of garlic in the skin. The meat is tougher than a young hen’s would be and it is still roasting as I write this. The other two were cleaned, stuffed in plastic freezer bags, and thrown in the freezer for a future date with my cook pot.

Yesterday evening we had a potluck for people interested in Arivaca Local and over 25 people showed up! I made tofu and black bean whole wheat enchiladas with garlic and swiss chard thrown in for good measure. My favorite dish, though was the squash blossom rellenos made with all local food, including fermented barley, corn, eggs (from those Java chickens), and fresh squash blossoms. There was tons of other food as well and I went home stuffed to the gills.

I’m currently reading a book called “Wild Fermentation” by Sandy Ellix Katz and I’m excited to try some of the recipes. I have a jar of whole wheat flour and water sitting out with expectations of delicious sourdough bread in the near future. I also want to try making Chinese hundred-year eggs. They are fermented in horse urine for a few months until the whole egg is solid, the yolk turns green, and the white turns a smoky black. Doesn’t that sound delicious!? (I’m trying not to gag as I write this!) We also picked up a juicer and are going to make juice from prickly pear fruit and anything else we feel like trying. I’ll keep you posted!

Moving back to Arivaca has been one of the smartest things we have done. We have deep roots in southern Minnesota, but we have strong roots in Arivaca. Everyone who knows me knows that some of my interests come and go, while others become part of who I am. One of those deep interests is music, another is birding (although I’m a terrible lister), and a third is the idea of knowing a place. This third one can be called bioregionalism, a sense of place, and living in the land. My sense of place in southern Minnesota is strong, having grown up on a small farm and spending a great deal of my life in the area. I’ve fished, hunted, explored, hiked, gardened, birded, gathered wild foods, camped, and truly lived in the land. The same applies to Arivaca. I feel the roots growing deeper and although I will always travel and explore new land, I hope I can allow these roots to grow deep enough to keep me grounded.

Gathering mesquite pods is one way to deepen my roots. This is an act of connecting with place that has been practiced by dwellers in the land for hundreds and thousands of years. Sitting on my stool, hand-picking pods one by one from the ground, I feel deeply connected and grateful to be home.

I am still doing web design and marketing work and since we moved back I have had an increase in business and interest. Fortunately, the awake overnight position also gives me some time to work on web design. I also have several other projects going and the biggest one is the formation of a group called Arivaca Local. I talked about this in my last post and things have continued to progress. It is not a formal organization, but rather a group of interested and motivated people. I have set up a forum at www.ArivacaLocal.org to help get conversations going and so far it is working well. As more people use the website and meet with each other, more benefits from this group will be felt.

I took some pictures from a local farm and you can see all of them at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/creativetribetv/sets/72157606558102571/

This morning several of us met to discuss localism, especially as it relates to food. The basic idea is to take advantage of the local resources (products, skills, labor) and to share these among all members of the “cooperative”. We’re not exactly sure what direction we’re going with this, but there is plenty of enthusiasm and support. The one thing we did accomplish was to agree to build an online forum to discuss and share ideas, a forum that I will be building this week sometime. This will be a fun, ongoing project!

The rest of the trip WAS uneventful and although there were a few more hills to climb, we managed not to overheat again. We stopped in Green Valley, AZ for a few groceries and arrived in Arivaca around 1:30 p.m. Wednesday afternoon. I parked the motorhome near the house we are renting and partially underneath some large mesquite trees to provide a little shade from the summer sun. It is still too hot to be in their during the day, but in the morning and evening it is just fine.

We also found a vehicle to drive within a day of arriving. It is a big, gas-guzzling white van that has several interesting personality quirks, but it gets us around town and that’s all we need for now. We are renting it from a friend of ours and may end up buying it. We used it to go to La Gitana last night and we had an incredibly wonderful evening seeing most of our old friends and getting caught up. It feels so good to be back in what we now know for sure is our home. Sara is already feeling better and a lot less stressed and feels like this is where she is meant to be. We both feel that and are thankful we are back.

We arrived in Rodeo around 6 pm and we are staying at Rusty’s RV Ranch with an incredible view of the Chiricahuas outside our windows. Just after we settled in and hooked everything up, the storm we saw brewing for the last hour finally hit. Well, maybe not hit, but it did graze us. Further up in the mountains the lightning was blazing away, but all we received was about 20 minutes worth of rain.

Now I’m sitting here writing this post with the window screen wide pulled open to let all of the fresh air in and to give me an unobstructed view of the mountains. There are Cassin’s Sparrows singing away, as happy for the monsoon rains as I am. Although the temperature was close to 90 in Las Cruces, it is only 70 right now and feels delicious.

We will leave fairly early tomorrow to get over Mule Pass in Bisbee before the day’s heat makes it too difficult. After that, we should not have to deal with any more potentially overheating climbs. And best of all, by the end of the day we should be back home in Arivaca after a 9-month absence.

I did some research into ways to help the motor home engine stay cool on those long climbs and I came across a product called Water Wetter that helps the water in the coolant system remove heat more effectively. I bought some at Auto Zone today and we’ll see how that helps. I also sprayed down the radiator and removed the multitude of bugs that were covering it. There is also a product you can buy that periodically sprays a little water on the front of the radiator and I’m sure this is also a big help. I realized that I could hook up the windshield washer hose to spray directly on the front of the radiator if I wanted, but I’m not sure if I’m going to go that far. I would have to remove the washer fluid and replace it with water (not a big deal), but I would also have to put up with the windshield wipers going back and forth every time I sprayed the radiator. Still, if it was a big help…

Steve and Kathy have been wonderful hosts and have cooked two delicious dinners for us. Last night was grilled ribs, chicken, and veggie kabobs and tonight we had pork chili burritos with damn good margaritas. How wonderful it is to have such good friends. (Don’t worry, Dedrick, you’re still the awesomest!)

Off to bed…

I just got done helping Steve dig out part of his septic and now we’re getting ready to grill us some ribs and chicken. Look out!

My slow driving was worth it again today, especially when the winds picked up just before the storm. I ended up driving only 30 mph just to keep from being pushed off the road. I think 120 miles a day might be just about perfect, three hours of driving at 40 mph.

The rest of the drive was uneventful. I love driving through the plains of eastern Colorado, it is a claustrophobe’s dream. As I drove through Campo, it reminded me of a trip about three months ago when I turned off here onto side roads and eventually made my way to the highest point in Oklahoma, Black Mesa. Campo has also been one of the places to see Lesser Prairie Chickens on lek in the springtime, although this year they did not allow public viewings.

We kept driving through Colorado, through Boise City, OK and then finally stopped in Dalhart, TX to fill up on another $200 worth of gas. This time our mileage was over 10 mpg which is probably the best we’ll see this trip. I think if we were mostly empty that we might see as high as 12 mpg, but that’s about it. Still, even 10 mpg is great for a vehicle this size. However, I don’t know what we’ll do next summer if gas prices go as high as even $6/gallon. A trip to Minnesota and back would cost around $2400 at that rate. We may end up driving a much shorter distance, perhaps only to the coast of California. I guess we will just have to wait and see what happens.

My original intention the night before was to drive all the way to North Platte, but once I got here I was so glad that we did not for a bad storm had come through with high winds and downed several trees and large branches. Right in the spot at the Walmart parking lot where I know we would have parked for the night, a very large cottonwood branch was lying on the ground and quietly saying, “I was meant for YOU, Buddy!”

By the time I was finished gassing up buying groceries, it was 2:30 and time to hit the road again. I should have stopped another two hours south in McCook, NE, but I felt like going further and intended to push on to Bonny State Park in Colorado, a spot I had reconnoitered online. The temperature had risen to 99 degrees by this time and it was humid enough to spread the air on toast. Every time I started up a steep hill, I had to turn the air conditioning off to keep the engine from overheating. It was a new experience to drive based on the position of the temperature needle instead of the speedometer needle. At times I was crawling at 15 mpg just to keep the engine cool enough.

By the time we made it to Bonny State Park, there was a storm moving in and we were ready to call it a day. I do not remember the exact time, but it must have been close to 7:30 pm. What a disappointment to see the sign saying “Campground Closed”! I half expected this, though, for the web site spoke about how the drought had reduced the lake from 1900 acres to less than 800 acres. Weary and disappointed, I continued driving. Nighttime fell, the storm never hit, and by the time I got to Cheyenne Wells, CO around 9:30, I was ready to park anywhere. Which I did. I found a school parking lot and pulled in there and we both fell asleep rather quickly.

The most exciting part of the day was my new traveling speed. Yesterday I tried to keep the motor home as close to 50 mph as I could and this resulted in a lot of stress and muscle tensing, especially with the winds blowing like they do on the plains. When we left the campground this morning and had to go 10 mph down the bumpy gravel road, we thought about what it must have been like for the pioneers that drove ox carts and wagons across the hot summer prairie going at best three or four miles per hour. Part of me thought about how nice it would be to measure my travel in time versus distance and enjoy the country at a pace that would be painful for some, but heaven for others. I decided to try a compromise and kept my speed at 40 mph or less for the whole day. It was wonderful! I wasn’t tense or on edge at all and was able to enjoy the scenery and the drive so much more. Later in the day when we were driving down the open roads of eastern Colorado, 40 mph actually felt like a normal speed to travel and felt the same as if we were going 60 or 70 mph. Although I didn’t try it, I wondered what it would be like to go only 30 or even 20 mph. Maybe some day…

One more thing to add about this new speed, I kept the hazard lights flashing the entire time to let everyone else know how slow I was going and it was amazing how polite everyone was. I was not honked at even one time! And even with the rain and winds that I encountered, I felt like I was driving very safely and never felt like I might lose control. Perhaps the new speed limits should not be 55 mph (as is being debated in Washington D.C.) but rather a stately 40 mph. Can you imagine what great gas mileage everyone would get and how many fewer accidents there would be?

At first I was only going to park next to the lake and take a short break, but the actual campground was a few miles in and down a very bumpy gravel road. By the time we got there, we decided that we had gone far enough and it was time to rest.

Tomorrow we plan to drive just a little over 300 miles to Bonny Lake State Park in east central Colorado, just north of where U.S. Hwy 385 and I-70 intersect. This rate of travel will get us to Las Cruces by Thursday evening where we can relax for a few days before heading to Arivaca.

Today we’ll drive to Pierre, SD (the only state capitol on this trip) and then turn south on US Hwy 83 through Valentine, NE and on to North Platte, NE. I’ll probably get on the interstate at that point and then turn south at Julesburg, CO on US Hwy 385. This will be the trip for US highways!