I have not yet waked from the dream. A thick accordion-fold of paper lies inside my purse, passport to a strange new country. In its mute words, the trail of my life is detailed with waypoints and coordinates, checked against a pattern of clocks and rolling wheels. I stare at it in awe, stunned by the impact of its tangibility.

In long-gone times, I have waked on a morning and stood in solemn trembling at the thought of a summit's challenge, felt the reins of my soul jerked by an unseen hand as I shouldered my pack and put boot to snow with ice axe in my grip. I have known the abject, shivering fear of crevasses and sudden falling, and also of failure, but the mountaineer shunts such misgivings aside and strives for the peak regardless. Some would say that the climber plays the fool with hazards, but I would reply that no summits would ever have been seen had all timidly retreated, even as I now respond: the prize is worth all risks.

Five Days On The Route To Forever.
13 days 0 hours and 15 minutes to launch
15 days 21 hours and 10 minutes to touchdown.

So flows the river through the canyon, unchecked by tumbled boulders, unhindered by constraining dam, flowing inexhaustibly to the greater ocean. So ascends the seedling, breaching the earth and striving for the sky, grown into a pillar of verdant hope above the lower forest. So soar the fledglings on beating wings into the clouded vault of the heavens, there to pierce the fabric of mist and cavort, liberated, in the open firmament above. So rises that from which our dreams are made, a dawn so sudden that the mountains tremble.

One step, spanning the infinite distance. One reach, grasping the intangible. One moment, however brief, fanfare to a lifetime.

14.2.59 and counting. So begins creation of the universe.

You could witness the slow progress of age taking its toll on my small companion, so I was not surprised to find my solitary guppy lying lifeless beneath a broad-leafed plastic plant yesterday evening. Over the past months, the poor little fellow has had his ups and downs, cycling through periods of inappetance and irregular swimming, relieved only temporarily by regularly freshened water. One day, he'd be charging around playing in-and-out-the-milfoil and the next, he'd suspend for hours with only his pectoral fins moving.

On his bad days, I would consider dipatching him as mercifully as possible via a technique suggested by a veterinarian: freezing. Fish normally enter a state of torpor when water cools below 42° and quickly become hypothermic soon after. The method of piscine euthanasia is simple: place the subject in a cup of shallow water, place the water in the freezer. The deed is done painlessly in mere minutes and is much more humane than chucking in the toilet or being left to suffocate and dry in the outdoors. In fact, as a mountaineer I have been told that a person entering the hypothermic state actually becomes euphoric in the last stages, and so it was that yesterday evening, I prepared to send Little Fish to the other side of life.

Little Fish had been in my care since 30 June 2004 (those who wish to witness his birthing trauma are invited to view the Mulgathorns entry for that date). He survived to a venerable age for a guppy, two years being a bit beyond the norm. Colorless (or nearly so, but for a black margin on his tail), he had none of the attractive appeal of my various bettas or even of his progenitors, yet this small creature was a source of much amusement for me. I had not thought to be interactive with a pet fish until my cousin Toni came to visit, but when she made fish-lips at him through the aquarium wall, he responded in kind and I occasionally filled her starring role thereafter. My small friend would come to investigate a fingertip placed against his window on the world, and follow it raptly as it moved around beyond his reach. He was frisky and playful, inquisitive in an odd way, sometimes daring as evidenced by a leap from the cup I had placed him in during a tank cleaning. He alighted on the bookcase, and I barely found him in time to offset an untimely demise.

But yesterday evening was his final chapter. When I stepped to tankside, ready to remove him to the icy shore of eternal rest, Little Fish had crossed over and was lying bottomside topmost beneath the plastic fuchsia lily which had once been his favorite place to snooze. Sweet waters, my tiny friend.

For my Bear:
The Mountain is letting slip her white mantle of snow, revealing craggy bare shoulders to the June sun, exposing crevasse lines and tumbled sags of glacial ice and rock-freckled flanks. Time-marred yet beautiful to the appraising eye, weathered but lithely graceful, youthful past the telling of her years, she stands in modest yet seductive disarray, summoning the virile touch of Summer. He strides the open grasslands, climbs the evergreen forests to take her in his arms and, with a kiss, to possess her with his impassioned breath.

All Nature is but allegory to the human state, all humanity a metaphor of spirit, ever travelling the circle. My words flow in the river of your life, leaping like salmon to the rhythm of your heartbeat; gold-red leaves drifting on currents of living water, eddying within your soul. The song which wells within me for joy of you spans the sky in a bright rainbow, following your path with wings outflung and shimmering of ebony, rising on the updrafts and dancing in the clouds. Where echoes linger in deep canyons, where cascading waterfalls laugh and shatter, where mosses lie deep and green amid tangled trees, there my gift to you awaits.

The Mountain lets fall her white mantle, shoulders and body innocent of sun. She stands without pretense, beckoning to Summer, waiting to offer herself freely to his will.

Breathing hard...hot and sweaty...thighs flexing...back arched...muscles tightening...an hour and a half and counting, and I feel like I could go on forever, so exquisite is the activity, so passionate my enjoyment of it...

Why, bless your li'l buttons, I'm talking about a bicycle ride!

Now, June in Washington generally brings a number of sunny, warm days nicely layered against cool, cloudy ones in a fine confection of weather, but the sixth month of this year began doughy and damp and seemed determined to remain on the table until only recently. As it might be, I would have preferred a light cream frosting to the sudden crunch of arid, stale meringue we've been served by temperatures in excess of 90°, but if I must stew, I would rather it was in juices of my own making than the sauna of my living room. There is reward in honest sweat, none in imitation of a wet washrag.

No fool, I set about while the morning was yet young with intent to make a quick dart to the Post Office and home again, a ten-mile sprint. However, the recent climb of the Serious Hill had left my legs strong and craving and the mere rises of the road which once upon a time caused me to gear down into low no longer inspired me to shift. The potholed pavement in front of our postage-stamp government building mocked me as I chained the bike to the drop box outside the door, and I sneered that I would see the backside of it at a point somewhat later in the day as I returned. With mail stowed in my bike bag, I flung my leg over the bar and mounted my machine, a new goal in mind some five more miles to the fore.

It was not my intention to ride 21.8 miles, but once launched, I was unsinkable. A quick stop at the turn-around destination for a swallow from the pittance of coffee I'd brought along, accompanied by a granola bar and a few totopos, and I was r'arin' to go once again. I justified a detour onto a looping, scenic bit of rough, tree-flanked macadam, chuddering along for a scant two miles in preference to labouring up a small hill exposed to full sunlight. I laughed in the face of the Post Office parking lot, empty save for the postmistress' car, and rising up over the last hump of the journey indulged the caresses of a gentle breeze in the moments of sweet downhill afterglow.

If I had my druthers, as they say in some regions, I would be on my way to Georgia with several fishing rods tucked beneath my wing, having had the pleasure of vicariously catching a mammoth bass and one of its slightly smaller cousins this morning. RainbowCache posted pictures of his 9# 10 oz. prize to the Cheers forum, setting off a spate of anxious posts from one Hoppingcrow when he left the board without giving further details. A fish of the stuff from which dreams are made, the bucket mouth of the beast could well have swallowed half of me in a single gulp (or so it seems to look at its maw). Bass of this sort do not swim the waters of western Washington, and you may color me in every hue of green envy known to man despite the salmon swimming in nearby local rivers and the availability of fisheries both salt and fresh within a day's drive of home because on occasion, I have felt a bass at the end of my line, albeit a miniature of these, and it was thrilling. I am infected with bass fever, a condition I have previously foresworn.

Yes, in the days of High Country's writing, I put forth the bold statement that "the lady does not fish for bass" within its Secrets page. In truth, I had caught but one when I wrote that sentence, and it had been small and unspectacular in the resistance it gave as I flipped it quickly to the bank. Oh, it leapt free of the water, but a quick twitch of my rod prevented it from dropping back into its puddle and the deed was done without particular ado.

For a few years afterward, I disdained bass as sport for good ol' boys until a sunny afternoon found the trout unwilling and a sense of boredom lying on my shoulders. I wandered off from my accustomed perch, a RoosterTail hanging at the end of my leader, and on reaching a small pool at the base of a tiny spillway, I flicked the lure into murky waters and felt a strike. Less than a pound of smallmouth danced on its tail, and gave me quite a show for its diminuitive size. I released it, not understanding then that bass is darn fine eating, but nonetheless, there began my interest in bass. Small but frisky, the little fish had teased my fancy.

One troutless day at the same general location, Sande and I edged in between two or three fellows fishing just below a small concrete bridge spanning the creek below the spillway pond. We didn't ask, and erroneously assumed they were fishing for trout or silvers. I had a worm on my hook, not classy but functional, and when I let it slip and drop beside a structure (stump), I was rewarded with a hard strike. I brought to land an 11" bass, legal under the slot limit, and was planning to return it to the fishery until one of the chaps on the bridge suggested taking it home for dinner. "Oh!" I said. "Can you eat 'em?" Before we left that day, I had three of similar size on my stringer, three nice meals for a person of my size and build. On that day, I contracted a bad case of bass fever.

Today, I look at the image of RainbowCache's beaming grin and his two magnificent bass and I think: this is simply more than any wetside Washingtonian fishergirl can bear. Now, to convince Sande we need to go bassing because even a small taste is better than none at all.

It was nigh onto bedtime last night when I momentarily wandered away from the computer and conversations with my friends in the Geocaching.com forum "Cheers," heading kitchenwards. As I rounded the bend, I noticed Skunk in her customary position at the sliding glass door, half tummy-upward and squirming as she often does when she wants to be petted or brushed. The vertical blind was still thrown back, so I walked over with two purposes in mind, only to have both of them suddenly derailed upon discovery of some thirty honeybees on the inside of the door, the blind and the throw rug where the cat was rolling. I went, as they say, ballistic.

My first thought was for Skunk. That which is in my care always takes precedence over self. It was only after I had hefted her to her feet and given her a forceful push on her behind that impelled her halfway across the room that I gave any mind to my own severe allery to bee sting. All around me lay dopey, drunken bees, a condition I could not account for. Why were they not actively buzzing and flying? My mind engaged this enigma as my hands and feet busied themselves with bee-crushing, and when the purported last of the carcases had been flicked out the door, I was still puzzling.

I stood for a while inside, surveying the door frame. How had the bees gotten inside? I could find no evidence of a hole or gap, no nest, nothing to excuse their presence. As I pulled the vertical blind back further to check the upper right corner of the frame, I spotted on its cloth two more logy bees, hanging on for dear life. One I crushed immediately, and then the scientist in me took over. I knocked the other to the floor to study its response. It lay there insensate, legs moving feebly, as if it had been smoked. I put it out of its misery, more for my own ease than mercy, and chucked it out the door.

Next, I returned to the computer and posted a note in the forum, knowing that my long-distance friends would keep an eye on me if I gave them an alert. I could feel imaginary bees walking on my pantlegs, tiptoeing through my hair, but I needed to make an outdoor assessment of the situation before I could comfortably retire to bed.

Outdoors, I still saw nothing to explain either the bees' invasion or their stupefied condition. I found a few more on the interior of the glass and on the blind. I checked Skunk for stings...nothing, so I reported in to Cheers, signed out, and after one last bee-check (yield: one on the blind and one on the throw rug), I went to bed with my skin still crawling. One last bee was clutching the fabric of the blind when I opened it this morning.

Sande is 85, soon to be 86. Occasionally I need to remind myself of that fact, because to all events and purposes, he could pass for a man twenty years younger. We have fished together for a number of years now, and in the burgeoning days of the companionship, it was not uncommon for him to arrive on my doorstep at 8:30 AM following a 45-minute drive from his home, there to find me champing at the bit to be out and fishing the Morning Bite. I suggested an earlier arrival (none too subtly), but either I did not make myself abundantly clear or he misinterpreted my request, because the hour shifted to 9 within a few months. A year or so passed before this too changed and 9:30 became the rule rather than the exception.

During the early months of this year, Sande injured his shoulder. His repair surgery was minor compared to that required to put my own wing back together, but it took a greater toll of him in other ways. He rises tired and later than his previous custom, and now appears in my driveway at 10 or later. So it was yesterday. With ponds and streams and lakes populated with fish of the mind waiting, my chum arrived at an hour long past Morning Bite and did insist on first visiting all the places I term fishless.

For two hours, we did not wet a line at any water feature we visited. I was making a valiant, if somewhat abortive attempt to keep my tongue behind my teeth, craving to go to either the new pond or the old standby river, there to whisk a fly through the air and present it before a hungry fish. The fishing bridge had been packed elbow-to-elbow with neophytes who had knit their assorted lines together in a tangled web of Gordian proportion; the shores of the easterly lake appeared bleak of any recent fishing activity at all. Miles of driving offered frustration at every bend. At last I gave voice to my impatience with a cursory demand to head pondward while there was still some life left in the day.

Back last February, a local geocacher placed a hide at this pretty location, else I would not have known of its existence. I was first to find the cache, scratching up a white film can from inside a stump while snow fell thickly around me, all the while wondering if I'd be able to navigate several miles of potholed logging road in reversal of my course. I later contacted the owner of the cache, learned that the pond was reputed to hold native cutthroat, and thus immediately put it on my short list of places which must be visited, fly rod in hand. It has been too many years since either of two rods felt my grip.

At the pond we set up, Sande with bait and a bobber, myself wielding a 5-weight, 8.5-foot Cortland four-piece rod tipped with the beadhead water boatman (my weapon of choice for use on cutthroat). In three casts beside a projecting stump, I brought in my first, all of six inches long. At this point I asked myself, do I want to fly-fish or do I want to bore myself to tears on planted rainbows in the familiar river? My answer was to raise my rod and make a quick 10-2 flick and a single haul. Sande, in the meantime, was not having even this small margin of success, and I could tell that we were about to have another minor disagreement as to the order of the day. He went wandering up the road to seek a different access, and while I stood alone on the small bridge crossing the outflow, a Game Agent pulled up and made small talk with me about any number of fish-related subjects. In that conversation, he mentioned a second bridge crossing the stream which feeds the pond. My ears perked up. By then, Sande had returned and he was also listening raptly, and we soon hied to the truck to go exploring.

Following the Game Agent's instructions, we came to a fork in the road, both members of which seemed to meet the requirements for direction of travel. Since I have been schooled that a creek flows downhill, I suggested the right fork. We drove for a mile or more, expecting to come to the second bridge at the very next turning until Sande had had enough of potholes and branches scraping the sides of his red truck. An about-face was effected, and on returning to the Y, we took the other uphill arm. Several miles later, Sande was finally convinced that the creek couldn't possibly be on the ridgeline, so again we turned about and retraced our wheel tracks to the Y. Sande did not want to go down the first fork again, but at my insistence that it was the only logical place a creek could be, and that we'd never forgive ourselves if we didn't just look at it once, he relented. Not far from where we had turned around the first time, the six-foot wide creek was spanned by the bridge the Game Agent had mentioned.

A small pool had formed on the upper side of the bridge, blocked from rapid passage by debris. Surrounding it was tall grass, devil's club and nettle, not inviting. The water was at most a foot deep and several small pieces of wood were sunk in the muddy bottom of the little basin near a backwater. At the one o'clock position, a trickle flowed beneath bent grasses and a widow's peak of the same grass projected down from twelve o'clock. I saw three or four potential hiding spots for the elusive cutthroat here, but as I was readying my rod, I heard a loud splash. Sande had plunked a bobber and worm loudly in the middle of the pool. I had a brief flash of wanting to chuck him in after it, quickly negated by chiding myself that this arrangement of ours is about friendship, not fish. I stepped to the left side of my buddy and made a short cast, presenting the fly to land just short of a wooden stub. A tiny flash of silver-brown darted out and gummed the prince nymph I had substituted when my water boatman had outlived its usefulness at the larger pond. At least I had proved that cutthroat existed in this tiny fishery, if not large ones. However, the youngster was spooked. I could not draw him again out of hiding.

Sande seemed to realize that no cutthroat in its right mind would come out into the open to take his offering of a nightcrawler, so he reeled in and moved to the other side of the bridge, better to address a different pool that lay in shade. Now I was in my element. Several false casts to gauge the distance to the grass overhanging the water, and I placed the fly neatly at its edge. A streak of reflected sunlight darted from cover, took a quick swipe at the bug but native caution drove the fish back to the safety of its lair. My second cast fell on its threshold, and that proved to be too much for an 8" cutty to resist. Hoping to find one more of equal size to make a nice dinner, I killed this one neatly and quickly and laid it aside. If no other rose to my fly, I would at least have a tasty small lunch.

Now in my book, the flesh of the wild cutthroat is preferable to either brookie or brown. Many areas have been closed to cutthroat fishing by the last revision of WDFW regulations, and only in those areas which are deemed to be overpopulated by small fish are you allowed to retain a limit (generally two fish). Nevertheless, Sande reproached me for the smallness of my prize. The logic escapes him: that it is actually preferable to reduce a starving population in order to increase the food supply for the remainder, i.e., maintaining a healthy fishery by selective killing. Alas, my attempt to further reduce the number of inhabitants in the pool yielded up nothing dinner-sized and as Sande grew more and more restless, I decided to resign my efforts so we could move on to the assured ground of the planted river. At least I had had some joy of wielding a fly rod once again.

The large river is a put-and-take fishery, and although the actual technique required to pull the gullible rainbows from the river's deep crease eludes many people, in twenty minutes, I had my stringer full. Sande, on the other hand, had one. I pulled up a comfy rock and observed him for a few minutes as he cast and retrieved. A bystander would have thought we were performing the exact same motions, but I noticed that his retrieve was slightly faster than the flow of the river he was supposed to imitate. Before he could cast again, I said, "I'm going to walk you through it. Cast upstream and listen up."

He made the cast and immediately began reeling quickly, hoping to stay out of the snagging rocks. I said, "Slow down a bit...okay...now you're getting into the crease...no, slow down!" As his bait of shrimp dipped into the lowest point, the tip of his rod jerked violently several times. My friend struck, perhaps not with the vigour that I would have evinced, but it was adequate to the task and he soon had a nice rainbow ready for the creel.

I coached him through a second cast, and again he landed a nice fish. On his third cast, he needed no instruction and his fourth fish of the day came to land. His fifth cast failed to beach the fish which struck it, only because the fisherman's reactions have slowed in the mire of age. By now, he had understood what I referred to when I advised him to match the flow of the river with his travelling bait, and although it took half a dozen more casts, he finished out the day with five fish to his credit, and posed for the obligatory photographic "hero shot."

Today I look at this picture wistfully, taken on the bank of the river with a breeze coming westerly across the currents and the shadows lengthening across its span. I see many streams filled with unmet trout and many roads not travelled, voyages which are mapped only in a fisherman's fading dream. I see the steelhead swimming free without experiencing the sting of a hook never baited. I see a man, 85 going on 86, standing at the gate of a closing era, the sunset on his face.

"Swales and dales" is a phrase of interesting euphonic impact. A rise and fall accompanies its vowels, and its consonants twist and lurch and repeat themselves in a rhythm well-matched to Southwestern Washington's prairie country. It was up such a road that I travelled ten miles to a small park in a retirement community lying at the precise terminus of the officially numbered route. My car tilted left or right as I rounded briefly spaced curves, always minding its lane for the other was frequently occupied by a loaded log truck. It was a roller-coaster road, kiddy-sized with no tall climbs or steep falls, the type of road you'd love to have to yourself in a black summer-afternoon convertible and a date waiting. Well, grey Toyota and a cache will have to do!

The road t's with local access abruptly. The park is on the right. I fire up the GPS and place it on the dashboard, and while it converses with the satellites, I rummage through my canvas cache bag for swappables. This action seems ridiculous after I think about it for a minute because the cache must be within half a block of my car, so the swag bag will be no substantial burden to portage slung over my good shoulder. The GPS finishes with its communication and promptly tells me that I need only walk 86 feet in the direction of a hedge and a large tree.

As I approach the shrubbery, GPS suddenly pitches a hissy fit and revises its advice. Now it tells me I have 116 feet to go. It is talking to sputnik on a tin can/string link here behind a building and underneath significant overstory at three points of the compass, so I remind the instrument of its shortcomings by releasing it from my hand to fall at the end of its cord that I may better raise low boxwood branches. I see nothing even remotely resembling the "easy" hide this cache purports to be. There is a mind-set factor in evidence, witness the way I persist in lifting greenery instead of pacing out from under cover and into better satellite reception. I have already had one DNF for the day, and I'm ripe for another. Instead of approaching from three directions to get a triangulation, I make a circumlocution of the hedge. I am not so far gone in the doldrums that I fail to look for "cacher sign," the spoor of trampled twigs or unnatural gaps in the bush, and therefore the glint of blue Tupperware eventually captures my eye. I have found it, but through very little skill of my own.

Now I am ready to retreat over the fallings and risings of the swales and dales. Owing to a state of Bear-induced euphoria, I have a rollicking CD of Australian folk music on the stereo, and my vocal accompaniment matches its volume. I have found a cache today, hurrah! I swale behind a chorus line of log trucks, dale the downs and ups of the road with a vigorous passion. All is right with the world, and I am prepared to meet a tougher challenge: find a cache I have previously logged as a failure. Add a dash of mosquitoes for piquancy.

After muffing this one last summer, I am wise enough to have looked at the hint. Unfortunately, it is as worthless as saying, "Needle In Haystack Cache: underneath two parallel straws." My hint reads, "under ferns 15' from a multi-trunked tree." The area is thick with both breeds, and in any direction, 15 feet will take you to a duplicate. Nevertheless, I am feeling invincible. It is a feeling sadly short-lived. An hour later, I emerge from the small woods covered in fern spores and nose running, still suffering from a paucity of finds. My route from home has taken me across 80-odd miles so far (a fact I was blissfully unaware of until the moment of this writing).

Deflated, I feel the need for strenuous exercise, so my next goal theoretically requires climbing along a trail to the top of the feature which gives Castle Rock its name. Here I make a new discovery, one I should have suspected from the number of light bulbs which have mysteriously exploded in my home over the last several weeks. For one thing, the hill is not nearly high nor steep enough to be defined as anything beyond a stroll. I arrive on its summit with the ability to draw normal breath. I check the GPS and find that it points me over the edge of this weedy knob, so over I go, following its command. Again, the dratted thing changes its mind and begins indicating a 45' revision of plan. I scramble back up the embankment in order to oblige, only to find when I reach the indicated point that there has been another change in the prospectus. Now I see the light: I am generating the strong electrical field for which I have some notoriety with GE and Philips. The GPS in my hand is going mad from it. I revise my grip to imitate that of the catch-and-release fisherman, not wishing to touch the device's lateral line. It calms remarkably, and now indicates the true location of the cache.

I am now at 50 percent success, but well below my usual excellence. I weigh the remaining caches on my list, realize that the more northerly ones are out of the question due to time, and therefore I decide to take another wide deviation from the mainline of travel in search of one for which I have no other reason to be in the area. This cache proves to be my favorite of the day for several reasons. It is challenging to find, requires inventive physical technique to retrieve, and it contains five marbles for my prize!

Before I resign for the day, I have found two more hidden treasures. One cleans up a previous "Did Not Find (DNF)," the other proves to be a bit of a contest between myself and two sets of possible coordinates posted by the owner and by another hunter. Neither demonstrates the numbers my Summit shows, but then Summit has a reputation for being sharper among tree cover than most, a fact which may have affected the failure in the ferns. Accuracy is relative here. If a cache has been hidden with a Magellan, it should be sought with a Magellan. If it has been hidden with a Legend, then Legend or one of its more closely related family members will more likely to take a seeker to the gold.

Although after five finds in seven hunts, this adventure fell quite short of its original agenda, I am satisfied with the day. Turning about with Lazy Harry still singing his ditties at high volume, I drive the miles to home.

I set out this morning with a substantial list of caches I hoped to hunt, somewhat widespread because I am running sadly short of ones within reasonable driving distance. It has been a few weeks since I indulged myself with my hobby and therefore felt that the benefits to be derived outweighed the cost of gasoline. I also had another handy excuse: a cache I had hidden needed minor maintenance.

Approximately 40 minutes from home, I parked in the small space allotted between highway and a logging gate which blocks all thought of ingress onto a long-overgrown pullout. A five-minute stroll through overhanging salmonberries, nettles and vine maple placed me beside the pond and the tree which holds a tiny black plastic box in an eye-level, moss-packed knot. From my cache repair kit, I took a fresh log to replace the sodden one inside the container, installed it, re-hid the cache and my first job was done.

On the road again! Half an hour to 45 minutes later, having turned left at the only stoplight, I arrived at my second destination where, purportedly, a small-sized cache was hidden in a "clever container." Those words generally signify something less obvious than the standard Tupperware or ammo can, so I figured I was in for a hunt of ten minutes or so. First assessment of the area brought no possibilities to light, other than a hollowed-out space beneath a rock situated at the base of a historical marker sign. I paced off fifty feet in either direction, although my GPSr steadily indicated the sign itself.

Now this informative structure stands some eight feet tall and wide, slung from metal straps and bolted at the base to keep it from swinging in the wind. Two truncated telephone poles are topped with a third for the supporting crossmember. Despite the cache's size being listed as "small" (a term which should apply to something larger than a film can but smaller than an ammo box), I checked every knothole in the upright poles. Nada. I stood back at distance to peer into the gaps formed between the metal straps and the top of the sign, thinking that if I spotted something up there, I'd have to climb on top of my car to retrieve it, but no evidence of cache container was to be seen in the gaps.

I checked surrounding rocks. They were all real, and they were all solid. I am no stranger to artificial rocks or rocks with holes in their undersides. Likewise, all branches were bona fide, and none came apart in the middle. I circumnavigated each of approximately eight fir trees, tugging on any projecting stub. None wiggled or came free in my hand. I went back to the sign and got down on my knees. Corresponding to the metal straps at the top, two bolts were fastened tight against the bottom of the sign. A third one, central and matching an odd little capped spring between the two hangers, was loose. I unscrewed it, hoping to find a cavity which might hold a film can, and half fearing that some part of the sign might come crashing to the ground. Again, nothing. I put the huge nut back on its bolt quickly, feeling as if I had committed an act of vandalism there.

A bubble of frustration was swelling in the back of my throat. A DNF is not a good way to start a caching day. I am compelled to admit to that a large portion of my focus lay elsewhere, but I doubt that could be to blame for my apparent blindness to an object which had to be within a fairly clear 8-foot radius from a huge historical marker sign. I retraced my steps, painstakingly repeating each search parameter. Unless the dratted thing had been painted with see-through camo, it had to be within range of my penetrating stare.

Suffice to say, I wasted over an hour on this one cache, and when I finally did walk away from the site in disgust, I promptly lined off the list the second one in the area hidden by the same owner. I would essay a new frontier, something different and hopefully rejuvenating. More driving lay ahead.

(Second installment to follow)

The mood is decidedly loud and Australian. In the shower, the strains of "Click Go The Shears" dash against the tiles, striking harmonies and overtones to match any Carnegie Hall might care to afford. If the tune is ragged, if the notes are not precisely achieved, what difference does it make to the ebullience of spray and soap and the tactile glory of a crisp washrag against the singer's hide? If the voice training falls by the wayside, if caterwauling wakes the neighbor's dogs untimely, how should this compare to the feathers of froth in the pale Aborigine's hair and the wildness with which she dances beneath the artificial rain? It is a celebratory moment, this singing, and the shower the best acoustics save the broad outdoors where, at 3 AM, the vocalist might risk arrest for disturbance of the peace.

When song fills the being, whatever the reason for its spate, it is to be indulged its emancipation. Let it out! Give it to the sky in syllables of music that it shall make rainbows there; chime the hours with it, parade it in chant and rhythm; fly it against the wind, a kite of many colors spiralling with crow and cloudmass, mighty in its march and undeniable. Sing! Sing, whether or not the proverbial bucket can contain the essence of a note!

Following a trail of damp footprints bedroomwards, "The Overlanders" set forth to Queensland with cattle running before their stockwhips, and the Snowy River rolls on, its serenade speaking of manly men and dynamic purpose. It is a pioneering time, this song of heart and unchained spirit, bright with promise of gold, opal and wool, from the Alice and Uluru to soaring galahs and lonely campfires, outback speaking in the sound of clapsticks and digeridoo. It has Ned Kelly's rampant mischief in its tempo. Advance, Australia fair!

Today has brought four visitors to my yard by 9 AM. The first three came like a cluster of Jehovah's Witnesses, bolstering each others' conviction as they approached the door. They found the homeowner polite enough until they attempted to pass beyond the fence, but at that point, I put down my foot and chased them off under penalty of trespass. Thank you, Mary, Marie and Minerva Doe, I would like to raise my seedlings to my own beliefs. Scat, or I'll turn you into venison.

The fourth visitor came alone and nervously, although his abrupt seizure of the feeder pole caused it to shake and tremble. A downy woodpecker, smaller than his hairy cousin, gripped the rusty rod as easily as a twig. The feeder, unfortunately, is filled with black oil sunflower seed for the grosbeaks and equally satisfies sparrows, finches, towhees and jays, but not the higher fat requirement of the woodpecker family. A bag of suet would have been more to Mr. Downy's tastes, I'm sure, but no amount of circumnavigating the pole yielded up a bite to eat.

And yesterday...mind you, this is the weekend and time for guests to come a-calling...a rufous hummingbird paid court to the delphiniums outside the picture window. She flitted from 'bee' to 'bee' (the central petals of the flower), tantalizing bits of nectar with her threadlike tongue.

June is a month of observations, a time when the spirits gift receptive minds with Lesson. Deer, common as they are in the area and thick upon the ground, so to speak and in triplicate, may be ignored as a daily event unless conducting unusual business in their rounds. Woodpecker, if one will turn an ear to his knocking, advises industry, attention to detail, prompt performance of the task immediately to hand. Hummingbird, who has strayed to this page from yesterday, is but witness to a new emboldened tenderness I have not dared before.

The weather has been decidedly uncooperative lately, largely penning me in the house and keeping me from my customary level of ourdoor activity. The most obvious victim of its whims is my lawn, now standing a foot tall in hawksbeard. It is a disaster scene from which the eyes may not be averted; there it is, outside the windows of my cage, its four quarters visible from the accordant sectors of the building. It falls short of Armageddon by one iota: the florets of this milkweed cousin are yet pea-sized and tight, waiting on the sun's elusive touch. One brief brush against the solar upwelling, and each tiny bud would burst into orgasmic, vivid joy.

Currently, the hawksbeard heads are bowed beneath glistening drops of moisture. A torrential shower has passed by, lavishly dewing the dense understory of shorter grass. Below the bird feeders, sunflower seedlings hold globes of sweet water in the junction of their leaves, tiny silver pearls to be picked like ripe berries by the finches' flickering beaks.

It is a damp day, a wet day and a fragrant one, dappled by a microcosm of rainbow refractions; first here, then there, then from somewhere unexpected, catching the senses at every turn. I venture into this new land, so fresh and exciting, trusting to find reward for time spent in confine. My faith in miracles is strong. What has been fades, what shall be calls me forward for, oftentimes like weather, the storm and bitter winter give way to breathless days. It will happen.

As I step out my front door, I pass through the threshold dividing cedar smoke from verdure, garlic from dust, well water from tires on pavement, leather boots from a recent propane fill. The change is startling, as if I had passed through a wormhole linking beef to beets, black-and-white to rainbow, the yogi's bed of spikes to a sensory deprivation chamber, shrieks to silence. I do not need to sniff like a bloodhound to detect lily-of-the-valley nor the slightly edgy hint of ninebark from across the street. I scent the freshly cracked hulls of sunflower seed in the grosbeak feeders, the fuzzy clue of a shower's evidence on the rocks of the driveway. Clover coats the experience, a honeyed slurry poured into an overflowing bowl of sachet. Daisies nibble with polished, white teeth and a bit too much mouthwash. Brown, damp soil and summer pinks mingle, the old Doug fir shivers needles of turpentine.

A car speeds down the road, leaving a fug of Clorox in its wake, someone returning from the laudromat. A smoker, that person, but my nose is not skilled enough to name the brand. The walk to the mailbox calls up oil and gasoline from the salted pavement, and the vinegar of winter's ice removal lingers even now. I wince. Strangers in my familiar land, these. They throw me off my stride, confused as a bloodhound who has run face to rear with a furious skunk.The metal-to-metal squeal of the opening mailbox strikes ozone, bright as lightning.

A bad day may find me assaulted by the neighbor's Mary Kay delivery, denser than fog, roiling from their chimney in invisible, invincible force. I gack at that. Out behind, Dennis runs the chainsaw. An overtone of pitchy sawdust and fried oil spikes through the thick perfume. If the wind shifts, I'll faint from dog. For now, philadelphus saves me, buttering the drenched ashes of fir twigs lying in a dark heap central in the back yard. From west, buddleia casts a lilac line. Mint, oregano, lavender, comfrey...tangs of each simmer into a fragrant tea of air. Indian plum chips at spruce and horseradish, dandelions strike the dogwood blind. Rain thrills the air.

Indoors, a priceless, precious gift of pheromones. The soft, sweet, slightly musky treasure which Bear has called an "old sweaty t-shirt" finds me enraptured in its cotton folds.

The cranberry, humble bog dweller, has long stood at the top of my list of Most Desirable Comestibles, whether it be served as sauce, beverage, marmalade or dried. Indeed, I only stop short of munching the little fellers raw by a narrow margin, and have been known to pop a stray into my mouth to chew, just for the curious experience.

A diet of solely cranberry products and artichokes served with mayonnaise could have stood me in good stead until not long ago when another substance captured my taste buds' full attention, sampled at a friend's. A precautionary word: you will need to have a dry toothbrush handy, for the stuff clings like Saran. I give you now

Ode to Joy: Hazelnut Butter.

It comes in a jar, stubby and squat.
Dull peanut butter, it's most surely not.
It's brown and flecky and terribly sticky.
Hazelnut butter! Hazelnut butter!

Its texure is smooth. It's oily and slick
Don't waste a drop! Give the knife a lick!
On bagels, it's grand, or slurped off your hand.
Hazelnut butter! Hazelnut butter!

Smear it on muffins. Wipe it on toast.
Just a thin layer goes farther than most.
This is a treat! Haven't tried it on meat...
Hazelnut butter! Hazelnut butter!

Lips stick to teeth, glued there by yummy.
Hazelnut butter is lining my tummy.
Stays there for hours! Curative powers!
Hazelnut butter! Hazelnut butter!

You may have to visit a Natural Foods,
Likely the only place to have the goods.
Well worth the money! Better than honey!
Hazelnut butter! Hazelnut butter!

Second Breakfast has come and gone, and I am satiated by a surfeit of totopos but nevertheless, I hear the hazelnut butter jar calling my name, sure as elevenses.

June is half gone and warm weather is elusive. Not that I'm objecting, you understand, but I am a bit fearsome of what that portends for the month of hell politely called August. June forecasts, and the words she speaks indicate a hot, dry counterweight in the balancing dish of the scales.

"Average" is a misleading term. It allows cumulative error. "Average" annual temperature is calculated over the last ten years, "average" rainfall for the month of June likewise. In the grand scheme, "average" should cover a century or more to be halfway accurate, but some mere human agency, caught up in the instant gratification of recent events, has determined that meteorological data should be based on the decade just preceding the current year.

My weather records span some thirty years with only minor gaps. I still do not feel qualified to submit an "average." I have seen annual rainfall vary as much as ten inches per annum, temperatures soar for a consistent period of three years, then to drop into the sub-basement for the next twelve. Take the three and its seven antecedents, and you derive a figure quite different from that attained over the full fifteen.

When I browse the Old Farmer's Almanac, lifted from its hook beside the throne, I see variations in the numbers cited as "average" for the past year compared with the one previous. "My heavens!" I think. Should not this esteemed publication be basing its "average" from the date your obedient servant, Rob't. B. Thomas first put the book into print in 1792? Indeed, the Old Farmer's Almanac prides itself on weather data, and this incongruity strikes me as unaccountably odd.

As a child of Nature, my body observes the changes of season without conscious record. Suffice it to say, 59 years of accumulated subliminal data tell me that our cool, damp June will be but a faint memory when the dog days of August are let slip to war.

"The goal of life is living in agreement with Nature," or so Zeno would tell us. By and large, I live by those words, until such point as I hear another squirrel in the attic.

You city folk think these little devils are cute and sweet and funny. Out here in the Back of Beyond, they're the equivalent of WMD. You on your park bench with your bag of peanuts, you can't understand why I sit on my front stoop with the BB gun across my knees, waiting for that beady-eyed grey or brown head to come peeking out of the wisteria.

I have had enough of filthy nests in tool drawers, torn out insulation, destroyed shingles, chewed beams and gnawed electrical wiring to have good cause to center my sight just behind your little squirrelly elbow, my nemesis. I have cleaned your soil out of my furnace filter far too many times, dusted it off the water heater which shares the same room. I have lain awake too many nights listening to your scampering and pounding overhead, cringing at the sound of rending wood. I have found my snowshoe bindings torn and tattered, my climbing rope demolished, and you, you soft-furred hellion, you sit atop the detritus and chatter at me in defiance as I try to route you from your perch.

My aim is not always true, and this gives me pangs of conscience. Despite my feelings toward you, I would prefer a quick, clean kill. Yet when I hear your toenails clawing up the wall behind my pillow, I can lay my tender heart aside and plug you where you stand.

That said, I pay my due to Nature. The carcass goes to Raven, the tail (salted) goes to Bear for tying flies, dispatched in tomorrow's mail. Zeno must make accommodations for the situation, which should not be too far a reach for a philosopher of his talent.

An intermission for housework which, by definition, means planting the seedlings which uncharacteristically have gone two weeks past their appointed hour and setting fire to the hummock of grapevines which have lingered in the lawnmower's path since January, these last coaxed to smoky conflagration by boughs from the old Doug fir.

A glance up the tenured tree is forced to frown upon the parted legs of a previously contracted schoolmarm, owing to my reluctance to kill a living being of such venerable age. It is when the east wind blows that this harlot's habits come into question, for as the wind pushes against her, she bows readily to its will. But let it turn or pause, and that fork in her anatomy whips houseward, and it is then and there that her constitution may sometime fail, and thus bring untimely end to the carport, if not the bedroom.

She has been pruned severely, this old spinster, reprimanded once under my employ and once before. Under my direction, they brought her down with pulleys, ropes and draglines, laid her in the yard, stripped her of her green garments and sectioned her in lengths. There she lay in pieces, and bit by bit I rolled her amputations carefully away, far too heavy with pitch and sap to carry and, stored to dry beneath a cover, her toppled thighs fueled my fireplace for several years of careful rationing until at last the fireplace was replaced by a gas insert, ending her usefulness with this household.

But now, upspringing from her unverted torso, two new appendages rise ten feet side by side. No thicker than my own thighs at their bases, they pose no immediate hazard, but a time will come when Madame Fir will need a firmer hand. I should have known the lady was recidivist.

Bear does like his bedtime stories! I will not polish these, no...I present them as they were told, with only corrections to my typing and tightening of paragraphs. These tales are stream-of-consciousness, the words of my spirit in form given to the Bear.

Lightning flashes over the Mountain, thunder growls. This is Lightning Story, at Bear's request:

Standing in my beaver pond, graphite rod in hand...little bit nervous when the first roller sounded in the far distance. I had known the possibility was there, still wanted a brace of 10" cutthroat for the frying pan. Chancing the weather, I drove the miles, glowered at the darkening sky and worked my way along the muddy dam. At the back of the dam is a bathtub-sized pool, filled with downed timber, wonderful for snagging nymphs, but also harboring many hungry cutthroat in its two-foot depth. I tie on a brown woolly bugger, #10, small to suit small fish...

I flick the woolly bugger right beside the log I'm standing on, a mossy thing which projects out into the pool some twenty feet, tapering at its furthest end and too fine to bear my weight. For now, I won't chance a dunking as I usually do. For now, my intent is to pull out that little cuttie I know is underneath the very foot of tree I'm standing on. A two-foot cast...not even past my leader. The woolly bugger sinks and a sudden flash of brown darts out from under the log and takes the fly. I lift my prize from the water carefully, appraise its length and girth, unhook it gently, holding it so that its lateral line is free of my hand, and I ease the speckled fish back into the quiet water, startled but unharmed.

Little cutthroat slips away. This section of the log is finished for the moment, so I thread line out past my rod's tip until green shows a foot behind the leader. 10-2, three times, then the presentation. The tippet unfurls beside a sunken log. Count three, retrieve. FLASH! Like lightning, a 7" cuttie strikes and leaps.

Little tiny cutthroat is set free to make more cutthroats. A raindrop splats on the brim of my disreputable fishing hat. Undeterred, I lift the length of line from the water, allow it to uncoil behind me (mindful of the bulrushes standing guard), then flick it forward to lie beside a log at 90° to the one I'm standing on. Must watch this carefully, for this log has many small stubs of branch projecting out from this side, and very easy to leave a woolly bugger hanging there. Another raindrop splats on my hat. The water dimples...

The snaggy log yields nothing. I think I have brought my retrieve in too soon without letting the nymph sink to proper depth. Three points have been addressed, west, northwest and north. East lies the thin needly end of the mossy log. South lie the bulrushes, and some one-foot diameter patches of open water. If you were a dinner-sized cutthroat, where would you most likely be? I turn and face the south. This is tricky business. I must lay the line between bulrushes less than three inches apart from one another, and the fly must land in the gallon of open water beyond.

Sprinkles dapple the pond. My face is sparkled. My glasses have tiny rainbows making patterns in my eyes. Nine feet of leader, twenty feet of double taper stretch out behind me. I measure the cast as it sails out to southward, and lay it directly in the hole. The woolly bugger hardly sinks, and suddenly I am on a cutthroat! The fish has a mind to play tag amongst the bulrushes, and a bit of finesse and a few hard words are necessary to convince it otherwise. My heart is racing. This one is a good 11-incher! Can I beach it past the spray of alder which has rooted in the moss of the fallen tree?

In the distance, a rumble forms, growling out from the belly of the sky. Now sprinkles are larger. The pond is pounded into froth, its surface grey, its depths invisible.

I cannot see the cutthroat as it comes to me at the end of my line, except for its occasional tail-dance. When I see clear leader near the terminal eye of my graphite rod, I raise it past the alder, and a fine brown fish lies beside me on the narrow width of the log. On my knees in the wet moss, I free the sodden fly from the fish's mouth, dispatch the wounded creature with a quick snap, then extract a stringer from my pocket and thread it through the gill. Back into the water it goes for safekeeping, although I keep one eye peeled for the otter who has been known to frequent these parts. The rain is falling steadily. The water is fragmented. Another thunderclap peals through the evergreens. The thought occurs: *graphite* rod!

One fish on the stringer, and a nice one. Rain turning the water to buttermilk. Thunder applauding the performance of one drenched fisherwoman who can lay a fly amid the rushes. The time has come. I bring in my line, hook the woolly bugger to the rod's keeper, follow the mossy log to the thicket of devil's club and wend my way across the beaver dam. Let the cutthroats make more cutthroats merrily after my departure. I have my savoury, and lightning urges me to home.

A rainbow appears in the sky at the moment the story ends. Even the shaman has to marvel at that.

Between the towns of Elbe and Mineral, close by the base of Mt. Rainier, there lies a highway hill of some magnitude. It is a relatively steep and steady grade for a motor vehicle, rising 300 feet in the space of a mile and a quarter, and I have always eyed it as the major obstacle for a bicyclist wishing to travel from one town to the other. After all, far too many years have passed since I last confronted a Serious Hill.

These days, there are considerations. The price of gas restricts my travel from home for whims such as bicycle adventures for, after all, there are roads and trails aplenty right outside my door if I can convince myself to take advantage of home turf. It seems foolish to apportion funds to travel which will culminate in exercise when the task could be accomplished ever so easily without turning the car's engine over. Nor do I wish to squander time in transit from home to trailhead; an hour there, two hours' ride, an hour home. Wasteful!

Then, too, there is a certain excess of Reichian energy (Wilhelm) which might not be best suited for a perch upon the hard seat of a bicycle, yet nonetheless needs burning off before seismicity parts the nation down the middle. It was in this state of mind that the Bear, ding-dong his kittycats, bid me go my way.

Right about then, that Serious Hill was lookin' purty good!

As stated, it's been a long time since a Hill of Magnitude and I battled wits. I fixed my eye upon its slope and said, "Dagnab it, I'm going up!" Each thrust of my legs carried me forward. Gears ground down until at last I was in the lowest one, but moving at a steady pace. The guardrail became a waypoint, first one end and then the other, the finials marking another tenth of a mile strongly pedalled. I passed them by, gasping, drove foot toward ground for yet another revolution, and greensward gave way to yet another rail.

A small turnout called my name, but I ignored it, feeling the power in my thighs and thinking how I'd like to apply...no, no...focus, here! You've got to whip this hill! The barricade of boulders barring ingress to timber country dipped into grey nonexistence at my back. A gated roadway slid behind me. The top of the Serious Hill came into view, and the slope gentled by a mere degree. I cranked gears into second.

Apex attained! And thence down the other side a quarter mile or so, then turning east for Mineral I struck, now sweaty, sticky and gratified, and over gentle swales and dales, the bike's tires chattered until at last we turned full circle at the small town's mom-and-pop and headed home.

I would end this story there, but for that Serious Hill. Coasting at 26.7 mph on the corrugated verge, Dr. Reich very dang nearly chucked me in the ditch.

Some friend of mine expressed it well: paybacks are a mother.

The mind registered the visual image of the trap, but foot and body were in forward motion too hasty to pull up short of ensnarement. I was through the web and down three steps, flailing my arms wildly, covered in the tiny gold hatchling spiders whose nursery I had just penetrated where it hung festooned across my front doorway.

I thought I had removed the hazard several days ago. When I went out for the mail, a clustered group of spiderlings occupied one corner of the stair. Quickly dispatched with a broom, this concentration, so then I brushed the broom all 'round the door, along the fascia and eave, swabbed out the corner which always gathers triangular, five-inch webs, probed beneath the steps for hidden egg cases. I thought my work was done for this season, considering that another nest had been crushed beneath my hand as I grasped the door handle of the car.

Now it must be said that although I am a woodsman and am content to leave spiders at peace in the forest, arachnids in and around my home send me into tizzies. I can admire a huge brown beast in the woods, although I wouldn't pet it, and I don't seriously fear them if I find them walking up my leg. A sideways-walking crab spider on my ceiling is another matter. My back hair raises, the chills run off me in full spate, my spine coils up and forms Celtic knotwork at the base of my skull. The great purple creatures may have my garage if they so choose, but the time I brought in the Christmas tree with several dozen passengers is a tale the neighbors tell, so loud was my shrieking and furied stomping.

This nest outside the doorway bore several hundred golden beads the size of pinheads, strung wide-spaced with gossamer between. I was gowned in spider sequins, flecked with spider glitter when I hit the bottom step. Hanging from my glasses were dozens of trapeze artists, swaying in the dim vision beyond my trifocal lenses. I swatted, pawed, swiped full-arm my hair, then realized my shirt was no doubt also covered. I pulled it off, used it to towel my short-cropped hair.

For however many living spiders decorated me, at least a thousand per hundred populated my imagination. I never ceased pawing, swiping and swatting from house to mailbox and back again. I threw the shirt on the floor and danced on it, brushed my hair and feared to look at what might lie in the bristles. My skin fairly crawled with spiders of the mind.

A shower is refreshing! And never moreso than at times like these, although hours after, I still have the sensation that some were missed.

Every year, at least once, I walk through a hatching. You'd think I'd learn to look.

Bear's Bedtime Story
told in stream-of-consciousness style over multiple emails

Long years ago, a fisherwoman sat beside Ohop Lake, watching trout make sparkling ripples as they dimpled the surface of the water in search of mayfly nymphs. This particular spot was not the public fishing access where fish came easily to the hook. Further up the lake this was, at a place the locals call the High Bank. "High" is relative. A dirt cut drops ten feet to the water's edge, but it is possible to sit there in a lazy canvas chair to wait for the tug at line's end...

The High Bank is not the most productive water, but the lack of other fishermen make it a desirable post for one not too intent on catching fish.

On this particular day, the water was still as glass. Tatty beach homes on the far shore stood upside-down in reflection so clear and pure that a photo taken from the spot could be either wrong-side-up or not, and the only subtle difference would be that of a slightly redder shade; that, and the occasional dimple of a trout disturbing someone's porch railing or their barbecue in the water's image.

This image faces east. The sun peers between a lace of evergreen above the colorful houses patchworked on the shore. A dock or two projects a finger into the water, and a blue-bottomed boat lies on the lake margin, turned over on its hollow.

The lake is quiet. Only small bird sounds ripple the air, or the occasional hum of a fly, sounding for all the world like a 747 in the calm.

The fisherwoman sits on the earth. Her yellow line stretches into the distance, a small belly hanging, waiting to tighten on an unwary trout. Her full attention is on the line, observing any slight change in its tension. Her mind, however, is empty of thought and filled with the peace of the moment.

There is a sudden break in the tranquility as a woodpecker (pileated) knocks on a nearby tree. *KNOCK* *KNOCK* *brrrrrrrrt* and then a pause as the bird's long tongue probes beneath the bark in search of breakfast. The fisherwoman follows the bird with her eyes, her hands now sensitive to any vibration in the rod she holds. The woodpecker drills again, spirals around the tree and out of the fisherwoman's vision. Her eyes drift casually back to the lake and focus on her line. Yellow line, for visibility in cloudy or grey skies...today, it makes no difference, not to the weather's whims or to the elusive fish.

Nothing disturbs this moment. The fisherwoman, lost in semi-trance, feels the water and its reflection in her spirit. There is no tension in her body, not even as she holds the rod at ready. She is in a natural pose, sitting on the ground with legs dangling over the High Bank edge. Beside her is a cup of coffee, long forgotten and cooled. One hand strays to it out of reflex and carries it to her lips. The draught she takes is unobserved, a mere formality like breathing, done without thought or purpose. She sets the cup down with her attention never moving from the line.

A breath of breeze shifts the golden streak of line by half a micron. The fisherwoman tenses, but the motion is side-to-side...wind and nothing more. On the surface of the lake, a narrow stripe of corrugated ripple runs five feet before subsiding once again into the varnished water. Calm, both fisherwoman and lake resume their silent communication.

Distantly, a duck comes feet first to a landing. The spray flies up at its sides and the light shatters into rainbows. Duck-wake subsides, the bird sits calmly as a floating twig.

Now the sun rises above the fringe of evergreen. The morning's light crispness transmutes into golden noon. Wisps of steam rise from the warming water, but the reflection remains clear...wisps rise above and wink beneath, dissipating in two directions from the water's smooth mirror.

A new ripple creases the water, one which progresses in a search pattern just below the surface. The lake hides the fish, but not its upper fin. The duck raises its head, although the fish is not within its reach, and suddenly strikes downward with an arching thrust of its neck, tail saluting the sky. It re-emerges with a small reward, a three-inch minnow which it orients headfirst to swallow. Then, shaking its beak to settle the meal in its crop, the duck flutters its wings and small raindrops fly into prisms.

The larger fish cirlces near the point where the fisherwoman's line scythes the water, but she does not move a muscle, does not tense for fear of translating the motion through the fine web. The water is fifteen feet deep where her sinker lies, and the fish is on the surface. Patience, the patience of the Aborigine stalking a wallaby. The disturbance on the water disappears. The fish is plumbing the depths for the scent of bait.

Another playful fret of breeze moves the fisherwoman's line toward her. Mischievous zephyr, this, hoping to fool her from her concentration. The belly of line reacts differently to a fish's tug, so she laughs silently at the little breeze. It sulks off and leaves her in observant reverie, her senses tuned to the slightest alteration in the natural course of the world.

In the next moment, the belly of line makes a gentle forward motion. the fish has found the bait, noses it with the merest bump, then swims off to observe the oddity's behaviour. Time is nothing in this scenario...five minutes, ten? Who knows? The line moves again with more vigor, then again subsides into stillness. This fish is not hungry, merely curious.

Still, sit very still without tension. The rod lies easy in the fisherwoman's hands, her posture is comfortable, despite the stony ground. The cup of coffee, idle at her side, is no more still than she. The only motion in this scene is the duck's gentle drifting, and the repetitive opening and closing of the fish's gills far beneath the surface, inches from the bait.

Patience, patience...patience of the spirit, not enforced. Patience empty of thought, living the moment of tjukurrpa like an Aborigine.

Quietly, the fisherwoman waits. The duck makes a lazy circle, ripples following. Small breezes shudder eddies in the water. The woodpecker is silent, the reflection in the water pure on one bank, scattered on the other. A sense of peace and confirmation of life comes like fog, and the fish swims away to its lie.

edited to include missing portions retrieved from Bear's personal hoard

The Great American Shad Fishing Expedition 2006 launched from here at 6 AM (promptly!), three of the four team members still a bit bleary-eyed. The fourth (your humble narrator) is never bleary-eyed in the morning. Mornings are too precious to veil with half-lidded eyes.

Sande drove. I rode shotgun with Sande's two daughters Daphne and Daniele in the back seat. Daphne nodded off a couple of times, but as Daniele and I got sillier and sillier, she perked up and joined in the fun. Daniele's sillies surprised me. She is normally a straightforward sort of person who detours occasionally into joking play, but on this morning, she was delightfully fresh and wacky, admirable qualities in a person who has gone short of sleep in pursuit of broader horizons. Daphne, on the flip side, is always kooky, and a hoot to be around. How many other women do you know who smoke cigars?

Now in telling this tale, I will be speaking a bit more about my Bear, despite his physical absence from the Expedition. There are circumstances between us that make revealing our love for one another impossible but to dearest, closest friends, at least for now. Thus, Sande knows the story, but until this fishing trip, the girls were unaware that your author had a love interest, or indeed any interest in having a love interest until my cell phone rang, and the ensuing conversation included several repetitions of those deep three words we long to hear and say. I will not hide my love for this man, except in certain venues, and if family censures me for being too careless in giving my heart too soon, then let it be. My reasons for being confident in him are profound, and perhaps unfathomable to many, if not most. Suffice to say, the Bear and I are a long-term Item, and after the call that came as we sped down the highway in pursuit of shad, my two sisters-of-the-soul had had an insight and, before we reached Bonneville, they had had another. I am quite fond of Bear's calls, oh yes, even when we must be somewhat guarded in what we say.

However, this tale is genuinely about fish and the fishermen, so let's hop out of the car at Bonneville and cast our gaze along the rocky shoreline of the mightily roaring Columbia.

Behind the concrete outhouse, the dirt bank slopes steeply down, cut by myriad braided trails which pass from grass clump to grass clump, affording footing for the younger and surer-footed folk than Sande. Sande is, after all, 85, and it frightens me to see his years becoming more and more apparent. His mind is less clear, his body less strong, his attention wanders, his memory falters in disproportionate amount to the man who walked this riverbank a single year ago. I try not to see it, the accelerating aging. I do not want to face the loss of so dear a friend so soon ahead, when so many rivers lie unfished. No, this access to the shad-filled waters is not for Sande, but we stand and watch men with rods bowed and silver sides flashing in the current for some minutes before moving on.

In all my years fishing with my buddy, I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times he has arrived prepared to assault the waters. There are always to be knots to tie, lures to find, sinkers to crimp and so forth. My rod is ready, and my friend's fingers are no longer nimble, so I take the leader, hook and lead and craft them into functionality. The girls are donning layers against the wind for, despite sun, the Columbia draws a strong and chilly breath down its throat. I am comfortable in twill trousers, a t-shirt, cotton work shirt, wool overshirt, bandana wrapped around my ears, and the inimitable fishing hat slammed atop my head. Boots? Boots always. We have a rocky path to descend, and rockier travel to our chosen bases.

In my fishing pack lie three trays of gear: lead jigs, lead weights, bits of plastic and feather, spools of leader. It will be the most weight I have slung over the injured shoulder for many months. I would prefer to enter the pack left-armed, but such is not my habit and the awkwardness of the motion defeats me. Right arm through the strap, I swing the pounds across my back and bend forward so it does not fall abruptly on the joint. The girls and I take portions of Sande's load so his hands can be free, and we walk down a small trail where the riprap has been pushed aside.

At the point where the trail meets the water is a perfect spot from which to hit a crease in the Columbia's channel, a crease lined with hungry shad, if I've guessed the run correctly. This channel, however, is known to many, many fishermen and we find the best rocks occupied. Sande has no choice but to make his way through riprap, at least for a dozen yards or so.

Now I am not as light on my feet as I once was. I can no longer leap from one wobbly boulder to the next and next without danger of falling. I find myself picking my way more carefully, mindful of the shoulder, and even so, I teeter once or twice, but never go completely down. My boot catches between two rocks, making me aware that I was not paying attention. I have not caught a boot for some thirty years or more of riprap rambling. At length, I take a position some 50 feet or more from the rest of my party, and I see the girls helping their father to a seat among the rocks. Sitting? Sande never sits to fish unless we're at lakeside, but there he is. A chill runs up my spine that has nothing to do with the breath of the Columbia.

A few casts brings one small shad to the shore at my feet, and Daniele has hastened across the rocks as I fight it to take my picture for the Bear. First fish! And the smallest shad I've ever seen, no more than a pound at best. The phone rings in my pocket. Across the many miles, Bear has caught his first shad through my hands. "Unfathomable to many, if not most," I said, back a paragraph or five. Bear knew. Oh yes, Bear knew.

Among the four of us, we have two poles only, with two far less sturdy trout outfits in the car. The daughters have not fished for shad, and neither is a fisherman in the sense one generally means the word, so Sande and I take turns with seminars on casting, retrieving, learning to resign one's self to breaking off another lure which has become snagged somewhere in the depths. Daniele's casts land at her feet (or worse, behind her), so I cast and let her reel. We have brought the girls here for an Experience of a Lifetime: "shad, the poor man's tarpon," as local newsprint tells. There is no compulsion to fish for sustenance here. Shad are amazingly inedible, except as pickled herring. I will keep two, no more, so let me share my day with one who has not played at this sport before.

The Bite, so touted in fishing articles, goes off. A dry spell ensues, during which the rocks grow hungry for the tiny shad dart jigs we throw out to them. My supply of slinky sinkers dwindles into non-existence and I switch to pencil lead, much harder to repossess from the river's depths. My arm is tiring. My disposition is losing its glitter. Another full rig caught on the bottom, and again I tie up, cursing. Two hours go by with few bites from anything but rocks. I watch the other fishermen along the bank (very few this year, compared to others). It's not me. The Bite is off. Changing colors makes no difference. Changing retrieve makes no difference. Changing weight makes no difference. The Bite is truly off.

The wind raises waves on the water, surges. My mind wanders to thoughts of the Bear and Living Water. I am calmed in spirit and it translates down my line as the yellow-red shad jig with its golden hook passes through a fish's field of vision. I am yanked back to ordinary reality with a fight beyond the tip of my arcing rod, and a fine female laden with twinned sacs of roe finds a home in the hollow of the cooler. Another few casts, and another fish brought to land. The inhaling and exhaling of the universe has returned the coveted Bite under the noontime sky, and I forget to make the tally.

Daniele has been sitting with her father. Unbeknownst to me, Daphne has had a fall on the rocks, and damage has occurred to her wrist, her leg and to Sande's heavy rod, the rod's injury a mortal blow inches above the ferrule. Daphne has gone back to the car for a trout rig to continue the day, and I cast in ignorance, another shad surprising me with its vehement attack. I call to Daniele to come and take a picture. She begins a slow progression over the cruel riprap, cautiously picking her way among the boulders lest she repeat her sister's pattern. I am anxious. I don't want to land the fish until she has camera in hand.

Daniele is twenty feet from me, and my pocket rings like a morning robin, "Cheery-up! Cheery-up!" (pause) "Cheery-up! Cheery-up!" I haul on the fighting weight bending my rod toward the water. "Cheery-up! Cheery-up!" Nothing for it now, I stick the rod between my knees and try to unclip the phone one-handed. "Cheery-up! Cheery-up!"

"Daniele!" I shout, "Take my rod!" She is ten feet away and hurrying. Still holding the fish at the end of twenty feet of line, I push the answer button. "Hiya, Gorgeous!" I say, addressing the only person who could possibly be calling, since Sande is only a few yards away. "I've got a fish on!" I add, and then turn aside to order Daniele to land the dratted thing. I don't believe I did that, but there you are. Bear may measure his importance by the fact that I passed up a fish fight for the pleasure of him.

Now my recollection of events goes cloudy. Did Daniele keep the fish, or did she release it? I think she gave it to the Asian family fishing at the bottom of the trail. So never mind, this part of the story finds me seeking a soft spot on the pointy riprap, bum down a hole, upthrust beneath one wing, hip cocked against another, and my head back on the softest boulder it could find. First things first! I talk to Bear.

However longer later (and this period is indeterminate), I rise from my rocky nest and resume fishing, only to find that the Bite is dwindling yet again. Would I trade it for these moments in the basalt? Not hardly!

At this juncture, however, a change has occurred. I am not yet aware that it lies within myself, and as I cast repeatedly and snag repeatedly on the same rock, I am growing tired. I have pulled a muscle bundle in my bicep, and the arm is screaming fire and foe with every cast. Because my injury went so long untreated, I have large areas of atrophy which have yet to be restored by normal muscle-building, and I am hoping that it is just a strain and not another tear. The fishing compulsion is heavy on me, so I cast and cast and cast, but am seldom rewarded with the mica sparkle of scales on the rocks at my feet. I am tired, and I won't admit the hour's come.

To my left, the girls and Sande are hooking fish. I see the rods bob and nod, see the scrappy shad fighting the flow of the river, see them landed, given to the Asians, and another cast flies out over the water, drifts to 60° and the rod acknowledges another strike. I say to self, "What the heck am I not doing right?" and I try several variations. Nothing works, and six times in a row, I feed that selfsame rock. It does nothing beneficial for my attitude.

At last, I've had enough of playing second pole. I commit a sin against my creed, and move in on Sande. But can I buy a bite? Not hardly! I cast and cast and cast, and the water remains blank as a high-end mud puddle. I switch lures for what Sande is using. I catch one fish and think I've got it made in the shade, but again I'm wrong and return to featureless, fishless casts. Daniele says, "Let me see your pole," so I hand it to her. It's not doing me any good, that's for sure. She casts. She lands the fish and hands my rod back to me. No four-letter word has been written to express the dichotomy of fury, frustration and high amusement kicking me in the seat of my pride.

Oh yes, I am laughing. I am distraught, but laughing-laughing-laughing at myself. I've had a fine old day with friends, the fish have been forthcoming (if not precisely in expected numbers) and my Bear has danced the spirit of the Columbia through my aching arms. It's time to clean shad and go home.

There's not a word yet,
For old friends who've just met,
Part heaven, part space,
Or have I found my place?
You can just visit,
But I plan to stay.
I'm going to go back there someday.

Come and go with me,
It's more fun to share.
We'll both be completely
At home in mid-air.
We're flying, not walking
On featherless wings
And we hold onto LOVE
With invisible strings.

Ah, Gonzo! You're a...whatever, but your Vision is keen and your guidance true, for these words link two spirits across time and land, two spirits as deeply bonded as life and breath. I speak of Bear and Crow, here and there, and yet never apart, never, not ever, now that each has found the other. Gonzo, prophet, silly Muppet! You have hit the nail upon its veritable head.

Yes, there is a Person in the life of your humble narrator, a Person live and breathing, conditions which might surprise many of the author's friends. A gentle stalker, this Bear who crept up quietly and stole my heart before I felt his paws and without any sense of resignation, gave myself into his possession; a Bear who for a long time was content to watch from a distance, lest he frighten the flighty Crow who was the object of his gaze; a Bear who allowed another to watch over me in his stead, all the while afraid I'd fly and disappear forevermore from reach. Silly Bear! If I had seen you watching, waiting, wanting, I would have flown, oh yes, I would have flown straight into your arms long time since, and not away.

My Bear, my poem, my dawn and thunder, the Sky World is your realm and the only place one small Crow shall ever fly.

I sing us, sing us to the spirits. I dance us, dance us under Heaven, as is my way.

We go with good spirits, Bear, and God blesses us with love.

(A note to Mr. Bear: I am typing, not mousing. Typing does not stress the shoulder as much, therefore I *think* I can be excused??)

The eighth of August 2005 brought the end of any serious endeavour involving use of my right arm, and thus my days of blogging came abruptly to an end. For the seven and a half months following that date, I was either in pain, in surgery, or in physical therapy, or a combination thereof.

The day itself was one of those which tempts us into achieving goals: warm, sunny, full of life and hope. I had begun in the early morning chill, mounting my bicycle at a trailhead in Olympia with plans to ride a minimum of thirty miles. I had gone less than half a mile when the morning's light chill struck through me and made me consider returning to the car for a jacket, but instead, I convinced myself the air was bracing in its assault on my skin. I let the goosebumps rise as they would, small shivers shaking me as I pedalled a steady 12 miles per hour. I don't go fast, no...my goal this day was distance, not speed. Thirty miles at minimum, with plenty of space on the afternoon side of the day for more, if more was wanted.

As plans of mice and men will do, this day did gang agley. Oh, the thirty miles fell readily, and forty, and still I was feeling young and fresh, alive with physical activity and the breath of summer in my lungs. I have always loved the sense of fulfillment that using my muscles brings. Perspiration, phooey! To work up a good old-fashioned sweat is what I like, and if I smell like an elk in rut when I'm done, a shower takes care of that.

As it would happen, I was also geocaching on this day. I'd stop the bike when the prize was near, spend some moments searching (always finding...of course, always finding!), then mount the bike again and pedal on my way. There was but one detour from the paved bike path onto city streets, although until I'd made it, I had no idea the trail picked up again mere blocks away. I was delighted with this discovery, and asked a jogging passerby how far it might extend. "To Woodard Bay," he told me, and I asked for mileage. A quick computation in my head, and I realized I could still strike out and bag a 60-mile trip by the time I'd returned to my car. The day, if not young, was not yet past its prime, so off I went.

It was on the way back that I had the first mischance. At relatively fast speed (for me, that's 15 mph), I drove the butt end of a bee into the skin across my collarbone. Mind you now, the bee did not sting me, and lucky that, because I am quite allergic. No, I drove the bee into my hide, killed it dead on impact, and therefore the little dickens didn't have time to pump me full of venom. And still it HURT like blazes!

On the bike, I went along massaging this affront with a free hand. Then I came to one of the most devilish of barricades I've encountered in my bicycling career: a maze of pipe and concrete, designed that no bicyclist of any skill, not even Lance Armstrong, could navigate it while mounted and pedalling. I got off and, walking astride the bike, began to pass through. The knockoff lever on my front tire caught a piece of concrete. The handlebars twisted sideways. It wasn't a hard jerk by any means, but it was adequate to finish the on-going story of cortisone treatments to my shoulder. Not only did the rotator cuff part completely from its moorings, a tendon tore off at its junction to the bone. Hurt? I forgot all about the bee. My arm hung useless, and I was still six miles from the car. I mounted the bike, took my wrist in my remaining hand, laid the arm across my lap and rode the distance. How I got the bike into the car is not a pleasant memory, but the deed was done.

My physician, I have often said, couldn't diagnose a broken leg if you kicked him with it. For the next two months, he kept me on a wait-and-see. I couldn't sleep for pain. Lying down was impossible. What dozing I accomplished was done sitting up in bed and folded over the arm across my lap. I spent two months' nights in tears of pain, waiting and seeing as per doctor's orders. As the days progressed, I could feel the remaining strength in the arm ebbing as the muscles atrophied from disuse. I could move the forearm, but the upper arm wouldn't budge a quarter inch from its limp position at my side. Enough of this! I finally said, and drove myself one-handed to the doctor and insisted...yes, insisted that he send me to a specialist.

The following week, I was sent for an MRI which showed extensive damage. Less than seven days from that, I was in surgery. I have two screws holding my shoulder together now, and after five months of physical therapy, I have nearly total use of the arm, except for the range of motion which would allow me to put it behind my back from either above or below. The strength is returning, the areas of atrophy in which you could have sunk a golf ball are filling in. I can pull the starter cord on the lawn mower, although I wish I hadn't, and I can hold a quart of water at arm's length again.

You might say I'm "together" now...and that word leads to an entry soon to follow, one involving the aforesaid Mr. Bear. Sorry, my Bear...this portion of the tale had to be told before you could make your entry. The center stage is waiting, so come on in.