now that i am 41...

i am only going to be doing smart stuff. well maybe just smart-ass stuff.

and in my 40th year

i did a whole lot of stupid stuff. i have never been happier.

Sometimes of the year

you could hear lots of conversations between coyotes.

http://www.molldoll.etsy.com

And when we had no modern washing machine,

we used this old thing, it made for some great photo opportunities.

in the winter of 1994

when i was living alone in a big house, and Eldora was no longer there, and all my pipes were frozen, and the whole house only had 1 fireplace for heat, and all my cactus froze because i had to move into town for a few days to stay alive......if someone told me "don't fret, someday you will be where you don't ever have to drive in snow, and you won't even have to wear socks..." i would have thought that was a mean thing to say.

One one day you know with some certainty...

What your true nature is, and the kind of things you are capable of.

and just so you know

Eldora was in so many ways, pure love, pure joy, pure sunshine...
and so sincere in that, that i was often embarrased by her. Had I realized that she would just drop dead at the age of 57, i think i would have done differently.

And in Hermosa, it was not uncommon,

for greyhounds to hang out with rabbits. One day though, Bob(the greyhound) became really ill, and Lincoln took him on a one-way trip to the badlands. That is something I owed Lincoln for, but eventually I was able to pay him back.

When we were little

Eldora would remind us when we were playing with kittens that "you have to let them win sometimes, or you will break their spirit."

I'd hate to beat a dead horse

but I imagine I have done it a time or two.

http://www.molldoll.etsy.com

When Merle came over

He is the one in the cowboy hat. He was 'splainin to us about the natural horse training methods he was using. The thing I remember is when he said "Anything you want a horse to do and learn, you have to make them believe it is their idea."

I really like moss..

on a few occasions this summer

i have attempted to replicate Eldora's potato salad...
this is a daunting task for many reasons:

Eldora has been dead for 14 years
Eldora did not measure things
Eldora did not write a lot of stuff down

i do remember it was a minimalist potato salad
potatos
onions
salt
pepper
eggs
mayonaise
vinegar

my efforts were not too bad, not there yet though. i think i will know it when i taste it. but now i have become the kind of cook that does not measure...or write recipes down. This could take awhile. It is a good thing I have made friends with time.

This is our shop

Where we keep our tools and machines.

I'm thinking Vince would have liked

the Cowboy, and and maybe even Sunbutter.

Eldora was not big on housekeeping.

She liked to keep the vacuum cleaner in plain sight. Then, just in case company came, she could say "I was just getting ready to clean, but I would much rather visit with you."

When Vince Was Dying

in the summer of summer of 1988, I was sitting with him by the fireplace. Conversation does not come easy when you are with the dying. We were just sort of being by each other. Then out of the blue, he asks me, "What is a catalyst?" I was a little taken aback as my father had an ample vocabulary, why is he asking me this? All I could say was that I thought it was when something acted on something else, it changed everything. Then he asked me "So suppose there were dewdrops on a spider web, and then the sun rose and hit those drops, and lit them up, would the sunlight be a catalyst?" He already knew the answer.

My Favorite Family Is

The family that runs the asian grocery store on Edgewood Drive, here in Lakeland. The family that runs the indian grocery on Combee Road is a close second. And you know, if I love them, then they are something special. I wish you all could meet them, oh, but you can....when you come to visit me.

Being an Orphan

Has advantages.

We are going to need some instructors

Rocks
Stars
Weeding
Wood
Metal
Paper
Basketball
Mechanics
Canvas
Clouds
Lightning

a story about Eldora as a child

When Eldora did dishes with her brother Roland, she would challenge him to a race. Then she would slow down her work, and protest at how fast he was going.

Clement Vincent Abeln

Sharecropper's son, playwright, visionary, provider.

When mules foal....

Hermosa

means something(in spanish).

This IS how it ends...

2007

the year it all changed.

The Road

the most prominent one in my memory, US 79, from Hermosa to Rapid City. I have traveled somewhere around 115,000 miles in my lifetime on this one road.(this is a good-faith estimate based on the best of my recollections)

Warning...

should this ever fully expand, you best stand back.

Badlands U. and HIA to merge.

Can world domination be far behind?

never knowing how many would come to live and work in a place called Hermosa..

she came one day to a smallish house.

and in the beginning, there was Eldora.