e pluribus haiku anthology: 3487 haiku

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This volume combines all the haiku from e pluribus haiku 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, and the original, e pluribus haiku (2011). The 3487 refers to number of haiku, not kind, as they are all 5-7-5, given a somewhat unique style. This single volume will ultimately replace the others, as it contains everything that is in each of them, with an updated style.

Being Part of the VFD

The Sixteen Springs Volunteer Fire Department is very active. When things happen, they are there. We all have to stay alert during the fire season because we could lose so much so fast.

I joined the minute I got out here, but then the pandemic hit, and my efforts to do my part had to take a back seat to just getting four teenagers what they needed without endangering the family.

This post is basically an affirmation of my commitment to get it all going again. To really be a member (of any service) I should complete thirty hours or so of computer training; I'd gotten about two hours into it and just petered out. It may be that I'm the kind of person that can't do self-motivated, online training without someone watching over me, slapping my wrist when I fail. But I've gotten absorbed in the business of being a writer, and just haven't got that stuff out in a while.

We know that the department is necessary, because a few years back a fire snuck up on Mayhill from behind and ended up burning hundreds of acres up by our way - if we go west, or even south, we come to a "burn scar" where literally everything was just burned up. ten years later, and it's still trying to recover. this may be the natural way that things always were up here, where it's real dry, and spring is the windy season, and fires can start from just about anything, but for the purposes of protecting our homes and families, having trucks and water ready, and the people to manage them, is at the top of the list of survival tactics.

My point is, I'm in. I'll do what I can to help. I'll tell all the mountain people to join your VFD; I'll try to do it myself. A few hours by a computer is nothing, in the big picture.

Hiking

My wife is on the cautious side of this whole covid thing. But she's on the cautious side of the whole hunting season too. She doesn't want me walking back in the canyon during hunting season.

The thing is, I've found that it's clear and beautiful out there, and though it's a little rocky beneath your feet, generally it's really easy to figure out where you are and what you are doing. I've mostly been walking straight back from my house, into Board Tree Canyon, and then I'll go out to the border of the reservation, or over west toward the little valley where gullies come down from the highlands back north beyond the high mountain. This road snakes around that mountain back there, and I guess you would call it a jeep trail; I wouldn't want to drive my car on it, but it's not bad for walking. And it's very beautiful back there.

Slowly I become accustomed to deer poop, elk poop, and cow poop; there's plenty of them all. I like that because I know they're around, and I also know they hide pretty well when I come walking. None of the critters seem to want to mix with me. And there are no people at all.

My wife says, watch out for the hunters. I say, I think I'll be able to spot them from miles away. But who knows? I haven't been doing it all that long. Maybe they let me go for a while, but then if I keep coming back around, they spring on me because they don't want that. They don't mind me showing up every month or two, but if I make it a regular habit, then they have to let me know who owns the place.

Sometimes, you get a good view of the mountains. My plan, as I may have said, is to walk to Cloudcroft. It's about seventeen miles, more or less straight west. I probably can't go there and back in a day, but I could get pretty far. Overland. In the forest. On trails. And where people can find me, if things go bad.

It's just a plan, a dream, an aspiration. Stay posted.

new name

You will notice that this is now "Sixteen Springs Journal." Another site, which I've had all along, will now carry my general observations about the village and its workings. Now that we've moved out here, and the pandemic has hit, this is the center of our lives. So this site will be more about this valley, and our lives, while the other one will be more about the village.

We have not abandoned the village. Our kids still go to school there, and we do our business there. If anything will save our lives in this pandemic, it will be that we have come to see a town of 800 people as the center of urban activity. And though the village has only about twenty cases (?) as I write, the chances are getting smaller that we are sharing space with them.

We do love the area though. We love the people and the feeling, everything. We are in the right place for us. See all those clouds? We can handle the weather. We're in this for good. And this place has been good to us so far.

A kind of rambling report

We got a gentle snow today - maybe three inches, and it's become very cold. The locals tell me that though the rain runs off and runs away, the snow is more important for seeping in, restoring the water in the ground, refilling the aquifer. So it's the snow they really love, though we are all wary of treacherous driving conditions.

Lately school is out, and the kids are home, because of COVID. We are actually happy about this, because there is less driving on treacherous roads, but also because we were wary of the danger to begin with. The covid has walked into both the high school and the lower school now, and I'm sure our kids are just like any who don't keep their distance much, being kids and all. They were invited to be at the school, being special ed and somewhat at risk, but now, everyone's gone home. And it's just as well. Better to lose a month or two of education, than lose a parent or a pair of them.

I know not everyone feels that way. It's a touchy subject and I don't bring it up much. People who have lived in the mountains all their lives somehow feel that your average flu just doesn't make it up here - and, your average flu probably doesn't. We'll see if this one does. My hunch is, it made it up here, and it made it in spades.

I'm thinking of changing this to Sixteen Springs Journal. There's another one, as you may know, that is Cloudcroft Journal. My original intention was to make one of them a media site. But let's face it, I'm not up to the pressures of a local media site. I like journalling - and I have things to say about both this valley and our town - but I'm not really a journalist anymore. Too much going on. Stay tuned and see where this thing goes.

Everyone home, less traffic, stay out of the hospitals, do your best to carry on. What else can we do? Vaccine's coming, even if it takes a few months.