Updates from SLV

Global warming concerns aside - the extended summer here is extremely welcome. Almost makes me feel as if winter isn't fast approaching... but I know it's lurking just around the corner.

This has been one of the nicest Autumns I can remember - with the warm, dry weather and brilliant orange, crimson & gold leaves proliferating across the hillsides.

I've enjoyed hiking in the falling leaves and noticing the colors brilliant against the bluebird sky. Actually heard elk bugle close by in the early morning. Now I understand why Jack heads to the woods every Fall - ostensibly to bowhunt, but I believe he finds peace of mind just sitting in his tree stand - quietly...

I wish my time in the San Luis Valley has been more joyous - more peaceful - free of strife - and no crazy people camping in my front "yard". Unfortunately - life has been challenging here - more challenges than celebrations. In the last six years I've lived in the Villa Grove area, I've experienced the drama and trauma of building a new home - the toll it takes on a relationship - a few years of absolutely no down time - when you're not actively working at your place of employment (in my case founding and implementing a program for high-risk youth) - you're at work on the home in progress. Add in financial stress - and risky commutes (whiteknuckling it over the icy snow-packed mountain passes) to get to work 32 miles away - and the associated costs of maintaining vehicles in high altitude frozen winters - plus relying on wood stoves for heat (a constant process of getting firewood & feeding fires) - and it's not exactly the recipe for ease and relaxation.

Marital strife, limited career opportunities, financial anxieties, inept county officials, Wild West characters who build a compound on your land, barricade you out of your driveway and then felony menace your loved ones with sawed-off shotguns. Try leaving a position in a progressive county where you are respected and enjoying your work to be hired at the local high school where a 3 day new teacher training is cancelled and you're basically on your own - never having been a HS teacher before. But please, do not take home the toilet paper or pens - pilfering is such a big issue amongst the education professionals who earn graduate degrees and pathetic salaries.

Then the ups and downs of neighbors and friends relationships. More on that later.

I am dreading the onslaught of winter because I have realized that I am resistant to the idea of living through another 7 months in the frozen Yukon. It is too sad at times to live where I live - animals die, isolation and loneliness are constant companions and there is a complete lack of color - living in a white house with white walls in a stark white landscape. Not so far removed from the padded rooms.

I have a need for ease - and comfort - and safety - all which are not met where I live.