The best laid plans and all that...
My intention was to leave OFFF around noon, go back to the old house, pack another load, then speed off to the cottage with plenty of time to beat the worst of the storm. Instead, I left at night and drove through the heart of it, with huge gusts threatening to blow me right off the road.
The reason for my lateness was so excellent, I can't possibly have any regrets. I managed to get a spot in Diana Cason's workshop on rabbit health and medical emergencies. What a great workshop! I got at least double my $50 in information, and it was so great to be able to pick the brain of such a knowledgeable veteran of rabbit husbandry. Diana is frank, intelligent, personable, and an all-around excellent teacher.
I'm stressing out a bit about how I will manage to build a new rabbitry on my non-existent budget. The bun-buns are still in Portland, which bothers me more than a little. I want to get them all set up so that I can be more aware of their daily health and well-being. It feels terribly frustrating to still be in transition. That is, it's frustrating and stressful, but I can't even believe how minute those emotions feel after the way I've felt for the past couple of years. They're just blips at this point.
I had my first class today - nothing remarkable - just the intro session with no content. I'm starting to realize that this life is real...
Finally, and most importantly, this morning I drove through a rainbow. The road through the forest is elevated above a drained (dammed) river valley for a few miles, and there was that magic combination of rain and sunshine that births a rainbow. The rainbow was in the river valley, below the level of the road except for a bit of the top of the arch, and I drove right through it! I've never seen a rainbow from its own level before. A few minutes later there was another one, but the trees broke it up before the road reached it.
If you live in most of this country, it's hard to internalize in a serious and personal way how precious and how endangered the American West really is. The forest I live in is where the famous battle occurred between loggers and environmentalists over the Spotted Owl, but that is not a thing of the past. I know activists today who do "forest work", and big trucks full of logs drive by my home several times an hour all day long. I pass by a huge dam and the massive lake it creates, as well as the drained river valley, every time I drive to Eugene. I don't understand how anyone can see this land and not want to protect it, and it DOES feel personal and serious to me. It never did when I just saw photos or films of this place. It was hard to believe that it was real and that it still exists alongside the modern human world. But it IS here, so real. How will we keep it?
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